The Cardkeeper Chronicles: Books 1-5 (Complete Collection)

by A. C. Nicholls

  Which was more than could be said for me.

  I arrived on the correct floor, stopping dead in my tracks as I laid eyes on my apartment door. It was ajar, with thin traces of light beaming through from inside. Whoever had dared to break into my home didn’t have the common sense to bring a flashlight. At least that had worked in my favor, giving me enough notice to defend myself.

  But then I remembered Jason.

  I had left him on the couch, weak and defenseless. There was no way he could fight off an attacker in his current state. Even if he could shift into his werewolf form, there was no guarantee of strength. I had to protect him. Heart pounding, sweat moistening my forehead, I reached for my magicard before realizing I was still only mortal.

  Shit.

  My head was a mess, a storm of toxic thoughts tearing through my mind as I crept along the hallway and pushed open the door. It creaked open slowly, revealing the room little by little. By the time I saw who was inside, my heart was lodged in my throat.

  “Link.”

  Jason was right where I left him, sitting up with his back to the arm of the couch. Link was perched on his shoulder, dabbing a wet flannel to his head – taking care of my man. When he spotted me, a smile broke out onto his lips.

  “Keira!”

  Pleased as I was to see him, my beating heart still pounded on double time, like it didn’t yet know this was a false alarm. I slammed the door and crossed the room, sitting by Jason’s feet and patting his leg. “Think you could close the door next time?”

  “Good to see you too,” said Link.

  “Sorry. How’ve you been?”

  “Ah, you know. Up and down.”

  I glanced over at Jason, whose eyes were still closed, and quieted to a whisper. “What happened back at home? Your dad didn’t seem all too happy to see you.”

  “That’s just how it is with me and him. Remember when I said that the faeries aren’t all that nice? Yeah, it was mostly him I was talking about. Sure, he taught me to read and write, to tie my shoes and tell the time, but he’s still a dick.”

  I giggled quietly. “What did he want with you?”

  “Mostly just to check up on me. Make sure I’m living according to his standards.”

  “And are you?”

  Link shrugged, his wrinkled cheeks wobbling as he did so. “I’m happy. I guess that’s as right as it gets, isn’t it?” He threw the flannel across the room and slid down Jason’s chest, causing him to stir. “So, what’s going on? I see you’ve still got the medallion.”

  I glanced down at it, sighed, and then brought Link up to speed on my story. He waited patiently, eyes flashing with interest. Even as Jason began to awaken, I continued so as not to lose my train of thought. I reminded myself of just how much hell I’d been through these past couple of days. Usually there would be a new magicard waiting for me at the end of all this, but not this time – not with my luck. More than ever, I was feeling like that lost errand girl.

  When I’d relayed the events up to present day, Jason groaned and sat up groggily, his body slow and entirely bankrupt of energy. Sure, he looked better, with the color returning to his face and that shine restoring in his eyes, but he was doing a terrible job of hiding his fatigue.

  “Going to the sister?” he asked, his eyes rolling slowly over the room.

  I nodded. “Just gotta hope she’s ready to have the medallion. I’m sick and tired of seeing it. Everywhere I turn, someone wants to take it off my hands, but every one of them would be too dangerous if they had it. I’m holding out for something better, and maybe Louse’s daughter is the one.”

  Link hopped down from the couch, stretched his arms out – reminding me of my dream in the process – and then began to flicker his wings. Tiny and weightless, he lifted into the air, a gentle buzzing sound coming from his back. “And if she doesn’t want it?”

  “Then I’ll be completely and hopelessly lost.”

  “Sounds good to me. Let’s go.”

  “Wait.” Jason swung his legs around like an old man, struggling to his feet before failing, falling onto his back and starting the process all over again. “Feeling better now. I’m coming with you,” he said, but his wobbling didn’t convince me.

  I shot to my feet and eased him back, feeling for his temperature and then dragging the blanket back over him. His face felt red hot. “No, you rest. You’re no use to me like this. Besides, if you start to feel any better you can whip up some supper. I’m starving.”

