Shadow Magic (Darkling Mage, Book 1) by Nazri Noor

Release date: June 6, 2018

Subgenre: Urban Fantasy

About Shadow Magic:

 

The gods are dying. But for one man, death is only the beginning. 

Murdered as a ritual sacrifice, amateur thief and professional charmer Dustin Graves mysteriously survives, finding himself gifted with strange, dark magic. Then more dead bodies turn up. Some are human, but one is a god of the old world, slain at his own doorstep.

Mortal or divine, the bloodshed must end, and Dust is the mage for the job. But first he must contend with a succubus, a talking sword, a spider queen, a goddess of magic, and eldritch abominations from beyond the stars. No big deal... right?
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If you like snarky heroes, snappy dialogue, and a bit of grit and gore, you'll love the first standalone book in Nazri Noor's series of urban fantasy novels. Explore the Darkling Mage universe and discover a taste of Shadow Magic today.

Excerpt:

 

The moon was my witness and accomplice as it cast shadows over the stuccoed walls of the hillside mansion. Long, deep shadows, perfect for hiding, for stepping into. I liked the darkness. It made my job easier: slip in, steal a witch’s book of spells, and slip back out. No sweat. I breathed in the sweet night air up in the hills, the city of Valero’s lights twinkling like stars in the valley below. It was a beautiful night for thieving.

You read that right. I definitely said book of spells. Or a grimoire, as we called them at the office. I should have clarified. My name is Dustin Graves, and I steal stuff for a living. Dust for short. Not the most flattering nickname, maybe, but it kind of says everything about what I can do. Which, I’ve been told, is nothing short of magic. Okay, real talk: it is magic. But we’ll get to that.

The things I needed to steal? Arcane curiosities, mostly. Magical items, occult trinkets, sometimes, even ancient, powerful artifacts. Every assignment was different, depending on what the higher-ups at the Lorica asked me to fetch for them. Sometimes it was a piece of ensorcelled jewelry, one time, a gun modified to capture poltergeists. As a job, it was stimulating, challenging, and often totally dangerous. In short, I loved it.

See, there was a certain thrill to being a professional thief, this acknowledgement that I was being naughty and breaking rules on purpose. In fact, breaking into people’s houses was a large part of my occupation. I should have been nervous that evening, by rights, but I’d done it enough times to know how it would all go down. Just another day on the job.

But I wasn’t a criminal, oh no. Far from it. Sometimes people needed to be relieved of the dangerous relics they kept around the house. Sometimes people didn’t realize that their fancy new earthenware pot was a shaman’s soul jar, sealed and filled to the brim with the enraged spirits of their enemies.

I sifted around in my jacket’s pocket, looking for the most important tool in my admittedly limited repertoire. It was only a little glass bottle, by all appearances, but it was inarguably my favorite of the gadgets that the Lorica provided for field work. I pulled out the stopper and held it up as close to the wall as I could without triggering the security system’s sensors.

I loved this part. It was fascinating to listen for the faint crackle and the low hum as the phial began to fill with tiny bluish-white sparks that swirled, surged, then coalesced into miniature bolts of lightning. A storm in a bottle, so close you could taste the ozone and the electricity, all the power in the compound sucked neatly into this crystalline baby. And yes, that included the backup batteries for every camera, sensor, even the security system’s main panel.

Folks back at the Lorica were always warning me about how it was important to handle the phial with extreme care, because of how it stored a lethal dose of electricity in such a fragile space. It was never a problem for me, though. The crystal was pretty sturdy, and it wasn’t like I was ever dumb enough to hold it by the rim. There are lots of other less painful ways to die.

 

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About Nazri Noor:

Nazri Noor is a California-based author of Filipino and Malaysian descent. While capable of fluently cursing in three languages, he only writes in English, and has been doing so in a professional capacity for over 18 years. His urban fantasy novels feature wise-cracking heroes who save the world with wits, style, and magic: think sass and class, while kicking ass. Visit www.NazriNoor.com for a FREE copy of Penumbra, the prequel to the Darkling Mage series, available exclusively to subscribers.

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