The Midnight Front--A Dark Arts Novel

by David Mack

  “We both respect power. It is why we chose the same patron spirit. You see, yes? We are meant to unite! As allies, we could work miracles. We could change this world.”

  “I’d rather change the shape of your face—with my fists.” Cade kept his eyes on Kein, but with his mind he sought his yoked demons, any indication he might be able to fight back. He was disheartened to find that his indentured spirits had been exorcised. He was disarmed, and his only remaining defense was bravado: “Tell your Nazi pals I’m not playing ball.”

  “I assure you, the Nazis are not part of this equation.” Perhaps reading Cade’s confusion, Kein reacted with interest. “That surprises you?”

  “You are their Teutonic ideal.”

  “Yes, the Führer certainly likes to think so.” The ancient but youthful-looking karcist turned pensive. “Forgive my curiosity: What has my old friend Adair told you about me? Does he still peddle his fantasy that I seek world domination?”

  “Something like that.”

  Kein shook his head. “I regret to say, you have been misled. For centuries, he has been a slave to outmoded notions of good and evil. He fell in love with the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, but never asked himself if humanity was ready for either of them.”

  “What does that have to do with helping the Nazis murder millions?”

  “Join me, and I will explain everything.”

  A cough and a splutter turned Cade’s head toward Stefan. His fallen friend croaked through cracked, bleeding lips, “Don’t … trust … him.”

  The warning made Kein more emphatic. “Side with me, Herr Martin, and I will heal your friend and set him free.”

  “Even if I trusted you—”

  “Together we can end this war in a matter of months and save millions of lives.”

  “By handing the world to the Nazis? Pardon my French, but fuck you. I seem to recall the Bible says the meek shall inherit the earth.”

  “True.” Invisible fangs of ice bit into Cade’s guts and forced him to his knees, screaming in agony. Kein smirked. “But it never said they would get to keep it.” The pain abated when Kein snapped his fingers. “Humanity has been seduced by Science, led down a path to its own destruction. Think of how men used to make war. Now look upon the terrors they wield. Science has given men powers they cannot control. In time it will lay waste to countries, then the world itself. Nietzsche said it best: ‘Oh, how much is today hidden by science! Oh, how much it is expected to hide!’ Heed me, Herr Martin: Left unchecked, Science will herald the end of mankind, unless we bring it to heel. We must save the world.”

  “Why would you think you have the right to make that choice?”

  “Who should make it, then? The masses? They are in no position to oppose the horrors of Science. They are oppressed by robber barons. Magnates. Men of industry who spent decades preparing to supply a war they created. How can ordinary people stand against such institutional villainy?” Kein paused to collect his wits and calm himself. “This is not some ruse, Herr Martin. Humanity does not realize it stands at a crossroads, a juncture at which it seems doomed to choose the wrong path. We must not let that happen.”

  Cade suppressed a deep tide of sickness in his gut so he could feign courage. “Science has done great things for the world. So why should I believe you?”

  Kein folded his hands atop his grimoire. “Centuries ago, Adair and I studied under the same master. But Adair clings too much to hope. He is naïve. Sentimental. Weak.”

  “My master is many things. ‘Weak’ isn’t one of them.”

  “Really? Adair did nothing when Science began stamping out the Art. The Inquisition. Salem. And so many other slaughters—that was the face Science showed to me, and to dozens of my apprentices. I resisted for as long as I could, but too many karcists followed Adair’s example. All of them are dead now.”

  A derisive snort. “Along with most of your Thule minions.”

  “Yes, hundreds of promising new adepts—all murdered by you and your friends.”

  “You’ll just make more. Unless we stop you.”

  Kein’s eyes betrayed his frustration. “How many people in any generation do you really think are qualified to be karcists? It takes more than courage and basic literacy—though that seems to have done the trick for your Russian friend.” A dejected sigh. “The truth, Herr Martin, is that the Art is dying, and this world with it. Unless we save it.”

  It almost had the ring of truth—but then the best lies often did. Cade laughed. “Nice try. Save it for the picture shows.”

  A ghostly murder of crows with tattered wings and rotted flesh sprang into being and set upon Cade, pecking at his ears, eyes, nostrils, and any soft spot he couldn’t defend. Their beaks were sharp, and each savage thrust left him shouting in pain.

