Shadowmancer (The Circle Book 1)

by Lee Isserow

  “Of course it is...” Jules's fingers began beckoning shadows closer, pulling them from the walls with as much subtlety as possible.

  As the light dissipated from Comstock, his skin was crackling with the new magicks he had absorbed, glimmers of light shining out from his pores, rays sending new shadows dancing across the walls.

  “You rose to the highest position in the Circle, but that wasn't even close to enough, was it?” He huffed a condescending laugh, directing the darkness to coalesce under Comstock's desk. “You needed more power, more magicks to fuel your ego. You had to be subtle of course, bide your time. Started off with dead operatives, I bet, harvesting them in the morgue. But not too many agents die, huh? So you probably snuck out into the field, sapping them on missions, but that was too obvious, wasn't it?” The shadows under the desk were pitch black, ready to strike, Jules knew he just had to keep talking, wait for the right moment before sending them to deal with Comstock. “So you traipsed through the junk you stole, picking out whatever had a monster trapped inside it and let the bastards out, entrusting them to suck the magicks straight from your operatives... but of course, you didn't expect us to be quite so quick at dispatching with them, huh?”

  Comstock grimaced. His lips parted as he made to retort. This was the time. Jules sent the shadows out. Hard, sharp spikes whistling through the air to penetrate Comstock's fragile form, aiming to disembowel him, tearing him open from the bottom up. The shadows never met their intended target, a light bursting out of Comstock that dissipated all the shadows in the room, encasing the entire office in the same gleaming white vacuum form that Shaman had used in Jules's bedroom just a few nights previous.

  The carpet ripped itself from the floor, snaking around Jules like a glove, lifting him into the air and restricting his movement. In this plastic realm, it was slick against his skin, feeling as though he were wrapped in cling film. Comstock looked at the Rune in his hands, thumb rubbing against the lettering again, as he reversed the enchantment, setting it to siphon more magicks rather than release them. Jules knew he only had a moment. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed hold of all the shadows that resided deep in his body and opened his mouth wide, almost dislocating his jaw with the exhale as every shadow that resided inside him burst out, a massive fist slamming Comstock against the wall, knocking the frames to the ground. The shadows from his mouth splintered off, cutting through the plastic carpet around him. He fell to his feet, the shadows around Comstock losing their darkness, as he muttered words under his breath to dissipate them. Jules threw an arm up, made a fist in the air, and pulled it back. Shadows shot out of Comstock's mouth, filling his throat, choking him and stopping the words from escaping. It was only a temporary measure, but it would have to do.

  Before Comstock could cast a sigil, Jules turned on his heel to the door, it was as plastic as the rest of the room, but a door was still a door. As he reached for the handle, he made a sigil, hoping and praying that it was going to work. Turning the knob, he wrenched the door open, and walked out into the Epicentre. Running through the desks of analysts and operatives, he shouted at the top of his voice.

  “Comstock is behind it all!” he said. “He's the one that's been controlling the djinn and the 'thulhu!”

  The walls around Comstock's office exploded outwards, dust and debris filling the air in the Epicentre. Jules threw shadows across the room at him, each deflected with barely any effort on Comstock's part. In an instant, the other magickians were all on their feet, hands in the air, fingers pirouetting as they cast protective and offensive magicks. They were too slow to react the the light coming from the Karmec Rune, screaming in agony as the forking beam hit them one by one, linking them together with thick strands of light, sapping their power before they could seal their sigils. Jules jumped out the way of the light destined for him, he found his way to his feet and took the nearest door. It didn't matter where it went, as long as it was far away from there.

  Comstock was in no hurry to follow. The light coming from his skin was gaining strength, expanding around him, lifting his body from the floor, his feet hanging below him as the light held him aloft. He levitated through the room as light arced around him, siphoning all the magicks from those under his command. He had not expected to be taking this grand a leap quite so soon, but there was also no time like the present. He was more powerful than he had ever imagined becoming, and once he had taken the magicks from the hundreds in the building, the thousands under his command that were spread out around the world, he would be well on his way to becoming the most powerful magickian in all the lands. And then, he chuckled to himself, as he gorged on the blinding light of the Karmec's transferral, it would be time to visit some very old friends...

