The Raven's Shadow: The Aegis of Merlin Book 4

by James E. Wisher

  “We’ll be coming with you.” Terra stood and was joined a moment later by Clair and Mrs. Kane.

  “Me too.” Maria moved to join the group, but her mother waved her back to the table.

  “I know you want to help, sweetheart, but your magic isn’t strong enough yet. Stay here with your father. We should have this wrapped up in an hour or two.”

  “Kelsie’s weaker than I am and Jonny can’t even use magic. How come they can go?”

  “They can’t.” Terra glared at his friends. “We appreciate your help, but it’s time to let the professionals handle this.”

  “You’ve done a bang-up job of it so far.” Jonny crossed his arms and glared right back at the formidable wizard.

  “I should go too.” Kelsie sounded meeker, but no less determined. “If Conryu needs a power boost I can help.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Terra said.

  Jonny and Kelsie both looked at him like he had something to say about it. He sighed. “Kelsie did give me a boost when I dominated the succubus and Jonny’s an excellent driver. I doubt I’d have gotten as far as I have without their help.”

  Part of him wanted to argue in Maria’s favor too, but the bigger part would be happy knowing she was somewhere out of the immediate line of fire.

  Terra’s jaw clenched and relaxed as she grumbled under her breath. “Fine. We don’t have time to argue anyway.”

  Maria hugged him and whispered, “Be careful.”

  He held her for a moment, soaking in the moment of peace. He doubted he’d have many more of them for the next little while. They broke apart and Maria hurried over to say goodbye to her mother.

  Dad stepped closer, distracting him from the others. “You bring honor to the Koda Dojo and I am very proud of you, son.”

  They bowed to one another then Dad surprised him by taking him in a fierce embrace. “Come back safe.”

  The six of them left the Department building and headed to the parking lot. Conryu, Jonny, and Kelsie angled toward their stolen car. They hadn’t gotten three steps when Terra said, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “Our car?” Jonny raised an eyebrow.

  “Speaking of cars.” Mrs. Kane looked around the parking lot. “Where’s mine?”

  “It didn’t explode,” Conryu said. “But the cops shot it up pretty good. We had to abandon it in a parking garage. Jonny liberated that fine vehicle over there.”

  “You stole it?” Terra sounded horrified.

  Conryu didn’t blame her, but they hadn’t had a ton of better options. “It was that or walk.”

  “Leave it there. It’d be a shame if you got arrested for driving a stolen car after we convinced the police to stop looking for you.” Terra grimaced like she wanted to pull her hair out. His mom used to look like that all the time when he was a kid. “I’ll ask Lin to deal with it later. We’ll take Department cars. You three ride with Clair. I’ll go with Shizuku.”

  Lady Raven paced in her casting chamber. She twisted her mask between her hands. On the scrying mirror the police were abandoning their posts protecting her artifacts. As soon as they moved out she switched the boxes back to their secondary hiding places, but that was only a temporary measure. Without the police present Conryu would make short work of locating the boxes and destroying the meager protections she’d put in place.

  What the hell had happened to the council’s agent? Everything was supposed to be under control on that end. If this was what passed for under control they were in big trouble.

  Finally, the expected vibration ran through her mask. She tied it in place and rushed to the spell circle. The Hierarchs and Lady Bluejay were waiting.

  “Our agent has been revealed and banished,” Lady Dragon said without preamble.

  “How?”

  “The abomination dominated her and forced her to return to Hell,” Lady Bluejay said. “Rennet contacted me as soon as she was able and alerted me to the situation.”

  “It’s clear the leaders of the world have no intention of freeing our mistress or handing over the abomination.” Lady Dragon’s anger struck Lady Raven like a physical blow. “The artifacts must be activated at once, before any more of them are put out of commission.”

  “The island isn’t yet in position,” Lady Raven dared point out. If she activated them now all she could hope for was a handful of shadow beasts that would be instantly destroyed by any modestly powerful wizard that encountered them. They might kill fifteen or twenty people before they were hunted down, but not nearly enough to make a real impression.

