Sorcerer's Creed Books 1-3

by N. P. Martin

  "Who the fuck is that?" I said, looking out from around the tree and scanning the woods up ahead. Whoever it was they were well hidden because I saw no sign of them. "Some fucking dumb hunter, maybe?"

  Margot shook her head. "If it is, they just made a huge fucking mistake shooting my familiar."

  Rage flashed across her face, the sudden change in her demeanor stunning me into silence for a moment. There it is, I thought as I stared at her. The face of the Blood Witch. Fearless. Frightening. Cold.

  She pushed off the tree and got ready to go out and find whoever had shot down her owl familiar.

  "Wait," I said when I realized what she was planning on doing. "I think--"

  But she was away before I could finish, striding through the trees like a panther on the prowl.

  And then she stopped dead as if someone had just stabbed her in the back. Her hand went to her neck as she turned around to look at me.

  Then Margot collapsed in a heap on the ground.

  18

  If You Go Into The Woods Today

  I stood for one shocked moment as I gazed at Margot lying amongst the undergrowth on the forest floor, her body prone and unmoving. Had she been shot? I wasn't sure, as I had heard no shot unless the person hunting us in the woods had used a silencer, which didn't make any sense after using a shotgun to bring down the barn owl.

  Then as I looked harder at Margot, I realized there was something sticking out of her neck. Something that was partially bright red in color.

  "A tranq dart," I said aloud.

  Well, at least she wasn't shot with a bullet. Frankly, I was a little surprised that the tranquilizer dart even made it anywhere near Margot in the first place. Her powers should have stopped it. Obviously, she was out of practice after ten years of using her magick only to create, and not to attack or defend.

  My worry levels went down a bit as I was thankful Margot hadn't been shot by a real bullet. I could use my magick to bring her out of her unconscious state, but I wasn't about to do so when the shooter was still out there. If I went down as well, the game would be over.

  And I had no doubt at that stage that whoever was out there in the woods they were there at the behest of Baal. I was starting to think it was a hunter of some kind. It made sense. Baal had obviously hired someone as extra insurance since the demon couldn't enter the woods himself. Then it hit me that the hunter had been following me all along, right since I first entered the woods, and before that on the road.

  Baal, you sneaky bastard, I thought.

  I leaned my head out from around the tree and scanned the woods ahead, still seeing no one. "Whoever you are," I shouted. "You might as well turn back. You have no idea who you're dealing with here."

  My announcement was met with a gunshot. A bullet--not a tranq dart--slammed into the trunk of the tree I was using as cover, exploding bits of bark out near my face. "Son of a bitch!" I cursed, ducking back behind the tree again.

  The shooter wasn't messing around. That shot was meant to kill.

  I pulled out my pistol and held it by my side. Then I leaned around the trunk of the tree and fired off a single shot in the direction I thought the shooter was. Not that I expected to hit anything, but I wanted to at least warn the hunter that they weren't the only one with a gun.

  Seconds after firing, my shot was met with another loud bang, and then another, the two bullets slamming into the tree near my head, causing me to flinch away involuntarily.

  Fuck this, I thought. I couldn't just stay pinned behind the tree while I waited for the hunter to advance on me. I had to take proactive action of some kind.

  Closing my eyes for a second, I cast my enhanced awareness out into the woods in search of the shooter. And while I couldn't exactly see where the person was, I soon got a very good sense of where they where, which was roughly one hundred yards away at my two o'clock. "Alright asshole," I said. "Let's see how you react to this."

  Switching the pistol into my other hand, I quickly conjured up a fireball in my right hand. Then I stepped out from behind the tree and flung the hot as hell fireball to where I thought the shooter was hiding. The ball of fire streaked through the air, narrowly missing the trees it passed between before exploding into a large clump of bushes, engulfing everything within a three-foot radius around it. A loud scream indicated I had found my target, and a second later I saw a large figure come running out from behind the bushes as he did his best to put out the flames that were now attached to the dark duster coat the guy was wearing. As the hunter moved towards a large tree, he fired two shots at me with the pistol in his hand, and I ducked behind cover again.

