Shadowmancer (The Circle Book 1)

by Lee Isserow

  “Neat trick,” he said as his gaze followed various people working in the Epicentre, trying with all his might to peer through the veil, if it were there.

  “Mister Nichols, you know full well that we do not do tricks. What you see here are the most capable and well-respected magickians and adepts in the entire world.”

  “Yet, you come a'knocking on my door...”

  Comstock sighed. He was a proud man. Jules could see that asking for help, especially help from outside the fold of his organisation, was not easy for him.

  “Yes,” he said, sucking again at his teeth. It was becoming apparent that this potential asset was not easily impressed, and the only way by which to garner his trust would be complete and utter honesty. “Well, these are desperate times... Very desperate times...”

  12

  The will of man

  Comstock closed the doors and ushered Jules back to his seat, retaking his own opposite him, sitting with his back straight against the chair, a stern look settling on his face.

  “So go on then,” Jules said. “What's so dire that you need to come knocking on a guy's door to get him to join your club?”

  “A less wry tone would be appreciated, Mister Nichols, good people have died in the midst of this situation.”

  “You're really not selling it well...”

  “There would be minor risk to yourself. We simply require your adept skill to facilitate our agents.”

  “You want to use me.”

  “We want your assistance. There are very few in your lineage, and you are the most age appropriate.”

  “Plus, Grams won't take your call, huh?”

  “I cannot, in good conscience, put a bi-centenarian in the field.”

  Jules's lips parted, but no words came out. This was the first time someone had come close to revealing his grandmother's true age. He knew that she was older than she claimed, but had no idea that she might be older than two hundred.

  “There will, as I said, be little to no risk to yourself. We simply require you as an envoy to enable our highly trained team to gain access to a location.”

  “A location where others have died... sounds like a whole lot of risk”

  “Mister Nichols, there is always a risk, even by walking out of your front door you face a risk.”

  “Fewer people have died from walking out their front doors as they have going on secret missions for an 'independent intelligence agency'.”

  “More will die if you do not avail yourself to us!” Comstock said, his voice raised, eyes wide, revealing the slightest glimmer of white at the edges of the black beads in the dark sockets. “The world is in peril, all I am asking you is to assist us, briefly I might add, to aid us in neutralising the threat.”

  “You want me to help you kill someone?”

  “Some thing,” Comstock corrected.

  “Don't feel that much reassured by the definition.”

  “Please,” the old man said, reclaiming his composure. “Mister Nichols, I assure you we will recompense you handsomely for your time.”

  “For my time... helping you kill someone – some thing.”

  “You say your grandmother told you tales of the Circle, of our work. That must have catalogued the good we do on a daily basis. Perhaps she mentioned the veracity in which our agents put their lives on the line for the greater good whenever a threat rears its head?”

  “Sure, she told me about all of that, also told me how beautiful the Circle was... once. When it used to stand for something, have morals, integrity. But all her stories lead up to it becoming increasingly bureaucratic, increasingly corrupted by the will of man... like all things...”

  “She did always like to blame 'the will of man'...” Comstock said, with a sigh.

  “Right, well thanks but no thanks,” Jules said, rising to his feet. “Ain't got a horse in this race, and don't really want one.”

  “I do hope you'll reconsider.”

  “Is this the way out?” Jules asked, pointing to the door that had minutes earlier led to the Epicentre.

  Comstock raised his left hand, middle finger tracing a symbol in the air. With a few quick swipes, the sigil was sealed. “It is now,” he grunted.

  “Thank you,” Jules said, reaching for the invisible handles. Turning them and heaving the doors open, they now led back to Mansion House Place. He exhaled, but given his smooth entry into the office, decided not to attempt to warn his stomach of the impending translocation before stepping over the threshold.

  Arriving back in the alley, he fell to his knees, dry heaving as his digestive tract turned into a roller coaster. His rejection of Comstock's proposal appeared to have led to the old man to be a tad vindictive, making the return trip all the more rockier than his initial journey. The heaves did not stay dry for long, as vomit started flowing, searing the back of Jules's throat as it made its way up and out. Given that this was the response to simply turning down a job offer, Jules was all the more glad for the decision he had made. If this was how Comstock treated those who didn't work for him, he couldn't begin to imagine how he would treat those that did...

  13

  Irrevocably contaminated

  Beryn Comstock's fist slammed on the desk, the resounding thud echoing off the wooden walls back around at him as the anger rolled off his aura in waves. Jules rejecting his proposal was unexpected, to say the least. He had weighed up the odds based on countless hours of surveillance they had on him, just as they had on all adepts that were not already under the auspices of the Circle. Playing the grandmother card should have convinced him to play ball, and yet it had not. It was the old woman's fault, of that he was certain. Since she had left the Circle. she had been nothing but a bane, and had no doubt told him all manner of fictions regarding the way in which the agency had 'changed' since he took command. She did not take kindly to his vital and efficient evolution of processes to the fundamental runnings within the Epicentre, believing them to be pejoratively-loaded alterations that shook the fabric of the very organisation. She was a stubborn old mule, and once again her inflexibility and rejection of progress had screwed his plans up.

