The Corvin Chance Chronicles Complete Box Set

by N. P. Martin

  "You could say that. It’s why I’m here actually."

  Davey put down his screwdriver, got up and retrieved a pipe and a pouch of tobacco from the dresser behind him. Then he sat back down and began to fill the pipe. It wasn’t long before the room was filled with fragrant smoke, his lined, bearded face seeming calmer now that he’d had a few puffs. Whatever he was trying to fix, it seemed to have been stressing him out a bit. "What seems to be the trouble?"

  I shook my head at him and smiled slightly. "You’re like Sigmund Freud sitting there."

  "Or Carl Jung. I’m more of a Jungian than a Freudian. Freud was obsessed with sex."

  "An you’re not?"

  "I’m an old man, of course I am."

  His comment elicited a chuckle from me, despite how serious everything felt at the moment. "What are you working on?" I asked him, realizing at the same time that I was putting off talking what I came here to talk about. Davey seemed to know this, but was happy enough not to push me on it.

  "It’s an old clock," he said, looking down at it as he continued to puff on his pipe. "Or the inner workings of one at least. I’m fixing it for a friend."

  "It’s just a clock? It doesn’t reverse time, by any chance?"

  Davey chuckled. "Unfortunately not. This one just tells the time. Are you in need of some time reversal?"

  I smiled without humor, thinking that if I could turn back time, I would never go into that house with Amelia. "It would certainly help."

  Davey stared at me a moment a I waited on him asking the inevitable question. "What’s happened then?"

  Before I could answer, Dalia walked in with two mugs full of coffee, one of which she handed to me, the other to Davey. "Thanks," I said.

  "Thank you my dear," Davey said to Dalia.

  "You make his coffee for him?" I asked her with a wry smile.

  Dalia shook her head at me. "Only when he hasn’t pissed me off."

  "Which is rarely," Davey said with pride almost.

  "He enjoys winding me up," Dalia said as she came to sit on the armchair next to me. "Some of these days I’ll wind him up, and then squeeze him out like an old rag."

  I couldn’t help but laugh. "It’s like the The Odd Couple in here."

  Davey nodded sagely. "That’s a good way to put it, right enough. I think I’m Walter Matthau then. Missy there must be Jack Lemmon."

  Dalia shook her head. "I’ve no idea what you two are going on about."

  "It’s a movie, dear," Davey said. "Before your time."

  "Stop calling me dear." She looked at me. "He thinks I’m his slave instead of his apprentice."

  "Same thing," Davey said as he looked away.

  Dalia sighed and shook her head before looking at me again. "You see what I mean? He winds me up."

  "Are you learning, though?" I asked her. "That’s the important thing."

  "She’s learning," Davey said. "Faster than I ever did."

  "No thanks to you sometimes…old man," Dalia said, more than a hint of fondness mixed in with her sarcasm.

  "This old man is still able to kick your arse if he so pleases," Davey said. "Remember that."

  "I’d like to see you try," Dalia said, smiling as she looked at me.

  I have to say, it was good to see her happy. Despite the slagging going between them, she seemed to be enjoying her time spent learning under Davey. My pride in her was such that tears stung my eyes for a second, and I looked away for a moment and stared down at the floor as I wrestled with my emotions, hoping they wouldn’t erupt at this time.

  "So Corvin," Davey said. "You were about to say what was troubling you."

  I nodded as I looked up. "I’d better start from the beginning…"

  Chapter 3

  I told Davey and Dalia the whole story surrounding the Cult of Apep, and about how we eventually brought the cult down, and then about how the Dark One took Amelia. When I’d finished, a heavy silence filled the room as they both looked at me.

  "I can’t believe you nearly died…again," Dalia said eventually. "Sometimes I wonder if you have a death wish, Corvin."

  "I don’t think he has a death wish," Davey said as he sat refilling his pipe. "He just feels like he has to risk own life to save others. I think it’s admirable."

  Dalia shook her head at Davey as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. "It’s stupid is what it is."

