Forged in Fire Read Online Free Page B

trailed off.
    “Someone to play with?” I asked, smiling.
    He shrugged again, not looking at me. “It’s hard to be different,” he said quietly. “They tolerate me, but not even Anezka has time for me these days.”
    I watched him; there was something more, I was sure of it.
    “I do not care for this Gunther,” he said finally. “He assumes too much, takes too much of Anezka’s time. She tires easily.”
    There it was. Jealousy after all. It was cute, the little biter was missing his best girl. “Look, I’m sure Gunther is not bothering Anezka. He’s good for her. Isn’t that what’s most important?”
    He rocked his head from side to side before answering. “Yes, she is mending and he has stopped banishing me.”
    “That’s good, right?”
    “She needs to be working,” he said at last. “Needs to bend steel, bank fire, twist the bones of the earth, and create something new and beautiful.” There was passion in his eyes then; flames licked along his shoulders and scalp. “She’s a maker. She needs to create something to be fulfilled.”
    I reached up and patted him on the foot that had not yet erupted with flickering yellow flames. “Buck up, big guy. I think I have a cure for what ails you.”
    He looked up, his face full of expectation. “Do we return home?”
    Now it was my turn to be crestfallen. I felt a lump splash into the hollow of my stomach, dread, guilt, fear … “No, not yet,” I said, trying to sound upbeat. “Soon, I hope.”
    The smile on his face slipped a little, making him look like a sad Muppet.
    “What if we built a forge here?” I asked. “We could work on the farm and keep Anezka safe, and all three of us could work together.” I’d been thinking about it for a while now. Someplace controlled.
    “Honest?” he asked, the smile beaming from him. The flames that danced along his arms flickered to a mellow blue. “I crave the forge, lament the dearth of hammers and fire.”
    The beam he was sitting on suddenly flashed with flame. Bright yellow and orange tongues licked upward, dancing around Bub like a cartoon fanfare.
    “Careful,” I said, stepping back.
    “Not to worry,” he said. He made a motion with his hands, and the flames rushed up him, blanketing him in a halo of fire. Then, as quick as it had appeared, it vanished.
    “Nice trick,” I said, smiling at him. “Gotta be careful with flame around here. Dragon fire burned this place down.”
    “I know,” he said wistfully. “I can taste it in the beams and ash.”
    “About home,” I asked, tentatively. “What’s this I hear about you disappearing for three days?”
    “I could not stand it,” he began, shifting from one foot to the other on the beam. “I traveled there. It was difficult and exhausting, but there you have it.”
    “I bet. What happened?”
    “Nothing,” he said, falling into a squat once again. “There is a wall of force over everything. I could not get inside. There are dead things there,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I smell the hand of that bastard, Justin.”
    Necromancer; ex-boyfriend of our mutual friend, Anezka; minion of the twice-dead Jean-Paul Duchamp; all around douche bag and psychopath.
    “Yeah. He did something there, corrupted a ley line.”
    He looked up quickly, scanning the dark behind me from side to side. “Do you mean the well?”
    “Sure, it could be a well. Live wire, like electricity, almost. Solid feed of magic or power, take your pick. Runs right under Anezka’s house.”
    He dropped from his perch, landing at my feet, and stood. “That is what happened to my Anezka. His interference broke her mind,” he continued, pacing around me in a wide circle. “That is the taint of it. It nearly drove me mad as well.”
    “You could taste it?”
    He shook his head. “Not taste.” He waved his right talon back at the ruined barn. “Not like here, where the essence is stirred with the lightest touch.” He patted a beam and dust rose into