Midnight's Son (Darkling Mage Book 5)

by Nazri Noor

  “Ah,” Hecate sighed. “This is why you are among our favorites, fleshling. Your charming sense of humor brings us boundless amusement, as ultimately pointless as your banter is in the face of the dark, gaping void of the universe.”

  “R-right,” I said, shuffling my feet.

  She beckoned at the shapeless abyss floating just off the edge of the stone slab we called home. “So admirable, your determination and resilience, despite knowing that you are but a speck of worthless dust in the grand scheme of the uncaring cosmos.”

  I chewed my lip, unsure of what to say. Trust Hecate to make things uncomfortable in record time.

  “Dust,” Hecate said. I shivered, so unused to hearing her speak my name. She laughed. “Do you like our play on words, fleshling? Our little joke?”

  “Hilarious,” I said. “Now I hope you don’t mind my asking but we don’t usually get goddesses of magic strolling into our home. What’s up? You’ve got something for me? Some new information to be delivered in a string of obtuse and possibly puzzling sentences?”

  She stirred the dishwater with the clawed end of one slender finger, then laughed. “Is that how you see us, then? As a cryptic entity? Then perhaps it is best for us to be more direct.”

  Hecate vanished, and my shoes scraped against the floor as I stumbled when she reappeared close – too close – to my face. She smiled smugly. I hated when she did that, shadowstepping the way that I could, like she was trying to tease me, or to prove some point I still couldn’t understand.

  “Dustin Graves,” Hecate said, her voice thick with gravity. “There are no questions as to the severity of the matter. The walls of this world are wearing thin.” She lifted her nose, the black of her eyes like twin chasms of endless void. “The Eldest are coming.”

  Chapter 8

  My breath caught in my throat for the fraction of a second – as if I didn’t already know what Hecate had come to talk about. She was one of the small handful of entities who sought me out instead of the other way around, and her appearance always meant one of a few things.

  It could mean that she had come with great knowledge that could turn the tides in my favor. But too often she came with bad omens, ill tidings brought on the wings of ravens, by a murder of crows. Her hair and her midnight cloak fluttered in their deep darkness just then – exactly like feathers.

  “What can we do?” I said quietly.

  “Hey man, I thought I’d help you out with the dishes and – oh. Hello.”

  Hecate and I turned towards the entrance to the living area. Asher was paused mid-stride, the casual look of camaraderie on his face sloughing away. His eyes locked with mine for a moment – as if questioning – then landed on Hecate’s face. He was squinting and trying to focus, his mind struggling to lock down the goddess’s features as they shifted and blurred.

  “Greetings,” Hecate said stiffly.

  “Um. Hi. Welcome to our home.” Asher brought his hands together, studying his nails. “Um. Can I interest you in a cup of coffee?”

  Hecate looked at me, then her head turned towards Asher so slowly that I could almost hear the bones in her neck creak. She stared at him in silence.

  “It’s really no trouble at all,” Asher said quietly.

  “You offer us a cup of brown bilge water?” Hecate scoffed. “We are made of the very essence of the universe, child. The turnings of nature, of the very cosmos supply us with the power to alter reality itself, to meld it to our liking. Night and day, tide and ebb, beginning and end, all bow to the occult supremacy of Hecate. We have no need for sustenance.”

  Asher stared back, unimpressed. “We’ve got flavored creamer.”

  Hecate narrowed her eyes, then shrugged. “Oh, very well. Do you have hazelnut?”

  I sighed in relief. You could never tell with Asher, honestly, whether he was just oblivious, extraordinarily brave, or just plain dumb. Maybe it was all of the above. Maybe it was just his strange, innate need to be nice to people – even dangerous goddesses.

  It didn’t take long for Asher to make Hecate some coffee. He put it in one of our nicest cup and saucer combos, the ones that Carver liked to drink his blazing, infernally boiling teas out of, placing it gently in Hecate’s outstretched hands. She accepted it with a polite hum, then stared at Asher in another prolonged silence.

  “I’ll – help with the dishes later,” he said, scurrying off.