  “We are aware of that. With two artifacts already gone, there’s no way we can complete the ritual as intended. Your new orders are to collect the remaining artifacts, carry them within range of the island, and activate them. I’ll leave it up to your judgment where and how to accomplish your new task.”

  The connection was broken and Lady Raven was once more alone in her casting chamber. Things just kept getting worse. She tossed her mask onto the empty workbench and marched out of the chamber. At least it didn’t appear that Lady Dragon held her personally responsible for the plan’s failure. It was good fortune that another of the Society’s agents had also come up short. That made her own failures less obvious.

  Her guards fell in silently beside her as she made her way to the sewer access in the floor. She hardly even noticed the stink of rot surrounding the Faceless Ones’ hosts anymore. That made Lady Raven wonder about her own smell, but only for a moment. If she succeeded in this final task it wouldn’t matter if she smelled like a pigsty. The Hierarchs would be sure to forgive her earlier setbacks.

  Outside the three rooms she’d prepared for her living quarters, the warehouse she’d chosen as her redoubt looked like you’d expect: filthy, run down, and filled with debris abandoned when the company that had owned it went out of business. The building was currently being argued over in court and neither the former owner nor his creditors had legal claim to it. That was one of the reasons she chose it as her base of operations: no one ever came to visit the place.

  The other reason was built into the floor. At her mental command one of the Faceless Ones tossed aside a half-full crate revealing a steel manhole cover. The undead lifted the two-hundred-pound disk like it weighed nothing and set it aside.

  In addition to their legitimate business operation the owners also ran a drug-smuggling business that used the hidden portal to come and go unseen. Lady Raven found it very useful for the exact same purpose.

  She leapt down the concrete tube, whispering to the wind to slow her descent. A small platform rose above the muck and provided a relatively clean place for her to land. Beside it was a floating chariot big enough to hold her and her two guards. She’d made the thing over the winter, as much to alleviate her boredom as anything, but it had turned out to be a useful toy.

  When she’d moved to one side two of her guards dropped down beside her, landing with bone-jarring force. The undead didn’t even blink as they straightened up. The third remained behind at her mental command. If the worst happened she wanted at least one protector waiting for her return.

  The three of them climbed aboard the chariot and with a thought Lady Raven activated the light spells carved into the front of the transport and sent it hurtling down the tunnel.

  The little group reached the cemetery ten minutes later. The sun had set leaving them with nothing but twilight to work with. Conryu didn’t know much about shadow beasts, but he knew enough to realize fighting them at night wasn’t ideal since they were weaker in daylight.

  Clair pulled the beat-up sedan off the road in front of a wrought iron gate leading into the cemetery grounds. He dearly wished she’d let Jonny drive. The woman was a menace behind the wheel. Conryu pulled his fingers free of the handle on the backseat door and flexed his stiff hand. She hadn’t killed them all, but that was the only good thing about the trip.

  There were no cops, but when Conryu checked there was no sign of the box either. The crypt tha
t had once crackled with protective magic was now dark and empty. He scanned the rest of the cemetery, but found no magic of any sort.

  “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Conryu wanted to be certain it wasn’t just him missing something due to lack of experience.

  “If you’re seeing nothing but an empty cemetery then yes.” Clair opened the door and they all piled out.

  A few seconds later Terra and Mrs. Kane pulled up behind them and joined the group. They both stared out over the gravestones. “She moved it again,” Terra said.

  “Yeah.” Conryu pushed the gate open and started up a low hill toward the crypt with Prime floating along beside him. “I’ll have to track it through Hell.”

  Terra fell in beside him with the others bringing up the rear. “I’m interested to see how you follow the residual energy.”

  “I don’t, I use Cerberus’s nose.” Conryu stopped in front of the crypt door. “There’s nothing dangerous. She must have moved the box, protections and all.”

  “Yes, I suspect Mercia’s been watching every move we make. When the police left the boxes probably did too.” Terra’s hands opened and closed as she talked.