  For the first time tonight, Jason’s eyes met mine. “But I… want you safe.”

  Link landed on Jason’s knee, his wings coming to an abrupt halt as he tucked them behind his back. “Listen to your missus,” he said, sending a teasing smile my way. “I’ll watch her back tonight. It should just be a quick in and out.” He tilted his head, peering up at me. “Right?”

  “Right.” I leaned forward and planted a kiss on Jason’s cheek, before scooping Link into my hands and heading for the door. Finally, I was going to be rid of this cursed medallion, and then I could head home and enjoy some good food and heavy sleep.

  I should have known that it sounded too easy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Within twenty minutes, I traipsed up the steps of a modern detached house. The front lawn – or what I could see of it in the spotlight that clunked on as I approached – was well maintained, and a fresh coat of paint had been applied to the window frames. I could smell it.

  I rang the doorbell and waited in silence. Link remained hidden inside my jacket, out of sight in case a mortal happened to open the door. For all I knew, the mage had given me the wrong address – just one more stop for the Fool Train.

  A light blinked on from inside the house, and before I knew it a woman in her thirties greeted me in a pleasant tone. Her long, blonde hair flowed over her red, silky nightgown as if it had just been brushed. The green in her eyes sparkled even in the dim porch light, and from the way her lips pursed as she awaited introduction, I knew straight away that this was the mage’s sister. They looked strikingly similar.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Sorry to disturb you so late,” I said, stepping forward and reaching inside my jacket for the medallion. I held it out in front of her, but kept it around my neck in the slim chance that I had mistaken her identity. “But do you know what this is?”

  The pleasantness faded from the woman’s smile as her sight landed on the medallion. “Yes, it belonged to my father. How did you…”

  “I’m your local Cardkeeper,” I told her, sparing her the trouble of asking while I slipped it off my neck and handed it over. “You won’t believe the amount of crap I’ve had to endure just by being in possession of that thing.”

  The woman – Melissa, if I had correctly read her brother’s handwriting – gripped the medallion with a fierce desire, gazing down at it longingly. The blood rushed to her face, and I suspected it was over a wave of excitement. At least, I hoped so.

  “Please,” I said, “tell me you want it.”

  “Oh, I want it, all right.” Melissa poked her head out of the door and swept her eyes over my shoulder, watching both ends of the street. “Have you come alone?”

  I unzipped my jacket and let it fall open, as Link flew out of it like a bird from a cage. He hovered by my side, his wings making a mess of my hair. “It’s just us two.”

  “Then come in.” Melissa disappeared inside the house, taking the medallion with her and leaving us outside alone. From the way she had reacted, I figured she’d known about the creepers; how much they wanted it and how easily they could find it. If I was right, then she was remarkably brave for still wanting to keep it.

  With Link riding side-saddle on my shoulder, I followed Melissa into a dark and dingy living room. The drapes were drawn and only a desktop lamp lit up the corner of the room. A strong smell hung in the air, one that I recognized but couldn’t quite identify – something fragrant, but not perfume.

  Melissa stopped in the room,
her back to us as she continued to study the medallion. “Thank you so much for bringing this to me. Do I owe you anything? I don’t have any money, but perhaps I can pay you in trade or something.”

  “You owe me nothing. Just making sure the creepers don’t get it is rewarding enough for me.” I watched her expression, unchanging and barely accommodating us as she distractedly admired the gold craftsmanship. It began to glow again, pulsating this time, lighting up her face like it was happy to finally be home.

  It wasn’t the only one.

  “What is your trade, anyway?” I asked. “Mage? Witch?”

  “Oh, please,” Melissa said, slipping the chain over her neck and holding the medallion still, “I’m not nearly powerful enough to be a witch. I’m a mage, like my brother is and my father… was.” She sighed at the mention of him.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  I wanted to get going – to finally head home now that this matter was put to rest – but something kept me here, locking me in place. I glanced to my shoulder, where Link gnawed on his fingernails as if he were bored or frustrated. Maybe both. So much for him keeping a watchful eye over me. “Look, I really have to go.”

