Sorcerer's Creed Books 1-3

by N. P. Martin

  Or rather who.

  It was Leona.

  I could only stand and stare for long horrified moments as I tried to work out what I was seeing. Leona seemed to be held in midair by some invisible force that was powered by Baal. Her limbs were spreadeagled as if something was pulling on them. She was also completely naked and covered in blood. Even more horrifically were the large bat creatures that flew around her suspended form. There was maybe a dozen of the bat-things, and as they flew around her, they would bite and scratch her and Leona would scream every time they did so.

  "What the...put her down!" I shouted in a rage at Baal as I stormed across the road towards him. But before I got near him (what the hell was I going to do anyway?) Baal thrust out a hand and used the same invisible force to lift me off my feet by the neck and then swing me through the air at a shocking speed, bringing me to a halt right beside Leona past the edge of the cliff.

  "Glad you could join us, Creed," Baal said.

  I tried to speak, but the grip around my neck was too tight. I could barely even breathe.

  "What's that?" Baal mocked. "You were busy fucking the witch in those woods? Ah, I see. Well, at least you are here now, eh?"

  Despite the terror of being dangled in midair with the ground hundreds of feet below, I couldn't help turning my head to look at Leona beside me. Her eyes were on me as well, and the sense of hurt and betrayal I saw in them cut me to the bone. "What the fuck have you done, Creed?" she said, barely able to talk but still managing to sound angry.

  I was about to say something when one of those fucking bat-things flew in and bit me on the cheek. "Fuck!" I cried in pain, then again as I felt the sharp sting of another bite on my ear. "Motherfucker!"

  "You like my pets, Creed?" Baal asked, clearly delighting in his torturing of us. "They came up from the Underworld to lend a hand."

  The bat-things continued to whizz around us, biting and scratching at will, although more so on Leona. Baal knew that hearing her pain would hurt worse than feeling my own. "Stop it!" I was able to shout eventually, the grip having loosened slightly around my neck.

  Baal merely laughed. "You humans. You never know how to take your punishment, do you?"

  "Let Leona go," I said. "She has nothing--"

  "To do with it?" Baal finished. "On the contrary, Creed, she has everything to do with it. Didn't I say what would happen if you tried to go against me?"

  I said nothing. The bastard had me there.

  My eyes went to the woods, and I saw Margot standing just back from the edge, still safe inside the boundary of the ward, still cradling her lifeless owl, looking now like someone who wanted to do the right thing and come forward but couldn't.

  Baal saw me looking and turned around, then stared at Margot for a long time it seemed.

  "I'll get you out of this," I told Leona.

  "Oh yeah?" Leona said as blood dripped down her face. "And how are you going to do that?"

  There was venom in her voice. Understandably, I'd say. She was suspended hundreds of feet from the ground and surrounded by blood-sucking bats after all. Plus she knew I had slept with someone else. You could say I wasn't exactly her favorite person in the world right then.

  She also had a valid point. The power being used on me (and on her) was too strong for me to overturn with my own magick. And when I say strong, I mean it. I was starting to see that Margot was right about Baal drawing me in back when I first summoned him. In no way did his power feel as strong back then as it did while I was dangling in midair like that. It was just one more thing to put another dent in my already battered morale.

  It sunk in then that Baal was about to very possibly kill Leona and me if he didn't get what he wanted, which was Margot. And even then, the likelihood was high that he would still kill us all. "I'm sorry," I said to Leona. "I was just trying to do right by everyone."

  "Well it seems like you really fucking succeeded, didn't you?" she snapped back. "Not that it makes much difference now."

  Goddamn it. I couldn't let Leona die. I wouldn't.

  My eyes lit on Margot, who was standing safely in the woods, her eyes going from Baal to me. I was afraid she was going to teleport then, never to be seen again. Then there would be no hope for Leona or me. When Margot's eyes caught mine again, I concentrated hard to establish a psychic link with her. As she had already been in my mind, establishing that link turned out to be fairly easy. I just latched onto the trail she had left behind.

