The Devil You Know (Jacob Graves Book 3)

by Sean Stone

  Dorian made a small noise though I wasn’t sure if it in agreement or something else. ‘I think we’re done here. Jacob could I have a word before you go?’

  I shared a confused look with my uncle before he and the others filed out of the room, leaving only Dorian and me in the small library. Dorian walked around his desk and opened one of the drawers. He pulled out a bottle of Macallan Whiskey and two crystal glasses. He didn’t ask if I wanted a drink before he poured both glasses and held one out to me. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve the after school meeting but it was making me uneasy.

  ‘Saving the good stuff for the after party?’ I said, raising my glass in thanks. He hadn’t actually offered any drinks during the meeting. Now that I thought about it, it was a little rude.

  ‘Your uncle is a clever man. I have a great deal of respect for him. He is one of the best investigators I have ever met in my long life. But I believe this matter is too close to him. It’s close to us all. But he is the only one who lost a son. I’ve never had children, so I don’t know how it feels to lose one, but I imagine it is the best recipe for clouding one’s ability to think rationally.’

  ‘His theory has merit,’ I said, understanding where Dorian was going with this.

  Dorian nodded. ‘It does. I agree. But I can’t help thinking there is a better one.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so before? That was what the meeting was for.’

  ‘Coming from me, it wouldn’t have had much weight. If I’d said what is on my mind it would only have angered your uncle. It needs to come from somebody closer to him. He will only listen to you, Jacob.’ Dorian took a sip of his drink and relished the taste.

  ‘So what’s your theory?’

  Dorian sighed. ‘Your uncle was a skilled wizard before he lost his magic. And he has always been a very intelligent man. He raised two boys and it seems he split his gifts between you both. You got the magical skill and Samuel got the brains.’

  I placed my glass down roughly on his desk. ‘Did you ask me to stay behind so you could insult me?’

  ‘Don’t be so sensitive,’ Dorian said with a shake of his head. ‘Magraval is incredibly intelligent. He’s kept us all on our toes for a long time now. For somebody as intelligent as he is, he could have made us all believe something so securely that we would never even consider that it might not be true.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. Stop talking in riddles.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Jacob, I need you to believe in this theory before you present it to you uncle, and if I just tell you what I mean… well, that wouldn’t be the same. In order for you to believe in my theory you’re going to have to come to it yourself. All I’m saying is this, your uncle has a good theory, but there is a better one out there.’ Dorian lifted the photograph of Roland Black and handed it to me. ‘Give this back to Drew for me.’

  I turned away from Dorian feeling more confused than I’d been before the meeting had started. It was like I’d attempted a conversation with a crack-addled Riddler. I looked down at the photo in my hand as I made my way to the door. I recognised one of the men as Artemis Saxon. He was the Prime Wizard of the Hall of Wizardry before his untimely death. In the picture he was much younger and he was presenting a trophy to a thin dark-haired man. He must be Roland Black. There was nobody else in the picture. I looked down and the caption below the image confirmed that it was Roland. He certainly had the face of an evil wizard. He had small, stabbing eyes and a viciously carved jawline. His short dark hair… Short dark hair.

  I stopped walking and looked back at Dorian in shock as the horror of what he was suggesting finally caught up with me. The immortal raised his eyebrows, a knowing sparkle in his eyes. I felt like my blood had slowed, like my veins were filled with treacle.

  I’d seen Magraval without his glamour, as had Simon Delacrue. I’d knocked Magraval’s glamour off during the fight in the Hall. Only briefly and I hadn’t got a look at his face. But I had seen his hair and it wasn’t dark. Magraval’s hair was as blond as a daffodil. Roland Black didn’t have blond hair. But my cousin Sam did.

  Chapter Two

  Drew was waiting in his crappy old VW Golf. It was a grey monstrosity. It looked okay when he’d bought it, but it had been years since then and it was in dire need of being replaced. At one end the bumper was barely clinging on with the help of a single cable tie. Drew was old-fashioned and he wouldn’t replace anything until it stopped working. Money really was wasted on him. I had no idea what he did with his share of the proceeds from the jobs we took.

