“By everyone. But first and foremost by the Syndicate.”
“It was their attention you needed. It was—”
“Theirs, too. Who needs just another nobody from the Abyss Society? Even a skilled and seasoned nobody. No. I needed a special sort of reputation. As an exile, I was my own man. No past connections. Usable. Just take away my source of income, and you’re left with an obedient puppet. But that’s still not enough. You need an incentive. And what kind of incentive do you offer a criminal? Another criminal, the one a step higher. How could an organization like the Guards be unaware of the Syndicate? Or the other way around?
“So, with just a simple bar brawl, so well-staged it set my teeth on edge, you get me and throw me into prison. Like your Plan B in case Plan A doesn’t work. Or just an ace up your sleeve for the long game. And the game gets long. The Guards realize they’re not going to get the Mask themselves. They need someone who doesn’t just have human magic, but also has… Wait a second, is the ace actually a joker? Examining him reveals a demonic source. What a stroke of luck! Let’s get him out now and control him using this…”
Alex pointed at the unclasped runic bracelet hanging from his index finger. The one O’Hara had slapped on him two months before.
That brawl was well-staged mostly due to how well Alex had acted. He’d played his part much better than the two racists attacking the young witch in the bar. The witch was apparently a decoy, and both gangsters had fought like they’d learned hand-to-hand combat at police school.
“…this and my debt to the Syndicate. Enough to keep your main ace where it needs to be.”
Lupen blinked a few times and laughed.
Alex’s belief in the existence of the supervillain guide grew stronger. He’d just delivered his own speech for no apparent reason. Was it his vanity? Just like any black wizard, he had plenty of it.
Or maybe he just wanted someone to know he was actually the hunter, and not the prey.
Hey, Alex, Robin had laughed. If you want to fit in, be like me. A careless daredevil. No one will think you’re anything else.
Robin (may the serpent meet him) had been right on the damn money.
“I told Chon Sook his dossier didn’t match up with the wonder kid I met at Follen,” Lupen replied, still lauging.
“I was raised on the best movies, man.” Alex flashed his middle finger again. “Stanislavski’s stuff was my bedtime stories.”
When the light wizard stopped laughing, the Arena lapsed into complete silence.
“Over all the years I spent trying to figure out who was behind the Mask, I came across lots of other threads.” Sighing, Alex clenched a fist. “Lots. At first, I thought all of them led to you…though I didn’t yet know who you were. Well, whatever. Now it’s your turn, Julio Lupen. Tell me everything you know about Follen, Rizen, and their founders.”
The rector smiled. The magic seals around him glared with dazzling light, seals filled with the power of a level 62 Master.
“You may be a wonder kid, boy, but you’re still just an ant—”
“Don’t patronize me!” Alex screamed in terror. He’d gotten so used to imitating Robin that breaking character was practically impossible. “Don’t make me recite that Chinese saying about the ants and the elephants. Do you remember asking me how I survived what happened at Follen? I didn’t lie to you, but I didn’t tell you the whole truth. I wasn’t the one who killed that demon. It was Professor Raewsky.”
He rolled the ring around his finger, making all that was white black, turning light into darkness. And the center of that ever-lasting night was Alex Doom.
Chapter 74
“I’m helping you already, my child. Can’t you feel it?”
Alex felt a red spark flash inside him to the tune of Baltael’s inhuman laughter coming from far away.
The little boy was down in the pool of his own blood amid the creepy pentagram. His friends were all dying around him. He could feel the magic of death increase in each of them as their lives were sacrificed to the great pentagram.
But everything was going to be all right.
The one who called himself Baltael would help them.
Yes, the price was dear.
He had to pay his soul.
Alex knew that. He knew it just as well as he knew how to breathe or walk, the knowledge poured into him with the demon’s power and…
In this life, there’s only one thing you truly own. He suddenly saw Miss Elisa in front of him. It’s the only thing in the world that is completely in your hands, entirely up to you.
What’s that?
Your decisions, you little devil. They’re the only thing that always comes from you.
Miss Elisa. She’d been wrong.
If God created you like that, he did it for a reason.
Yes. Created to reject later and…
Through his pain and tears, Alex suddenly made out the figure of Professor Raewsky. If he hadn’t been a black wizard, he wouldn’t have recognized the se—
No! the boy yelled in his head.
The demon Baltael was shoved backward.
“What?”
“You can’t,” the boy said, panting. “That’s my will. My soul. I didn’t give you permission. And I’m not giving it to anyone. Go away, puny creature of the Fallen One. Go, Baltael. I’m not giving my soul away. It’s mine. And only I decide what to do with it.”
The care and friendliness instantly disappeared from the demon’s voice.
“You miserable bag of bones and flesh.” A scary figure formed in the shadows, complete with claws, horns, and fangs. It was absolutely different from the normal, well-dressed man Alex had just seen there. “I’ll rip your heart out.”
A clawed paw reached out of the shadows toward the boy, but…
The demon screamed in pain as its claws crashed into the golden veil blocking its way.
“A bag of bones and flesh I may be, but I’m not as puny a creature as you. You can’t break the law. You can’t do anything to me until I give up my will to you. I’m free. And you’re just a slave to your substance.”
