Warlock For Hire: Arcane Inc. Book 1

by Sean Stone

  “Hello there, how can I—” she stopped dead when she saw who I was. Her brow furrowed in anger. It made a nice change from her usual nervous demeanour.

  “Hello,” I said cheerily as if I hadn’t recently royally fucked things up with Killian.

  “Get out,” she said, through gritted teeth.

  “Now, is that any way to talk to a paying customer?” I asked. Antagonising her was probably not the best tactic, but I can be my own worst enemy at times. You might have noticed that already.

  “Now.”

  “I’m here to help you,” I said, hoping to change her attitude.

  “I don’t want your kind of help. You’ll just make things worse. I told you before to stay out of it,” she said.

  “Yeah. About that…”

  “What. Did. You. Do?” she said quietly. Her tone screamed danger. I got the impression that she was one of those women who was absolutely terrifying when they got pissed off. You know the ones I mean. If you don’t know what I mean then it’s probably because you are one. You monster.

  “I went to Killian’s hotel room.” I explained everything to her. Her face remained stony throughout and she didn’t say a single word. That was not a good thing as I was about to find out. Once I’d finished she stepped purposefully round the counter. She walked over to the door, flipped the sign to “closed” and then flicked the lock. Still in silence, she turned back and came to stand in front of me. I waited for the telling off, but it didn’t come. Instead, she punched me in the chin with what felt like all the strength she could muster. I’d like to say that I shook it off like a tough guy, but I didn’t. I fell back into the table behind me and crashed incredibly ungracefully onto the floor. Now, remember that I’d already received a horrific beating this morning and I was not yet fully healed, so her punch hurt a lot more than it usually would have. Oh, just because I got decked by a girl does not make me any less of a real man. I am a real man. A very manly man. She just took me by surprise is all.

  “Alright, that’s fair,” I said and pulled myself up. She went to hit me again, but this time, I saw it coming and grab her wrist just in time. “No, no. You only get one. Any more and you have to give me a free cake.”

  “Okay.” She said. I released her hand and then out of nowhere she hit me again. This time, it wasn’t half as hard and I managed to keep my balance. It still bloody hurt, though. Vicious little cow. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that loved it, though.

  “You have to give me a cake now,” I said, rubbing my sore face.

  “Alright.” She grabbed a chocolate fudge cake — not my preference, but a free cake is a free cake — and then shoved it straight in my face. Luckily it was a fairly firm cake and didn’t make too much mess. The bulk of it fell to the floor and only a small amount was left smeared over my face.

  “Are you finished?” I asked sheepishly. I felt like a boy being disciplined for misbehaviour. I suppose that was what was happening really. Although it was the most bizarre form of discipline I’d received in a while. Two smacks and a cake in the face. It was like clown discipline.

  “You could have got my mother killed,” she said, removing all humour from the situation.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought I could help.”

  “You could have. By helping me with the spell. Like I asked you to. I even offered to pay you.”

  “I know. Killian did too. One million,” I said ruefully. “That offers gone now. Now I have to help you for free.” I should’ve taken the million.

  “Or he’ll kill your mother?” she asked.

  “Something like that.” I didn’t feel like telling her that my mum was already dead. It always led to more questions that I didn’t want to answer.

  We sat down at one of the two metal tables and discussed what we’d do next. Ashley wasn’t happy about working with me, not after I’d endangered her mum, but she didn’t have a choice. It was me or failure. She couldn’t compose the ritual on her own. I doubted that she could even cast it, but Killian was certain that she was going to be the one to do it. All I had to do was provide her with the right tools. I told her that I’d get researching and I’d be in touch when I had something to work with. Until then all she had to do was sit tight. If Killian or any of his goons called she was to tell them to talk to me. She told me that she’d be doing research as well but I knew she wouldn’t achieve anything. No, it’s not because I’m arrogant, it’s because she’d already tried. She’d come to me for a reason remember and it wasn’t a lack of motivation. It was a lack of ability. One that I hoped I did not have.

  I spent days locked away in my room doing research. First, I tried finding an existing ritual for invincibility but was unsuccessful. Obviously. It’s never that easy. I don’t doubt that there are some in existence, but they’re well hidden, or lost. They’re not the sort of rituals people leave lying about. After that failed venture, I began the research needed to write my own. I scoured all of my grimoires and the internet. I compiled lists of all the things on the planet that could possibly be used to create invincibility. Then I wrote what is probably the most complex and convoluted ritual that I have ever seen. I threw it in the bin. Not only was it nigh on impossible to pull off, but I was pretty sure that it wouldn’t work anyway. You might think that rituals are easy enough to write. You just figure out the ingredients, pick an order to use them in and slap, bang, wiggle, you have a ritual. It’s not that simple. Wiring a ritual is like composing a piece of music. You have to get all the little notes in the perfect places or it will sound dreadful. A more complicated ritual is like composing for a ginormous orchestra. So many instruments to write for, so many different melodies and beats. Get one thing wrong and it will sound dreadful, and your hard work will be ruined. That is how difficult it is. If you still don’t understand then go and compose some music for a thirty-two piece orchestra. You’ll understand soon enough. The next few attempts at writing the ritual ended the same way. Finally after an entire week of secluded work I had a ritual that I was happy with. It was simple and to my eye looked effective. It really was my finest work. It was a shame that I hadn’t taken Killian’s offer of a million pounds, because trust me, this ritual was worth it. It only relied on a few ingredients, most of which were natural resources, and a shit tonne of magic. I had the magic bit taken care of in my storage unit.

