Knight's Curse Read Free Page A

signal to his men outside. I stared at the fist aimed at my face, the knuckles white, the backs of his curled fingers sprouting fine hairs as pale as those on his head. He wore a ring on his middle finger, its ruby center surrounded by Sanskrit letters that I could read with crystal clarity. They spelled the word Vyantara.
    Then I saw only darkness.

two
     
    IT’S BEEN TWELVE YEARS SINCE MY ABDUCTION from the only family I’d ever known. I traveled nearly six thousand miles across the Atlantic Ocean to arrive in the U.S. with a man pretending to be my father.
    I was a thief now, trained by the Vyantara, an international organization of nefarious magic users who profited from the sale of charmed and cursed objects I stole for them. I hated those people, but they adored their spooky old relics that did some very nasty things. It amazed me how much people would pay for an enchanted Native American medicine bag with the power to cause cancer instead of cure it, or a picture frame that told the future by revealing how the subject in the photo would change over the years. Today I drove down the long driveway toward a Georgian mansion, destined for another heist. Brother Thomas never would have approved.
    Before every job I pulled, I thought about the old monk and his monastery. I’d give anything to return to that simpler life, but the monks were dead, murdered by a madman and his soldiers.
    I could put myself in a better mood simply by calling on childhood memories, like the birthday I’d received a box of beloved Archie comics that were five years out of date. On my thirteenth birthday, Brother Thomas had given me my first Tiger Beat magazine. It was so old that half the teen celebrities featured were, by that time, married with children of their own. I didn’t mind. I’d been obsessed with America as a child, but if I’d known then what it would take to get me here, I’m pretty sure I’d have picked a different hobby.
    The tattoo at the base of my skull throbbed to remind me of who and what I was. I belonged to someone now, my freedom stripped from me like hide from a rabbit in the talons of a predator. I could almost feel those talons now, the same razor-edged nails that had tried ripping out my heart three years ago.
    I allowed myself a final shudder at that unpleasant memory, then parked the rental car in front of an enormous house propped on pillars like a Greek palace. It was showtime.
    I paced across the columned porch of the Grandville’s Georgian mansion, my designer heels clicking a staccato beat as I waited for someone to answer the door. I checked my watch, then stood on tiptoe to peer through the stained-glass window mounted at the center of the elaborately carved door. I rang the bell a second time.
    “Rich assholes,” I mumbled and returned to my pacing, giving my watch another cursory glance. My time was precious. My seventy-two-hour limit would be up soon, and if I tried to extend it, my life as a human would be over.
    The click of a door latch caught my attention and I positioned myself, smoothing the front of my charcoal-gray slacks and straightening the collar of my suit jacket. Pinching my nose, I ensured both nose filters were well concealed, then blinked over the tinted contact lenses that hid my gold and turquoise eyes. The armor protecting my senses was irritating but necessary to my sanity and my disguise. I took a second to run my hands through impossibly straight hair, fluffing the short shag cut to try giving it some volume. On a good hair day, my do looked like a halo of raven feathers. On a bad one, more like a well-used bottlebrush. Today was somewhere in between. My plastic smile was barely in place when the door swung open.
    “May I help you?” drawled the short, stocky gentleman whose bow tie looked gathered far too tight at his neck. His jowls poured over his collar in fleshy folds and it made me wince in sympathy for him.
    “Margaret Malone of Samuel Crichton and Company,” I