The Cardkeeper Chronicles: Books 1-5 (Complete Collection)

by A. C. Nicholls

  “The prisoner,” I said, clapping. “Bingo! You got it right. Now, I could give you a prize right away, or if you get the next question right, you can have a prize that is as much as five times bigger. Would you like the bigger prize? I know I would.”

  “The bigger one!”

  “The one that’s bigger!”

  Both goblins jumped to their feet, one scratching his ear with his long, finger-like toes while the other spread out his arms and pretended to struggle with his balance. Although they were clearly distracted, I had a feeling I might be on to something.

  “So, for the big prize,” I continued, lowering my voice to incite curiosity, “all you need to do is guess where they took him.”

  “Plack knows!”

  “Plock knows!”

  The goblins fell over each other to rush to my knees. For just a flicker of a moment I felt a sheer sense of joy, like the mother of two excitable children who were each in a gaming mood. I was almost sorry that I didn’t have a prize for them.

  “Plack,” I said, guessing it was the one on the left. “You get to answer first.”

  “They took him to the prison.”

  “To the prison, they took him!” Plock shoved Plack aside.

  Link and I exchanged glances. A prison was bad enough to contend with even in the real world, but if a supernatural creature used the word prison, it was usually another word for dungeon. And dungeons, more often than not, were guarded and defended by creatures.

  “Which prison?” I asked, slowly getting to my feet.

  “THE NOMED PRISON!”

  “THE NOMED PRISON!”

  Fear and anger suddenly rattled through me. If the goblins were right and the man they’d seen really was Jack, retrieving him would be harder than I’d originally thought, and afterward, his captors would be after the both of us.

  Now that I had bigger fish to fry, I leaned over to pick Link up off the floor, and placed him on my shoulder. Looking down at the goblins, I offered my kindest smile. “Well done, kids. Now if you want your prize, all you have to do is go to the far end of the shipping yard, cover your eyes and count to a hundred. When you turn around, your prize will be waiting for you.”

  In a flash, both goblins were giggling and screaming, leaping from container to container to reach the far end of the yard. There wasn’t so much as a brief moment during which they stopped to question the possibility that I had lied to them.

  “Goblins are stupid,” Link said.

  “Yes. But you did well. Thanks for that.”

  “My pleasure. And the Nomed Prison? Where’s that?”

  “They were just goofing around. It doesn’t exist,” I said, gazing at the goblins as they scurried across the yard.

  “Then you’ve got nothing to go by, surely?”

  “Oh, I have.”

  “Then spill the beans, Keira, because I’m all ears.”

  I craned my neck to see him nesting on my shoulder. “Spell ‘Nomed’ backwards.”

  Link’s eyes glazed over as he went deep into thought, absent-mindedly moving his lips to silently speak the letters as they came to him. When he figured it out, his eyes lit up with pride before his smile quickly dropped back into a fearful frown. “’Nomed’ means ‘Demon’… We’re going to a demon prison, aren’t we?”

  “Yep.”

  “Gods help us.”

  “Believe me, I’m as worried as you are.”

  On the bright side, I had a rough clue as to Jack Hannigan’s location. Who had taken him and why was still a mystery, but this was enough to keep me going until I found my friend again. Assuming, of course, that I could.

  Rushing out of sight, I climbed down to the other side of the container stack and ran across the yard to the fence I’d peeled back. Checking one last time to make sure the goblins weren’t following, I climbed through the gap and made my way up the slope, disappearing into the darkness once again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Twenty minutes south down the road, we found an old man by the lake, painting a name onto the side of his boat. With only a small flashlight to guide him, it made me curious that he should be performing such a mundane task in the black of night, but who was I to judge? Painting boats was a damn sight better than fighting vampires, and probably more rewarding.

  All the same, we needed this man. The demon prison lay out in the water on an island that could only be seen by those able to wield magic. It was invisible to humans, and a good thing too, as they would soon investigate and lead the way to their own slaughter.

  Link flew high above me, out of sight as I approached the man.

  “Evening,” I said casually.

  The man spun around, pushing his dirty red baseball cap up to see me. He shone the flashlight into my eyes, crooking an eyebrow as he undoubtedly questioned why a young woman would be visiting the pier at this time of night.

  “What do you want?” he grumped, talking through his rotting teeth.

  “Does this boat work?”

  “Yeah, she works. What of it?”

  “I need passage across the water. Should take all of thirty minutes, there and back.” I suddenly realized I had nothing to offer him – no money to pay him with and very little to use as a bribe. Only the ring from the small finger of my left hand was worth anything. I slid it off and tossed it over to him.

  The man caught it with a grunt, shining the light down to inspect it before biting it with his filthy black teeth. Satisfied, he smiled a gummy grin and dropped the ring into the pocket of his flannel shirt. “Thirty minutes, you say? Well, hop on board.”

