Dark Heart of Magic
Page 9

My gaze scanned over the cars, and I used my sight to peer in through the tinted windows, just to make sure that no one was lurking inside, watching us. All the vehicles were empty, but it didn’t lessen my worry.
Something was wrong here.
My hand dropped to my sword, my fingers tracing over the star carved into the hilt. Whether it was a parking lot, a pit, or a palace, there were three rules when it came to a place being too quiet.
Too quiet meant you weren’t as alone as you thought you were.
Too quiet meant someone was up to something.
Too quiet all too often meant death.
So I scanned the parking lot again, looking—really looking—at everything with my sight. The cars, the pavement, even the access doors on the backs of the buildings to see if someone was peering out one of them at us. And I finally spotted something out of place—a small, dark, glistening pool oozing out from behind one of the dumpsters.
Blood.
I drew my sword. The rasp of the black blade sliding free of its scabbard caught Devon’s and Felix’s attention.
“Lila?” Devon asked, going on alert. “What’s wrong?”
“Blood. Over there.”
I headed in that direction. Devon stepped up beside me, with Felix behind him.
“Stay behind me,” I growled at Devon. “I’m your bodyguard, remember?”
“And Sinclairs take care of each other, remember?” he shot right back.
I shook my head, but I couldn’t stop Devon from drawing his own sword, ready to attack whatever danger was lurking here.
Together, the two of us crept closer and closer to the dumpster, with Felix right behind us, gripping his own sword and literally breathing down our necks. I held up three fingers and looked at Devon. He nodded back. We silently mouthed the words together:
One . . . two . . . three!
Together, we rushed around the side of the dumpster, our swords held high.
But nobody was hiding behind the container.
Instead, a tree troll lay in the dumpster’s shadow, its gray, furry body propped up against the brick wall like it was a drunk tourist sleeping off a bender. But the monster wasn’t drunk.
It was dead—its throat cut open.
Devon and I lowered our swords. Behind us, Felix let out a tense breath and did the same.
“What do you think did this?” Felix asked. “Another troll? Some other monster?”
I moved forward and crouched down, scanning the troll’s body. It looked small in death, sad, deflated, and crumpled, like a piece of garbage that someone had tossed aside with no care or concern about where the creature had landed.
But there wasn’t nearly as much blood as there should have been. With a wound that deep and vicious, the monster’s blood should have been splattered all over the dumpster, the wall, and the asphalt. But only a small pool gleamed by the creature’s leg, the one I’d spotted from across the parking lot. So where had the rest of the blood gone? Had some other monster come along and lapped it up? My stomach twisted with disgust.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “If the troll had been attacked by another monster, it would have been clawed, more torn up. That looks like a clean slice to me. I think . . . maybe a person did this.”
I crept even closer, leaning down and tilting my head to the side so that I could stare into the troll’s emerald-green eyes, which were dull and glassy with death—
White stars exploded in front of my face the second my gaze locked with the monster’s.
It wasn’t like looking back into my own past with my soulsight and watching everything unspool like a movie. These images were all quick, hazy, disoriented, like I was glimpsing random photos I’d never seen before. And I felt all the pain that went along with them as if it were my own; a shadow sneaking up on me; something grabbing hold of my arm and throwing me forward; my face slamming into the wall, stunning me; and finally, a hand rolling me over and a dagger lashing out toward my throat—
I choked down a scream and staggered back, my sword slipping from my suddenly nerveless fingers. My feet slid out from under me, and my ass hit the asphalt. I blinked at the hard jolt, and the images vanished, although the feelings—especially the fear—lingered.
“Lila!” Devon crouched down by my side. “Are you okay? What happened?”
My hand latched onto my neck, but the skin there was smooth and unbroken, despite the blood roaring in my ears, the terrified thump-thump-thump of my heart, and the hot, phantom sting throbbing from one side of my throat to the other.
I shook my head. The last of the white stars vanished, and my vision returned to normal. The sting in my throat lingered, though. So did the fear squeezing my chest.
I’d seen dead monsters before, but I’d never looked one directly in the eyes. Apparently, my soulsight worked just as well on dead creatures as it did on living ones, and I realized that I’d just seen the last few moments of the troll’s life. I shuddered, wishing I hadn’t.
“Lila?” Devon asked again.
“I’m fine. Just lost my balance. Clumsy me.” I let out a weak laugh.
Devon frowned. He knew I was lying, but instead of calling me on it, he held out his hand and helped me back to my feet.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
I forced myself to let go of his hand before he noticed how much mine was trembling. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
He kept staring at me, so I fixed a smile on my face and made a big show out of dusting off my pants, picking up my sword, and sliding it back into the scabbard on my belt.
“Why would anyone want to kill a tree troll?” Devon asked.
“Well, they can be annoying pests, but this. . . .” Felix trailed off. “This is kind of extreme.”
“No,” I cut in, my voice cold and harsh. “This is just cruel.”
The two of them didn’t have my soulsight, so they hadn’t seen or felt the troll’s terror, shock, and suffering like I had. And they hadn’t heard the worst thing of all, the one thing that was still ringing in my ears and making me sick to my stomach, even now.
The mocking, heartless laughter that had sounded as the killer had sliced open the troll’s neck with that dagger.
 
 
CHAPTER FOUR
Devon called some guards over to the parking lot to properly bury the tree troll’s body and clean up what little blood there was. He also asked the guards to e-mail the day’s security footage to him so he could try to figure out who might have done this, but I knew it would be a dead end. Hundreds of people walked through the Midway, the alley, and this parking lot every day, and there were no cameras back here in the parking lot. He wouldn’t be able to pinpoint who had murdered the troll, although I admired him for trying.