  Lifting his right hand in front of his face, he traced a sigil in the air, sealing it by pulling his finger back in towards his palm and extending his thumb and little finger.

  “Talika!” he shouted. “Go back through the files, see if you can dig up any shadow adepts that aren't irrevocably contaminated by their grandmother's obstinance.”

  “That's oddly specific...” she said, trying to stifle a sigh, glancing over her shoulder towards his door. It was literally only fifteen feet away, and yet he decided to place a call directly in her head, rather than just step out of his office.

  “Mister Nichols had chosen to listen to his 'grammy's' advice, rather than do the right damn thing.”

  “I'm not sure there are any more shadow adepts, outside of his bloodline...”

  “Well bloody find one!” With a wave of his hand he killed the call. Fuming in the silent, dim light of his office, illuminated only by the glow of the banker's light on the desk. “Or,” he said, under his breath, “we'll have to find a way to make Mister Nichols change his mind...”

  14

  Mindless mouthpieces

  As soon as the tossing and turning in his gut settled down, Jules walked back down to Temple Station. The fresh air did him good, and a shot of coffee he downed en route successfully washed the taste of vomit from his mouth. He hoped he hadn't got any on his clothes, that would mean he's have to explain to Akif – to lie to him – about how a normal, above board job interview resulted in regurgitation.

  'Kif didn't know anything about the magickal world, and Jules was determined to keep it that way. It would be different if he were a natural magickian, like Natan, who was demonstrating all the early signs of having the old blood running through his veins. Akif had nothing mystical about him, not for generations at least. Whatever magick used to run in his family was long watered down by normal hu
man breeding patterns. That is to say, they did not interbreed as magick-carriers did all too often to preserve the bloodlines. Whilst it was still possible for a mundane to learn how to tap into whatever little spark of the arcane was glowing somewhere deep in them, it was rare. Jules could only imagine that his husband learning there was a whole side of his life that he could not even begin to comprehend would put a strain on their friendship, let alone the marriage itself.

  As he entered the tube station and swiped his contactless card against the barrier's sensor he resigned himself to having to lie to Akif, say that it was just a scam or a pyramid scheme or something. Make up a story about how the two guys were literally going door to door, reciting names from the electoral register or census, offering jobs to everyone who answered. It was, he decided, an almost perfectly crafted lie. Too perfect, he realised, as he took the escalator down towards the platform. The list of names was a push, he could use that as a follow up after declaring it a scam. “Probably from the electoral roll, register, whatever,” he imagined himself saying. “Or maybe they glanced at our mail,” his imagined self said, making the excuse all that much more vague. Vague was good. He could remember reading or hearing that liars often get caught out for being too specific. Best keep the details as hazy as possible.

  He could hear a train pulling in to a platform below. There was never any indication on the escalators as to which direction, let alone which line was arriving, just the ominous overtones of wheels against tracks coming to a standstill. He took the steps three as a time coming down to the lower level, rocketing round the corner to arrive just as the doors on the carriage ahead opened, darting through the tunnel to pounce into the train car. At least, in Jules's mind he pounced, in reality it was closer to a clumsy leap. His hands caught the bar at the centre of the carriage and grabbed hold, steadying himself as his feet found the floor awkwardly. A quick look around the train garnered sight of only five other people spread out across the car, four of them with headphones in, the fifth looking (and Jules hated to admit it, smelling) like a rough sleeper. Poor guy must have found sanctuary on the sparsely populated afternoon train, Jules thought, just looping around from one side of London to the other, taking advantage of the twenty four hour tube.

  Having landed in-tact and without too much embarrassment, Jules poked his head out the door to double-check that the train and destination were both correct, and he took a seat as the conductor set the doors to warn of their impending closure. As he sunk into the intentionally uncomfortable tube seat, he thought back to his grandmother's tales of the Circle. When she had spoken of its inception, it sounded like it was a glorious beacon of hope. A light shining unto the world from the darkness, protecting it from all manner of threats from within and beyond the realm. There was the story of the djinn, of course, then there were whole sagas she had regaled him of ghosts and spirits. Long yarns told over many nights that covered everything from necromancy to mind control, not to mention the myriad fables she had recanted about the terrifying amount of creatures that lurked in the shadows; goblins and ghouls, blood drinkers and marrow suckers, let alone the amorphous beasts from a time before mankind was even a glimmer in evolution's eye. On top of that, there was a vast array of mystical maladies and diseases that she warned him of, a number of them sexually transmitted, which she delighted in informing him of as he neared puberty – as if he needed more to worry about on top of all the regular impending teenage angst.