  “Thanks,” I said to his back, still somewhat confused.

  “Yes,” Hecate said. “We thank you for your hospitality.”

  We waited some moments until Asher’s footsteps had disappeared down the hallway. I was about to apologize for his intrusion, but Hecate spoke up first.

  “Such a sweet disposition he has, this boneweaver of yours.”

  “Boneweaver?”

  She raised an eyebrow, placing one hand over her cup. “He is a necromancer, is he not? One who manipulates the very forces of life and death. Such a rare talent. Keep him close, fleshling. Keep all your friends close. The cosmos has entwined your fate with those of mortals brimming with unknown power, with arcane potential.”

  “You mean Asher’s going to be a big shot some day?”

  “That is one way to put it, yes. The boneweaver, the frostbringer, many of your friends possess swirling vortices of incredible talent within their frail bodies.” She curled her fingers, the creamy off-white of her coffee rising in droplets, disappearing into the palm of her hand. “Ah. Delicious. Fortifying. We pretend it isn’t so, but there’s nothing quite like a good cup of coffee.”

  The frostbringer. She meant Herald, didn’t she? He specialized in ice magic, after all. I already knew he was a Hecate fanboy. If he heard all these things she was saying about his future he would totally flip. Though Hecate didn’t really surprise me in that respect. No one could doubt that Asher and Herald, hell, even Bastion were destined for greatness.

  She set her cup and saucer down on the dining table, smoothed down her cloak, then cleared her throat. “As we were saying: the Old Ones are proving to be an imminent danger for you and your friends. We have come to tell you of the great and horrible things you may do to quickly acquire eldritch might. Tap into deeper wells of pure magic, and you may yet protect your loved ones and defeat the Eldest.”

  I folded my arms and leaned against the sink, curious, but already more than slightly uncomfortable. “I’m not sure I like where this is going, Hecate.”

  “Tell us, fleshling.” She steepled her fingers, very much the way that Carver might. “Have you heard of the concept of patronage?”

  “Patronage?”

  “You might like to call it matronage, depending on who will take you.” She laughed softly, the sound of an evening breeze rushing over a meadow. “Patronage, dear fleshling, is when you offer yourself bodily to an entity, to receive their boundless support, a portion of their power. You become their champion. You yourself have seen and felt the benefits of befriending the right entities.”

  Too true. A lot of what I’d gotten from the entities had summed up to information, truthfully – whether from the spider-queen Arachne and her stealthy offspring, or the oddly stylish trinity who called themselves the Sisters. Once, Amaterasu, the Japanese goddess of the sun, had even lent me a mirror I could use to steal the very sunlight out of the sky itself, turning day into night.

  “But how does that differ from what I’ve already experienced?” I didn’t fancy the sound of giving myself “bodily” to an entity. I really didn’t like how she’d put it.

  “It is a contract like any other, Dustin Graves. You give yourself wholly, exclusively to a single entity, and depending on their dominion, their portfolio, you might receive a range of arcane gifts.” She took a step forward, until she was close enough that I could smell her breath: like sweet grass, and like petrichor, like the earth after a fresh rain.

  “Say, perhaps, you become the champion of one of the gods of night. Their favor comes in the form of the Crown of Stars, an artifact that will
lend you the greatest of power. Oh, the things you could do in the darkness, Dustin. Imagine that the stars themselves are your eyes, that you could see where to find your enemies. That you could walk from here, to any other point on this wretched planet. That you could reach through the black of night and skewer those who defy you through the heart.”

  Hecate had always been good at this, at seducing me with her words, with her promises of power. But it sounded too good to be true, and it was, because patronage didn’t just sound like devotion, or a contract.

  “Hecate,” I said. “You’re basically telling me to sell my soul in exchange for power.”

  “In a sense, yes, we are.”

  I bit my lip, buying myself time to think, but I already knew my answer.

  “No.”

  Hecate said nothing. Her expression didn’t change.

  “And don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but if I was going to surrender my soul – which I wouldn’t, let’s just be clear – I’d probably just as well hand it over to you.”