  After I climbed up the ladder and took a seat on the side, the man followed after me. He introduced himself as Harry Cusack and then started the engine. Moments later we were sailing across the water with Link flying above us and keeping his distance. The cold lake breeze gnawed at my cheeks, but I held my concentration on the prison island to make it easier. Before long, the island came into view – for Link and me, anyway.

  “Stop the boat,” I said, shooting to my feet as we neared the rocks.

  “What? Lady, there ain’t nothin’ here.”

  “That’s fine. Just shut it off.”

  Harry sighed. “Whatever you say.”

  The boat slowed and then fell to dead silence in the dark night. As it rocked ever so slightly, I peeled off my jacket, checked that the magicard was still in my pocket, and then craned my neck toward Harry. “I’ll be right back.”

  “If you say so,” he said sarcastically, tilting his baseball cap.

  I turned back to the side and took a dive, letting the water spray around me as my pointed fingertips broke the surface. The freezing water flowed over my body, but the chill wasn’t enough to stop me. I needed to find Jack Hannigan, and if that meant getting cold and wet then so be it.

  When I reached the shore of the demon prison, I shook the water from my hair and pulled my hairband taut. Shivering, I glared up at the building; a medieval fort that was tall enough to touch the sky. There was only one path, winding all the way around the island before stopping at a large wooden doorway guarded by two stone statues. The statues must have reached heights of seven feet, and although most people didn’t know it, I was aware of their ability to come to life should anyone try to pass.

  I would have to find another way in.

  “Link,” I said, calling up toward the sky and summoning him to perch on my hand. When he did, I noticed that he also shivered ferociously in the freezing air. “Could you swoop around the building and find a way in?”

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  Before I could figure out whether there was sarcasm in his tone, he took off from my hand and fluttered all the way around the prison island. He soon returned, telling me to follow him around to the side, where an open window lay unguarded on the fourth floor. Harry was out of sight now, though I didn’t doubt that he could still see me. Being that the prison was invisible to him, what he must have been looking at was a woman walking on ai
r, talking to an overly large insect that flew around beside her. I wouldn’t be surprised if he freaked out and left me, but I hoped he wouldn’t.

  “Can you take me up there?” I asked Link as he returned to me.

  “Umm… Maybe.”

  “What do you mean? Can you or can’t you?”

  Link rolled his eyes. “It’s not that I can’t, per se, but flying is exhausting. I already did my fair share of fighting, and that was before I flew all the way out here. Sure, I could lift you, but I want you to know that you’re not entirely weightless.”

  “Point taken.” I should have given him more credit for his efforts. Instead, I turned back toward the building and looked up at the stony architecture. Thankfully, there were no demons here to shoot me down as I scaled the side, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t fall to my death in an instant. “Here we go.”

  I barely moved an inch before Link flew in front of me with his hands out.

  “Whoa, what are you doing?”

  “I’m… You said you couldn’t carry me.”

  “But you can’t bloody well climb.” Link sighed, and then quickly circled around to my back. From there, he grabbed onto my soaked shirt and told me to buckle up, then flickered his wings and carried me fifty feet into the harsh autumn air. It took only a few seconds to reach the window, and as soon as I did, I gripped the stone and pulled myself in.

  “Great work,” I said to Link, but before I could turn all the way around, my nerves locked me in place. Something was off about the aura inside. It was unlike the air of outside, in that it was warmer and closer, but I could have sworn I felt…

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  The voice rumbled from behind me, but I didn’t dare turn to face it. I was in the dark corridor of a demon prison, having been caught sneaking in through the window. The second I turned to see what kind of hideous monster would take me hostage, I would be accepting my fate as a doomed failure of a Cardkeeper.

  Only the fierce grip around my arm made me turn.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Jack.” I could barely believe my eyes. Beneath the scruffy, filthy, bearded man was the friend I had been searching for. The clothes he wore were nothing but rags and his skin looked – to put it mildly – rough. He had the look of a prisoner, but one who had been held in captivity for quite some time – a lifetime convict.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said, and despite his appearance, his voice was strong and authoritative. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to break you out.”

  “Oh, you have?”

  It seemed strange to me that Jack smiled then, but I brushed it off and turned back toward the window, placing a foot up onto the stone and getting ready to climb back outside. Even as he eyed me like I was doing something wrong, I felt the strong urge to grab him and bring him with me. But when a creaking door swung open somewhere in the distance, I went into panic mode.

  Jack, shooting a worried glance over his shoulder, stooped forward and lifted me off the window ledge. “Come on, quickly,” he said, before running down a long corridor with me in tow, and slipping inside a room.

  I was more or less thrown inside, leaving Link flying around the exterior of the building. When Jack shut the door, we waited in silence as the heavy hoofbeats and deep breathing approached the door. Over the twenty-nine years of doing this job, I had come to know all the little trademarks of my enemies. From the sound of how it walked, I had zero doubt that the beast on the other side of the door was a nimbusgore.

  The demon let out the snorting huff of an angry bull, and then continued padding up the hallway. I let my breath out slowly, remembering to inhale and trying to calm my nerves. I hated fighting demons. Well, I hated fighting anything, but demons were the worst. They showed no pity or mercy, only hate and determination to remove your head from your neck.