  "Margot," I projected to her. "I know you're afraid, but you don't have a choice here."

  A second later, her voice echoed in my mind. "I do have a choice. I can disappear again."

  "No, please don't do that, Margot. If you do, you'll be killing Leona. You'll be killing me. Haven't you got enough deaths on your conscience?"

  Leona squealed beside me as she got bit by another bat.

  "That's not fair," Margot projected back.

  "Maybe not, but it's still true. Be honest, Margot. You've always known you'd have to face the music at some point."

  "Yes."

  "I know you're afraid, Margot, but you have to hand yourself over to Baal."

  "He will probably still kill you."

  "He will if you don't."

  She went silent as she stared at Leona. She wasn't that far away that I couldn't see the sympathy on her face. The guilt. The shame. "My torture will never end."

  "Yes it will," I said. "I promise you, Margot. I'll find a way to free you from him. I won't stop until I do."

  Leona let out another scream of pain, this time louder and longer. When I looked, I saw that one of the bat creatures had landed on her chest and was grotesquely suckling on one of her breasts, blood oozing out of the creatures disgusting mouth.

  A scream of frustration left my own mouth.

  Baal turned around for a moment to see what was happening. "How cute," he said. "One of my little friends is getting attached I see." Smiling malevolently at me, he turned around again to stare at Margot. "Make her come to me, Creed. Or I will make you watch while I rip your girlfriend to pieces right beside you. She is still your girlfriend, isn't she? Or did you burn that particular bridge? Either way, I will still kill her."

  "Margot!" I projected, my face pleading as I looked at her. "Please! I meant what I said. I'll bring you back."

  "Is that a promise?"

  "Yes!"

  She half smiled as she looked over at me. "Alright, Creed. You're right. I couldn't live with myself knowing I had a chance at saving you. And the woman you love, of course." Her smile became more forlorn. "You know, Creed, even if you do manage to save me somehow, you should know that there won't be much left to save." She bent down then and carefully laid her owl familiar on the ground. "Take care of my owl for me."

  Then she walked out of the woods. Out of the safety of the ward.

  The second she did, Baal thrust out a hand and used his power to drag her at speed across the road before halting her right in front of him. The demon stood for a long time just staring into Margot's face. Margot herself tried not to look afraid, but the truth was she was terrified, and there was nothing but abject fear in her expression.

  Baal then thrust a hand out behind him, and the next thing Leona was pulled towards him as if she was attached to a rope Baal had just tugged on. She landed in a heap right at the demon's feet.

  Baal looked up at me. "You crossed me, Creed," he said. "Despite repeated warnings not to. But I expected nothing less from you. It's who you are." He paused for a second as if considering what to do to me while I stayed suspended in midair, expecting to plunge hundreds of feet down any second. "I'm returning with Margot to my abode in the Underworld now. This whole experience has been very educational. I won't leave it as long next time about coming back here. It's been fun."

  He turned towards Margot then, grabbed her by the hair as she squealed and held her down by his side like he was controlling an unruly dog.

  My eyes met Margot's again for a second. "Promi
se me, Creed," she pleaded in my mind, tears and black streaks of eyeliner running down her face.

  I never got the chance to answer her, for Baal turned again as if he had just remembered something like he was doing some twisted impression of Columbo. "Just one more thing, Mr Creed. I'm also taking Leona here to the Underworld as well. I feel it's only fitting, considering your betrayal."

  "NO!" I shouted. "Please don't...please...take me instead."

  Baal shook his head slightly as he made a face. "A tempting offer, but I'll have to decline."

  "Baal, I'm begging you, please don't take her..."

  "And there you go again using my true name. You humans. You simply don't know how to listen." He bent down and pulled Leona up by the hair, now holding both women by his sides.

  Every muscle in my body tensed with helpless frustration and strained against the power holding me. A long scream left my mouth, made up of rage and frustration, of the pain of knowing that Leona's fate was entirely my fault.

