by Sean Stone
Also by Sean Stone
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Arcane Inc.
Warlock for Hire
Warlock Wanted
Dark Warlock
Warlock At War
Dead Warlock
The Cedarstone Chronicles
Cursed
The Cult of Osiris
The Ancients
Reunion
Abomination
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Dead Warlock
Sean Stone
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Also by Sean Stone
Chapter One
I walked down the High Street with Ashley on one of the rare moments we had together. Things are pretty different these days. Since declaring myself king of Maidstone I’ve had a much fuller plate. Every supernatural disturbance is now my problem to deal with. People think they saw someone doing magic — I have to go and clean it up. Vampire attacks an innocent human — I have to clean it up. Big old werewolf seen roaming around town — You got it, I have to clean it up. And don’t even get me started on the people that just do shit because they don’t like me being in charge. Sometimes I manage to get some money out of these things, if I catch the perpetrator that’s broken the rules and made my life more difficult I may charge them a small fine. I’m in charge, I can do that. Generally, though, I don’t get any money for being king. It kind of sucks.
All the money really comes from Ashley these days. When I became king, she took over the running of Arcane Inc. She’s better at it than I ever was. She’s got more people skills. They like her more which brings in more business. There’s so much business that she’s usually as busy as I am. This isn’t really a complaint, I like to be busy, we both do. Even if the stuff I have to deal with is as annoying as hell sometimes.
I only wanted to keep Clara and Aldric from taking over my town, I never really wanted to run it myself. When I took over in that grand dramatic way that I did, I didn’t think there’d be much to running the place. You see, the supernaturals in town, what a few there were, always tended to keep to themselves anyway. Problem is, more and more have been coming here to escape Aldric and Clara and most of them don’t appreciate being told what to do by me. They all seem to think that coming here is like a free ride, you can do whatever you want in Maidstone. Not so. I have very few rules, they can pretty much do what they like as long as it doesn’t expose what we are and as long as it doesn’t piss me off in anyway. If I allowed them to do as they pleased, Clara would simply march in take over. To be honest, I’m not sure why she hasn’t anyway. There isn’t a damn thing I could do to stop her. She has an entire army at her disposal. I have seven vampires and Ashley.
What seven vampires? I hear you say. Let me tell you. The seven vampires I acquired not so long ago when I had to deal with a disturbance. A couple of vampires came to town to escape from Aldric. It turns out they’d stolen his blood and were using it to experiment on his kind of vampire. If you remember a while ago I used a shit load of magic to turn Aldric into an almost unkillable vampire so that he could deal with my enemies for me. Well, some vampires find him a tad threatening and they’ve been trying to find a way to kill him. So, they were kidnapping humans in my town and turning them into vampires using his blood so they could do experiments on them. I put a stop to that. I killed the ones doing the experiments and took the newly sired vampires under my wing. They work for me now. One of the experimenters, Veronica Monderson, escaped. My guys are still looking for her but it’s most likely that she’s left town now.
So anyway, I now have seven almost invincible vampires working for me. That was the price of my protection. If they don’t want to work for me then they don’t get my protection and then Aldric will most likely kill them. He outlawed siring new vampires with his blood because he doesn’t want people to do experiments on them to figure out how to kill him. As it happens, they’re a little easier to kill than he is. The only thing that will kill them is an ash wood stake, any other stake would only kill them temporarily. To kill Aldric you have to infuse the same stake with my magic.
The vampires are pretty useful to have around. Now that I have my own personal guard, people are less inclined to fuck with me. Two of them assist Ashley with her work, the rest work for me. Gabe is their leader and he follows me everywhere. He’s kind of like my PA/bodyguard. He doesn’t talk much, just keeps to himself. It’s probably better that way, too much talking would annoy me.
Anyway, that’s enough catch-up. Let’s get on with the here and now. Me and Ashley arrived outside the Muggleton Inn where a small crowd had gathered. Gabe walked a couple of feet behind us, his short blonde hair shining under the street lights. When it’s just him and me I let him walk next to me but when I’m with Ashley we like our privacy. Tonight was the night of the grand reopening of Muggs since it was destroyed by a massive vampire attack about seven months ago. The front of the building had been rebuilt exactly the same as it had been before, the only difference was the bricks were cleaner because they were new. A single red ribbon hung across the doors and a sign saying “Grand Reopening” was hanging above them. That’s about all the effort Bobby was likely to make. I doubted we’d see so much as a balloon inside.
I was excited for the pub to be reopened. It has not been easy finding new places to hang out these last few months. I tried The Brenchley, that’s a pub just opposite Muggs. It’s not a bad pub, to be honest it’s probably better than Muggs. But there was an incident which would be supremely un-classy of me to discuss. Long story short, I can’t go in there anymore.
