Table of Contents
Also by Philippa Ballantine
Awaken
Avenge
Moments
Patterns
Pursuit
Consequences
Returning
Ravenous
Divination
Regret
Precipice
Paths
Linger
Visitation
Surrender
Gifts
Sacrifice
Homecoming
Traps
Endings
About the Author
Digital Magic
Philippa Ballantine
Imagine That! Studios, Copyright 2018
All rights reserved.
Cover Art and Design by OliviaPro
Interior Layout by Imagine That! Studios
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means whatsoever without the prior written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental. Any actual places, products or events mentioned are used in a purely fictitious manner.
Contents
Also by Philippa Ballantine
1. Awaken
2. Avenge
3. Moments
4. Patterns
5. Pursuit
6. Consequences
7. Returning
8. Ravenous
9. Divination
10. Regret
11. Precipice
12. Paths
13. Linger
14. Visitation
15. Surrender
16. Gifts
17. Sacrifice
18. Homecoming
19. Traps
20. Endings
About the Author
Also by Philippa Ballantine
The Chronicles of Art
Chasing the Bard
Digital Magic
Books of the Order
Geist
Spectyr
Wrayth
Harbinger
The Shifted World
Hunter and Fox
Kindred and Wings
The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences (with Tee Morris)
Phoenix Rising
The Janus Affair
Dawn’s Early Light
The Diamond Conspiracy
The Ghost Rebellion
Verity Fitzroy and the Ministry Seven (with Tee Morris)
The Curse of the Silver Pharaoh
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1
Awaken
The great shadow crept the length of the roof as silent as a prayer; each paw finding its way unerringly to the path of least noise. The half-eaten moon made its dark fur dance and for a moment the silver light gave it a halo. At this momentary disturbance, the black lip curled back revealing a creamy expanse of fang. An unvoiced growl rumbled within the deep chest.
Shoulders scything, the panther resumed his ascent. On either side the roof sloped sharply away into the unlit manor’s garden and though he didn't hear them yet, the guards would soon be reaching the front door. Even his feline power and silence were no protection from night-scopes and high-powered splinterguns. In this shape stealth and the darkness were his only allies.
Curved dark ears twitched this way and that, tracing even the faintest noise to its source for the danger it might bring. Nothing stirred in the distant wing of the house where the owner lived, but the northern wing that housed the art collection hummed with barely concealed activity. The best prizes were always worth the risk.
He reached the small window; the sort used for ventilation in those days before central heating. The older the building, the better, as far as a twenty-first century thief was concerned. The cat paused again, sniffing the rim of the window. Good, no recent scents. Perhaps if he was lucky from below the window was so unremarkable that it drew no attention. His stealthy paw made short work of the fragile ancient lock and without pause he slipped into the room.
It was museum-like—thick with the scents of beeswax and age. Moonlight ran in faint streams through the still evening air to glitter on the glass-topped cases below. Inside mementos of lost ages, cleaned, dusted and displayed for tourists to gape at. It was there that his target lay. The cat’s eyes narrowed and his posture stiffened as if sensing prey. The odor of well-varnished wood made his nose twitch, but his keen sense of scent also brought him more important information. The guard just passed here, his half-eaten salami sandwich tucked into his back pocket and his boots just recently cleaned of mud that reeked of a dog. Yet the cat’s nose was the least of his advantages.
A flicker of cool mist enshrouded the beast, hiding his form for a heartbeat; when it cleared, a far different one took his place. The tall dark-haired man already moved along the walkway, ducking his body low against the windows, moving with the same graceful economy as the cat. He was better equipped; his dark leather hushsuit dropped his thermal temperature to that of a passing moth, and the darkest and ugliest of pistols lay strapped to his hip.
No normal shapeshifter would have been able to retain clothes and equipment, but he had never been anything like normal. Magic ran pure through his veins and the pesky details of logic and physics did not intrude.
But this world had not left him completely unchanged either—money, for example, already exerted its power. He wasn't here for random violence; he was here for something far more interesting and profitable.
Others in his trade sacrificed flesh for metal and soul for machine, but he disdained all of that; his natural talents more than made up for a somewhat traditional approach to thievery. His body, after all, was the only thing left to him from a dangerous and tragic past, and he wasn't about to cut into it merely for fashion.
He reached the end of the walkway. After a momentary pause on the varnished handrail, he dropped the three floors down onto the stone floor. It was a fall that would have broken the legs of any other. His dark eyes scanned the shadows. Something about this place felt wrong. A prickle of fear ran on hot feet up his back and he knew better than to ignore his instinct.
Yet his prey lay only an arm length away. The glass-topped display case seemed little protection indeed for such a prize.