  "I'll be seeing you, Creed," Baal said, just before he disappeared along with Leona and Margot.

  And that's also the precise moment when I started falling through the air towards the ground hundreds of feet below.

  20

  Free Falling

  At the onset of the sudden and unexpected drop, my insides seemed to shoot up as if they were about to explode from my mouth. Within seconds I was tumbling through the freezing air, a deafening wind in my ears. My lungs felt frozen, and I could barely breathe, yet I still managed to scream as I fell. Images flashed across my blurred vision, of the ground below getting terrifyingly closer all the time, of the mountainside and the almost blindingly clear sky. It took me a second or two to comprehend that I was falling fast to my death, and it was all I could do not to let my body go limp as I prepared for and accepted the inevitable.

  But then some survival instinct kicked in, and with the ground getting frighteningly closer all the time, I grasped within myself for some form of magick that would save me. Blindly. My capacity to think had been utterly suppressed by my panic response. It was absolutely a do or die situation if ever there was one. Therefore there was no time to think. I had one slim chance to do something to save myself. One action was all all I would get.

  Shutting my eyes, I did the only thing open to me and trusted my instincts.

  Magick would save me.

  Or at least it fucking better had, given everything I had given to it.

  I kept my eyes shut as the sensation of falling through the air continued.

  Waiting, praying...screaming.

  Then something happened.

  I stopped falling. Or at least that's how it felt, but I still had the sensation of moving through the air, and I also felt a familiar clamping around my body as if something had grabbed hold of me. Thinking my magick had done something to save me, I forced my eyes open to see thick, scaly bands of dark gray wrapped around my waist and legs. And as the sensation of falling changed to one of flying upwards, I realized it was talons wrapped around me. Looking up, I saw the massive form of an owl as it flew back up to the mountain ledge with me in its grip.

  Barney, you beautiful bastard!

  When the huge barn owl reached the ledge, it opened its talons and released me about two feet above the ground. I landed with a thump and a loud yelp before rolling across the gravel a few times and coming to a stop. Then I lay there with my eyes closed, pressing myself into joyous terra firma while I took in massive gulps of air. "Oh, Jesus..." I said, my body still flooded with adrenaline. My head was giddy with it, and I couldn't help bursting into relieved laughter.

  I was alive. I could hardly believe it after feeling certain I was going to die just moments before.

  A familiar screeching sound made me open my eyes and roll up onto my knees. The sound was made by Barney, who was back to normal size and perched on top of the Lincoln, his head moving gently from side to side while his black eyes stared at me.

  Standing up, I brushed myself off and checked to make sure nothing was broken, and that I still had my pistol and everything else on me, which I had. Then I walked across the road to the car and stopped to look at Margot's familiar. "I see you've made a miraculous recovery," I said. "As good as new."

  The owl stared back at me, its large eyes unblinking.

  "Lucky for me you're made of sterner stuff, little owl. Thank you for saving my ass. Your timing was impeccable, to say the least."

  Tentatively, I put my hand out slowly towards the owl, half expecting it to snap its beak at me. But it didn't. Instead, it let me stroke its pillowy soft breast. "There we go," I said soothingly. "I think you and I got off on the wrong foot. As we now want the same thing--which is to get back the women we love--I think we should stick together from now on. I'm going to need to know what's in that head of yours most likely, and you'll need me to get Margot back for you."

  I shook my head as I thought of Leona, hardly able to believe that she was gone. And not just gone, but dragged to the Underworld by a brute of a demon. Even I'd never been to the Underworld. I knew Leona was tough, but how was she going to survive down there? And that's if she wasn't already dead and it wasn't just her eternal soul left. In that case, I would never get her back. She could only remain in this world as a ghost, and neither she nor I would want that. She wouldn't anyway.

  The owl must have sensed my emotional state, for it hopped off the car and landed on my shoulder before nuzzling the side of my head with its beak. "I guess we're friends now then," I said looking at the owl and smiling sadly.

