Bloodlust Read Online Free

look was enough. I put the mirror down. Oh well. There wasn’t much I could do about it now, I figured.
    “I do sell a lovely range of balaclavas,” Balud commented.
    I flicked him a glance. He put up his palms. “Okay, okay, it was just an idea.”
    Harrumphing, I looked around the small room. “So what is this place?”
    “My office. I have something here that you might find interesting. I was going to come by to the council meeting to show you, but then the flyer was shoved in through my door and I got distracted.” He began shuffling around pieces of paper, scooping up first one bunch and then another. “It’s around here somewhere,” he muttered.
    Motes of dust flew up into the air. I began to inadvertently choke and my eyes started to sting. Balud stopped what he was doing and peered up at me. “Do your eyes always do that?”
    “What? Water? They seem to be doing rather a lot of it of late, to be fair.”
    “No. Not that.” His voice sounded strange.
    Puzzled, I stared at him. “What then?”
    He continued to look at me, then eventually shrugged and went back to what he was doing. “Never mind.”
    “Balud…” I said warningly.
    “Here it is!” he interrupted, triumphantly holding aloft a stained sheet of paper.
    Curiosity gave way. I took the piece of paper and scanned down it quickly. For a moment, I was utterly dumbfounded. “The Palladium? But that’s what…”
    “No, no, no, no, no,” muttered Balud. “There’s no article in front of it. It’s just palladium. Like gold. Not The Gold. Or The Silver. Just silver. Just palladium. It’s an element. Similar to platinum. According to my research, humans only discovered it a couple of hundred years ago. But here it says it was used back in the fifteenth century to destroy a necromancer who was wandering about the French countryside. Nowadays it gets used for jewellery, dentistry, catalytic converters for cars, that kind of thing.”
    “The English language is indeed a curious thing,” I said, half to myself.
    “You are a strange little girl.”
    “Do me a favour, Balud, call me Mack.”
    He shrugged. “You’re correct that the English language is a curious thing. Why would your parents call you Mackintosh?”
    I gave him a dirty look. “You know perfectly well that it’s Mackenzie.” I turned my attention back to the grubby piece of paper. “So you think this will work? That Endor will be vulnerable to a weapon made from palladium?”
    “I need to do some more research to cross-check, but it does indeed appear as if we have a winner.”
    “Do you have any?”
    “What?”
    “Weapons made of palladium,” I said impatiently. “The more we can spread around all of us, the better.”
    He laughed sharply. “Why would I have any weapons made of palladium? It’s a soft metal. Unless you’re apparently defending yourself against a necromancer, it would really be no good in any fight. And it’s a very expensive metal anyway.”
    I took a deep breath, willing myself to stay calm. “Can you make some then?”
    “Little girl, I’m a master artiste of weaponry. I can make anything.”
    “Great. Start with around fifty. Perhaps a mix of things. Some swords, daggers, and try some bullets and arrows as well. I imagine the guns and bows themselves wouldn’t need to be made from palladium, just the actual pointy dangerous parts that stick in you.”
    Balud held up a single finger. “And where will I get all that palladium from? Shall I just nip down to my local palladium hardware store? Hmmm?”
    I stared at him. “You just said it was used for jewellery and dentists and cars. It must be freely available. Order some online.”
    “Who’ll pay for it?”
    I gaped, nonplussed. “This is to save the fucking world! Who cares who pays for it?”
    Balud shrugged. “Someone’s got to. This stuff doesn’t come cheap.”
    “Fine,” I said, pissed off. “I’ll get you some money. Raid my piggybank or whatever.”
    “Says the girl who