Dead Man's Deal The Asylum Tales - By Jocelynn Drake Page 0,120
world eased so that it was no longer sliding along my brain like a cheese grater. No one flinched or moved. I didn’t think anyone had noticed the shift yet, but then they could have been busy doing the same thing as I was doing.
Looking at my opponents, I figured that the one thing that I could count on was that they wouldn’t all attack at once. That took teamwork and planning if they didn’t want to risk ripping an ally inside out, and the occupants of the Towers did not play well together. The only thing they generally rallied together for was a type of us-versus-the-world mentality. Using magic in a single, concerted effort against one target was the domain of the guardians—the enforcers of the Towers did the dirty work. Henry Fox was a council member, not a guardian, and Useless Clod was an apprentice. That only left the other two unknown warlocks. They could have been guardians, but they were more likely lackeys of Fox.
This was one of the moments when I wished I had stuck it out in the Towers for a few more years, learned a few more tricks that could keep me alive. Just a couple more years and I would have been damn good at teleporting. Oh, I could do the spell now, but it wasn’t safe for me to attempt it with so many warlocks watching me. I couldn’t protect myself and teleport at the same time, and I didn’t think Henry and his friends were going to wait politely. My only hope was for a wave of death and incapacitation to hit them.
As I turned, trying to keep as many of them in my line of sight as possible, Henry gave a little nod. The brown-haired, nameless warlock stepped forward, but it was only a distraction because at the same time I felt a surge of energy jump from the warlock with greasy blond hair and saggy jowls. An energy ball jumped from his fingertips, but I was ready, the shield in place, so that the spell was harmlessly deflected back toward him. Brown Hair joined him, throwing his own energy ball at me. But it didn’t deflect as it should have. It splat like a tacky ball of electric-green slime and quickly started to spread around me, growing over the shield as if it were algae. My pulse raced. The slime was blocking my vision of my attackers, nearly covering me.
With a curse, I dropped my shield, as my attackers had expected. The green slime disappeared with a faint crackle. Energy jumped in the air. I dropped to my knees and rolled toward the witch, missing the two energy balls that smashed into the fractured concrete where I had been standing a second ago. Pushing to my feet, I found myself standing only a foot from Master Wilson’s apprentice, a stunned look on her plain, pale face as if she was surprised to be standing so close to me. It was almost funny.
Slamming my fist into her face was funny. I didn’t believe in hitting women. If my father had seen me, he would have tanned my ass, regardless of my age. But since she was trying to kill me, I figured I could make an exception. She cried out, falling backward onto her ass, covering her face with both her hands.
Confident that she was preoccupied for a minute, I turned back to where the others stood, summoning up great gulps of energy like a whale sucking down plankton. There was no subtlety or sneakiness this time, but we were past that, right?
Greasy came at me with a wave of fire, which was kind of surprising. If I hadn’t properly blocked it with a blast of cold air, the flames would have cooked me and the witch behind me. He obviously wasn’t concerned for her well-being in this fight, but then he didn’t strike me as a particularly strong magic user either. He was sloppy and lacked imagination—two things that made a poor magic weaver. Definitely one of Fox’s lackeys.
Brown Hair worried me, though. The strange energy ball that glommed onto my shield was a new twist. He was smart, sneaky, and dangerous.
What was worse, Fox had yet to move. He cast no spells, issued no commands beyond his initial head nod. You didn’t get to be on the council without being very powerful. I didn’t know what Fox was waiting for, but the anticipation was eating a hole in