  “Mercia, huh? So I finally have a name for the woman that’s caused me so much trouble.” Conryu yanked the door open.

  Mrs. Kane conjured light globes and sent them in. They revealed an empty chamber and three walls lined with rectangular doors labeled with the names of the bodies inside.

  Conryu stepped inside, ignoring the musty, dust-filled air. “So who’s going with me and who’s following in the cars?”

  Jonny immediately said, “Car.”

  Kelsie and Mrs. Kane agreed with him leaving Terra and Clair to join Conryu. When the others had retreated from the crypt Clair said, “I’ll open the portal.”

  “No, I’d better do that. Cerberus will sense my magic and know it’s me approaching. We really don’t want to startle him.

  Clair shrugged and didn’t argue.

  Conryu chanted, “Reveal the way through infinite darkness. Open the path. Hell Portal!”

  The black disk appeared and he led the way through. Behind him Terra and Clair muttered unfamiliar spells then followed.

  “Protective spells, Master,” Prime said in answer to his unspoken question. “Neither of the wizards is dark aligned so traveling through Hell is as dangerous for them as it is for your friend.”

  Clair and Terra were both surrounded by glowing light magic auras. They looked around at the endless darkness, but neither appeared especially disconcerted.

  A deep growl vibrated in his chest as Cerberus appeared beside him. Three pairs of eyes stared at Terra and Clair and he bared his fangs.

  Conryu swatted his side. “Behave. These are friends.”

  “Cerberus doesn’t care for their aura of light magic,” Prime said. “That sort of energy is like a thorn in a demon’s brain.”

  “Well then we need to do this as fast as possible. Cerberus, let’s hunt.”

  All three heads barked and raised their noses in the air. It didn’t take long for the demon dog to pick up the scent. A second bark preceded Cerberus crouching down to let Conryu climb up on his back. The moment he did Cerberus leapt into motion, racing through the darkness.

  Conryu glanced back to make sure Terra and Clair were keeping up and relaxed when he saw they were. Before he knew it Cerberus skidded to a stop and barked a third time.

  “Right here, huh? No demons at least.” Whether that was a good thing or not Conryu couldn’t say. He waited until the others were floating beside him. “Shall we take a look? Grant me the power to see through realms, Vision Gate!”

  The window appeared, revealing a flying chariot racing down another sewer tunnel. “What the hell was that?” Of all the things he’d expected, a chariot soaring through the sewer was way down on the list.

  “I didn’t get a good look,” Terra said. “But it had to be her.”

  “Why would she be fleeing the hiding place of one of her artifacts?” Clair scratched her head. “Shouldn’t she want to defend it?”

  “There’s only one way to know for sure.” Terra cast the portal spell.

  They stepped into the damp stink of the sewer. Conryu was getting heartily sick of splashing around in shit rivers. When this was over he was never going underground again.

  In front of them sat an empty pedestal. No wards guarded it and no shadow beasts roamed the area.

  “She took the box with her.” Terra slammed her fist into the slime-covered wall.

  “What’s she going to do, run around until the island is in place?” For the life of him Conryu couldn’t figure out what Mercia’s play was.

  “She doesn’t have to wait. Mercia can take the boxes to the island and activate the artifacts immediately.” Terra dug her phone out. “Clair, make us a stone boat while I call Shizuku.”

  Lady Raven forced herself not to gloat, not even to herself. She’d beaten the Department wizards to the first box. She hadn’t even seen any sign of them. The fools were so far behind they wouldn’t know what happened until her shadow beasts ripped the life from them.

  The chariot raced down the tunnels as smooth and silent as the wind. In the darkness beside her the shadow tigers effortlessly kept pace. It had been only a moment’s work to alter the binding that compelled them to guard the box into one that made them protect her. She doubted the creatures would last long in a fight, but having them might be the difference between success and failure.