  35

  Familiar, yet somehow not

  Jules stepped out of the door and found himself in a place that was familiar, and yet somehow not. He had seen it before, but never been there. A great wheel towered over him, that he recognised as The London Eye, and off in the distance he could see a bridge, Tower or London, he could never remember which was which. Either way, it didn't matter at that point in time, he just needed to get the hell away from the door he had come out of. Running along the South Bank, he darted down an alley, going deeper into the bottom half of London. There would be fewer people there, he thought, and more shadows. He found himself running straight into a main road, traffic backed up for what looked like miles in either direction.

  “Dammit!” he shouted, turning down a different alley in the other direction, going back towards the river. There might have been flocks of tourists around, but there were fewer of them than there were commuters stuck in traffic. Running through a park with the river in sight ahead, there was a mechanical wail that screamed out over the sounds of the crowds, that were also screaming. The shadow of the London Eye felt like it was looming over him, appearing closer and darker with every footstep he made. Jules glanced over his shoulder as he continued to run along The Queen's Walk. It wasn't his imagination, the shadows were getting closer, because the Wheel had been torn from its foundations, thrust into the air, coming straight for him. He stopped, turned, his hands naturally grabbing hold of the shadows the tourist attraction was making on the ground as it heeded the call of gravity, sending them up into the air to grab hold of the massive ferris wheel, catching it as it was mere metres from smashing into the ground, and smashing straight into him. Jules struggled with the weight of the hulking steel structure, holding over two thousand tons of it aloft with every iota of his strength. He gritted his teeth, sweat pouring from his brow, limbs locked into place as he lifted it up just a little higher over the treeline of the park he had just crossed, settling it down on the ground as the people riding it rocked around the thirty two egg-shaped bays, a few too many windows now caked with vomit.

  He caught his breath, knowing there wasn't enough time to fully recover, and forced his aching body to burst into a run down the bank of the Thames. In his periphery, the gleaming shine of Comstock's floating form pursued him with anarchic glee, tossing street furniture and lamp posts into his path, as if toying with him. Jules knew all too well that in his current state, it would be simple for Beryn to smite him with barely a thought. He was turning it into a game, wanted to make Jules uses his magicks. It must be part of the way the Rune works, Jules reasoned, as he leaped over a bratwurst cart that came flying towards his legs. The use of magick made it easier for the stone to siphon the power, that's why he let the djinn and 'thulhu out, to put his operatives in a position where they'd need to exert themselves before the rock could suck them dry.

  Jules ran as fast as his legs would allow, continuing to duck and dodge, resisting the urge to conjure any shadows, let alone cast. He sought shelter, taking cover under a pair of bridges, cowering in the stairwell that led up to a restaurant's veranda. It wasn't safe, he couldn't stay long, but at the very least it would provide him a few moments to catch his breath. Plus, he thought, the only objects that could come for him
would do so from above, and their shadows would hit him before the objects...

  Ahead of him, a family stood frozen in fear. A mother, father and their little girl who couldn't have been much older than Natan. All their eyes fixed, unblinking. Jules caught sight of them, amidst the chaos. He tried to shout, warn them away, but the words refused to leave his lips. His body was reluctant to follow through with the desire to help them, it was two steps ahead of him. The family wasn't stuck to the spot because they were fearful, they had been mesmerised.