He’d seen many beautiful things in his time, acquired them by fair means and foul for his customers. This was different. He understood that immediately.
A mask—simple and elegant. The empty eyed female face looked back at him and into him at the same time. The mouth rested slightly open, caught in the act of speaking while the full white lip trembled. The face was beautifully familiar; it spoke of his childhood when he thought those times long forgotten. This mask, with the hint of spiraling curls framing it, captured the form of two people: both had captured him when he had been young and foolish.
It was run through with such a delicacy and power that it could mean only one thing. No other place would have created such a frail thing of pale stone and infused it with such spirit.
In this moment when any other person in his line of work would have smashed and grabbed. And yet the man waited; his breath warm in the chill air and almost fogging the glass, nostrils flaring wide. Far off, outside the walls of the mansion, a dog barked and a guard’s stiff curse followed. Still, he did not move. He was part of the world—quiet but awake. Simply waiting for it to whisper its mysteries to him. Dark eyes never left the velvet-
couched mask; tracing it, trying to find its meaning.
He suddenly remembered to breathe and the scent of jasmine plunged into his body. It was like a hammer blow across the face. Something so vastly unexpected that he almost cried out. It resounded through his bones like nothing had for centuries, a dreadful ache lodging itself under his ribs. The smell of it flooded his nose and mouth, sweet and heady like a summer wine or a field choked with flowers—made all the more powerful simply because he knew what it was.
How could this part of home be another possession, stared at by mindless tourists who could never understand its true meaning? The desire to hold it and experience the cool stone was intense. Every fiber of him ached to reach out and take it. His mouth twitched. The pain was sweet and terrible and he wished it both gone and eternal.
It was mead and madness to senses deprived for so long. In that one heady instant all that he had become since the last time he had sensed this, got swept away. Knocked back to childhood, he couldn’t help it. “Home,” he whispered against the night, longing stretching his voice out into the friendless darkness.
The security system picked him up straight away. He might as well have stood up and shouted his name to the world. The moment broke. The sliver from his past vanished while the scent dissipated into reality. The mask reclaimed its mystery and now he was in real trouble. The rattle of metal against the window told him the security system blocked any escape. Harsh technology locked the intruder into the hall until the guards arrived with guns blazing and questions left to the morning.
Still dazzled by what he saw, habit nonetheless got him to his feet and running. He bounded back the way he'd come, changing mid-air to his faster form. The pale feline claws now sunk deep into the wooden floors. Below him the room flooded with murky-gray gas, illuminating the red criss-cross of infrared beams. As he leaped and bounded past them a vague fuzziness stole over him. And then cat ears picked up the whine of sentrybots powering to life.
The powerful panther’s haunches bunched and hurled him along the walkway, ears flattened and mouth held in a silent snarl. From behind came the snap of electricity as the air jolted alive with electronic fury. Every section of his dark fur rippled with it and his rational mind told him he didn't have long. Ahead, the small window that had allowed him entry chugged shut behind a security screen. The thin bar of moonlight it allowed in was too narrow even as he leapt the last few feet, but the cat hardly missed a beat.
Now the dark man dropped to one knee and smoothly unsheathed the blunt ugly weapon he carried at his hip. Two sharp blasts ripped open the descending metal between him and freedom.
Cat form carried him free of the hall even as the guards responded to the alarm. He scrambled along the roof, leapt ten feet into the trees and galloped away just as the men opened the doors. The only hint they got he'd even passed was the rabid barking of their dogs.
The panther retreated to the quieter, deeper shadows. He stared at the huddled mound of the great house, yellow eyes half-hooded. A few quick licks across his shoulder assured him that he was alive. Though a humiliating incident, he at least survived. Still, neither domestic cat nor leopard likes to fail.
Huddled under a thick yew tree, he shifted back to his human shape, the better to think. The urge to swear and punch something was powerful, perhaps a hangover from the feline rage that still pumped in his system. However, the remembrance of that scent quieted him a moment. It called him back to a time when he had been quite another thing; when his world was something different, something far more beautiful. He half-laughed to realize that tears ran down his cheeks. Thrusting them aside with the back of his hand, Ronan realized it was a foolish thing and one he thought himself long past.
“Bloody fool.” He reprimanded himself. The weapon on his hip seemed abruptly heavy and ugly. He couldn't help thinking that he would have had no need of such a thing once; indeed, it would have been a humiliation and a travesty to carry one.
But he was quite used to this life now, settled almost. It was just stupid to yearn for what could not be. It would only drive him mad. And yet….
