Misfortune Market: A HASEA CHRONICLES STORY (BOOK 1.5) Read Online Free

stairs. We followed, me placing one hand on his back in a seemingly friendly gesture, but the other hand keeping the blade firmly digging into this side. My hand was still and I was focused, ready to do what I had to without hesitation. If he shouts to any of his friends, our day takes a turn for the worst in seconds.   
    We reached the balcony, which was little more than several sections of rebar drilled into the wall and layered with sheet metal. The makeshift floor sagged and snapped out of shape at our weight as we moved towards the door, and for a moment I thought the whole thing might collapse. 
    The guard stood by the door and glanced at me.
    “Go ahead,” I urged.
    He growled and then knocked hard on the door - which had a ‘salvaged from a rubbish tip’ look to it. His huge knuckles even widened a crack that had zig-zagged its way down the centre of the wood.
    “What?” said a tired voice from inside.
    “Visitors,” rumbled the guard back.
    “The market is in motion!” barked the voice back.
    “A bunch of free speech in this city ain’t there?” quipped Delagio.
    “Open it,” ordered Gabriella. The guard looked down at her and I pushed the blade in a tiny bit more, feeling blood poor over my knuckles. The guard pulled a key out of his pocket and turned it in the latch, before pushing the door open and stepping inside.
    “What the…” said a voice.
    Everything became a flurry of movement. I shoved the guard forward. Delagio flicked his wrist and a silver marble he’d discretely lifted from his pouch and charged with kinetic energy slammed into the back of the guard’s head, knocking him out cold. The Skinshifter’s heavy frame slammed against the metal floor with a thud, showering up dust and dirt. Scarlett used a set of silver cuffs to bind his hands and feet. She threw the key to Grey who locked it after Gabriella slammed it closed. I wiped the blade and sheathed it on my belt.
    The small room we had found ourselves in was dimly lit by a freestanding lamp that had seen better days – wired into a dangerous looking setup of plugs powered by a small generator. Everything in the ramshackle room looked like it had been salvaged from skips. Cramped shelves made from old signs. A large mirror, fractured into a mosaic of sharp edges and skewed reflections. An old chalkboard – dusty and filled with the ghostly markings of what had once been written, and a desk that had an entire leg missing - replaced by damaged paperback books. Hanging on the far wall was a picture of a flowering field seen through a cross-framed window. There was something achingly sad about the way its emulation of the real thing spoke of a world so far beyond the reach of those in this place.
    But the most interesting thing in the room was the person sitting on a wooden swivel chair behind the desk.
    The face that stared up at us was not one I expected. The name Albert had conjured up images of a spectacled, wizened face and an unkempt beard in my mind – all of which had been correct. But behind the glasses were piercing red and blue eyes, and below them two vertical red lines that ran from lower eyelids to cheeks, like tribal war paint that would never fade. Heterochromia and maturity markings…
    Mayor Henwick is a Shaman.
    Shamans were rare. Little Tommy of Moon’s Edge was the only one I had ever seen in my time with the Alliance – and as far as I was aware, he was one of very few in England. A Guardian could go their entire career without ever meeting a Shaman in the flesh.  And here was one, right in front of us. 
    The mayor had been holding a tumbler of whisky, its open-bottled counterpart sitting on the desk, label peeling away from the brown glass. Now the tumbler was on its side and the contents leaking over the table. As he looked at us, his shock dissolved into the deflated resignation of a man who has spent a lifetime waiting for karma to knock at his door.
    “I’m assuming from your dramatic entrance that