  A clap of Kein’s hands, and the birds dissolved into black smoke.

  “It might have been foolish of me to hope you would see reason.” Kein opened his grimoire. “Despite my regrets, I shall make the most of your defiance. Your blood will be the final ingredient in a ritual no one has performed in over seven centuries. When it is done, not only will I have rid the world of its last breathing nikraim, I will prevent your kind from manifesting on earth for three generations—or, to be a shade more precise, ninety-nine years.”

  He cast a handful of powder into the brazier between him and Cade. Purple smoke that smelled of lavender and sandalwood climbed into the blackness overhead.

  Cade fixated on a detail from Kein’s lament. “What the hell is a ‘nikraim’?”

  The question halted Kein’s preparations. “Are you serious? Has Adair not told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  “What you are.”

  Curiosity collided with mistrust. Ever since Cade had awoken in Adair’s custody, he had felt as if there was something the master was hiding from him, some vital truth being left unsaid. But could he really trust Kein, of all people, to show him the truth of his own existence?

  He didn’t have time to decide.

  A blast of light and a ringing like tinnitus filled the conjuring room, originating behind Cade. His skin prickled and the hair on his arms stood up—magick was being unleashed on a horrifying scale. Bereft of defenses or the ability to join the fight, he did the only thing he could: he dropped to the floor.

  Above and around him, the battle unfolded with such speed he could barely follow it. Kein, Briet, and Siegmar hurled demonic projectiles, torrents of red lightning, cones of fire. Charging into that mad barrage, Adair and Anja had come armed with nothing but blinding white radiance, a cold energy unlike anything Cade had yet seen in his studies of magick.

  Briet unleashed a hail of knives at Anja, who parried them with a wave of light. Siegmar conjured the specter of a lizard-eyed, ram-horned Caesar riding a chariot pulled by winged lions. Holy fire from Adair’s palm vaporized the beasts, rig, and rider.

  Kein swung a semitransparent halberd at Adair. The master blocked it with his forearm, and a bright metallic clang resounded inside the stone chamber. Then Adair’s jaw dropped open, and he let out a great roar: it was the crashing of the sea, the boom of an erupting volcano, a hurricane wind raging just inches above Cade and Stefan. The candles were snuffed and thrown aside; Kein’s lectern and grimoire rolled away like tumbleweeds. His adepts staggered out of their circles. To hold his ground, Kein dropped to one knee.

  The tempest ceased, and Adair shouted, “Anja! Get Cade!”

  “But Stefan—!”

  “Do as I say!” Blood spilled from Adair’s nostrils, and trickled from his ears.

  Anja ran to Cade, cut his chain with a beam of light from her hand, and helped him up.

  Adair extended his arm. He coaxed Stefan’s enchanted mirror to fly off of a table at the far end of the conjuring room and into his hand. His voice was a bullhorn: “Move!”

  Anja pulled one of Cade’s arms across her shoulders as Adair created an oval portal ringed in blue-white light. Through it Cade
saw only darkness, but Anja pulled him toward it.

  Behind them, the enemy karcists regained their feet. Before Cade could warn Anja, Adair fired from his eyes white jets of energy—not fire, not electricity, not anything Cade knew how to name other than to call it power. The twin beams slashed across Kein and his adepts, who cried out, stumbled, and scattered, all cowed behind their shields. At the same time, bleeding fissures spread across Adair’s face and neck, then down his arms to his hands.

  Adair pressed his attack as he levitated the barely conscious Stefan and sent him flying out of the fray, through the portal ahead of Anja and Cade, who stopped shy of its threshold.

  Anja pleaded, “Master! Hurry!”

  “Go!” He stumbled backward toward the portal as he filled the room with twisting ribbons of light and fire. He looked back with bleeding eyes. “Run!”

  His tone left no room for debate. Anja pulled Cade through the portal.

  They landed hard on the other side, in a place Cade didn’t recognize. A sun-splashed room of pink tile, white stucco, natural wood and stone, with windows that looked out on red dusty hills dotted with scrub.

