Blood Mage (Dark Impulse Book 1)

by Edmund Hughes

  The inside of the pit was nearly pitch black. The angle of the cliffs surrounding the quarry on three sides, combined with the depth of the mine itself, meant that it would only ever be in full sunlight for a few minutes each day, when the sun was directly overhead. Which left room for Jack’s vampiric abilities to function, saving him from otherwise certain death from the landing.

  He groaned as he sat up, cutting the sound of it short as he realized that he still wasn’t out of danger. Bert was in the pit with him. Jack started hoping that the fall had been enough to put the ghoul out of his misery, because the alternative was the stuff of nightmares.

  A scratching noise came from the other side of the pit, extinguishing that hope. Jack went still, his terror rooting him in place. It was an insidious kind of fear, old and familiar, and compelling enough to cut his legs out from under him.

  He still couldn’t see anything, but then again, of course he couldn’t. He had his eyes closed. He wasn’t there in the pit anymore, but back in his childhood. In the blank section of his memories, right before he’d last left the island. He remembered that smell of death and decay. The darkness and the hopelessness. It all had something to do with how his parents had died.

  Trying to remember it was like searching for an object out of a dream. What was it that Katie had said about dream weaving, again? Using magic to trick a person’s mind into forgetting inconvenient memories. Was this the type of experience that such an extreme measure would be reserved for?

  The scratching noise came again, and Jack knew he couldn’t stay afraid. He couldn’t, and he didn’t need to. He had power now. He wasn’t a child. Mira had taught him that much, even though she was his enemy. Jack took a breath and forced his eyes open.

  They took several seconds to adjust, and when they did, he almost hated having them open. The pit was a truly revolting place, both in smell and in appearance. A significant amount of trash and refuse had been dumped into the bottom. So much so that it was almost impossible to pick out which shadowed lump was Bert, who hadn’t started moving enough to stand out.

  Still, he wasn’t about to let the circumstances paralyze him again. He wasn’t going to run, at least not without finishing the fight. He wasn’t powerless, and he’d recovered from the fall first. He had the advantage.

  He took a step toward the center of the pit, resisting the urge to flinch back as his foot brushed across a garbage bag buzzing with flies. A gurgling noise came from the other side, and he could just barely make out Bert’s silhouette as the ghoul staggered to his feet.

  “Took a bit of a tumble, did you?” shouted Jack. “Well, come on then. Let’s finish this!”

  A second wet, coughing noise came from another section of the pit. Jack felt his confidence crumble like a sand castle against the tide as a second monstrous form began to rise upward amidst the trash, followed by a third from behind him.

  Three against one. He and Katie had struggled against Bert when the odds had been in their favor. And that wasn’t even bringing into account the fact that she’d had her crossbow with her. Jack spun in a slow circle, trying to figure out a way of positioning himself that would at least give him a chance. He tried not to think about the acidic phlegm Bert had hacked up earlier, and how quickly the fight would be over if he took a glob of it to the back of his head.

  One of the additional ghouls let out a low, rumbling hiss as it reached its feet. It was slightly smaller than Bert, but shifted to the side with quick, jerky movements that gave the impression of a dislocated sort of dexterity. It hadn’t started closing the distance toward him yet, but it would, soon. They all would, soon.

  Jack needed a weapon. He had his blood magic, but the idea of using Spectral Hand against three lumbering monsters seemed overly optimistic. Katie had said that it was possible to use spectral magic to form weapons or shields, and Jack had seen Mira using hers almost like whips. Why not a sword, then?

  Bert had slowly started toward him, and Jack could also now hear the ghoul behind him crumpling through the trash. He snapped his arm to the side, reaching inward for his blood essence and focusing it into a spell. He pictured exactly he wanted in his mind’s eye, and felt his magic stirring to life to oblige him.

  The spell he manifested was similar to Spectral Hand, but functionally different. A sword formed within Jack’s fingers, a black blade with red accents in the pattern of veins. It was long, almost four feet from handle to tip, and tiny puffs of black smoke curled around it in the same way that a warm object in the cold might give off condensation.

