Smoke & Summons (Numina #1)

Kazen wouldn’t summon in the city in the middle of the afternoon, would he? With so many people nearby? Isepia he could hide, but Kuracean— Rone was already pulling her back. Sandis nearly rolled her ankles as she stumbled after him. Another police whistle ripped through the air, closer.

Kazen pulled a gun from a holster at his hip. “Enough of this,” Sandis thought she heard him say, his tone bored but laced with that subtle anger it had taken her years to pick up on. And his eyes . . . his eyes burned like two smog-choked suns.

Rone jerked Sandis’s arm, forcing her face forward. Why she felt the need to say it, she didn’t know. Rist could no more control the numen chained to him than she could summon Ireth at will. Still, she cried out, “He killed Heath! He killed him!”

Her friend’s name ripped from her throat like the cry of a dying animal.

Then they ran. Ran. Ran. The buildings grew darker and closer together. The air became colder as they jumped a fence and wove through flats. Sandis’s chest and legs felt like they were being eaten by acid by the time she realized this particular cluster of flats was abandoned.

She pulled back on Rone’s hand, though it merely slowed him. Sweat ran down the sides of his face like rain. “Rone, stop!” she croaked. Oh Celestial, that’s why Kazen didn’t chase us, just blocked us— She dug her heels into the broken cobbles of the ill-kept street.

Rone stopped and whipped around, his eyes mad, the amarinth clenched in his fingers. “Sandis! We have to—”

“They’re corralling us!” New tears burned in the corners of her eyes. “We’re so close . . . God’s tower, we’re so close, Rone . . .”

She spun around, searching. Pulled him down a passageway barely wide enough for him.

“Close to what?”

“The grafters.” The words came out on a whisper. They reached a dead end. Sandis spun, frantic. Jerked Rone in another direction. “This is their territory. We’re practically walking over it.”

Her entire body was cold. Her joints felt rusted. Her muscles ran on embers.

Footsteps thundered behind them.

Rone yanked Sandis down another path, one she didn’t recognize. “Look for a ladder,” he sputtered. “A rain pipe. Anything. We need to get up.”

They rounded a corner and faced another dead end. Turned back.

Three grafters, including Galt in his white-and-silver priest’s robes and Ravis in all black, blocked the way out.

Rone’s hand, the one holding the amarinth, snaked behind him as he stepped in front of Sandis. Her entire body went numb, save for her desperate, starving lungs, but she retreated when he did. Her foot landed in something foul and sticky; her back hit brick.

Nowhere else to go. No fence to climb, door to open, crevice to hide in. They stood at the end of a brick box. Even sunlight couldn’t worm its way in.

“I can take them,” Rone whispered, readying his amarinth even as three separate firearms trained on him. Sandis believed him—she’d seen him take out five people at the tavern. But as Rone went to spin the golden loops of the artifact, four more people appeared behind the original three. Marek and three men Sandis didn’t recognize, short of the neckerchief poking up from one man’s collar. She knew those colors.

Straight Ace’s mobsmen. Kazen had a mob searching for her now. What bribery had he used to earn their cooperation? How many more did he have under his sleeve? At least he hadn’t allied with one of the other grafter gangs. At least they didn’t have an army of numina— The base of her skull tingled until ice shot down her script. She felt the color drain from her skin. Her fingers trembled. She was not reacting to the mob, however, but to the numen coming toward them.

“Kuracean,” she whispered, hairs standing on end. “He’s summoned him.”

Rone glanced back at her, still clutching the amarinth. It wouldn’t be enough. One minute wouldn’t be nearly enough . . . and it would only protect him, not her. She didn’t even have a garbage bin to hide behind! Where were the police? The border patrol? Had they not seen the chase? Had Kazen paid them off?

Did they even care?

She heard the heavy click, drag of armor against cobbles before the numen’s bulbous head hovered over the seven men poised to attack her and Rone. Though it crouched to fit in the small space, it was still nine feet tall. Half of Kuracean’s head was a toothless mouth, but Sandis had seen it take off heads in a single chomp. Just once, when a mob that no longer existed had made a foolish attempt to take over Kazen’s territory. Kuracean’s massive front legs, ending in great pincers, one larger than the other, slid behind the mobsmen. The rest of its spidery body was hidden by the crumbling building that acted as half of Sandis’s cage.

Rone didn’t even swear when he saw it. He almost dropped the amarinth, but it dangled from his index finger by a single golden loop. He looked like a ghost beneath his dark hair. Sandis could see the blue veins in his neck.

Trapped. They were trapped.

Kazen, now with his hat firmly tipped over his forehead, walked out from beneath Kuracean as though the great monster were merely a startling sculpture. The numen growled softly in its armored throat but didn’t move. Not without its master’s order.

“Look what you’ve made me do, Sandis.” Kazen’s voice was that of a tired mother. He held his arms out, gesturing to his armed men and his mighty monster, so much stronger than Isepia. His face was unreadable, like always, but his hat could not hide the glimmer in his eyes. It was a subtle, swirling shine that raised gooseflesh on her arms.

She’d never seen him so angry.

“I have such a mess to clean up,” he continued. “You’ve riled the city folk this time. Their little police force won’t be happy.”

Rone shook his head. “I can’t . . . ,” he whispered.

Sandis tried to swallow but found she couldn’t.

“And you.” Kazen’s silvery gaze fell upon Rone. “I think we need to have a nice long chat. After I see what you’re hiding behind your back.” He smiled. “Foolish boy. You have no idea what trouble you’ve gotten yourself into.”

They were going to kill Rone. Maybe kill her . . . but no, that would be too easy for Kazen, wouldn’t it? Sandis’s mind couldn’t even fathom what would happen after this. Her imagination didn’t stretch that wide.

Her eyes shifted to Kuracean’s turtle-like face. To that hard, pointed lip. She still remembered the sound the mobsman’s neck had made when Kuracean severed his head from his body. Still remembered the spurting fountain of blood. It was the last thing she’d seen before Kazen had summoned Ireth to join the battle.

Ireth.

She felt pressure in her head even as she thought the name. She couldn’t fight these men. Rone couldn’t fight these men, even with the amarinth. They especially didn’t stand a chance against Kuracean. But Ireth could. Surely Ireth could.

But Ireth needed to be brought into the world by a summoner. Sandis was only the vessel . . . and Rone couldn’t summon him. He didn’t know how, for one, and he didn’t meet the qualifications of a summoner. He didn’t even come close.

Kazen gestured to Marek and two of the bulky Aces behind him and sent them forward. “Knock out the man, but keep him alive for now. Don’t hurt the girl. I need her restrained.” Kazen pulled from his pocket a needle, tube, and vial. So the power of her blood had faded, and he needed to renew his control.

Twenty feet separated Sandis and Rone from the mobsmen. Nineteen, eighteen— “Come, Sandis. I’ll give you a chance to explain, once you’re home.” Kazen’s voice was so soothing. Hushed, yet it carried over the distance. If Sandis hadn’t spent the last four years of her life with him . . . if she hadn’t seen him turn on friends as frequently as he did enemies, she might have been fooled into thinking that he cared about her. That he wanted the best for her. That he provided safety, home, family.

Sandis’s family was dead. All except one. One she still had to find.

She shook her head.