Blood Sacrifice: A Blackham City Urban Fantasy Novel (The August Creed Paranormal Suspense Series Book 1) (The August Creed Series)

by N. P. Martin

  But so was I.

  Shooting an arm out in his direction, I used it to focus a spell I was inwardly reciting, channeling the growing magick down my arm and into my hand where it formed into a yellowed mass of bright energy.

  "Your spells will not work on me," Demon Mr Black said, stopping several feet away. "Your power is pitiful compared to mine."

  Always with the arrogance. Son of a bitch.

  The spell I was crafting as quickly as I could was a spell that would hopefully paralyze the demon completely, long enough for me to use a Destruction Spell on his rotten soul.

  Uttering the final few words of the spell, I cast it at Demon Mr Black, focusing every ounce of conviction I had into it, causing Mr Black to suddenly begin to tense up on the spot. He tried to move his arms out from himself but couldn’t. His legs no longer worked either as I slowly came towards him, forcing the spell to do its work.

  "No!" Mr Black growled as his whole body froze up and went still like he was made out of bronze.

  When I saw that he couldn’t even open his mouth to speak anymore, I halted the spell, satisfied that it had done its job.

  Another mighty roar came from up above, and a large section of the roof got ripped off in the violent maelstrom. Soon, the portal would give off so much energy that it would rip up anything that was beneath it, sucking it into that dark hole, including me.

  "Time to end this," I said, standing close to the paralyzed Mr Black, who could no longer speak or move in any way. "Time to erase you from existence completely. Time for you to pay for your sins, father.” I practically spat that last word in his face, hating him so much at that moment that my hate all but consumed me, and in the process, stirred up the residual black magick that still lay deep within me. I could see in his eyes that he could see what was happening to me, and if he could have smiled, he probably would have.

  As I stared at him with hatred and malice in my eyes, I felt the dark magick grow within me, spreading through my body, demanding to be set free.

  And set free it would be, because I was going to use it to destroy Mr Black once and for all.

  53

  Suffering Defeat

  THE POWER FLOWING through me was terrific in its intensity, even more consuming than it was the last time I allowed it to come forth. It was like it was reacting to the other forms of dark magick around me, that which came from Rloth and Mr Black. Somehow it was feeding off those influences, wanting nothing more than to merge with them, to become as one with them.

  As the black magick coursing through me filled every pore, I found myself conjuring a spell without even thinking about it, without even previously knowing the spell itself. It just seemed to come from nowhere, a force of intent fueled by hatred and rage which I began to direct at Demon Mr Black, who was still paralyzed and couldn't do a thing about it. Utterly consumed now by the dark power flowing through me, I stepped right up to the demon and plunged my hands into his chest, gripping and pulling at the darkness contained within as I searched for his soul, intending to rip it out and obliterate it when I found where it was hiding.

  Then Demon Mr Black did something I wasn’t expecting.

  He laughed, before grabbing both my arms and pulling my hands out of his chest with little effort, his green eyes gleefully staring at me the whole time, enjoying the look of shock on my face. “Did you really think you could beat me that easily, boy?” he said, forcing my hands down and holding them there, his horned head almost touching mine as he spoke. “You thought you could beat me with darkness? Boy, I am the darkness!”

  As Rloth seemed to roar in agreement from high above, Mr Black's hands shot up and wrapped themselves around my throat. Then he lifted me off the ground and dangled me there like a freshly caught rabbit as he began to squeeze, his hard-skinned hands cutting off the oxygen supply to my brain. I struggled against his grip, but with my legs kicking uselessly above the floor, there was nothing I could do except look at his demonic face as he squeezed the life out of me, knowing that I had failed and that he had won. Even the black magick that still coursed through me seemed to laugh at my predicament as if it had gleefully misled me (which it had), edging me into that life threatening situation the whole time.