  The little girl smiled at him, lips curling up her cheeks, and going beyond the limit of her facial muscles' stretch, corners of her mouth tearing open as the grin peeled across her face, skin curling, blood pouring as the ripped flesh went all the way round behind her ears. She lifted her arms up, the skin splitting as she did so, a sickly squelch as the bones of her arms, wrist and hands raised, flayed from their sheaths, skeleton dripping with sinewy blood as the torn flesh dangled from her armpits. Her fingers clacked as they met with a swift movement, her shoulders dropping, and with a flurry, her bony digits tore through the guts of her parents, burying her elbow-deep in both of them. Their rib cages tore open, organs slopping to the floor, bones clacking back and forth like massive jaws laid on their side. The three of them walked in unison towards him, the parent's shooting their arms out, skin left behind as they tore into their daughter's chest, cracking through bone and hoisting her into the air, as if she was the head of some horrendous two-mouthed, four legged beast. Every step took them all that much closer to Jules. Comstock was screwing with him, making hideous creations of mangled flesh to force him to use his magicks, whether he wanted to or not. Jules clambered up the stairs as the family creature approached, grabbing hold of a metal chair and attempting to hold the beast back like and old time lion tamer. The monster grabbed hold of the chair, tugging it from his grasp and threw it over the wall of the veranda into the street below. Chairs, he realised, only worked at dissuading lions from attack because they didn't have hands to fight back... He continued to retreat through the outdoor seating area, throwing chair and table alike in the direction of the creature Comstock had created. Each were inconveniences at best, and all were impotent attempts at stopping their progress. The rib jaws clacked hungrily as it got ever closer to him. He'd have to do it, use some kind of magick to defend himself. But he knew full well that defence was only a temporary measure at best, the mutated thing would continue its assault, he'd have to keep using magick to hold it back, and that would make him a delicious treat for the damn Rune. There was only one smart way to deal with the creature. He made a fist, grabbing hold of the shadows under the pair of bridges, and pulled them towards him. As they darted silently through the air, they formed a massive block of solid black that rammed into the mesh of familial bodies, smushing it against the windows of the restaurant as if it were nothing but a bug.

  Jules tore out of the restaurant, shadows dissipating behind him. He needed to get the hell out of there, the hell out of any populated area before Comstock decided to turn more people into his monstrous playthings. Running towards Waterloo bridge, things were starting to look familiar. Akif had taken him here, to the National Theatre. In the shadows of the bridge, outside the British Film Institute, a maze of tables had been set up by second-hand booksellers. He saw the movement in their boxes and on instinct, lifted his hands in front of him, palms up. With a quick movement he circled them around, the shadows under the tables doing as instructed, leaping out and sealing the books, tables, those that sold and browsed them in a solid dome. It was only semi-opaque, Jules could see the books tearing out of the boxes like angry wild birds, flying this way and that, bloodying their hardbound covers against the faces of potential owners when they realised there was no escape from the shadow cage. There wasn't time to stop, nor time to help the people trapped inside. Even if Jules had tried to save them, they were nothing more than potential weapons for Comstock to take command of.

  There was an almighty groan in the periphery. Jules turned to see the bridge crashing down towards him, its shadow getting darker with every second that passed. He glanced back, still running, as the wires that held the bridge aloft were ripped from the stone, snaking out towards him, cracking like whips. He threw an open hand over his shoulder fingers dipping as the wires' own shadows grabbed hold of them from the ground, mooring them in place, slinking up their bodies and making them rigid. The concrete and brick exploded against the bank of the Thames with a cloud of dust. Jules reminded himself that there was nothing he could do, not while in this frantic, exhausted state. His lungs were aching, heart beating hard in his chest. At least that was something he could deal with. Grabbing hold of the shadows inside his body, he aided his heart's beat, aided the flow of blood to decrease its load. The darkness inside him assisted his lungs too, making oxygenation just that little bit faster and easier. As his organs suffered less, he caught sight of glimmers over the water. The north bank of the Thames was packed with news cameras, reporters, and all too many people that looked like they had their cell phones out, filming every second of the glowing man that flew through the air, chasing the man who manipulated shadows.

