Black Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 1) (25 page)

"You so much as touch her now and I will send you to hell, the nasty one."

"Okay, okay, fine. But you have to do something. If you let her loose she's just going to go crazy." I had a thought. And there was nothing to lose. "You know that she's broken the Law, don't you?"

"How?"

"She's staying in the material world. She hasn't left for years. She's not just coming and going, she's permanent. That's not allowed, is it? Not for a succubus?"

"No, it is not. I shall have to have words with this one. But later, I've got other things to do. Be seeing you."

"Wait!" It was no use, she was gone. Damn fae, they are so full of themselves. They think they know best and they always stick to the rules. It's infuriating. Was this my punishment? To remain and be stomped to goo by semi-sentient rock? Or was that wishful thinking?

The troll almost had a head now. The last of the dust was floating up and moving fast, rebuilding the rock creature line by atomic line. It was like a printer except it was spewing out a troll, a soon to be very angry troll.

The air cracked and I smiled.

I'd forgotten I was in love. In love with the most beautiful creature in the world. What was I doing? Where was I? Somehow it didn't matter now.

I turned and stared into the eyes of Ankine Luisi, the most adorable female in the history of humanity.

She whispered, "Come," and held out her hand for me as she smiled with all the grace of a cloud of angels.

I put my hand out.

I'd do anything to touch those perfect fingers, be hers.

Forever.

You Again

I was lost, mesmerized and in love. More than love—I was completely and utterly helpless. This woman, this creature, was all that mattered. She looked into my eyes and I knew that my future was with her. She was the world, all there was. Perfect, and she had chosen me.

As I melted into her eyes, I knew I would do anything for her. Anything.

But as I moved my hand out to take hers, knowing it would mean I was hers forever, perpetual bliss, there was something else too, forcing its way through the fog of pure worship for this divine creature, banging at my mind like a troll knocking on a door. I tasted grit on my tongue, and swallowed it. A few grains of troll.

Something unlocked in my awareness, freeing me, as a tiny part of me hardened, burying emotion, leaving me detached. The Hidden magic of an always stoic creature making me a millionth part troll, enough to allow something through. I watched myself as if from a distance as my heart cooled, sweeping away my immersion and worship upon the altar of this beautiful creature I was about to surrender myself to so willingly.

"Come, be with me," the succubus said, making promises ever more inviting. So real I could taste the salt of her tears, the strawberry lips, feel the firmness of her skin, the welcome invite of her naked flesh that she would offer to me always, mine for the taking.

I swallowed, the dust particles falling deeper inside of me, another box of emotion locked away, pleasures of the flesh no longer all-encompassing.

Memories flooded in of the night before. They hit me all at once, selected scenes all overlaid one on top of the other in rapid succession like cards slapped down on cold marble.

Strobing lights of a nightclub, me tugging on Teppo's arm as thin as a child's, skin hanging loose, devouring himself from the inside.

Him turning. Me seeing that the man was already lost. Eyes haunted, flesh eaten away as the fire of lust and obsession burned ever brighter, obfuscating everything else from his mind. Me shrugging, knowing I had to leave before it was my turn.

Being handed a drink by Ankine Luisi. Me turning away, not looking. The music pounding through my body.

Lights blinking and confusing me as I tried to drag Teppo away while Ankine runs to the dance floor, flinging herself about. Uncaring, knowing, yet wild and with utter abandon.

The music getting louder, men crowding around her, everyone dancing to her rhythm, the wildness contagious, the whole club caught up in her charm.

Faster and faster, her a whirling dervish. Ankine Luisi, the infamous Armenian, spinning in a circle. Men stomping their feet, pounding on the floor with bloodied hands. Women transfixed, confused. Men adoring.

Teppo screaming for help, eyes haunted, lost but back for a moment. Me dragging him across the dance floor, to get us away. The music off the scale. Faster. Louder. Lights strobing as insanely as the crowd. The walls vibrating, closing in.

Men grabbing us, me brushing them off. Ankine Luisi going wild. My tattoos pulsing to the music, to the beat, me trying to summon up the Empty, draw it into me, blast them all out of the way and her too. Send every last one of them to hell, uncaring of the consequences or who might see, knowing she has to be stopped and for good.

