home was an everyday occurrence for him. The warlock stood next to the metal railing that lined the stairs, looking around the first floor. After only a brief pause, he started to climb the stairs.
I growled, fighting the rising nausea in my stomach. “I’m definitely not going after a unicorn either.”
During the Great War that pitted the Towers against the world, two races were slaughtered to extinction: dragons and unicorns. Two of the most magically powerful races outside of warlocks and witches, they had to be removed if the Towers were to ever be protected from them. The Great War had left several others barely clinging to life.
Gideon stopped on the landing and looked down at me. “You want me to report to the Towers that you refused to complete a task?”
“Fuck! I didn’t agree to be a guardian to commit suicide now. The two of us can’t handle a dragon and we definitely can’t handle a unicorn if either is anything like what I studied.”
“There’s nothing to handle. This is an investigation. The council has not ordered an execution.” Gideon could sound as rational and calm as he wanted but this was insane and he knew it.
Against my better judgment, I climbed the stairs after him, not feeling the least bit reassured. “Yeah, well, if we are faced with a unicorn or dragon, I really doubt either is going to be all that happy to see us.”
“That is probably true,” Gideon murmured as he reached the second floor. Again, he paused, looking down the hall at the four wooden doors that led to the second-floor apartments. The brown carpet was stained and looked sticky, but I wasn’t willing to check to see if I was right. One of the overhead fluorescent lights was out, while the second was making an ominous noise as if it were a wheezing cancer patient on a ventilator. The shadows only helped this place.
Gideon continued on to the third floor after his quick inspection and I followed, holding my wand tightly in my right hand. The magic had grown thicker in the air as we crossed the landing and trudged up the last set of stairs. It crawled across my skin through my suit and prickled against my face. The closer we got, the more I could define the feel of the energy, but at the same time, the further it moved away from what I was familiar with.
The magic made me feel queasy and sick. It was getting in past the protective barriers created by my suit. My head swam as if I were developing vertigo. There was an odd taste on my tongue, like I had swished graveyard dirt around in my mouth.
“I think we should wait. Call in for reinforcement,” I said, stopping one step before the third floor. “I know my way around a protection spell, but this feels nasty. You need better backup than me.”
“While I appreciate your concern, we’re going on,” Gideon said with a wry smile before turning to walk down the dingy hallway.
Both of the overhead lights were out here, but there were windows at either end of the hall, letting in the faint glow from the nearby street lamps. There were no sounds of people moving around in their apartments. No sounds of cooking, conversation or the monotonous blare of a television. The apartment dwellers knew we were here and they were hiding, praying we didn’t notice them.
Pushing that thought and so many others aside, I followed Gideon down the hall to the second apartment on the left. The warlock stood with his right hand hovering before the door while his left clutched his wand. A faint curl of magic swirled out from his right hand, dancing over the scarred wooden door before bouncing back toward him and me. There was no spell on the door, barring us or even threatening us if we dared to enter.
Quickly making a fist as if he were trying to capture the energy, Gideon rapped on the door. My entire body flinched and I jumped back a step at the loud noise. A crack of laughter leapt from Gideon, slamming into me so that I flinched again.
“Nervous?” Gideon chuckled.
“Me? Nervous? Why would I be nervous? You’ve only brought me to a crappy apartment oozing strange magic while talking about the Lost Peoples. I can’t imagine why I might be nervous about having my head blown off,” I said, ending with a snarl.
Gideon was still smiling, amused with my anxiety,