  Up ahead the sewer split left and right. A mental command turned her transport down the right-hand branch. Another advantage she held was Lady Raven already knew where the boxes were hidden while her hunters had to track them down individually. She smiled as she pictured the frustrated grimace on Terra’s face. It would have been nice to be there in person, but that would most assuredly not prove wise.

  The next pedestal waited many miles away. Now that she had to collect the artifacts Lady Raven found herself wishing she hadn’t hidden them so far apart. Of course, that had been less a personal choice and more a necessity of the ritual she’d planned. If everything had gone according to that plan, she would have opened the largest dark portal in history. For the crime of denying her that honor she’d rip Conryu Koda’s heart out and feed it to her pets.

  A pair of the shadow tigers surged ahead and a moment later a man in a hardhat and coveralls appeared in the chariot lights. A second later he went down under the insubstantial claws of her guardians. She rushed by the corpse and the two tigers fell back in place. The worker hadn’t been a threat, but she didn’t chastise the creatures. Giving them a snack now and then made the beasts easier to control.

  She continued on for a couple more minutes, nothing and no one disturbing the darkness ahead of her. A mile from the next hiding place she sensed something approaching from behind. She darted a glance over her shoulder. Way behind her a dot of light glimmered in the dark. It was too far away to make out anything, but instinct said it had to be her enemies.

  They must have stumbled on her trail at the first pedestal. Lady Raven grinned. She was far enough ahead to collect the next box and leave a nasty surprise for the fools trailing her.

  The tunnel walls blurred as the stone boat raced through the sewers. Conryu had never seen a stone boat much less ridden in one before today. The thing looked like exactly what the name implied, a canoe made of stone that hovered six inches above the tunnel floor.

  Clair tried to explain how she charged the stone of the floor with a different frequency of magic than the one she used on the boat and that the two powers pushed against each other causing it to levitate, but his eyes just glazed over. It worked and that was enough for him.

  Since she was directing the boat Clair sat in the front with Terra behind her and Conryu in the rearmost seat. The back of Terra’s head and her streaming hair obscured his vision. He caught an occasional glimpse of the wall as they whipped by, but otherwise he was blind. Terra muttered constantly as she tra
cked the energy of Mercia’s chariot. Conryu wanted to help, but such finely tuned magic was still beyond him. If they needed something smashed he was ready to step up.

  “I see a light,” Clair said.

  Conryu moved left then right, trying to look around Terra. He caught a glimpse of something—he thought he did anyway, it might have been his imagination.

  “It’s her.” Terra had stopped her muttering. Maybe now that they were closer she didn’t need the spell to help her track Mercia. “Step on it.”

  “I’m giving it all I can. It’s not like there’s a gas pedal.”

  “Conryu, switch places with me.”

  Conryu and Terra shifted and shimmied around each other, causing the boat to wobble and drawing a barely audible curse from Clair.

  When they finally swapped positions Terra put her back against his. “Hang on. Father of winds grant this unworthy servant of fire the loan of your breath, Gust!”

  Terra slammed into his back and the boat rushed forward at almost double the speed. The light ahead quickly grew brighter.

  “Too much, Terra!” Clair had to shout over the roar of the wind. “I can’t control the boat. Your wind magic is destabilizing my earth spell.”

  The shadows ahead shifted. Conryu had seen that before. “We’ve got company coming.”

  He’d barely gotten the warning out when a shadowy tiger lunged into the light of the flames. With both women fully occupied it fell to him to protect everyone.

  Conryu thrust his hand toward the lunging beast. “All things burn to ash, Inferno Blast!”

  The flames incinerated the tiger in a second.

  “There are more, Master,” Prime said from where he huddled under the lip of the boat.

  Conryu’s gaze darted left and right, trying to pick out the beasts’ movements from the flickering shadows. He shot another burst of flame, but hit only stone.

  Clair screamed and the boat spun out of control. They slammed into the right wall, bounced off, and crashed into the left side. Conryu’s brain rattled in his head. He caught a glimpse of a dark claw withdrawing from the front of the boat.