Dark Magic (Harbinger P.I. Book 3) (16 page)

I
awoke
the next morning to find myself alone in the bed. Pale light crept in through the window and when I checked the clock on the nightstand, it told me it was six thirty. I sat up. Felicity’s glasses were gone from the nightstand, her peach blouse and jeans gone from the chair where they’d been neatly folded last night.

Without bothering to get dressed, I went downstairs and made coffee. While it was brewing, I went down to the basement and selected a sword and a pistol crossbow. I went back upstairs and leaned the weapons against the wall by the front door.

I checked the bandage around the bullet wound. It was still tight and the only pain I felt in my side was a dull ache. I was good to go.

A half hour later, I was showered, dressed and on my second cup of coffee when the front door opened and Felicity came inside. She was dressed in jeans and a dark green T-shirt. Her dark hair was piled up on her head in its usual style. “Oh, you’re awake,” she said when she saw me.

“I am indeed,” I said, raising my coffee cup by way of a greeting. “Did you sleep well last night?”

She smiled prettily. “Yes, very well. You?”

“Like the dead,” I said.

“That’s probably not the best choice of phrase for today,” she said, coming into the kitchen. “I’ve put some cinnamon bakes in my oven. If you’re inviting people around, they might as well have something to eat.”

“Sure,” I said. “You want a drink?”

“Tea, please. Thanks. I’ll make it.”

I watched her as she made herself a cup of tea. Last night’s closeness seemed to have vanished with the night. I wanted nothing more than to take Felicity in my arms and kiss her but she was back to being her business-like self again.

“Is everything okay, Felicity?”

“Yes, of course. I’m just so nervous about today. I’d feel better if we knew more about Luke Fairweather’s plans.”

“Yeah, me too, but we have to do the best we can with the little we have.”

“I know.” She took a sip of the hot tea. “I wonder what time Leon will arrive?”

“Early,” I said. “He wants to know what’s happening. He’s probably on his way here right now.”

She laughed. “Yes, he is eager to help. It’s nice.” The last two words reminded me of when she’d told me to keep my hand on her waist last night. “How are you going to convince the Blackwell sisters to help us?” she asked.

I hadn’t really thought about it. The sisters didn’t do anything unless they got something in return. I already owed them a favor for the werewolf locator spell they’d cast for me. What would they charge to fight the servant of a dark god and his minions? I wasn’t ready to trade my soul just yet. “I’ll just tell them the situation,” I said to Felicity. “If we don’t defeat Gibl, all their customers will be eaten by monsters. That should motivate them.”

There was a knock on the front door. I answered it to find Leon and Michael standing outside. They were both dressed in the same black garb they always seemed to wear when they were about to go into action.

Even though Leon was a young black man who had made a fortune in the computer tech world, and Michael was a white British man in his sixties who worked as Leon’s butler, there seemed to be a strong friendship between the two of them.

“You going to tell us what’s going on now, Alec?” Leon asked as he stepped into the house. Michael followed, nodding silently to me in greeting.

“Felicity will tell you everything,” I said. “I have to visit a couple of witches.”

I pulled on my boots and asked Felicity to call Timothy and Josie, the werewolves I locked away every full moon. Grabbing the keys to the Caprice, I went outside and got into the car. It was another warm morning and the temperature would probably rise as the day wore on.

I backed out of the driveway, being careful to avoid Leon’s RV parked on the street. Five minutes later, I was driving down Main Street. When I reached Blackwell Books, I cursed. The place wasn’t open yet. I parked outside and went to the door, peering through the glass at the dark interior of the bookshop.

Even though it was early, the witches might still be in there. They ran a mail order business from the back room so maybe they arrived early to sort out that side of things. I knocked on the glass and searched the darkness between the bookshelves for a sign of movement. Nothing.

I turned to leave, intending to call the witches later, but then I saw them on the sidewalk, approaching me. They both wore their trademark black Victorian dresses and Devon held a black lace parasol above their heads.

“Alec, you beat us here,” Victoria said when they reached me. “We know why you’re here.”

“You do?” I asked, surprised. I wasn’t sure why I was still surprised by anything the Blackwell sisters said.

“You want our help. Devon had a dream last night.”

“There’s a monster,” Devon said. “I saw it coming through a portal. And I saw you standing outside the bookshop before we opened.”

“So here we are,” Victoria added.

“And you’ll help?”

“Of course.” She made it sound as if they hadn’t asked me for some sort of payment every time I’d asked for their help.

“We’re all gathering at my place,” I said. “Do you have a car?”

“Yes, but it’s such a nice day we decided to walk,” Victoria said.

