Midnight's Son (Darkling Mage Book 5)

by Nazri Noor

  “That won’t be necessary, Asher,” Carver said. “Joyce, was it?”

  “Royce,” Royce said gruffly.

  “Yes. Boyce.” I snickered. “You will carry this message from me to your beloved Lorica. Tell them to scour their records for any and all information regarding the Eldest, especially the practice of shutting the doorways they use to enter our world.”

  “That’s exactly why I’m here,” Royce said. “That’s what I need to discuss with Graves.”

  Carver waved his hand lazily. “I will repeat what my protege said. Whatever you need to say to Dustin, you may say in front of the rest of us.”

  Royce’s eyes flitted around us, from Carver’s face, to those of his subordinates, finally settling on mine. It happened so fast.

  I blinked, and Royce was gone. The air crashed out of my lungs as something sped into me, rushing me up against a tree, away from the others. I groaned as my back struck bark. When I blinked again, I saw Royce, his hands gripped tightly around my collar, shoving me into the tree. He’d used his teleportation magic on me, and in an especially painful way, too.

  The shouting started instantly, and blurry as my vision was I could see the warning, preparatory flares of magic in the distance. Jesus. Was there going to be another fight, this time between Team Boneyard, Team Lorica, and Team Actual Lorica? My body wasn’t ready.

  “So,” Royce said, his voice deep and low. “Just you and me.”

  “Uh-huh,” I croaked, still winded. “The fuck do you want from me, Royce? I don’t have a knife to stick in you this time. Play fair.”

  He slammed me against the tree, the leaves overhead rustling as he did. I groaned in pain. In my palm, hot air swirled and pulsed as I prepared a handful of flame that I could shove right in Royce’s stupid, smug face.

  “You’ll note that I haven’t touched your skin,” he said. “I’m not here to fight. Just to warn you. Graves, listen to me. You need to keep a low profile for now. Go in hiding, if you have to. Things are bad, but they’re about to get worse.”

  I squinted blearily, just making out the huddle of figures dashing towards us. My friends were coming to help. Maybe I didn’t need to rearrange his face with a fistful of fire after all.

  “Cute little trick back there, locking my thoughts out of your head,” he grumbled. “I meant what I said. I’m not here to hurt you. Keep the lines open and I’ll be able to update you. To warn you.”

  “No can do, compadre,” I said, scoffing. I could hardly believe that Royce would ever be unselfish enough to help someone, let alone me, of all people. Just like Prudence said. I wasn’t about to let this asshole inside my head.

  “Just remember this, then,” Royce said carefully. “The heart wants what it wants.”

  I chuckled. “Aww. I didn’t know you felt that way, Royce. But maybe buy me dinner first, then we’ll see. I like Asian cuisine. How about you?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Graves,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “We don’t have time for this.”

  I watched as, from yards away, Carver slashed his hand through the air, a tendril of pale amber energy leaping from his fingers and lashing like a whip. I smiled, knowing what that meant. Carver’s spell made contact with my skin, and I grinned harder.

  “See ya, Royce. Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”

  Carver’s sending spell pulled me out of reality, teleporting me molecule by molecule back home to the Boneyard. The last thing I saw was Royce’s furious face, his huge hands groping stupidly at thin air. I wish I could have taken a picture.

  Chapter 6

  “So what you’re saying is that Thea is back.”

  Sterling gnawed the back of his thumb, the flatter edges of his human teeth nibbling at his cuticles. He sat cross-legged on his favorite couch in the Boneyard, one foot dangling and jerking nervously across his thigh.

  “No one’s saying that,” I said. “We don’t have any proof of it happening.”

  None of us wanted it to be true, either. We each of us had reasons for fearing Thea – chief among them the fact that wherever she went, the Eldest followed with their horrific, destructive gaze – and Sterling had very good cause to be worried himself.

  The Boneyard was a refuge that Carver had built for his students and mentees, members of the undead, or those deemed unsavory by the magical community. We were in what passed for its living room, a massive stone slab outfitted with cheap yet admittedly comfy Swedish furniture. Sterling had quietly adopted the huge red couch as his perch the day it arrived, and that was where he sat, jittery, anxious, his forehead furrowed with concern.

