Neon Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 5)

BOOK: Neon Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 5)
10.34Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads
Contents

Title Page

Cultural Adjustment

No Rest for the Dead

Japanese Zombie Mayhem

A Road to Nowhere

A Depressing Beginning

Interrogating the Goons

A Telling Off

Old Friends

Some Shopping

Some Good Intel

A Moment

To the Council

A Strange Garden

Finally, an Interrogation

Goonageddon

A Shock

Unwanted Appendages

Nice Eyebrows

Old but Dangerous

Dark Alleys, Darker Thoughts

More Tales of Tails

Some Compassion

On the Town

An Anatomy Lesson

Meeting the Enemy

Vampire Scorn

Plans of Madmen

A Metamorphosis

A Call

An Exploration

A Nice View

A Reality Check

All Through the Night

Shiny, Shiny

You Cannot be Serious!

Old Friends

Nice Doggie

The Hidden World

Dirty Bathroom

Going it Alone

A Rash Decision

Ugh

Shady Deals

The Animals Went In...

Is it Worth It?

A Dramatic Exit

Outclassed and Outmagicked

What's My Name?

Meeting the Yōkai

Airport

 

 

 

 

Neon Spark

 

Dark Magic Enforcer Book 5

 

Al K. Line

 

 

Get deals and new release notifications first via
the Newsletter

 

Copyright © 2016, Al K. Line. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

 

 

 

 

Cultural Adjustment

Neon screamed at me from every direction. People hurried past, intent on unknown destinations, phones glued to their ears like extensions of themselves.

The city stank, the traffic so congested I could see no point whatsoever in traveling by anything but foot or the subway. Billboards and blaring speakers—hallmarks of the metropolis and a thoroughly consumerist society—threatened to overwhelm me as I stood in the center of the road and spun slowly in a circle, trying to take it all in.

Last time I visited it had been a very different place indeed, but that was long before the invention of almost every piece of technology that surrounded me.

Nobody stopped and stared at the tall gaijin with bleached hair fading to brown, wearing a nineteen sixties original suit with a nice, clean red shirt and a pair of polished winklepickers. I was, as always, the no-man. The person you forgot as soon as you passed, the invisible man, shrouded in a magical aura that made me entirely forgettable.

Salarymen, many looking close to karōshi—death from overwork—and shoppers jostled me from four directions, bowing apologies then forgetting me as they hurried on past, already immersed again in their digital life or stressing over being late back to work after a rushed and unsatisfactory lunch.

I felt like the giant that had killed me. At least a head taller than most of those that passed, conscious of my nose, almost as big as a goblin's compared to the locals, and for some strange reason all the pigeons were giving me a very wide berth.

Maybe they could feel the magic, the pent up anger and need for revenge that drove me through the overcrowded city in search of answers. I stared suspiciously at one bird in particular as it cocked its head from side to side, studying me.

Then it shimmered and I saw what it really was, a tengu, safe behind its own magical veil in the presence of Regulars, a true Hidden creature. The streets teemed with endless Hidden that we don't encounter back home, the sheer volume of myths, legends, and folktales meaning this small island had more Hidden per square foot than any other country in the world.

I ignored the pigeon because it was freaking me out and continued about my business. After three days, a lot of rest, and a helluva lot of food, I was finally feeling up to the hunt, and was in no mood for the crowds—how could people live like this? I'd go mad in days, maybe already had.

Wading through the press of bodies to the stores, having to resist blasting away with the dark arts just so I could get some personal space, I turned and entered a small, dark interior through a door that screamed my presence with a ridiculously loud buzzer. The person I wanted to talk to was at the back of the cramped room, head down, focused on opening a box containing more of the junk that cluttered the shelves and floor. The place was full of esoteric nonsense, there for tourists and those that didn't understand the score about magic and had never even heard of the Hidden.

On every available surface were jars of fake potions, dream catchers, staffs and rods and amulets and weird cultural items I had no clue about, only knowing they were lies and would never allow the bearer to harness the Empty.

The owner, dirty and as scruffy as the store, noticed me for the first time. He was a short man wearing a vest, with a pot belly and hair slick with some product that made him look as though he'd stuck his head in a vat of lard and thought it would do. His pale skin was as greasy as his hair and as we made eye contact beads of sweat popped onto his brow as if his skin was bubbling up and overheating.

I walked over, casual and calm, holding up a hand as he began speaking in Japanese, saying he didn't understand English.

"Spare me, Asama. Try that crap with me and I'll blast you through your goddamn window and let the pigeons eat you. Understand?"

"Yes, sorry, Spark-san. English, I will speak English."

"Good. Now, I want some information. I know you have something that can help me find Kimiko, and I can tell you right now that I'm in no mood for any of your bullshit."

Asama held up his hands in protest. "Spark-san, is this how you say hello to me after so many years?"

"The last time we met you were trying to steal Rikka's books, and we both remember how that went."

Asama went even paler, fumbled in a pocket, then mopped his brow and neck with a stained and crusty white handkerchief. He dabbed under his arms with it and I tried not to gag as the stink hit me. "I was just reading them, I wasn't trying to steal any books." He rubbed at his left side where I'd blasted him good before sucking his magic out of him as he screamed and generally overreacted while I took him from low level wizard back to being just a Regular human being.

