by Nazri Noor
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Penumbra is the prequel to the Darkling Mage series, and sheds some light on why Dustin is the way he is.
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This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
LAST RITES
First edition. April 11, 2019.
Copyright © 2019 Nazri Noor.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-0929-9328-9
Table of Contents
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
About the Author
Chapter 1
“Asher, please, stop,” I cried out, tugging on the back of his jacket. “That’s enough.”
Asher bucked and twitched, fighting me with all his strength. And he was almost winning, too. He was smaller than me, scrawnier. Where was all his energy coming from?
“It’ll never be enough,” he shouted, clutching his wrist. “I have to do it, Dustin. You can’t stop me. None of you can.”
I groaned and slapped my forehead, pressing the pads of my fingers into my temples. “Right,” I said. “Fine! One last game.”
He spun on his heels and I heard the tiny, belated “Yay” under his breath as he dashed off, yet again, to play another round of balloon darts.
Hi, yes, hello. My name is Dustin Graves, and I’m at a carnival.
One of those things that sweeps through town, picks a nice vacant spot somewhere, and sets down its roots. Almost literally, in this case. Asher had found out about Madam Babbage’s Bazaar of Wonders somewhere online, and since then he’d been bugging me and the other guys at the Boneyard to come with him and have a look.
And by that I mean he wrangled us to accompany him to the carnival grounds the very day they arrived in Valero. You should have seen his face light up as the Bazaar’s employees pitched their tents and hammered huge stakes into the earth. Actually, you should have seen Sterling’s, the way he twitched and flinched each time a strongman brought a mallet down on a stake. Okay, sorry, bad joke.
So knowing how much Asher had missed out on growing up in the real world, we came on the very first night to check things out. And Madam Babbage’s was exactly what it said on the package: a veritable bazaar of wonders. Bright lights, a barker with a handlebar mustache, so many colors that you’d think you’d stepped into a kaleidoscope, and omnipresent calliope music that walked the exact fine line between cheerful and creepy. The whole shebang, thanks very much, and we weren’t going to begrudge Asher wanting to get in on the whole experience.
He deserved to have fun, and hell, so did I. It was hard not to smile at the sight of him skittering back to the balloon stall. Kind of cute seeing Asher just be a kid, because that’s what he was. Just because you’re eighteen doesn’t mean you have to stop playing games. Sorry, I misspoke. You shouldn’t ever stop playing games. Life is short. If you’re having fun and you aren’t hurting anyone, then nothing else matters. Just enjoy yourself.
But the man at the balloon stall seemed to think otherwise. He sighed heavily as he watched Asher approach, his mustache almost drooping. Asher had won twice already, mostly just these silly bags stuffed with different kinds of candy. Actually, that might have explained why he was so wired in the first place. The man at the stall leaned on his counter and tipped his hat miserably.
“You’re going to clean me out, kid,” he said.
Before Asher could protest, I cut in smoothly, giving the man my best smile. “I made him promise, sir,” I said. “It’ll be his last game for the night. Right, buddy?”
Asher nodded eagerly.
The man sighed again, taking Asher’s money and handing him three darts. Not like Asher needed them, to be honest. The man clucked his tongue, put on a defeated smile, and wagged one playful finger at me.
“One last game and you make sure to take your little brother far away from my stall, young man.”
I was ready with a smile before he’d even said anything, but – Asher? My little brother? I could live with that. I grinned even harder.
The first balloon popped, then the next, then the next. Three successive pops, and behind us passing spectators clapped and murmured approvingly. Good thing too, because that meant the man running the stall couldn’t quite hear how the darts were making two “thunk” noises with every impact.
Asher’s necromantic abilities were developing, and he had found a way of ejecting tiny shards of bone from his body, launching them with enough velocity and sharpness to pierce balloons. He was firing a tiny fragment of bone right out of his wrist with every dart he threw, which guaranteed three balloon pops with every game. The man with the mustache sighed again as he handed Asher yet another bag of candy.
“Thanks, Mister,” Asher said, beaming.
The man grumbled and waved us away. It was why I insisted that Asher stop playing. Someone was going to notice that something was off. Still, the little crowd we attracted was now eager to get into the darts themselves, probably thinking that the stall was easy pickings. I nodded to myself, glad that we’d at least brought Mister Mustache a little bit of business in exchange for taking his candy.
“Gummy bear?” Asher offered.
“Sure, why not.” I popped it into my mouth without looking. Ooh. Lime. Nice and tart. “Okay, Asher. You can play the other stalls, but no more cheating with your powers.”
He scoffed. “Okay, Dad. Geez.”
“I’m just saying, it’s not fair to the normals. Plus I don’t want anyone sniffing us out here, you know?”
Asher crammed a handful of colorful little bears in his mouth, chewing glumly and making a squelching noise that sounded something like the word “Fine.”