  On the other side of the still-open portal, Adair faltered as he deflected three assaults at once. He backed toward the portal as he bombarded the enemy magicians with whirlwinds of fire. Then he leaped through the gateway—

  Behind him, a pulse of indigo light from Kein’s hand struck the portal as Adair passed through it. A spray of blood accompanied its collapse—and Adair slammed to the floor in front of Cade, his right leg severed two inches below the knee.

  Anja wept tears of blood over Stefan, whose guts spilled through his ruptured sutures. Adair cursed and clutched at his amputated limb, desperate to stop his own bleeding.

  Cade thought he might vomit; then he coughed up blood, and after it another mouthful, then another. His stomach churned, his head swam, and only then did he realize that whatever torture Kein had inflicted on him had shredded his insides.

  He collapsed on the floor beside Stefan and Adair. His vision dimmed, and the edges of his world pushed inward. It dawned on him that he was dying.

  I’m not ready! I have to fight …

  He was in the ocean, being pulled into the cold, briny deep. The end was upon him, its attraction magnetic, and there was nothing he could do to resist it.

  His soul raged in silent protest.

  Can’t let Kein win.…

  The darkness drank him in.

  I can’t let—

  The rest was silence.

  * * *

  Anja was light-headed from the brief but excruciating surge of angelic power the master had yoked to her. Standing in the main hallway of an unfamiliar rustic villa, above her wounded friends, she fought for calm and clarity, only to find them out of reach.

  Stefan pawed with broken fingers at empty air, his jaw quivering. Adair groaned and trembled beside him on the tiled floor, blood spurting from the stump of his severed leg, his whole body ravaged from the strain of trying to contain angelic power. Cade’s wet, bloody coughing ceased and his features took on a deathly cast.

  Anja stood, frozen with indecision. What do I do?

  Her mind clouded with panic. She had seen carnage before, worse than this, but time had dulled that pain. Cade and her friends were dying in front of her, and she felt paralyzed.

  Stefan turned his head toward Adair. Remorseful tears rolled down his cheeks. “Sorry … Master. I was weak. Told them of the castle. And my mirror.”

  Adair reached out with a shaking hand. Brushed Stefan’s face. “Not your fault.”

  Being absolved only deepened Stefan’s sorrow. His voice broke as guilty sobs overtook him. “I doomed you all.”

  “None of us … could fight Kein alone.” The master’s desperate eyes found Anja’s. His voice fell to an unsteady croak. “Lass…?”

  She kneeled and took his hand. “Master?”

  He grabbed her shirt collar. His eyes bulged and his nostrils flared as he pulled her close to his fissured, bloodied face: “Help us!”

  Shocked into clarity, she broke from his grasp and wreathed her hand in fire. She pressed her palm, hot as a branding iron, against Adair’s leg stump and seared it black. His enraged bellows filled the villa; then he collapsed, gasping and spent. Stanching the bleeding was all she could do for him; his leg had been severed by magick, so replacing it was beyond Anja’s talents. He will learn to live with scars, as I have.

  Bullets of sweat rolled through his ragged eyebrows and his hedge maze of whiskers. After another breath he nodded at her. “Good.” He looked toward Cade. “Now him.”

  Cade was unconscious and cyanotic. Stefan was awake and suffering. Anja’s choice was clear. She shook her head. “Cade is gone.” She turned to help Stefan.

  The master yanked Anja away from the dying Dutchman. “Do as I say!” He shoved her in Cade’s direction. “There’s still time! Help him!”

  She wanted to refuse, to ignore Cade and do all she could for Stefan—but Adair had been like a father to her since the day her mother disowned her. She couldn’t refuse him.

  Magick told her what she needed to know.

  “Cade still has life,” she confessed. “But Stefan has more.”

  “I don’t care. Save Cade.”

  “But Stefan—”

  “Without Cade, we’ve lost the war. Save him!”

  Anja felt her strength ebb; her hold on BUER’s yoke was slipping. Without the demon, she would have no magick for healing. She showed Adair her back and kneeled beside Stefan, who had always been patient with her, even when she had been a passionate but borderline illiterate novice. From his forehead she stroked a lock of hair that was damp with sweat and tacky with blood. “Have courage. I—”

  “Let me go,” Stefan whispered through cracked lips. “Save Cade.”

