The Corvin Chance Chronicles Complete Box Set

by N. P. Martin

  Soon I felt a power running through me, a power that seemed to draw the Dark One inexorably toward me, whether it wanted to come or not. In fact, the dark spirit halted on the stairs as it obviously felt something was wrong, and its response was to growl in frustration and annoyance. "What sorcery is this now?"

  Emboldened by the fact that the spell seemed to be having an effect, I stood with both hands out now as I faced down the Dark One, the symbol on my chest now illuminated with a burning energy, bringing with it searing pain; a pain that I channeled into the spell, my voice rising in pitch as I spat out the rest of the words. "Voluntatem tuam adversus spiritum, ut altum captionem et in carcere corpus meum!"

  "NO!" the Dark One roared as the spell’s effect on it increased. I could see it was trying to resist the magical forces pulling on it, but it didn’t look to be winning, as parts of its body were suddenly torn off, the energy of which got sucked into my chest, causing me to stagger back a few steps as more and more of that dark, evil energy got drawn to the now flaming symbol on my flesh. With sweat running down my face and both hands still out like I as trying to pull a skyscraper toward myself, I expended one last bout of effort as I shouted out the final words of the spell. "Tenebris spiritu iam meus es tu!"

  Upon completion of the spell, what remained of the Dark One stretched toward me all at once, as though it were about to be sucked into a giant hoover. The spirit’s final word before all of it got pulled inside me was simply a fearful, "NOOoooo…"

  And then it was gone.

  I dropped immediately to my knees after I had completed the spell and successfully trapped the Dark One inside myself. In the gloomy atmosphere of the house, I was surrounded now by nothing but heavy silence, punctuated only by the sound of my heavy breathing. "Jesus Christ…" I said feeling my chest, my hand coming away slick with blood. "I fucking did it…I fucking did it!"

  Against all of my expectations, the spell had worked. The only problem I had now was what to do with the raging dark spirit now trapped inside of me. I felt bloated with its darkness, my insides feeling like they were being continually punched, as if the Dark One was fighting to get out, which according to Davey’s spell book, it couldn’t do, not without me releasing it first. Of course, the spell book didn’t say anything about the kind of damage such a dark spirit would do while it was trapped inside a Touched body. At this point, it felt like the bastard was trying to kill me from the inside, but I had no choice but to hold it until I figured out what to with it.

  As I stood up and zipped up my jacket as if to hold the spirit in, I decided I would worry later about what I was going to do with the Dark One. Somewhere in the corner of my mind, an idea was forming on that score anyway, but I was so tanked up on adrenaline right now, I couldn’t even think about it. All I wanted to do now was leave that cursed house and get back to the gateway before it closed and I got trapped there for longer than necessary. That’s assuming of course that the gateway was still open. When I checked my watch, I saw that the timer was down to two minutes and fourteen-seconds. Sighing, I shook my head. "You have to be fucking kidding," I said, beginning to panic before I realized that I could simply open a portal that should bring me right to the gateway without having to do all that walking. But still, what was up with the time in this place? I should’ve had much more time than that left. Whatever, I thought, now done with trying to figure out the intricacies of the Shadow. I only needed a minute anyway.

  I made sure I picked up the Druidic Dagger, putting it back in my jacket before opening up a portal on the landing, which I then wasted no time stepping into, having first focused on where I wanted to go. Which, by the way, wasn’t all that easy with a raging Dark One inside me.

  As I stepped through the portal, I sent a thought to the bastard:

  You lose, Carl Miller.

  I doubted it got the reference, but that just made it all the sweeter.

  Chapter 19

  I came through the portal with barely a minute a spur, but unfortunately my calculations were slightly off, and I came through in the field with the Druid circle, but at least a couple of hundred yards from the gateway. After cursing my luck, I considered opening another portal to try and get closer to the gateway, but after a few seconds, I just said fuck it.

  And started to run.

