Trace of Magic Read Online Free

moment I started talking, a look of pity and disgust shadowed the guard’s features. His eyes slid away from me like I was suddenly invisible. He dropped his hand from his gun.
    “Lady, you need to get out of here. Go beg somewhere else. What the hell you doing here anyway? Go to a church or a soup kitchen or something.”
    “I will, I will,” I said. “Can’t you just give me a little something? Maybe a watch? Or a couple dollars? I got another few months before I can get on the diamond dole. Just gotta get there. Kids are sick, you know. Haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday. You understand, I know it. You’ve seen down times. I’ll pay everything back. I promise.”
    I let the panic and desperation ratchet up in my voice, even as I piled more problems on. He didn’t believe me; but he wanted to get rid of me, and I had to make my act believable if he wasn’t going to get suspicious about me being here.
    “Look lady, you’ve gotta leave. I don’t know what made you pick this place—”
    “The Lord led me here,” I claimed. “He lit the path for me because he knew I’d find help here.” I really hoped I wasn’t going to burn in hell for using the Lord’s name in vain. Not that anybody in heaven knew my name.
    “Well, he was wrong. Get lost.”
    Just then his radio crackled, and a voice barked, “What’s going on, Randall?”
    The guard gave me a furious look and pressed the button on the speaker. “It’s nothing. Just a vagrant, sir. She’s leaving.”
    “She’d better be,” the voice snapped back. “Get rid of her now or it’s your head.”
    That wasn’t actually a euphemism or an idle threat. I shuddered, but continued to look beseechingly at Randall. He swore and pulled out his wallet and shoved a couple of twenties into my hand.
    “That’s it, lady,” he growled. “You go and don’t ever come back. You do and you’ll have reason to regret it.”
    I instantly started to retreat, calling blessings down on him and thanking him. I wanted my exit to look like I was afraid he’d change his mind, but really I just wanted to get out of the line of sight of the security cameras and the chance of him noticing I wasn’t quite what I seemed. I’m a jeans and tee-shirt girl. I don’t go for designer wear, and I like hiking boots or running shoes. I wear clothes I can move in and that won’t get shredded when I have to climb over fences or crawl under a hedge. I do those kinds of things more frequently than I like. So it wasn’t that I wasn’t looking the role of the beggar—at least for this kind of neighborhood—but that I was awfully clean and neither my shoes nor my jacket were cheap. If anybody stopped to consider, they’d know I wasn’t what I claimed to be.
    I hustled up the roadway. The trees marching along the sides of the road beyond the drainage culvert gave the estate seclusion, and also protected potential witnesses from watching me get murdered.
    A sound alerted me to pursuit. I glanced back. The gates had slid open far enough to let Randall out. He was jogging after me, his hat pulled low.
    Fear forked through me, and I broke into a jog. I was fit. I walked or biked most everywhere I went, and Randall was carrying a spare tire around his gut. He also had a gun. I wanted distance between us, as much as I could get.
    “Hey!” he called. “I got something else for you! The lady of the house wants to meet you!”
    He tried to sound enticing. I wasn’t buying. I accelerated. Just over the rise was a four-way stop. After that was about a quarter of a mile with just one or two other houses set well off the road before I got anywhere near population.
    Randall swore, and his pace quickened into a long run. Damn, but he was a lot faster than he looked. I started to sprint, hoping he ran out of juice before I did. Not that it would matter. He’d have friends along in a minute. I needed to come up with an escape plan and quick.
    I scanned the sides of the road. Tall iron