Book excerpt: A CONJURED KILLER IS LOOSE… Life on the streets of 21st-century Seattle can be tough, especially for a young ork like Pita. And it gets a lot tougher when she witnesses a corporate mage murdered by the violent spirit he just conjured from another dimension. Now she's in a heap of trouble with the dead mage's employer, an organization with something to hide. Fortunately, KKRU reporter Carla Harris is in a position to help. Carla needs a big story to give her career some juice, and Pita's predicament might be the ticket. Because Pita's pursuer—MCT, the megacorp computer firm—has hired the heavy hand of the Yakuza crime organization as muscle, things heat up pretty fast. Moreover, the entity that MCT’s mage foolishly summoned is very, very old, and unlike any power on earth. It has infiltrated the telecommunications matrix with devilish cunning—and unless Pita can thwart it with her newly acquired magical powers, Seattle’s—and the entire Sixth World’s—throat will be wide open for the cutting...