  Then, as I was seconds away from losing consciousness, a strange thing happened. A memory popped into my head, unbidden in the closing blackness. Not exactly a life flashing before my eyes moment just before I died. This was like someone had reached in from somewhere and purposefully planted that memory there for me to see.

  The memory itself was a long forgotten conversation I had with my mother when I was a teenager. She had come into my room one day and saw that I was reading a book on black magick, a book that my father demanded I read to get a more balanced view of magick as a whole. When my mother came and sat down—her long, wavy red hair spilling over the summer dress she was wearing, a placid smile on her face as usual—she said I had to be careful of such books because they had a habit of drawing you in with the promise of power but at the expense of your soul.

  “But the spells seem to be so much more powerful, the magick stronger than the magick we practice,” I said.

  My mother smiled patiently. “It only seems that way, August. Light magick will always defeat darker magick.”

  “Always?” I was skeptical, as I was about a lot of things.

  “If done right, yes, always.”

  “But wouldn’t it be better to fight dark magick with the same?”

  She took hold of my hand, and her blue eyes went serious. “You cannot fight hatred with hatred, or stand up against rage with rage. Darkness does not extinguish darkness, August. Only light can banish the darkness. Always remember that.”

  My mother's kind face faded from view as the memory dispersed in my head. But that was okay because I knew what to do now. Or something inside me knew what to do, some kernel of light in the very core of my being seemed to activate like it had been waiting on me the whole time to connect with it, to trust in its light.

  Despite being nearly dead a moment ago, my consciousness returned all at once. And at the same time, a warm light spread fast around my body, infiltrating my entire being as it canceled out every bit of the black magick that had previously overcome me.

  My mother was right. You can’t fight hatred with hatred, and you can’t fight darkness with darkness.

  When this realization sunk in, my body relaxed all at once. All tension was banished and a comforting lightness of being took over.

  I opened my eyes and looked calmly at the demon who was once my father. Mr Black looked shocked for a moment when he saw into my eyes, which must have been a window to the pure light magick that filled every part of me. His next reaction was to squeeze his hands harder around my throat, but no matter how hard he squeezed, he didn't seem able to apply any pressure. Smiling, I took hold of his cold fingers and pried them from around my neck, my feet touching the ground again a second later.

  “No,” the demon growled, staring at me with increased hate and rage in his face before sending his fist flying towards my chest.

  "Yes," I said back, catching his fist in my hand as easily as if I was catching a child's fist. "I'm done with hating you. I'm done with allowing you to shroud me in darkness…father.”

  I pushed his arm back towards him, and before he knew what was happening, I rushed forward and jammed my other hand right inside his chest. There was no malice or aggression in my actions, just a calm sense of purpose and the certain knowledge of what needed to be done.

  Mr Black howled as my hand dug around inside him, in search of his black soul. He grabbed my arm with both hands and tried to pull my hand out, but I was able to resist him without much trouble as if he had lost all his dark power and was now just a frail old man again.

  Above us, Rloth let out a mighty roar that sounded different to the previous ones. I doubted a timeless being like Rloth felt anything approximating an emotion, but his roar sounded to me like one of anger, and perhaps e
ven fear, for the monster undoubtedly knew that if Mr Black's soul was annihilated, so to would his connection to the portal. It was Mr Black's magick that was keeping the portal open, and when I ended him, I would also end the portal and Rloth's entry into the world.

  Still staring calmly into the increasingly worried face of Mr Black as he kept struggling to break free of me, I continued to search around inside him for his soul. I should explain that I wasn't rummaging through his guts, as you might think. I was searching instead within his spiritual essence, the realm of pure energy that the soul puts out. Depending on the person, such inner realms could be vast, or they could be shrunken if the outlook of the person was narrow and unenlightened enough. Mr Black's inner realm was as vast as I expected it to be. It was also made up almost totally of darkness, which made it difficult for me to feel out his soul.