“Don’t go pouty on me now,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder. He grunted, then relented with a chuckle when I wrestled him into a quick squeeze. “We can still have fun. We should go find the others, see what they’re up to. Do you see anyone? Gil? Or Sterling?”
“Oh, Sterling’s over there,” Asher said. “Cheating with his powers.”
I slapped my forehead. “Damn it.” I sighed. Sterling was showing off again. “We should have left him at home,” I grumbled.
Madam Babbage’s had set up a fair way outside of Valero, far enough out that we’d decided it was better to rent a car for the day. Gil was our designated driver, and Prudence had come along for the fun of it. Carver declined to join us, but pushed a small leather bag of something into Asher’s hands as we prepared to leave.
“Some pocket money,” Carver said warmly. “You all have a wonderful time.”
I should have known there
was something fishy about that from the start. In the backseat of our rented car, Asher tugged the drawstring pouch open and tipped out a small handful of bizarre currency: a rainbow of gemstones, a few of them cut, some tumbled to a smooth polish, as well as an assortment of coinage from cultures long dead and gone.
“It’s like pirate money,” I said, reaching for one of the coins and nipping its edge with my teeth. I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to accomplish. “Doubloons? Is that what they’re called?”
Sterling reached out from the passenger seat, snatching the coin from me. “Gimme that,” he grumbled. “And Asher, hand over the rest. I’ll take care of it.”
He slipped it all into one of his leather jacket’s inside pockets, and that was that. We didn’t fight Sterling when it came to money. He was actually incredibly efficient about handling finances, and pretty generous about paying for stuff when the occasion arose.
Sterling would pay upfront for everyone at the Happy Cow, for example, or there was that one time he bought everyone ice cream cones at the pier. I wondered sometimes if that was some sort of clue to his name, which I’d always been convinced was fake. I never did ask, though. Like Carver, Sterling could just be so touchy about his past sometimes.
But as responsible as Sterling could be with stuff like taking care of friends and money, the same really couldn’t be said for how much he deeply, truly loved to draw attention to himself. Sterling dressed like a rockstar, and I’d known him long enough to understand that he pretty much behaved like one, too.
He was over by the high striker, one of those games where you smash a target with a big old hammer to test your strength, and a bunch of lights come up on the machine’s display to show exactly how macho you are.
I didn’t have to look very hard to spot him in the crowd that had gathered around the machine. You just had to find the slender, exceedingly fair-skinned man wearing a leather jacket and the smuggest smile in existence.
The high striker’s lights had come on completely – Sterling had maxed out the machine. The man operating it looked utterly baffled, scratching his head and tapping the side of the contraption, like he was sure it was broken.
Sterling was posing with the hammer and flexing. Even from where we stood I could hear his leather jacket squeaking each time he tried to make a bicep. As he slid into each pose, he grunted, and the more impressionable girls standing around him gave little squeals.
I nudged my way through the crowd, coughing politely and repeating “Excuse me” through gritted teeth. Here I was trying to make sure the Boneyard boys maintained a low profile, but no, Sterling had to go around flaunting his superior vampire strength. I was going to wring his neck.
“Come on,” I growled. “Fun’s over. Time to go.”
“Don’t be a spoil sport, Dust.” Sterling squeaked as he flexed both his arms. “I can’t help that I’m so strong.” Some of the girls tittered. I frowned.
“Okay, cool, we can move on now, everybody knows you’re strong.”
“Super strong.” Squeak.
“I get it.”
“Say it,” Sterling said, handing the hammer back to the operator and grunting as he flexed. “Say I’m super strong.”
“Sir,” I said to the operator. “Could we get my friend’s prize? We have somewhere to be.”
The man handed me an enormous pink teddy bear, so huge that I had to carry it in both arms. I frowned even harder.
“I can take that,” Sterling said, finally willing to leave the high striker game to lowly mortals. “You don’t have to carry it for me, Dust. I’m so strong.”
“For the love of – will you shut the fuck up, Sterling?”
Sterling grabbed the teddy bear with a wounded pout. “What’s up his butt?”
“I don’t know, man,” Asher said. He lifted a bag to Sterling’s face. “Jelly bean?”
“Sure,” Sterling said, popping a handful in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “That must be it,” he mumbled. “Dust is jelly. Super jelly. Of my super strength.”
“Sterling, I swear, one of these days I’m going to sneak into your room while you’re sleeping and pull your mattress out into the sunlight and – ”
“And of the fact that he’s the only one who doesn’t have a prize.”
I scoffed. “What? I am not. I don’t care about those things.”
“Look,” Asher said, nodding at another stall. “Even Gil is killing it.”
I watched as Gil expertly handled a fake rifle, blasting with inhuman precision at a series of moving targets. Cardboard ducks quacked each time one of the rubber pellets tore through their tiny yellow bodies. Gil’s enhanced werewolf senses and reflexes were giving him a distinct advantage, judging from the pile of stuffed animals Prudence was holding in her arms like a litter of puppies. And she just stood there grinning, cheering Gil on as he unerringly struck every target.
