Shadowmancer (The Circle Book 1)

by Lee Isserow

  Jules walked through the air towards Comstock, coming up behind him. Everything in his being told him he had to do it, to end it all then and there, but even knowing that, he had second thoughts. Shadows crawled along his skin, winding their way around his fist, caking it in a thick mass of black that elongated into a sharp ebony point. The darkness wrapped around his bicep and wrist, lifted his arm into the air, aiming the point at the back of Comstock's head, as if he were being guided by some unseen force. He knew this was how it had to go, and this job had already forced him to kill, but never this intimately, never this close, and certainly not by his own hand. He swallowed over a lump in his throat, pulled his spear-laden fist back, cocking his elbow, exhaling slowly, and fired the point into the back of Comstock's head.

  But it was not the back of Comstock's head that it would meet. The magickian turned in a flash, eyes on Jules, the shadows dissipating as the fist flew towards him, arm extending as far as it would go, flesh lacerating and bones crumbling as they came within inches of his adversary, bellowing ribbons of red and white peeling out into the Shadow Realm as Jules dropped to his knees at the horror of his right hand being ripped to shreds all the way down to the elbow.

  Comstock's eyes glowed amidst the darkness, his skin crackled with electricity, and with swipe of his hands, the shadows receded, not only beneath Jules, but all around him, as he was tugged back into the Natural World. In shock, and lacking the control he had in the Shadow Realm, Jules cascaded through the air, bones crunching, skin tearing, vital fluids leaking on to the paving stones below.

  'Don't give up,' whispered a voice, a familiar old gargle through the blood. 'Help is on the way...'

  The words should have given Jules comfort, but they did not. The agony of the bare, grizzled flesh at the stump that used to be his arm, the raw bone of his elbow peeking out to say hello, it was all too much. The world around him darkened, a vignette at the edges of his vision that peeled inwards. He could feel his consciousness fleeing, even before the glimmers of Comstock's floating form entered his field of vision, looming over him with a twisted grin. He saw the blurry swipe of a thumb over the Rune, its glyphs emanating a light of their own before it was pointed in his direction, and a pain unlike anything he had ever experienced – even his current state, mangled and bleeding out – rocketed over his entire body as the light consumed him.

  38

  His Natural World

  In an instant, the all-encompassing pain was over, gone, and Jules was left with only the pain of his contorted flesh, which was a walk in the park in comparison. The glimmering blur of Comstock's body slammed into the ground next to him, pavement cracking, sending grit and dust into the air.

  “About bloody time!” he grunted, as he picked his shimmering form back to its feet. “Thought you'd be here sooner to rescue the damn boy...” Comstock's fingers were a blur as he cast and sealed a sigil. Another form flew through the air, slamming into a building behind them. Brickwork showering down onto the street below.

  “Wha...?” Jules mumbled, eyes searching desperately for a point to focus on.

  “Don't you worry,” Comstock said, “I'll be back for you soon enough...”

  “No!” Jules said, reaching out with his remaining hand, in an attempt to stop the magickian, but he had no strength left to restrain him.

  Comstock took to the air, inspecting the hole his opponent had made in the wall.

  “You always thought you were better than us, didn't you! Always the most damn powerful, hero of all the bloody stories! Well you're not so powerful now are you?”

  The ground shook as the building's foundations buckled at his command, folding in on itself, attempting to crush the victim within.

  Jules could not concentrate on the noise around him. The vibrations on the ground felt soothing, lulling him to sleep. He closed his eyes as the sounds of a battle clashed around him, An explosion as the building collapsed, the cascade of brick and steel flying as something emerged from the wreckage, the roars and wails of elements being conjured and fired back and forth, warded or shielded. It drifted off into a melange of mellifluous music, he closed his eyes, reaching out with his last thoughts for the shadows around him to swallow him up.

