Painter for Hire Read online

  Painter for Hire

  D.K. Holmberg

  ASH Publishing

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Stolen Compass: Sneak Peak

  About the Author

  Also by D.K. Holmberg

  Copyright © 2015 by D.K. Holmberg

  Cover by Damonza

  Editing by Shelley Holloway

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  If you want to be notified when D.K. Holmberg’s next novel is released and get free stories and occasional other goodies, please sign up for his mailing list by going here . Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.

  www.dkholmberg.com

  1

  Music thumped out of the old-fashioned jukebox set along the wall of the diner, stuffed between two empty booths that let the music echo off it. The mix of new hip-hop didn’t fit the neon lights that swirled around the outside of the machine, or the rest of the diner. The Rooster had a row of booths along the front bank of windows, salt and pepper shakers at each table, tucked neatly against the wall, arranged between plastic bottles of ketchup and mustard. A long counter ran across the back of the diner, and vinyl-covered stools were pushed under the ledge. The diner could have fit right into the sixties; most of the decorations looked like they came from that era.

  Devan tapped something on the front of the jukebox, and the song changed, slipping to an older Michael Jackson song. At least I knew this one. She stomped her feet a few times as she flashed me a smile and arched her eyebrows at me.

  “Is that some sort of message to me?” I asked her when she came back to the counter to the sounds of “Beat It.” I worked the fry I was eating through a dollop of ketchup, smearing it into a pattern along the plate. Habit, I guess. As a painter, able to use colors and patterns to focus power, I was always making different patterns like that. Ketchup might not make a great ink, but the color worked for me. I didn’t bother trying to infuse power into the ketchup. I didn’t want to create any more of a scene than Devan’s dancing already was.

  She flopped onto her stool, slid back on the vinyl and reached for the massive burger on the chipped plate in front of her. Were she any other woman, I might question whether she could finish the burger. Devan is petite. I mean, seriously tiny. She stands maybe five feet tall and can’t weigh any more than one hundred pounds fully dressed—and that includes the hiking boots she preferred and even her pockets full of her favorite metallic figurines. Devan is one of the Te’alan, what most people would call elves or fairies. She even wears her black hair pulled around in a pixie sort of look that frames her oval face.

  “Typical, Ollie. You think everything is about you,” she mumbled as she took a big bite out of the burger. She wiped her arm across her chin as she chewed.

  “Nice look. I know that’s not for me, though your boyfriend might actually be turned on seeing you eat like that.”

  She spun and looked around the diner, but Jakes wasn’t here. No one was, really. It was early in the day, but usually, the Rooster had a couple of people sitting in booths or along the counter. Now that I knew what kind of place it was, I felt even more compelled to swing by than I ever had before. It helped that the owner, a tagger by the name of Tom Brindle, used the Rooster as some sort of magical diner. I still didn’t really know what that meant for Conlin, only that the town I’d grown up in—the town I thought I knew when I still lived here—was much different from anything I had ever suspected.

  “And I don’t always think everything is about me,” I said. “It’s just, you know, that it usually is.”

  Devan shook her head as she took another bite. A little dribble of juice squirted out the front of the burger and dripped onto her plate. Ketchup plopped next to it. “You’re an idiot.”

  I tossed the fry into my mouth. “You should take a look at yourself sometime.”

  She grinned at me, somehow stuffing another bite in before the last was swallowed. “So you’re really planning on taking her back there?”

  “I told her I would. We got delayed the last time we tried to go, but I need to get her away from all the temptation around here.”

  “And the delay was my fault?”

  I arched a brow at her. “Yeah. I mean, who lets herself get taken by a deranged painter determined to drag her across the Threshold to marry the Druist Mage?”

  “Not my fault he was a shifter. You know I can’t sense that kind of power.”

  “Now you’re blaming your boyfriend?”

  She finished the burger—I have to admit the speed at which she ate was impressive—and slapped her hands down on the counter. She might be small, but she’s strong. The counter rattled, and Kacey, a mousy-looking woman working at the end of the counter, glanced over at her and smiled. Kacey was a shifter, just like Jakes. I still wasn’t sure if they were related or just part of the same pack.

  “He’s not my boyfriend.” Her face flushed as she dragged her arm across her chin, smearing a trail of juice as she did.

  “Not yet, but you keep making those sexy faces at him, and he might be.” I grabbed a napkin and wiped her face clean. She glared at me as I did but didn’t pull away. “I didn’t want him to see that and be tempted to lick it off. Besides, he might end up biting your face off. That would end up really pissing off your father.”

  This time, she punched me on the shoulder and I winced. As I said, she’s strong.

  “So what’s she up to today?” Devan asked.

  I smirked at how she changed the subject away from Jakes. “Not really sure. She said she wanted to wander Conlin. Thought she’d check it out.”

  “Nobody wants to do that. Conlin is meant to be boring,” Devan said. “That’s one of the charms, if you ask me.”

  “I know. Gives me a chance to catch up on movies.”

