The Painter Mage: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  But I knew the answer. There weren’t many willing to go against the Trelking. It meant near certain death. Or, in my case, servitude that might as well be death. Since he promised me nine and ninety years serving him, I’d probably be dead before I finished the term he demanded, especially given the fact that I would likely die facing one of his many enemies during my service.

  The medallion began burning against my chest, like an ice cube stuck down my shirt, but this one sticking to my skin. The power Devan pulled now was enormous.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  I tried to see into the darkness at what was making the sound along the fence, but I couldn’t. Pain raced through my head, and my vision blurred from the strain.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  The Nizashi faltered a moment. Taylor’s circle surged with renewed power.

  Energy built rapidly. At first, I thought it was the Nizashi preparing for one more attack, but I wouldn’t detect it like that. This was sharp and dry and pulled on my skin…like a painter.

  Taylor?

  I crawled forward, worried she might try something stupid and lower the circle to attack the Nizashi. That was the only thing keeping them safe right now. As soon as she dropped her protections, the assassin had them.

  There was a flash of light, and the power faded.

  Taylor’s circle still held. I felt it.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  It was the same sound I’d heard when the Nizashi attacked the house and Devan had done some of her magic outside. I still hadn’t learned what magic she’d done, but it had stopped the Nizashi. The sound was coming closer, just on the other side of the fence. But now, there was something else, a sense I hadn’t expected. My vision began to clear from the blast, and I looked over to see someone standing next to Taylor and Devan.

  Taylor dropped her circle.

  “No!” I shouted, but it came out weakly. I wasn’t sure it came out of my mouth at all.

  He turned toward me. Not one of the Nizashi. Blond hair hung to his shoulders, which were muscular, but not like Jakes’s, simply fit like an athlete. The top few buttons of his shirt were undone in a somewhat yes-I-know-I’m-built kind of way.

  I fell forward as I tried to reach Devan, ignoring Taylor. The man came and stood over me, staring down with dark, piercing eyes.

  “Oh. Hey, Nik,” I said.

  10

  By the time the flames died down and Devan had pulled me to the side of the shed, Taylor and Nik had taken a survey of the grounds looking for the remaining Nizashi. Nik leaned into Taylor, occasionally resting his hand on her shoulder. His gaze went to the shed, as if curious what we would be after.

  “What are you thinking?” Devan asked.

  I stared straight ahead. My vision hadn’t quite cleared yet from the surge of light and fire coming over and over again. An edge of raw nerves ached inside me, as well, leaving me with the sense that I needed to shower or sleep or have a drink. None of which would make me feel any better. “Not thinking. Maybe that’s my problem.”

  “You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”

  I turned so that I could see her. “I thought the Nizashi was going to grab you. All I could think of was how I’d nearly lost you when Adazi took you.”

  Devan leaned against me, resting her head on my shoulder. “You really can be an idiot sometimes, you know that, Ollie?”

  “I know.”

  “What happens now?” she asked. There was more to the question than just the Nizashi.

  Silence built between us, but it was comfortable rather than awkward. Neither of us really wanted to answer. So we sat there, happy to be alive.

  Taylor and Nik reached us, and I looked up. Devan sighed softly. I don’t know if the others heard or not. “This one’s dead,” Nik said. He thumbed toward the body lying near where Taylor had made her circle. It hadn’t moved since the attack.

  “Yeah, I figured that.”

  “There’s one remaining, but he’ll be a tough sonofabitch to take down. He’s sort of the leader of this group.”

  “I had him,” I said. Had I known the guy I’d shoveled was the leader, I might have hit him a few more times.

  Nik arched a brow at me. “You out-magicked one of the Nizashi?”

  It told me plenty that Nik was surprised that I would manage to do so, but expected to be able to handle the Nizashi himself. “Nope. I out-shoveled.”

  Devan shook her head. “Idiot,” she muttered.

  Nik seemed to see Devan for the first time. “Hey, Devan. Haven’t seen you in nearly five years. Not since you threw me into prison.”

