Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  Then she heard a clamour of footsteps up the stairs, and into the room burst Mr. Constant, brandishing his copper-plated blasting rod. He barely even glanced upon the tiny creatures before he flicked blade of light at each of them in turn, shouting aloud, “Procul!” They evaporated into the nothingness of the void, and a rain of salt fell from the ceiling, as if their bellies were emptied in the process.

  “Curses, child!” Mr. Constant barked.

  Lilly was no child, but twenty-one years hadn't given her much of wisdom yet, and compared to the wizened form of that cranky magician, most were children.

  James ran to Lilly, pulling her close, calming her trembling limbs. She hadn't realised that she was crying until she felt the tears moisten the material on James' shoulder.

  Mr. Constant kicked his way through some of the fallen books by the bookcase, until he saw the tome known as the Malum Malignum. He swept it up and wrapped it inside his coat pocket.

  “You shouldn't even have this!” he yelled.

  “It's lucky I did!” Lilly shouted back.

  “Lucky? Do you know what these things can do?”

  “I was finding out.”

  “You were finding out the hard way. The wrong way.”

  “Well, it's the only way I know.”

  “And you wonder why the Order rejected your application? You're reckless, child. Foolish and reckless. Magic isn't a game.”

  “I know,” she protested.

  “Well, it's time you stop treating it like one.”

  James patted Lilly on the shoulder in reassurance, but he regretted drawing the ire of Mr. Constant in the process.

  “And you,” the librarian growled. “It's time you stop playing at being a vampire hunter and start acting like one. The time for child's play is over. We've had the first battle. There's a war on the horizon. You better arm yourself.”

  27

  The Trial of the Cross

  They didn't stay long at Lilly's apartment, for fear that the O'Neills would return—though even they would have been reluctant to return to the site where a Dead-eater appeared. There was a horrible, dark feeling left in the place, as if somehow there was still something there, gnawing at your soul.

  Mr. Constant brought his car, and drove them out of Dublin. Caoimh sat in the front passenger seat, eyeing the magician with suspicion. He could feel the wards he had in place. They were strong.

  It was a little crowded in the back. Lilly sat between James and Rua, and the vampire cast a disgusted glance at the witch every now and then.

  “I can smell the magic off you,” she said.

  “We all can,” Mr. Constant scolded, casting a glance in the mirror. He could only see two people in the back.

  “Where are we going anyway?” James asked.

  “To get you a weapon.”

  “The Cross of St. Benedict,” Rua said, snarling partway through. Caoimh joined her in an involuntary growl.

  “A grave and terrible weapon,” Mr. Constant explained, “to ward off the terrible creatures of the grave. It was last used a hundred years ago, when the blood wardens were still active, before this long peace made us a little too comfortable. It was hidden away to keep it safe.”

  “So, it's like a talisman?” Lilly asked.

  “Less thought of talismans from you!” the magician replied. “But yes, a talisman of protection, and a weapon of warding. And most of all, a reminder of the power of the blood warden, which James needs the most.”

  “I guess it can't hurt to have a weapon,” James said.

  Rua scoffed. “It'll hurt a lot just trying to get it.”

  28

  The Passage Tomb

  Mr. Constant drove for several hours before they arrived at a passage tomb, one of the unmarked locations that linked up with Newgrange, but was not open to visitors. Some people broke through the barriers to see it, mostly pagans looking to conduct a ritual, and they often reported feeling a dark energy there. This was why.

  “Below this mound is a network of challenges,” Rua said. “They are designed to deter any but a true blood warden. No vampires may enter, and even standing this close, I am repulsed by it. Even a magician as strong as Ernest Constant will be of little aid.”

  “I'm kind of wishing it was just a written test,” James replied.

  “You won't be joking in there,” Mr. Constant said.

  “Yeah. That's what I'm afraid of.”

  “You'll be fine,” Rua reassured him.

  “Is 'fine' enough, though?”

  “If it's not, you'll find more. The will of a blood warden is inexhaustible. It is a well from which an endless water pours. You have let the world dull your senses. You have let your work quench the fires within you. This challenge will unleash your true potential.”

  Her words were encouraging, but Mr. Constant had to intrude with his dour interjection.

  “I should warn you though,” he said. “You may die here.”

  James raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, thanks for that.”

  “I'm obligated to be honest.”

  “And here I was thinking you were all about oaths of silence.”

  The magician humphed. “I'll shut up if you go inside.”

  They approached the entrance, where a boulder had been rolled aside, but James hesitated.

  “Once inside,” Mr. Constant said, “this entrance seals, and the only way out is at the very end. We'll be waiting for you there.”

  James look at the small round opening and gulped.

  “I can't do this,” he said. “I … just can't. This isn't who I am. I'm not brave like you guys. I'm just a man.”

  “There's no such thing,” Mr. Constant replied. “You can't be just a man, for that is an oxymoron. To be a man is to be something more than mere mortal. Humanity was given gifts that even the gods desire. Freedom is one of them. Free will is our curse and our salvation. Right now, you have the choice to become more, or become less.”

  James sighed. “Then I guess I become less.”

