Magic Below Paris Complete Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 8): Trading Into Shadow, Trading Into Darkness, Trading Close to Light, Trading By Firelight, Trading by Shroomlight, plus 3 more

by C. M. Simpson

  Shouldn’t have been. Roeglin told her, and Marsh knew he was right. She’d seen the little rascals vanish at the other end of them. The only marvel was that they’d brought the teens with them as well, when Tamlin could have shadow-stepped ahead, taking his sister with him.

  That would be mean, Aisha told her, doing her best to keep up as Marsh ran past.

  Marsh thought about stopping for the child, then decided it would be better if the kids were behind them. It was safer that way.

  Shadow monsters screamed and roared in their wake, and Roeglin raised his eyebrows.

  Not one word, she warned him, noticing the face peering at them from between the doors.

  Apparently, Salazar had seen all he needed to, though, because he slammed the doors closed, the thump of a locking bar dropping across them echoing down the corridor.

  “Merde!”

  “I’ll do it,” Aisha told her, and Marsh was forced to slow down. She really didn’t see an alternative.

  They slid to a stop in front of the doors, and Marsh and Roeglin tried to force them just to be sure. As they did, Basil and Vi moved a heavy potted plant away from the wall.

  “Aysh...” Tamlin began, but the little girl shook her head.

  “Have to,” she told him, and he sighed.

  “Fine.”

  She smiled sweetly and patted his leg as she slipped past him to kneel at the base of the wall.

  “I’ll do it,” she repeated, laying her palms flat against it and resting her forehead on the stone.

  Moments later, the wall parted, pulling away from the door’s edge, and the little girl slid to the floor.

  “I’ve got her,” Tamlin said as the three teens crowded around. Marsh fixed them with a stern glare.

  “Keep them safe,” she ordered and they nodded, their faces pale but determined.

  There was no more time than that. Salazar was not alone.

  Marsh heard familiar chanting and felt the magical wash from another portal being opened. She glanced back enough to see Vi and Basil ushering Jens and Tamlin out of the room and around the corner, then charged forward.

  Mordan roared and bounded past her, and Salazar smiled.

  The portal stretched to the size of a garden arch, showing a well-traveled cavern path beyond.

  He reached behind the desk and picked up an overloaded backpack. “You’re too late.”

  Marsh hurled her sword at him but it fell short, hitting the floor and sliding forward as it vanished to where she’d called it from. Salazar glanced at her, then at Mordan, and then at the slowly widening portal. He slung the pack over his shoulders and ran through the narrow gate into the dark of the caverns beyond.

  Marsh charged after him, determined to catch him no matter what it took, and Roeglin ran with her. One of the raider mages slipped through just as the first shadow monster shriek echoed into the room.

  24

  The Hunt for Gustav

  The mage on the office side of the portal glanced through the gate, his eyes widening in alarm. The face of the mage that returned was sheet-white. Marsh and Roeglin exchanged glances.

  Salazar had slowed to a walk.

  Mordan, wait. The kat had been preparing to spring when Marsh’s command reached her. The kat cocked her head, her tail flicking once and then going still.

  Salazar started to run—not farther down the trail, but back toward the Library.

  “Hold it open!” he shouted, and more shadow monsters called out from around him.

  Marsh caught the flicker of black moving on black, and then the amber reflection of the office lamps reflecting from blood-red eyes. The enemy mages stared at Salazar as he strove to reach the gate ahead of the oncoming mass.

  “Drop the pack!” one of them yelled, but the seeker held the pack tight.

  “Whatever he’s got in there, I doubt it’s worth dying for,” Roeglin mused.

  “He seems to think it is,” Marsh observed as Salazar glanced over his shoulder and strove to move faster.”

  “Now he gets it,” Roeglin added as the seeker shrugged his arms clear of the straps and dropped the pack behind him.

  Without the load, he was able to make it to the door and slide through. The second he was clear, Mordan pounced, knocking the closest mage to the floor and crunching down on his head. Marsh heard his neck snap as the kat twisted.