“You vile offspring of Adam and Eve!” the demon roared. “I was crushing empires long before you were bo—”
“Begone!” the boy shouted again. “I’m telling you, demon! Go back to where you came from! Because I’m the blood of Solomon’s blood. By the keys of the Gate leading to the Beyond, I bind you!”
Clanging chains wrapped themselves around the demon.
“By the seals of Solomon, I lock you in!”
Shadows condensed around the demon, pulling it deeper and deeper into the dark.
“I cast you out, demon, not in his name, but by my will!”
The demon bellowed. The words of the black exorcism were dispatching him back to hell. Alex hadn’t known if it would work; he just believed. However weird that may sound.
“Baltael is my name!” the demon growled. Its burned paw edged through the golden veil, just a tiny bit, but enough for the five claws to reach Alex’s chest. The boy screamed in pain as the five scars in the shape of overturned stars printed on his body.
“Baltael is the name of your evil destiny! When the time comes, I’ll be right there by your side.”
The demon vanished. But Alex knew he now bore Baltael’s marks forever. The particles of the demon’s power were in him, an indelible trace marking him as prey easily found at any time.
But there was something more urgent to deal with.
Fighting through the pain, Doom reached for his own blood. He took a scoop and threw it at the professor, who had almost brought his dagger down.
The blood spread over Raewsky’s face and covered the seal on his forehead, one someone else was using to control his mind. They were only screened off for a moment, perhaps too brief for any other wizard to shed the strings yanking him around like a puppet.
But not for Professor Raewsky.
“What’s go—” He dropped the dagger and stumbled.
&nbs
p; “Too late,” Alex sighed.
The seal beneath him and the altars around him flashed with power.
Shaking his head, Raewsky suddenly moved his hand over Alex, wrapping him in a black cocoon.
“We’ll figure this out, boy,” he whispered as he turned the ring around his finger.
When a creepy demon’s head came up from the seal, all the white around them turned to black. Light became darkness. Professor Raewsky, having become the heart of the ever-lasting night, began his fight with the Supreme Demon.
***
Alex regained his senses among the ruins. Something was burning. Crackling. Smoking. He was in pain.
“Anastasia?” he cried. “Robin?”
Nobody replied.
He crawled forward through the soot and smoke until he bumped into a supine body. Anastasia’s body.
She was clenching an arm stretching from beneath the rubble. Robin’s arm.
“No,” the boy whispered. “No, no, no, please. Not again… not again…”
He shook the girl by the shoulder, but her eyes wouldn’t open. Her cold flesh burned his hands.
“No!” Hot tears fell onto her pale skin, but their warmth couldn’t bring back what had been lost. “Please…”
“Alex.”
The boy looked back. There was Professor Raewsky, reclining on the stones, covered in wounds. He handed his black ring to Alex. “Take…”
“Professor?”
“…and run.” Raewsky’s arm went limp. His chest forced out one last breath. The ring rolled, jingling across the debris to come to a stop right at the boy’s feet.
Alex picked it up and combed Anastasia’s hair with a shivering hand.
“I’ll find out what happened,” he whispered, swallowing hot tears. “I promise you. And when I do, you’ll hear their death screams wherever you are.”
Before getting to his feet, he picked up a crumpled pack of cigarettes.
Robin had been a heavy smoker.
Limping, the little boy made his way out of the burning ruins of the mansion that had been his home.
***
Shadows crept up behind Alex, embracing him tighter until they became a cloak that wrapped itself around him. The darkness in his hands condensed, taking the shape of a long, misty staff. Death enveloped his face to form a ghostly helmet. His jacket dissolved, baring a chest that gradually sank into his ribcage, the life-draining veins of darkness gnawing at it.
The ring provided magic power.
In exchange for life energy.
His cloak of darkness was clasped by a thumping black heart.
[Item: Lich King’s Heart artifact
Item rank: S
Mana reserve: 5732/6800
Physical resistance: 0%
Magic resistance (general): 0%
Magic resistance (particular): 0%
Extra powers: Life exchange
Maximal usage time on healthy body: 99 seconds
Remaining number of activations: 0/6]
It wasn’t a battle storage. No, just a conventional artifact. (As conventional as a Lich King’s heart confined inside a ring could be.)
That was Alex’s last bullet, the one he’d held onto all those years.
He struck his staff, and a wall of darkness erected itself behind him.
Chapter 75
“A Master-level artifact?” Lupen squinted. “Interesting. If I remember correctly, Raewsky found it in some icy desert. But if you think an artifact will make you strong enough to challenge me, you’re an imbecile, not a wonder kid.”
The light wizard touched the chain hanging around his neck. White, unnaturally pure light flashed, cloaking him just like darkness cloaked Alex.
The youthful, vigorous rector aged rapidly, his golden hair growing gray, then turning white. His sweat suit fluttered before transforming into a white cloak over blue robes. In his hand appeared a red-glowing staff crowned by a golden whirlwind of pure, virgin light.