  I climbed into the car, the photo of Roland Black slightly crumpled in my fingers. Now came the tremendously awkward task of presenting Dorian’s theory to my uncle. Honestly, I would have rather fought Magraval with both hands tied behind my back.

  ‘What was that about?’ Drew asked. He started the engine and got us moving before I’d even finished closing the door. When he’d said earlier in the evening that he wanted to spend as little time at Gray Manor as possible I hadn’t realised how badly he’d meant it.

  ‘Nothing. Just wanted to remind me of the consequences of failure,’ I lied. I needed to ease into the conversation with Drew. I couldn’t just drop this bombshell of a theory on him.

  Drew grunted, buying my story. ‘What do you think Roland was looking into for Dorian?’

  It was a question I hadn’t even considered. Not since Dorian had mentioned it anyway. There were far more important things to be thinking about.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said with a shake of my head. ‘Maybe Dorian wants a way to unbind himself from that portrait of his.’ If my life could be ended simply by burning a painting I’d invest a lot of effort into changing that.

  ‘That’s not a bad idea actually.’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ I told him. ‘Why didn’t you show me this picture?’ I held up the photo of Roland for him to see. He glanced out of the corner of his eyes and then returned his focus to the road.

  ‘I only found it earlier today. Roland has done well to keep his face out of the media,’ Drew said.

  ‘You know the problem with this, right?’

  Drew looked confused but kept his eyes on the road. The road leading away from Dorian’s was fairly straight and easy to navigate, but it was dark and you never knew what might wander out of the woods either side. Nobody really knew what lived in the trees. ‘What problem?’

  ‘I saw Magraval without his glamour on. He has blond hair.’

  Drew shook his head as if I was being silly. ‘That picture was taken over ten years ago. His hair colour could easily have changed.’

  ‘Usually when people get older their hair goes grey, not blond.’

  ‘Jacob if you’ve got something to say then just say it,’ Drew said, never one to beat around the bush.

  The car trundled down the woodland road and we passed the security guardhouse that stopped uninvited guests from getting near Dorian’s mansion.

  ‘What if it somebody else is behind that glamour?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Magraval has been a step ahead of us this whole time. He’s come after me in such intimate ways. He used my father. He knows what buttons to push. Roland could never know me well enough to do that.’

  ‘He had Sam as an apprentice for years. Sam could’ve told him everything he knew about us.’

  ‘True. Or maybe… maybe it is Sam.’

  A very uncomfortable silence followed. Drew’s knuckles turned white as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. When he finally spoke his voice was quiet, each word spoken with forced calmness.

  ‘Jacob, I found evidence that Roland is Magraval. Their names kept popping up together for years even before Sam ran away with him.’

  ‘Yes, I know that and I don’t dispute it. Roland was Magraval. He took Sam under his wing and in Hereford they fought to the death. But we can’t be certain of who died. When you did your research how many people actually saw the fight?’

  ‘None,’ he
admitted.

  ‘Exactly. The story that spread afterward was told by the victor, and what if the victor was Sam? He took the Magraval guise as his own so nobody would know he was still alive. Think about it. That would not only stop you from trying to find him, he would also give him Magraval’s reputation, one that everybody was already scared of.’

  ‘Jacob,’ Drew growled, his control fading fast. ‘I saw Sam’s body. I brought it back here and buried it.’

  ‘He could have put a glamour bracelet on Roland’s body. Maybe you brought Roland’s body back to Sangford and buried him in your son’s grave.’

  ‘No glamour bracelet could last that long. It was days before he was buried. I saw Sam’s body on the morning of the funeral. It was Sam.’ The car swerved across the road as Drew slammed his hand on the wheel accidentally turning it.

  ‘Magraval has stronger magic than we’ve ever encountered before. We don’t know how long he could make a glamour bracelet last.’