  The blade was perfectly symmetrical, with no cross-guard or obvious hilt. It felt substantial in his grip, but it weighed far less than it should have, barely enough to slow his arm down. It was a sword formed from blood magic. A Spectral Sword. And it was exactly what Jack needed.

  Bert stumbled toward Jack through the trash, as did the ghoul to Jack’s left, but there was no coordination between the two monsters. Bert was like a runaway train, kicking through the garbage as he moved. The other ghoul scampered on all fours, letting out a sinister, oozing hiss.

  Jack’s sword fighting experience was limited, basically extending only to playing with sticks as a child with Katie. He swung his sword in a somewhat frantic, two-handed slash, a bit like a batter trying to connect with a baseball. The ghoul on all fours was within range, but it twisted back at the last second, only taking a shallow cut across the stomach.

  Bert was still closing on him, but Jack’s sword was light and maneuverable enough to allow him to quickly shift into a reverse strike. He swung for Bert’s head, but the ghoul shifted his neck to the side slightly. The ethereal blade clipped what was left of Bert’s ear, scoring an injury that was no more than superficial to the lumbering monster.

  The third ghoul slammed into Jack from behind, catching him completely off guard. He stumbled forward, and one of his feet caught on an old tire, sending him sprawling into the disgusting trash and grime that coated the pit’s floor.

  It was all Jack could do to keep from impaling himself on his own weapon. He kept his sword tight in his grip and quickly rolled back to his feet. All three of the ghouls were closing in on him, managing to unify their attack by luck, if not through actual strategy.

  He swung his blade wildly, fending off each ghoul as it drew close. It was like trying to keep a pack of wolves at bay with a tree branch. They flinched backward more out of surprise and uncertainty than out of respect for Jack and his weapon. He gritted his teeth, feeling a sudden rush of anger, both at the monsters and the hopelessness of his situation.

  The ghoul behind came a little too close. Jack spun around, whipping his sword into a horizontal slash intended to push his opponent back. The ghoul’s proximity put him within range of the attack, and the Spectral Sword cleaved into the monster’s abdomen like an axe cutting through rotten wood.

  Jack pressed his advantage on reflex, feeling his anger build with each strike. He pulled his sword loose and followed up with an overhead cut that severed the injured ghoul’s arm completely. The hideous monster let out a gurgle and collapsed into a pile of garbage and disgusting smelling blood.

  A blow struck Jack in the side of the head hard enough to knock him over and mottle his vision with black stars. Bert had snuck up on him while he’d been busy with the third ghoul. Jack rolled over onto his back, holding his sword up defensively, ready to cut at a foot or a hand if another strike came.

  Bert didn’t hit him. Instead, the ghoul sucked in air, making the hideously recognizable wet noise that telegraphed someone about to let loose with their spittle. Jack vividly recalled what the acidic green goo had done to the metal fence, and immediately began to move.

  He rolled over his back shoulder and onto his feet, not wanting to take even a step further into Bert’s spitting range. The other ghoul left standing was on all fours to Jack’s right, slowly coming toward him more in the manner of a crawling insect than a sentient creature.

  Jack felt like he couldn’t focus
on one without ignoring the other. He took a step backward and heard a tin crunch as his sneaker scraped across a discarded metal trash lid. An idea came to him, and reached down to scoop it up, wielding it by the handle like a medieval knight’s shield.

  Bert suddenly jerked his head forward, releasing his acid attack. Jack let out a terrified shout and desperately tried to take cover behind his new shield. He heard the acidic phlegm impact, like droplets of water against a tin roof. It burned tiny holes into the metal lid, but it didn’t continue through onto his face. Which was about as much as he could have asked for.

  The crawling ghoul picked that moment to launch itself into a shrieking tackle, flying through the air like a movie monster in the midst of an ambush. Jack shouted again as he slashed his sword in a wide arc. He was only holding onto it with one hand, but the weapon still did serious damage to the ghoul, all but disemboweling it in midair.

