Neon Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 5) (2 page)

The man I'd thought of as a friend and father figure, not just my boss, had betrayed me utterly, all of us. He was a liar and a cheat and the most selfish of men. I killed him and watched him die, and if I could I'd do it again, a million times over and make him relive it. This wasn't good. Even from beyond the grave Rikka had a hold on me, was affecting me and driving me toward a resolution I felt could result in my destruction.

Part of me didn't care. I just wanted it to all be over, for this weight that hung around my neck to be lifted. The sense of loss and betrayal made a year in prison feel like nothing but a vacation and now I was in another kind of prison. Trapped in my own mind with terrible emotions threatening to warp my soul and the humanity I had left, turning me into something colder than the most ancient of vampires.

Dancer had heard soon enough about what had happened, and I'd explained it all in person before leaving for Tokyo. He didn't believe me at first, but he came around, feeling just as duped as I did, as Grandma did, and I saw a side of him I'd never witnessed before. He cried for the loss of his boss, something I couldn't do. I was too empty inside, too exhausted from fighting and the theft of magic that had gone too far.

I don't even know how I made it onto the plane, even with Kate and Grandma's help, but somehow I did, and the next thing I knew I was holed up in a nice hotel trying to stop going insane with thoughts whirling around my head a mile a minute and sickness taking me over.

The comedown was terrible, and total, but it still wasn't like it had been before. Maybe it had something to do with having been gifted magic from a giant. That kind of thing can have any number of effects on you and I was in no doubt I'd uncover more as time went on.

Back to business.

"Well, can you do it?" I nodded at the corpse.

"Of course, he only just died. Good thing you had me waiting, although I don't know why we need all this cloak and dagger stuff."

"Because there are spies everywhere and it's best if we keep things low key."

Dancer actually smiled at my words, or tried to. He just looked constipated as usual. "Black Spark, Dark Magic Enforcer, keeping it low key? Yeah, right!"

"Whatever. Just bring him back, I haven't finished with him yet."

I stood back as Dancer bent to Asama. The air became thick, like a magical soup as the barrier between this world and the next split asunder with a dramatic crack I'm sure Dancer did just for effect.

Faces of the damned and the tormented pushed at the weakened barrier between worlds, trying to force their way through as Dancer focused his mind and strong magic on calling back to his body the spirit of Asama, giving him a second, albeit brief chance at life.

The body shot upright and Asama gasped desperately as air inflated his lungs and his protruding belly strained against the bindings. He clutched at the blood and gore-stained cloth, confused and fearful, not understanding what had happened. He looked up at us and said, "No, no, no. Let me be. Send me back. I'd rather go there, to that hell I just saw, than betray Kimiko. You don't know what she can do."

"Dude, you're dead, there's nothing she can do now." Hell, how could he still be scared? He was reanimated by a necromancer so nothing could hurt him now. He was already gone.

"Spark-san, you don't understand what you're trying to do. Leave me be, let me die for the last time."

"No, you will tell me what I want to know. You will tell me now."

Asama trembled and his limbs flailed violently, then great spasms took hold and he fell sideways, foaming at the mouth as his eyes rolled back in his head until they were nothing but whites.

"You are not welcome," came a voice emanating from Asama's mouth, but it wasn't him. It was a woman's. It was soft and gently spoken, shy and utterly in control. "Leave while you still can. I have no quarrel with you, but if you cross me you will pay."

I got up close to his face, not knowing if she could see through his milky eyes. "I'm coming for you, Kimiko. Do you hear me? You are mine."

The head snapped forward. "So be it, Black Spark. I have long known this time would come, but I had expected someone more powerful. You are still just a boy."

"I'll show you what this boy is capable of."

"And I shall show you what I am capable of."

Dancer slipped onto his backside, face ashen. He couldn't hold on to the magic any longer, the interference too great for his necromancy skills.

"Shit, she is seriously powerful, Spark. She just spoke to us through a corpse, that's not good."

"Nope, it's not." This was going to be harder than I had thought.