  Jules didn't feel the flip. Under his closed eyes, light shone out back and forth as Comstock battled his rival, but he had no interest in the skirmish. He returned to the Shadow Realm for one reason, and one reason only. It was the place his adept came from, for all intents and purpose, it was his Natural World.

  He took a deep breath, as the shadows took him, crawling over his body with a velvet touch that caressed him. He nodded, ready, lacking the strength for words. But as the shadows hardened, he found the strength to scream. The darkness cracked his bones back into place and filled in fractures and cracks. It clogged up the many lacerations in his skin, and filled his veins in place of all the blood that was lost, doing the job of the misplaced fluids, funnelling oxygen back and forth across his circulatory system. The shadows heaped together at his missing limb, crawling over one another, weaving into thick bone, leaving themselves malleable at joints, connecting to the nerves that were left at the stump,

  Jules gasped for breath as the darkness receded, his throat raw from the caterwauling as the realm in which he belonged saved his life, piecing him back together. The darkness beneath him furrowed, sitting him up, as if aware that he lacked the strength to do so himself. He looked down at what was just a raw stump of flesh and bone minutes earlier, now connected to an ebony limb that was so dark it disappeared into the shade of the realm around him. He lifted the wrist, opened and closed his fist. It had no feeling, but it was certainly his to control. He caught his breath, took to his feet, and raised his head, gaze tracking the flow of light back and forth, the destruction that was occurring in both the Shadow Realm and Natural World. He was done screwing around. This would end right now.

  39

  The most powerful magickian in all the lands

  In the Natural World, amidst the chaos of roaring flame that arced across the south bank, and sparks of lightning that ripped through the air with cacophonous clatters, a cloud of darkness burst into existence from nothing. It was the size of a man, and through it stepped a man, reborn from the shadows that had been with him his whole life. A steely reserve carved onto Jules's face, eyes peeled, tracking the movement of the two men that were responsible for the wanton destruction being laid unto the city. One was in the air, gleaming and glimmering, as if he was radiating light from deep in his core. The other was confined to the ground, but never stayed in one place for long. He translocated, defensively disappearing and reappearing, trying to get behind his adversary, catch him by surprise. But Comstock was pulsating with magick, and the Rune clutched in his grasp seemed to warn him when a blast was coming for him, swallowing it up before it could do any damage, absorbing the power and sending the blast back tenfold.

  “You think this is you being better than me?” the ma on the ground asked, in a barely decipherable quasi-European accent that Jules recognised all too well. This was the voice of the fire in the flesh, his boyhood hero Shaman Kahgo, saving the day as he always did in every one of the bedtime stories.

  “Oh, I'm better than you alright, Kahgo, you think you're 'the most powerful magickian in all the lands'? Try this on for size!” He cast his arms out, a blinding light rocketing out towards Shaman, it burst across the concourse, tearing atoms apart as it burned the universe from the inside out, en route towards the famed magickian.

  Shaman disappeared in a puff of smoke, reappearing next to Jules.

  “Really?” Jules asked. “A puff of smoke? They say never meet your heroes, but seriously, that's all you have to offer?”

  The massive beam of light shining out of Comstock evaporated everything it came in contact with, burning straight through the pavement, the ground, ripping its way through to the centre of the earth.

  “I do not want to hurt him,” Shaman said. “He was a good man... once
.”

  Comstock turned on an axis, light tunnelling through the ground as he rotated, desperately searching for his nemesis. His beam hit the river, which began bubbling as soon as the light burst through its surface, continuing through to the silt bed, tunnelling a chasm under the city. The Thames's water level began dropping as the searing rays burrowed deeper and deeper, evaporating every molecule that came into contact with it.

  “Well he ain't no more...” Jules said, swallowing hard over a lump in his throat. “You going to stand in my way to do what what you won't?”

  For the first time since meeting him, Jules realised that he could see Shaman's features without the shroud making them instantly forgettable. It was a face he knew so well, exactly as he always pictured it from all those stories of childhood. As if this man he barely knew had been with him, been a part of him, since his earliest memories.

