Grimoires and Where to Find Them by Raconteur, Honor (best affordable ebook reader .TXT) 📗

It was brilliant, perfect for the thicker tomes that wouldn’t fit in the bags.

“Excellent. Let me add a protection hex to your skin and we’ll start bringing those down. Can you drive up onto the sidewalk and into the ward’s protection? We’re all so busy upstairs and trying to evacuate the area, there’s no one to really maintain perimeter down here at the moment.”

“I suppose the ward is functioning as perimeter security. Sure, give me a moment.”

I left him to it, returning to my task of retrieving the bags, which was easy—boxes of them lined the interior of the kingsmen’s van. I grabbed a box, grunted at the weight of it, then hauled it toward the door.

Jere parked at such an angle that he had the back doors open and facing the front door of the apartment building. He hopped lightly out, grabbed his own bag, and was right on my heels as we stepped lively up the stairs.

On the way up, we passed Baker, and I threw out a quick introduction. “Baker, this is Jere, our expert.”

“Pleasure,” Baker said with a quick smile. “Good of you to come.”

“Oh, Henri owes me for this. Baker, any grimoires too dangerous or big for the bags, I’ve got compartments in my van downstairs. You can put one in each compartment.”

“Good to know, sir.”

We went all the way up, my arms protesting by the time we reached the right door.

“Jere, I hear you!” Colette called through the open door. “I’ve got a bad one right here.”

Jere dodged ahead of me, attending to her call for help. I stepped to the left, out of the way of their progress, trying in vain to find some spot to put the box down that wouldn’t be directly in our footpath. We didn’t have much room to maneuver in this cramped apartment.

As I reached the kitchen island, that spongy feeling under my feet turned worse. It felt more like rotten wood giving way. I felt the dip, felt my weight go in the wrong direction, and had only a moment of realization and panic before my left foot went straight through the floor, the wood splintering.

Two strong hands latched onto my shoulder and waist, yanking me firmly back. I fell that direction instead, my heart in my throat. It was only a second, then my rescuer and I fetched up hard against a bookcase.

“Davenforth, I could be wrong,” Gibson drawled in my ear, “but I don’t think you want to go that direction.”

I cursed the man for joking in this moment even as my own dark humor snorted a laugh. I held onto his arms for a second, gaining my balance and bearings.

“That, I do not. Good reflexes, thank you.”

He held me steady until he was sure I wasn’t about to repeat the experience, then let me go. My heart thumped loudly enough to beat its way out of my chest. Before I could do much at all, I had Colette at my side, looking my ankle over, making sure I hadn’t injured myself.

“I’ll renew the reinforcement spells.” Seaton marched for the spot with an angry twitch near his eye.

Jere threw up a staying hand. “You continue on, sir. I’ve got this. I know a few tricks about stabilizing something that is inundated with magic soup.”

Seaton paused, giving him a good look over. “You’re our magic containment expert, I take it? Jolly good. If you don’t mind, let me watch over your shoulder. I’m always up for learning a few more tricks.”

That attitude pleased Jere, and he waved him in closer. Even as he did so, he instructed, “Everyone out until I’ve got this apartment stabilized enough to work in.”

“Splendid notion,” I agreed faintly.

Herding people out of a dangerous area sounds easy, right?

Wrong.

I don’t know what it was about telling someone to evacuate, but they reverted to childhood right in front of my eyes. You know, they lost all ability to listen, forcing me to repeat myself three times and put a hand on their shoulders and physically move them even as I said it the third time. That kind of reversion. And so much spluttering from them.

“No, but—”

“Is it really that dangerous?”

“Can’t I—”

No. No, you may not. Move. Now.

We’d started in close and worked our way outwards. Sherard had already contacted the local station before we got here, and they were suited up and moving before I could join them. Their captain took the lead—which I was fine with—and I fell into line, helping as she directed.

Four hours later, we had everyone evacuated, with fifteen blocks clear on all sides. I looped back around to the station, intending to double-check we really were clear. Ah, how I miss walkie-talkies. And cell phones. Mostly cell phones. Not that my pad wasn’t a dandy substitute, as substitutes went, but…well, they still weren’t universal in Kingston yet. They were getting there, but not yet. And a pad only really works if there’s another pad to connect to on the opposite end. Maybe I could get Ellie to work on that. Surely there was some way to let a pad call a phone.

I did touch base with my ducklings even as I jogged back to the station. They reported everything was fine and they were also on their way back. Good, good. If everything was under control at the station, I’d go back to the apartment building and see if I could help there. Henri was worried about me being around that magic, but I had a feeling I’d be pretty much immune to all of it. Sherard had tinkered with the spells on my core since that charms shop explosion, so I was sure I was much more immune than before. And they likely needed every hand they could get.

The station was crawling with people. Like, standing room only in some places, people wailing about not knowing what was going on. A lot of shopkeepers and such yelling about needing to get back in, this was disrupting