  I called Ashley and told her I’d written the ritual. It turns out she’d spent the week trying to do research but having no idea where to even start. Not all sorcerers know what they’re doing when it comes to spell writing. In fact, most just rely on spells created by others. It seemed that Ashley was one of those sorcerers. I wouldn’t go as far as to call them lazy, but… actually no, they are lazy. Although Ashley might not be lazy, she might just be less than gifted in the brains department. You can work as hard as you like at spell writing, but if you don’t have the academic ability then it’s a fat old waste of time. It’s a good thing I exist to provide such a stellar service to those who need it, for a price.

  The items we’d need that couldn’t be picked up easily were; the blood of a vampire — the older the better, and a diamond — the bigger the better. Both contained a certain amount of invincibility and combined with the other ingredients; earth, sun and water, they should be able to create the desired effect. Then we’d just need the magic to cast the ritual. The first thing we’d need was the magic. I needed to pour a humungous amount of power into Ashley and then she’d need some time to learn to control it. Controlling magic is fairly easy when you’ve been brought up using it, but when you get given a large quantity exponentially things can get messy. We’d need to be careful because if the power overloaded her then to put it simply she would die. And it would be a very unpleasant death.

  “So you keep all of the power you harness from people here?” Ashley asked incredulously, as we walked through the corridors of the storage place. She was the first person I’d ever taken here. It wasn’t because
she was special. It’s because I didn’t want to carry all that power out on the streets. Too risky.

  “Where else would I keep it?”

  “In your house,” she suggested. “This place isn’t exactly impenetrable.”

  “It’s more secure than my house. And besides, I have protection spells on the unit,” I said, assuring her that it was all perfectly safe.

  We arrived at my unit. I swiped my card and then placed my hand over the door. Odd. I didn’t feel the protection spell. I sent my magic through the door again and confirmed that the spell was not present. Something had broken it, or someone. I pushed the door open and practically fell through it in my hurry to get inside. Straight away I noticed that the room was dimmer than usual. With dread, I cast my eyes to the back of the room, to the shelves which usually produced a nice healthy glow of multicoloured light. They were completely dark. And completely empty. The glass boxes containing all the magic I’d collected were gone. Every last one.

  I opened my mouth and a single word fell out, “Fuck.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ashley flew into full-on panic mode when I told her that the magic was gone. She was pacing frantically. Words were spilling out of her mouth at an alarming rate, but I didn’t hear any of them, not properly. I was momentarily gone. There are two types of people when it comes to panicking; those that go into a frenzy and those that seem to shut down. I’m the latter. I stood perfectly still, staring at the space where the magic should have been. At first, I was actually shut down. My mind was blank and it felt like I was going to float up out of my body and leave everything behind. Then somewhere inside me, someone pressed reset and the systems whirred to life.

  “Calm down,” I said quietly, returning to my senses yet.

  “Calm down? How can I fucking calm down? We need that magic or Myers is going to kill my mother!” she shouted.

  “Shut up,” I said more firmly and she did. “I’ll get the magic back.” I already had an idea where it had gone, or rather who had taken.

  “How?”

  “I just need to find the person who took it,” I said. I walked over to the shelves to see if there was any evidence of the intruder. There was nothing. “A customer came to me last week. Asked for something to break through magical barriers.”

  “And you gave him something that could break through your own barrier?” she asked in disbelief. In hindsight, it did seem foolish. Anyone would think I hadn’t been in this game long.

  “How do you think I test the efficiency of the product?” I retorted.

  “You fucking idiot,” she said, shaking her head. There was no real malice in her words, though. “We’re in so much shit.” She ran her fingers through her hair and resumed pacing.

  “Stop that.” She ignored me. “Ashley,” I grabbed her shoulders and held her in place. “You are going to cast the ritual. With or without that magic. We will find a way.”

  “Without that magic there is no way,” she argued.

  “You’ll do it. Killian has already seen it happen,” I assured her.

  “He saw his own death too. Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.”

  “It might,” I said. If I could find a way to kill him then it bloody well would happen. “Just relax. Trust me. I will find the magic. I have a friend who knows how to find people. Just go home. Chill out. I’ll call you when I’ve got something.”

  “Make sure you do,” she instructed me before leaving the unit. I could tell by her face that the last thing she was going to be doing was relaxing.

  Once she was gone I looked around. Just a cursory glance to see if anything else was missing. It was impossible to concentrate, though. I resigned to giving up. I’d come back and take a full inventory once I’d managed to make some progress finding the thief.

