Free The Stone Warriors: Damian by D. B. Reynolds

only fourteen years old at the time, and still very much under his father’s rule, despite the burgeoning power of his sorcery. Two years later, he’d disavowed his father and established his own authority, but by then, the Talisman had become less than even a faint memory.
    But now it had turned up again, unearthed by chance in the Caucasus Mountains. Nick doubted it was happenstance that had made that rediscovery possible. Certain magical devices were created to be easily found, and he suspected this one qualified. He still didn’t know what the artifact’s original purpose had been. Back then, he’d detected an odd energy about the piece, but it hadn’t troubled him enough to pursue it any further. In today’s world, however, with its dependence on electronics for almost everything, that same odd energy had the potential to do incredible harm. So much so that he’d considered sending another operative along with Casey to be certain of the recovery.
    In the final analysis, however, he’d discarded that idea, believing it would only call more attention to the Talisman, perhaps the very attention he was trying to avoid. And, alone of his hunters, Casey had the best chance of figuring out how the thing worked. Her talent was one in ten thousand, maybe even rarer than that. He didn’t have cause to admit it very often, but her skill exceeded even his when it came to seeing magical devices not so much for what they did as for how they did it. And, in the final analysis, understanding that was the key to destroying just about anything on this earth.
    Frowning, he played her lone voicemail.
    “Nick, we need to talk,” she said. Her voice was so soft that she was practically whispering, and it sounded like she had a shower running in the background. That was the sort of thing a person did to conceal the fact that she was on the phone, so no one would overhear. What the hell? Who was she hiding from? “The Talisman,” she said, then paused, as if listening to something. “I had it,” she continued, speaking even more quietly. “They took it back, but I’m on it. I know where it’s going, and I’ll get it back if I have to kill every one of those bastards to do it.”
    His frown deepened. Some of his hunters were former military, accustomed to shooting their way out of a situation. But Casey wasn’t one of them. Something must have happened to have her reacting this way. “That’s not why we have to talk, but I don’t want to say too much in a message like this. You never know who’s listening, right? Nick . . . remember the prime directive? The statues? Well, I think I might have one. So, call me, okay? It’s important.”
    Nick froze, staring down at his phone. Casey had located one of the statues? It was suddenly hard to breathe. Calm down , he warned himself. She could be mistaken. She’d used the word “might.” He hit return on Casey’s message and listened to her phone ring . . . and ring. No answer. His gut tightened in apprehension as he imagined all the reasons why that might happen. Stop it . She could be in the fucking shower. Right. The shower where she’d been hiding earlier. Or she could be sleeping. She was running the op alone, at least as far as he knew, and she could have turned off her phone to rest, if she was in a secure place . . . or to stop it from ringing if she wasn’t. He checked his watch. Two a.m., and he and Casey were in the same time zone. He revised his earlier assessment. She was almost certainly asleep, which meant there was nothing he could do until she woke up and called him back.
    Her phone rang a final time, and his call switched over to voicemail. “It’s me, Casey,” he said. “Call when you get this. I don’t care what time it is.”
    SOMEWHERE IN the Midwest
    Casey woke slowly, consciousness returning in tiny increments of increasing pain. First was the headache, which puzzled her at first, until she remembered the vodka. She groaned softly.