  The second I started my sprint, the Dark One inside me also started to increase its violent agitation, hammering and clawing at my insides in an effort to slow me down, knowing full well that once I made it through the gateway into the Earth realm, that it would be done for. Trying to run when it feels like an alien is about to burst from your stomach isn’t easy, and a few times I was brought down to my knees in the grass, the pain so bad that I had no choice but to stop.

  "No!" I snarled. "You’re not stopping me from going through that gateway."

  After getting up for the last time and resuming my run— which was less of a sprint now and more a lurching gallop—I glanced at my watch to see that there was only ten-seconds left for me to reach the gateway. It was about twenty yards away now, shimmering in the twilight, the spirits of long-dead Druids fading in and out of focus around it.

  Then behind me I heard a loud roaring sound, and turned around to see none other than a massive black bull-like creature charging toward me, looking every inch the mean bastard that it probably was, with huge horns and steam flying out of its flaring nostrils. It was also moving at terrific speed. So fast, in fact, that it was right behind me within seconds. There was no time to do anything, so I just sprinted faster as I came up to the stone circle. Then, with the galloping bull right on my tail, I darted to the side and moved around the tall standing stone in front of me, and just as I did, the full weight of the bull slammed into the standing stone, knocking it over onto the ground. If it was me the bull had hit, my body would’ve been shattered to pieces.

  "Next time!" I shouted to the still raging bull as I all but dived through the gateway, leaving the Shadow and its strange darkness behind.

  Forever, I hoped.

  I came stumbling out of the gateway in the Earth realm and crash-landed onto the wet grass, remaining there for a few seconds as I struggled to get my breath back.

  "I told you he would make it!"

  I looked up to see Davey standing a few yards from me, a wide smile on his face, and I shook my head at him. "That…was…intense," I said in between breaths.

  "Corvin!" Dalia came rushing over to me as I got wearily to my feet, throwing her arms around me and hugging me tight. "I’m so glad you made it."

  "So am I," I said, glad to see she had made it out okay as well. "How’s the wound?"

  She showed me her stomach, which had all but healed, with just a thin scar there now. "It’s better now. I’m fine."

  It took me a moment to spot Amelia. She was sitting with her back against one of the standing stones, hugging her knees to her chest. From the way she was looking—all distant and glassy-eyed—I couldn’t tell if she had even noticed me yet. Davey came over when he saw me looking. "She’s in a state of mild shock," he said quietly. "It might take her a while to recover, especially after what happened."

  "What do you mean, what happened?"

  "We came across her friend on the way out," Dalia said. "Simoa, is it?"

  "Amelia’s cousin." I had completely forgotten about Simoa. The night she jumped me, she had said she was going to get Amelia herself. "Did something happen to her in the Shadow?"

  Dalia dropped the volume of her voice to a near whisper. "We found her hanging from a tree outside the house," she said. "She had been…badly mutilated, and things were…feeding off her."

  Jesus Christ…

  Nodding, I let go of Dalia and walked over to Amelia, trying to hide the ongoing pain and discomfort in my face, which was caused by the Dark One still raging inside me. "Amelia?" I said as I hunkered down beside her and placed a hand on her knee.

  She blinked a couple of times as if awakening from a deep reverie. Her face was much pa
ler than usual, her silvery blonde hair tousled and dirty, her hands and clothes stained with blood. "Corvin," she whispered, as though she had just noticed me. Her eyes were wet and glassy, as haunted as I’d ever seen. My heart broke when I looked at her, and it was all I could do not to break down along with her. Inside me, I swear I heard the Dark One laugh to itself.

  I reached out and gently stroked her cheek. "I heard what happened. I’m sorry about Simoa. She came to see me the other night, and told she was going to the Shadow after you."

  She scowled as anger flashed in her eyes. "You let her go in there alone?"

  "I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t listen. She was angry, at herself more than anyone, I think."