  Hecate’s laughter rang throughout the Boneyard. If the guys hadn’t been alerted to the fact that we had an intruder yet, they’d know now. In a minute I predicted Sterling would come skidding in, demanding to collect someone’s teeth, and possibly their organs.

  “Why fleshling, you flatter us so. Your trust in us is most pleasing. But to come to the very fullest of your power, you would need to bind yourself to an entity who rules the night. One who governs darkness, and shadow. Give a warrior a stick, and he will flail and fall in battle, crippled with the wrong tool for the wrong work. His strokes will be artless, his body vulnerable. But give him a sword, and it becomes his paintbrush. What beautiful, bloody portraits he will create. Do you understand?”

  My hands gripped the edge of the sink tight, my fingers sliding against stray droplets of dishwater. “I think so,” I said softly, my brain so thoroughly against the very idea of patronage, but my heart thumping in increasing excitement over the promise of strength and glory.

  “Consider it, Dustin Graves. Consider the power that comes with wearing the Crown of Stars.”

  She stepped off the edge of the stone slab – something none of us had ever done before, for fear of the consequences, whether it was plummeting into the darkness, or simply floating off into dead space. But Hecate only kept walking, each of her steps leaving flaming green footprints in thin air.

  “The heart wants what it wants,” she said. My blood went cold. “What is it that you desire?”

  Royce’s warning. What did she know?

  “Hecate, wait. What does that mean? What you just said, about the heart?”

  The goddess turned to look at me, favoring me with one last enigmatic smile over her shoulder. Her form slowly faded into the abyss, leaving her lips and her teeth last, a Cheshire grin.

  “Consider the Crown, fleshling. Before it’s too late.”

  Chapter 9

  Patronage, huh? Not damn likely. I was going to exhaust all possibilities before I would even consider wearing a Crown of Stars, whatever that was. Besides, I had a plan. I had something – rather, someone to fall back on.

  Carver said that the rift being opened by the worshippers of the Eldest was a distinct possibility, that it might have involved a ritual, or a spell. Well then. We just needed someone who was good at sniffing those out.

  I talked it over with the boys – and with Carver, naturally – and we figured it was worth a shot. I raided the Boneyard’s fridge for whatever leftovers we could spare. Loading my arms with plastic containers, I dumped everything onto the kitchen counter, picking out a single paper plate as a vessel for our offering. I ladled out some mashed potatoes and threw in a couple of cold breakfast sausages. Then I spooned over some relish and squirted on a little mustard for good measure.

  “This seems like a lot,” Asher said.

  “Shh. It’s part of the process.”

  Sterling peered over my shoulder as I kept piling more onto the paper plate, like I was building a little food fortress. “No, I agree, that’s a hell of a lot of leftovers.”

  “Shut up for a minute,” I said. “Asher? Pass me that knife.”

  He reached for the block as I set up a spot at our dining table, a sort of makeshift altar. But let’s be real. It wasn’t like the creature I was summoning would demand such an elegant setup considering the very mundane nature of our offering.

  I popped the plate in the microwave for a quick spin, then thanked Asher as he handed me the biggest knife we kept in the kitchen. I might have said it before: the kid’s not the brightest, but he means well.

  Ding. The microwave was done. I placed the plate back down on the table, then pulled up a chair, straddling it and resting my chin on its back. Very carefully I pricked the tip of my finger with the edge of the meat cleaver, dripping a single drop of blood over all the grub.

  Carver watched me with mounting curiosity. “Are we quite certain this is going to work, Dustin?”

  “I’m casually optimistic,” I said.

  Watching the paper plate, I sucked on my finger until the coppery taste of my blood faded. Soon enough the telltale odor of rotten eggs wafted into the room. In a cloud of fire and brimstone – which honestly smells like a puff of farts – Scrimshaw the imp appeared.

  “Sweet Lucifer,” the demon said, his tiny hands trembling as he walked across the paper plate, eyes like lumps of amber staring hugely at his mountainous feast. “Is this all for me?”

