Imani seems to notice my look because she smiles. “It’ll be fine. We believe he’s harmless. We just… we found him unconscious and brought him in, unsure of who… or what he is exactly.”
“I love meeting things that are ‘whats,’” I murmur.
“Excellent, then you’re going to love meeting him,” she says before a terrified woman is pushed toward me. Imani takes the woman’s hand and smacks it against mine in the most forced high five. I almost feel like I’ve abused the woman by the way she recoils as I feel magic rush up my arms, much like it had when Vinny touched me. It means that the magic I’d borrowed from Vinny, which allowed me to manipulate metal, has been replaced with magic that allows me to understand languages I’ve never learned.
My magic revolves around the fact that I can “borrow” magic from others, which is simply done by touching them. This can be a curse or a blessing… depending on whether or not Iwantto borrow that person’s magic. I don’t get a choice, so the moment I touch the woman, I can feel her magic wash through my body, allowing me to claim it and use it as if it’s a magic I was born with and learned how to harness. It never affects the person when I borrow their magic; I’ve been told that there’s no sign that anything has changed for them.
If the person is a necromancer, I can suddenly raise the dead. An elemental mage? I can now harness the wind. But the instant I touch another person, my previous ability disappears and I’m left with the magic of whoever touched me last, which has beenmy downfall in a few fights when someone with poor magical ability has bumped into me.
“So what do you want from this person?” I ask Imani as the woman flees, pleased to have found someone else that Imani is willing to sacrifice.
“His name, where he came from, and who he is.”
“So like a dating profile,” Vinny unhelpfully adds.
I sigh and pull the door open, well aware that the sooner I do this, the better.
Unless… after I do this, she thinks I’m willing to do other things.
“I forgot I have an appointment in twenty,” I say, but Imani is having none of it as Kit leaps from her shoulder to mine. When I peek into the room and see what’s waiting for me—eating a bit of Kit’s fur since she nosily puts her face in front of mine—I pat Imani’s shoulder. “I… I fear I’ll have to do this alone.” And I shut the door before she can see inside. Then I hurry over to a chair which I’m prepared to sit in until they let me go free because whoever they were holding in this room is long gone.
I kick my feet up and pull out my phone to play a game while I wait. Kit likes to watch the ones with a lot of colorful boxes moving around the most, so I click one. For a while, she only wanted me to play the games that are made for cats and would often commandeer my phone to smack the little fish floating across the screen.
Imani jerks the door open, looks around, and scowls. “Where did he go? The door was shut… shit. Riley, give us a hand, would you?”
See?
Help her once… and now I’m in for the long haul.
With a sigh, I step out and head in a random direction, intending to find my way to the subway station, which isn’t far from here. I will hop on, ride home, and order my pizza.
“I’ll get chicken on it,” I promise Kit. She makes a happy noise about that.
I push open the door to the outside only to find myself flying through the air, having been hanging on to the door too tightly when someone decided ripping it off its hinges would be ideal.
A massive man cocks his head as he looks down at me. I’m not a short man at five ten, but this man is at least six seven. He’s extremely muscular, which is shown by the way his clothes appear to have been stitched onto him, allowing me to see every dip of muscle under his tanned skin. But it’s paired with a cloak and some kind of wrap that looks out of place. His dark hair falls to just below his ears and scruff covers his face.
He grabs my wrist, and I find it fascinating that there’s no zap of magic rushing up my arms when he does so since this manreeksof “magical being.” It’s definitely not interesting enough to willingly go with this strange man as he grabs a console table that held some paperwork (which is now all over the floor) and begins hauling me out to the stretch of land behind the department. I kind of feel like any man who can carry a table like that could throw me a significant distance and decide not to fight him too much.
“I really only needed mozzarella! If I hadn’t needed that cheese, I’d be curled up with a good book right now,” I grumble.
The man doesn’t slow or acknowledge that I’m talking, even though the magic I’d borrowed from the terrified translator should make it so he can understand me.
“What if… I pretend I didn’t see you, and I head home so you can continue on your way?”
That’s when this odd feeling starts seeping inside me. It makes me hesitate as I realize that whatever we’re heading toward is not good. I decide to put on the brakes, which means that I am dragged after the man like a rag doll. So here I am, feet skidding, man pulling me by my arm like I weigh nothing whilehe hauls a long decorative table over his shoulder as though it weighs five pounds.
I canfeelthe creature before I see it. It’s standing in the middle of a field, darkness rippling over its flesh almost like it’s oozing off it. It looks like a large hellhound, standing about as tall as a car and ready to eat anything it can get its paws on.
Noticing us, its shoulders hunch and it snarls, showing off fangs as long as my hands. And from the way it’s acting, it doesn’t seem like it overly enjoys people.
The man finally stops dragging me and sets me on my feet. Then he hands me the table and pats me on the head. I nearly drop the table, surprised by the weight of the heavy wood before I question why I’m even trying to hang on to the stupid thing anddodrop it.
“Go on, peasant, your sacrifice will be remembered,” the man says as hepushesme toward the thing. I realize that whatever he’s speaking is a language I don’t immediately recognize the sound of, yet I can understand everything he’s saying.
And when I begin speaking, I find it easy to reply in his tongue. “Why the hell should I be the sacrifice?Yoube the sacrifice!” I snap. Truly, this woman’s magic is quite interesting. How can I understand and speak something I don’t know at all?
He laughs as he looks over at me, like what I’ve said is far more entertaining than the fact that our death is nigh. I’m out here with the fucking magical ability to talk to this asshole. Like how many creatures am I going to take down with the ability of speech?