  Tears spilled from her as she looked forward again and stared at the grass. "It’s my fault she’s dead anyway. All of this is my fault…"

  "No," I said, turning her head gently toward me. "None of this is your fault, Amelia, you hear me? The only people to blame here are your parents. Simoa’s death isn’t on you either. She knew the risks as well as anyone."

  She shook her head like I didn’t understand. "You don’t know the things I did in that place…horrible things…evil things. I nearly killed you…"

  "What?" I said as if the idea was ridiculous. "I thought that was just foreplay. Was I wrong?"

  She chuckled slightly despite her continued tears. "You’re an idiot."

  Before I could say anything else, Davey walked over. "I hate to interrupt," he said. "But what about the Dark One? Did my poison work?"

  I stood up. "Your magic dust worked, Davey, but for not for long."

  "What? So the Dark One is still in there alive?"

  "Not exactly."

  Even Amelia frowned when I said that.

  "Not exactly?" Dalia repeated, knowing something was up.

  "I had to use a different tact when the poison didn’t work," I said. "I used a spell that I came across in one of your books, Davey."

  "What kind of spell?" he asked.

  "Well," I said, unzipping my jacket so they could see the symbol carved into my chest.

  Dalia shook her head. "What the…"

  "No," Davey said as he immediately realized what I had done. "Tell me you didn’t."

  "I did."

  "Did what?" Amelia asked, now on her feet as she stared at the bloody symbol on my chest.

  "I basically made myself into a human spirit trap," I informed them.

  Dalia shook her head in disbelief. "So the Dark One is…"

  "Inside me right now, yes."

  Amelia stepped back away from me, involuntarily I hoped. "It’s…inside you?"

  "It was the only way," I said looking at her. "It was either that or let it kill me, and I wasn’t about to die in that shitty place."

  They all stood staring at me for a long moment, as if they half-expected the Dark One to come bursting out of me like the Chest-Buster in Alien.

  "So what now?" Dalia asked. "Are you just going to carry it around inside you forever?"

  "Hardly," I said, shaking my head at her. "I have an idea of what do with it." I turned to look at Amelia. "But first, there’s something else I’d like to take care of."

  About an hour later, we were standing in the driveway of the old Tasar house, all four of us, although Amelia was hanging back near the car, as if she feared going any further. When I told her where we were going, she had something of a fit back at the Druid circle, refusing to go anywhere near the house again, even if the Dark One was inside of me now, and no longer in the house. But when I told her what I planned on doing, she eventually calmed down, falling into contemplative silence for a few moments before finally nodding.

  We stopped at a nearby twenty-four hour garage and filled up three jerrycans with gasoline before driving to the house. Then Davey and I took the cans and carried them into the house. I’ll be honest, I didn’t relish going inside the house again so soon after escaping from it, but I took some comfort from the fact that after we were done, no one would ever set foot in the house again.

  "It’s a dark place this is," Davey said as we splashed gasoline over the walls, floors and staircase. "Full of evil."

  He was right there, though the house felt less evil without the Dark One in it. Speaking of which, it was going mad inside of me as it realized what we were about to do. I all but ignored the pain it was causing me in protest, refusing to give the spirit the satisfaction of seeing me hurt. A lesser man would probably be dead by now if they had the Dark One in them. My magic was the only thing keeping all that tumultuous energy contained enough that it didn’t rip me apart from the inside out.

  When we were done dousing the house in gasoline, we went back outside to Dalia and Amelia, who were standing beside each other near the car, Amelia with her arms folded across her chest, half-turned away from the house as if she couldn’t bear to look at it.

  "It should be you who lights it up," I said to her, holding out a zippo lighter that I had bought specially in the garage.

  She stared hard at the lighter for a moment before taking it, still somewhat hesitatingly. Taking her by the hand, I led her toward the house, pausing just outside the front door. She stood then for a long time as she stared inside, her face growing angrier as she obviously fought to keep her tears away. When she finally struck the lighter, she took a step forward. "Fuck you," she said simply, before tossing the flaming lighter into the entrance hallway, where it immediately ignited the pools of gasoline on the floor.