So Devon’s prophetic vision hadn’t told them they’d need a car. “Do you want to go get your car or do you want me to drive you to my house?”

“You can drive us,” Devon said.

“Fine.” I got into the Caprice and they both climbed into the back seat. As I drove back to the house, I told them about Luke Fairweather and the ritual he was carrying out. Every now and then, the witches would mutter, “That’s terrible,” or, “How awful,” but other than that, they listened quietly.

When we got to the house, Devon said, “Your house is very well-protected, Alec.”

“Yeah, you can’t be too careful these days.” I invited them inside and introduced them to Leon and Michael. The police scanner sat on the coffee table, picking up the occasional conversation between the dispatcher and one of the deputies, but nothing else. It was a slow day for law enforcement.

The house smelled of apple bakes. Felicity had set out two plates of the baked goodies on the coffee table. Victoria took a bite of one and said to Felicity, “These are delicious. You must give me the recipe sometime.”

Felicity nodded but looked a little uncomfortable.

“Did you call Timothy and Josie?” I asked her.

“Yes, they’re on their way.”

“No sign of Sherry?”

She shook her head.

“She was concerned about showing her face,” I said. “Maybe she lost her nerve.”

“I’m sure she’ll be here,” Felicity said. “She knows how important this is.”

A short hiss of static sounded on the police scanner, followed by the female dispatcher’s voice. “All cars. All cars. We’ve had multiple reports of gunmen at Dearmont Lake. Shots fired.”

Cantrell’s voice said, “Goddamn hunters. Amy, what’s your location?”

“I’m near the lake,” Amy said. “I’ll check it out.”

“That could be something to do with Luke,” Felicity said.

“Maybe.”

Everyone sitting around the police scanner was leaning in, waiting to hear Amy’s report.

When it came, Amy’s voice was tense. “I need backup. There are at least three gunmen at the docks. They’re firing at my vehicle.” There was a pause and then the sound of shots. “I’m returning fire but I need backup now!”

Cantrell said, “Everybody get down to the docks. Dispatch, call the state police. Tell them we need urgent assistance.”

Now it all made sense. “Twelve knights” did refer to the police after all. Luke had set up a situation that gave the sheriff no option other than to call the state police for assistance so there would be more than six police officers at the docks.

They were rushing into a trap.

And twelve of them would be sacrificed in a black magic ritual.

T
he Caprice sped
along the highway. The Blackwell sisters were in the back seat, talking quietly to each other. Felicity rode shotgun, looking nervously out through the windshield at the road ahead.

Leon’s RV was close behind us, with Michael at the wheel and Leon in the passenger seat checking their shotguns.

“Felicity, call Timothy and Josie and tell them to meet us at the docks.” I wished I had a number for Sherry. She was a trained fighter like me and her being here could be the difference between us winning or losing this battle.

Felicity jabbed at her phone and put it to her ear. After a couple of minutes, she said, “There’s no answer from Timothy.” She tried again and said, “No answer from Josie either.”

Great. So there were six of us against a black magician, a monster, and the monster’s minions. I didn’t like those odds.

I turned off the highway and on to the road the led to the lake. Six police cruisers were parked in the parking lot, their lights flashing. Crouched behind the vehicles were Cantrell, Amy, and four other officers. Their guns were drawn but they weren’t firing at anything.

I drove the Caprice around the police vehicles and parked behind them. Michael did the same with the RV.

When I got out of the car, Cantrell shouted, “Get out of here, Harbinger.” His face was red and at first I thought that was from anger but then I realized he was sunburned from when we’d taken the boat to the island and he’d fallen asleep.

“I can’t do that, Sheriff. You need to get on the radio and call off the state police. When they get here, all hell is going to break loose.”

“It’s already broken loose,” he said. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but we’re being shot at.”

“There’s a guy somewhere around here who needs twelve police officers on the scene so he can cast a spell that could destroy the world.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” He held up a huge hand. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

I turned to Amy. “Can you help me out here?”

She shrugged. “What do you want me to do?”

“Convince your dad to call off the state police. Trust me, things are going to get a lot worse if they come here.”

She hesitated, uncertainty in her eyes. “Alec, I don’t think I can…”

“Do you trust me?” I asked her.

“Of course she doesn’t,” Cantrell answered for her. “You can’t be trusted, Harbinger.”

“Dad, maybe he’s right,” she said. “Maybe we should listen to him.”

Cantrell wavered slightly. For all his pig-headed stubbornness, he knew I was no charlatan. He’d seen a glimpse of my world with his own eyes. He said, “Are you going to tell me what’s going on here?”