  "Can we discuss my dalliances with death another time?" I said. "I’m here to talk about Amelia, and about how I’m going to save her."

  "How we’re going to save her," Dalia said, her dark eyes on me. "There’s no way I’m letting you face this Dark One alone, and before you protest like you normally do, don’t. You’re not talking me out of it this time. Maybe if I’d been there with you in the first place, Amelia might not have been taken."

  I stared at her a second and then looked away as a slight sense of shame came over me for shutting her out like I’ve been doing. "Maybe," I said.

  "Now is not the time for recrimination," Davey said after lighting his pipe, the room now hazey with pungent smoke. "Corvin came here to ask for our help, Dalia, and our help we will give him."

  "Of course," Dalia said. "I was just saying—"

  "We know," Davey said, cutting her off.

  "Fine, I’ll shut up," Dalia said, then looked at me. "For now."

  I ignored her last comment as I looked at Davey. "So the first thing I want to know is, is Amelia still alive? Do you think she was pulled into some other reality or something?"

  Davey nodded. "By the sounds of it, she was pulled into the Shadow Realm. You know what that is?"

  "I may have read bits and pieces about it," I said. "It’s a spirit world, isn’t it?"

  "Yes," Davey said. "It’s a world similar to our own, which vibrates on a different frequency to this one. The Shadow is like a murky reflection of our own world, existing just outside this one. This shadowy reality is overlaid atop our own so closely that sometimes the two worlds—meant to stay separate—begin to bleed across into one another."

  "Like at the house in Kilkenny, you mean?"

  "The house obviously has a strong resonance to it thanks to the atrocities that happened there over the years. My guess is that when Amelia’s parents died, the resonance of the house attracted their spirits there, which likely merged in some way with the spirit that was there already, this Dark One you spoke about."

  "So the Dark One is a separate entity?"

  Davey nodded. "When there’s that much resonance in one place, spirits are born from it, which then begin to feed off the Essence given off by the resonance."

  "I don’t understand any of that," Dalia said.

  As Davey tapped the ashes from his pipe into a glass ashtray, he began to elaborate on what he was saying. "The rules of interplay between the worlds are simple. Anything powerful in the one realm has the chance to affect the other. It’s a never-ending game of give-and-take. When something potent happens in the corporeal world—something invested with weight, emotion and meaning—it births a reaction in the spirit world. It goes the other way, too. Changes in the Shadow may translate to changes in the physical world. Consider this example," he said, pausing to light his pipe and blow a thick stream of smoke into the room. "John Doe grows tired of the way his employers treat him. He suffers long hours with little benefit. His hands are lined with paper cuts from stuffing envelopes and shuffling pages. Every time he asks for a raise, he’s denied. John is given over to despair, as he feels trapped.

  "John’s despair is a strong emotion. Because of this, it becomes more than just an emotion. His despair gains life. It grows eyes and a dark pulsing heartbeat. In the Shadow, a despair-spirit is born, a twinkling black mote hungry for more of what made it. It skulks about, growing in power, feeding off John’s despair.

  "Of course, as it feeds, John’s despair only grows. The spirit almost sucks it out of him—for every taste of despair the spirit takes, John replaces the despair with greater despair.
<
br />   "In the Shadow, it’s not long before his negative energy—this resonance of despair and misery—draws other despair-spirits, which feed off the energy, and feed off one another as well. The resonance shudders and swells.

  "In the physical world, the despair is no longer contained to John. Other office workers begin to feel the pinch of work and the isolation of being in a dead-end job. They contribute to the feelings of hopelessness that pervade this office. Cubicle walls grow to seem grayer. The air blowing from vents above seems stagnant, even still. Despair takes on a physical presence, casting the whole office in a faintly miserable veneer.

  "The spirits in the Shadow are now feasting mightily, converting the dark emotion to Essence, the spirit stuff that fuels them. The despair is now potent. It collects around everything, a seeping fog, a septic infection.

  "It’s enough to send John to the breaking point. The next day, John comes into work with a shotgun given to him by his father, and John starts to shoot. He doesn’t kill everybody, but he kills enough. Some of them even seem to want death.

