Read Vesik 04 - This Broken World for Free Online Page A

ground my teeth together. There was nothing I could do about the past, but I might have a chance to help the future. My hand curled into a fist and I closed my eyes briefly.
    The lid opened smoothly, the hinges whisper quiet. I had an assortment of my most dangerous manuscripts and a few artifacts tucked away in the trunk. The Key of the Dead glinted in the dim lamplight. On top of it all sat a tube of black linen.
    I grumbled as I reached in and picked it up. The hand of glory was heavier than one might suspect. The old flesh hadn’t decayed, but it certainly hadn’t stayed fresh either.
    I started to close the lid, and then reached in to grab Philip’s journal before heading downstairs to search for my backpack. It was only then that I realized there’d been a distinct lack of claws, tongues, and bristly green fur. I tapped my foot at the base of the now-enormous hole in the wall where Bubbles and Peanut liked to sleep.
    Nothing.
    “Huh,” I said, raising my eyebrows. I shrugged it off and turned my attention to the junk shelves. They were … organized. “What have you done, Frank? What have you done?” I slid the backpack off the top shelf and nothing else rained down on my head. It was just … wrong.
    I tucked everything into the backpack as I walked through the saloon-style doors and out into the front of the shop. I was rearranging the hand of glory when someone spoke.
    “Whatcha got?” Her voice was lighter, more like she used to be. It made me smile as I turned around to find Ashley standing behind me. Her piercing green eyes smiled up at me just as much as her lips. A basket with the Double D logo printed on the side was filled with clear packets of herbs and an extraordinary amount of scrap amber.
    I did a double take at the basket as I leaned down to look more closely. “That’s cool,” I said. “When did we get those?”
    “Damian!” Frank jumped out of the chair behind the register. “When did you get here?”
    “Hey, Frank! Just a couple minutes ago. I think you were in the bathroom. When did you get these?” I asked, pointing at Ashley’s basket.
    “Just yesterday,” he said. He came close enough to reach out and shake my hand. His gray hair was cut short, almost military. His face looked even thinner than when I’d seen him last week. He’d hardened in many ways since he started working with me at Death’s Door.
    Ashley pointed at him. “You’re fading away, Frank.”
    “Not likely,” I said. Frank was scary ripped. I could see a few leftover stretch marks on his upper arms from when he’d weighed a hell of a lot more, but his workout regimen was turning him into rock.
    “You might be wrapped up in that cloak now,” I said, “but we’ve seen you leather clad and fighting a blood mage. In fact, I think I might have seen a video of it.”
    Ashley’s blush was damn near instantaneous.
    “How’d the coven take your ascension to being a Power?” I asked.
    “Some of them are okay with it,” Ashley said. She tried to keep her voice steady, but instead spoke in a near-whisper. “A few left.”
    “The people who stayed are your real friends,” Frank said. “Anyone who leaves because you change one small piece of yourself was never a friend in the first place.”
    This time Ashley did reach out and squeeze his forearm.
    “Truer words,” I said. “Truer words.”
    “Thank you.” She walked over to the counter and set her basket down. Frank followed her and started unpacking everything. “Do you really think it’s going to be a war?”
    “I have it on good information it’s already a war,” I said. “We just don’t know it yet, although we kind of do know it.”
    “I worry about the people that left,” Ashley said as she looked up at me. “They have no one Damian. What if there’s a new witch hunt? Most of us have no true power. It’s one of the reasons I took up the Blade of the Stone.”
    “Speaking of which,” I said, “Koda’s book had some vague