  “I will not,” Shaman said. “I wish it could be any other way... but you are correct. the Circle was contaminated by this man, and there is but one way it will have any chance of returning to its former glory.” His head dropped, eyes searching the ground, and he stepped out for Comstock to see him clearly.

  “No!” Jules shouted. He didn't need Shaman to sacrifice himself for this.

  As the massive beam of searing light twisted towards his hero, Jules reached out with his hand of shadows, clenched his fist and pulled back. Shaman was lurched out of the Natural World into the Shadow Realm, disappearing into a black cloud that existed for merely a moment, thrown through the ether to some other place, just as Comstock's light tore across the ground where he had been standing.

  Jules did not know if he took him out in time, nor did he know if the light would do just as much damage in the Shadow Realm. But those were questions for another time. He raised his shadow arm to Comstock, palm up, fingers spread wide as his former employer turned the light towards him. Jules's ebony hand rotated on the wrist of darkness, fingers balling into a fist. He felt the heat radiating off the beam as it came towards him, grit his teeth as he felt the skin on his face bubbling, his clothes catching alight as the glare encroached, and let his fingers fly open.

  The beam disappeared as gleaming crystals of darkest black ripped through every iota of Comstock's skin. His body fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. The shine around him gone. Shards of slick, solid shadows sticking out in every direction, tearing through organs, shredding musculature, cracking and breaking each and every bone. There was no coming back from this. For Comstock, nor for Jules.

  40

  Grand gesture

  Jules let his hand drop to his side, staring at the mangled remains of Beryn Comstock. He was shell shocked that he even had it in himself to do such a thing. He had shred a man apart from the inside out, turned the shadows in his body against him. The worst thing was, the thing he was punishing himself for, was that he could have probably done that at any time since he discovered the truth about Comstock's malevolence. Back at the office, or in the Epicentre, before all the destruction, before all those innocent people died. Jules shed a tear, hating himself for taking so long to make the damn decision, for being responsible for all the death, even if it was only vicariously and due to inaction rather than direct action.

  He looked at the arm the shadows had gifted him, the replacement for his own that he had only lost because he had been an idiot. He waved it through the air, attempting to dissipate it. He didn't want it, didn't feel that he deserved it. But the shadows would not leave him.

  “They are as much a part of you as you are of them,” Shaman said, stepping out of a cloud of shadows behind him. “Always have been. Sometimes it takes a grand gesture to realise that.”

  “What grand gesture? I lost my damn arm because I took my time making the decision to kill him.”

  “It was the will of the shadows that you should attempt to smite him in their realm. They guided your hand to return things to the natural order. It was their fault rather than yours, and they sought to repay you with this limb.”

  “I don't want it.”

  “And yet, they will not let you return the gift...” Shaman approached him, beckoning for Jules to let him inspect the arm. “Here,” he said, laying his fingers on the stump where Jules's bone met the solid black of the limb. He traced his fingers along the darkness, blood vessels wormed their way out of the stump, sewing themselves together against the black in an intricate plexus, muscle weaving together around it, skin forming over the top, until Shaman reached down to the tips of Jules's fingers, where cuticles bubbled up, raised by emerging nails that were black as night. With a quick glamour, the nails took on Jules's natural skin tone. His eyes rose to meet those of Kahgo, who was inspecting the blisters and burns to his face. He exhaled, a cool breath that carried the aroma of eucalyptus washing over Jules's skin, soothing and healing the wounds.

  “The shadows have always been with you,” Shaman said, catching Jules's gaze. “Now they live not just in your core, but under your very skin.”

  Jules huffed. “You just don't get it!” he grunted, pulling his hand from the ancient magickian. “Not only did I kill a damn man, but look at this!” he indicated to the devastation around him.

  “The Circle will return all of this to how it should be,” Shaman said, walking towards the twisted remains of Comstock. He kneeled down and picked up the Rune, fingers dancing over the top of the etchings. They glowed momentarily as he turned it around and held it over Comstock, siphoning every last drop of magick from him, before taking it back to Jules and offering it to him. “And all the magicks he stole can now be yours,” he said, pointing the stone at Jules.