In the middle of the ravaged Arena beneath Poseidon’s Shield, over the blazing seal opening right into hell, and facing the darkness-cloaked black wizard trying to stop the rite stood the light wizard dressed in white who had started it all, staff in his right hand and grimoire in his left.
“Raewsky was a blind fool. That’s why he died.” Even Lupen’s voice was elderly. Rasping. Croaking. “You grew up to be just like him, Alexander Dumsk—”
“My name’s Alex Doom.” The very darkness seemed to interrupt him in a soft, rustling voice that crept into the soul. “Black magic professor by day, and by night…the damn terror that flaps. Dzhan’Kaz’Moharkai!”
Doom lifted his staff and slammed it into the ground.
The wall of darkness behind him started to come apart. Like a smashed glassy surface, it rained myriads of shards down onto the sand glowing with the power of the bloody seal. Each of the quivering shards expanded, drawing into the shadows cast by the fires burning in the ruins. Growing larger and larger until from their depth came skeletons glaring with blue fire. They were wearing armor crushed by swords and axes, with helmets marked by giant claws. An entire army stood behind Alex.
[ATTEN…]
“Damn,” Doom swore, sliding a palm across his eyes to remove his lenses. He wasn’t going to be needing them in that battle.
He was going to deal with the bastard the old-fashioned way.
The way they did it at Follen School.
The undead host yelled and pointed their weapons at Lupen. Flows of death magic from their blades joined to form a single pale dead curtain.
“Eluria Caxc Comentes!” Lupen moved his staff in front of him. The ball of light on top shone brightly, fine threads filtering off it like trickles from a cracked tank of water. They grew and stretched, turning into a haze of yellow light.
Out of that haze stepped a fifteen-foot woman, her hair a glistening white cloud. Her body was a frozen golden flame patterned with light so pure it would have shamed a saint.
She lifted her hands, hurling forward a column of fire as tall as a five-story house and as broad as a city block. It engulfed the death magic flow and with it even Alex and his skeleton army.
The flames raged like a tempest coming to reap its harvest of terror. The heat was so intense it melted the cement and concrete remaining from the arena and instantly reduced the bodies of the dead spectators to ash. The sand turned to glass.
That was the power of Light Magic. The magic that absorbed the power of all the elements…
…except for one.
Caw! Raven wings flapped deafeningly.
A graveyard bird of prey soared over the roaring stream of fire, devouring all in its path. The cloak of darkness behind Alex’s back unfurled and lifted him up to the very edge of the impenetrable dome created by Poseidon’s Shield.
He brandished his staff and said a few words. Doing magic at that level meant adding a verbal component to the seal—human minds weren’t capable of controlling power like that without anchoring it to a particular set of words.
The staff in Alex’s hands grew in size until it hurtled off as a spear as large as a lamp post. It harpooned the light maiden’s chest.
She clutched the spear shaft with her fiery hands. Flames rushed from them to devour the Darkness, but with each passing moment, there was more smoke and less fire. Finally, a solid lava crust spread over the maiden’s body. An explosion ripped through the air.
The explosion was so powerful it shook the dome. The broken fragments of the seemingly eternal Arena that hadn’t yet been devoured by fire were crushed to dust by the shock wave. The blast sent Alex flying across to the opposite end of the battlefield. But even from there, he saw the swirling ball of darkness absorb the power of the brightest light.
Before he could hope the explosion affected Lupen (at least a bit), he saw a glowing white horse.
It was as if someone had reached into the sky and collected gleaming starlight like water in a jug, sculpting it into a silvery horse. But they didn�
��t stop there.
Next, they pulled bolts of lightning from the sky. They were used to forge a sword held by a snow-born rider who drove away the darkness with a single strike of heavenly fire.
It was a sign that any darkness could be pierced through with a beam of new hope.
Rearing back on his starry horse, the rider galloped toward Alex.
Breathing heavily, Doom got down on one knee and placed his hand on the sand. He sensed death in it. Heard the screams of dying people. Their blood called to him. Their death and despair lured him with sweet power.
But Doom refused it.
He went deeper.
He touched what the dead were unwilling to give away. Their past. Their brightest hopes. Their fears. Everything that made them who they were.
He took that.
He ripped it out with fangs and claws. Using the power of the artifact, he reached into each of the thousands of souls and tore a piece from them. It was all too possible that in so doing he was creating a whole host of restless souls condemned to an eternity of torture.
That was real black magic.
One of its blackest spells.
“I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, ‘Come!’” Doom said, though his voice sounded strange. Otherworldly. His words were Death coming to a feast. He spoke a language so ancient no one living had ever heard it before. “I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.”
A hellish neigh screamed over the Arena, resounding even outside the dome. Inside it, the Abyss opened before the white rider on his starry horse.
Waves of red glow filled half the space, pounding the walls of starlight and lightning bolts. From that red mist made up of the souls ripped apart by Doom and sacrificed to his spell came another rider.
His horse was pure rage. A rage that knows no foe or friend, only a lust for blood. In his bony hands, he held a scythe that reaped guilty and innocent alike. The robe covering his wet red bones seemed formed by blazing blood.
Dark Wizard's Case Page 40