  One thing he always noticed was that the old woman (who he still couldn't believe was, according to Comstock, so much older than even he ever imagined) always spoke of the Circle in the past tense. The tales she told him were always about what it had done when she was much younger, some from before she was born, an unofficial oral history handed down from her parents and their grandparents before them. A legacy of storytellers, each and every one of them. However, whenever she had spoken of it in anything close to the present tense, it had always been with disdain.

  “They lost their way,” she had said, “got distracted with the power... like men always do...” She would often follow that up with, “Put a woman in charge and you'll see, it'd be different I tell ya'.” Civil rights and equality campaigner through and through, he thought, with a smile.

  She was never specific about what or who caused the Circle to change. For all Jules knew, the man he had met, Beryn Comstock, might have been amongst those responsible for the ethical shift. Unlikely, he thought. Why would one of those responsible for the shift, and for her exit, try to recruit the grandson of someone who disliked their current direction. None of it made sense, and Jules was fed of up of thinking about it, let alone overthinking about it. He closed his eyes, trying to think of anything else. He had declined the invitation to join their stupid secret club, and that was all that mattered. The subject was closed. He wasn't going to be a puppet for anyone, especially not a group of people whose morals were questionable at best. He took a deep breath, and regretted it instantly, almost tasting the aroma encircling the homeless man opposite. A part of Jules hated himself for being so judgemental. Sure, it was the stench of days, perhaps weeks of sweat that were saturated into the man's clothes, thick on his skin, matted in his hair, along with all the dirt and filth of the street... but it wasn't the man's fault for being unwashed and on the street. Jules knew better than to lay that kind of prejudice down. It was so easy to lose a job, miss a rent or mortgage payment, spiral down and down, hitting rock after rock on the way to rock bottom.

  Trying to put the internal narrative to one side, Jules couldn't help but notice that the aroma had become stronger whilst his eyes had been closed. Opening them, he found the man sitting next to him.

  “Reconsider,” said the man.

  “Excuse me?” Jules coughed, leaning away from the homeless man as politely as possible, trying to be subtle whilst he manoeuvred out of the odorous cloud that surrounded him.

  “You should reconsider,” the man said again, staring at Jules with unblinking emerald green eyes that almost seemed to radiate a warmth. As the train pulled into a station, he blinked, shook his head and looked around. There was a confusion in his eyes, eyes that Jules could swear he saw change colour, the green sucked into the black of his pupil, leaving a hazel circle surrounded by dull whites that were shot with lightning bolts of red. The man rose to his feet, unsteady, and Jules continued to watch him as he staggered to the door.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  The man didn't respond. Holding on to the side of the train as he stepped out onto the platform, rocking back and forth like a toddler just learning to walk. The doors closed behind him with a mechanical grunt, as if the train was clearing its throat after dislodging the fragrant vagrant.

  “He meant that you have an opportunity here,” said a voice from further down the carriage. A tall black woman rose to her feet and walked across the car towards Jules. Her feet fell in a straight line coming right towards him, arms hanging by her sides. The train rocked from left to right wildly as it turned corners on the tracks, and yet her balance and poise was flawless.

  “The Circle doesn't open its doors very often...”

  “Who are you?” Jules asked. “Are you working for them? Is this some kind of extended recruitment drive? Stalking me home in possessed bodies?

  “The fact that you are not perturbed by the borrowing of bodies proves that you have what it takes to do what needs to be done...”

  “And what is that exactly?

  The train pulled into another station, and the woman turned on her heel, walking through the doors without acknowledging Jules, expressing no evidence she even knew she had been speaking to him.

  Three new passengers got on, and all stood in front of Jules, jade eyes glued to his. “To do the right thing,” they said, in harmony, before splintering off and taking seats across the carriage.

  “I don't want to work for them,” Jules said, glancing from one to the next. “I don't want to be some kind of mystical secret a
gent... I just want a normal job, a normal life!”

  All the passengers on the train turned to him, staring with identical emerald gazes. “Reconsider,” they said. “Do what your grandmother never had the strength to do, and see it through to the end.”

  The green shed from their irises, and each of the passengers returned to their normal eye-contactless communing routine. Jules felt his lips part, as if to fire more questions, but no words came out. These people were no longer inhabited by whoever was trying to convince him to change his mind.

  It had to be them, he thought, the Circle. Jules could picture them in their secret volcano lair as they closed the possession ritual down, probably just thinking to themselves that they were proving a point. Reminding him that they could get access to him whenever, wherever. What they were in fact demonstrating, as far as he was concerned, was how they were exactly as his grandmother described. Willing to take over innocent people's minds just to get him to take a damn job. If anything, that strategy had cemented his resolve to turn them down. But, he couldn't help but wonder, as a pit started forming in his gut, if they were that casual about turning people into mindless mouthpieces to relay their message, how far would they be willing to go to make him change his mind?