  Unfortunately, the strike didn’t stop the monster’s momentum. The ghoul landed on Jack, knocking him onto his back and pinning him to the ground. Jack cringed as he struggled to pull free, feeling as though he was swimming though blood, garbage, and unidentifiable nastiness.

  The ghoul tried to bite down on Jack’s face. He forced what remained of his shield into the monster’s mouth, and then swung his sword in a desperate, flailing strike across its back. The ghoul twitched as the blade made contact. Jack swung again, and again, and blessedly, the creature went still.

  It took him a second to roll himself loose. Almost no sooner than he’d found his feet did Bert slam into his shoulder and knock him down to his knees. Jack tried to pull himself up, but Bert slammed a fist down on his back.

  It hurt. It hurt a lot. Jack was pretty sure something had broken or at least cracked in his spine, and he fell forward onto his stomach from the force of the impact. Bert continued striking him, landing blow after blow in such quick succession that it was all Jack could do to curl up and attempt to keep his head protected.

  He did manage to reposition himself after a few seconds, orienting his feet toward Bert. He reached back with his free hand, leveraging himself against an old piece of furniture, and kicked hard with both legs. The blow caught Bert in the stomach and knocked him back with the same forceful punishment that might have come from a startled horse.

  Jack scrambled to his feet, rushing toward Bert before the ghoul could rise again. He started hacking with his sword, swinging it in clumsy, violent strikes. For all the elegance of his weightless, ethereal weapon, the desperate salvo he unleashed on Bert was anything but.

  He cut off Bert’s arm, and then one of his legs. He watched Bert attempt to crawl away from him, gurgling and pushing himself across the floor with his sole remaining foot. Jack kicked him hard between the shoulder blades and used the sole of his shoe to hold the ghoul in place. He let the edge of his black and red sword settle against the monster’s neck for a moment, and then brought it down in a powerful, cleaving strike, separating head from body.

  The other two ghouls were still alive, though hobbled beyond the point of being threatening. Jack repeated the grisly procedure with each of them. He felt that strange, unwanted rush again. It was a mixture of primal, ancient emotions, and it reverberated through him. He was the victor. He was the one left standing. He was still alive, and it felt so good that it was a little unnerving.

  The pit was silent in the wake of the fight, and the ensuing calm left room for Jack’s anxiety to slither its way back in. He let go of his Spectral Sword and felt a subtle magical pressure subside as the blade evaporated in a puff of shadow and smoke, dismissed for the moment.

  It was time for him to leave. He wasn’t interested in spending a second longer in the pit than he absolutely had to.

  Behind him, against one of the curved, rocky walls, Jack found the mechanical lift that had once brought miners to and from the surface. He stood inside of it, fumbling around with his hands until he found the mechanism to work it. The switches were covered in grime, and none of them did anything.

  Instead, he felt around for the metal elevator line connecting the lift to the surface. It was rusted and painful to grip, but also frayed to the point of being easily climbable. Jack slowly began to pull himself up, alternating between reaching with his hands and squeezing his legs against the thick elevator line to hold himself in place.

  He was surprised when he reached the top and discovered that the sun was still out. The darkness of the pit had felt eternal, like something that would follow him through the rest of his life. A shiver went down his back as he considered what had just occurred down below. Mira had gathered those ghouls for a purpose, and he hadn’t the slightest idea what it was.

  It was a long walk back to the mansion, but it gave Jack’s remaining adrenaline a chance to burn itself out. His throat felt a little itchy, but overall, his bloodthirst was more manageable than it had been for the past few days. He wondered if the sunlight affected how strongly it came on, or if maybe what Katie had said about it being stronger for the first few days after being turned was close to the truth.

  Ryoko was sweeping the foyer floor when Jack entered, and she flinched in surprise when she saw him. Jack frowned and looked down at himself. He did have some blood on him, mostly from the ghouls, but the dirt from the pit and the rust from the elevator line had more or less covered it up. His clothes were ruined, and he smelled terrible, but there was nothing criminally suspicious about his appearance.