And then the buzzer went on the door. We turned to see a mass of Japanese zombies shuffling in.

I missed Cardiff.

Japanese Zombie Mayhem

"I want to go home," yelled Dancer, scrambling from the floor, looking almost green from exertion and the theft of his hold over the corpse.

"Maybe give it ten minutes while we deal with the zombies, eh?"

My ears rang, making my head swim, while the damn buzzer repeatedly sounded as more and more Japanese undead poured into the cramped store. My eyes snapped hard to black, and silver sparks of energy pierced my eyeballs, sending sharp pains into my skull like a case of acupuncture gone horribly wrong.

The stink of putrid flesh so rotten it was like a ghoul's wet dream cloyed the air and made us both gag as the moans of the zombies grew louder. It was weird, but all I could think of was the fact they were moaning in a foreign language—you'd think it would sound the same, but it didn't.

Forced from behind by the pressure of undead flesh, the lead zombies stumbled and smacked into the counter, dead eyes greedy with the anticipation of a fresh meal of some nice foreign brains. A real treat. I slammed my hand onto the counter, fingers stinging against the dirty wood as a ripple of black magic crashed into the living dead, hurling them back against the press of the throng. But the space was so rammed they remained standing. There was nowhere for them to go.

Again I blasted, two-handed this time, pressure increasing and more violent as I forced my will into the magic in a specific way, shards of impotent fury slicing at soft, gangrenous flesh that melted under the onslaught or caused bits to drop to the dirty concrete floor. These were no well-preserved undead full of the special solution that stops them rotting and extends their undead lives. They were well past their best, little more than sloppy flesh held together by the zombie virus, ancient ex-humans way beyond being aware of what they were or had once been.

They were walking hunger, nothing else, and I stared, mesmerized, as faces missing all excess tissue bared rotten and decayed teeth dripping with the sickly venom that would turn you into one of their own if they managed to get a bite or even a dainty nibble.

Not gonna happen.

"Get behind me, Dancer. And cover your eyes." I didn't have to tell him twice and he moved fast, put his arms on my shoulders and peeked cautiously as I took a deep breath then pushed out hard with my hands held together. With a rapid outpouring of energy directed by a tattoo that ran across my lower chest, I blew them the hell out of the store via the front window.

Glass rained down on the street outside, shocking the passersby, the bodies torn to ribbons as they fell to the ground, dissolving into lumps of green and brown goo, impossible to be identified as human. As we leaned forward and watched, the flesh hissed and spat, bubbling and festering before wisps of white energy steamed into the air and all that remained was a stain on the sidewalk. I watched through magic-infused eyes as the tormented souls of those trapped inside such unholy flesh finally left their foul prisons and cried for joy as they faded into the ether and continued into their hopefully peaceful afterlife.

With the bodies down, and the crowds already amassing either side of the trashed exterior beginning to peer in, a man slid the door closed on a large black van and jumped into the front.

"Come on, hurry up." I grabbed Dancer by the upper arm and dragged him out into the sweltering city, humidity high and my own adrenaline levels higher. I was still in the throes of magic, dared not relinquish my hold or I'd be out of action, and we crunched over the glass and made it to the van just as it pulled away. As the zombie transporter eased out into the nightmare traffic, barging smaller vehicles out of the way, I pulled on the handle to the back door and gently opened it.

Inside was nothing but bench seats and chains running along the sides, shackles hanging down where the zombies would have been held. "In you go," I said to Dancer, who turned to me in shock and shook his head.

"No bloody way. Are you nuts?"

"It's a lead, and it's all we have. In." Before he could object further, or the driver got away, I shoved him hard and he flew into the back. I jumped in after him just as the van sped up and made an illegal turn into a bus lane, and the next thing I knew the door slammed shut and we were entombed in the back of a van that had just been sent to unload a horde of zombies on me in the middle of downtown Tokyo.

As far as plans went, I'd had better. And it stank worse than Dancer after a visit to the local cemetery.

Still, we had each other for company.

"I hate Tokyo," moaned Dancer.