  ‘There was no bracelet, Jacob. I looked at every aspect of his body. I dressed him for his funeral myself. The funeral people wanted to do it but I insisted. The only piece of jewellery he was wearing was the necklace his mother had left him.’ I remembered the necklace. Sam never took it off. It was all he’d known of his mother.

  ‘So, maybe he put a glamour on that. I bet if we exhumed his grave we’d find Roland’s body.’

  ‘ENOUGH!’ Drew screamed, spittle flying over the windshield. He slammed his foot on the brakes and the car screeched to a halt in the middle of the road. ‘Get out.’

  ‘What?’ I said in bewilderment.

  ‘Get out. I don’t want to hear another word of your bullshit. I don’t know what ideas Dorian has put in your head but I will not sit here and listen to you slander your dead cousin like this.’

  ‘I’m not slandering anybody. I’m trying to think differently. I’m trying to put us a step ahead of Magraval for once. If we know our enemy-’

  ‘GET OUT!’ His eyes almost flew out of their sockets. ‘Before I throw you out.’

  ‘Fine.’ I swung the door open and pulled myself out of his crappy car. ‘You’re blinded by your own emotions,’ I snapped at him as I slammed his door shut. He tore away up the road without giving me so much as a nasty glance.

  I looked around. I was on a massive stretch of road that didn’t even have a path and there was nothing by woods on either side of me. I was still some way away from the main city. I pulled my phone out to call an Uber and was dismayed to see that I had not a single bar of signal. ‘Terrific,’ I growled and then began the long walk home in the dark.

  The whole time I was walking I was thinking of ways I was going to get Drew back for this. Just because he couldn’t see the sense of what I was saying was no need to leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere. I did know where I was but that wasn’t a great help when I had no way of leaving other than walking.

  I conjured a little light to break up the darkness. It wasn’t just to help me see since there were no streetlights, it was also to alert any cars that I was walking on the edge of the road and did not wish to be run over. Not a single car passed me though. I could have tried to hitchhike if one did.

  Finally, after about twenty minutes of walking, that felt more like two hours, I could see the Blood Bridge in the distance. The Blood Bridge was the big old bridge that led back into the city proper. I was just minutes away from civilisation and phone signal again. The bridge had earned its name back when the city had first been founded by the Romans. Over a hundred Roman soldiers were slaughtered in the night. All that was found were their bloody remains that littered the river and turned the water red. The Fae were responsible, it had been what started human hostilities with them. Hostilities that we were expecting to start up again soon unless a new treaty was signed.

  Magraval had burned the treaty that all the species of Sangford had signed. There was technically no peace in place anymore. The river nymphs were working toward creating a new treaty but I had no idea how that was going. Since Leah had left after saving my life, I’d had no contact with her or her sisters. Thinking about Leah brought a heaviness to my chest that I would rather be without. I’d finally decided to admit that I had feelings for her and then she made a deal with her mother, who was some kind of god, to leave humanity forever and return to the river. I never got to tell her how I felt. I never got to tell her anything. She’d only been gone a week, but it felt more like a year. It was probably better off that way; if she’d stuck around I would only have got attached to her and then when I eventually lost her it would’ve hurt all the more.

  The most inconvenient part of it all was that she was my business manager. I relied on her to run my three nightclubs in the city, and more importantly to launder my blood money through them. Since she’d left I’d had to stop the money laundering until I could find somebody I trusted to take care of it for me. I didn’t have the time or the knowhow to doctor the accounting books and Drew wasn’t very good at it either. As it happened, the Magraval job was the only one I’d done, so it wasn’t like there was a massive build-up of unlaundered cash sitting around.

  I could hear the trickle of water from the river ahead. It was the North Sanguis. Leah’s river. Each of the three branches of the river was governed by one of the river nymphs. Leah had been given the longest stretch and the most scenic. It was fitting since she was the most beautiful of her sisters. Of course, I was somewhat biased in that belief. The other two were well above average in the looks department as well, but I was a Leah guy through and through.

