by Al K. Line
Contents
Title Page
A Welcome Rest
An Empty House
Vampire Burglary
Just a Human
Slow Down
Trip to the Cafe
Stanley the Seer
An Easy Mistake to Make
To the Gym
Hidden and Hostile
Time to Breathe
Don't Say It!
Gnome Home
Necromancing the Gnomes
Back to the Gym
Drugi Doles Acts Tough
Time to be Alone
A Night of Bliss
Meeting Taavi
Follow that Cat
Sorry to Disturb You
Grandma!
The Witches Get Busy
At the Morgue
Sleeping with Imps
Don't be Daft
Contemplation
A Nighttime Visit
Trouble at Home
Wizard Shifter
Time to Move
A Drive
Contemplation
Meeting the Chemist
More Favors
Into the Vampire's Den
Plans are for Lightweights
Ninja Spark
Bonfire of the Vampires
Empty Spark
The Loss of Innocence
Taking it all Back
Evil Spark
Dark Magic Enforcer Book 2
Al K. Line
Get deals and new release notifications first via the Newsletter.
Copyright © 2016, Al K. Line. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A Welcome Rest
Have you ever been in a fight? A real fight, as an adult? Where you hit, slap, kick and scream in an uncoordinated release of fury, anger, and fear, and you know you are clueless about how to punch properly but you do it anyway?
You have no sense of time or place, only that you are scared like you have never been scared before in your life. Your opponent keeps on hitting you and kicking you and pulling your hair and you do the same. Lost to madness and rage. Have you ever done that?
It gets sloppier and meaner, and most of your attempts to land a killer punch miss the mark. But you manage a few strikes, glancing blows off a nose, cheek, or chin, although most miss entirely.
The sound is sickening, the feeling worse. Flesh and bone splitting and breaking because of your own violence, but you do it, lost to yourself, just a knot of fear and adrenaline. Then, the person you are fighting suddenly gets better as you tire. Shocked, you feel the crunch as your nose breaks, the ringing in your ear as he smacks you hard, like a brick to the head, and your neck whips sideways.
Then you are down on the floor, gasping for breath. Pain is your world as it becomes all-encompassing.
Your ribs crack as a foot slams into your side, then he kicks your head and you're sure this is it—the end. Surely your skull has split open like a spoon hitting an egg, brain seeping between the cracks like undercooked yolk. And now you can't see as your eyes swell up, and you are so tired, and so scared, but you want to stand, to prove something.
You can't. Your world is pain.
Shame overpowers you. The shame of being afraid. Of not knowing how to fight even though you are an adult. Of being beaten, of losing.
Yet above all else, as the other person walks away, maybe turns and shouts something over their shoulder and you see their lips move but can't hear because of the ringing and the humiliation, is the feeling of being alive.
You hurt in a way you never imagined possible. You can't think straight, you are a mess of bruises and lumps, but you survived and this is what being alive is truly like. You had a real fight, not one like in the movies where punches always land and a hard jab to the face results in little more than a grunt, but a terrifying glimpse into brutality where even a glancing blow stings like when your ears are numb when you played in the snow as a child and you turn and slam into a tree covered in ice.
Terror grips you, but as you lay there on the ground, then painfully get to your knees and fight back the humiliation, you are tingling and feel like your life until that point has been a dream.
This is real emotion. This is real fear. This is what happens when massive surges of adrenaline course through your veins and your heart beats so fast you are sure it will explode from your chest. Every nerve is on fire, but you are truly alive. You become aware, for the first time in your life, what you are made of. Flesh and bone and blood and mucus. This is what it is to be a human being.
Well, that's what I felt like for a week after I dealt with Ankine Luisi, the Armenian succubus.
Not only did I hurt more than having my first real fight, I felt like I'd volunteered to be the ball for a group of angry trolls in a grudge match to the death.
My body ached and screamed more on the inside than the outside, though. Using so much dark magic to defeat her and save myself, not to mention run-ins with vampires, zombies, the odd shifter, and trying to keep my emotions in check about Kate, had taken a toll greater than I'd ever experienced. Yet, above all else, I felt victorious. And, if I'm being honest, then I felt a little smug. No, more than that. I felt invincible.
For a few hours.
By the time my boss, Rikka, Mage Rikka, Head of the UK Dark Council and Hidden Council, had cleared out the Finnish Embassy then I was little more than numb. The rest was just a delirium of hurt.
With a slap on the back, and a promise that we would talk soon about what had transpired that evening, I got a ride home, went to bed, and remained there for a week.
Magic, dark magic, the force that comes from the Empty, is excruciating at the best of times, but when you use too much, draw on it too deeply, not only are you sick to your stomach but you exhaust your mind and body.
Totally depleted, my central nervous system fried, I did little but lie in bed and moan until I felt like I could face the world again.
I'd returned no phone calls, not checked my email, left the door unanswered, and reveled in the peace and tranquility after I called Kate and Rikka and told them I was resting and to not keep bothering me until I was well.
