Read Burned for Free Online

Didn’t seem like it. Someone new? Probably not all that high on the power scale, if this is the best they can send …
    ‘—well? You hearing me, bitch?’
    ‘Stop calling me “bitch”,’ I said absently. ‘A bitch is a female dog. I like dogs.’
    James stared at me. ‘I’ll call you what I want, bitch .’
    ‘Whatever. Look, James—’
    ‘My name’s Wolf .’
    ‘James. I’ve got things to do. You got hired to send me a message, right? Let’s hear it.’
    James gave me a disbelieving look.
    ‘Last chance to do this the easy way.’
    ‘Oh yeah?’ James spread his arms wide. The staff flickered in one hand. It looked like a standard elemental weapon, designed to apply kinetic energy, possibly with some on-hit effect. ‘Let’s do this! Come on!’
    I sighed. ‘Hermes?’ I said out loud to the sky. ‘Any time you’re ready.’
    Hermes blinked into view behind James and sank his teeth into the back of James’s ankle. James screamed, staggering. He tried to twist around to see what had bitten him but Hermes hung on, letting James’s momentum drag him around. James flailed awkwardly one-handed with the staff, trying to beat Hermes away, before managing to get a grip with both hands and swinging back as hard as he could.
    The moment before the staff landed, Hermes blinked out of existence, teleporting away. The swing hit only air and James staggered sideways.
    ‘Hey,’ I said from behind him.
    James spun. I let him get most of the way around before introducing my stick to his head. He hit the ground and I continued to apply the stick to various points on his body until he stopped trying to cast spells. By that point, the light from the water staff he had been using was gone, along with the staff itself (concentration-based spells and beatings don’t mix) so I took out my pocket torch and clicked it on, shining it downwards. ‘Ready to talk?’
    ‘Oh, fuck,’ James moaned. He was lying on the ground in a foetal position. ‘It hurts.’
    ‘Who sent you?’
    ‘I don’t know! I just—’
    I struck down, deliberately making the blow slow enough to see coming. James caught a glimpse through the light and raised an arm to protect his head. The stick landed on his right hand with a snapping crack . James screamed.
    ‘Okay, James,’ I said once he’d quieted down enough to hear me. ‘This game is called “How many of your bones do I have to break before you answer my questions?” Right now the counter is on “one”. In another twenty seconds, I’ll be advancing it to “two”.’
    ‘All right! Jesus, it was Symmaris, okay? It was Symmaris!’
    ‘And what did Symmaris tell you to do?’
    ‘Just to … just to rough you up a bit, okay? Nothing serious, we weren’t going to hurt you or anything.’
    ‘Uh-huh. And what were you supposed to tell me afterwards?’
    ‘To stay away from Drakh.’
    I paused. ‘What?’
    ‘From Drakh. For the job. You know?’
    ‘What job?’
    ‘I don’t fucking know. They—’
    I lifted the stick.
    ‘No! Jesus, I’m telling you the truth, I swear! There was some thing, some, some job you were supposed to be doing, working with Drakh, I don’t know, something important, and Symmaris, she wanted to warn you to back off, right? That was all she told us. That was it!’
    I stared down at James, searching through the futures. It sounded flimsy, but as I explored different interrogation options, I realised to my surprise that he was actually telling the truth. I shook my head. ‘You really came to the wrong neighbourhood.’
    ‘Look, please, just let me go. I didn’t know. I’ll tell Symmaris whatever you like, I swear—’
    ‘I don’t work for Drakh,’ I said.
    James paused. ‘Huh?’
    ‘I don’t work for Richard Drakh,’ I said again. ‘Your boss got the wrong guy. If you’d done your homework and asked around instead of coming here, you and your boys could be back at home having a pint right now.’ I gestured back towards the two adepts. The