The sigh would not be contained. It was a mystery needing unraveling. Until it was, simply traveling on wasn't an option. It would itch at the back of his head forever. This little village must hold the answer to that glimpse and he wouldn't rest until he found it; as coveted a prize now as the mask itself. Still, this task too required patience and care. He would wait till morning. Then after getting the lie of the land, he'd work out just what sort of mess he stepped into.
***
From the shifting shade of the oak Ella watched the cat’s figure enter the bushes and the man’s emerge a few minutes later. How strange, her sleep befuddled brain thought. But then, this dream had been strange right from the beginning.
Ella didn't even recall having fallen asleep in her little cottage, but Qoth lay curled on her feet and the fire had been blazing, so she must have. Looking down, she was dressed, but her bare feet lay damp in the wet grass. That confirmed the dream; the cool metal of spinebridge against her back was absent, and without its digital signal her legs would be useless.
Still, she wasn't far from home. Obviously dreams were not all distant alien landscapes—this was Penherem Manor. She’d watched the cat fleeing the sudden blaze of light and half expected to see Tania Furlion’s elegant shape in pursuit. The Lady of the Manor would never have done any such thing, but then, in dreams anything was possible.
Ella leaned against the elm that sheltered her as the man loped further away from the scene of the crime. She was positive it was a crime. At this distance he was more silhouette than reality—all lanky frame and nice long legs.
In the manner of dreams, she realized she wasn't alone in watching. The back of her neck prickled and a wash of fear flooded through her. With an empty heart, she turned to face the other woman. Ella’s dream throat became dry, and she swayed now, relying on the tree to hold her.
The other woman was more frightening than she should have been, so Ella concentrated on looking hard at the physical. A pale mist wafted from her shoulders, giving the appearance of near nakedness but somehow managing to swallow form as well. The face turned toward Ella as if suddenly aware of her presence. The line of the jaw was perfect, sharp and unforgiving. The hair bone-white and long enough to mingle with the mist. But then the ruined eyes lifted. There was nothing there. Only a grim, wrinkled expanse.
That broken face was no accident. Ella's eyes burned. No car accident, no fate of birth had denied this apparition her eyes. She had taken them, like some mythical Cassandra, sacrificing sight for deadly powers. She couldn’t say how she knew, she only did.
The blankness watched her; it saw what she was, measured her and was perhaps interested. But Ella did not want to be interesting. She wanted to be bland. She wanted to melt into the landscape.
What are you? Why are you here? Where are you from?
That voice peeled her apart, revealing her hollow inadequacy, laying her naked in the dark.
I’m not here, I’m nothing. The broken sobs in her throat finally woke the shaken woman to her living room, but the sudden warmth of home didn't thaw the chill of fear that lodged in her heart. Nothing could erase the void that saw her. She burrowed into her pillows and tried to hide herself from the memory of the nightmare.
***
But the woman and the man-cat were not the only things awakening into the night. Neither could know what else stirred in the darkness.
Something more, it experienced the brush of power and Art. It responded as the man had—with longing and memory. The earth stirred and cracked as the man-sized seed gave up its long hidden spawn, ripe with hatred and plans. Foxes and night owls fled the ancient scent, rustling the half dead leaves of autumn while even the smallest mouse followed after; prey and predator united in terror.
This newborn monster unfolded in the dimness of Penherem's plastic perfect forest, a dark purple putrid flower just beginning to bloom. The tre
es, unable to uproot themselves, still pulled back in horror. A dark nightmare stepped out on sticky feet ready to find its target. Within the smooth skull ideas bubbled and seethed as it pushed its infant powers out into this new world, sucking up all the knowledge from it. With a sigh its lips pulled back from teeth in pleasure.
Tourists traveled from all over this festering globe to walk in the footsteps of their ancestors and they got what they imagined rather than what had actually been. It knew. It had seen. It had been there. Nearly six hundred years it had waited, a fungal spore looking for the first hint of rain.
The Between gates remained closed, the Nexus changed. That, it sensed well enough, but the taste of that other realm had stirred it awake. A chance was all it needed and perhaps there would be only one. It had to proceed cautiously, for the world was changed from when it had last stalked the fields and forests. This new woodland of technology, of steel and shared hallucinations, was unfamiliar. It would have to find a guide, someone’s lead to follow until it found its way.
But mankind could not have changed that much in six short hundreds of years, and if there was one thing it knew, it was people. It would hunt out the best-hidden weakness, even those that a human himself did not acknowledge, and use them to its Master’s gain.
It pulled its shadow-thin legs free of the casing and shook its many-eyed head in anticipation. If the Art was here it would find it, and if it was the time of the Healer, even better. The mere thought of rejoining with its beloved Master sent a hiss of delight rippling out from its pierced carapace. Ancient wrongs would be undone.
Digital Magic (The Chronicles of Art Book 2) Page 1