I had days of blissful silence. No interruptions, no jobs to do, no creatures to defend myself against. Just me, my spotless bedroom with its firm mattress, and sheets I changed daily—every morning I woke up drenched in sweat and feeling like I would die all over again.
The most I managed was to open and close the blinds, but I ended up not even bothering with that. Bizarrely, the British summer actually decided to make an appearance. Rain and gray clouds were replaced with sunshine that tried to force its way into my home, so I kept the blinds closed and the house dark and cool.
My life as an enforcer often results in me needing some serious down time, but this had been extreme even for me. Dealing with true Hidden, completely magical creatures, can have that effect on you, and I paid the price for messing with things that are not meant to be part of the life of a human being. Hey, we meddle, we can't help it. It's our nature.
It had been interesting to watch my body over the course of the week—it got skinnier and skinnier as I looked in the mirror before showering. My flesh wasn't covered in bruises though. I was just mentally, physically, and psychically exhausted from what had happened. I hardly ate as I couldn't face going down the stairs. What little I consumed did noth
ing to dull the hunger, so I simply lay in bed and rested.
To ensure my mistake of a week ago was well and truly covered up I checked the TV now and then, and it was. Thankfully, I was off the hook. I'd finished my enforcer job so my time was my own. But I still had to talk to Rikka, fill the boss in on exactly what had gone down. Most painful of all was the ache in my heart that had nothing to do with using magic. I missed Kate.
Finally, after a blur of numb days and nightmare-filled nights, I was back to being me again. Light of heart, skinny of body, still with the crazy bleached-blond hair, and covered from head to toe in tattoos that helped me channel dark magic and make my way in this strange world I live in—the Hidden world.
I'm Faz Pound, Dark Magic Enforcer, and I was back.
With a clean suit on that Kate had got dry-cleaned for me while I recuperated—an original from the nineteen sixties, my favorite era—a white shirt, as I didn't intend on getting it dirty, white socks, and freshly showered, I felt like a new man as I stared with interest at the new life forms growing in my mostly spartan, definitely stinky, fridge.
My musings on what to buy from the supermarket were interrupted by a knock at the door.
As I opened it, Kate pushed past me and walked into the kitchen. The heat outside was fierce, the sun joyous. It was too weird. This is Wales, and Wales doesn't do sun. It does drizzle and depressing skies.
Kate looked terrible. Eyes wide, face a mask of concern. She fidgeted like an imp with a stubborn jar of Marmite.
"What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." It was entirely possible. Our world is far from the normal world and Kate is part of it, being a vampire and all.
"It's the vampires and the humans, they've gone nuts. Rikka has threatened to wipe them all out. Taavi called a meeting of us all last night and was angrier than I've ever seen him. He's threatening to kill all human Hidden unless Rikka calms down. There will be chaos. Carnage. And, I'm sorry, Faz, I don't know how to tell you this, but it's all because Grandma has gone missing."
I went numb, then hot, then ice gripped my emotions. "Grandma?" I managed to say through clenched teeth,
"She's gone, Faz. Vanished. Grandma has gone! Rikka thinks it's the vampires, Taavi says it's nothing to do with him but won't let Rikka act the way he is, and I can't find Grandma anywhere."
"What happened? Who did it? Nobody would dare." I love Grandma more than life itself. She's the sweetest lady you could ever meet, never mind that she's a millennia-old witch that will kill you if she knows you are a bad person.
"That's just it, nobody knows. Not really."
"Okay, let's go." I grabbed my jacket, phone, wallet, and keys, and as we left I looked back at the minimalist, bright and airy interior of my home of ninety years, breathed deeply of the pine and lemon aroma that made it smell like paradise to me, and sighed as I closed the door behind us.
It felt like the last breath I would take until I found Grandma and knew she was well.
I will kill anyone that dares lay a single finger on Grandma. I love her, I adore her, and I owe her more than I could possibly ever hope to give her in return.
I felt my tattoos itch and scratch against my skin as they sucked in dark magic from the Empty. My body primed itself for death and destruction on a scale unimaginable.
Nobody messes with my family.
I would rip them to pieces and send them howling back to the Empty piece by magic-warped piece.
It felt a bit of a letdown to get the bus, but it was quicker than waiting for a taxi to arrive.
An Empty House
My heart thudded like a tunnel full of dwarves told there was gold and to get busy with the hammers. I was dizzy and more nervous than a rabbit in a roomful of goblins, and I'd forgotten how to swallow, or breathe. We stood outside Grandma's front door. It all felt wrong. Alien.
Sweat stuck to me like a sickness, and it wasn't just the bright sun that was causing it. It was sheer dread as I felt my life going into free fall.
What was this place? Without Grandma inside once I opened up, it would be nothing but a house, no longer a home. Where was she? What had happened? I had to find out. Nothing would stop me. Nothing.
My arm began to shake, so I took a deep breath and looked at Kate, just to get a semblance of normality in a world that felt displaced, almost without meaning.
"You okay?" asked Kate, looking at me with real concern.
"Yeah. Let's get inside and check it out. You can fill me in on what's been going on. Those damn kids on the bus, I couldn't hear a thing."