  “I am not strong enough.”

  “Take my strength. Give it to him.”

  She recoiled. “Kill you? For him?” Angry tears blurred her vision. “Never. I—”

  He silenced her with the lightest touch of his fingertip to her cheek. “This is bigger than one life, Anja.” He caressed her chin. “Set me free. Save Cade.”

  His request gutted her. She slumped to the floor between him and Cade, her breath stolen, her eyes brimming with grief.

  Adair clasped her hand. “Please. I beg you. Before it’s too late.”

  The master had never begged her for anything, ever.

  A tragic memory tormented her—a vision of her younger brother, Piotr, dead in the snow, murdered by Kein. And herself, kneeling beside Piotr’s body, grieving and powerless.

  Her breaths grew quick and shallow as she struggled to fend off heaving sobs. She looked down at Stefan. “Forgive me.”

  A weak smile. “You do me no wrong. Call this a final kindness.”

  Her left hand she placed on Stefan’s chest; she pressed her right hand onto Cade’s. According to the grimoires she was working a healing charm, but she saw it for what it really was: a theft of one person’s life for the benefit of another. It was all part of the universe’s cruel sense of balance, its scales of injustice. Directing the powers of BUER, she shifted the last of Stefan’s vitality—an otherwise intangible commodity—into Cade. To Anja it felt as if she were pilfering the last ember of a bonfire to rekindle a pile of ashes.

  She watched life fade from Stefan’s eyes, and a cold emptiness filled her as she accepted the truth that she had taken it from him, to give to a man she envied and resented.

  Grave silence filled the villa.

  Cade gasped; his eyes snapped open. He sucked in a greedy breath. As swiftly as he had roused, he slipped away, unconscious but no longer in the arms of the reaper.

  Anja extended her senses once more, to confirm what she already knew. “Cade will live.” She fixed Adair with an unforgiving stare. “Stefan is gone.”

  A sad nod. “Thank you.”

  She stood, filled with disgust. “Go to Hell.”

&
nbsp; “You think you’re the only one hurting? Stefan was like a son to me. But I gave him up—because that’s what had to be done. And he knew it! So don’t you disgrace his courage by acting like his sacrifice was a waste. He died to give us a chance.”

  It took all of her willpower not to spit on the man she’d once called master. “He died because I tore out what was left of his soul”—she nodded at Cade as she continued—“and gave it to him. Stefan is dead because you needed him to die so your pet could live.”

  Anja walked away, her heart growing colder with each step. There was no path she could imagine for her life that would lead her to forgive Adair, or herself. But accepting that truth led her to another, even more sobering realization.

  I have no place else to go.

  27

  The villa was smaller than Eilean Donan Castle. It was rustic—a more polite term than “dilapidated” or “ramshackle”—and located on a dusty hilltop accessed by a steep road of hairpin switchbacks that snaked down its southern side.

  Faded pink tiles covered most of its floors, and the walls were made of off-white stucco. Open-frame ceilings betrayed the roof’s history of neglect. The house was an oven at midday. It was populated with flimsy furniture, except in its first-floor great room, which had no furnishings at all, exposing its parquet floors. The pantry was half barren, the wine cellar empty, and Cade hated his bed’s worn-flat mattress.

  For all its faults, though, the house was not without its charms. Its windows’ patinas filled the two-story dwelling with golden light in the afternoon. The patio looked out on foothills south of the Sierra Nevada range, between the towns of Orgiva and Lanjarón, about an hour’s drive southeast of Granada, Spain. Fresh air, a property dotted with wildflowers, and plenty of exposed old wood filled the house with pleasant fragrances.

  It had been five days since Anja and Adair had brought Cade here. Since the master had locked himself away in his master suite. Since Anja had buried Stefan or spoken a word.

  Today marked the first time Cade had felt well enough to get out of bed and explore the villa. The only room in it that impressed him was its library. High-ceilinged, its walls were hidden by shelves packed with ancient codices and rolled manuscripts. Arranged on the library’s central long table had been his, Adair’s, and Anja’s grimoires. Their leather-bundled tools of the Art were stored inside a majestic varnished oak wardrobe standing in a corner, along with their vestments. Seeing it all, Cade had wondered how it had got there.