Spectrum of Magic Complete Series - Spell Breaker - Fate Shifter - Cursed Stone - Magic Unborn - Libra

by D. N. Leo

  The woman looked Lorcan up and down. “Well well, this is the one she ditched the white curse for . . .” She made a purring sound. “Delicious!”

  “I don’t strike women. But if you keep pushing me, I’ll make an exception,” Lorcan snarled.

  “You intrigue me. Let’s try this,” the women whispered and advanced.

  “Lorcan!” Orla called out and pulled Lorcan back. The woman let out an eardrum-piercing shriek. In the blink of an eye, they appeared to be standing in a different world. The dark black sky was scarred with blood red cuts that looked as if they had been caused by claws or fangs. The cold wind brought bizarre sounds from the distance, the sounds of demons crying from Hell. Wolves called for their pack from somewhere among the trees.

  “Let’s play, shall we?” the woman smiled, showing her shiny fangs.

  “Don’t harm us. I swear I’ll cast a spell on you,” Orla whispered.

  “You’re out of practice, I’m afraid.” The woman continued to advance.

  “You’ve forced me to make an exception,” Lorcan said and gave the woman a hard kick, sending her skidding backward. She regained her stance, furious. She waved her arm and sent a lightning bolt at Lorcan, striking him and sending him to the ground.

  “There’s no point in fighting. What do you want?” Orla asked.

  “Nothing you could offer. We’re here for the boy.” She pointed at Noah.

  “Then the fuck I’ll let you,” Lorcan swore and scooped Noah up. The woman swung her arm for another strike. Lorcan turned his back and copped the hit. He fell but still hung on to Noah. He stood up and said, “Run, Orla.”

  “No, we can’t run. They’ll strike us from behind,” Orla said.

  The man now moved forward, wearing a crooked grin. “Enough play. Let’s get to business. Give us the kid, and we’ll let you live.”

  Lorcan pushed Noah behind him. “We don’t need your permission to live. And you can’t have Noah,” Lorcan said firmly. The man opened his mouth to speak, and a fireball shot at him, exploding on his chest.

  He roared. “Bitch!” he said and jumped to his feet, charging toward Orla. Lorcan put Noah down and grabbed for the man. The man turned and, with a supernatural power, threw Lorcan several feet away. The woman darted for Noah, and Orla hurled another ball of flame in her direction.

  “I said there’s no need to fight,” Orla demanded. “Your kind has never beaten us.”

  “You’re not with your family anymore. You don’t even speak of them. You summoned the dark spirits, and you will have to pay for it. We don’t want anything to do with it. We just want the boy,” the woman said.

  “Why?” Orla asked.

  “His father sent our brother to the between-worlds. We need an innocent soul to get him back,” the man said, pointing at Noah.

  “Riley? How the heck did he do that? Good for him,” Lorcan said.

  The man ran at Lorcan again. Lorcan figured he had the advantage because he was a lot faster. He grabbed a nearby tree branch and whacked him with it. The man staggered a bit, but continued toward him, reaching his thick arms out to grab him. Lorcan hit him again, but the tree branch cracked with the impact.

  The man kicked Lorcan hard, sending him into to a fence on the side of the road. In the meantime, the woman ran at Orla. The women scuffled. Like the man, the woman had an incredible supernatural strength. She caught Orla with her forearm and sent her skidding into a tree trunk. Orla was dazed by the impact and lay on the ground as the woman turned to Noah.

  Lorcan saw her movement, surged to his feet, and ran toward Noah, but the man gripped him from behind. Lorcan punched him in the face, but he might as well have punched a stone wall.

  Noah staggered back as the woman moved toward him. Tripping, he fell to the ground, scrambling backward with his hands and feet. The woman came closer, and the kitten jumped straight into her face, biting and scratching violently. She shrieked in pain.

  On the ground, Lorcan yanked a board of the fence loose. He gave the man a hard kick, making him stagger back. Lorcan leapt to his feet and swung the board at the man’s neck. It turned as hard as metal in his hands, and he could feel the weight of it changing. With the momentum of his swing, the bar hit the man in the neck, cut through it and decapitating him.