  She shook him clear of her bloodied jaws and went after the second mage as the portal collapsed between them. He shrieked as she swiped a paw across his legs, shredding the cloth of his robes and pulling him to the ground. His fearful cries were silenced seconds later as she closed her jaws on his throat and shook him like a rag doll.

  The sound of the shadow monsters died as the portal closed, and Salazar died as Roeglin and Marsh sank twin blades into his gut. Yanking her blade free, Marsh prepared to strike again. He dropped, eyes wide with confusion, and she realized she didn’t need to.

  “Merde! I didn’t get to ask him where he was hiding Gustav!”

  Roeglin looked down at the dead man and rested a hand on her arm. “The guards will know.”

  Marsh regarded him darkly. “Don’t bet on it.”

  “Pessimist.”

  They left the bodies in the office, Mordan stalking in their wake. By the time they returned, the ex-raiders were searching the book stacks and alcoves for any survivors. Marsh remembered to look in on Aisha as they passed.

  They found the children holed up under a large study table, eating rations.

  “We were hungry,” Tamlin told them, sounding defensive, then added, “Did you get him?”

  Marsh nodded.

  “And Gustav?”

  Marsh shook her head. “Not yet.”

  He shifted. “We’ll help you...” Registering Aisha’s dead weight on his lap, he made a helpless gesture with his hand.

  “It’s okay. You guys stay here. Call the shadows to hide you. We’ll go find Gustav.”

  “What if he needs healing?” Now Tamlin did look worried.

  “We’ll do what we can until Aisha wakes up.” Marsh frowned. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’s still alive. If Kearick had wanted him dead, they wouldn’t have put the spear through his foot or bothered taking him to a more secure cell. They have something else planned for him.”

  “What if they’ve done it already?” Tamlin asked.

  “Pretty sure they’re waiting for something,” Marsh reassured him, “and I’m pretty sure that whatever it is, it wasn’t meant to happen until morning.”

  Tamlin glanced toward the end of the bookshelf closest to the door. “Morning’s almost here.”

  Marsh pushed her way out from under the desk. “We’ll hurry,” she promised and led Roeglin and Mordan back to where Master Envermet was marshaling a larger group of people than there’d been when he left.

  He looked up as they arrived. “They want to help,” he explained.

  Marsh nodded. “We’ll want the Library kept intact,” she instructed, “and the town. The raiders who were forced to guard or bring others back in order to protect their families are not to be harmed.”

  An unfriendly rumble met her statement, but Marsh held up her hand.

  “Let their future actions judge them. If they harm others, then they should be punished for that and this. If they do their best to atone, then think of what you would risk for your loved ones.”

  She borrowed one of Master Envermet’s lines. “We cannot all be heroes.”

  This last was met with silence, but Roeglin sent her a wave of approval. That worked, he informed her.

  Marsh looked at Master Envermet, who motioned for her to continue. “I need to know where they keep the ones they bring to the Library. Can anyone tell me?”

  The silence continued a little longer, then one of the ex-raider guards stepped forward. “They take them Below,” he began, but one of his colleagues cut him off.

  “Not right away, though,” he argued and hurried to answer the first guard’s puzzled stare. “Th
ey had me bring meals. I brought the same number for the first two or three nights. It was only after that the kitchens had me bring fewer.”

  When more silence met his explanation, he continued, “When I wasn’t punished for not bringing enough, I guessed it was because there were fewer prisoners to feed.”

  The freed prisoners murmured amongst themselves, but many nodded. “It makes sense.”

  The guard relaxed slightly but eyed them warily. He knew he would not be forgiven so easily or so soon. “I can take you to where I delivered the meals,” he offered, “but what’s past that door, I don’t know.”

  Marsh looked at the rest of the guards. “Anyone else who delivered meals?”

  They exchanged glances and two more stepped forward, shoulders hunched and heads bowed. She nodded at them. “And was the same true for you?”