  I pulled my jacket tighter around me as the chilliness increased and pinched at my skin. A thin swirling mist seemed to slither out from the trees on either side of me and covered the road like a blanket of snow. The air had fallen deathly silent. The owls had ceased their hooting and there was no scurrying of wildlife within the woods. The wind whistled quietly but that was all the sound there was. I looked back up the road to where I came from, hoping for a car, but there was nothing. Only darkness and mist.

  Something bad was about to happen. Mist didn’t just appear like this without there being some kind of supernatural element. I snuffed out the light I’d been conjuring and plunged myself into darkness. If there was a potential enemy about then I didn’t want to pinpoint my position for them. I checked my phone one last time. Still no signal.

  The whinny of a horse broke the silence. I must’ve imagined that, I thought as I slipped my phone back into my pocket. I looked toward the bridge and saw that I had imagined nothing. Standing in the centre of the empty road, silhouetted against the distance lights of the city behind it, was the figure of a horse and rider. I blinked several times to make sure I was definitely seeing it. I was.

  The horse stamped its front legs on the road, its hooves clopping down loudly in warning. Then it started to inch its way closer. I didn’t move. I stood ready for whatever was about to happen. I brought my hand up and prepared a spell in my mind.

  ‘What the fuck?’ I whispered to myself as I noticed something else. The rider had no head. Had I slipped through a portal into Sleepy Hollow or something?

  The footfalls of the horse grew louder as the rider drew closer. I contemplated running into the woods, but it was too easy to get lost in there. And who knew what else might be waiting for me. I was the Wraith. I instilled terror in others. I was the hunter, not the prey. Whoever this headless figure was, it was about to learn why you didn’t hunt Jacob Graves.

  The rider moved its arm and I saw a weapon of some kind slide down. It hung just a few inches above the ground. It looked like a whip only it was too thick. Maybe a strap. The rider came closer and I saw that the thing in its hand was pale and jagged. I focused harder trying to make out what it…

  ‘What the fuck?’ I said again, a little louder this time. The thing on the horse was holding a detached spinal column in its hand. I wasn’t sure what it meant to do with the spine, nor where it had come from, but I was sure that I didn’t wa
nt to find out. As much as I wanted to blast it with a fireball or something, I had to be sure it meant me harm before I got myself into a fight. Despite its nightmarish appearance, it might simply be here to deliver a message. I’d seen worse messengers.

  The horse stopped about ten feet away from me and things only got creepier from there. Still holding the spinal column in one hand, the rider raised its other hand to reveal it was holding its own severed head. I assumed it was his head since he didn’t have one on his body. The head was in no good condition at all. The flesh was bluish-grey like a mouldy cheese. The black lips of his mouth were stretched in a grin that literally went from ear to ear. What was left of his hair hung from his scalp in grey wisps. His eyes were sunken into the rotten flesh and glowed a pale green. The globes were swivelling around all over the place, seemingly searching for something. Then they stopped moving abruptly, both eyes settling on me.

  For a moment my heart actually stopped and I took a step away from the creature.

  The black lips parted to reveal lines of broken yellow teeth and it spoke in a rasping voice that sounded almost like the wind. ‘Jacob Graves.’

  ‘That’s me, unfortunately,’ I replied.

  He lashed out with the spinal column and I ducked just in time to save my head from being whacked with the bloody thing.

  ‘Rabole!’ I shouted, unleashing a spell at the monster. The spine came flying back and absorbed my spell before it could reach the rider. The bones glowed green as they nullified the magic.

  The rider charged at me, bringing the spine around for another attack. I lunged forward, neatly rolling under the spine. As I passed the horse I noticed that its black coat was covered in armour made from various human-looking bones. Some of them still had tatters of skin hanging off them like old flags. I drew myself up behind the rider now and threw a spell at his back. I know, bad form and all that, but in my line of work you get the job done any way you can. There’s no time for honour.