That was thirty years ago and ever since he'd been unable to restore the magic I had taken. It was mine, became a part of me, a wisp remaining even though most of it returned to the Empty, and it seemed that starting over and trying to get back what was taken had not gone well for him.

He got off lightly.

"Where is she, Asama? I will take what pathetic amounts of magic you have managed to gather over all these years and ensure you never even remember there's a Hidden world unless you tell me right now where the hell she is."

"I can't, I can't," he whimpered.

"You can, and you will."

"You don't understand. Nobody goes against Kimiko Cocchi. This isn't your country, you have no idea what it is like here now, and you have no clue who she is now, what she can do."

"And you don't know what I can do now, Asama. Whatever she is, whatever her position, however powerful she is, I have come for her. You better start talking."

Everyone knew I was in town, and was after her, no point keeping quiet, but she was a ghost, more myth than the strange creatures that lived all around. Her name was spoken in whispers and with reverence, and utter, abject fear. She controlled them, ruled them, and they obeyed.

"Tell me!" I shouted.

Before I could get to him, he'd pulled an evil looking blade from behind the counter and with a mumbled prayer he stabbed himself in the guts then ripped from left to right.

This was the third seppuku I'd witnessed that day. It seemed people would go to any lengths to avoid giving up information concerning the whereabouts of the woman I sought.

My trip was not going as well as it might have.

Welcome to Tokyo.

Home to thirteen million people in the city itself, thirty-nine million in the Greater Tokyo Area, and one infamous Japanese vampire by the name of Kimiko Cocchi—legendary raven-haired beauty that had murdered my parents a hundred years ago on the other side of the world and was soon to be very, very dead.

I just had to find her.

The locals weren't talking, but I had a backup plan.

 

 

 

 

No Rest for the Dead

The buzzer brought my tinnitus back like an imp shouting in my ear as I turned at the sound of the door opening.

"This place is nuts. Where are all these people going? What are they all doing? It stinks out there. Have you seen that half of them are wearing masks? Do you think the air is that poisonous?" Dancer paused his stream of questions to put a hand over his mouth as if it would stop the car fumes from penetrating into his lungs.

"You'll get used to it. Anyway, that's the least of your worries. It's the contagious swine flu that's the real danger."

"That's it, I'm out of here. Next flight home for me."

I held up my hands. "I'm joking, don't be such a baby." Actually, I wasn't, but there was no point telling him that.

"I want to go home. Everything gets served with a radish here and those chopsticks are definitely just a joke they play on foreigners. Plus, I'm boiling in my suit. Aren't you hot?"

I stepped out from behind the counter where I'd propped up Asama, after having pushed his guts back in and wrapped his belly tight in a length of cloth to stop his lower intestine falling back out. It was not a good way to die, and I'd had to finish him off to stop the suffering—I may be cold-blooded at times, but I'm not heartless.

"Not really. Just use a touch of magic to keep yourself cool."

Dancer grimaced. "That just seems disrespectful. It's not a proper use of the arts, Spark."

I shrugged. As far as I was concerned it was better than having sweaty armpits or walking around in casual clothes—I shuddered at the thought.

Dancer scowled at the junk in the store and came over to where I was standing. He took one look at the guy and said, "Not another one. What is with these people and the damn suicide?"

"Watch it, Dancer, you're starting to sound a little xenophobic there. They're Japanese, not 'these people.'"

"You know what I meant. Damn, why did you have to drag me all this way? Like I haven't got enough on my plate at home. Everything is in chaos, you do know that, right?"

"I know, but it will all still be there when we return. The mess isn't going anywhere. Let the Council sort out their own troubles. They owe me. They owe all of us after what happened." I didn't want to think about it, couldn't.

I'd been betrayed in the worst possible way, my whole world crumbling around me. The one person I thought I could trust above all others and he'd been nothing but a goddamn liar and a fraud. A user and an abuser, instrumental in having my parents killed just so he'd have a tough dark magic enforcer to meld to his own idea of what I should be. My life felt like a lie. I didn't know who I was any more and it hurt so damn much I wanted to break down and cry. Or sleep and never wake up.

I was also so tired I was functioning on another plane of existence. The jet lag was bad enough, and I was still on British time, but that was as nothing to the utter ache in my heart and my bones from all that had gone down over the few days before we headed to the other side of the world.

Thinking I had nothing to lose, I'd overstepped the line, forced magic use that was more than I could handle. Tried to do the impossible and kill an immortal giant, resulting in nothing but me taking a step back from what I'd gained—using magic without the terrible comedown afterward. Now I was back right where I'd been for so long, with it hurting like the worst kind of sickness you could imagine.

Perversely, it made me feel better, that knowledge, that agony. Maybe I was on a downer—I had every right to be—but I felt it was what I deserved. A punishment of sorts for the things I'd done in my past, for all the hurt I'd caused others, but mainly because I knew I was empty of most feeling, revenge the overriding emotion. I was all-consumed by my need for it, even though I'd had enough killing to last several lifetimes.

BOOK: Neon Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 5)
10.34Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson
Clover by Cole, Braxton
Behind the Lines by Morris, W. F.;
Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Listen To Me Honey by Risner, Fay
Asphodel by Hammond, Lauren
Temporary Duty by Locke, Ric