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

by A. C. Nicholls

  “What gave me away?”

  “Just a sense. What brings you to town?”

  I hesitated. Talking about The Ancient was obviously out of the question if I wanted to not get thrown into a loony bin. Unless… “Book research.”

  “Oh?” The bartender’s brow furrowed and he folded his arms.

  “Yeah, I’m interviewing people who claim to have seen vampires. My aim is to look for consistencies between their stories and pair up the clichés. Anything else will be delved into and looked at with a keener eye.” I watched the man’s expression. It didn’t change. “I heard a rumor about the oldest of vampires being spotted around here, so I came to investigate. You wouldn’t know anything about that?”

  The bartender stared at me with vacant eyes, as if he were carefully considering his answer while holding back his contempt. He then shook his head, leaned in closer to me until his mouth hovered by my ear, and said, “Go.”

  My heart rate picked up rapidly. “What?”

  “Get out of town and don’t mention The Ancient to anyone.”

  “I didn’t say they called it The Ancient. What do you know?”

  The bartender snatched the glass out from in front of me, stuffing twenty dollars back into my hand. Before I got a chance to ask what the hell was going on, a drunken guy from the corner was now at my side and standing way too close.

  “Hey, George. Get me another beer.” He swayed as he waited for his order, his dizzy gaze falling all over the place until he lost his balance and his sweaty body fell onto me. “Whoa, steady there, pal,” he said. “Don’t touch me.”

  I grunted heavily, an expression that had forced people to back off in the past.

  “Oh… I’m drunk. Sorry.” The man’s beer appeared beside him and he snatched it up immediately, raising the bottom and pouring it down his gullet. When he’d had his fill, he slammed the bottle on the side and burped into the air.

  I shot a glance at the bartender, who waved his fingers, telling me to go.

  That, I ignored.

  “Hey,” I said, tapping the drunkard on the shoulder.

  Once again, he swayed and struggled to find me. When he did, he looked surprised. “Oh, hey, man. Long time, no see. How’s the wife?”

  What? Who exactly does he think I am? It didn’t matter – I had every intention of using it to my advantage, pressing him until I got what I needed. “She’s good, real good. Actually, she’s been kind of quiet, keeping her nose tucked into one of those online college courses.”

  The man laughed, leaning his head forward and opening his mouth wide. His putrid breath assaulted my nostrils; hot wings and cheap beer, by the smell of it. “That’s hilarious, man. I never woulda thought of her as the type, you know? What’s she studying?”

  “Mythology.”

  He rolled his eyes at that, though it could have been through loss of control.

  “Yeah,” I went on. “She’s decided to do her case study on vampires.”

  “Heh. Well, there’s plenty of material here.”

  Bingo. Whatever the hell he was on about, he obviously knew something. The only question was, how could I ask him without giving away the fact that I wasn’t… whoever he thought I was?

  I shuffled in closer.

  “Hey, maybe you’d know; she’s looking for a place to research. Said she wanted somewhere to camp out and see if she can get any good sightings of The Ancient.” I knew that mentioning The Ancient’s name was really pushing my luck, but what could he do? The guy was plastered. “Anywhere spring to mind?”

  The man, whose attention seemed to have been stolen by the skinny girl in tight jeans waltzing past him with a flirtatious wink, returned his unsteady gaze to me. “Hmm? Oh, yeah, yeah, right. Hey, Big Jim will probably want to see you. Been years, right? Come on.”

  He grabbed the sleeve of my coat and began dragging me back to his corner. I couldn’t face his friends. The risk of getting caught was way too high. Instead, I yanked my hand away and shook my head. “Some other time.”

  The smile quickly dropped from his face as he was forced to let go. The frown that followed was one of insulted shock, but what alarmed me the most was the way his friends in the corner were sizing me up. Two of them stood, all eyes fixed on me. I suddenly realized that the music had come to a stop, and I was now in the spotlight, standing right in the center of the bar with a load of pissed-off truckers staring me down. I knew I could take them if it came to it, but after what Keira had taught me, I never wanted to hurt a mortal again.

  I made my way for the door, insults falling like shell casings behind me as the cool air hit my lungs. I stopped in my tracks, breathing it in and trying to calm myself down. The drunkard had known something – I was sure of it – and one swift movement had taken all of my chances away from finding out the insider information. It was like the Gods of R’hen had dangled a clue in front of my face, and then quickly pulled it away in some cruel jest.

  The door behind me opened gently and then creaked closed a moment later. Before I knew it, an old man with long, gray-yellow hair and a beard longer than my own stepped beside me. He lit up a smoke and offered me one from the packet. When I shook my head, he placed one between his lips and sparked up. He sucked it in and then blew out a beautiful cloud of white smoke that kissed the air before dissipating.

  “Heard you was talking of some vampires,” he said. Only he said it like ‘vamp-ires’.

  I craned my neck, studying him. “Maybe.”

  The man chuckled. “Then maybe I can help you. What are you, boy?”

  “What do you mean?”

  This time it was his turn to crane his neck. “You know; werewolf, mage, demon?”

  “I’m… something else.”