  I glanced over. I hadn’t heard that side of things. “Are we going to have a problem?” I whispered. I wasn’t in any position to get into a magical battle, not after what we’d just been through. Gods, I might need another week just to recover.

  “I didn’t throw him into prison,” Devan told me. Looking up at Nik, she gave him her best annoyed face, sneering at him. “And don’t go making shit up, Nik. You know I had nothing to do with what happened to you.”

  “You were there,” he said.

  “Yeah, and so were ten others. Did we all throw you into prison?”

  His face hardened, and I could see some of the man that he’d become in the five years since he’d crossed back over the Threshold. The man I saw before me looked nothing like the frightened painter I’d met, the man able to work with arcane patterns, but not with enough skill to make himself consistently useful to the Trelking. Whatever Nik had done—and whatever he had seen—had changed him. Maybe more than I had changed in that time. Of course, I didn’t really need to see his face to know that he’d changed. The fact that he made a run at the Nizashi without batting an eye let me know he was no longer a painter to fuck with.

  Had I been wrong? Had it not been the other painter who’d killed the first Nizashi?

  Then Nik’s face relaxed, like he’d flipped a switch, looking for all the world like the same man who had shown up at my house looking for Taylor.

  Nope. Not someone for us to fuck with.

  “No,” he said. “Only the Trelking.”

  Energy built for a moment. The medallion went cold, but Devan’s skin didn’t glow. Defensive power, then. I didn’t think Nik would do anything to Devan, but what did I really know about him anymore? He wasn’t the same guy as when we’d been friends. Seeing him like this made me think of what it would be like for my father when I saw him next. In the time since I last saw him—in the time since I was in Arcanus with him—I’d become at least a competent painter, and I was definitely skilled with arcane patterns.

  “Why are you here, Nik?” I asked. I managed to stand. My legs were shaky and weak, but I’d gotten used to that effect after slinging around too much magic. And I’d definitely used too much tonight. At least we were alive. Well, mostly. One more of the Nizashi was dead, now leaving only the guy I’d shoveled remaining. If Nik was right, he would be harder to take down, but hopefully, I’d brained him enough to give us time to regroup. We needed to do so before the Nizashi leader came at us again, or worse, returned to the other side to get reinforcements. If the Trelking learned that Devan was here, too, he might send more than a trio of Nizashi.

  I made my way to the shed and pulled the door closed, slipping the magical padlock back into place. With Nik here, I didn’t want to tempt him, or risk Taylor sneaking down into the shed to see what she could learn from the Elder.

  “Like I told you earlier, I came for Taylor.”

  I took a deep breath and shook my head. “No. Why are you here?”

  Nik’s eyes tightened for a moment. “Thought you could use some help,” he said.

  “So it’s got nothing to do with the Elder?”

  He shrugged. “You know I had to see those statues. If they were made by the Elder…” As he trailed off, he glanced back toward the shed again.

  “The Elder is an ass,” I said as Nik approached.

  He laughed and reached out to cl
asp my hand or to help hold me up. I didn’t know which, and Devan didn’t let me find out. She slipped my arm around her shoulders so that she could support me. I nudged her so that we turned away from Nik.

  “Where’s Jakes?” I whispered under my breath.

  “Why?”

  “You really think he left us completely alone? He didn’t want to get into it with your father—I think they had some sort of shifter truce to keep them safe—but as far as Jakes is concerned, there are now four dead people in his town. One of them in his yard. I’m not really interested in sticking around for a shifter battle.”

  “Might be cool to watch,” Devan said.

  “Besides, I’m getting a little uncomfortable with the fact that Nik shows up at the same time as the kid brings me that thing of my father’s,” I whispered. “Taylor called him a collector, and you know what’s down there.” I glanced quickly toward the shed. “There’s one other thing. How is Nik some sort of super painter?”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t make—”

  She didn’t get the chance to finish. There was a surge of power strong enough that I could feel it. Not painter power and not Nizashi, but different. That meant shifter power.

