Creation Mage 6 by Dante King (detective books to read txt) 📕

and a bedtime story and got a full eight hours into the bargain, instead of partaking in an all-night bender in the forests of the Chaosbane ranch. She held out her hand, and the second little bit of metaphorical balm was applied to my brow; she was holding a steaming cup of—

“A Chaosbane kickstarter,” Leah said.

I took the proffered cup gingerly. Probably in the same manner that I might have taken receipt of a claymore mine.

“What’s a Chaosbane kickstarter?” I asked.

“Coffee, silly,” Leah said. “A very rare djinn blend that Aunt Ruth gets smuggled in through the Port of Delaborg, but shhhhhhh, that’s our little secret.”

“Coffee?” I asked, sniffing at the steaming brew, which was as dark as sin.

“Coffee,” Leah assured me.

I took a sip.

“Mostly,” she added.

I swallowed.

“A very little bit of coffee, maybe,” Leah said.

Whatever alcohol was acting as the kick in this Chaosbane kickstarter ran across my tongue and down my throat like lighted petroleum. I gasped, waiting for the hammerblow to the cranium that surely must come next.

“Better?” Leah asked.

I opened my eyes, which I had unintentionally screwed up against the nauseating alcoholic punishment. To my incredulous delight, I felt fine—better than fine. I felt like a man who was ready to face whatever crap the day cared to fling at him.

“Yeah,” I said. “Much better. What’s the kick?”

“Twisted Dog Lips,” Leah said, turning around and bending over so that I was given a view that would have put a horn on a jellyfish, before she straightened up and started pulling on her pair of high-waisted trousers.

“What the hell is Twisted Dog Lips?” I asked.

“Great Granddaddy’s homebrew.” Leah pulled her pink locks up into her habitual messy pigtails. “He calls it Twisted Dog Lips because he reckons it makes your brain feel like how a dog’s lips look when you give it a spoonful of peanut butter.”

I twisted around and saw that Enwyn was already up and dressed, running a brush through her raven locks.

“Not bad stuff that, is it?” she said to me as she twisted her hair up into a very proper and dignified bun.

“Not bad at all,” I admitted.

I kicked off the blankets and took another slurp of the coffee concoction. The effects didn’t lessen. If anything, they increased.

“All right,” I said, “let’s go hunting for… What’re we hunting for again?”

“Eggnog Gnomes,” Leah said, sitting down on the edge of the bed to pull her boots on.

“Yeah,” I said, “those things.”

I always found myself being grateful for Igor’s morphing cloak when it came to getting dressed after a big night. The magical garment made getting ready an absolute breeze. I just slung it over my shoulders, pictured the sort of gear that I wanted to be dressed in that day, and pop, there I was attired in the very garb I had imagined. The magic held itself in place until I made a conscious decision to change it or remove it, which also gave me peace of mind that I wasn’t about to find myself with my pecker on show for the public during some inopportune moment, like a fight to the death.

We stepped out of the tent a couple of shakes of a lamia’s tail later, and I was greeted by the third thing that made waking up early today a wonderful thing.

The sun was just poking its face over the eastern horizon. A few fingers of crisp, early morning light managed to sneak their way through the pine boughs and the shaggy branches of the trees surrounding the ranch. The golden shafts of sunlight were so clear cut that they looked newly minted, almost like no one had laid eyes on them and sullied them. A few early birds called to one another. Except for them, there was not a single other sound, not even the wind.

“What’s the time?” I asked, looking around at the incredible peaceful stillness blanketing the forest like an invisible miasma.

“Why does that matter? Leah said, coming to stand next to me.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and exhaled happily. Her breath smoked in the air, drifting out to hang in the frosty halcyon air.

“It’s early,” the Chaos Mage said. “Fucking perfect o’clock in the morning, sugarplums. Time for us to go up to the house, get changed, and have breakfast.”

Leah started striding away through the trees, cutting through the sparse woods instead of taking the path with a confidence that told me she knew exactly what direction the ranch house lay in.

“Get changed?” I called after her.

“Oh, yes,” the long-legged stunner replied as Enwyn and I began to tramp after her through the creaking snow. “You don’t think that you can partake in something as steeped in tradition as the Chaosbane family Eggnog Gnome Hunt and not dress for the occasion, do you?”

Somehow, despite the warming glow that had suffused my brain and intestines after that Chaosbane kickstarter, her words still managed to fill me with trepidation.

We ate breakfast together around an enormous dining table in one of the ranch’s ludicrously appointed rooms. Great Granddaddy Gorlbadock presided at the head of the table, of course, with Aunt Ruth to one side of him and Mort to the other. Reginald sat at the other end of the table. The rest of us were spaced between them. The table was heaped with all the sorts of food that you crave after a night on the libations; fries, hamburgers, bacon and eggs, pancakes, pizza that looked like it had been taken out of the fridge and reheated, and curry.

Across from me, Igor was constructing a dish out of a selection of ingredients that I would not have thought would go together.

“What are you working on there, Igor?” I asked.

Igor looked up. His eyes, which were usually bloodshot to the