  “Oh, okay.” Melissa nodded slowly. “Are you sure you don’t want anything in return?”

  Of course, the idea of a spell or even a potion of some sort sounded good to me, but I would never be able to get it off my conscience. Her family had been cast out of the Mages Guild, her brother had been attacked, and her father savagely murdered. Returning an heirloom to her seemed only right. “Not at all. Just… I know I said it before, but please, please, please keep it away from the creepers. I’ve recently learned that it can turn them human, and that would be bad news for everyone.”

  Melissa’s face contorted. “How does that work?”

  I shrugged. “It just does.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “They did. The creepers.”

  With a tilt of the head and an expression of confusion, Melissa began to frown. “I’m afraid they were lying to you. The medallion’s only purpose is to forbid magic entirely. I don’t know how well educated you are in these matters – very, I assume, seeing as you’re a Keeper – but the creepers rely on curse, not magic.”

  My heart began to race. Even Link stirred beside me. This woman had our attention. “That can’t be true. I saw it in the subway when I took the medallion from the leader. His face was… I don’t know, shaking. Like he was trying to hide his true self. And then again, when I was taken to their lair, he had a creeper’s claw but a human body.”

  “Perhaps… a half-breed? But then…”

  That was enough. Of course, that creeper was a half-breed. In all the madness, it had completely slipped my mind. It suddenly occurred to me that I had no way of knowing whether the medallion could really turn them human – I hadn’t seen it happen, and only had the word of that man to tell me otherwise. “Wait, if it doesn’t benefit them then why would they want it? Surely it would be a huge waste of their time.”

  Melissa shrugged. “May I suggest that they’re working for someone else?”

  “I doubt it. Creepers are independent creatures.”

  “Then maybe…” Melissa shook her head violently, and then began to pace. “No. That can’t be right… can it?” She turned toward me then, shooting daggers my way. “Wait, you said the leader was a half-breed?”

  I nodded, hanging on every word.

  “Then that wasn’t their lair.”

  The blood rushed to my face. I felt dizzy, weak. “What was it?”

  Melissa rushed from the room, returning several seconds later with a scroll in her hand. She waved me over to the nearby desk, swiped it clean with one arm, and then unraveled the scroll across the top. “This is where their lair is.”

  I leaned in close, following her finger while Link trembled on my shoulder. I was looking at a map. The location she pointed at was not the park that I’d recently been to. It was way too far south. That could only mean one thing “No. It can’t be.”

  “I’m afraid it is. You didn’t go there?”

  “No…”

  “Then the place you went to was merely a sub-den. Each territory has one. See, the lead creeper is a huge thing, twenty-feet high and unable to take the shape of a human. So it’s strange; if the leader – the real leader – wanted it, they would have taken you to him instead. Not to this small-fry.”

  I was confused, not to mention pissed off. At some point, someone had lied to me, but I had become way too involved for me to figure out the perpetrator. I paused, trying to make sense of it, trying to understand what the hell was going on.

  “It sounds to me like they wanted you to have the medallion this whole time,” Melissa continued.

  “Why would they want me to take it?” A sudden image of her father’s dead body popped into my head. It was a horrible, gory picture that I tried to sweep away. Still, the memory of the creeper’s claw marks in his chest remained. “No, they took it from your father. They… I’m sorry, they took it from your father after they killed him.”

  “Yes, but did you stop to question why?”

  “Of course I–”

  Oh.

  I suddenly understood.

  Melissa must have read it in my eyes, for she nodded along. “Yes,” she said. “The medallion dispels all magic, and that Vault of yours was built on magic, was it not? Please, tell me you didn’t take it back there.”

  My face flushed red, the realization striking me like a bowling ball, going straight for my ankles. ‘Then why did they take me to their lair?’ I wanted to ask, but now I knew the truth – the real truth, that I had been so blind to all this time.

  They were trying to distract me.