“I just did. If the state police arrive, their presence will enable an evil magician to cast a spell that will bring that monster we saw into this realm permanently. And the monster isn’t even the worst thing that’s going to come here. It’s going to bring its minions and they’re going to prepare our world for the arrival of the dark gods. I’m pretty sure we don’t want to ever meet those guys.”

Cantrell sighed resignedly. “Okay, I’ll call off the state troopers. We’ll apprehend the shooters ourselves.” He went around to the open door of his car and reached in to get his radio. He told the dispatcher to cancel the state police.

“What now?” Amy asked me.

“I need to find one very pissed magician,” I said. “Sooner or later, he’s going to realize that he doesn’t have the ingredients he needs to complete a spell that’s taken him three years to cast.”

“Sucks for him,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Never mind that,” Cantrell said. “Who the hell are those gunmen holed up in that shack?”

“They’re members of the Fairweather family,” I said. “Sent here to cause enough trouble that you’d call the state police. The magician needs twelve knights here so he can sacrifice them for his ritual. The Dearmont police force isn’t big enough. There are only six of you.” My voice trailed off as I made a realization.

I turned to the Caprice and the RV. There were six of us. Felicity, Michael, Leon, the Blackwell sisters, and me. All six of us had come here to stop evil and save the world. Wasn’t that knightly behavior? “Oh, shit,” I said. “Luke doesn’t need the state police. We’re the other six knights.”

A low rumbling rolled across the lake like thunder and out on Whitefish Island, a column of thick, black smoke rose into the air. The final part of the ritual had begun.

I
pulled open
the Caprice’s trunk and took out my sword and pistol crossbow. A quiver of bolts went onto my belt, along with a knife.

Felicity came around to the trunk. “Alec, what’s your plan?”

“Kill anything that moves,” I said.

“Good plan,” Leon said from behind me. He and Michael had shotguns slung over their shoulders and a backpack full of shells. “Where do you want us?”

Creatures began to emerge from the lake. They were similar to frogs but at least six-feet long. Their eyes fixed on us with malevolent stares and the creatures crawled toward us on their clawed feet.

“Over there,” I told Leon. “Deal with those frog monsters.”

He and Michael ran toward the edge of the lake and began firing. The frog monsters emitted high-pitched squeals when they were hit and, when they died, their bodies deflated and became puddles of green, slimy flesh.

“I need to get to the island,” I told Felicity.

“I’m coming with you.” She reached into the trunk and took out a second sword.

“Felicity, you haven’t been trained to use that.”

“There’s no time to argue, Alec. Let’s go.”

She was right about there being no time to argue. I needed to get to the island and close the portal there before more creatures came through it.

The sheriff and his deputies had turned their attention to the frog monsters, firing at them while still using the patrol cars as cover. I was going to have to deal with the Fairweather family if I wanted to get a boat. The shack they were in belonged to one of the boat hire businesses. I couldn’t get to the boats without getting past the Fairweathers.

“Stay behind me,” I told Felicity. I loaded the pistol crossbow as we made our way over to the shack.

One of the bearded brothers appeared from behind the shack, a revolver in his hands. I grabbed Felicity and threw myself to the ground, taking her with me. A shot rang out and I heard the bullet scream through the air over our bodies. I got the pistol crossbow into position and fired. The bolt hit the Fairweather brother in the chest. He fell backward and landed heavily on the ground, dust pluming up around his body.

The other brother appeared, brandishing a rifle. The sight of his brother made him hesitate slightly and that was all the time I needed to load another bolt into the crossbow as I scrambled to my feet. I shot him before he’d even aimed at us. My bolt punctured his shoulder and he dropped the rifle so he could clutch at the wound, crying out.

His cries brought the old lady out from the shack. She had a shotgun and it was already in firing position, braced against her shoulder and aimed right at me. I didn’t have time to reload the pistol crossbow. I handed it to Felicity and drew my sword, knowing I didn’t have time to get to the old woman before she shot me but still willing to give it a try.

The old woman cackled as she was about to pull the trigger.

A crossbow bolt suddenly appeared, sticking out of her chest. The old woman looked down at the bolt lodged in her body, her face a mask of surprise. She dropped to the ground and the shotgun went clattering into the grass.

I looked around. A red Mustang was parked on the road that led to the parking lot and standing on its roof was Sherry, crossbow in hand. She gave me a thumbs-up and dropped gracefully from the car roof to the ground before running over to us.

“What took you so long?” I asked her.

She put on a mock offended look. “I thought my timing was perfect.”

I looked at the old lady’s body. “I guess it was. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. What’s the plan?”