  At the same time, the woman screamed in pain as a tiny wooden stick Noah had found on the ground to stab at the woman to free the kitten pierced through her throat. Noah dropped the stick and moved back, and Lorcan dropped the piece of wood bar, staring at the head on the ground with horror.

  From a dark corner, Orla was sitting on the grass, her eyes now back to normal. It was just now registering what had just happened. “Oh God, oh God, what did I do?” She started crying. Her body shook. Lorcan hurried to her and pulled her into his arms.

  “It’s okay, darling. You didn’t do anything. Stay calm. We have a kid to take care of.” Then he rushed to Noah, who couldn’t even cry. He wiped a blood smear from Noah’s face. “Noah, talk to me. Come on, say something.”

  A tear rolled down the boy’s face. “I killed that woman,” he sobbed.

  A chant came floating through the air. A shriek cried from Hell. In front of everyone’s astonished eyes, the man’s head rolled back to his body and merged with it and the bodies turned into two black snakes and slithered away. Haunting female laugher echoed out from the trees into the darkness.

  “Orla Foley, congratulations! You have shed blood on the black curse,” the voice came from the trees.

  Orla jumped to her feet and whirled around. “They weren’t human, and I didn’t curse them. They didn’t even die. I’m sure it’s not going to work that way.”

  “You know how it works, Orla. It’s your intention that counts. There is no way to come back now. I’m looking forward to seeing you on the other side. Say goodbye to your man.”

  “Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?” Orla cried.

  The laughter faded away, and the voice echoed from the distance, “You should never have left your family, you should never have loved anyone . . .”

  And then everything became silent as if nothing had ever happened. Orla whirled around. “Don’t go away! Come out here, whoever you are! Come out! Don’t do this to me!” She screamed and then she blacked out.

  Chapter 25

  Orla woke to find herself in Lorcan’s arms on a couch at Riley’s place. As she tried to sit up, he pulled her back into his arms. He kissed her forehead. “Rest a few more minutes,” he said.

  “I’m not tired. How’s Riley?”

  “No more seizures, but he’s still not up.”

  “Noah?”

  “With the cat! Now tell me what the voice meant when we were out there.”

  “I told you about the curses.”

  “Yes, but what just happened was new, right?”

  She sighed and snuggled into Lorcan’s chest. “I’ll take a few more minutes,” she said and closed her eyes. She needed time to figure out how to deal with this new situation.

  “The black curse is unbreakable now,” she muffled into his chest later. “When I called for the dark spirit at Fossey Way, the one that held the black curse, I effectively broke the white curse. The white curse will never again be placed on you.”

  “That leaves you with the black curse?” Lorcan asked.

  She nodded. “The black curse is hard to break. But as the voice said, it was all in the intention of the people. Because the curse was placed by my family, I can always go back to them and ask for compassion. There are people in my family who actually love me.”

  “Like your late aunt. What was her name?”

  “Siobhan. Yes, Aunty loved me. But family can’t help me now. When I saw you and Noah I trouble, I wished . . . I mean, I cursed . . . I asked the dark spirit to bring me a metal element, and as you saw, it caused bloodshed. Although the creatures you and Noah killed weren’t human, my intention—and the summoning of the dark spirit for such purpose—was close to a blood-letting s
acrifice.”

  “But you were provoked to do that!”

  “My reaction was provoked, but the decision and the intention to kill were a matter of choice. I didn’t actually have a choice, but there’s no point arguing with dark magic. It’s a double-edged sword, and I got cut.”

  “So how do we get out of this? Don’t tell me there isn’t a way.”

  “Bloodshed.”

  “What?”

  “Not my blood. I have to kill someone and sacrifice the person’s soul to the dark spirit to break the spell. The matter is no longer with my family, it’s with the dark spirit who holds the curse.”

  “And if you don’t kill someone to break the curse, what will happen?”

  “I don’t know for sure. The most optimistic scenario is that I’ll die. The worst one might be that it would take me and turn me into a dark spirit like itself. I’ll become a monster. Like I’d let that happen . . . uhhhg.”

