The Burning Magus

Riptide Publishing

PO Box 1537

Burnsville, NC 28714

www.riptidepublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

The Burning Magus

Copyright © 2018 by Don Allmon

Smashwords Edition

Cover art: Simoné, dreamarian.com

Editor: Sarah Lyons

Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [email protected].

ISBN: 978-1-62649-755-9

First edition

November, 2018

Also available in paperback:

ISBN: 978-1-62649-756-6

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JT was a perfectly happy orc building cars in the Arizona desert until his old friend and sometimes lover Austin showed up and talked him into one last crime. Now one last crime has snowballed. With a new team of thieves—a supersoldier, a hacker, a driver, a graffiti artist, and a seafaring wizard—JT and Austin are determined to free an artificial intelligence from the dungeon of the Burning Magus.

For JT, this job is more than a prison break; it’s a do-over of The Job That Went Bad two years ago, the catastrophe in which JT lost his closest friend and then chose to abandon everything, even Austin. Maybe this time no one will die. Maybe this time JT can return to Arizona and bury his old life for good.

Except Austin won’t be buried. After two years alone, Austin knows he wants JT—not just as a partner in crime, but as the lover he always should have been. Maybe this time they won’t make the same mistakes, especially when it comes to each other.

About The Burning Magus

Chapter 1

The Job That Went Bad, Part 1

Chapter 2

The Job That Went Bad, Part 2

Chapter 3

The Job That Went Bad, Part 3

Chapter 4

The Job That Went Bad, Part 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Also by Don Allmon

About the Author

More like this

The confessional smelled of fresh-cut cedar, the church was that new. The window separating Austin Shea from the priest slid open, snap. A golden cloth screen kept the priest obscured: nothing but the vaguest hint of a silhouette through the tiny gaps in the threads, even to Austin’s elven eyes.

Bless me, for I have sinned. It has been six years, four months, and four days since my last confession.

6-4-4 was the code. There was no response for long seconds. The wrong priest might have taken his strangely precise dating as disrespecting the sacrament, and a scolding was coming. The right priest, on the other hand . . .

You should not be here. Mother Minerva’s voice was the liquid purr of a chocolate cat. And now that he knew it was her, he thought he could feel the calming warm brandy of her glamour. It was a good glamour for an elven priest to have.

I got a job, a big one. The kind that makes a reputation. I need some help.

I should say so. But not from me.

It’s a hit on a wizard’s castle. Rescue operation. Stealthy, smart. Sneak in. Sneak out. All tracks covered. He downplayed the job as if it were any old castle they were raiding and not Alcatraz Island; as if it were any wizard they were hitting and not Firelight, whose patron was a dragon; and as if it were any prisoner they were freeing and not an AI with a scientifically impossible elfish glamour, made doubly priceless because that AI had been made from the memories of Austin’s murdered sister. I need a geek, a ninja, and a wizard. A metamorphic or a water wiz would be good. Is Ortez available?

No one is available.

Jenny Hatchett or Penthesilea Logan?

No one.

Are they fighting again? Jenny and Penth were always fighting. How about—

No one will work with you, Austin.

Is this about money? The job pays. It pays real good. Which was a lie. He had nothing to pay anyone. He’d cross that bridge later.

It’s not about money.

Everything’s about money.

All right, yes. It is about money. The answer’s still no.

Did you not hear the part where I said ‘the kind of job that makes a reputation’? We’re talking job of a lifetime here. You heard I got JT with me, right? We’re together again.

Together again. Well, they were speaking and fucking and working with each other, so that counted as together, didn’t it? Just like old times.

We’re together again, he repeated, as if repeating it made it more true. He could repeat it as many times as he had breath; it still wouldn’t make them together the way he wanted them to be. People should be lining up to work with us.

"You have a bounty on you. You’re persona non grata."

I’ve had a goddamn bounty on my head for years and— His volume had gone up along with his frustration. She shushed him. —and it hasn’t been a problem yet.

The bounties before have been token complaints. Feathers in your cap, quite honestly. Bragging rights. They’ve never been serious. These are serious.

Who placed the bounty?

"Who didn’t place one? Lisa Kuang-Li, Mountain Head of the Electric Dragon Triad, has put up two hundred million for software theft, property damage, and the murder of two dozen of her people."

They shot first. That’s not murder, that’s self-defense.

Reportedly, you stole from them first.

Technically that was Buzz, not me. How come he doesn’t have a bounty?

He does. His is two hundred fifty million.

Buzz’s bounty is more than mine? That hardly seemed fair.

The druids of Boise have offered fifty million for the return of an artifact you stole from them.