  "You think you can defeat me, boy?" Mr Black bellowed, his eyes burning madly in their dark sockets, spilling over with rage. "YOU WILL NOT DEFEAT ME!"

  A massive blast of energy issued from Mr Black then, so powerful it pushed me right out of him, then sent me flying back I don't know how many feet before I landed on the concrete floor and lay there in a confused daze, wondering what the hell just happened. Before I could even get a groan out of my mouth, or try to sit up, a searing pain hit my entire body all at once. My body bucked up off the floor like ten thousand volts of electricity was going through me, and through the pain, I glimpsed the demon, his hands outstretched as red, crackling energy shot from them. I screamed then as the unbearable burning pain continued, and after long seconds, it felt like my insides were beginning to melt.

  Then, blessedly, the pain stopped as suddenly as it had started.

  Mr Black stood over me. “You almost had me,” he said. “I’ll give you that. But like I said, you will never defeat me, boy. For all your light magick, you’re still a shadow under me. Everyone is.” His dark form came closer, eclipsing my entire vision. “I’m not going to kill you, boy. I’ll just let the great Rloth consume you along with everyone else on this pathetic planet.”

  Mr Black walked away laughing then, and all I could do was close my eyes in defeat and waited for the world to end.

  54

  Sometimes They Come Back

  “AUGUST.”

  IT WAS the third time the voice had spoke, saying my name. My eyes were still closed, but I vaguely recognized the soft Irish-accented voice. My mother’s voice, which must have been some auditory hallucination as I lay barely conscious with the darkness coming down steadily upon me…and the rest of the world.

  “Open your eyes, August. The world needs you.”

  My mother's voice sounded clearer this time in my head, and something in me said, "Hey, what the hell. Might as well."

  I opened my eyes, and there was a shimmering, transparent figure standing over me. After blinking a few times to clear my vision, I saw the figure was indeed my mother. “Mother,” I said with a smile. “You’ve come to help me on my way.”

  “No, August,” a different voice said, and I turned my head to see the translucent figure of my beautiful sister, Roisin standing there, wearing one of her pretty summer dresses that she used to wear, her long, dark locks flowing down over it.

  “Roisin?” I said, confused, but delighted to see her, even if she was in ephemeral form.

  “You have to get up, Gus. You have to stand up to him.”

  I shook my head. “But I can’t. He’s too powerful.”

  “Gus!” Standing directly in front of me now was my older brother, Fergal, wearing the shirt, trousers and waistcoat combo we grew up having to wear every day. His swarthy features were as dashing as I remembered. “Stop pissing about, will ya? Get yourself up!”

  “Fergal,” I said in wonder, finally sitting up (albeit painfully). “You’re here as well.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Fergal said. “Did you get hit on the head or something?”

  "No. Maybe," I said as I looked at all three of them, from one to the other, with sheer joy. "You're all here. I've missed you all so much…" Tears rolled down my cheeks, and they all looked at each other like it was killing them to be there. "How are you’s here?”

  “That doesn’t matter, August,” my mother said. “But you have to listen to us.”

  “You have to stop him, Gus,” Roisin said. “He’s going to end the world.”

  I couldn’t help but be pissed off they were even mentioning the monster who was currently hovering near the hole in the roof, singing his deranged praises to his coming master of darkness. “Why are you talking about him? Are you not here to take me with you to wherever you’ve been all this time? Is it some sort of Heaven? A different dimension? I’ve tried so many times over the years to locate all your souls, but I couldn’t—”

  “Enough, Gus!” Fergal shouted, floating his shimmering, silvery head right close to mine. “You’re place is still here. You aren’t going anywhere yet, you here me? Instead, you’re going to get back up, and then you’re going to finish that bastard off. You got that, little brother?”

  “But how, Fergal?” I asked him.

  He pulled back, and Roisin’s head was suddenly there in front of me now. “You find that light again, Gus.”

  “I tried that.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Find the light that kept us together, Gus. The light that helped us survive that tyrant for so many years.”