  Now that I had seen the shooter, I recognized him immediately. He was hard to mistake. A brute of a man, six and a half feet tall and half as wide, always wore a thick beard and his trademark duster and wide brimmed hat. "Damian fucking Gunther," I said as I leaned back against the tree. Blackham's most notorious witch hunter and current head of a family who had spent the last two centuries hunting down every witch they could find. Not only were the Gunther's ruthless and relentless in pursuit of their quarry, but they were also renowned for torturing their captives once caught. Damian Gunther especially was feared amongst the witch fraternity for his cold-bloodedness and almost puritan belief that every witch was a dark stain on God's earth, and therefore deserved no mercy. Obviously, Baal had hired Damian Gunther to capture Margot once I had located her, the demon likely knowing I wouldn't just hand Margot over.

  "I know who you are, Gunther," I shouted. "You might as well leave these woods right now or--"

  A volley of automatic gunfire blasted into the tree I was using for cover, forcing me to duck down as bits of tree exploded out all around me, a few of the bullets missing the tree and whizzing past me before impacting the ground like mini asteroids, throwing up dirt and debris.

  Clearly, Damian Gunther didn't give a shit about my veiled threats. He wasn't going anywhere.

  I conjured up another fireball and launched it after the shooting had stopped, ducking back behind the tree again straight after. No scream from Gunther this time, who had obviously managed to avoid the flames.

  A silence then descended in the woods. Even the birds had stopped chirping. It was a silence I didn't like. Casting out my awareness, I did a search for the witch hunter. Too late, I realized the bastard wasn't far from me, obviously having run around to my left flank. But I still couldn't see him as I held out my pistol while scanning the undergrowth.

  Then I sensed movement out of the corner of my eye. I snapped my head around to see the hulking figure of Damian Gunther appear from behind a tree, a short barreled shotgun aimed right at me. "Drop the pistol, Sorcerer," he barked in a deep, gravelly voice.

  I froze as I stared at the massive man standing not ten feet away from me. How the hell did he manage to get around me so fast? "Take it easy," I said as calmly as I could, my pistol still aimed at the witch hunter.

  Gunther pumped the slide on his shotgun as he carried on walking towards me, stopping only when he was six feet away. "I said drop that fucking pistol."

  Screw you, Gunther, I thought as I tapped into my magick, intending to use the same Paralyzing Spell I had used on the mountain men when I first entered the woods.

  Gunther smiled as he glared at me. "I see what your doing. Your filthy magick won't work on me. I and my descendants have had plenty of time to find ways to block magick from the likes of you. Now, I'm not going to tell you again. Drop that pistol before I put a hole in your chest."

  Son of a bitch. He was right. My magick had no effect on him. I should have known. As someone who hunted witches for a living (and I got the feeling anyone who used magick was a witch to him), it was to be expected that he had found a way to protect himself against most of it. Exactly how, I wasn't quite sure, though I suspected it was mostly a Gunther family trait. Immunity to magick. That's what made them so formidable as witch hunters.

  Not having much choice, I lowered my pistol and dropped it to th
e ground by my feet. "What are you going to do, kill me?" I said. "You even know who you're working for?"

  Damian Gunther came closer until he was two feet away, the barrel of his shotgun still aimed at my chest. Poking out of the inside of his worn duster I saw what looked like a machine pistol, which would explain the automatic fire earlier. "It doesn't matter to me," he said, his massively imposing form seeming to block out the sun behind him, his eyes like chips of gray marble set into his lined, bearded face. It was the first time I had met the man in person, having been aware of him and his family's fearsome reputation for years. Seeing him up close, I had to say the man was as frightening as everyone said he was.

  "You're working for a demon, a demon who wants to take innocent lives."

