Mage Craft, tome 2: Cast In Hellfire

Chapter 1

November whispered cool air over the Mojave Desert, sending dust devils swirling through the sagebrush to blast into Seth Wilder’s face. He was lying atop a ridge under a veil of gaean magic, hiding from surveillance, but he couldn’t help coughing.

“There,” said Brianna Dimaria. “Beyond the Joshua trees.” She handed the binoculars down to Seth. She had brought a lawn chair to the stakeout, refusing to get in the dirt like Seth did. The tie-dyed canvas was plastered with so many illusion spells that it seemed to vanish every few seconds, even from within the magic circle.

He looked in the direction the witch had indicated. She’d spotted another pile of rocks that was too uniform to be natural, stacked into a symmetrical, three-sided pyramid. Its unnatural evenness would be obvious from the air, assuming that one was flying low enough to see such a small formation; Brianna had managed to spot it from half a mile away on the ground. She had good eyes for stakeouts, if not the temperament.

The fact that they needed to have a stakeout was ridiculous. The target that Seth intended to rescue never should have been moved to the detention center in the first place. If she’d been given a trial, any judge would have happily released her.

But no matter how much time passed or how many government regulations were forced upon the Office of Preternatural Affairs, they still had a nasty habit of imprisoning people without due process.

On the bright side, it meant Seth felt no guilt about breaking the law to free said prisoner.

Seth set the binoculars down. The sun was dropping low. It was almost nighttime, which meant that shifts would be changing soon. He needed to move in. “You can head out.”

“How will you escape without my help?” Brianna asked.

“Not your problem,” he said.

Seth jumped over the edge of the rocks. He slid down the steep slope, knees bent, arms stretched out to balance himself like a surfer in the desert. Pebbles sprayed behind him.

The messiness of his entrance blew the secrecy of the illusion spells, which was exactly what he’d intended to do.

Men appeared in a desert that had, until that moment, appeared empty. They stepped from behind the trees, stood behind sagebrush. They were dressed to be as obvious as Seth in their own way. Their black clothes leaped out against harsh yellow desert painted violet by sunset.

Much like the signs that had warned Seth that he was entering a restricted zone, the agents were meant to send an obvious message.