  “What? No, I don't want them.”

  “You have a good heart, Jules Nichols. And more importantly, you have a lineage that does not corrupt easily. If anyone should command the Circle and have these magicks --”

  “-- I said no. Send 'em back where they came from.”

  “You are sure?”

  “Did I stutter? I couldn't give a damn whether I have magick or not, but there are people out there that have lost everything that made them who they were when they were sucked dry.”

  “Very well,” Shaman said, returning his fingers to the Rune for a final incantation before a blinding flash sent all the magicks back to where they came from.

  “That's it?” Jules asked, sceptically. “It was more of a light show when the magick was stolen...”

  “It is easier to give than to take.” Shaman said, with the briefest hint of a smile.

  “You sound like a Hallmark card. And not a good Hallmark card, but like, one that's been sitting in the bargain bin for a decade because it was written by an idiot.”

  “I shall choose to take that as a compliment, even though the legitimacy as such is questionable.” Kahgo said, handing the Rune to Jules. “I hope you will stay with the Circle, ensure it does not waver from the right path.”

  “Hell no,” Jules said, placing the stone back in Shaman's hand.

  Kahgo chuckled. “You are a good man, Jules Nichols. The fates will smile on you for what you did today.”

  “Whatever, I'm done with this. I just want a normal life. I'm so over this magickal B.S.” He took a step back, and was swallowed by shadows, whisked through the ether to another place. Shaman watched the darkness dissipate and smiled. For one who did not wish to use magick, he now had a greater control over it than he ever had before. Shaman Kahgo had heard the stories of Jules Nichols from the same lips that told Jules Nichols the stories of Shaman Kahgo. And Kahgo couldn't have been prouder of the man Jules had become.

  41

  The Prince Of Darkness

  A cloud of shadows erupted out of the ether, and Jules stepped through it into the hallway of his house.

  “Sorry I'm late!” he shouted, suddenly aware that he had been gone for the best part of a day and hadn't anything close to a realistic excuse for being out of communication.

  He peered into the kitchen, “'Kif? You here?”

&n
bsp; There was no response. He followed the sound of faint chatter from the living room, and nudged the door open. The television was on, CNN replaying footage of the battle on the south bank,

  “As you can see, this man, at least we assume it's a man, was, well, burning London's south bank with this... beam.” They cut to footage from a phone camera shaking as light arced, and buildings fell. “The devastation was quite shocking. We're still waiting for word as to whether this was a terrorist incident or... something else...” They cut to another shot, the Thames boiling, water evaporating at a startling rate. “After the, uh, incident, the Thames is now being estimated at only a few metres deep. We'll have more on that when the Secretary of State for the Environment holds her press conference in a half hour.” Switching to another camera, a broadcast camera with a telephoto lens zoomed across the water, catching Jules stepping out of a cloud of shadows. “And here, this might not be suitable for younger viewers or those with a weak disposition, this is the man many on social media are calling The Prince Of Darkness.” Watching himself, Jules felt his bottom lip quiver of its own volition, a chill rolling its way down his body. The camera followed him along with his bony, black arm. “it looks like he's... well, as you'll see.” Cutting to an even longer lens, both he and Comstock were framed, as Jules gestured with his shadow first, and ripped all the shadows out of Comstock's body. “As has been reported, it appears he killed the man that was directing the light, with what looks like, uh, black spears.”

  Jules fell to his knees and watched himself on the screen through rheumy eyes, the tears refracting the images of him already distorted in the mirror-world of the news cycle. Making him look like a monster. Worse still, it made him feel like a monster. It wasn't like the other stories on the news, the deviations of the truth they usually reported. This was the reality, he had done those things, he had murdered many people, not just the ones caught on tape. He was, as they had said, The Prince Of Darkness.