  Gunther snorted derisively. "Innocent? I don't think so. You know how long I've wanted to get my hands on that bitch lying over there? You know how many people she's killed over the years, how many souls she's reaped?"

  "Yeah, and all for the demon you're now taking orders from. There's irony for you."

  The barrel of the shotgun moved up level with my face. "I take orders from no one," Gunther growled. "I'm here because it's my job to put down abominations of nature like you and the Blood Witch."

  An abomination of nature. That was a new one on me. "There's more to this than you know. You're making a mistake."

  Gunther shook his head. "No mistake. The Blood Witch will die at the hands of the demon. As for you, Sorcerer..."

  The shotgun barrel came so close to my face I could smell the oil on the metal. There aren't too many things more intimidating in life than having a loaded shotgun pointed at your face. "So that's it, you're just going to murder me here in cold blood?"

  Gunther's eyes squinted at me. "That's exactly right, Sorcerer."

  "Well then," I said, thinking I could hear his finger squeeze harder on the shotgun trigger. "I guess I'd better--"

  I teleported around behind him then, just as he pulled the trigger on the shotgun. With a small bladed knife I had dug out of my trench coat, I stabbed him hard in one of his tree trunk sized legs. Gunther cried out in shock and pain, but the man mountain didn't go down, swinging the shotgun around just as I teleported and appeared behind him once more. Balling my fist, I punched him as hard as I could in the small of his back, wincing as I nearly broke my knuckles on his spine. The blow was enough to send Gunther to his knees. He fell forward as the shotgun slipped from his hand.

  As Gunther lay dazed, I rushed forward, knowing if I gave him any time to recover he would be up and on me in a rage. There were a ton of spells I could have used to secure the witch hunter there and then, but as magick in spell form didn't affect him, I had to use raw magickal energy instead. The reddish orange energy swirled around my right fist just as Gunther was getting up, growling that he was going to kill me. But before he could get up, I swung my fist at his skull as hard as I could. The impact cracked my knuckles straight away as it was like punching a bowling ball, but I didn't care. The blow rattled the witch hunter's brain so much that he immediately lost consciousness and fell over again to the forest floor.

  "Goddamn," I said, wincing at the pain in my right hand. "That fucking hurt."

  Margot was still out of it as she lay on the ground not too far away, and I ran over to her, eager to get her awake again before Gunther woke up, which I was sure wouldn't take as long as I thought it would.

  After pulling out the dart that was still stuck in Margot's neck, I placed both hands on her chest as I directed my magick into her and uttered the words to a spell that would neutralize the effects of the sedative in her system. I was thankful when she opened her eyes a moment later.

  "What happened?" she asked, confused as she sat up and unconsciously rubbed at her neck.

  "This?" I said, holding up the dart for her to see. Then I pointed at the still out of it Gunther. "And him."

  Margot frowned at the tranquilizer dart. "All of my power and that tiny thing takes me out."

  "I know, right? But if you don't see it coming, you can't stop it."

  "Clearly not."

  I helped Margot to her feet. "We need to go."

  She was looking over at Gunther. "Is that Damian Gunther, the witch hunter?"

  "Yes. You know him? He says he knows you."

  "We've had our run-ins. He was obsessed with taking me down for years."

  "Still is," I said, the adrenaline pumping through my system making me jittery. "We should go before he wakes up. Can you teleport?"

  She nodded. "Yes, but I need to find my familiar first."

  We spent the next few minutes scanning the woodland floor for the body of the shot barn owl. Margot eventually found it, seemingly dead, its once pristine white feathers now stained with bright red blood. The owl's beak hung slightly open, its eyes half-closed. Margot picked up the dead owl and cradled it gently in her arms like it was her dead baby.

  "As the owl is your familiar, I'm assuming it isn't completely gone," I said.

  "He will come back when he's ready," Margot said, gently stroking the owl's breast with the back of her fingers. When she finally stood up, she cradled the lifeless owl with one arm while she held out her other hand to me.