  “I don’t like it one bit,” he said, his eyes fixed in the distance, one foot tapping incessantly at the stone floor.

  Sterling was a vampire – our vampire – who had what I suspected to be a genetic predisposition for wearing really tight clothes made mostly out of leather. He preferred to dress like a rock star, all hair, silver jewelry, and black outfits, and personality-wise, he had the traits to go with the looks. But he’d practically just rolled out of bed, the stark white of his linen pajamas matching the marble pallor of his torso. Sterling was cocky, sometimes creepy, and a little bit of a pervert.

  Yet not afraid. Never afraid. See, Thea’s particular gift was her command over the powers of light, shaping it into brilliant, solid weapons, or even conjuring sunlight from out of nowhere. Sunlight could fuck Sterling up something quick, and what I thought had been our last encounter with Thea had ended with her blasting him with a tremendous beam of sunlight, burning half of his body into a grotesque mess of cinders, charred flesh, and exposed bone.

  He clearly wasn’t over that.

  “Come now, Sterling,” Carver said, using his soothing, fatherly voice. “As Dustin said, there is no clear evidence that Thea Morgana has returned to our world. It simply wouldn’t be possible. We were all there when she was taken by the Eldest. She was likely consumed when they pulled her into their dimension.”

  “It’s not all bad,” Gil said, stepping over to Sterling, clapping a huge, hairy hand on his shoulder in reassurance. “We’re ready for the worst. Even the Lorica knows that we’re in this together.”

  Gil was one of the channels connecting us to the Lorica, after all. I hadn’t expected Gilberto Ramirez, the Boneyard’s resident werewolf, to get along quite so well with Prudence, but he had several qualities that a woman like her might find attractive. He was stoic, sensible, incredibly strong, and could turn into a slavering half-man, half-wolf on command. What’s not to love?

  Sterling grunted in acknowledgment, the closest he’d ever get to thanking any of us for a show of emotional support, but I could tell that Gil’s gesture had made him feel just a little bit better. It was just the two of them, buddies from the beginning, before Asher and I had shown up at the Boneyard, and whatever it was that had passed between them through their unspoken shorthand was enough to get Sterling almost smiling again.

  “You know what, you’re right. We’ve got backup now. As much as the Lorica can act like total assholes, at least we’ve got some extra firepower to count on.”

  “Right,” Asher said. He was in our attached kitchen-slash-break room, frying up a greasy, diner-style late lunch that, from the smell, I could tell was rounded out with eggs, sausage, and lots and lots of bacon.

  We were all still kind of hungry from having to hurry away from the barbecue, and breakfast food was so quick to prepare, hence Asher’s spontaneous kitchen service. Apparently he was making enough to share. God bless my roommates.

  “And besides,” Asher added. “Maybe it’s a simple matter of investing in some really good sunblock, you know? Just in case. For next time.”

  Sterling sprang off the sofa, crossing the room with his inhuman speed, and waved one threatening finger in Asher’s face. “You take that back. I find that offensive.”

  Asher swatted Sterling’s hand away. “Try and make me. It was a joke.”

  “Well sometimes your jokes are insensitive, and it�
�s not like I can just throw on a pair of sunglasses and call it a day. And another thing – ”

  The rest of us had learned not to take Sterling and Asher’s squabbles quite so seriously. The two were the fastest of friends, and fighting like insufferable brats was just another integral aspect of their friendship.

  I say that like I never behave like a brat myself, but hey, I think I should get a pass for being extra childish around the guys. I didn’t grow up with siblings – I don’t think any of us did – and while I doubt that any of us would ever openly admit it, the boys of the Boneyard were like brothers. I’d eat a bullet for any of those fools.

  And that was why, even as Sterling and Asher carried on bickering, I couldn’t quite wipe the worry off my face. Thea had done enough to hurt me. I didn’t want her to come back and hurt my family yet again. She’d taken my mom from me, and like hell was I going to let her take my dad, or any of my friends, whether from the Boneyard or the Lorica.