  This time, they kept their eyes firmly on the floor as they nodded.

  “Good,” Marsh told them. “You can all lead the way.”

  Master Envermet stepped forward when the prisoners went to follow. “Stay here. We don’t know what’s waiting for us behind the door.”

  “No one in the Library is innocent,” one man asserted. He gestured at the guards moving to do as Marsh had ordered, and then at the others standing with the shadow guards. “These might have been coerced, but the ones here did not have family in the village.”

  “Their family might have been elsewhere—” Master Envermet began, but the man cut him off.

  “If they were, they were probably glad to be free of them for a short time, given what they were like.”

  Master Envermet’s eyes flared briefly white and he swallowed, nodding in understanding. “If there are more, they will be executed.”

  “How will you know?” a woman challenged.

  Master Envermet gave her a direct look, making sure she could see his eyes shift. “Lady Bernice, we will know.”

  She gasped at his use of her name but nodded acceptance. “That is all we ask. We will wait.”

  Master Envermet gestured at the ex-raiders. “They will keep you safe.”

  Muttered protest greeted that declaration, and he waited for it to die down. “I don’t have the men to spare, and you need to let them prove their regret.”

  “I can make sure of their regret,” another woman promised, and scattered laughter agreed.

  “That won’t mend what’s been broken,” Master Envermet told her.

  “Not sure anything can mend that,” she retorted.

  His lips gave a wry twist as he replied, “You have to start somewhere.”

  “I’d rather be ending it,” a man declared.

  Again Master Envermet smiled. “And how well do you want to sleep afterward?”

  That brought silence, and Master Envermet gestured for Marsh to go. Behind her, he gave those newly freed one warning. “There will be no murders while we are gone. Very little separates you from them. You are not remnant.”

  He did not wait for them to respond to that but signaled for Henri and the others to follow them.

  Where are the children? he asked as they followed their guides to a door at the back of the library.

  Marsh showed him a picture of the space they’d found beneath the study table, and he relaxed.

  “Could we ask the kat to guard them?”

  The kat rumbled a protest, and Marsh shook her head. “We have not yet found her kits.”

  “Ah...”

  They reached the door the men had brought the food to and the spokesman turned. Dividing his attention between Marsh and Master Envermet, he said, “This is as far as we were allowed to come.”

  As he said it, his eyes sought confirmation from the other two and they nodded, their eyes flicking nervously to the door and then back to Marsh and Master Envermet.

  “What is it?” the shadow captain snapped as Roeglin’s eyes turned white.

  “We heard...” The guard gulped, his face paling, eyes distant with a memory he’d rather forget.

  “It’s okay,” Roeglin hastily assured him. “You don’t need to speak.”

  From the sudden bleakness of Master Envermet’s expression, Marsh was glad she hadn’t shared that particular memory.

  Do you want to? Roeglin offered, and she quickly shook her head.

  “Merci, mais non.”. Not for all the Deeps did she want to share a memory that brought that look to the shadow captain’s face.

  Master Envermet opened the door. It surprised them all when there was nothing more than the locking bar holding it closed from the Library side.

  “I thought there were men stationed here?” one of the ex-raiders commented, and another shrugged.

  “Must have brought everyone out to try to stop the intruders in the atrium. It’s not like the prisoners can get out.” He indicated the bar.

  Marsh shifted to become one with the shadows and drifted into the space beyond. A short flight of stairs led down to a narrow stone-walled corridor. It was narrower than any of the corridors upstairs, with doors spaced every two yards.

  “They kept a lot of folks down here,” Roeglin observed, stepping out of shadow form beside her as the smell of cold stone, dank air, and confined humanity hit them. Master Envermet and the rest walked down the stairs as soon as he’d sent the all-clear.

  To Marsh’s relief, the raiders had repeated their use of simple bolts to secure these cells, too.

  “I guess they figured there was no way folks could manipulate them through a solid wooden door,” she mused as she pushed the first one open.

  She stumbled back a moment later, gagging slightly. “Or they knew bolts would be enough.”