  Lorcan kissed her to stop her from talking. They hadn’t yet finished when they heard some throat-clearing behind them. They turned to see Mya with her hands on her hips.

  “All right, if you two are finished, I’ll leave you take care of the boy and his father. It won’t take long. I have things to do,” Mya said as she strode toward the door.

  “Wait, what do you mean by it’s not going to take long? Riley doesn’t have a fever or anything. He’ll just get a little rest, and then he’ll snap right back like he did the last time, right?” Lorcan said.

  Mya sighed. “I’ve got to go.”

  Orla got to her feet and grabbed Mya’s elbow. “I know this has nothing to do with you. Your only focus is Lorcan, and now that he’s safe and sound, you have every reason to leave. But if you’re half the deity you claim to be, you’ll tell me what’s going on.”

  “You’d listen?”

  “Yes, I would. I tired of the black curse. I’m done. Noah doesn’t deserve this. The boy needs his father,” Orla pleaded.

  “What do you mean, you’re done? You thought I wouldn’t believe in the supernatural stuff. All right, I admit it—I didn’t. But now I do. So perform your ritual to help Riley, and then we can figure out how to deal with the curses. Don’t ever say you’re done with this, or with me!” Lorcan exclaimed.

  Mya walked toward the door. “Do whatever you want.”

  “No, no.” Orla grabbed Mya’s hand. “You know my rituals won’t help. You saw his death. Am I right?”

  Mya shrugged. “I can’t tell you.”

  Lorcan slammed the door shut. “What kind of a deity walks out and lets a man die?” Lorcan asked.

  “Don’t you dare judge me!” Mya snarled at Lorcan. She reached for the doorknob, and he blocked the door. “Let me go!” she exclaimed.

  “After you tell Orla what she needs to know,” Lorcan said dryly.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing, Lorcan.”

  “And you do?”

  “I’ve seen it all. Do you have any idea how old I am?”

  Lorcan cocked an eyebrow. “You’re asking me to guess a woman’s age? Might as well ask me to jump in front of a bus! Why can’t you just tell us? What’s it going to cost you?”

  She stared at Lorcan. “I can’t tell you for your own best interests.”

  “Now that I won’t take. If you help Riley and his kid, you can take whatever you want from me,” Lorcan said.

  “I don’t want anything from you. What happened to Riley is only natural. It’s God’s will. Manipulating that isn’t going to bring anything good.”

  “But Riley manipulated it. He sent the fuckwitz to the underworld—or between- worlds, whatever that means. If that’s not fate manipulation, what is?” Lorcan exclaimed.

  “What? He sent whom to where?” Mya asked.

  “Ohhh, so there are things we know and you don’t. One of the creatures that attacked us before said Riley sent its brother to the between-worlds. That’s why it wanted to claim Noah.”

  Mya frowned, contemplated, and then nodded. “All right, then . . . if a mortal man can do that in that situation, I should help him. I just want to let you know that whenever I interfere in what is considered natural, things change. It’s the law of cause and effect. Action and consequences. I don’t know what will come next or what effect it will have on you both. Can you accept that?”

  Orla nodded. Lorcan shrugged.

  “Do you accept, Lorcan?”

  “All right.”

  Mya opened her mouth to chastise Lorcan’s attitude and asked him for a firm answer, but then she decided to let it go. She went to the bedroom, and Lorcan and Orla followed. Approaching Riley’s bed and tilted his head to the side, she pointed to a puncture mark on his neck close to his left ear.

  Lorcan gasped. “There’s nothing supernatural about his coma this time!”

  Mya said nothing. She turned on her heel, leaving Lorcan and Orla standing there in shock.

  Lorcan left the bedroom and sat down on the sofa. “There was no point rushing him to the hospital. Mya could have let us know that before. What she saw suggested that even if we got him to the hospital, he would have still died. That means whatever we do to help him has to be done differently . . .” Lorcan said.

  “And it’s important to know what was pumped into him and who did it. Those two pieces of information might lead to decisions that will change our current situation regarding the curses.”