  Devan shook her head. “You’ve been watching far too many since we’ve returned. Isn’t doing that supposed to melt your brain or something?”

  “Just because you don’t enjoy them—”

  “Maybe if you’d watch something entertaining. The crap you watch is pretty bad.”

  I shrugged. “I watch whatever’s on.”

  “And whatever is on is usually terrible.” She took a sip of her water and asked, “You think Taylor’s still looking for something of your father’s?”

  I swiveled and looked toward the front door of the diner, trying to ignore the song and the way the music danced along. Devan hadn’t really cared for Taylor since she first appeared, but I thought it had more to do with the fact that I nearly died because of her. Maybe there was another reason. With Devan, it wasn’t always easy to know. “Besides the book she tried stealing and the magical prison we found in a shifter’s back yard? What else might there be?”

  “I don’t know. Your father is the Elder.”

  The Elder. An artist of such skill that he knew more magical secrets than anyone in Arcanus, the place where painters went to learn what it meant to have the abilities we did. He was a master, more skilled than any of the other masters, and thought dead for nearly a decade. I might be the only one who doesn’t believe h
e is dead. It didn’t change the fact that I still had no idea where he’d gone.

  “Yeah, well you’ve seen how much he shared with me. Had he been a little more open, we might not have nearly lost you to Adazi.”

  Devan turned her attention to her fries, poking them into her mouth four and five at a time. “It wasn’t Adazi that scared me,” she said between bites.

  I grunted. “I never thought it was.”

  Devan’s father is something of a magical rock star, too. Over the Threshold, he’s known as the Trelking. He rules with power that painters can’t even fathom, but there’s another with strength that rivals him: the Druist Mage. The Trelking had committed Devan to marry the Druist Mage, a way to bring peace so the Trelking could focus on other conquests. At least, that’s what I thought. With the Trelking, you never really knew. He had foresight, a prescient ability that many of the Te’alan possessed, but him most strongly. Devan and I hadn’t worked out what he might have seen, or the reason behind why he would have promised her to the Druist.

  Devan managed to finish chewing long enough to turn and face me, her face suddenly serious. She leaned on her forearms resting on the counter. “Whatever she’s doing is probably what I sensed, then.”

  “What did you pick up?”

  She shrugged. “Not sure. Powerful, whatever it was. I’m not used to picking up on that much power on this side.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You know I don’t mean you.”

  “Yeah, I kinda got that.”

  Devan grinned at me. “You know I’m coming with you. You’re not going to leave me behind in Conlin when you take Taylor back to Arcanus.”

  “I never said you weren’t.”

  The serious expression faded, replaced with an expression that dripped with annoyance. “Come on, Ollie. I know you. You think that after what happened, I shouldn’t go. I know you agreed to keep me safe, but I agreed to help you, too. As soon as we get separated, bad things start to happen.”

  “We’ve survived a few bad things already, but if something happens and you’re dragged back across the Threshold, that’s a whole new type of badness. I know that going to Arcanus isn’t going to be too dangerous, but what if we have to go through one of the doors? What if that’s the only way to reach Hard?” That was the reason Taylor had come to me. She needed my help finding her father, one of the Arcanus masters and the one who’d made certain I left. “We do that and get too close to the Threshold, and your father will learn that you’re there.”

  “He already knows I’m here and hasn’t sent anyone.”

  “Yet.”

  “When he does, don’t you think it’s better if I’m with you?” Devan asked.

  I shrugged and pushed my plate away from me. “It’s never been about me.”

  “It’s always about you, Ollie.” She popped the remaining fries into her mouth and smiled, showing me the half-chewed food. “So. When are we going?”

  “A few days. I need a little more time to make preparations. I was hoping you could make a few different charms.” I fished a piece of paper out of my pocket and slid it across the counter. I’d spent a good two hours sketching them.

  Devan flipped open the paper and glanced at it. “Yeah, I think I can make these. What are you hoping they’ll do?”

  “Maybe a little more boom than pop?”

  Devan laughed softly. “I’m not really supposed to be doing things like that.”

  “Right. That’s stopped you before.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s easy to do.” She stuffed the paper into the pocket of her jeans. “I’ll see what I can come up with. No promises, though.”

  “Just need time, Devan. And if we get the time we need, we should be pretty well prepared before any of your father’s guys come after us.” I touched my belt, checking the satchels of ink attached to it. I always kept some with me, but since Adazi had attacked, I’ve been keeping even more than before. I’ve been forcing myself to draw more magic, too. Working patterns and magic is sort of like exercising and lifting weights; I’d let myself get a little flabby, and it was time to get buff.

  “They’re not all his guys, Ollie.”

  “Yeah. Not all his guys.” I watched Kacey as she stepped back into the kitchen. I hadn’t seen Tom since we sat down for lunch, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t back there. I still needed to ask him some questions about my father. There weren’t many in Conlin who knew him. I missed my chance with Jakes’s father, and I didn’t want to miss the chance with Tom. Hell, considering the fact that the diner was this sort of magical place, I couldn’t guarantee Tom would be around much longer, either. In the time I’d been back in Conlin, there had already been two life-threatening events. “Besides, before we go, I thought I’d see what else Jakes is hiding on his father’s lot. What else might my father have left there?”