"At least the locals are friendly." He just stared at me. "What? They are. Normally."

A Road to Nowhere

"Are you mad? Let me out of here, it reeks of zombies. How can you stand it?" Dancer was panicking. He tried to cover his face but there was nothing he could do to take away the smell. It was overpowering and extreme in a way I'd never encountered before. But then, I'd never been in the back of a van that had held at least a dozen very dead, and very rotten zombies before, so there was that.

"I can stand it because there's no other choice. Dancer, when we go back to the UK, and I mean when, not if, then you're going to be an important man, I don't doubt it, and what better way to make your entrance than—"

"What the hell are you talking about?" He was genuinely confused, and for me that was a very good sign. Dancer has never been the type to push himself forward, eye always on the end game of gaining position and power, and to my mind that made him the perfect candidate.

"The Council will want you, maybe to take Rikka's place, or the position he used to hold, at any rate. Certainly to help a new Head now that Grandma is out of the running."

He stared at me blankly, really not getting it.

"Look," I said, exasperated, "they were playing with Rikka, putting Grandma in charge. It was a punishment. I realized, as I've been going over and over this whole sorry mess, that they did it to wind him up, but they would have given him back a Head position eventually. He was too good at it. He didn't see it in his blinkered rage, but they would want him back as Head of the UK Hidden Council. Now it may well be your turn. Or, you will be there beside someone to help and guide them."

"I... I hadn't even considered it." He smiled weakly, actually managing to get it to stick to his face for a second or two.

"Yeah, well, don't go thinking it means you can boss me about."

"Wouldn't dream of it." I could see his mind working, thinking of all the ways he could annoy me and get me to do things because he was in charge.

"I'm warning you. I'm a free agent and work for whom I please. Rikka was never my boss, not really." Dancer raised an eyebrow. "Okay, maybe he was, but I won't make the same mistake again." I settled back against the vibrating wall of the van, wondering if the Council would actually put someone like Dancer in charge.

I suspected they would—he was competent, efficient, had shown he could run things when Rikka had gone missing before, and most of all, he wasn't a politician. Just looked like a mortician with his short back and sides haircut, slick and dark, black suits with narrow tie and the ever-present white shirt. Yeah, we're not exactly what you would expect two powerful men adept with magic to look like, but there you go.

Something felt weird, and as my vision returned to normal I realized what it was. Payback. My stomach cramped, my vision blurred, and sickness came calling. Damn, for a moment I'd forgotten that my mastery over the magical comedown had been wiped out with my abuse of magic. The familiar sensation came over me, strong and unrelenting.

Dancer watched, stoic, as I crumpled to the floor of the van and curled up tight into a ball. I would have screamed if it wouldn't have alerted those in the front to our presence, so I suffered in silence—okay, I moaned a lot and screamed a little, but quietly.

Shards of steel etched grooves in my nervous system as the payback built. I could neither think nor move as I let it do its worst.

A familiar friend. Telling me I could at least still harness the Empty, and this was what it took, what you had to do if you wanted what we had. Dancer watched on, having already dealt with his own comedown, bad but not crippling as he used magic in a different and less intrusive way, even though you'd think raising the dead deserved more of a punishment.

It is what it is, and I welcomed the pain. It grounded me, reminded me I was just a frail human being and that nothing of value comes without a cost. I was willing to pay it and so much more if it meant getting to Kimiko Cocchi. I'd give up almost anything because I'd already lost more than I ever thought I would, or could, and hope to go on.

It was over quickly, nowhere near how it used to be, so maybe all was not lost. Perhaps I could once more be free from the suffering and all it would take was time and focus. I hoped I would have plenty of both. There was something else going on, though, a weird gnawing at the back of my thoughts, a nagging that I was being a fool. Almost as though a silent voice was laughing at me, at my ineptitude. Was this all in the mind? Was I just thinking I had to suffer because I'd pushed the boundaries of magic too far? Could be. Maybe, for now, I wanted to feel the pain just so I knew I was alive. Was I inflicting punishment on myself because I felt I deserved no better?