Dead Man's Deal The Asylum Tales - By Jocelynn Drake Page 0,126

house. Without being detected. If I could escape to a quiet location that was hidden, I could teleport. If I tried it in the house, not only would they know I used magic, but they’d be able to trace the spell to my final destination. Sure, I was going back to Low Town, assuming I wasn’t in Low Town at the moment, but I wasn’t going to my apartment. I needed to hit the parlor if these fuckers were going to continue to play rough.

But first things first. I had to take care of the asshole guarding my door. Standing, I soundlessly backed up until I was sure that I wouldn’t be trapped behind the door if he threw it open, but stayed as close as I could so I could jump on him when he came in.

I drew in a deep breath and closed my eyes for a second, willing the twisting and knots in my stomach to ease. My heart was pounding, increasing the pain in my brain, but I was barely aware of it. I had to get this right. If an alarm was sounded, I knew Fox would be here in a heartbeat.

Fisting my hands tightly at my sides, I raised my voice to a frantic scream. “Oh God! No! God! No! Help! Oh God! No! Help! Stop it!” Over my desperate, hysterical shouting, I could hear the scrape of a chair and the pounding of footsteps heading toward the door. I kept shouting as the key was inserted and the door unlocked. As I had expected, the warlock threw the door open wide as he stepped inside, ready to take out whatever monster had apparently snuck into my room from the closet. Jumping across the distance before he noticed me, I gripped his short blond hair in one fist and slammed his head against the doorjamb as hard as I could.

His large body became deadweight as he was knocked unconscious. I grabbed his sweater with both hands and silently lowered him to the floor in hopes of not making more noise than I already had. If anyone had heard me, I was hoping that my shouts had been generic enough for them to think that my guard had stepped in to torment me. Sweat ran down the side of my face as I grabbed his feet and pulled him into the room before closing the door.

The big oaf was out cold. There was a smear of blood on the wall, but a pool hadn’t immediately started to gather on the floor, so he wasn’t hurt that bad. Kneeling next to him, I pocketed the old skeleton key he had used to unlock the door and then grabbed the wand he had dropped. I turned it over in my hand, testing the feel and gauging the energy inside of it before cursing my luck. It was made of yew.

I stood and glared down at the warlock before giving him a swift kick in the ribs. What was this asshole doing with a yew wand? Yew branches were strong in death magic, which was nasty business. I could use the wand, but I wouldn’t have the same kind of control over my spells that I did when I used my hands and I was a hell of a lot more likely to accidentally kill someone with a spell using this wand.

Regardless of my desperation, I wasn’t going to use the yew wand. I was better off with my hands. Of course, I wasn’t going to give this asshole the chance to use the wand should he wake up before I could escape. With a grin, I broke the wand over my knee. I dropped one half in front of him and shoved the other half in my back pocket without the hole. I’d burn the wand later. He wouldn’t recover the magic from this one.

Stomping down the swelling of relief that I had gotten at least this far without being caught, I moved to the door and listened for the sounds of voices or footsteps, but all was silent. I briefly peeked out to find the hallway empty before slipping out and closing the door behind me. I locked the bastard in and put the key in my front pocket. With any luck, the spell on the door would keep him busy for a little while.

The hallway was narrow and dark, more white walls and bare wood floors. There was more light coming from the far end