  Lorcan nodded. “It can’t possibly get any worse regarding the curses, so I guess we need to focus on Riley first. Lorcan went to Riley’s medical cabinet and pulled out his medical box. He unwrapped a syringe and took a blood sample from Riley.

  “Are you taking that to Simon?” Orla asked.

  Simon was a mutual friend of Riley and Lorcan and was a medical doctor. Lorcan nodded. When he finished drawing the blood, he carefully put the syringe into its container and slid it into a bag.

  “I won’t be long. Be careful. Take care of Noah, and please be right by the phone,” Lorcan said. Orla reached up and kissed him. She savored the kiss as much as she could, because she wasn’t quite sure when to whether Lorcan came back. And whether she could get them out of the mess of the curses.

  Chapter 26

  An hour later, sitting opposite Simon, Lorcan stared at the report he had silently pushed across the table. Simon leaned back on his sofa, holding a coffee mug in both hands, turned it around about a dozen times before taking a tentative sip. After many years knowing Simon, Lorcan noticed that habit had never changed, especially when he concentrated.

  “You don’t look surprised,” Simon said.

  “About this gibberish? No. I have no idea what it is, but as long as it’s not poison, I’m okay.”

  “It’s not poison. It’s sedative. A very special kind of sedative, and Riley was given a very strong dose.”

  “Will he snap out of it?”

  Simon stared at Lorcan for a brief moment. “Medically, no.”

  Lorcan put his head in his hands and ruffled his hair. Then he looked at Simon. “Can you give me a bit more than that?”

  Simon sipped his coffee again. “What happened to Riley?”

  “What?”

  “Come on, man. Riley asked me to take care of medical matters for him and Noah if anything were to happen to him. I have his files.”

  “He asked you?”

  “Don’t be offended. I’m sure you’re the guardian of Noah for everything else in the boy’s life, and you might be in Riley’s will too. But when it comes to medical matters, he trusts me. Don’t you think I come in handy in situations like this?”

  “Not too handy when the answer you give me is a no. Man, what I am supposed to do? The kid’s cried his eyes out already. And now you expect me to tell Noah his father is going to be in a coma forever?”

  “I said medically no, not just a no.”

  Lorcan stared at Simon, waiting for him to give more information.

  Simon put his coffee on the table, flipped the report to the next page, and p
ointed at the table. “Look, the base of this sedative is pretty standard. But there are twelve weird ingredients in it that make no sense. They’re mainly herbs and plants and organic agents I don’t recognize. The point is, they don’t add anything whatsoever to the sedation aspect of the drug, they’re just there in the mix. Why?”

  Lorcan raised his hand, requesting silence, and made a phone call. When Orla picked up at the other end, he gestured Simon, pointing toward the list. “Hey, there’s a list of ingredients here. See what you can make of them.” Then he repeated after Simon. “Garlic, sage, lilac, aspect of oil . . . some unrecognizable organic agent . . . Hey, Simon, that’s not helpful, just give me those you can recognize . . .”

  “It’s a preparation for a spell or a curse. It could be of any nature—black curse, white curse, reverse spell. It depends on how the ritual is performed, the purpose, time, date, and the location,” Orla cut in. “Where did you find this?”

  “Long story. Talk to you later.” Lorcan finished the phone call and stared at Simon. “Is that what you mean by ‘medically no’. You know this?”

  Simon shook his head. “I don’t know anything of the kind. It’s just a hunch.”

  “Now the fact that you, a medical doctor, is open to a combination of scientific sedative and supernatural practice is beyond me. But let’s set that philosophical debate aside for the moment. Is this a hard-core sedative? I mean, a real one that has to be properly produced and manufactured, not one that can be made by hand or cooked up at home?”

  “No, the sedative is industrial rate. Not homemade. And I know what your next question is—there’s only one company that might be making this . . . LeBlanc Pharmaceuticals.”

  “You have evidence of this?”

  “No. And it’s not an accusation because this drug is not illegal or harmful. It’s just a sedative with exotic ingredients. The only basis for my wild guess is that the LeBlanc Pharmaceuticals have a reputation for using unusual ingredients. That’s it. We and the rest of the world really don’t know much about them.”