“We need to get to the island. Luke is there. Now that he’s cast the spell and expended all that energy, he should be weakened. The monsters have to kill all twelve of us for the ritual to succeed and the portal to stay open, so we need to stay alive.”

“I hear that,” Sherry said.

We moved toward the dock. When we reached Woody’s Boat Hire, I kicked the door open and grabbed the keys for the
Princess of the Lake
. Felicity and I got on board while Sherry untied the boat. By the time she’d done that and jumped on board herself, I had the engine started. The smell of gasoline rose into the air as I gunned the engine and piloted us away from the dock and out onto the lake.

Thick, dark smoke was still belching from the center of Whitefish Island. I looked over at the parking lot where the police and Leon and Michael were keeping the frog monsters at bay with their guns. The green-skinned creatures swarmed from the water and it wouldn’t be long before ammo supplies became depleted and the people in the parking lot would have to find other ways to kill the monsters.

The boat suddenly shuddered and the engine cut out.

“What the hell was that?” Sherry asked. “Did we hit rocks or something?”

“No, it wasn’t rocks,” I said, readying my sword.

The water all around us erupted and I saw flashes of green as frog monsters leaped into the boat. One of them lashed out at me with its claws. I stepped back and swung the sword, severing the monster’s arm. It squealed and shot its snake-like pink tongue at me. I deflected it with the flat of my blade and then moved forward, burying my sword in the monster’s chest. It deflated into a puddle of green slime.

I looked up in time to see Felicity gracefully swinging her sword at a frog monster’s head. The creature struggled for a second before becoming a pool of green goo at her feet.

Sherry was hacking and slashing at two monsters at the rear of the boat. No sooner had she killed them than three more leaped on board. “Alec, get us out of here!” she shouted.

Felicity joined the fray, stabbing her sword through a frog monster’s chest so hard that the point of the glowing blade went all the way through the creature’s body and came out of its back.

I tried the engine again. It started and I slammed the throttle forward. The boat accelerated over the water, kicking up spray from the hull. A frog monster managed to clamber on board before we reached full speed. I swung my sword at its head and decapitated it.

As we got closer to the island, the smell of sulfur hung in the air. It came from the noxious black smoke that continued to belch from the trees into the sky.

“I guess that’s the portal,” I said.

Felicity came to the control console and peered at the smoke. Her glasses had slid down her nose lightly and her forehead was beaded with perspiration. Her hair had come loose from the pins that kept it piled up on her head and now it tumbled over her shoulders. A thick strand clung to Felicity’s cheek, curling toward her mouth, and another snaked around her neck, kept in place by the moisture in her skin.

“That’s the portal,” she said. “Luke will be somewhere in there, keeping it open with his magic until the sacrifice is complete.”

I looked back toward the parking lot. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. If Luke’s original plan had gone ahead and we hadn’t been ready to act, he probably would have killed twelve cops and completed the ritual. But now half of his intended victims are people who have had experience fighting supernatural creatures.”

“He hasn’t used his most dangerous weapon yet,” Felicity reminded me.

That was true. Gibl seemed to be holding back, letting its minions do all the work. If completing this ritual meant that it could roam our realm, I would have expected it to be more involved in the fighting.

I pulled back on the throttle and guided the
Princess
to the little rickety dock. Sherry stepped out onto the wooden slats and tied the boat securely. I heard another boat and turned to see the Blackwell sisters sailing toward us in a boat identical to ours. They stood together at the control console and waved at us as if they were out on the lake for a pleasurable morning excursion.

We waited while they landed at the dock and stepped onto the island to join us.

“We thought we’d be more useful here than back there,” Victoria said. “Guns are quite distasteful.”

“What can you do about this?” I indicated the column of smoke.

They conferred for a moment and then Devon said, “We can probably close it, given enough time.”

“We’ll get to work on the proper spell,” Victoria said.

I wasn’t going to wait around while they did that so I strode forward into the portal, followed by Felicity and Sherry. The blue glow from our swords illuminated the black smoke. I had no idea which direction I was traveling in or even if I was going around in circles. I concentrated on moving in a straight line, hoping that I’d lead us out of the sulfurous darkness. The smoke stung my eyes and clung to my skin and made breathing difficult.

Finally, after long minutes of wandering in the smoke, we broke free of it and found ourselves in the clearing with the tree-stump altar. I breathed in a deep lungful of air and rubbed my skin where the smoke was clinging to me.

There was no sign of Luke. “Where the hell is he?” I said, frustrated. “And where is Gibl?”

“We’ll have to go back,” Sherry said. “We’re wasting time here.”

