Free Rojan Dizon 02 - Before the Fall by Francis Knight

hundred a day dying, a thousand a day, and it was heading in that direction. More if the Storad and Mishans made good on their threat. Yet one more murder and perhaps it wouldn’t matter, because there’d be no city left.
    What we really needed was more mages. Lots more mages. Then, with more power about, I could concentrate on finding the killer.
    It was up to me, and I hate it when it’s up to me. “Until Dench brings us what he’s got, I can’t do a damned thing about finding the killer. When he brings me that, I’ll start. Until then, the power is the thing.”
    I fumbled around in my pocket for the name that Lastri had given me, possibly another mage. Possibly. I had a name to go on, so maybe I could just go to the records hall and…I wasn’t kidding anyone but myself. A record search would take days and we didn’t have days.
    Lastri hadn’t only left a name, but something else, too. A lock of hair. The note said he’d gone missing a couple of days before after some sort of incident. Not unusual when the magic grips you the first time, often by accident. Sometime about puberty, you get a knock, or hurt in some way, and it kind of leaks out, raw and untamed. Often scaring the crap out of the proto-mage and anyone or anything nearby, such as Ma’s saucepans.
    He was a Downside boy, so his feelings regarding mages would be complicated at best. Like Allit, he’d probably deny that he had any magic, anything to distance himself from what had gone on in the ’Pit. He’d run away and finding runaways, that was my speciality.
    “I can stay, do another session,” Pasha was saying. I hated it when he was so, so, so damn fucking nice . Not to mention good and noble. It seemed to come naturally to him. Bastard.
    I glanced up, and caught the grey tinge around his eyes, the slight tremor in his hand.
    “No, it’s all right. Get some rest, come back then. I’ll see what Dench has got for us.”
    Before they left, Jake crouched in front of where I sat. She’d always had a phobia about touching—hardly surprising when you consider—but she brushed my hand with hers, a tentative thing, and I felt oddly blessed, almost as though the Goddess was trying to tell me something. Which only goes to show how knackered and fucked up in the head I was feeling.
    “You get some rest, too.”
    “Yeah, sure.” I couldn’t trust myself to say anything else, in case everything spilled out.
    When they’d gone, I sagged back into the chair and looked at the Glow contraption. Darkness lurked in the corners of my vision, waiting for me. I told it to sod off.
    Mages, power, that was what I could do right now. Until I’d spoken to Dench, or I managed to get hold of a prop to help me find whatever weirdo was killing all these Downsiders.
    I was fully aware that all this was an excuse. To find the boy Dendal thought might be an emerging mage I had to use magic. Well, I didn’t have to but that would take minutes rather than days we didn’t have. Funny, isn’t it? That I was so scared to use my magic once upon a time, because I was scared of the black.
    I was right to be, but in those dark days I had no choice, not really. I could have not done it, I suppose, but the thought of Jake looking at me afterwards was almost as much of a spur as the thought of how pissed Dendal would be. He’d start banging on about not living up to my potential, disappointing the Goddess and so on and so forth. That was enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies.
    So I lay back in the chair and put my hand on the contraption. I shouldn’t, I knew that. I’d done my stint for the day, enough, more than enough, more than I could handle. Any more was a risk, a big one. So was not doing it. That’s what I told myself, but I knew that for the lie it was. Fuck, I wished I was the man I’d been, who could shrug off guilt and responsibility, who could pretend he was a cynic, make people believe it, too.
    I held the lock of hair in my good hand and squeezed the