The Prince of Darkness (The Freelancers Book 3)

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  The Prince of Darkness

  A Freelancers Novel

  By

  Lee Isserow

  Copyright © 2017 Lee Isserow

  All rights reserved.

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  Other books in The Freelancer series

  The Spirit Box

  The Roving Death

  Spirited Words

  Snake's Kin

  Other books in The Circle

  Shadowmancer

  Chapter 1

  Walk the ritual out

  Since moving to London, he had always thought Christ Church was an extraordinary building. The crown jewel of Whitechapel architecture, more so since its renovation. With nothing but time to kill, he circled it, and admired the great spire at the peak that loomed above the broad, hulking white stone shoulders of the building.

  The sky was starting to take on a pink hue, or as pink as it could get with London's air pollution. A muddy wash of cerise-tinted grey that implied the sun was considering setting sometime soon.

  That was what he was waiting for, night to draw forth. The later he left it, the fewer people would be present, and that meant fewer people that might get hurt.

  There had been no time to scope the damn place out. Reconnaissance was a luxury that, like time, was in short supply. He'd have to make do with the memories of previous trips to the market, hoping that the traders hadn't changed their habits since he was last there.

  As he came back around the church, he caught sight of market traders as they flocked out of Spitalfields. A man stood at the large metal gate in a black security uniform, and ushered them away. He stood steadfast, back straight and chest puffed out. The guy looked as though he saw himself as one step away from a policeman, but in truth, the impression he was expelling was one of police-lite: the aesthetics of police with none of the sugar, calories or actual authority.

  As he watched the security guard, he tried to force a chuckle at the thought, but it brought no real levity. There was no good humour in a situation like this, not even close.

  There was no closing time for the market, not officially. The only closing time that vaguely mattered was that for the mundane market that the security guard was locking up. And even then, it only acted as the gateway to the mystical market that was his intended destination.

  He waited, watched, as the guard tugged at the gates to insure they were locked, then walked down the street and turned the corner to check the next set of gates.

  The sun was inching its way down in the sky, deep blues taking over from the pink. There was no putting it off, not any longer. It was time to act.

  He walked across the road, and headed towards the locked gates. Not that gates or locks or physical walls were of any consequence to him. There was little that could stand in the way of someone with his adept.

  With barely a thought, he crossed realms, traversed through the gates and doors with little effort on his part, and emerged on the other side in Spitalfields market. He mused momentarily, that not long ago such a thing would distress his stomach―to cross realms would literally flip him head over heels. But these days, he was more than a man, and more than a magickian. He was as much a part of the realm as it was a part of him. It was under his skin, flowed through his veins.

  He walked a circuitous route around the empty, silent market. This was not his destination, but there was no direct route to his destination, not even between realms. He had to walk the ritual out, steps forming a grand sigil across Spitalfields. And more than that, he had to hope that his memory of the sigil's route wasn't going to fail him.

  As he crossed through stalls, he appreciated the silence, a moment of calm before the inevitable chaos. The traffic out on Commercial Road was muted by the walls and vaulted ceilings of the grand building, that was the size of a whole city block.

  Carefully, he stepped between wooden picnic tables set up between a series of food stalls, and found his eyes darting around, ears pricked up for the stray sounds of security guards on patrol. He hoped they wouldn't come, that they had better things to be doing down at the pub. . . He didn't want to have to hurt anyone, not for this, not so early in the damn job.

  Finally, he was in the last stretch of the ritual, the door to the market just up ahead. The first half of this incursion, the easier half, was almost over. The second half, the one which had a myriad unknown variables and potential for violence, was still to come.

  Three steps left to the door, he took a deep breath.

  Two more steps, a short, sharp exhale.

  One more step, and he closed his eyes.

  The solid wood of the grey door bent around him as the sigil was sealed, and for a moment, it felt as though he were wading through a pool of water.

  The moment passed, and with it came the raucous chatter and noise of the market. He was no longer in Spitalfields―he was on the other side. . . and all the closer to doing what needed to be done.

  Before he went any further, he spun around, turned his back on the market. He couldn't risk his face being seen, couldn't risk being recognised. Not that he was exactly well known with those of a magickal disposition. . . But he had been caught on news cameras a while back, and even though The Circle had dialled back the memories of everyone in the world who saw that destructive spectacle, he couldn't risk that those within the market were immune to that re-writing of reality.

  He took a breath, closed his eyes, and tried with all his might to remember the casting just as his grandmother had taught it to him. The first step was to picture his own face in mind's eye. Next, he traced his first and middle fingers from jaw to temples, and let out an exhalation as the flesh of his thumbs met his chin, then again as ring fingers graced his forehead and little fingers grazed his nose. He tried to recall the words he had been taught, not that his tongue could pronounce them. But his grandmother's tongue was more dexterous, and he heard them in his head, just as she had spoken them. He pictured his intent, the face in mind's eye began to distort, as he disguised his visage with faces borrowed from everyone he had ever seen.

