The Librarian: A Remnants of Magic Novel (The Librarian of Alexandria Book 2) by Casey White (read ebook pdf txt) 📕

He needed medical attention soon, he knew. Actual medical attention, not a handful of college students with hotel towels. “Once he’s out of the picture, we can leave. For good.”

Maya’s face hardened—and even Leon sat back in his seat, quieting again.

Daniel understood. Oh, he knew. It was easy for him to say they needed to ‘get rid’ of someone. All of them knew what that meant. Even if he could get them out of this alive, they wouldn’t get out with clean hands.

“This looks pretty good,” he whispered, when the storefronts around them turned to industrial warehouses and rolling garage doors. “Anywhere in here.”

“W-What, um,” Maya began, easing off the gas and onto the brakes. “What are we looking for, here?”

“Somewhere I can hide,” Daniel said, peering around. “Somewhere I can get up high, ideally. They won’t expect that.”

“Because this is a dumbass plan,” Leon said.

“Well.” Daniel snorted. “Yeah. There’s that.”

He caught sight of a ladder, though, peeking out from behind one such dingy building. “Okay. Here’s fine.”

The SUV screeched to a halt. He gave one last appraising look around, searching for anything that screamed stop. A light through a window. A security guard on patrol. Someone working late.

Nothing. All he saw at this hour were tired, run-down streets and a few cars that looked like they hadn’t moved in decades.

Popping the door open, Daniel headed for the vehicle closest to that ladder. “Help me,” he whispered.

Olivia tumbled out behind him. “W-What?”

“The door.” He pulled on the hinge, making a face, and pulled the knife back out of his pocket. “I-I need to-”

“Again?” Leon slipped in alongside him, elbowing Olivia out of the way. “I didn’t realize you were making this a habit.”

Daniel grinned. “G-Gotta do what we gotta do.” With Leon’s help, he eased the blade through the seam.

With a final heave and a twist, the door popped open. He fell back, panting for a moment. His leg throbbed beneath him, offset by the pounding in his head that hadn’t let up since he’d cast magic at Rickard’s group. Pushing all of that aside, he started cutting through the column.

“They’ll come right toward me,” he said quietly, his eyes glued to his work. He didn’t want to see their faces, anyway. “They’re probably following...I don’t know. My signature. My blood. To them, it’ll look like we’re just exhausted. Worn out by the stress of running. They’ll think we holed up here for a quick nap.”

Heavy footsteps drew closer. “And then?” James said.

Daniel grinned, slicing neatly through the wires. “They’ll be focused on me, without realizing I’m not on the ground at all. You guys...you’ll stay back far enough they don’t see you. Wait until they think they’re clear. Until they’re focused on me. And then-”

“And then we attack,” Leon said.

The fear running through his voice was like a punch to the gut. Daniel sat back, hesitating. “Yeah,” he said at last. “You’ll have the SUV. If you...If you can just hit them, that would be easiest. If not...both of you have magic, now. You could-”

“He didn’t want to be involved in the fights,” Olivia said. “He’ll be...toward the back of the group. It should be possible. If you move quick, and get him before he catches on to the game-”

“We’ll figure something out,” James said.

Daniel heard Leon groan. “You don’t have to sound so happy about it.”

“Just sayin’. If this ends with me getting to beat the shit out of them, I’m down.”

“Just focus on the tracker,” Daniel said. “Don’t worry about the rest of them. Get the tracker, and get away. They might have mages. They’ll almost certainly have more guns. And-”

“Good,” James said. He was starting to grin, Daniel realized, glancing back toward him. “Gives us something to steal off ‘em. We’ll be fine.”

“J-James,” Maya hissed. “Don’t-”

“And what about you?”

Again, Daniel paused—and met Leon’s unhappy stare. “What do you mean?”

“What I said,” Leon said, and folded his arms. “You’re using yourself as bait. What happens when they do wind up focusing on you?”

“That’s what this is for,” Daniel said, patting the driver’s seat of the car he was even then burglarizing. “By the time they realize something is wrong, you guys will have moved in. And when you do, I’ll hop down that ladder, into this, and take off. Maybe I…” He hesitated. “Maybe I can clear a path for you guys, as I’m leaving. And then, we’ll regroup after. Down the road, somewhere.”

Maya and James nodded slowly, although Maya’s normally-tawny skin looked ghost-pale.

“I still don’t like this,” Leon mumbled.

The knot in Daniel’s gut twisted tighter. “I know,” he said, turning to him. “But I can do this.”

“You could do this just as well by staying with us,” Leon said.

Before he’d so much as finished, though, Daniel was shaking his head. “No. No, if I did that, we’d have no trap. They’d see all of us, and it’d just be another all-out war.”

“Then-”

“I have no weapon,” Daniel said, smiling weakly. “Even if I had one, I...I can’t hurt anyone with it. Some lessons run too deep. I can’t hardly run. And I’ve got no magic.”

“You had magic back there,” James said. His nostrils flared. “If you did that again, we could-”

“I’m sorry,” Daniel whispered. He held a hand up, leaning heavily on the worn 90’s upholstery. His fingers tensed—and in his mind’s eye, he could see the flames sprouting to life from his palm.

But nothing happened. The night remained cold and bleak and dark. Whatever energy he’d felt before, it was gone.

“I don’t know why,” Daniel said. “I...I can’t. It doesn’t seem to work like that.” He grinned wryly. “I don’t know how it works at all.”

To his surprise, he heard James snort. “Guess we’re in that much together.”

“Still,” Leon muttered. “Still. There’s got to be some other way. I could stay with you. Help you-”

“Hey,” James protested, but Daniel was already shaking his head.

“No,” Daniel said. “You have magic. Maybe you and James can work together. Or something. I don’t know. But you’ll have better chances