  He thought of Akif, turning on the news, flicking to any channel, the mundane media across the world would be covering the spectacle. What would he think, he wondered. Fear, that was what. Akif was as mundane as they came, it was part of what Jules loved about him, being so far removed from this crazy world that he had been born into. For a mundane to discover via the desperately vicious twenty-four hour news cycle that not only did magick exist, but his husband had been hiding it from him this whole time... He couldn't imagine the man he loved staying with him after that, picturing him taking Natan up in his arms as soon as he saw a close up of Jules's face shown alongside the story. Leaving the house. Leaving his life. And he knew that would be how he would react too if the situation was reversed. How could Akif ever trust him again?

  The train of thought wasn't helping, it was distracting and destructive, and was bringing his mind to the same state of exhaustion as his body. Again, he realised, his physical pains could be dealt with. His legs were tired, and he figured that since he had given up withholding magicks, why not just go the whole hog. Taking command of the shadows under his trousers, he hardened the darkness around his legs, using it like an exoskeleton, to take on most of the weight of his body, to keep him running harder and faster than his fragile human frame would normally allow.

  The augmentations made it easier on his body, and if he weren't in great peril, Jules thought he might actually enjoy this kind of activity; exercise without the exertion. But he knew it wasn't the time for jovial thoughts. He needed to deal with Comstock. The next bridge was in the distance, only looked like it was a half-mile away. All he had to do was get there, and then, he'd make his final stand.

  36

  A rat, trapped

  The bridge was getting closer with every step, and Jules swallowed over a lump in his throat as he saw its shadows arcing out across the ground. So close. Just another few seconds and he would be there.

  The ground beneath him swelled, a great mountain range forming under his very feet, lifting him aloft, sending him off balance, sending him tumbling metres down to the ground. Jules caught himself in a glove of shadow pulled from beneath the raised concrete, and picked himself back up. The buckled earth went all the way across the bank, a grand wall designed to keep him from reaching the bridge. Comstock was trying to pin him down. Must be using the Rune to tell when a magickian is primed for sucking dry, Jules reckoned.

  He turned, eyes meeting Comstock's as he sped through the air silently, encroaching on Jules as if he were a scientist gleefully looking forward to experimenting on a rat, trapped in a maze. Jules turned to the left, ground tore towards him, sealing him in. Turned to the water, a great mountain of silt washed ashore, burst into emerald flames, and solidified into a solid, glassy mass. There was only one direction left, the direction Comstock was coming f
rom. Jules tore into a run, aiming straight under the floating magickian, his nose buckling into a fountain of blood as he ran straight into a wall of paving stones that threw itself up from the ground. He was trapped in a four-walled cage, the only way out lying metres above him, trapped until Comstock floated overhead and siphoned every drop of magick from him with the Rune. Jules wasn't going to let that happen. He closed his eyes, listening to the world around him, the waves of the river, the screams and chatters from the news crews on the north bank, and somewhere in all that noise, he imagined he could hear the vibrations Comstock made through the air as he levitated towards him, the light gleaming from his skin making ripples in reality. Jules dropped down to the floor, knowing that there, the cage of Comstock's making, would have do for his last stand. With an unspoken request, he asked his stomach to behave itself, took a breath, and flipped.

  37

  By his own hand

  In the Shadow Realm, Comstock's walls were easily traversed. The levitating magickian floated through the air, the light that surrounded him shining even there in the the world of darkness. Jules lifted his right foot, coalescing the darkness underneath it to raise him aloft. His left foot departed the ground and stepped above the right, climbing a stairwell of his own creation to bring him to Comstock's height, as his pursuer floated over the walls, aiming the Rune over the top to unleash its beam upon his victim. His expression of frustration translated into even the Shadow Realm, the dark face that represented Comstock's contorting wildly. He lifted his free hand up to his cheek and batted it through the air, as if giving the four walls the back of his hand. They ripped apart at the molecular level, a smokey dust making its way across the Thames, wafting away on a breeze back in the Natural World.