  Mr. Constant's face went red. He suddenly pulled loose the tie he was wearing and wrapped it around James' neck, tying the knot quickly, shimmying it up until he was almost choking.

  “Is this what you want?” he shouted at him. “To go back to your old life? You might as well tie the noose yourself!”

  James tried to pull it open, but the magician yanked it tight again.

  “You have good and evil here, coming together for a greater good. I bet you didn't know that, that a lesser evil could help further the cause of the greater good. But a lesser good, through inaction, can also help further the cause of a greater evil.”

  Those words played heavy on James' heart. He knew deep down that he was destined for this, even if he wasn't entirely sure he believed in destiny. But this wasn't about belief; it was about knowing—and he knew that everything they told him to date was true, especially what they told him about himself. What he didn't like was that he learned some other things, like how much of a coward he really was. It was one thing to talk about adventure, and quite another to live it.

  “Okay,” he said. It was hardly a declaration of enthusiasm, but from him it was a lot, a start, a step in the right direction. It didn't matter if the steps were small or slow, only that he was taking them. Yet it seemed that the impending vampire war was pushing him on a little faster than he was ready for.

  “Is that a yes?” Mr. Constant asked.

  James offered his tie back to the magician.

  “Keep it,” Mr. Constant said. “I have a feeling you might be needing it.”

  If anything, that propelled James on more than anything. It was a slight to him, a sign that the magician had no confidence in him, that he thought he'd be back in his old office job after this. James didn't so much get courage from that, but defiance, but it didn't really matter, so long as it pushed him through the door.

  He hung the tie around his shoulders loosely, then turned to face the entrance to the passage tomb.

&n
bsp; “I guess this is it,” he said.

  Lilly hugged him tightly.

  “Stay safe,” she urged. She dropped a little talisman into his shirt pocket and patted his chest there to make him feel it. She'd offered him protection charms when he was in the States, but he always refused. He didn't refuse this one.

  He took a step forward, towards that ancient door, perhaps towards his doom. Before he could change his mind—and his mind was already changing—Rua pushed him through. He stumbled through the archway, and felt the tingling of the barrier as he passed between those stone pylons. He turned to look back, but a large stone rolled into place, sealing him inside.

  The only way out now was through the gauntlet. He didn't know it, but even if he died there, his ghost could never leave. He either got out alive or didn't get out at all.

  29

  The Gauntlet

  James looked ahead at the dark passage leading deep down into the earth. He felt he'd spent far too much time descending beneath the ground. It kind of felt a little like digging his own grave.

  He took the torch from his belt, a parting gift from his new accomplices, and turned it on. It was a battery-powered beam, which he suddenly thought looked a little out of place for such an ancient location, but so long as the light stayed on, he didn't mind. He just hoped that whatever guardians this place had wouldn't mind either.

  He took one cautious step forward, testing the dusty ground with the toes of his foot. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but he'd seen enough films to expect something. But nothing happened. That worried him more than anything, but then maybe this wasn't a physical challenge, but a challenge for the mind, or maybe the soul.

  He continued on, shining the light everywhere ahead of him, then turning sharply when he heard the tumble of scree behind. There was nothing there. It was probably just the shifting of the stones, like the creaking of an old mansion. A new fear blossomed in his mind: that this ancient structure could collapse on him. It'd be a cruel irony to fear supernatural threats, but be killed by Nature instead.

  He stalked his way through the chamber, his eyes darting in all directions. He saw depictions on the walls, like a halfway point between the crude drawings of the cavemen and the elaborate art of the Egyptians. They seemed to tell a story, but it wasn't a good story; it wasn't something that'd help you get asleep at night. It showed the monsters coming from across the sea, and the death and destruction that came with them. It showed those who fought, and died, and the many wars that followed. It showed bearers of the light, guardians against the shadow. It showed good and evil, but James didn't need the walls for that—he'd seen it with his own eyes.

  He passed by two plinths, one showing a globe, the other a crescent. He thought maybe this meant the moon and the sun, but he wasn't sure what it was supposed to tell him, if anything at all. He barely moved beyond them when his own source of luminance began to wane. The torch flickered a bit, then shone fiercely, then flickered again.

  “Come on,” he said to it, tapping the side. It was a new battery, so it should've lasted for ages. The light was growing duller in it, and the flickering was increasing, so he felt forced to push ahead a little faster or risk being lost entirely in darkness.

  When the torch finally gave up the ghost, he found himself at a crossroads of sorts, barely illuminated by lanterns far down each passage. He thought this might be in some way symbolic of his own uncertainty. He could go left or right, or straight ahead. If it was symbolic, he thought maybe the distractions of either side were best avoided, that he should take the path ahead, unwinding, like an arrow loosed from its bow.

  But it wasn't symbolic. It was a trap. As he stepped ahead, he felt the slab beneath his feet sink a little, and he instantly knew that he was in trouble. Yet before he could turn back, the entire ground beneath him gave way, collapsing into a slope, down which he tumbled, bashing his back against the stone.

