Free armor of magic 02 - rising light by Simone Pond Page B

this mess was cleaned up. In fact, I’d make Ezra take me to him as payment for retrieving the Scroll.
    I sat back on the couch and took a sip of Rocco’s scotch; the burn coursed down my throat to my stomach. “You’re not gonna like it, but I’ll be straight with you guys. Just promise me you won’t get pissed.”
    Julian shrugged; he didn’t have an angry bone in his body. But Rocco scrunched his face and cocked his head. “I ain’t makin’ no promises.”
    “Okay, whatever. The Scroll is on Diamond; he never goes anywhere without it.” So far, they both looked calm, so I continued. “We capture Diamond, nab the Scroll and bring him to a place called The Graveyard for a trade.”
    “A trade for what?” Rocco grabbed a glazed donut and devoured it in two bites.
    “We hand him over to a hybrid vampire named Cosby.”
    “Dude, I was with you until the part about the hybrid,” Julian said.
    Rocco glared at me. “If we get the Scroll, why do we need to make a trade? Why don’t we just waste Diamond and be done with it? Who’s this Cosby character?”
    “I need him to break the spell Diamond cast over Charlotte.”
    Rocco folded his arms across his chest, his leather jacket bunching up around his huge biceps. “You’re serious?”
    I nodded.
    “This is about that girl?” He drank back the rest of his scotch.
    “She’s not just a girl. She’s my best friend and the only family I have left at the moment. She’s innocent and a healer. We need more Charlottes in this world.” I bit down on my lip to keep from getting too emotional.
    “So, we nix our plan to use the story as leverage?” Rocco asked.
    “The more I thought about it, the more I realized Diamond will never give us the Scroll. I don’t care how vain he is. If he has the Scroll, he thinks he can do anything, including fixing his reputation. He’s probably making a plan to destroy us tomorrow morning. Look, I don’t want to work with the hybrid either, but this is the only way to get Charlotte back safely.”
    Rocco leaned against the couch, rubbing his temples. “And how do you propose we capture Diamond? With a friggin’ net?”
    “Silver.”
    Rocco let out a howl of laughter, slapping Julian’s shoulder. “You hear that, kid? Silver.”
    Julian polished off his bear claw, licking his fingers. “Dude, we’re gonna need a lot of silver.”
    “I know just the place,” I said.
    When I was heading back to The Plaza from the club, I had searched the darknet for methods on using silver to capture a vampire without killing it. I found a “reputable” site with specific instructions and locations on where to score a bunch of silver.
    “We have about four hours to make this happen, so enough with the donuts and let’s go.”

fifteen
    We took a cab to Chinatown. Though it was a little after 2 a.m., the streets were packed with people walking along about their business or filing into the open-all-night restaurants. The streets were lined with one place to eat after another; their neon signs stretched for blocks. Many of the streets were decorated with strings of lanterns dangling overhead. It made San Francisco’s Chinatown seem tame, which it isn’t.
    The three of us walked down Broadway and took a street that led to Cortlandt Alley—a dark and foreboding walkway that had probably seen its fair share of seedy shit. We crept through the alley wedged between red-brick buildings that were covered in graffiti. The overflowing trash cans added to the overall unpleasantness. And though we wore our Armor, I felt anxious strolling through the murky underbelly of Chinatown after hours.
    “This place looks familiar,” Julian whispered, seeming a little freaked out.
    “They’ve shot a lot of Hollywood type shit here,” Rocco said.
    “Dude! Yes! They totally shot a video for Vampire Weekend in this alley.” Julian’s mood went from apprehension to excitement in two seconds flat, but I was still nervous.
    I tried to be cool about the