  Devan smacked my arm and I faced her. “That’s a terrible idea if you ask me. Any time we’ve dug into anything dealing with the Elder, we’ve ended up regretting it.”

  “You’ve gone with me to check it out.” Since rescuing her from Adazi, Devan and I had gone a few times, but I made a point of keeping Taylor in the dark about what was down there.

  “And I don’t know that there’s anything there other than what we know. There’s a dark energy around that shed, Ollie. Useful for what the Elder stores there, and I think he was wise to keep it buried like that, but I don’t think we should be messing around with what he left there.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m still trying to figure out why he left things for me. I mean, think about that book—”

  “That Taylor tried to steal.”

  “Without it, we’d never have known what the statues in the park do. And then there’s the key—”

  “That Adazi wanted you to use.”

  “—that helped me learn what my father stored in Conlin. What else will we find?”

  Devan stared at me like I was stupid. It was a pretty common expression from her. “What else? You mean, the nightmare hell creatures weren’t enough? Or having Adazi cross the Threshold and try to save something that your father feared enough to shrink down into a little statue with power that I can’t even fully fathom? Maybe we can see who else might die. The first time was nearly you and the last time was me!”

  Kacey made her way down the counter and grabbed our plates. She smiled as she looked from Devan to me. “Maybe you two want to keep it down?” she suggested. Her eyes flickered to a booth along the front of the diner.

  I followed the direction of her gaze. A younger couple sat staring down at the table. The man had a plain face and a piercing above his eyebrow that, from where I sat, looked like a lightning bolt. Short brown hair stuck out everywhere and was dyed various shades of black. He wore a leather biker’s jacket but didn’t seem comfortable in it, as if he knew he wasn’t cool enough to pull it off. The girl with him was thin and tiny, sort of like Devan, but taller. She stared out the window, nothing but the back of her bright red hair visible. She had on a shirt that was so loose she practically swam in it. She was older, maybe five years older than the young man, still making her younger than I am.

  “Not locals?” I asked, turning back to Kacey. Locals might be magical, but they might not. It wasn’t like the Rooster couldn’t be a regular diner, just that its clientele tended to be a bit different from that of the average restaurant.

  Kacey’s mouth tightened into a thin line, and she shook her head, then made her way around the end of the counter, wiping a damp cloth along the way as she did, before rounding the bar and heading toward the couple. The girl jumped when Kacey approached. The guy continued to stare at his hands.

  The door to the diner opened, and a wall of a man entered. He was dressed in his sheriff’s uniform and had on the same aviator shades I always saw him wearing. Jakes peeled the glasses off his face and stuffed them into his breast pocket. Now that I knew Jakes was a shifter, I wondered if the glasses hid something. Not that he’d ever tell me. He saw Deva
n and me, and he tipped his head to us before turning to the booth where Kacey stood, notepad in hand, tapping a pencil while she waited for them to order.

  “That’s strange,” I said.

  Devan shot me a look. “If you’re going to make some joke about him not coming over to me or about him being ten minutes too late to see me eating the burger, I’m not going to listen.”

  I swiveled in the stool and faced her, keeping the couple just at the corner of my eye. Jakes spoke in hushed tones to them, and I couldn’t make out what they said. I considered making a focusing pattern—now that Kacey had cleared the plate, I could smear the ketchup on the counter in the necessary spiral—but that would be too much work. Besides, I had the feeling that if Jakes knew I was trying to listen, he might shut me down. Shifter power almost always trumps painter magic.

  “Don’t need to.” I smiled. “You’re making all the jokes for me. Anyway, that wasn’t what I was going to say. Now who thinks everything is about them?” I arched my back slightly, moving enough on my stool so I could better see what Jakes was doing, but the big shifter had positioned himself in such a way that I couldn’t see anything. Almost as if he knew what I was trying to do.

  Devan stuffed her hand into her pocket and pulled out one of the figurines she liked to carve and set it on the counter. This one looked something like a gargoyle. It had a long snout and pointy ears. Long fangs jutted down over its lower lip, and curved slightly out. There seemed to be a smile on its face. She patted it on the top of its head. I swear she whispered something, but I couldn’t hear it.

  “What I was going to say was that it’s strange that Jakes showed up right as they got here. Almost like he was waiting for them.”

  Devan pulled her eyes from the figurine and glared at me. “He’s the sheriff, Ollie. Not everything has to be some magical mystery. Conlin has, what, ten, maybe fifteen thousand people? Not all of them are magical.”

  Maybe not, but since Taylor arrived, all I’d been dealing with was one strange magical nightmare after another. And here I’d come back to Conlin wanting a little bit of peace. Instead, I was working harder—and in nearly as much danger—as I had been while working, albeit unwillingly, for the Trelking. The only consolation I had was that I’d learned a bit more about my father. When I finally saw him again would he be pleased or annoyed?