  "In the Shadow, however, the despair-spirits are no longer the only predator in the hunting ground. Murder-spirits are born of John’s actions. These blood-red motes, throbbing with vigorous hate, grow quickly, because the murders are many and the emotion is fierce.

  "In the office itself, the murders can only last so long. They’re over in a matter of minutes, at least in the physical world. But oh how the Shadow remembers! In the spirit world, that sudden outbreak of emotion and action has left indelible marks. The Shadow reflection of the office grows spattered with blood that cannot be removed. Sometimes shadows creep along the floor like crawling corpses, whispering the words “dead-end-job” over and over again.

  "The chain reaction is set. The murder-spirits, hungry to feed on more of what birthed them here in this realm, go out into the world. They must find scenes of murder to feed, and if they cannot find any such scenes... "

  "They make them," Dalia said.

  "Precisely."

  "So what do you mean by Essence?" Dalia asked.

  "Essence is the energy contained within the resonating emotions," Davey explained. "Spirits feed of Essence, and become strong through it. Essence is everywhere in the Shadow. Spirits themselves are full of it, which is why they often feed off each other. There’s a magic in the Shadow called Numina, which allows all this to happen, just as there is magic in this realm, but of a different type, of course."

  "So you’re saying that the spirit of Amelia’s parents have combined with the spirit of the house?" I said.

  "By the sounds of it, yes," Davey said. "It’s not something I’ve heard of before. They obviously make each other stronger in some way."

  "So you think Amelia is in the Shadow then?"

  "It seems that way."

  "How do we know she isn’t dead?"

  Davey paused as he went to light his pipe again. "We don’t."

  I shook my head and sighed as I stared at the floor, no more hopeful now than I was before. "Fucking hell…"

  Dalia reached across and put a hand on my leg. "She’s alive," she said. "I mean, it’s Amelia, right? She’s too bad ass to let some stupid spirit kill her, right?"

  I looked at Davey. "Can someone remain alive in the Shadow?"

  "Of course," Davey said. "Some people are regular visitors, though none of them you would want to know. I went myself once, many years ago. It’s a place you can certainly survive if you know what you’re doing, though it’s obviously not without its dangers. In fact—and I hate to say this—but the Shadow is probably the most unsafe place I know of. Everything in it is alive…and hungry all the time."

  "Well, regardless of how unsafe it is," I said. "I take it’s still possible to go in there and pull someone out?"

  "Of course," Davey said nodding. "Though it won’t be easy."

  "Nothing ever is."

  "I’ll go there with you," Dalia said. "It sounds a lot like the Otherworld anyway. You’ll need my help."

  "The Shadow is more dangerous than the Otherworld, my dear," Davey said. "They aren’t the same at all."

  "I don’t care," Dalia said. "I’m still going."

  Davey sighed. "I know you are, my dear."

  "So I take it we just enter the Shadow via the house somehow?" I asked Davey.

  "I wouldn’t advise that," he said. "If you enter through the house you’d be walking straight into the lion’s den, so to speak. Remember that the Shadow is a reflection of this world, so it would be best to approach the house from a distance, and to exercise caution before going in. You must also understand that the house might be much different in the Shadow. It’s likely a more twisted version of the house in this world, depending on how much power the Dark One has to create with the Numina. The house will likely be much bigger in the Shadow, not to say darker in every respect."

  "Hell House then," I muttered.

  "Very likely, yes."

  "Don’t worry," Dalia said. "However bad it is, we can handle it."

  I nodded, not really sharing her confidence, especially since I’d already had a run-in with the Dark One and I knew first-hand what we were up against.

  "Before you even think about entering the Shadow," Davey said. "You’ll need a strategy of some sort. I wouldn’t advise going in blind."

  "So what do you suggest?" I asked.

  "You need to find out all you can about the spirit in question, what resonance drives it, and what its weakness is so you can defeat it if need be."

  "How do we find that out?" Dalia asked.