  In an instant, it was done. He was shrouded, and turned back to the market, a frown etched on each of the faces that shifted and shimmered to hide his own. The place was still a vibrant hum of activity, traders and shoppers filled the slim aisles for close to a square mile. He cursed himself for being so naïve as to think it would have been any other way. . . After all, the doors that lined the massive stone walls led to markets across the globe, and there was no reason to close down shop when customers came from all possible time zones.

  He walked onwards, followed a vaguely recalled map in his head, a direction in mind. As he sidestepped between stalls, doing his best to ignore the cries and shouts of market traders attempting to hock their wares, he wondered if being shrouded would alert someone's suspicions. Then again, he reminded himself, there are some that wouldn't want to be seen strolling through a den of inequity and questionable legality such as the market. The traders, let alone the security homunculi, were probably more than used to seeing such things. Of course, when he began to embark on the task he was actually there to do, it would certainly draw their ire. . .

  He ducked away from the stalls, and silently wished that the aisles were wider, as the stall owners seemed to insist on shouting about their products directly into the face of anyone who walked by. He had no need for troll spit or enenra smoke. In fact, he wouldn't even know what to do with it even if it was given as a gift. The traders were there to sell to magickians that kn
ew their craft better than he. The kind of people that knew potions and concoctions and so on.

  As much as his adept meant he was brewing with magick, the fact was he only knew a small number of castings. He was, in the grand scheme of things, a magickian in name only, with no formal training beyond his matriarch's best intentions to teach the basics.

  Finally, after what seemed like a half hour of fighting his way between stall and customer alike, his destination was in sight. He stepped out of the aisle and walked towards the fountain at the very centre of the market.

  There was nothing about it that suggested it was anything other than a mundane body of water, barely a foot deep, with unkempt old grey stones strewn around it in a circle. But as with everything in the magickal world, he knew full well that nothing is ever what it seems at face value. . .

  He glanced at the bottom of the shallow pool, shiny pennies glittered at him with sheens of copper and silver. The wishes of others, slowly rusting. A custom adopted by mundanes, with no clue as to the magickal origin.

  He reached into his pocket and felt the rough edges of a coin, the metal warmed by a night and a day against his thigh. He palmed it, and removed the hand from the pocket, balling it up into a fist.

  Reluctantly, he lifted that fist to his mouth, placed his lips against thumb and first finger. There were words he had been told it needed to hear, words that were etched into his mind's eye, words he would not dare let himself forget. He whispered the words the coin was waiting for, and felt the rough metal disk in his palm react. It was generating heat within his grasp. Light began to shine out from between his fingers, and he kept a tight clasp on it, knowing it was not time, not yet.

  He had to wait forty five more seconds.

  Wait for heat to rise, and the light to peak.

  Then it would be time.

  But the coin was not subtle, as it prepared itself for the task ahead. The glows and glimmers that escaped from his fist were starting to draw attention. He thrust the clenched hand into his coat, and instantly became paranoid about the shopkeepers and patrons alike that appeared to be staring in his direction. They were muttering to one another, he had inadvertently become the topic of much intrigue and speculation for one and all.

  He was glad to have shrouded his identity, but even though they could not tell who he was, and certainly wouldn't be able to pick him out of a line up, they could definitely tell that he was up to something. The whispering to oneself might have been usual activity for some of the more peculiar shoppers at the market, but the glowing fist most certainly was not.

  Thirty seconds. He scanned the crowed, and saw the flat tops of six, seven, then eight heads over the top of the stalls. Someone had alerted security, and they were coming towards him, rectangular skulls, grey skin. Damn homunculi. . .

  The first came out of the stalls, sending a display of trinkets flying as the creature's arm thundered through the air towards him, fingers primed to grab the arm stuffed in the coat.

  Twenty seconds. The second emerged, then the third, the rest not far behind. He took a breath, flexed the fingers of his free hand, spun on his heel, and threw his palm up in the direction of the closest homunculus.

  The shadows from within the creature's body burst out of its mouth, then coiled back and became solid in an instant. They punched the giant man-made man in the face, then the darkness whipped around him like tentacles, wrapped up its massive arms and tied them tight to the body, lashed around its legs and pulled the great grey man down to his knees. It fought for freedom, but the grip the shadows had on him was too strong.

  Ten seconds. The other homunculi came for him, unperturbed by their kin's plight. No thought for their own safety either, for they had no thoughts. They had a purpose, and subduing the shrouded man ahead of them was that sole purpose.

  He knew it would take too long to bind them all, and timing was everything. He made a judgement call, a split-second moral decision. After all, they were not men, but creations. Even if they were not coming for him, they had limited lifespans, would never know love nor fear, and would disappear from existence into a pile of dust before the week was out. . .

