Page 18 of The Last Slayer
Her gaze lingered over the frizzy ends of my hair and my stubby unpainted nails before returning to the wardings in the room. “Weird. It’s against everything we know about the laws of magic.”
“You think?” I realized I was pacing and stopped.
“Did he take Sex from you?” She looked at me hard then shook her head. “Never mind. You’re positively brimming with it. What happened?”
“Nothing. He didn’t try anything.”
That wasn’t entirely true. But he hadn’t extracted Sex from me or tried to kill me. Just the opposite, in fact, which was…strange. I didn’t want to dwell on that though, not until we’d figured out how he’d broken the wardings. Plus, Valerie didn’t ne
ed to know the details. It was totally embarrassing to be seduced by something I hunted for a living and the memory made me flush hot. I flicked away an invisible piece of lint on my shirt.
“Then why invade your dream?” She tapped her lower lip. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know. I can’t figure it out either.”
Valerie leaned against my desk and crossed her arms. “Maybe it’s a warning from Semangelaf.”
“Maybe. Do you recognize the magic signature on the ceiling?”
“No. Do you?”
I shook my head. “Can you tell me anything about it?”
Valerie gazed up at it, going into lecture mode. “The warding is dense, arcane, and contains an unbelievable concentration of power. I’ve seen similar ones in texts before, but they were just theoretical constructs. No human has enough power to even attempt something like this.” She shrugged. “It could be a new kind of demon we’ve never encountered before. Or it could be an agent of the dragonlord, or something else.” She looked at me. Else usually means worse.
I sighed. “I need some coffee. You?”
She nodded.
I left her in the study and went to the kitchen. I could see why she was worried. She liked money, but she also valued the safety of everyone who worked for the firm. It was one of the many reasons I loved her. A lot of things came easily for her—beauty, men, money, magical ability—and she could’ve been a complete bitch. But she was more human than almost anyone I knew.
Okay, except when she looked so damn perfect at five in the morning.
I stopped in the middle of opening the cabinet and swore. I’d drunk the last bit of coffee. What was the closest substitute? Coke, of course. Fortunately, the fridge had two cans. Other than that there was nothing edible. The last chunk of cheese was developing a nice green mold. I couldn’t remember why I’d bought it, since I rarely cook. Even though the Food Network was my second favorite thing to watch, none of the recipes came out right when I tried them. I tossed the cheese in the trash and took the drinks to the study.
Valerie sat behind my desk, scribbling something on a piece of paper. She barely noticed the can I placed next to it. I took a swallow of mine. It bit my nose and throat as it slid down.
“I think I figured it out,” she said finally, leaning back in the chair. Then she frowned. “I thought you were making coffee.”
“Sorry. I’m out.”
“This stuff’s going to stick to your hips.”
What, not drinking soda was the secret to her perfect figure? I glared at the can, then shrugged. “I’ll work it off.”
Valerie pursed her lips, but popped the tab and took a sip. “The designs are not exact duplicates of mine.”
“Okay.” I already knew that.
“If whoever did this wanted to fool you into thinking that the wardings were intact, it’d make sense to leave them with the same design, right? But no. So I diagrammed the new parts.”
Wardings are complicated. Each line and symbol means something, and everything is layered. Although individual warding practitioners have their own unique designs, the designs themselves have a lot of commonalities. They have to, in order to be effective. It’s sort of like a language. The basic sounds have to be the same to convey a meaning, but everyone has an individual accent and way of putting things. By diagramming a warding, you can tell a lot about what kind of supernatural it’s supposed to keep out.
“Look at this.” She used her pen to point at a circular snake with an eye inside. “It’s a wyrm ward. An immensely strong one that would take at least twenty warding specialists.”
Which meant it was only theoretically possible. Cooperation among hunters and supernatural experts isn’t unheard of. But put twenty supersized egos together and see if you can get them to agree on an exact warding design and the kind of magic signature to use and how much power to imbue it with.
That was why the firm sent out small teams for warding jobs, no more than five each. And those had generally worked together for years.