  "Look at the history of the house, what went on there. That should give you some indication of the type of spirit you are dealing with."

  "Well, that’s easy," I said. "It has to be a death spirit, or a murder spirit, something born of those two things anyway."

  "Perhaps," Davey said. "Whatever the case, the spirit appears to be exceptionally strong from what you’ve told me about it. It isn’t going to be easy to defeat. Come to think of it, you may not even need to defeat it. You could find Amelia and make a run for it."

  I shook my head at the notion. "Even you know that’s not an option, Davey. If we don’t kill the Dark One, it will forever haunt Amelia, not to mention keep the cult running."

  "Then you must find a way to kill it. If worse comes to worse, you may be able to find a helpful spirit in the Shadow."

  "I thought all spirits in the Shadow were selfish."

  "They are, but sometimes they can be of help if you give them things in return."

  "Like what?" Dalia asked.

  Davey shrugged. "It could be anything. You’ll have to work things out as you go."

  "Maybe you should come with us," she said.

  "No," I said before Davey could answer. "It’s too risky and Davey owes us nothing."

  "If I was younger, then maybe," Davey said. "I dare say I would just slow you down now. Anyway…"

  "What?" Dalia asked.

  "I’ve been to the Shadow before. I have no wish to go back there."

  Dalia and I looked at each other. "Says it all right there," I said, smiling despite myself.

  "There’ll be two of us there," Dalia said. "We’ll be fine. Maybe we should ask Monty to go as well."

  I shook my head. "I’m not dragging Monty into this. It’s bad enough that you’re going."

  "Thanks."

  "You know what I mean."

  "In any case," Davey interjected. "You won’t be able to enter the Shadow for another two days."

  "What?" I said. "Why not?"

  "The Shadow can only be entered from this world on a full moon, and the next full moon is two days away."

  I shook my head and sighed. "Two fucking days? I don’t know if we have that kind of time."

  "Put it this way," Davey said. "If Amelia is dead, she’s dead, so it won’t matter. But if she’s not dead and just being held captive in the Shadow by the Dark One, then a couple of days won’t matter either. She isn’t going an
ywhere."

  "I’d say a couple of days will matter to her," I said. "But I see your point."

  "I know it’s not ideal," Davey said. "But I don’t make the rules. I also have to find a suitable spot from which to cross the Gauntlet into the Shadow. Only certain places contain enough power to allow access."

  "The Gauntlet?" Dalia asked.

  "The Gauntlet—also known as the Scar—is the invisible border that stops the two worlds from banging together," Davey said. "A bit like the Thorns in the Otherworld. One Gnostic Christian sorcerer, keeper of the Gospel of Sandalphon, calls the Gauntlet 'God’s Hands,' as the text depicts God and his angels holding the worlds apart with great strain and effort."

  "Very poetic," Dalia said.

  I was about to question him more on the Shadow Realm when my phone suddenly rang and I answered it to find it was Benedict. "I’m here in Dublin," he said, confirming what I thought earlier. "Can we meet?"

  I nodded. "Where?"

  "How about the park again? I enjoyed walking around there last time."

  "Gimme half an hour and I’ll be there."

  "Excellent. See you then."

  "Who was that?" Dalia asked when I hug up the phone.

  "Benedict from the Council," I said. "He wants to see me."

  "About what?"

  I shook my head. "That remains to be seen."

  "Careful with those Council boys," Davey said. "They’ll chew you up and spit you out."

  I stared at him second. "I’ll bear that in mind."

  Chapter 4

  As soon as I left Davey’s and got into the car, the rain started, coming down quickly as it hammered off the roof and streamed down the windshield. Then my phone rang again as I was about to start the engine. When I looked at the phone I saw it was an unknown number, about the tenth such call I’d gotten that day. Despite the number being unknown, I still knew who it was.

  Simoa.

  It was to be expected that she would be wanting to know where Amelia is. I’d been screening her calls because I didn’t want to have to explain things to her, but now I realized that she was just going to keep calling if I didn’t tell her something, so I answered the phone. "Hello?"