I nodded in agreement and set off into the smoke again. When we came out of the other side, the Blackwell sisters were still talking to each other. “I don’t see any spell casting taking place,” I told them.

“We’re working on it,” Victoria said.

I looked over the water toward the parking lot and a chill settled between my shoulder blades. Gibl was in the lot, towering above everything, even the tallest trees. It looked like an enormous frog except that it had many eyes and mouths all over its body. The eyes were frog eyes and they seemed to stare in every direction. The mouths were lined with sharp, needle-like teeth and each had a long tongue that flickered back and forth like a snake seeking prey.

Gibl raised one huge arm and brought it down on top of a police cruiser, smashing the vehicle as if it were a toy. One of the deputies had been hiding behind the car. He ran for the road that led to the highway, only to be caught by a long tongue that shot out from one of the mouths on Gibl’s stomach and dragged him into the waiting maw, screaming.

In the trees where Cantrell and I had seen the vision of Deirdre Summer’s death, Luke stood watching as the monster went on the rampage.

“He must have had a summoning circle set up over there,” Felicity said. “He guessed that we’d come to the island to look for him and he used that to split the group up.”

I jerked my thumb in the direction of the Blackwell sisters. “What happens if those two actually manage to close the portal and Gibl is on this side of it?”

“It will be dragged back through. Only when the
Hundred and Sixty-Nine Souls
ritual is complete can the portal remain open and Gibl remain on this side of it. Until then, the portal is like any other. If it closes, it drags everything that shouldn’t be on this side back to the other side.”

“Get that thing closed as soon as possible,” I told the Blackwell sisters before getting back on board the
Princess
with Felicity and Sherry. We set off back the way we had come, swords ready in case the frog monsters tried to board us again.

We got back to the dock without incident. In the parking lot, the battle raged on. Cantrell and his remaining deputies were shooting at frog monsters and moving between cars while Gibl smashed the vehicles and sent his many tongues shooting out at his prey. Leon and Michael were kneeling on the trail by the lake’s edge, firing their shotguns at Gibl. Some of the many frog eyes were leaking a translucent slime and I assumed they had been shot at and hit.

I glanced over at the island. The smoke was still rising. What the hell were those witches doing?

To reach Luke, I needed to get past Gibl. That wasn’t going to be easy. I moved forward, ready to slash at anything that came shooting in my direction, whether it was one of Gibl’s tongues or its huge, clawed hand.

The monster saw us and turned its head in our direction. I wished I’d had more time to practice my magic. The only trick in my arsenal was throwing a blast of energy that depleted my strength entirely. If I tried that now, I would be helpless for the rest of this fight. And I had no guarantee that the blast would even hurt Gibl.

It raised its massive hand and brought it down toward us. I stepped back and instinctively raised my free hand as if to ward off the blow. A blue shield of magical energy appeared above me, formed from a spiderweb of glowing magical circles and symbols. Gibl’s hand crashed down on it and the shield held. The monster raised its hand quickly as if stung.

Okay, that was new. I just hoped the shield didn’t drain as much energy as a magical blast because I wanted to make sure I had plenty of gas left in the tank when I came face to face with Luke.

“What the hell was that?” Sherry asked.

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“I think I can guess. The witches that did bad things to you when you were younger?”

“Yeah.” I moved forward, desperate to get past Gibl and face Luke in case I was going to collapse sometime soon.

One of the deputies stepped forward from behind a car and unloaded a magazine into Gibl’s body. Either he had seen Gibl’s reaction to touching my magical shield and decided to take the opportunity to get some shots in, or he was just playing hero.

Gibl turned on him and brought its hand down, crushing the deputy and the car in a wreck of metal, glass, flesh, and bone.

I ran for the woods, Felicity and Sherry close behind. We reached the trees and kept moving, slowing our pace to avoid tripping over fallen branches or roots hidden beneath the undergrowth. I veered left to hit the trail and when my feet touched the hard-packed earth there, I increased my pace again. Luke was not going to get away, I would make sure of that.

When I saw him, he was standing at the edge of the lake, by the rocks where Deirdre Summers had entered the water and begun the three-year ritual that was ending, one way or the other, today.

Luke grinned when he saw us. “Harbinger, you’ve fallen for every misdirection and trap I’ve put in your path. First you went to the island, splitting up your group, and now you’re standing exactly where I want you: right in front of me, ready to be slain. Twelve souls will be sacrificed to Gibl this day and the portal between our world and that of the dark gods will remain open, heralding a new age of darkness and destruction. Your death will be part of the foundation of that new age.”