  “I’ll set out a new outfit for you, sir,” said Ryoko.

  “Thanks,” said Jack. “Are you curious about how I ended up like this?”

  “A little,” she replied. “But it wasn’t uncommon for Mr. Masterson, er, your grandfather, to get a little dirty on his adventures. It must run in the family.”

  She winked at him, and Jack felt a flush come across his cheeks. Ryoko didn’t tease him like that very often, and it was refreshing to be reminded of the girl underneath the uniform.

  She hurried off to the kitchen, returning to hand Jack a plastic garbage bag while he was on his way upstairs. He took the hint, stripping his clothes off and depositing them in the bag for disposal before stepping into the shower.

  He took his time, scrubbing the filth from every inch of his pale body. Something about what had happened in the pit still had him on edge. At first, he’d thought it was akin to an adrenaline hangover, but there was a different quality to it, less excitable and more calculated. He wiped a hand across his face, wincing as a soap bubble popped near his eye. It was more than just his circumstances that were changing. He was changing along with them.

  Jack dried off and headed for his room dressed only in a towel. Ryoko was coming out just as he reached the door, and she jumped in surprise and brought a hand to her mouth.

  “Sorry,” said Jack. “I didn’t realize I was walking so quietly.”

  “It’s my fault, sir.” Ryoko bowed, blushing a little as she looked at him. “Your clothes are, er, ready for you.”

  Jack frowned a little and glanced down at himself. The towel wasn’t covering him quite as completely as he’d assumed. He hurried to readjust, feeling his cheeks heat up as he realized that he’d just accidentally flashed his maid, while Ryoko hurried off down the hallway.

  CHAPTER 22

  She’d set out comfortable clothes for him, a t-shirt, sweatpants, and a loose-fitting windbreaker. Jack pulled the clothing, savoring the sensation of the soft, clean fabric against his skin.

  He heard the sound of conversation as he made his way downstairs, and he wasn’t surprised to find Katie drinking tea in the mansion’s lounge. She had on black leggings and a tunic-style sweater, and her hair was hanging in a neat brown braid.

  “Hey,” said Jack. “Good to see you.”

  He took a seat next to her on the couch, leaving some room in the center between them. The last time he’d seen her had been when she left with Bruce the previous night, and the last time they’d had a chance to talk freely had been back before his encounte
r with Mira.

  “Likewise,” said Katie. “Now make with the explanations. I need to know what the fuck happened last night. And Ryoko said you went on some kind of adventure today?”

  Jack heard her question, but it barely registered over his own thoughts. He was still thinking about the quarry pit, and about the darkness. About the missing memories from the period surrounding the time he’d last had a near-death experience.

  “Katie,” he said. “What do you remember from the time when my parents died?”

  She frowned at him.

  “How is this at all relevant?” she asked. “That was twelve years ago, Jack.”

  “I never found it weird that I didn’t remember, given how much it affected me,” said Jack. “Until now. I should at least have some memories from that time, but it’s all blank. What happened?”

  A hint of concern entered Katie’s expression, and she slid one of her knees up to hug against her chest.

  “To be honest, I don’t really know, either,” she said. “I remember that time, but it was all so sudden. I found out about the car crash from Peter, and I never got a chance to see you again after it happened. You left the island pretty much immediately.”

  Jack rubbed at his forehead, as though he could use his fingers to coax life back into his recollection.

  “There is something there,” he said. “Something I’m not seeing.”

  “I wish I could help you,” said Katie. “But seriously. We need to focus on the present right now. What have you been doing, Jack?”

  Her tone shifted as she asked the last question, and though it wasn’t exactly accusatory, it did have an edge to it.

  “I’m not even sure where to begin,” said Jack. “A lot has happened.”

  He went on to relate the events of eventful night and morning. Katie frowned as he gave her the gist of what had happened with Mira and warned him not to listen to her. Her frown deepened as he talked about the attempted mugging. As Jack moved on to explaining his near arrest that morning and the call that had brought Bruce to the quarry, Katie folded her arms across her chest.