by Al K. Line
Contents
Title Page
Cultural Adjustment
No Rest for the Dead
Japanese Zombie Mayhem
A Road to Nowhere
A Depressing Beginning
Interrogating the Goons
A Telling Off
Old Friends
Some Shopping
Some Good Intel
A Moment
To the Council
A Strange Garden
Finally, an Interrogation
Goonageddon
A Shock
Unwanted Appendages
Nice Eyebrows
Old but Dangerous
Dark Alleys, Darker Thoughts
More Tales of Tails
Some Compassion
On the Town
An Anatomy Lesson
Meeting the Enemy
Vampire Scorn
Plans of Madmen
A Metamorphosis
A Call
An Exploration
A Nice View
A Reality Check
All Through the Night
Shiny, Shiny
You Cannot be Serious!
Old Friends
Nice Doggie
The Hidden World
Dirty Bathroom
Going it Alone
A Rash Decision
Ugh
Shady Deals
The Animals Went In...
Is it Worth It?
A Dramatic Exit
Outclassed and Outmagicked
What's My Name?
Meeting the Yōkai
Airport
Neon Spark
Dark Magic Enforcer Book 5
Al K. Line
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Copyright © 2016, Al K. Line. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cultural Adjustment
Neon screamed at me from every direction. People hurried past, intent on unknown destinations, phones glued to their ears like extensions of themselves.
The city stank, the traffic so congested I could see no point whatsoever in traveling by anything but foot or the subway. Billboards and blaring speakers—hallmarks of the metropolis and a thoroughly consumerist society—threatened to overwhelm me as I stood in the center of the road and spun slowly in a circle, trying to take it all in.
Last time I visited it had been a very different place indeed, but that was long before the invention of almost every piece of technology that surrounded me.
Nobody stopped and stared at the tall gaijin with bleached hair fading to brown, wearing a nineteen sixties original suit with a nice, clean red shirt and a pair of polished winklepickers. I was, as always, the no-man. The person you forgot as soon as you passed, the invisible man, shrouded in a magical aura that made me entirely forgettable.
Salarymen, many looking close to karōshi—death from overwork—and shoppers jostled me from four directions, bowing apologies then forgetting me as they hurried on past, already immersed again in their digital life or stressing over being late back to work after a rushed and unsatisfactory lunch.
I felt like the giant that had killed me. At least a head taller than most of those that passed, conscious of my nose, almost as big as a goblin's compared to the locals, and for some strange reason all the pigeons were giving me a very wide berth.
Maybe they could feel the magic, the pent up anger and need for revenge that drove me through the overcrowded city in search of answers. I stared suspiciously at one bird in particular as it cocked its head from side to side, studying me.
Then it shimmered and I saw what it really was, a tengu, safe behind its own magical veil in the presence of Regulars, a true Hidden creature. The streets teemed with endless Hidden that we don't encounter back home, the sheer volume of myths, legends, and folktales meaning this small island had more Hidden per square foot than any other country in the world.
I ignored the pigeon because it was freaking me out and continued about my business. After three days, a lot of rest, and a helluva lot of food, I was finally feeling up to the hunt, and was in no mood for the crowds—how could people live like this? I'd go mad in days, maybe already had.
Wading through the press of bodies to the stores, having to resist blasting away with the dark arts just so I could get some personal space, I turned and entered a small, dark interior through a door that screamed my presence with a ridiculously loud buzzer. The person I wanted to talk to was at the back of the cramped room, head down, focused on opening a box containing more of the junk that cluttered the shelves and floor. The place was full of esoteric nonsense, there for tourists and those that didn't understand the score about magic and had never even heard of the Hidden.
On every available surface were jars of fake potions, dream catchers, staffs and rods and amulets and weird cultural items I had no clue about, only knowing they were lies and would never allow the bearer to harness the Empty.
The owner, dirty and as scruffy as the store, noticed me for the first time. He was a short man wearing a vest, with a pot belly and hair slick with some product that made him look as though he'd stuck his head in a vat of lard and thought it would do. His pale skin was as greasy as his hair and as we made eye contact beads of sweat popped onto his brow as if his skin was bubbling up and overheating.
I walked over, casual and calm, holding up a hand as he began speaking in Japanese, saying he didn't understand English.
"Spare me, Asama. Try that crap with me and I'll blast you through your goddamn window and let the pigeons eat you. Understand?"
"Yes, sorry, Spark-san. English, I will speak English."
"Good. Now, I want some information. I know you have something that can help me find Kimiko, and I can tell you right now that I'm in no mood for any of your bullshit."
Asama held up his hands in protest. "Spark-san, is this how you say hello to me after so many years?"
"The last time we met you were trying to steal Rikka's books, and we both remember how that went."
Asama went even paler, fumbled in a pocket, then mopped his brow and neck with a stained and crusty white handkerchief. He dabbed under his arms with it and I tried not to gag as the stink hit me. "I was just reading them, I wasn't trying to steal any books." He rubbed at his left side where I'd blasted him good before sucking his magic out of him as he screamed and generally overreacted while I took him from low level wizard back to being just a Regular human being.
