Shadow Hunt excerpt

Whenever any of my books comes out, I tend to spend the first couple days bouncing off the walls. It’s out, it’s out, it’s out. What if everyone thinks it sucks?

Thankfully, I’ve gotten a couple e-mails so I know at least two people liked Shadow Hunt (thanks!). As I continue bouncing off the walls, please enjoy an excerpt from the book.

Peregrine cast another burst of fire at Winter. Kenth had sent a demon after him?

Madness!

Kenth would do no such thing. He knew Kenth. The man was a brilliant witch who could balance court life and the council. Gods, the man had been the first to welcome him to the council when he joined. The only ill thing he’d ever said to Peregrine had happened fifteen years before, when Peregrine was admitted early into the academy. Pretty thing. Who brought the catamite?

Demons didn’t lie, though. It was a paradox that was uncovered during the war. They were strange creatures, loving physical pleasures and knowledge, and they always told the truth.

It cuts deeper, their king was known to have said.

Winter approached him, leaving dying flames in his wake.

Peregrine moved back. His spells wouldn’t protect him for long. If he summoned the night watch –

No. If they faced Winter, they would die. He was going to need other witches.

The flames still licking Winter’s summer market finery went out with a sigh.

Peregrine gathered to him all the stored power in his house. Scrolls and parchments, rings and staffs all sprang to incandescent life as he drew power from them.

He let the thread of fire vanish, redirecting the immense flow of magic into a series of protection wards around him.

Winter motioned at him, a careless gesture that sent a cool breeze over him.

The air circled around him, pricking at Peregrine’s shields. The quick, cold movement sent loose strands of red-brown hair falling around his eyes.

He tossed his hair back. The demon’s spell whispered over his skin, chilling it, and then faded.

Winter smiled. “The strength of your talent charms me.”

He’d pleased the demon. Lovely.

He rubbed at his skin, warming it. He might not care for the demon’s amusement, but if his shields could block the demon’s attacks for a few minutes longer, he could summon the council. He didn’t have the strength to bind a demon, but together they would.

He simply needed to draw his time out.

“You killed the king,” Peregrine said. He let his hands fall to his sides, hiding his fingers in the generous folds of his shirtsleeves. He didn’t dare lower his shields as he subtly began the summoning spell.

“No, your majesty. He and I never met.” Winter traced his fingers through the air, drawing magic out before him. “Shortly after I arrived, though, I did discover that your kind made it so that we would need permission to enter any dwelling in the city.”

Surprise threaded through Peregrine, making his fingers stumble. His elders had cast the spells after the demons had been forced behind the stone border in the north. No one had known if the spells on the city would hold, but the knowledge that they were there comforted people. The council would want to know that as well.

Peregrine retraced his fingers’ movements and then continued his spell.

Winter stepped towards Peregrine. “Silly things, the spells. They keep us separate.”

“Before the spells, you hunted us.”

“Not all of you.” Another step. Winter’s shadow preceded him, bleeding over Peregrine’s left foot. “We tend to find most of humanity boring.”

Peregrine moved back. “Do the other demons know about the spell?”

Winter’s hand shot out, spilling its shadow over Peregrine’s shoulder.

Peregrine’s shield trembled.

Bugger, he thought, moving back. If he didn’t finish his summoning spell –

Magic slammed into Peregrine, sending him flying across the room.

He hit the ground a moment later, skidding back, and then crashed into his reading table.The round surface shook, sending cards scattering around him onto the green and black rug.

“We are very selective in who we pursue,” Winter said. “Under normal circumstances, we probably would never have met, your majesty.”

Bugger you, too. Peregrine gathered the remnants of his shield around him.

No use. He was tiring, and whatever spell he cast wouldn’t withstand another attack.

He inched back. His fingers brushed over the carpet, some cards, a button. Had this brief fight drawn attention? It was illegal to duel in the city proper, but if their spells set off any warnings, the city guards would come.

Hope surged through him, and then died. The guards would be busy looking for the king’s known sons. No one would bother with him until it was too late.

The tips of black boots stepped into Peregrine’s sight. He looked up.

Winter removed his gloves. Beneath the soft-looking leather, his fingertips ended in wickedly curved claws.

“Tiring already?” the demon asked sweetly.

“No.” Peregrine forced himself to be still. The card beneath his fingers pulsed, sending a quiet thread of magic up his arm.

Peregrine stole a glance down. Now? The cards chose now to tell a story?

Despite himself, his fingers twitched, picking up the edge of the card. At academy, he’d been taught that once a card had been turned, the others had to follow. To ignore the reading was to insult the gift, and in time that magic might fade. Demon or no demon, Peregrine needed to look at the cards.

He cast his lingering strength into another shield. The paper beneath his fingers felt thick, and when he turned it he discovered why: it wasn’t one card, but two.

A chill darted through him, leaving him aware of the rips in his clothes, of the fragility of his final shield, and the paper beneath him. They’d drawn an entwined reading.

The coupling was unbelievable. The only times he’d ever seen it happen before were when he was reading for lovers. If one card was drawn as the focus, the pair was temporarily fused in passion and wouldn’t last.

Two, though, meant that their spirits were entwined and only death would separate them.

The cards themselves were colorful, painted in shades of red, black, and violet. They were also ironically familiar; in one, a pale man reclined over a stone, smiling seductively at the viewer. Bones, scrolls, and ink bottles lay scattered around him.

In the other, a dark-skinned woman stood at the entrance of a labyrinthine library. Shadows curled around the edge of one of the rows, but she seemed only curious. In one hand she held a small lamp, in the other an athame, or witch blade.

The first card, the Demon, was reversed. Winter was stronger than he.

The second card, the Witch, faced up. The placement offered little advice, simply reminding him of the duality inside every witch. Chaos and order, creativity and practicality. There was power and life in stepping into the unknown.

Peregrine’s gaze flittered around the cards lying around him. The cards wouldn’t have offered a reading if there wasn’t more to tell.

“Seeing if you’ll live longer in your next life?” Winter asked.

“No.”

His shield shook…and then broke. Magic embers fluttered around him, fading into the air.

Peregrine snatched the cards and held them up. “The cards have accepted your desire for a reading.”

Winter took them. His skin brushed over Peregrine’s, stealing his warmth.

“I sense blood.”

“It’s my shadow deck.” Every witch enchanted something important to them with their blood. Peregrine had chosen the cards and spent most of his time at academy creating them.

Winter tossed the cards. They landed upright, the Demon facing Peregrine, and the Witch facing Winter.

“You expect me to listen to a collection of paper stock and paint?” Winter asked.

Peregrine smiled. It felt bitter to him, thin and sharp and unlike him at all. “It doesn’t matter to me. I wouldn’t mind taking your future with me to my grave.”

Winter stared at him, his obsidian eyes glowing softly.

The words were a gamble, Peregrine knew. The demon’s initial request may have simply been a ruse to gain entry.

Despite that, Peregrine hoped the words had been an accidental gift and that the demon wanted a hint of his future as badly as Peregrine wanted to escape.

Winter crouched before Peregrine. “If this is your little way of stalling for time in hope that help will come, I will kill you quickly but take my time with them. Demon bards will sing of their suffering for centuries.”

“Depending on what the cards say, your bards may also be singing of you.”

Winter’s lips twitched. “We’ll see.”

Written by Luisa Prieto

Dark fantasy writer by day, dark fantasy writer by night. I'm charmingly dull that way ;)
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