My ears crawling with music, my body moving to the rhythm, the magic not coming at me right. Not enough there for me, all taken by her. Spinning around us all, caught up in the madness, the love, the worship of the most beautiful creature there has ever been.

I was jumping, dancing with Teppo, with the men and the women. Her at the center, us worshiping. Her eyes closed in pleasure, us around her in a circle, pointing at her, calling for her attention.

Then me and her. Me swinging her in a circle faster and faster, her head back, laughing.

Then the sickness.

Somehow, I let her go, and she fell against the crowd, and I double over, my ink saving me from being lost forever. The sickness snapping me back to semi-reality and I ran, crouched over, body screaming in agony and shame as the Empty poured into me and dragged me away.

Now out in the dark streets. The rain fizzing off me but I don't even notice. Clutching at my stomach, revelers emptying from the clubs, laughing and joking, me just another casualty of drink and debauchery.

Lost, I wander, not knowing who I am or where I am, knowing I just have to get away from the city center, from the music. From her.

Cats watch from the dark, foxes patter past me in silence, car headlights blinding me as I stumble across roads lit by streetlights and empty office buildings.

Then people. More traffic. A desperate dawn clawing away the night, revealing damp grass and a chance of salvation.

And then the park. I stumble to a seat, sit and stare at the chess pieces. I hear the man's voice. "Your move."

I see the game, know it is mine. The magic still in me, not sent away as it should have been. The curse of the succubi trying to call me. I make my moves and I say, "Checkmate."

He gets angry and I get even angrier. I hate what I am, and I don't want to live like that, so I blast the magic out, to purge myself and be me again, but I direct it at the Grandmaster. I don't know what I'm doing. I am lost, and then I know, know enough to flee. I'm running. I'm away. I'm me again.

I snap back to reality, and my fingers are inches from Ankine Luisi's. This time she will never let me go. I'll be another one of her victims. I won't let that happen.

She is so beautiful, impossibly so. Teppo moans behind me, as if realizing she has already forgotten him, and he will be left without her love and attention.

The troll is almost complete now, dust spinning around the half-head, dropping into place, filling in the gaps, the whole massive body surrounded by tiny particles that slot and snap into place, soon to make the Hidden creature whole. Already, fingers are slowly twitching and legs begin to move. It will be over soon. So will I.

I urge, forcing the magic to flow. My tattoos jump to life, making me sick and I love it. Welcome the pain and the humiliation as it makes me human. There is acceptance—I know I am weak, and frail, a mere man, but I will not be beaten. I will not be taken.

It builds, circles within circles within circles, erupting out of my body, me summoning the Empty even as it overwhelms me. But the power allows me to focus, and I bend and pick up the rock that almost escapes as it moves back to the troll to complete it. My still-spasmed, half-clawed hand clutches it tighter than a faery's grip on a meatball, and while my other is still reaching for Ankine Luisi as I stand again, I see our fingertips are a hair's breadth away from each other.

Soon I will be lost. Soon I will be hers.

She smiles. She knows. She laughs.

The magic comes in wave after wave and I do the impossible. I close my hand and the ball of magic that is part of a timeless creature is crushed, turned to dust.

My smile feels good, and I spit out what remains of the troll inside of me and add it to the pile in my hand. I say something stupid like, "No thank you, I prefer blondes," and I shove the dust between her gorgeous, heavenly lips, and I can see the moist tip of her pink tongue that promises so much I ache to my bones.

Then it's covered in dust and I blast her mouth with all I have left inside of me and she jumps back and swallows.

The troll bellows behind me, and I turn as the doorway and wall tear like paper as the monstrous magical being walks straight through the too small opening and heads directly for Ankine Luisi.

"You eat troll. Break Law." It thunders toward us, huge legs eating up the distance in three paces. The focused troll shoves me aside like a doll, and a thick arm thrusts out faster than I have ever seen such a creature move in my life.

It grabs Ankine Luisi and pulls.