  The couch cushions beside me dipped as Carver took a seat. “Things will be fine, Dustin,” he said, as if sensing my concern.

  He patted me lightly on the edge of my knee, rearranging his face into something that resembled sympathy. Carver was good at a lot of things: magic that could disrupt and control the flow of battle, the enchantment of arcane jewelry and devices, a knack for teleportation that could put the Lorica’s best Wings to shame. Expressing sympathy wasn’t one of them. As a lich, he’d given up his humanity a long time ago, so I couldn’t exactly blame him for having forgotten a few of the subtleties that make us who we are.

  “There, there,” he said stiltedly, patting again in a wooden fashion, his face screwed up in confusion, possibly revulsion.

  I chuckled, then gave him a tight smile. “I’m fine. Really. Or I think I will be after we’ve had some grub.”

  “Ah. Food. The great unifier. You all have your divides, whether because of status, or religion, or politics, but slaughter a ceremonial bird and burn it at three-hundred and fifty degrees in a clay kiln for several hours – to crisp, juicy perfection – and everyone is friends for the holidays again.”

  I blinked. “Are you talking about a Thanksgiving turkey?”

  Carver frowned, staring at the back of his hand. “Perhaps.”

  It was fascinating to me, how neither Carver nor Sterling needed to eat or drink normal food to survive, but did so anyway, purely for enjoyment. The fact that their bodies didn’t process calories the way ours do was a bit of a pain point for me, though. Carver could put away half a chocolate cake if he wanted and never have to deal with the consequences, being a bloodless husk operating purely on sorcerous energy and the power of his undead soul.

  “But yes,” Carver said. “I suppose it’s time we throw the proverbial turkey on the fire. To commune. To tie even stronger bonds.”

  “It’s not even the right time of year,” I said. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Yes. Quite all right. I am only hinting that it is nearly time for us to consume scorched pig abdomen and hot bird embryos.”

  My stomach turned a little. “Bacon and eggs, Carver. Please don’t ruin breakfast food for me. Bacon and eggs.”

  “Yes,” he said, fixing me with a quizzical gaze. Then he rose, gliding distractedly over to the kitchen counter. “Bacon and eggs.”

  I was still mulling over what he meant with that whole business about food, how it was the great unifier. Kind of a dramatic way to talk about bacon, to be sure, but I suppose it made sense. Food, to an extent, was among the forces that bound the Boneyard so closely together, after all. Carver insisted that we eat most of our meals together, exactly like a human parent. Hell, we technically lived inside of a restaurant.

  Mama Rosa’s Fine Filipino Food, specifically, an actual Filipino restaurant that the Boneyard used as its front. Mama Rosa herself was a stern, stalwart bulldog of a woman, loving, I suppose, in her own strangely protective way. I didn’t know how much Carver paid her to keep the Boneyard’s dimensional anchor in the kitchen, but whatever it was must have been worth harboring a bunch of occasionally felonious but always attractive magical criminals.

  I blinked, staring off into the distance of the void that the Boneyard’s own kitchen overlooked. Carver had this strange habit of accidentally digging into my mind, at times convincing me that he could read its contents, and this throwaway talk of food couldn’t have been coincidental.

  Maybe it was just his way of trying to distract me with idle conversation, but it gave me an idea. We still needed to track down the idiots responsible for casting the spell that opened the Heinsite rift, but we hadn’t hit a dead end like I’d thought. We still had one asset that could tip the scales in our favor.

  Specifically, someone who was good at finding spells and spellbooks. It wouldn’t take a lot of reagents, either. Just some greasy comfort food.

  “Dustin,” Gil barked. “Food’s ready. Come on.”

  “Coming,” I said, vaulting off the sofa. Hey, I was hungry. Dusty can’t save the world on an empty stomach.

  Food first, I thought to myself. Then I would pin down a plan of action. Maybe I knew someone who could help after all – even if I still wasn’t sure where I stood when it came to demons.

  Chapter 7

  “I’m stuffed,” Asher said. “Absolutely stuffed.”

  “This was so wrong,” Gil grumbled. “Why do I do this to myself?”