  “Like what? A Cardkeeper?”

  I said nothing, only staring at the man blankly and pondering his identity. How did he know so much? Bars were frequently full of gossip but rarely would you enter one to find a man with any depth of knowledge. Often, the only people who knew about the underworld were people who were from the underworld, but my spider-sense wasn’t tingling – there was no magic on him whatsoever.

  The man grinned and turned back to stare at the dark abyss. “Yeah, I had you pegged pretty quickly. You immortals walk around like you own the place, but let me tell you, you don’t own a goddamn thing.” He took another drag on his smoke, blowing it out through his sore, red lips.

  “Who are you?” I asked, utterly intrigued.

  “Hehe. Tell you what…” The old man flicked his smoke away, rolled down his sleeves and dived a hand into his pocket for his keys. “My pickup truck is over there. Why don’t you come see me when you’re finished? I’ll explain everything.”

  “Finished?” I felt my eyebrows contort as confusion stole over me. “Finished with what?”

  Just as the old man poked a thumb over his shoulder, the bar’s door swung open. I spun around quickly to see the glass shatter with the sheer force of it, and all of the truckers were storming toward me with ire in their eyes. Some had their sleeves rolled up, while others were tightly clutching pocketknives.

  But there was one thing they all had in common.

  They looked like they wanted me dead.

  “I’ll be in my truck,” the old man said, leaving me alone. “Good luck.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The mysterious old man had stalked off into the darkness and out of sight, leaving me to defend myself. The truckers – I only assumed they were truckers from their red flannel shirts and baseball caps that Hollywood stereotyped only truckers wore – all spread out around me, circling me like they were the hunters, and I was their prey.

  I turned around slowly, counting them. Eight. Shit. That was a challenge when it was eight vampires or eight trolls or eight gargoyles. But eight humans? I would have to really pull my punches if I didn’t want to smack a hole right through them. I could see it now – their hollowed-out bodies slumping to the ground with nothing but shock in their eyes. I co
uldn’t do that to them. Not after what I’d done with the imps some weeks ago.

  My conscience wouldn’t let that happen.

  “Listen guys,” I said, not moving a muscle. “You don’t have to do this. Nobody has to get hurt.”

  The bigger guy – always the bigger guy – stomped forward, jabbing out his knife with a careless, stabbing motion. “You should have thought of that before you laid a hand on our buddy. Now you gotta pay the price.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “Oh, come on. I only removed his hand from my shirt.”

  “You tried to kill him!” came a quivering voice from behind me.

  Turning, trying to identify the speaker but failing, I said, “Nobody tried to kill anybody. You’re all overreacting. Now I’m asking you kindly – and please note for the record that I said this – please put your weapons down and back away.”

  They all laughed.

  “Think he’s scared?” one of them said.

  More laughter.

  I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. For one, I didn’t know if that knife could actually do me any damage. I was stronger than a human now, but how much stronger? If I was going to find out, I didn’t want to do it the hard way. I would have to put one of those guys down first, and then pray that one of the other armed men didn’t get a hit on me. Bleeding now would only slow me down more.

  “All right,” I said, feeling for my sword. As soon as my fingers touched it, I shied away. I remembered my own words; nobody had to get hurt. We’d see how far that got me. “Then quit wasting time and make your move.”

  They hesitated.

  “No? Fine.”

  I jolted forward and struck the bigger man in the shoulder. As he cried out in pain and dropped the pocketknife, I kicked it across the parking lot, shoved my shoulder into his chest and knocked him onto his ass. I spun around violently, only to get whacked in the face by knuckles that broke the second they hit my jaw. My attacker screamed, clutching his wrist and stumbling back as his friends closed the circle, leaving me even less room for attack.

  “Seriously?” I said. “After what you just saw, you’re going to keep trying?”

  By now the larger man was getting up off the floor and staring at me with both humiliation and furious anger. I could almost see him charging before he even did it, but when I heard him cry out and dash toward me, I knew I was in trouble.

  The man struck me hard, knocking me onto my back as a barrage of boots stomped on me over and over. Although I couldn’t feel much, I still didn’t want them to get the better of me. But how was I supposed to stop their attack without killing them? Wounding them obviously had no effect, and they sure as shit couldn’t be talked down. I climbed to my feet, resisting the urge to snap some necks, their heels striking my ribs and then recoiling as they realized their violence didn’t have the desired effect. By the time I was standing upright, I was shoved again, tumbling onto one of the men.

  That was when the cold steel of a small blade pierced my skin.

  I howled into the air, reaching over to my shoulder where the grip of a pocketknife protruded from my flesh. I pulled it out and tossed it aside, losing my patience now. My blood started to boil, and in spite of the wound I’d just taken, I was ready to do some damage. Every muscle in my body screamed with tension. Glancing down, I noticed my fists were already clenched.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I spat.