Her throat is ripped out and the troll flings away flesh then reaches back, grabs her windpipe and yanks on it, tearing it right from her body. With surprisingly dexterous fingers, it tears open the windpipe like it's removing cheap wrapping paper and pulls out the hard lump that is itself.

The troll puts the lump on top of its own head and it is complete. We both stand there, immobile, as Ankine Luisi claws desperately at her tattered neck.

She shimmers and leaks Hidden magic as the world vanishes, becomes original pain and blinding darkness, strobing silver and terrible light like the corrupted nightclub. We watch, the troll impassive, me little more than sickness, as her body morphs.

She is the woman I see before me, then she is blond and curvaceous, then she is dark-skinned and slender, then she is short and then tall, now brunette and wearing a costume from ancient history, and she is every woman from every continent, and she is every woman from every time, her shape and clothes shifting one to the other over and over.

The world empties, sucked down a drain like fetid, lumpy magic, and then she is who she really is. A demon. Her face pure hatred for humanity and for men. She snaps. Her body is a ghost, darkness and light, beautiful and terrifying. Her tail whips at the door, and her clawed hands reach for me while leathery wings beat against the wall and the high ceiling. Her body is perverse.

The air in-between us is scattered with sparkling dust and the faery appears once more. I catch a hint of earlobe and the sickness displaces. "You broke the—" she begins to say, then realizes she is where she was moments ago.

"I knew I recognized you from somewhere," the faery says. "You're Spark. Black Spark."

I don't know how she knows me, and I look at her ear one last time as the succubus reaches for me and I know the faery is too late and I have failed. "Huh," is all I manage. My last words and all I say is, "Huh." What a way to go.

"Yes, you saved a friend from that stupid elf, must be a while ago now."

"I... what?"

She nods at me, and I remember long ago when I saved a faery, thinking that doing such a favor could never be a bad thing. She smiles at me and winks, and she hums and sings, twirls a finger and Ankine Luisi is gone.

"Put her back where she belongs. In men's dreams. For now."

The faery flutters in front of us, spreading magic dust everywhere, then looks around, presumably for food. I want to lick my finger and dip it in the beautiful faery sprinkles, but I know now is not the time. The troll is scratching its head. Teppo is still on the stairs, head in his bony hands.

He's crying. I am too.

I sink to the floor, just lie there as I feel sicker than I have ever felt in my life, and it has nothing to do with the Empty. Not caring about anything, I curl up into a ball and wish that Grandma was there to make me a cup of tea.

I think of Kate, then oblivion comes and I am free of this world.

Just for a while.

Time to Wake Up

Maybe I lay on the dust-scarred carpet for eternity, maybe seconds. Either way, I was defective, incurable. Ill like I have never felt in my life as unwelcome reality pushed back in. It infiltrated my black heart with an insistent buzzing—like a dragonfly's wings scratching at my dreams of emptiness.

This was no dragonfly though, this was a faery. I opened an eye reluctantly, worried about what I would see. The faery was sat on my nose, peering at me like I was some kind of specimen in a jar, which I guess is how they see us.

The other eye risked it and opened; the tiny creature came into focus.

She leaned forward, improving the view. "Where's the food?" she asked.

"Um, I don't know. I haven't been here long, I don't think." Somehow, I managed to sit up, while waves of magical energy made me urge even as I did my best to let it flow away as fast as possible, but the air was too full of it for me to control. Even the faery's presence was no longer enough to dispel the dreaded payback for use of dark magic.

There was too much in the room, and it was too concentrated—humans aren't designed to cope with such an onslaught of what isn't theirs by right of existence.

Merely being in the presence of a faery is enough to make you run screaming to an insane asylum unless you are powerful, and even then when they take you by surprise, and you haven't had time to prepare, it can be hit-or-miss if you can cope, let alone function.

But I'm Faz Pound, Dark Magic Enforcer, Peeker Down the Cleavage of Fae, Tickler of Tiny Ears, Licker of... you get the idea, and I've seen my share of fae. Just as well, because rescuing one a long time ago is what saved me from being forever enthralled by Ankine Luisi.