  “Hey, a promise is a promise,” I said. “I owed you two burgers, right? Well, this is even better. Plus I figured a little blood would sweeten the pot and help lead you back to me.”

  “You figured correctly,” Scrimshaw said, collapsing into a pile of mashed potatoes, slathering it across his skin and moaning in a thoroughly inappropriate way.

  Gil grimaced, and the peaks of Asher’s cheeks went red. Sterling, predictably, remained unperturbed, watching the spectacle and slurping from a mug of coffee, probably laced with a little blood, the way he liked it.

  Scrimshaw was starting to do some very unseemly things with a slice of bread. In no time at all I suspected he was going to move on to the chicken drumstick. I cleared my throat noisily.

  “So,” I said. “Scrimshaw. Little buddy. Come on, put that sausage down, man, seriously. We need a favor.”

  The imp grumbled, clearing away the mashed potatoes he’d piled into a swirl over his head. “Aww, you’re no fun. Still, I’m pleased that you kept your promise from last time. What do you need help with now?”

  Scrimshaw wasn’t like other imps. He was a word-eater, a very specific kind of minor demon that worked closely with documents and books, and therefore had an affinity for the written word. I’d previously hired him to hunt down a very flighty book known as the Tome of Annihilation, a slightly sentient grimoire that liked to teleport and change locations each time someone cast one of its spells. I had to hope that Scrimshaw’s peculiar talents would be of use to us again.

  “This time is different,” I said. “We already know the spells that need tracking. That’s not what we’re looking for. We want you to hunt down the people who used those spells. Remember the last time I asked you to find a book? This time we need you to find the reader.”

  Scrimshaw folded his arms and scratched at his exceedingly pointed and exceedingly knobbly chin. “An interesting challenge. And how do you propose we do that?”

  I planted my hands on the table, leaning closer. “What if we give you copies of those spells?”

  “Dustin,” Carver said, his voice ringing with warning.

  “Trust me on this,” I said. Carver was basically flaying me alive with a scowl, but I needed him to understand. “The infernals won’t gain anything from letting the Eldest take over and slaughter humanity en masse. Mammon told me so.”

  “Well,” Scrimshaw said, coughing into his little fist. “Mostly. Some members of the infernal court – not the princes, even they aren’t that crazy – seem to think
they have a fighting chance in whatever new world order the Eldest establish.”

  “There won’t be one,” I muttered. “It’ll just be chaos.”

  “Aha,” Carver said, triumphant. “You see?”

  I flung my hands up. “Fine. We’ll give him the first line of the spell. Surely that’s enough to compare. And that way we won’t be handing over the entire ritual to the infernals.” I coughed softly. “No offense meant, Scrimshaw.”

  He nodded, unperturbed, from his perch on the paper plate. “None taken.”

  “That might work,” Carver said. “Very well. I shall transcribe the correct words.”

  He lifted his hands, fingers wreathed with pale fire. The flames vanished, leaving an inked quill in one hand and a piece of parchment in the other. Style. See, that’s why I work for the man. He stooped over our coffee table and started scribbling away.

  “So,” I said to Scrimshaw. “We don’t have to get your wizard boss involved in this, do we? This can just be between us.”

  Scrimshaw was a wizard’s familiar, after all. It wasn’t common to find imps of his specific class and caliber wandering free in the world. Word-eaters had to be contracted from hell’s libraries and government offices, the only places in the known universe more infuriating than the local DMV.

  “Oh, old Nicodemus doesn’t need to know,” Scrimshaw said, waving his hand dismissively. “I won’t tell if you won’t. And tell you what, I do realize that I kind of screwed you over with our previous contract.” He ground one foot sheepishly into the paper plate. “I could have been more specific. I’ll give you a better deal this time around.”

  I frowned and raised a finger. “No games, Scrimshaw.”

  He raised his hands. “Hey. No games. All it’ll cost is twenty drams of blood.”

  “Done,” I said, rolling up my jacket.

  “From each of you.”

  “What?”

  Asher moved forward, pulling back the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “Go for it,” he said. “But maybe draw from the inside of my elbow? I don’t really want any visible bite marks.”