I looked around at the crowd. It was mainly supernaturals attending as the pub had always been a hangout for our sort. There were a few unwitting humans scattered about. Humans were always safe in Muggs because Bobby did not allow any funny business on his premises. He had a team of security guards who were trained to deal with the supernatural. Obviously they weren’t much good when Aldric trashed the place but that was an exceptional circumstance.
The doors to the pub opened and Bobby stepped out. He was a short guy with a gut that draped right over his belt. Short stubble grew across his jaw and the dome of his head. He hadn’t dressed up for the occasion, he was wearing a pair of old jeans and navy shirt. Same old Bobby. The crowd hushed and turned to face him ready to hear his opening speech. He lifted his scissors, not the usual oversized ones that people use for stuff like this, but ordinary, normal-sized scissors. He grabbed the ribbon roughly and cut it in half.
“Get inside then,” he
growled and then headed back through the doors. There were a couple of giggles and then everyone began filing in. I looked at Ashley and we both grinned. I loved the way she pouted her lips when she properly smiled.
“Same old Bobby,” she said. We both headed inside too. Like the outside, the inside had been kept pretty much the same. That’s good because I don’t like too much change. The walls were a sort of off-white colour and the floor had a nasty red carpet.
“Kept everything the same eh, Bobby?” I said as we approached him.
“What’s that? Oh, hello, Eddie,” he said and very nearly smiled. Bobby never smiled. “I figured you’d be showing up. Glad you did. There is one thing I changed.” He led us towards the back of the pub and my heart started to sink. The back of the pub is where the booths were, more specifically my booth which is right by the back door. I always sit there when I come to Muggs. It would be just like Bobby to do away with the booths purely to wind me up.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the booths were still there. With their ugly but familiar beige leather seats. Bobby stopped at my booth and pointed up at the wall. I tell you honestly that what I saw nearly brought a tear to my eye. Not a real tear, obviously, I don’t cry. Fixed on the wall just above the table was a little gold plaque which read: “Eddie Lancaster.”
“If it wasn’t for you this pub would have been turned to rubble. It kind of was anyway, but I would’ve probably been dead underneath it all. So… thanks,” Bobby said. He gave me a firm pat on the side of my arm. It was more of a whack actually. Hurt a bit.
“Don’t mention it, Bobby,” I replied, rubbing my arm. I’d never seen him be this nice to anyone. I’ve never seen him be at all nice to anyone actually.
“Anyway, I’ll get the kitchen on your usual. Same for you, Ashley?”
“Uh, yeah sure,” she said, clearly as shocked as I was.
Bobby nodded and then headed off to the kitchen to get our dinners started. “Where’s my plaque?” Ashley asked as we slid into the booth opposite one another. I laughed. She had helped defend the pub during the attack, but I’d been the one to organise everything. I was the commander so to speak.
A short while later we were tucking into two delicious buttermilk chicken burgers. Gabe was sitting at a table nearby. His incredibly light blue eyes were scanning the crowd keeping a close watch on things. Once I finished eating, I sat and looked at Ashley, at her big green eyes. It was so rare that we got time together like this, I’d nearly forgotten how enticing they were.
“What? What are you thinking?” she asked, still chewing her burger.
“Oh, I’m just thinking about all the things I’m gonna do to you when I get you home,” I said, flicking my eyebrows up in what I hoped was a seductive expression.
“Mister Lancaster, not at the dinner table,” she replied, smiling coyly.
Gabe suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs, rudely interrupting our flirting. I looked over and saw him sinking to the floor, his skin greying and a dark wooden stake protruding from his chest. It was too dark for ash wood, so it wouldn’t kill him for long. A tall man stood over him and two other men and a woman stood just behind. The tall man ran at me, hands preparing a spell. I flicked my wrist and he flew up through the air, whacked his head on the ceiling and crashed down to the floor out cold. I’d deal with him later. For now, he’d better just hope that Gabe was in a forgiving mood when he woke up.
“Attack at the back!” One of Bobby’s security guards screamed. Black-suited guards ran towards the attackers as did me and Ashley. They were smart enough not to try fighting and they fled for the front doors. One of the guards lunged at them but a quickly cast spell sent the guard hurtling in the other direction. There were sorcerers then.
Me and Ashley ran after them, we tried throwing spells at them, but they were savvy enough to deflect them. As we all burst out on the street they split up. One man and the woman went left, the remaining blonde man went right.
“You go right, I’ll go left,” I said to Ashley. It would be unchivalrous of me to suggest she go after two and I take care of the one.