And that pissed him off even more. "Those fuckers. I didn’t steal nothing. It was mine!" The unicorn horn had technically belonged to his grandfather, but his grandfather had gone and left it sitting right there on the mantel, so that hardly counted as theft.

He’d gotten loud again, and she shushed him again. And there are others. You’ve been very busy over the last few weeks. If you worked half as hard making friends as you do making enemies . . .

Blah blah blah. He waved his hands dismissively though she couldn’t see them. You sound just like Buzz. And JT. And everyone else. There’s gotta be people who’ll work with us.

Oh, there are. Desperate and stupid people. I don’t represent desperate and stupid people. I represent professionals.

You’ve fixed me up for years.

The only one I can fix you up with now is God. Would you like to confess your sins? The way your life is about to go, Austin Shea, I strongly advise it.

The stained glass windows of Our Lady of Avalon portrayed the Knights of the Round Table. The dust mote–scattered rainbow light made the place a fairyland, which wasn’t far from the truth. The Church (capital C) wasn’t comfortable with elves and orcs—too much bad history (never mind it was all fiction). Our Lady of Avalon was New Catholic. Their Pope was French and they traced their made-up lineage back to the Avignon Papacy. History was everyone’s plaything these days.

Old elves and orcs—zero-generation Catholics no longer welcome in other churches—knelt scattered in pews. They prayed and lit candles in alcoves before unusual saints. At least everyone here knew the proper pronunciation of Gawain.

Would Mother Minerva sell him out? Was she online right now telling one old enemy or another, He’s here; come and get him. Remember my price? She wouldn’t really do that, would she? Had Austin gone so far off the rails that Minerva would risk her reputation like that?

Maybe he had.

Two weeks ago Austin, JT, and Buzz had stolen a ghost—an AI fragment—from the Electric Dragon Triad and had shot up a block of Telegraph Hill and destroyed a druid’s lodge in the process. And not two days later (though it wasn’t their fault), a wizard had burned down a forest near Boise. So Austin had to admit they’d racked up a lot of ill will and bad karma in a very short time.

So maybe Minerva would risk her reputation. Hear his confession? Fuck that. Most likely Minerva had wanted to delay him a few minutes (hell, a few hours) so she could make her calls.

He should have run from there. He imagined Triad foot soldiers, 49ers, positioning themselves outside; cybernetic assassins in sniper nests; or druid-awakened rose bushes waiting to strangle him.

He didn’t run. He would never run. He stopped at a shrine. He lit a candle for his sister, Roan. He knelt and prayed to Mary-called-Magdalene. It was a formless kind of prayer. He made no promises, no requests but hope, though hope for what, he was too superstitious to think.

What kind of faith was it when you were so assured of your own damnation you couldn’t properly pray?

Outside, he wasn’t mobbed by 49ers or shot by snipers. There were no bloodthirsty roses. He made it to the parking garage just fine. It would have been disappointingly dull if not for Diego.

The Corvette was parked just where Austin had left it: level three, hind-end first like an asshole parks, between an Audi and a BMW.

Diego Silva lounged against the front fender, both hands shoved deep in the pockets of his cream-colored mulberry silk trousers. His hair was as long and curled as a Bach cantata. It was tucked behind his elven ears. His eyes were dark and gently upturned like some elves’ eyes did. He cocked his head one way and his shoulders the other, contrapposto, and pouted full glossy lips. He shrugged as if embarrassed to be found there. You stole my car.

I borrowed it. You gave me the key.

‘Borrow’ is a few hours. It’s been two weeks. I knew you wouldn’t bring it back. I told myself, ‘If you love someone, set them free.’ That’s what I told myself.

Diego spoke the same way he fucked: in a slow, accented drawl, like he’d learned both English and fucking in South Carolina. His glamour was exquisitely bitter, dizzying in small bites and trace quantities, sickening in anything more. Like radiation.

He slid a hand over the Corvette’s curved fender. That touch would have made JT close his eyes, would have sent an electric spark through him that lit him up like a downtown Christmas. Austin ground his teeth. Touching the Corvette like that wasn’t for Diego to do. It was for Austin to do.

Well, since I’m set free . . . He pulled out the fob and unlocked the car.

Diego wasn’t a wizard. He had the same kind of built-in tech most people had. He locked it again with his mind. Austin should have known he could do that. The alarm and plasma field were off after all. Diego could have taken his car back anytime he’d wanted, but he’d waited here for Austin. That meant Diego didn’t just want his car back; he wanted something else too.

Austin focused his attention on the garage. The lighting was poor. The ceiling was low. It was packed with cars jammed between concrete support columns. The floor sloped gently. That shadow there, that boot scuff there, that click of plastic against plastic from somewhere over there: telltale signs Diego had brought friends, the lurking-in-shadows kind of friends.