  Not a single one of them moved in the half-second it took for me to punch one in the ribs. I heard them crack as his body flew across the parking lot, rolling more than five times before skidding to a stop on the gravel. I swung around, ignoring the horrendous pain in my shoulder as I grabbed another man by the throat. His face turning beet red, I raised him into the air and did everything in my power not to squeeze the life out of him. Even as he pleaded with his eyes and kicked his legs around uselessly in the air, I couldn’t help but feel a pulling urge to end his life. I settled for a throw, putting all of my strength into hurling him across the lot and landing on the windshield of a car.

  Ready to do what was necessary, I turned to face my attackers, only to find that they still weren’t retreating. What was it about these guys that kept them so determined to put me down? “Goddamn truckers,” I muttered, storming forward. “Stupid rednecks.”

  I only made it two steps before I had to stop.

  The man had the barrel of a gun aimed directly at the bridge of my nose. At this range it was sure to kill me. I had already seen – could still feel – the damage that a knife had done to me. I didn’t want to imagine the power of a bullet in my face.

  “Don’t you move,” the gunman said. Much of his face was hidden behind a dirty gray baseball cap, but the stillness with which he held the gun indicated his familiarity with firearms. “You want it in the head or in the heart?”

  The other men stormed around me, desperately grabbing my arms and holding me in place. I thought that they still didn’t understand how easily I could remove them, but I knew for certain that I couldn’t do it without the gunman blasting a round into my face. Immortal or not, that was going to hurt like a son of a bitch.

  I only had one thing left to say. “Head or heart, you said?”

  The gunman nodded.

  “Then I think you should definitely put it in your head.”

  They all began to chuckle – even the ones who’d taken an ass-kicking and limped back over to the danger zone. I stood helplessly, watching them regroup. There was no way in hell that Chicago’s Cardkeeper was going to meet his end at the hands of a bunch of redneck truckers, and especially not with uneven odds. There was something to be said for moral integrity: one-on-one is fair, anything else is only cowardice.

  I seized my opportunity, throwing all of my strength into my arms. My shoulder burned like a bush fire and the fiery pain spread out across my back as I rocketed my fist into one of my captor’s hips. I heard a satisfying crunch and then grabbed him by the arm, swinging him round into his friend. All I had left was the gunman now, and a couple of wounded men, and I–

  The gunshot exploded into the air, making everybody duck and cover their heads. I froze, stood stock still while I waited for the cold pain of the bullet to announce itself. When nothing came, my eyes fell to my stomach and I searched for a wound.

  I found nothing.

  “I’m gonna have to ask you to let the man go,” came a voice from behind me.

  We all turned around, and blessed relief poured through every cell in my body.

  The old man had pulled his pickup truck up closer to the melee. The engine still hummed and choked as he stood by the driver-side door with a shotgun held in his hands, the brutish drunks captured in his sights. “I asked ya,” he said, “but I won’t ask again.”

  The thugs surrounding me began to disperse, grinding their teeth and spitting at my feet as I walked between them while trying not to look smug. I headed for the truck and, without an invitation, climbed into the passenger seat before reaching for the door. A burning pain seared through my shoulder as I pulled it shut, thanking my lucky stars that I had made it out of there without having to kill, and without being killed.

  The old man climbed back in and shifted the gears. A second later we were chugging out of the parking lot, passing the drunkard I’d met in the bar, whose eyes lit up as he saw me and waved goodbye.

  “Crazy little bastard,” I mumbled.

  We made it out of the lot and turned onto the road at the end, picking up speed. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, the old man reached into his pocket, found another cigarette and placed it between his lips. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “Only a little.”

  He nodded. “I’ll patch you up.”

  “Thank you,” I said sincerely.

  Neither of us said any more as we drove through Vival Creek, passing a church and a set of houses that I could have sworn I’d walked past earlier. Minutes later we were rounding a gigantic lake on the edge of town. I h
ad no idea where we were going, only that this strange old man had saved my life, and for that, I owed him everything.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  After a long journey through the woods in the black of night, we arrived at a small house in the middle of nowhere, with a garage and a collection of beat-up vehicles out front. Most of them were rusted and missing wheels, while others looked like they were hanging on for dear life, refusing to become scrap. The old man parked the car between a small gathering of old Fords, killed the engine and kicked open the door.

  “Come on in, son.”

  I climbed out and followed him, slightly surprised when he began to veer toward the garage rather than the house. He fumbled for his keys and doubled over to break open a padlock, then raised the shutter. The metal scraped on the gears as it screeched open, revealing the interior little by little. When I could see the whole of the inside, I did a double take.

  There was no car inside the garage, no tools or spare tires. Due to the state of the yard, I’d honestly expected to find some kind of workshop inside, but what I found instead was very, very different. I was looking at a makeshift home.

  To the left was a comfortable-looking leather couch made to seat three. In front of that were two armchairs and a coffee table. On the other side of the garage, the corner was occupied by kitchen worktops with a microwave-oven, refrigerator and freezer. There was even a waffle iron, for god’s sake. The old man had everything he needed in this one small room. It only begged the question: what was in the house?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, showing me in and closing the garage door behind me. “But I live alone out here, and it’s all I need. The house is packed full of boxes of stuff – car parts and the like. It’s how I make my living.”

  “You sell car parts?”

  “Online. You’d be surprised how well they sell, too.”