Sorcerer Rising (A Virgil McDane Novel) Read Free

leaving Teplov’s men, but not bad enough to keep me from doing it. Besides, they’d probably bolt as soon as Leo’s back was turned.
    Cruder stepped between the aisles, his staff raised before him.
    Okay, one more time. I held my breath and pictured a black landscape filled with purple mist. I peered into the mist, reaching my hand into the forest of my mind. I would have loved to have thrown some fire at the situation, but those days were gone.
    I reached my hand deeper and gritted my teeth as I felt them skitter across my skin.
    Fear clenched my throat and I resisted the urge to jerk my arm back, to thrash around, swat my clothes, curse, scream and flail about. For three agonizing seconds I waited, letting them crawl from my mind.
    I opened my eyes long enough to see the last spider form from the Aether, its shiny, black carapace glinting in the dim light of the warehouse. They crawled up my arm, making their way toward my face. I looked just a bit Deeper and they became fuzzy, smokier, their true nature revealing themselves under my vision. The little motes of light in their abdomen could just be made out. I grabbed hold of the motes with my mind and they froze. Quickly as I could, I knitted them together.
    This was going to tricky. I didn’t have any real control over these things. They had a solid basis in several nasty things that inhabited my mind, a byproduct of a bad decision years back, but they weren’t real, just residue. And since I didn’t have any control over the parasites they were birthed from, there was only so much I could do to guide them. The best I could do was make Cruder their most immediate priority and hope they thought he looked tasty.
    I released my concentration and shook the frozen Nidian constructs from my clothes, making sure none had crawled under my sleeve. They hit the ground with a soft pattering, hardly audible under the torrent of rain that was still going on outside. After a moment of stillness, their legs twitched and they shot off in all directions.
    Then I took a step back into the shadow and watched.
    Cruder was making his way through the aisles, a ball of red, angry fire in his hand. God, he was a moron. Half of the freight in here was dry and crated. Had he never heard of a warehouse fire?
    Suddenly, he hollered, the flame dying as he slapped his neck. He cursed, looking around. Then he hit himself again. He began to thrash about, tearing at his clothing.
    They were doing better than I ’d hoped. With any luck, whatever venom they had in their putrid little bodies would put him down. Once Leo came for him, I could make my way back to the front-
    A random bolt of lightning lanced from Cruder’s staff, interrupting my thoughts. It missed by just a few feet, striking a nearby crate, and went off like a bomb. I was thrown from my feet for the second time today. Flaming splinters floated down from the air, but he paid them no mind, more bolts of lightning flying from his staff and hand.
    No, no, no! This was bad. Everywhere mini fires were catching, growing over the dry wood. All over the warehouse, I could hear shelving and girders failing, twenty foot tall racks collapsing. Avalanches of kindling in a giant tinderbox.
    The air was already beginning to fill with smoke. I took that as my cue to leave.
    I dragged myself to my feet and worked the slide on my pistol. Killing a Wizard was something I’d never done, and all kinds of a bad idea, but he was standing wi thin sight of every way out of the burning building. I took a step forward, covering my mouth with my hand.
    Suddenly, a wisp of smoke shot through the aisle like a whip and wrapped itself around Cruder’s throat, cutting off his fireworks show. He lifted off the ground, his body going limp, his staff falling from his fingers. I could just make out his gasping over the crackling of the flames as they grew.
    Leo stepped through the aisle, a cloud of black smog circling around his outstretched fist. “I expected a