  I wasn’t sure how it had happened exactly, but between the five of us we’d demolished nearly two cartons of eggs, a loaf of white bread, and far, far too many rashers of bacon.

  “That was great,” I said, restraining a massive burp. “Thanks for cooking, dude.”

  “No problem,” Asher muttered. “Ohhh. Oh God. I’m going to hate myself all day for this one.”

  I’m not sure how it happened, exactly, but I blinked, and they were gone. All of them. Not in any magical sense, mind, but all at once the dining table was empty, dishes uncleared, pots and pans still sitting in the sink. I barely caught a glimpse of Carver as he patted his belly and glided out of the Boneyard’s living area.

  “Take care of the dishes, will you, Dustin? Asher did handle the cooking after all. There’s a good boy.”

  I was positive I caught a smirk as he turned the corner and disappeared. It was pointless trying to argue these things with Carver. In his mind every little task he assigned me helped in deepening my connection to the arcane strands of the universe, in strengthening my bond with magic.

  It all had to do with discipline, he said, whether he asked me to clear the dishes, throw together a cookout for a meeting of magical persons, or scrub a toilet. Like Mister Miyagi, but dead, and a lot meaner, too.

  Sighing, I rolled my sleeves up to my elbows and began the laborious process of transferring the dishes the guys had left behind. At least I could be thankful for how ridiculously thorough they all were when it came to leftovers, which is to say that we almost never left any. Some sausage, mostly. You’ve got growing, virile young dudes like me and Asher, and a literal werewolf, so I suppose that shouldn’t have been a surprise.

  I dumped the first load of dishes in the sink, still not quite accustomed to having all these mundane amenities placed on a stone slab that honestly looked like it was suspended in the void of space. That was part of why I didn’t like doing the dishes manually at the Boneyard. In a normal place you might have a window looking out into the yard, or a view into your very sexy and very candid neighbor’s apartment.

  “How the mighty have fallen,” said a woman’s voice, bare inches from my ear.

  I froze. Definitely not Rosa. No way she could have ever snuck up on me. The woman was powerfully constructed, with a generous build and huge hands skilled at both cooking delicious Filipino food and snapping human necks. Probably.

  That and the fact that the entirety of the Boneyard was basically a sausage party made me extra suspicious. I clenched my fingers around an invisible sphere, summoning a vortex of blinding hot air without moving
a muscle, then whirled on my heel, prepared to fry our interloper to a crisp.

  I wasn’t expecting there to be three of them. I wasn’t expecting the intruder to be Hecate, the triune goddess of magic. Flustering, I curled my fingers back, snuffing out the ball of fire I’d been more or less prepared to lob directly into her face.

  “Hecate,” I stammered. “Hi. Um, sorry about that, we’re not used to having – ”

  “Guests?” Hecate tittered, waving her hand over the filthy sink as her doubles vanished, leaving only one copy of the goddess. “You could have fooled us, fleshling. It appears as if a small battalion of minotaurs dined here.”

  “Big lunch,” I said, parting my arms to indicate the size of the spread.

  Hecate tilted her head, her lashes fluttering as she blinked innocently. “Is this what the darkling mage has been reduced to? Cleaning up after his companions like a scullery maid?” She tutted. “What a strange fate for a man who holds the potential to be one of the arcane world’s strongest, most formidable powers.”

  “Hey,” I said. I pushed my hands into my hips, insulted. “First of all, you’d be hard pressed to find a scullery maid quite this handsome.” I cleared my throat softly, remembering the other thing that she’d said. “And second. Did you say strongest?”

  The goddess clasped her hands together, the ever-shifting forms of her face wavering like a mirage over a hot desert. Only the piercing black of her eyes and an otherworldly, overwhelming sense of sheer beauty anchored my brain to the fact that I was still speaking to the same entity.

  “Do you doubt our assessment?” she said. “It is but one of many eventualities, after all.”

  I coughed again, looking down at myself. “I mean, I have been working out.” I flexed a little, perhaps to cover up the fact that I’d never worked out a day in my life. Don’t need to, am I right?