  Instant panic seized me, filling me with fear for the integrity of the Vault. If the magic had been dispelled, the creepers could have easily gained access to it. And while I ran all over town to find the owner of the medallion, the creepers had made themselves at home at the Vault – on their new throne.

  “I have to go,” I said, turning quickly and sprinting from the room. But my feet couldn’t carry me fast enough, for if the Vault was really under attack, if the creepers had really invaded, the whole of Chicago would pay the price.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Mortal or not, I sprinted back to the VHS store until my legs went numb with pain. Even then, I didn’t stop. My life, and the lives of everyone in Chicago depended on it. More than anything, I needed access to the Vault, and I needed it yesterday.

  Link overtook me, no longer giving a damn whether humans saw him. There were bigger problems than the exposure of the mythological now, and he knew it. “Keira,” he said. “If the creepers took over the Vault…”

  “Not now, Link.”

  “But–”

  “Not now!” I huffed and wheezed, darting down the street while people stopped and stared – not at me, but at the five-inch man flapping his wings. The last thing I wanted was to start thinking about the creepers. If my hunch was right, they would have access to the entire set of magicards. The only hope remaining involved our very lives, and the fact that we still had them. If we were lucky, the Vault had not yet been seized, which meant that the tower hadn’t toppled, and the Sacred Temple of R’hen still had a pillar to prop it up.

  By the time I made it to the VHS store, sweat dripped from every pore. Link had shot on ahead to open the door, and as he held it open, I burst inside and dashed through to the back. The formalities of donning a robe didn’t even register, for the Vault’s security consumed my thoughts. Instead, I raised my hands to create a portal, before I remembered that I no longer had that power. I could no longer wield magic.

  “Shit,” I yelled, grabbing at the roots of my hair in frustration. I recalled that Dalton had watched us in the past, using the embers of the Grand Hall to see into our world. I jumped up and down, yelling at the air, begging to be heard. “Dalton! Sir, please open up
.”

  Nothing.

  The silence rattled me, only contributing to my growing fears that we had been taken over. Torturing me. What if the Vault had been compromised, and it was all my fault? How had I been so blind? If something had truly happened, I would never forgive myself.

  There was a sudden break in the air, and a ring of fire carved in front of me. Where it usually tore open quickly, the circle now opened only slowly, revealing the dark skies behind it little by little. Seconds later, when it was fully formed, a robed figure fell through the portal, closing it behind him as he crumpled to the ground.

  “Dalton!” I ran to him, kneeling and propping up his head in my hands. It was against the rules, but I removed his hood and gasped in horror at his pale skin, while a thin line of blood oozed from his nose and trickled onto his lip.

  His body small and frail, Dalton wheezed and coughed, spitting out a glob of blood that missed my cheek by less than an inch. “Lady Keira…” he mumbled, fighting to stay alive. There was a gash in his stomach; a wound that had torn him from hip to hip, soaking his robe in deadly scarlet.

  “Ssh, save your energy,” I said calmly, although panicking inside. Who knew what would happen if Chicago’s last remaining Elder died? Not much, if the creepers got their way – the world would soon come to an end, while they stayed safely ruling the Vault. “Is it creepers? Squeeze my hand if it’s creepers.”

  The space between my question and the squeeze took a lifetime. When it finally came, I glared over at Link, whose eyes were wide with uncontrollable fear. And who could blame him? Failure loomed before us both, and we were supposed to be the guardians of the world.

  It fell on us to save it.

  “Lady… Keira,” Dalton groaned again.

  “Sir, I think you need to take it steady and breathe.” I laid him down flat and removed my jacket, then rolled it up and slid it under his head. The cold leather didn’t make for much of a pillow, but it was better than nothing. Besides, it wasn’t like I needed it.

  Dalton, barely able to move, tried to tilt his head again, but no words came out. No matter how much I tried to persuade him, he couldn’t seem to rest. If I could get him to the healing pools in the Vault’s basement, maybe he would stand a chance of recovery, but that remained impossible for as long as the tower swarmed with those gangly white bastards.