  Shit.

  “Um, maybe we need to get out of here,” I suggested to Devan.

  Nik noticed the change in power, as well. He made a quick circle, throwing down a series of inks, one of blue and green and black, the colors adding to each other and augmenting the pattern he created. It was more than a simple circle, I noticed. He added a different pattern along with it. Then he infused power into the circle, drawing it up around himself and Taylor.

  A lean, wolf-like shape slipped out of the shadows and prowled toward us. I didn’t need to have seen it shift to know it was one of the shifters. Not Jakes, though. He was larger than the wolf coming at us now. Maybe Kacey. She was on the smaller size. By that, I mean still terrifying. With shifters, regardless of the size of their shifted animal, the magical power behind them remained impressive.

  The wolf simply walked up to the circle around Nik and sniffed. Nik studied it without flinching. Taylor had her brush out, looking more like a storybook witch than ever. I would have laughed, but I’d seen how quickly she could paint with it. She really was something of a storybook witch.

  “What is this, Oliver?” Nik asked.

  The protection around him didn’t muffle his voice, only blocked out anything magical from attacking. So far, the shifter hadn’t attacked. I didn’t know how long that would last. Maybe the shifter had no intent of attacking. It hadn’t so much as glanced at me. That didn’t mean it wasn’t aware of me.

  “Well, you didn’t stick around long enough before for me to tell you that Conlin is sort of protected. My father had some friends here.”

  “This one of them?” he asked.

  “Don’t know. I’m not sure who it is.”

  There was a steady buildup of pressure, like a rapid drop in altitude pushing in on my ears. Power exploded from the shifter, smacking into Nik’s protection. Taylor jerked back. What did it say that Nik barely moved?

  His circle remained unharmed.

  He glared at the shifter. “It’ll take more than what you’ve got to drop me,” he said.

  “Uh, Nik, might want to be careful about taunting them,” I said.

  He flicked his eyes over to me. “Them?”

  I nodded into the yard. There, four more shifters prowled around the yard, staring at Nik. The largest one was clearly Jakes. In his shifted form, he looked massive, more like a horse in a wolf costume than any wolf I’d ever seen. There was another next to him, nearly as large.

  I only knew two shifters, Jakes and Kacey. There had been a third—Chase—but he’d died helping Adazi. That didn’t mean there weren’t other shifters in Conlin. I knew there were more, just not how many. The older Jakes and my father had created some sort of truce keeping them here. Or maybe the shifters had already been here and my father settled in Conlin knowing about them.

  “Hey, Jakes,” I said.

  With a flash of power, Jakes shifted back to his human form. He even managed to make it look like he wore jeans and a T-shirt. For that, I was thankful. Jakes strode through the yard and glanced at me.

  “Morris. You’ve made a mess of my father’s yard.”

  “You weren’t going to help.” That still stung. I thought Jakes was interested in helping me, but when it came down to it, he had refused to do anything that might disrupt the balance with the Trelking. Devan’s father was powerful, but he wasn’t even here. Crossing the Threshold would be more dangerous for him than any of the Te’alan.

  “Wasn’t I?” he asked.

  I cocked my head and studied him. Had I read it wrong? Or had Jakes just used me?

  “This wasn’t about the Nizashi,” I said.

  He nodded toward Nik. “I needed to know why they were here, and I think now I do. I wasn’t about to let them get to you.”

  “Really? Because it seems to me that they nearly killed us. Had Nik not shown up, I’m not sure we’d still be alive.”

  “Interesting that he did, don’t you think?” Jakes said.

  “That is…interesting,” I said. I didn’t want to tell Jakes that I had many of the same concerns.

  Jakes made a motion with his hand, and the other shifters all surrounded the circle where Nik stood with Taylor. Since showing himself, it was the first time I’d seen him rattled. For a moment, he looked like the same scared painter that I’d seen when I helped free him from prison. Then it passed.

  With a wave of his hand, the circle around him eased.