  I put Barney in the front passenger seat of the car before climbing into the Lincoln myself. Then I just sat there for a while, trying to gather myself after my near death experience and the trauma of seeing Leona tortured and then taken away by that beast Baal.

  And then, of course, there was Margot. It wasn't exactly easy watching her disappear either. Despite everything, she did the right thing in the end. She came forward even though she knew would be in for unspeakable punishment at the hands of Baal.

  My blood curdled as I imagined what Baal would do to Leona and Margot down there in the Underworld, in whatever domain was his.

  Whatever it takes, I thought as I stared over at the spot where Leona and Margot had disappeared from. I would do whatever it took to get them both back. Which of course assumed there was much of them to bring back, but I couldn't think in such terms, however great the possibility.

  As I started the engine of the Lincoln, intending to drive back to Blackham City for some serious regrouping, I looked over at the barn owl. "Buckle up, Barney," I said. "It's going to be a bumpy ride."

  Barney nestled down into the leather of the seat, and half closed his eyes. Turning my attention to the road, I spun the car around and throttled it back towards to the city.

  21

  Symptoms Of The Universe

  Numerous times on the drive back I would be overcome by intense bouts of anxiety fueled emotion that would cause me to grip the steering wheel and shake it hard with my teeth clenched, or else I would start cursing, and palm strike the steering wheel instead. Mostly I was pissed at myself for letting Leona get taken. I should have been able to do something to help her, but for all my magick it still wasn't as powerful as Baal's. Motherfucker made a little boy of me, and I hated it. Hated the control he had over me, even before he suspended me over that ledge.

  Since I had left Ireland over thirty years ago, I had gotten used to answering to no one. I had shown enough subservience to last me two lifetimes while growing up in the same house as my father. After I had left, I vowed never again to put myself into situations where other people had a hold over me. Easier said than done of course (the day I got to Blackham I was put over a barrel by Angela Crow, for instance). In my line of work, leverage was often applied to me, but not usually for very long as I was always quick to correct the situation somehow.

  But then my father came back on the scene, and ever since I had been under the thum
b, first his and then Baal's.

  And I was still under Baal's thumb.

  That had to change.

  Anger and rage started to rule my intentions. I couldn't allow that fucking demon bastard to wreck my life, to take away from me the only person in the world I truly loved (Uncle Ray and Sanaka aside, though I would never tell Sanaka so, even though his response might have been somewhat hilarious).

  Although to be honest, I think I managed to push Leona away all by myself when I slept with Margot. Even if I somehow managed to rescue Leona from the Underworld, I doubted very much she would want anything to do with me after that. And I wouldn't be able to blame her one bit if she didn't. But I still had to try and save her, for even if she didn't want to be with me anymore, that didn't change the fact that I loved her and that I would do anything for her.

  Even die if I had to, which was becoming a worrying possibility on the near horizon.

  Then there was Margot. I had promised her I would save her from the clutches of Baal. So that was two women I was obligated towards saving (as if one wasn't enough).

  But first I had to find a way into the Underworld.

  I walked into the Sanctum with Barney perched on my left shoulder. As I entered the living room, I saw Blaez lying in the corner. When he saw the owl, he sat up and stared inquisitively. The barn owl stared right back at Blaez as if it had every right to be there.

  "Blaez buddy," I said, holding my right arm out so Barney could jump onto it. "This is Barney. He's a barn owl as you can tell. He's also like you in that he's a bit special. Bad shit has gone down today, and we all need to work together to fix it." Blaez made a noise in his throat as if to ask what happened. "Leona is gone, buddy. Taken by your friend and mine, Baal. But I'm going to get her back."

  I hoped.

  I allowed Barney to hop off my arm onto the fireplace and the owl perched on the end of it, looking back and forth from Blaez to me. "Probably not the sort of environment you're used to," I said to the owl. "But with any luck, it will only be temporary. Then you can go back to your woods again, or wherever Margot takes you."