“I bet I catch mine first,” she said playfully and shot down the street.
“We’ll see,” I muttered to myself and ran in the opposite direction. It was hardly fair considering I had double the amount to catch.
I hadn’t got far when I heard the screeching of tires followed by Ashley’s scream. I’ve heard a lot of horrible noises in my life but let me tell you, nothing has ever chilled my blood the way that scream did. I turned. The blonde man, who I now saw had a nasty looking scar down one side of his face, was standing on the edge of the pavement having just cast a spell. Ashely was staggering back into the road, clutching her chest in pain. A red Vauxhall Corsa slammed into her hard. She bounced off the corner of the bonnet as if repelled and then smashed right into the front of a double-decker bus coming from the other direction. Her body hit it hard enough to dent the steel and crack the glass. The bus squealed and hissed noisily as the driver braked but another car was already coming from the opposite direction. The blue Fiat swerved to avoid running into the back of the Corsa and instead ended up slamming into the front of the bus. Ashley cried out again as she was crushed between the two vehicles.
“Ashley!” I screamed and hurtled towards the crash. The attackers no longer mattered, in my mind they didn’t even exist. Nobody did, only Ashley. As I arrived the Fiat reversed, freeing her from the death grip. I got there just in time to catch her as she collapsed. I sunk to my knees, cradling her in my arms, healing magic already pouring out of my palms. I ran my green-glowing hands over her bloody, battered body, but it was too late. Her green eyes had faded. She was already dead.
Chapter Two
What followed was the longest week of my life. time seemed to stop purely to elongate my misery and loneliness. You don’t realise how much you value a person’s company until they’re gone and you know you’ll never be able to talk to them again. I stayed in my house — Ashley’s house — the whole week with nothing but my despair for company. I thought about only one thing. Revenge. Gabe had the attacker who’d staked him locked up. He and his vampires were doing everything they could to find the other three. Gabe had insisted that I stay away from the attacker until all four had been caught, he was worried that I’d killed the only lead they had. He was probably right, so I did as he suggested. Gabe had been amazingly supportive. He’d stepped up and taken over pretty much everything to allow me time to grieve. He wouldn’t allow a single problem to reach me. He’d even taken care of the funeral arrangements, checking in with me about the details when he needed to. I realised that having him as just a security guard had been a serious waste of his skills.
The day of the funeral came and I finally had to leave the house. I finally had to face people. A few people had tried phoning me or stopping by the house over the week, but I’d refused to see any of them. The only person I wanted to see was far out of my reach. Sure, I could always try and communicate with her spirit but last time I did that it went horribly wrong and I don’t think Ashley would be very forgiving if I yanked her back from the other side and got her stuck here. If she’d wanted to stay here she would never have crossed over.
Gabe had left out a plain black suit for me to wear. I pulled it on slowly, my whole body fatigued from lack of sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I was plagued with memories and dreams of Ashley. Waking up to the realisation that none of it was real was almost as painful as losing her all over again. Or worse, sometimes I’d see the hideous way that she’d died again. That was an image I wanted to burn out of my memory forever. If only I could create a potion that removed only specific memories. I’d thought about asking Gabe to compel me to forget but I wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do. I felt like this was the sort of pain I was supposed to hang on to. Like to forget it would diminish my love for her in some way.
My fingers fumbled with the tie and I made a complete mess of trying to fasten
it. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn one. Luckily Gabe was on hand.
“Here, let me,” he said gently as he came towards me. I dropped my arms and allowed him to tie the garment with expert precision around my neck. I’d never felt more like a child.
“Were you some sort of P.A. before you got turned?” I asked him. I’d never really spoken to Gabe or the other vampires much since taking them on. I’d been a bit lousy in that regard. I’d agreed to the terms of our arrangement with them and then pretty much left them to it. Gabe was the only one I really spoke to at all and that was usually just to give him his orders and listen to his reports.
“No, I worked in retail,” he said.
“Well you make a bloody good assistant,” I said.
“Thanks. All I really do is listen to what you say and follow the instructions. There. Done.” He smiled warmly at me as he finished my tie and took a step back.
“Do you ever miss your old life?” I asked. I turned and grabbed my phone, stuffing it into my pocket along with my keys.
“I miss some of the people. The job sucked and so did living with my mum,” he said honestly. Since I took the vampires on I’d insisted that they all stop living with their families. I couldn’t risk them exposing what they were and causing any fuss. They all lived together in one shared house now. Luckily, they were all young and living with their parents so it wasn’t like they’d had to give up any spouses or children. Their families believed they were on some sort of apprenticeship. They still visited their mums and dads, I wasn’t cruel enough to forbid that.