knew what it meant, I knew what had happened, but I couldn’t make my brain wake up enough to actually form the words.
I moved slowly toward the restaurant, forcing myself forward an inch at a time. I wasn’t going to die without a fight, I was damn sure of that. As I slowly dragged myself along the tarmac, my head began to clear; I must have been reaching the edge of the magic that Sarah had used.
The word effete burned into my consciousness. Sarah had used a blood magic curse on me. I pushed myself up to my knees and crawled forward until I saw rune marks that had been drawn on the ground in what appeared to be black chalk, making them almost invisible unless you were right on top of them.
My brain cleared further. You were marked, it told me. The knowledge slammed into the front of my thoughts; curses don’t work unless you’re marked first. The memory of Sarah placing her hand on the back of my shoulder tore into me, and I immediately ripped at my jacket, throwing it aside and then doing the same with my hoodie.
Only a fraction of my magic had actually been drained from me, but it rushed back into me like a freight train. If I hadn’t already been on my knees, I would have been knocked over, as the power crashed over me in one huge wave. Tarmac cracked and broke around me, and my white and orange glyphs burned brightly over my arms and chest, despite the fact that I wasn’t consciously using any magic at all.
It forced me onto all fours, my magic breaking the tarmac under my hands, destroying part of the runes, and releasing the contained energy.
My mind cleared in a heartbeat, bringing with it terrible news. If I’d stayed inside the affected area, I would have been weak for a few hours, maybe a day, but then my strength would have returned. The power collected by the runes would have returned to me until I’d regained my strength.
Breaking the runes had changed that. On the plus side, it meant getting my missing energy back much more quickly; on the minus side, it turned the car park into a damn bomb.
The remaining magic exploded outward like a nuclear shockwave. Windscreens and headlights shattered, tires blew from the pressure, and the lights and windows at the front of the restaurant rained down glass over the ground. The blast picked me up like I was made of paper and threw me aside. I felt a crunch as I collided, back first, with something hard. Pain rocked through me, and then, just as quickly as the magical energy had rushed outward, it stopped and all rushed back into me as if it were attached on an elastic band.
The final thing I remembered before passing out was that I cried out in pain.
CHAPTER 5
Berlin, Germany. 1936.
F or the better part of a week, I scoured the city of Berlin, looking for any signs of Pandora or information on where she might have fled. Usually, a trail of dead bodies—like a trail of breadcrumbs —provided a pretty good indication of where she was, but on this occasion it led to nothing. She had simply escaped on the back of a motorbike, an image that seemed more romantic than the reality of all the murdered Nazis she’d left behind in the Gestapo building.
I decided the only course of action was to wait around until Pandora did something spectacular. She always did, but sometimes she liked to relax for a while first. In all likelihood, she was sitting in a hotel room somewhere in Berlin, drinking champagne and eating expensive food while plotting whatever scheme she wanted to carry out.
I spent a few days reading and watching the other occupants go about their business in a hotel lobby. I’d picked the place especially because of the number of foreigners who were staying there, hoping to overhear one of them slip up and discuss something inadvertently. Occasionally, Nazi officers would enter the hotel and wander around, asking people for their papers or generally being a pain. There was no overt threat, but it was clear from their tone and body language that they
I moved slowly toward the restaurant, forcing myself forward an inch at a time. I wasn’t going to die without a fight, I was damn sure of that. As I slowly dragged myself along the tarmac, my head began to clear; I must have been reaching the edge of the magic that Sarah had used.
The word effete burned into my consciousness. Sarah had used a blood magic curse on me. I pushed myself up to my knees and crawled forward until I saw rune marks that had been drawn on the ground in what appeared to be black chalk, making them almost invisible unless you were right on top of them.
My brain cleared further. You were marked, it told me. The knowledge slammed into the front of my thoughts; curses don’t work unless you’re marked first. The memory of Sarah placing her hand on the back of my shoulder tore into me, and I immediately ripped at my jacket, throwing it aside and then doing the same with my hoodie.
Only a fraction of my magic had actually been drained from me, but it rushed back into me like a freight train. If I hadn’t already been on my knees, I would have been knocked over, as the power crashed over me in one huge wave. Tarmac cracked and broke around me, and my white and orange glyphs burned brightly over my arms and chest, despite the fact that I wasn’t consciously using any magic at all.
It forced me onto all fours, my magic breaking the tarmac under my hands, destroying part of the runes, and releasing the contained energy.
My mind cleared in a heartbeat, bringing with it terrible news. If I’d stayed inside the affected area, I would have been weak for a few hours, maybe a day, but then my strength would have returned. The power collected by the runes would have returned to me until I’d regained my strength.
Breaking the runes had changed that. On the plus side, it meant getting my missing energy back much more quickly; on the minus side, it turned the car park into a damn bomb.
The remaining magic exploded outward like a nuclear shockwave. Windscreens and headlights shattered, tires blew from the pressure, and the lights and windows at the front of the restaurant rained down glass over the ground. The blast picked me up like I was made of paper and threw me aside. I felt a crunch as I collided, back first, with something hard. Pain rocked through me, and then, just as quickly as the magical energy had rushed outward, it stopped and all rushed back into me as if it were attached on an elastic band.
The final thing I remembered before passing out was that I cried out in pain.
CHAPTER 5
Berlin, Germany. 1936.
F or the better part of a week, I scoured the city of Berlin, looking for any signs of Pandora or information on where she might have fled. Usually, a trail of dead bodies—like a trail of breadcrumbs —provided a pretty good indication of where she was, but on this occasion it led to nothing. She had simply escaped on the back of a motorbike, an image that seemed more romantic than the reality of all the murdered Nazis she’d left behind in the Gestapo building.
I decided the only course of action was to wait around until Pandora did something spectacular. She always did, but sometimes she liked to relax for a while first. In all likelihood, she was sitting in a hotel room somewhere in Berlin, drinking champagne and eating expensive food while plotting whatever scheme she wanted to carry out.
I spent a few days reading and watching the other occupants go about their business in a hotel lobby. I’d picked the place especially because of the number of foreigners who were staying there, hoping to overhear one of them slip up and discuss something inadvertently. Occasionally, Nazi officers would enter the hotel and wander around, asking people for their papers or generally being a pain. There was no overt threat, but it was clear from their tone and body language that they
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