  The flames spread quickly throughout the house, and before long it was like an inferno in there as we all stood back and watched, the heat from it almost comforting in the cold night air. I stood with my arm around Amelia as she leaned against my shoulder, and every time a window would blow out from the intense heat, she would jump.

  "Good riddins," Davey said as the flames reflected in his eyes.

  It was hard not to agree with him.

  Chapter 20

  On the drive back to Dublin, the mood inside Davey’s car was sombre and subdued. Everyone was obviously exhausted, and with the exception of Davey, also somewhat traumatized by the recent experience in the Shadow. Dalia being Dalia seemed the least affected, internalizing her feelings and no doubt locking them away like unwanted memories. Amelia sat in the back seat next to me, her head turned as she stared aimlessly out the window. Occasionally, I would notice her wipe tears from her eyes. It was frustrating, seeing her like that. In all the time I had known her, she was always a picture of strength, both mentally and physically. It was unsettling to see her so small and broken, though I held onto the notion that her trauma and grief was just temporary, and that she would return to normal soon enough. That’s what I chose to believe anyway. Time would tell if I was right or not.

  As for me, I felt physically exhausted, though the notion of sleep or even prolonged rest seemed like a faraway concept. The Dark One had settled down in me, having seemingly accepted the fact that it was going nowhere anytime soon, doing the equivalent of sulking in a corner like a child that couldn’t get what it wanted.

  Of course, despite everything else, it wasn’t long before my thoughts inevitably turned to Drakkar. I was dreading getting back to Dublin in case the mad bastard had wrought further chaos and bloodshed, in my name, no less. I considered phoning Benedict to see if he had a handle on the situation yet, but it didn’t seem like the right time to be talking. The silence in the car was necessary for us all to get our heads together, or try to anyway. I told myself I would wait until we got home before calling Benedict.

  As for Drakkar, I didn’t see the point in delaying things with him. As soon as I got back to Dublin, I would do a Location Spell to find him. Then I would I would do what he wanted me to do this whole time, which was stop him, assuming of course, that he didn’t stop me first.

  We all went back to Davey’s house, including Amelia, piling into the living room where Davey fixed us all drinks, or rather just me and him, for the girls refused theirs, with D
alia making coffee for her and Amelia instead. In fact, Dalia did something that surprised me somewhat. She sat next to Amelia on the couch and held her hand, allowing Amelia to rest her head on her shoulder. When she saw me looking, I smiled my gratitude at her.

  "So tell me, Davey," I said after we had both sat down and he had started to fill his pipe. "Do you know any good Transmutation Spells?"

  Davey said nothing as he continued to fill his pipe, and then stared at me for a second before lighting it. "I see what you’re getting at," he said. "You want to use the energy of the Dark One against Drakkar, don’t you?"

  I nodded. "I figured I would kill two birds with one stone. You think it’ll work?"

  He puffed contemplatively on his pipe as smoke gathered around him. "It’s hard to say, though done right, I think it might be your best chance at killing Drakkar. The Dark One’s energy is potent. If you convert that energy—weaponize it even—it might be enough to destroy a being as powerful as Drakkar."

  "So I stand a chance then?"

  "I’d say it’s your only chance."

  "Fine then," I said. "I’ll do it."

  "Not alone you won’t," Dalia said.

  "What?"

  "You heard me."

  "D, come on. Don’t you think you’ve been through—"

  "She’s right," Amelia said, suddenly straightening up on the couch, seeming slightly more composed now than she had been, though still a shadow of her former self. "You’re not doing this alone."

  I was about to argue otherwise when my phone rang. Looking at it, I saw it was Monty calling. "It’s Monty."

  "Probably ringing to see why you’re a wanted fugitive," Dalia said.

  "Probably," I said, and then answered the phone. "Hello?"