  As I took hold of her hand, our eyes met for just a second, and I got a tingling sensation in my belly that I chose to ignore. A second later we were gone.

  19

  The Promise

  Margot teleported us both most of the way across the woods. Then we found the trail that would take us to the road where I had the Lincoln parked.

  "Thank you for saving me back there," Margot said. "Gunther would have handed me straight over to Baal if the bastard didn't kill me himself first that is."

  "He didn't have much love for you, I'll tell you that," I said as I kept a close eye out in case Gunther had compatriots hiding out somewhere waiting on us.

  "I can't say I blame him." Margot shook her head. "I did some terrible things to earn that nickname."

  I said nothing as I glanced over at her. It was hard to believe the woman I had spent the last two days with could have been so brutally violent a decade ago. Whatever kind of person she was back then, though, I was pretty sure she wasn't that person anymore. Or at the very least, she kept that part of herself buried deep, in which case she was free to pull it out at any time. Which I hoped she would never have to do, and not just for her sake.

  "So has your familiar died before?" I asked changing the subject and nodding my head at the barn owl she held with both hands against her breast.

  She sighed. "Many times, unfortunately. Always for me in some way."

  "Sounds like a loyal pet."

  Margot shot me a look. "Barney is no pet."

  "Yes, I know, obviously. I just meant...he's loyal. Blaez, my Garra Wolf, is fiercely loyal too. He died protecting me when I was trying to bring down my father."

  "You brought him back?"

  I nodded. "I had a special kind of magick in me then. It allowed me to resurrect Blaez. Thank God. It would have been unbearable to lose him."

  "Barney has been my only friend in the world," Margot said. "I couldn't be without him."

  "You have me now." When I saw the look on her face, I felt I had to explain. "I just mean we're friends."

  "Of course."

  An awkward silence fell as we continued along the trail, finally nearing the edge of the woods.

  "You know," Margot said eventually. "If we get through this--"

  "Which we will."

  She stopped walking. "If we get through this, I hope we can remain friends, you and I. We won't see each other much, but when we do meet again, I'd like us to be friends. You're one of the good guys, Creed, and those have been few and far between in my life."

  I almost blushed as I stared over at her, wondering how Leona would feel if she ever met Margot. Would Leona be able to tell that Margot and I had slept together by some female intuition thing? I hoped not. "I'd like to think we can stay friends," I said. "B
esides, I think your owl is coming round to me. He hasn't attacked me since. That's a start, right?" I smiled over at her.

  Margot smiled back. "I supposed you could call that progress."

  We both laughed before exchanging a last lingering glance, then we made our way down the trail towards the road, and the car soon came into view. I was glad to see the Lincoln again and glad to be getting out of the woods finally. As comfortable as I was surrounded by nature, I was a city boy at heart, and I needed Blackham's familiar ground and surroundings once more. I needed the Sanctum, the place where I had the most chance of figuring everything out with the half-baked plan Margot and I had hatched. "This is us," I said, pointing to the Lincoln. Then I stopped when I noticed a black pickup truck parked just down from the Lincoln. The same truck that overtook me on the way up here. "That's Gunther's truck."

  "Looks like he was alone," Margot said.

  "Yeah." I wasn't convinced Gunther was alone. Baal had to be close by somewhere. Maybe the demon was waiting for us, knowing we would eventually head for the car.

  Then I heard a loud scream that curdled my blood.

  "What the hell..." Margot said.

  A horrific realization was settling into me as I shook my head. "No..." I said, suddenly sprinting down the rest of the trail towards the road. Margot shouted for me to wait, but I hardly heard her as I carried on running, my heart pounding in my chest, a sick feeling in my stomach. When I finally burst through the trees and out onto the road, I stopped dead when I saw what was in front of me.

  Baal stood on the ledge across the road that jutted out from the side of the mountain. He was still in his human host, and he smiled carnivorously when he saw me. But I was hardly looking at him as all of my attention was taken up by what was hanging in the air just out from the ledge.