  “But you didn’t,” I said.

  “We’re still here, aren't we?” Fergal said. “We’re just in a different place now, that’s all.”

  “Where? I want to go there with you.”

  “Stop being daft, Gus and bloody listen,” Fergal said in that big brother way I missed so much. “This battle is not about how much power you have, but the kind of power you have. You have a kind of power he could never have because it would destroy him.”

  “Love,” Roisin said.

  “Our love, son” my mother said.

  "It's what used to hold us together," Fergal said. "It still does. Use it, Gus. Use it to defeat him."

  I shook my head. “How?”

  An almighty roar from Rloth sounded just then, a sound that seemed to ripple through my family’s ephemeral form.

  "You'll find a way, August," my mother said, just as all three of them started to fade from view as if someone was turning down a dimmer switch on them.

  “Wait, don’t go!” I said, springing to my feet.

  But a second later, they had disappeared back to wherever they came from. I stared sadly at the empty air for a moment, crushed that my family had gone from my life once more.

  Then, in my head, I heard my big brother’s voice as if he was still there. “Stop your whining, Gus,” he said, “and get the hell on with it.”

  So I did.

  55

  Consumed

  WHILE I WAS speaking to my family (or their Astral forms—I still hadn’t had time to process what had just occurred), Mr Black was hovering up by the hole in the roof, using his dark magick to rapidly accelerate Rloth’s entry into the world. Pure black energy belted out from his hands as he channeled it into the portal, ensuring the portal expanded and tore the sky further so the great Rloth could fit through. Rloth’s giant tentacle protruded from the mouth of the portal, looking like it belonged to some monstrous sea creature. However monstrous it was, however, I knew it wouldn't be anywhere near as monstrous as the rest of Rloth. Few people had ever laid eyes on a being like Rloth and lived to tell about it. Beings such as Rloth tended to live in the deepest, most primordial parts of the universe, unless, like Rloth, they created their own dimension for whatever reason. One of the oldest grimoires in my Sanctum contained pages that held a few rough sketches of beings like Rloth, and I can tell you right now, none of them are pretty to look at. (You want to know the kind of creature about to spill through that portal like a defective birth? Go read Lovecraft, a fellow magickslinger. His descriptions of Ctululu and the rest are based on fact.)r />
  So this was it. The last stand before the world ended. Me against my demon father and an ancient being with power beyond imagination. You gotta love those odds.

  I wasn’t even sure at the time what I was going to do to stop Mr Black. There was no real plan in my head, so I decided just to go with the flow and see what happened, although it did occur to me that fighting against Mr Black and his dark power wouldn’t get me anywhere and would only exacerbate the problem. The more I fought against him, the stronger Mr Black seemed to get. So now it was time to go all Gandhi on his ass and see where that got me.

  The words of my family were still fresh in my head, telling me to tap into that love and compassion that kept us all together when we were younger. The more I focused on this, the more I remembered the terrific strength and bond that came with those feelings we had for each other, especially in the face of my father’s tyrannical and abusive behavior.

  “Father!” I shouted, refusing to let any fear arise in me. Even when Mr Black spun around to glare at me, I focused on maintaining that sense of love and inner calm that I felt in the presence of my family just moments ago. And I knew, above all else, I had to trust in those feelings, the way I used to trust them as a kid, trusting that the light was always there for me to turn to, even when there was darkness all around.

  Mr Black's leather smock billowed underneath him in the tornado-like winds that were gathering pace outside. His face changed when he realized there was something different about me. Which there was.

  I was no longer afraid of him.

  “Boy!” he shouted, his face twisting in anger. “Why do you never learn?”

  I smiled at him then. “See, that’s always been your problem, father,” I said. “You always thought I didn’t learn anything. But I did learn. I learned exactly what kind of man you were. I learned about everything you are doing now. But most of all father, I have learned how to finally defeat you.”