  So, now I had a difficult task ahead of me. I needed to go back to Matt, the friend who was pretty pissed with me, and ask him for another favour. He’d probably take some sweet talking, but I’d be able to convince him. After all, if I failed to make Killian invincible then he’d kill Matt. So really, Matt had more to lose than I did. I decided not to use that as a means of convincing him.

  It turned out that I didn’t need to convince him at all. It had been a week and he’d calmed down now anyway. Emma was still terrified that at any minute someone might turn up at the door to kill them, but Matt had reminded her that only he would be killed. Killian had not mentioned her – although he had, but I chose not tell say so. It did little to soothe her. Luckily she wasn’t home when I turned up, not that it would’ve mattered if she was. She was a timid person really, no matter how angry she got.

  “So who is it you need to find?” he asked, already at his computer.

  “I don’t know. I never got a name. I’ve got a phone number,” I said. I usually insisted on getting names from my clients but I’d been preoccupied with the whole Killian Myers thing. Stupid of me really, but hey ho, it’s in the past now. We live and we learn as they say. And when I got my hands on the thieving little bastard he was going to have a very important lesson to learn. Whether or not he lived was another matter entirely.

  “You never make things easy do you?” Matt said, holding his hand out for my phone.

  “Where’s the fun in that?” I called up the phone number from my last client and handed Matt the phone. He tapped the number into the computer and then started clicking. ‘Besides, you like a challenge.”

  “Eddie, the stuff you bring me is hardly challenging,” he scoffed. He was a cocky bastard. I mean that in a nice way.

  “I seem to recall you failing to get me anything on Killian,” I reminded him.

  “I got his hotel didn’t I? And anyway, I’m still working on finding something more substantial. I will dig something up eventually.”

  “I thought you were trying to stay out of it?” He’d been so pissed at me last week when I’d told him about the danger he was in because of me.

  “Well you’ve dropped us in it already, so I might as well keep digging now. Doing this isn’t going to put me any more danger is it?” he asked, as he worked. I hadn’t actually told him that this was linked to Killian.

  “Nope. It’ll help get you out, though.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I need the magic he stole to do the ritual for Killian,” I explained.

  “So, if I don’t track it down then you won’t be able to do what Killian wants and I’ll get killed?”

  “That’s the gist of it yeah.”

  “Terrific.” A few minutes of silence passed and then Matt spoke again. “Here we go. Your thief is called Craig Sheffield. He works at an Irish bar on the far side of town. No known address for him, though.”

  “That’s fine, a work one will do. What’s the bar called?” I asked.

  “Give me a second.” He tapped a couple of keys. “Donahue’s.”

  “Alright, cheers mate.” I was about to leave when a thought occurred to me. Not a pleasant one. “Who owns the bar?”

  “Why’d you want to know that?” he asked.

  “Just a hunch.”

  He went back to his computer. “Shay Donahue.”

  As I suspected. They were in cahoots. I should have realised sooner. Shay came to me for power, then I caught him following me to my storage place. Then somebody randomly comes looking for a way to break a protection spell. It was really obvious and I was ashamed that I hadn’t noticed. I blame Killian., If he wasn’t taking up all my brain power then I would’ve seen this coming. Might have been able to stop it even. Instead, here I was playing hunt the piggy. Or piggies I suppose.

  “Got an address for him?”

  “Lives at the bar.”

  “Cheers.” I was on my way out when he stopped me.

  “Eddie wait. These guys stole all that power. They’re more powerful than you are now.”

  “I know, you don’t need to tell me.”

  “Be careful,” he said, concerned.

  “Don’t go getting all em
otional on me, Matt,” I mocked. I’ve never responded very well to emotions. They make me feel weird, like having to wear someone elses dirty socks.

  “I’m not. It’s just if you die, I die. So be careful,” he said in a feeble attempt to cover up his concern.

  “Sure,” I said with a smirk, before making my departure.

  I took Matt’s advice and called Ashley before going to Donahue’s. I’m not the sort to hide behind women, and believe me I had no intention of hiding, but only an idiot would walk into this situation alone. Craig and Shay had a multitude of gathered magic at their disposal, I couldn’t beat them on my own. Even combined our power was still not strong enough to take on both Shay and Craig if they had all my collected power. Our only hope was that they hadn’t actually absorbed the power yet, but the chances of that being the case were slim to none. Still, we remained optimistic and got on with it. What choice did we have? At least we had experience, something Craig and Shay did not.

  When I met Shay he hadn’t struck me as the sort of person who would own his own business. He was a grubby little man, who couldn’t have been much older than twenty. He seemed more like a common yob than anything else. I assumed that he must have inherited it from a slightly more respectable ancestor. The pub wasn’t much to look at, as we discovered upon arrival. It was a small run down building that looked like it had just managed to last through the wars. It was in dire need of a paint job, and the windows were so filthy that seeing through them was a mission. The “Donahue’s” sign above the windows was missing several letters and actually just said “Dahu”.

  “So what’s the plan?” Ashley asked as we stood outside.