That was thirty years ago and ever since he'd been unable to restore the magic I had taken. It was mine, became a part of me, a wisp remaining even though most of it returned to the Empty, and it seemed that starting over and trying to get back what was taken had not gone well for him.
He got off lightly.
"Where is she, Asama? I will take what pathetic amounts of magic you have managed to gather over all these years and ensure you never even remember there's a Hidden world unless you tell me right now where the hell she is."
"I can't, I can't," he whimpered.
"You can, and you will."
"You don't understand. Nobody goes against Kimiko Cocchi. This isn't your country, you have no idea what it is like here now, and you have no clue who she is now, what she can
do."
"And you don't know what I can do now, Asama. Whatever she is, whatever her position, however powerful she is, I have come for her. You better start talking."
Everyone knew I was in town, and was after her, no point keeping quiet, but she was a ghost, more myth than the strange creatures that lived all around. Her name was spoken in whispers and with reverence, and utter, abject fear. She controlled them, ruled them, and they obeyed.
"Tell me!" I shouted.
Before I could get to him, he'd pulled an evil looking blade from behind the counter and with a mumbled prayer he stabbed himself in the guts then ripped from left to right.
This was the third seppuku I'd witnessed that day. It seemed people would go to any lengths to avoid giving up information concerning the whereabouts of the woman I sought.
My trip was not going as well as it might have.
Welcome to Tokyo.
Home to thirteen million people in the city itself, thirty-nine million in the Greater Tokyo Area, and one infamous Japanese vampire by the name of Kimiko Cocchi—legendary raven-haired beauty that had murdered my parents a hundred years ago on the other side of the world and was soon to be very, very dead.
I just had to find her.
The locals weren't talking, but I had a backup plan.
No Rest for the Dead
The buzzer brought my tinnitus back like an imp shouting in my ear as I turned at the sound of the door opening.
"This place is nuts. Where are all these people going? What are they all doing? It stinks out there. Have you seen that half of them are wearing masks? Do you think the air is that poisonous?" Dancer paused his stream of questions to put a hand over his mouth as if it would stop the car fumes from penetrating into his lungs.
"You'll get used to it. Anyway, that's the least of your worries. It's the contagious swine flu that's the real danger."
"That's it, I'm out of here. Next flight home for me."
I held up my hands. "I'm joking, don't be such a baby." Actually, I wasn't, but there was no point telling him that.
"I want to go home. Everything gets served with a radish here and those chopsticks are definitely just a joke they play on foreigners. Plus, I'm boiling in my suit. Aren't you hot?"
I stepped out from behind the counter where I'd propped up Asama, after having pushed his guts back in and wrapped his belly tight in a length of cloth to stop his lower intestine falling back out. It was not a good way to die, and I'd had to finish him off to stop the suffering—I may be cold-blooded at times, but I'm not heartless.
"Not really. Just use a touch of magic to keep yourself cool."
Dancer grimaced. "That just seems disrespectful. It's not a proper use of the arts, Spark."
I shrugged. As far as I was concerned it was better than having sweaty armpits or walking around in casual clothes—I shuddered at the thought.
Dancer scowled at the junk in the store and came over to where I was standing. He took one look at the guy and said, "Not another one. What is with these people and the damn suicide?"
"Watch it, Dancer, you're starting to sound a little xenophobic there. They're Japanese, not 'these people.'"
"You know what I meant. Damn, why did you have to drag me all this way? Like I haven't got enough on my plate at home. Everything is in chaos, you do know that, right?"
"I know, but it will all still be there when we return. The mess isn't going anywhere. Let the Council sort out their own troubles. They owe me. They owe all of us after what happened." I didn't want to think about it, couldn't.
I'd been betrayed in the worst possible way, my whole world crumbling around me. The one person I thought I could trust above all others and he'd been nothing but a goddamn liar and a fraud. A user and an abuser, instrumental in having my parents killed just so he'd have a tough dark magic enforcer to meld to his own idea of what I should be. My life felt like a lie. I didn't know who I was any more and it hurt so damn much I wanted to break down and cry. Or sleep and never wake up.
I was also so tired I was functioning on another plane of existence. The jet lag was bad enough, and I was still on British time, but that was as nothing to the utter ache in my heart and my bones from all that had gone down over the few days before we headed to the other side of the world.
Thinking I had nothing to lose, I'd overstepped the line, forced magic use that was more than I could handle. Tried to do the impossible and kill an immortal giant, resulting in nothing but me taking a step back from what I'd gained—using magic without the terrible comedown afterward. Now I was back right where I'd been for so long, with it hurting like the worst kind of sickness you could imagine.
Perversely, it made me feel better, that knowledge, that agony. Maybe I was on a downer—I had every right to be—but I felt it was what I deserved. A punishment of sorts for the things I'd done in my past, for all the hurt I'd caused others, but mainly because I knew I was empty of most feeling, revenge the overriding emotion. I was all-consumed by my need for it, even though I'd had enough killing to last several lifetimes.
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.