Page 30 of Marked By the Dark Lord
Angrily, I left the boardroom, making a beeline for the only place I could think of that would give me answers: the evidence locker. It was two floors below me, and the stairs provided another opportunity to release the energy still circulating through my veins. I needed to be calm, to think properly. No more mistakes.
The head of evidence, a crotchety middling demon, didn’t look up from her book as I approached the wired cage blocking access to evidence. That was the wrong move. My temper immediately spiked anew.
“I need to see the effects of a woman brought in yesterday,” I said. “She was human, to be punished for unauthorized magic use. She had a book with her.”
The demon didn’t immediately look up, instead finishing her page before slowly craning her neck back. The skin was stretched far too tight over the body, its reddish hue turning more to rust than the usual vibrant crimson. “I need more information than that.”
Between the lack of respect, the initial ignorance, and now her sheer laziness, I’d had enough. With a snarl, I reached through the cage, grabbed her neck, and slammed her face on the desk. “Now!”
The demon rebounded off the desk, glaring at me with overt hostility.
“Try it,” I dared, rolling my neck from side to side. I could use a good fight. A demon would be just the target to take my ire out on. Baring my teeth, I tried to goad the bitch into making a move.
She must have had at least one brain cell working, however, because she decided against a physical engagement.
“Very well, Lord Rokk,” she said tartly. “But this will be logged.”
“Oh, trust me, I’ll have a word with your superior about your conduct, too,” I said with a sneer. As if her “log” mattered to me.
“Grolk appointed me to this position and trusts me to do it,” she said.
I leaned in until my skin was pressed against the cage, my eyes as close as they could be.
“Notthatsuperior,” I said in a deathly quiet whisper.
The demon looked troubled, her throat bobbing up and down from a nervous swallow. I swear I could see beads of sweat forming on her red brow, though demons didn’t actually emit sweat. But any time someone threatened to go have a casual conversation with one of the greater demons as if it was no big deal, that was a time to give pause.
“Tiny human woman. Blue eyes. Where is her stuff?” I repeated.
I was in no mood to fuck around or deal with any of the usual power-tripping bullshit that happened in the Black Tower. She must have finally realized that because, without another comment, the demon reached over and pressed a button to let me in.
The gate to my left popped open.
“Thank you,” I said, flashing a smile that was anything but nice. “Where is it located?”
“Hasn’t been filed yet,” she said stiffly. “Sitting in a bag on the table at the back of Row C.”
“Perfect.” I strolled into evidence and down the indicated row.
As promised, the cloth bag was on the table, a tag with a scribble lazily attached to it. The book was inside. I removed it and set it on the table, staring, trying to identify it. But I couldn’t.
There were untold books out there with magical characteristics. Spellbooks, diaries, relics, and more. I didn’t know all of them, not even a fraction of them. But ones that let a human wield magic as strong asthatwere few and far between. Usually, one needed a basis of magical learning to get much out of an enchanted item.
Mila either knew absolutely nothing, or she was one of the greatest liars I’d ever met. I’d called her one to her face, but nothing about her story rang false to my ears. That didn’t mean it was true, butshebelieved it to be true. Unless my desire to fuck her brains out was clouding my judgment.
And given that I had revealed my true identity to her, that idea was starting to hold more sway.
Perhaps I should head back to her cell and fuck her senseless to get it out of the way. MaybethenI could think clearly and solve the riddle of the magic that should be familiar but wasn’t.
It was time to change that. Reaching out to the book, I cast a spell on it to try to identify any magical elements.
I frowned and cast the spell again. Then I opened it and sent my spell query a third time. Then a fourth near the back.
“What the fuck?” I turned the book over and over. The clasp was the only place my spell even returned a hint of faint magic.
Mila did say she couldn’t even open the book until yesterday.
Frowning, I inspected the clasp very closely. On it, I could pick up three traces of magic. One I didn’t recognize but was the least powerful. One had that same familiar energy.