Et tu, Prudence?
Chapter 2
“Oh man,” Sterling said, his cheek bulging comically from the lollipop stuck in his mouth. “Look at all those prizes he won for Prudence.” He gave me a taunting, sidelong glance, his eyes glinting with silent laughter. “Aren’t you going to get one for Herald, Dust?”
I blushed instantly, the blood rushing to my cheeks, and suddenly the evening wasn’t so cool anymore.
“Ooh, now you got him,” Asher said, speaking around his own mouthful of lollipop. “Yeah Dust. Get him one of those puppy things.”
I folded my arms and stamped my foot. “You’re both children,” I grunted, complaining so unconvincingly because I knew everyone could tell I was as red as a tomato, even under the carnival lights. “You’re being silly.”
My body went stock-still as Sterling draped an arm over me, as hard and as cold as marble. “Dust, listen. Speaking as your friend, you’re being just as fun as a hemorrhoid right now. Lighten up. Go play a damn game. Eat a corndog, win a prize.” He paused, biting the edge of his lower lip with his fangs, waggling his eyebrows. “Be naughty. Live a little.”
Carpe noctem, I almost heard him say. Seize the night. That was what we all had in common at the Boneyard. We worked so well in the darkness. But it didn’t always have to be all about work. Why not have a little fun, too? I shook my head, then chuckled.
“Okay, fine. You guys are right. I just didn’t want anyone getting into trouble is all.”
Asher’s lips made a little pop as he abruptly pulled the lollipop out of his mouth. “Hello. Look around you. Carnival. What trouble are you even talking about?”
I patted Sterling’s arm as a sort of wordless “Thank you,” then shrugged him off and shook him loose. I looked around myself at all the stalls and attractions, then scratched the back of my neck. “I’m not really good at any of these games, though.”
“That’s silly,” Sterling said. “You’re good at a lot of things.” He winked slowly. “You know. Like stealing?”
“Sterling.” I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets and hissed. “I am not stealing from this place of purity and happiness. You’re joking.”
“I’m sure Madam Babbage won’t mind,” Asher said. “What’s one little prize? A stuffed animal? Pretty sure most of these games are rigged, anyhow.”
My eyes narrowed, and I squinted at him accusingly. “Since when were you okay with shit like this? We’re not criminals.”
“And if we were,” Sterling said, waving his lollipop like an instructor’s baton, “we would be handsome criminals.”
“It’s just a little innocent fun,” Asher said.
“It’s not like you’re going to hurt anyone,” Sterling cooed, his voice like butter.
“You’re a bad influence on him, Sterling. You know that, don’t you?”
Sterling scoffed. Asher shrugged. Then slowly, the two of them gave me the same lopsided grin, each mouth smiling out of the same corner.
“You guys are the worst.” I frowned, but then the gears started turning in my head.
What could it hurt? And
fine, I could stand to have a little mindless, harmless fun every once in a while. Sure. Why the hell not? I was a rogue. A rake. A charlatan. This was in my nature. Suddenly, my fingers itched. I reached for the star-metal amulet around my throat – my mother’s necklace, its jewel glassy and cool. It had become a touchstone in recent times, something to ground me, and give me strength.
“Gimme one of those lollipops, damn it.”
Asher peered into his bag. “Flavor?”
I set my jaw, peering into the distance, assessing the stalls as I searched for an easy mark. “I don’t care,” I declared, pouring more than a little bravado into my voice.
He unwrapped a lollipop for me, his mouth half-open in awe, then stuck it in my outstretched hand. “Here. For courage.”
I set my shoulders back, stuck my chest out, and rammed the lollipop in my mouth. Mmm. Strawberry. “I don’t need courage.” I pulled up my sleeves. “Here I go.”
“I’m swooning,” Sterling said. “He’s being so strong. Am I swooning? Asher, hold me.”
Asher just looked at him funny. But that did the trick. Emboldened, perhaps by a combination of gung-ho machismo and Sterling’s dumb supplications, I walked over to a tree, folded my arms, and leaned against its cool bark. When the coast was clear, I leaned further, deeper into the shadows, until I had entered the Dark Room.
Shadowstepping was second nature to me by then. All I really needed was to be in contact with enough darkness, a large enough pool of shadow to accommodate my awesome, totally ripped, not-at-all scrawny body, and I could slip into the mazes and tunnels of the Dark Room.
And go where? I did spot a pretty busy stall at the far end of the grounds, one of those games where you shoot a water gun into a clown’s mouth. The operator looked distracted enough, so I could appear in the shadows at the edge of his booth, quickly palm a prize, then go back to Sterling and Asher. Easy peasy.
The cool air of the evening ran over my skin as I slipped back out of the Dark Room and reentered our reality, right where I wanted: at the back of the stall, in a pile of confusingly oversized plush bears and rabbits. The air was misted with the misdirected spray of so many clown guns. I frowned at the players from the darkness. Learn to aim, guys.