So it was vengeance he wanted.

Diego said, A cynical man would think those weeks we spent together meant nothing to you. All you wanted was my money, my booze, my dick, my car, not in that order. All my friends told me so. I didn’t believe them. I still don’t. They’re wrong about you. It’s not like it looks. There was a good reason you took my car and didn’t come back. Just tell me why, Austin, and I’ll give you a second chance.

Okay, not vengeance. It was Austin himself Diego wanted.

Sometimes Austin was just a touch more amazing than he’d ever intended.

I don’t really need a second chance. Your friends were right.

Prove it.

The car locks popped open as Austin pressed the key fob. I’m trying to.

Pop. Diego locked it again. Come here and kiss me. Kiss me and I’ll know if you’re lying or not.

He wanted to point out that Diego hadn’t known the first five dozen times Austin had kissed him, so why was this time going to be any different?

For two weeks Austin had let Diego fuck him because Diego had a car that Austin needed, a car that would seduce an orc named JT. He supposed he could just do it again. Except it didn’t seem as much fun this time around.

Austin, I said kiss me.

Austin shuffled toward him, feigning shy apologetic reluctance.

Diego grabbed Austin by the hair, swung him around, and backed him into the Corvette, thighs against its arched fender. He kissed Austin bruisingly hard, all the bone and teeth behind soft flesh, tasting of the cigarettes Diego preferred, woody like an elf should taste, but burning.

Glamour, all eros and sensuality, Austin’s tinged with a need to make it rough and Diego’s bitter as a grudge, swept out from them in a wave. There were johns who paid good money to watch two elves fuck and feel the faerie wash of their sex-heightened glamour. Austin wondered how Diego’s little gang of thugs hidden among the cars were handling it.

Diego crushed hard against him, pushing Austin’s ass up on the fender and laying him down over the hood. Through thin trousers, Diego’s long and slender cock ground against the inside of Austin’s thigh. Inside Austin, it would shove up against his gut, deep as medieval impalement.

Diego fought with the zipper of his pants. God, I love you. I’ve never met anyone like you.

Austin pawed back at him, sucked at his mouth, thinking the burning-cherry taste of Diego was a bit stale. We should take this somewhere else, he said, wanting to delay.

We’re safe here. Diego smiled down at him. It should have been a perfectly beautiful smile. Tusks would have improved it.

But then Diego’s smile faltered and dropped. He blinked. What did you do to my car?

Austin turned his head to follow Diego’s gaze. The ’Vette was an odd shade of blacker-than-black meant to absorb radar. In the dim light of the garage, the edges and lines of the car were nearly invisible. Up close, Austin could see that the hood was dented and scarred like it had been through a hailstorm, scraped all to fuck.

Austin smiled, remembering how all that damage had gotten there.

I . . . The sound came out like a long croak as Austin scrambled for a lie that seemed believable. Aw, fuck all the lies. Lies were for people he cared about. I fucked an orc on it.

An orc?

Yeah, you know: Green? Muscles? Tusks? Big cock? Well, this one at least. Pathologically technologically inclined? Also this one; not a species thing.

An orc? Diego hissed in Austin’s ear, still pressing him down. "You fucked one of those things on the hood of my car?"

And with that one word, Austin was going to end this here and now. Except he felt a small plastic circle press firm against his temple. Austin hadn’t even noticed Diego’s pistol, and it wasn’t often Austin failed to notice something like that. Maybe he hadn’t researched Diego Silva as thoroughly as he should have. It was possible Diego was more than an LA businessman.

Let go of that knife, Austin.

Austin let go of the little knife he’d drawn. It clattered to the concrete floor. The sound rattled off the ceiling and pillars. He held his hands out, empty: no threat here.

Diego backed away, gun still on him. Six armed and armored people stepped out from behind cars and support pillars. They pointed assault rifles at Austin, fingers on triggers, which seemed an unnecessary escalation. They were a bit of a mess. Some had hard-ons. Austin could see them through their fatigues. The rest looked a little shaky. Shoulder patches said SecCorp, so these bodyguards were run-of-the-mill. They didn’t even make Austin’s blood pressure bump.

Austin sat upright and straightened his clothes. His name is JT. He isn’t a thing. And I gave him your car. It’s not yours anymore. It’s his. He pointed to the marks on the hood to prove his point.

Diego circled around him to the door of the ’Vette and sprang the lock. The door fanned up and out, and Diego slid into the seat where JT belonged. The door swept closed. The car came on. The window came down.

Diego said through it, "You know, I made a mistake. I forgot that when it comes to bad boys, you gotta tame ’em. Someday, Austin,