  Turning away from the door, she fought down the urge to vomit and pulled her cloak over her mouth. “We have to get them out of there, but they’re not going to be able to travel for a while.”

  Master Envermet copied her action with the cloak before following her back into the cell. He stopped dead when he saw the three men shackled to the walls. “Do we have keys?” he asked, and Marsh shook her head.

  The shadow captain stooped to examine the fastenings.

  One of the men made an indistinct sound, then cleared his throat and tried again. “No keys. Pins.”

  He watched the guard through dull eyes, breathing a sigh of relief as Marsh helped to get him off the wall. As soon as he was down, she guided him out of the cell and handed him to one of the guards.

  “Take him upstairs. Find him somewhere he can sleep safely,” she ordered, and the guard nodded.

  As he helped the mage up the stairs, Marsh heard him whisper, “I am so very, very sorry.”

  “Need a wash,” the victim muttered, and the guard nodded.

  “I can help with that.”

  “Send people down to help,” Marsh instructed. “The Deeps know how many we’re going to find.”

  Master Envermet emerged from the cell with the next mage, and one of the other ex-raider guards stepped forward. “I’ll take him.”

  By the time he’d reached the top of the stairs, Henri had taken charge of keeping the flow of prisoners moving. Marsh, Roeglin, and Master Envermet worked their way down one side of the corridor, and Gerry, Zeb, and Brigitte took the other.

  Jakob and Obasi met them at the door, bringing the freed cell occupants to the foot of the stairs, where the next ex-raider or freed prisoner was waiting.

  “I could get the kitchens started,” the guard spokesman offered, and Roeglin’s eyes turned white.

  “Thank you, Xavier.” He looked at the freed prisoners waiting on the stairs. “Take Terrence with you.”

  He sighed. “We need healers.”

  Terrence had been eyeing Xavier with some dislike, but his face momentarily cleared, and he turned back to Roeglin. “I can ask among the ones you freed. There are bound to be healers there.”

  He scowled at Xavier. “They won’t have discovered them in the untested captures yet.”

  Xavier flushed, then gave Terrence a tiny, crooked smile. “T
hey didn’t discover all of them in the tested ones, either.”

  Terrence’s look of surprise might have been funny if Roeglin’d had had any time to appreciate it. “Go,” he ordered them. “Get the kitchens going and ask the healers to set up a makeshift medical center.”

  He started back down the corridor, relieved to hear Terrence ask, “So, you hid them, then?”

  “I tried,” Xavier admitted. “I didn’t report them if I saw them.”

  “Like who, for instance?”

  “You.”

  Terrence was shocked. “When?”

  “The child that fell. She broke her wrist. I was close enough to hear it snap. You wrapped your hand around her arm, and she could move her fingers again.”

  “And you didn’t...”

  “You’re still here, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know whether to hit you or let you live.”

  “I have a lot to make up for if I’m allowed.”

  It was a start, Roeglin decided, admiring the way Xavier hadn’t reminded Terrence he owed him his life. Terrence realized it, though, and was honest enough to admit it. “I’ll vouch for you.”

  “There’s no need,” Xavier began, only to be asked, “Do you want to live or not?”

  “You did that on purpose,” Marsh accused him when he passed her at the door.

  “They recognized each other. It was too good an opportunity to pass up, and Terrence has influence.”

  They didn’t stop to share more but continued clearing each cell. The prisoners farthest from the door were in better condition.

  “Shortest time down here, and farthest from where the testing takes place,” Master Envermet noted after searching for the answer in the ex-raiders’ heads.

  All except for Kearick and Gustav, who they found halfway along the second floor down—right beside the interrogation room for that level. Each man had a cell of his own, and both bore the marks of torture.

  “Damned if I know what they thought these two knew,” Master Envermet muttered, gently lifting Gustav down, “but if I’d known, none of them would have died so easily.”

  “Numbers. Locations,” Gustav muttered. “Deeps, but you took your damned sweet time.”