  He threw his hand across from one to the next. Each of the homunculi fell into the shadows that lay below their feet, disappearing into the realm of darkness where they would live out the rest of their short lives. And when those lives ended, their dust would blow through the shadows for the rest of eternity.

  The onlookers froze, their eyes wide, none willing to intervene with whatever the shrouded man intended to do. He pulled the hand from his coat, the light gleamed, blinded one and all as he flung the coin into the fountain.

  Light filled the market from wall to wall, climbing up and up, the glows doing their best to reach a ceiling that did not exist.

  When the light faded, and those in the market regained their sight, the man who commanded the shadows, who dispatched with the homunculi, who made the fountain explode into light with some unknown magick, was gone.

  But the magick in the waters, that would pervade. It had become bonded at the subatomic level, as it would remain until he had finished his task, done what needed to be done. There was no turning back now.

  Next time, at the next location, they would likely be expecting him. And as the days went on, many would be injured, some might even die, but he could not let this perturb him.

  Nothing would stop him―nothing could stop him.

  After all, he was the Prince of Darkness.

  Chapter 2

  Bait

  The cemetery was quiet, as the moon hung high above, and monolithic gravestones cast great shadows across the dry and unkempt grass. The groundskeepers hadn't been around for a while, mostly because they, like the occupants of the grounds, were dead.

  Ana and Rafe walked the main path through rows upon rows of graves, looking for any sign of the creature that had done the groundskeepers in.

  “You're sure it's not a zombie?” Ana asked.

  “It's not a zombie.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Because, as you might have noticed from the sixteen times I've already told you, zombies don't exist.”

  “Sixteen?”

  “I've been keeping track.”

  “Why?”

  “In the vague hope that it will stop you asking if things are real.”

  “You hope for the stupidest things. . .”

  “Are basilisks real?' For the fourth time, no. Is the Mongolian death worm real? For the twenty-sixth time, no―”

  “Now you're just being a dick. . .”

  “You need to stop googling for mythical creatures, and read some books.”

  “Are any of your books on kindle? I read better on a kindle.”

  “I hate you,” Rafe sighed.

  “What about Audible? Ian McKellen would make a boring old books sound fantastic, I'd listen in a heartbeat if―”

  “Shh!”

  “That's rude!”

  “Shh!” Rafe pointed over to a glow by some gravestones over to their left.

  Ana narrowed her eyes, trying to make out the source of the light in the shadows. “Is that it?” she whispered.

  “Might be. . .”

  “About damn time!”

  With a wave of her hand a great crash sounded out across the cemetery. It shattered the silence, and shattered between realms, as the glow was torn asunder along with half of the gravestone.

  “You didn't want to wait, maybe get closer, make sure it wasn't a cat or something?”

  “Jikininkis mesmerise with their eyes, don't think getting close is smart.”

  Rafe stared at her in disbelief, as it appeared that she might have actually read the book after all.

  “I may not like your dumb old books, but I can remember them pretty damn well,” she grunted, as she led the way across the grass to investigate what was left of the glow.

  Cautiously, they approached what was left of the gravestone. Ana kicked the rubble away to disc
over the glittering reflection of broken glass amongst the destruction. Rafe glanced around, and pointed out other bottles left lying around, each of which cast an identical glow of reflected moonlight, like the one that Ana had destroyed.

  “Kids must have been drinking here,” Rafe mumbled.”

  “Well, at least I didn't blow a groundskeeper apart, huh?”

  “Yeah, total bright side. . .”

  Shadow whipped across their periphery, and Ana spun on her heel, trying to follow its wild, lightning fast path. She threw crack after crack in reality in an attempt to shatter the thing. But it was too damn fast, and the only thing that got shattered were memorials for the deceased.

  “Dammit, stop breaking reality and just wait for it to stay still a second!”

  The shadowy creature stopped as soon as Ana's attacks ceased. It turned in their direction, a rumbling roar of anger seemingly shaking the very earth on which they stood. And in an instant, the darkness thrashed through the air towards them, bright glowing eyes open wide.

  Ana raised her hand to cast, and discovered her limbs unresponsive. She felt her mind going blank, thoughts receding as lunged for her. It seemed to be coming in slow motion, massive jaws open, a myriad sharp, jagged teeth coming for her face, a long three-pronged tongue lashing back and forth in the beast's mouth.

  With barely inches between her and certain painful death, something else caught her eye. A monochrome dusty rain falling in front of her face, it glittered in the moonlight, blown on the breeze.

  The beast with the glowing eyes made a noise that sounded to Ana like a cartoonish “Oh my!”, and as its jaw came into contact with the glittering rain in front of her face the glimmers seemed to burst to life, each a minuscule comet or meteor that burned straight through the creature's body, setting the entire thing alight until there was nothing left but smoke.