"Okay, but you look terrible, Faz. You are really skinny."
She was right. My suit was a little loose and my face didn't feel or look right. It was all angular and dark under my eyes. "I'll be fine. A few big meals and I'll fill right back out."
"You have to eat. It's how you recover."
"I know, Kate. But I just couldn't face it. Rest was what I needed, and quiet. Now look what's happened. If I find out anyone has done anything bad to Grandma I'll—"
"I know, Faz, I know. I feel the same way. We have to find her, before this starts a war. Ugh, can you imagine?"
I could, and it would be terrible. When Rikka went crazy after my parents died it nearly tore the vampire and human Hidden communities apart for good, and to this day things aren't right between Rikka and Taavi, the Head vampire in the UK, two thousand years old and more powerful than the rest of his kind combined. Not that vampires and humans ever really got on, probably because most vampires dismiss mere humans as little more than a sub-species, even though they were human once, too.
Forcing my fingers to behave and stop shaking, I opened the door to Grandma's using my key. As I stepped inside, familiar smells of her endless potions hit me. Then my ink clawed at my skin and my eyes darkened as I raised my hands, ready to blast the living hell out of the vampire stood at the end of Grandma's hallway.
My anger would know no bounds. I would obliterate the intruder until he was nothing but a stain on the familiar, patterned carpet.
I would split him down the middle and pick out the bits with tweezers. This was Grandma's house, where I spent my teenage years. Where I was loved, helped to grow, and grieve. It's a sanctuary. Vampires are not welcome. Apart from Kate.
"Prepare to die. Painfully," I whispered at the startled figure, hood covering his features, but the essence of him making it clear what he was.
Another form darted past in the living room, nothing but a blur, then stood beside the other. A mirror image.
Something clicked. These were short, and very wide vampires. They pulled back their hoods, revealing blank faces devoid of fear. It was the Chinese goons. Taavi's henchmen. The twins, Bret and Bart.
"You better have a damn good reason for being in Grandma's house, and I can't think of a single one that will allow you two to leave here without me sucking the magic out of you and chopping you up with one of her cleavers." I moved in front of Kate as the twins unzipped their black sweaters. They may as well have had swag bags they looked so much like stereotypical burglars.
"We were sent, Spark. By Taavi," Bret, or Bart—I can never tell which is which—added unnecessarily.
"You were sent, were you? Makes it all right to enter my family home uninvited, does it? You know the rules. You don't do that. Ever!" My tattoos were itching like molten lava ran through them, screaming to be allowed to send dark magic flaring at the intruders. I felt my eyes darken further, pools of pure magic, as the familiar feeling of silver sparks pricked my eyes like they were sliced by fae wings. My mind emptied. Dark magic rushed into me from the Empty.
They took a step back, the usually stoic twins knowing I was dangerous in my current state. "We had orders."
I didn't care. Nobody desecrated the sanctity of Grandma's home, especially not vampire goons. I felt the scream build inside as dark magic seeped out of my pores until I was shrouded in a haze of powerful hate and loss.
I was unstoppable. My body vibrated as I got ready to u
nleash hell in Grandma's hall.
Vampire Burglary
"Prepare to die, real slow." I was close to gone, magic and sickness almost all I was.
"Wait! We're sorry, Spark. Honest. You know Taavi. Like we said, we have orders."
"Orders! This is Grandma's house! My house!" I was going to erupt and already the sickness threatened to double me over and leave me curled up like a baby. Not until I sucked the blood magic out of them and got answers though.
"Sorry, Spark, we really are. But it's chaos out there. Everyone has gone loopy." This was the most the twins had ever spoken to me, more than I'd heard them say to anyone.
Their slight accents had grown stronger, revealing uncharacteristic nervousness. They never get nervous, so I must have looked seriously deranged. It was only a week ago they'd picked me up and taken me to their boss, to Taavi. Now it felt like a lifetime ago and my anger made me invincible.
"Faz, you need to calm down." I felt a hand on my shoulder and spun.
"Calm down? I'll..." I looked into Kate's eyes, saw the concern and the fear. What was wrong with me? I had lost the plot and I'd only been in the house for a minute. She smiled and I smiled back weakly. I nodded then turned back to the twins, doing all I could to reign in my emotions. Hard to do when they were stood in Grandma's house, in her kitchen.
"Do not move," I warned, as I stepped forward and entered the familiar room. They stayed rooted to the spot, muscles tensed, making them look even larger than ever, thick chests bulging through open sweatshirts showing matching t-shirts.
Kate followed in behind me and did what she is so good at doing—diffusing awkward situations. "Let's all sit down and I'll put the kettle on. It won't be like Grandma's," she smiled at me, "but it may help. We can talk. Like grownups." She looked at each of us in turn; we nodded like naughty schoolchildren.
The room was silent while Kate busied herself at the counter, boiling water, putting tea in the pot and getting things ready. She pulled milk from the fridge, sniffed it, and decided it was fine. So Grandma couldn't have been missing that long or it would be off.