  He clattered off the ground below in a new part of the tomb, which seemed a little better lit than the others. He groaned as he sat up, then forgot his aches when he saw that the flaming lanterns that lined the walls seemed to be extinguishing and lighting again of their own accord. One on either side went out with a flurry of wind, and then the next, and on and on, while two others came back on again. No breeze had the power to do this. It must have been something else.

  He sat there for a moment, studying the pattern. It seemed that the first three sets had to go out before the first set of lanterns came back on, leaving a gap of two sets in darkness. This moved on in the same sequence, then seemed to change into an entirely random sequence for two more rounds, before returning to the more predictable order again.

  That was all well and good, but he wasn't sure what it meant. He had a hunch it wasn't just decoration, or the sign of bad wiring. The slope behind him was too steep to climb back up, so the only route he could take was straight through the flickering lights. The question was: did he try to stay in the light or the darkness? He mulled this over for a time, until he reckoned it was a question of odds. It wasn't much of a test to stay in the light, because there were far more lanterns on than there were out. It was quite a challenge, however, to hide in the shadows created by the two sets of doused flames, two constantly moving sets, with the fire chasing behind, and blocking the path ahead.

  He didn't leave it to chance though. He cast his own extinguished torch into the passage ahead when the lights were on. The torch sizzled and melted away, as if it was the fire of the sun upon it. James could only imagine what it would do to his flesh.

  Then, as the lights went out, he made a dash for it, hiding in the shadows, trying not to even let a toe or the tip of his nose enter the beams of light ahead. The next set went out, and he took a step forward into the safety of the shadow, just as the lights flared up behind him. He now felt a little of what the vampires must have felt, hiding in darkness, running from the light.

  He continued on, growing more nervous as he did. He only had to slip up once for this to go horribly wrong. The passage seemed infinitely long. Maybe this was also what the vampires felt, living forever.

  Eventually he emerged from the trapped corridor into a larger circular chamber, which had some weak lanterns flickering in the centre. They showed what was pressed against the walls: many stone sarcophagi, sealed tightly, with inscriptions marked into them. He tried to read some of them, but they weren't in any language he knew.

  Then, just as he pressed his hand against one, the lid moved a little. He jumped back, holding out his hands, even as the stone cracked and fell apart, revealing a vampire, just like Lorcan's father, ancient and terrifying. This one must have been sleeping for a hundred years, but now it was awake, and very hungry.

  James circled around the room, holding his hands out, as if that would do any good. The vampire stirred, stepping out slowly in the chamber. It legs shook a little, as if the long sleep had caused some atrophy in them. Perhaps it was more the lack of blood during that long rest. James would make up for it.

  They stepped sideways around the room, preparing for the fight, studying each other's movements. James was looking for a weakness, but the vampire was looking for a vein.

  Suddenly it leapt at him, and he could not dodge it in time. It pressed him back against another stone coffin, reaching its pointed claws towards his neck. The sarcophagus beneath James then began to shudder and crack. The vampire pulled James away, unwilling to share his meal, just as another ancient vampire emerged.

  James backed away from them, almost touching another stone bed, almost waking another of that awful breed. The two vampires snarled at each other, baring their many pointed teeth, brandishing their claws like knives. They sliced through the air in front of them, moving in and pulling back, giving out terrible war cries.

  Then they fought, leaping and slashing, one throwing the other, before coming down on it again with a fist of nails. James sidled around the chamber to avoid them both, ducking and dodging, dashing here and stumblin
g there, until he was knocked back into another coffin. Then a third vampire broke free to join the fight.

  There was so little room left to move that James found he was being pushed and pulled back and forth between the vampires, feeling the slice of their claws as they swung for each other, with him in the way. He fell to the ground, kicking his legs at them, then scrambled away just enough to see the lanterns in the hallway he came from. He crawled towards them, but the vampires must have noticed, or sensed his thoughts. All three of them suddenly stopped fighting and turned to him. Then they dashed towards him, even as he crawled faster towards the lights. Just in time, he dove into the darkness, and a set of lights flickered on behind him, straight in the path of the three advancing vampires. All three of them had launched themselves so quickly after him that they ended up throwing themselves straight into the blades of light. They burst into flames with terrible wails, before collapsing into piles of dust.

  James followed the pattern of the lights back into the room, careful not to touch any of the other stone coffins, wary also of what was ahead. He limped into the next corridor, slow at first, but eager now to get this over with, to find the way out.

  He found himself in a labyrinth, following twisting paths, which often seemed to bring him back to where he started, that same room with five more undisturbed coffins. He tried to map the way in his head, but the place seemed to be playing tricks on his mind. He knew he turned left here, and that brought him round in a circle, so that must be wrong. And yet when he turned right instead, it seemed like the exact same route as before.

  Eventually, by luck or fate, he found steps leading down to the next level, but he was dismayed to find another labyrinth there: this time a hall of mirrors, all reflecting each other, showing dozens of him, and not a hint of the way out. They also showed something else, a slab on the ground with the indentations of hands. James wondered if maybe this was a trap, so he leapt over it, smacking his face off a mirror on the other side. Then, as he started to enter the maze, he wondered why a trap would be so clearly labelled, and if maybe instead he was supposed to place his hands in it. Maybe they would recognise a true blood warden and open the way ahead for him.