  He held his hands out, palms forward, and stepped away from the circle. “I know when I’m beat,” he said. “No need to attack me again. Christ, that last one had some power behind it. Good for you.” He reached toward one of the shifters as if he was going to pet it.

  “Don’t be stupid, Nik. They’ll either bite your hand off or drop you magically. Either way, you don’t want to piss off the shifters.”

  He ignored me. “Yeah, you’re a good puppy, aren’t you,” he said.

  One of the shifters snarled at him.

  “No need to be like that. I’ve got enough attention for all of you.”

  “Jesus, Nik,” Taylor said. “These are shifters you’re messing with.”

  Nik took another step, this time leaning forward. “You. You’re a good one, too, aren’t you?”

  As he said it, I expected the shifter to snap at him. The power from the shifter certainly started to build as if it might. Then something different happened.

  Nik whistled. A plume of red ink came from his mouth, circling in a tight spiral, making it look like someone blowing a smoke ring, only with more skill than anything I’d ever seen. With a flash of light and power, the spiral exploded.

  The shifter howled.

  There came another explosion and then another. With each, I realized what Nik had been doing when he leaned forward to speak to the shifters. He’d been blowing out patterns like the first one.

  Following the explosions, the shifters jumped back. One of them didn’t move. Had he been so stupid as to try to kill one of the shifters? There came another explosion, this one with a pattern that created a brilliant white light and seared away my night vision. I wondered what it would do to the shifters.

  I didn’t have to wonder for long. The shifters howled and raced toward the center of the yard.

  “Don’t do this, Nik!” I shouted.

  Jakes looked over at me. “I thought you said he was a weak painter.”

  “Yeah. I thought so, too.”

  Nik had changed. The skill required to make a pattern with his mouth was incredible. Had he made even a minor mistake, he could have blasted himself backward just as easily as he had sent the explosion at the shifters.

  Devan grabbed my arm and squeezed. “He’s gone.”

  Jakes shifted so that he could listen. He kept his nose tilted to the air and sniffed. A low howl came fro
m the night.

  “Gone? As in dead?”

  She shook her head. “Not dead. Nik got away.”

  Jakes shifted into his wolf form in the space of a heartbeat and darted into the darkness. My night vision gradually began to return, but all I saw were the outlines of shapes and shadows. I leaned on Devan, knowing that her eyesight was better and would likely recover faster.

  A shape made its way toward us. It took me a moment to realize that it was Taylor.

  “What was that?” I asked as she approached.

  “I don’t know.”

  “He attacked the shifters. He might think he can handle the Nizashi, but an entire pack of shifters is something else entirely.” My strength was coming back to me. I wouldn’t have enough to face off against one of the Nizashi, but at least I wasn’t helpless.

  “I’m not sure Nik knew what he was doing. He can be a little arrogant.”

  “Arrogant? That’s more along the lines of what I’d consider destructive behavior. You don’t go attacking shifters when you’ve got assassins after you.”

  “He’s changed,” Devan said.

  “You think? He had potential before, but where’d he learn such skill? Tell me, Taylor, what did Nik learn that’s gotten him to where he can kill off the Nizashi and withstand an attack by a shifter?”

  11

  We sat at the Rooster. I didn’t know anywhere else to go, not with Taylor. I wished she didn’t know the secret to reaching my father’s basement. There might not be anything there that I felt strongly about, but having her know the access left me feeling unsettled. And worse, there might not be a damn thing I could do about it. Taylor’s skill was as much above mine as Nik’s appeared above hers. Devan might have something she could do, but even that wasn’t certain.

  No matter how much I thought I knew, I kept getting reminders that I’m dumber magically than I thought. One of these days, I might actually get it.

  Lights shone brightly around us. Tom worked in the back of the kitchen, frying up some eggs for Devan and heating the meatloaf for me. Taylor claimed she wasn’t hungry. We sat at one of the tables in the middle of the room. Not a booth—I didn’t want the confines of the booth to hold me in place—and the counter wouldn’t let me watch her. The blue in her hair seemed especially bright today.