  When the coast was clear, Jack eased open the door and poked his head out, looking up each end of the hallway before giving me an okay sign. Even so, he gently pushed the door shut and returned to me.

  “Where are we?” I asked, looking around at the dark confines of the room. It was totally empty, save for the large, cobweb-covered barrels beside me. I leaned into them, wringing my hands together. Today was turning out to be a real shitstorm.

  “This is just a spare cellar.”

  “A cellar on the fourth floor?”

  Jack shrugged. “They’re demons, Keira, not geniuses.”

  “Right. Look, you don’t have to stay here anymore. I have a faery outside who can help you down to the rocks. There’s a boat waiting and, if you want it, a job I want to get you involved in. It’s not what you’d think it is but–”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I froze. “What?”

  “No.” Jack shook his head. “I’m here of my own free will.”

  “But… the goblins said you were a prisoner. And no offense but you don’t look very…”

  “Tidy?”

  “I was going to say ‘healthy’, but sure, ‘tidy’ works, too.”

  Jack snickered. “Honestly, I’m here by choice. I’m on something of a hunting mission. The demons have done me wrong and, frankly, I want vengeance. For months now, I’ve been working on the inside to locate the Demon King Zorin, and I still intend to find him. So, thanks for coming to help me after all these years but,” he shook his head, “I don’t want it.”

  I felt my entire future collapse before my eyes. If Jack wasn’t willing to come then he surely wouldn’t want to follow in my footsteps as Chicago’s guardian. I’d been wasting my time, pursuing somebody who had no interest in Cardkeeping, and now there was no time left to find somebody else. I couldn’t accept it – I wouldn’t. “Bullshit, Jack. You’re coming with me. I’ve been to hell and back trying to find you, and now you can damn well follow me. I have something important to show you. If you want to come back after then you can, and you might even have more power for your planned revenge.”

  “Keira, you’re not listen–”

  I pushed him back with the heels of my hands, before using my magic to raise the barrels beside me. They helicoptered off the ground, and as Jack watched, astonished, I began to move them in a circle before squeezing them with my mind. The wooden barrels splintered easily, burst apart, and sent the steaming liquid dripping to the floor like a running waterfall. After proving my point, I returned my hands to my sides.

  “What was…” Jack met my gaze, his mouth wide open. “How did you…”

  “I’m a Cardkeeper, Jack. You probably don’t know what that means, but I’m willing to show you. If you come with me, and if you accept the responsibility, power like that could be yours. But right now, in this exact moment, we have to get going. Do you understand me?”

  Hesitating, Jack lowered his eyes to the broken shards of wood on the floor. There was an expression of understanding on his face as he thought long and hard about whether to abandon his mission. What he said next gave me hope. “If I come with you, can I return?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And if I don’t want this job that you speak of?”

  “Then you don’t have to take it.” But I hope you do.

  “How long will it take?”

  “Not long. You can shower, too.”

  Jack looked offended, pinching the rags from his chest and taking a sniff. The way he knocked his head back made it seem as if he had only just learned of his own rancid scent. “All right, Keira. Lead the way.”

  Finally. The lucky break I’d been hoping for. Not only had I found Jack – or some street rat-looking version of him – but he was willing to come with me. All I had to do now was get him to the Vault and convince him to take the role.

  Without hesitation, I grabbed his black, dirty hand and led him back to the window. Link was there waiting for us, looking nothing less than confused when I presented him with a scruffy, bearded prisoner. Nonetheless, they greeted each other warmly, and then Li
nk carried Jack down to the ground. He returned soon after, carrying me with him.

  My luck held when I spotted Harry Cusack still sitting in his boat. When I climbed back on board with an extra man at my side, a look of utter confusion riddled his expression. Scratching his head, he then shrugged and roared the boat’s engine back to life.

  We sped back toward dry land, leaving the demon prison far behind us. If Jack ever returned, that was on him. I wanted nothing to do with demons, prisons, or anything else associated with either one. As soon as I finished training my old friend, that would be it for me. No more magic, no more battles, and definitely no more danger.

  It would just be Jack Hannigan, the new Cardkeeper of Chicago.

  If only he would accept.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Showing the Vault to anyone was usually hard work. The human mind struggled to comprehend the simple fact that a portal had been constructed out of thin air. Even Jack, who was standing in the stock room at the back of the dusty old VHS store and watching me don a robe from the rail, struggled to believe it was happening.

  “You need to put on a robe,” I told him.

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “No… You need to put on a robe. The Elders… Dalton,” I corrected. I was so used to referring to them as a collective, even though nearly two years had passed since Dalton’s brothers had died protecting the Vault. Now only he remained. “Dalton will take it as a sign of disrespect if you don’t. House policy.”

  Jack nodded, grinning. “I’ll take my chances in this magic tower of yours.”

  Somehow, I just didn’t get the sense that he believed me about the Vault. Clearly, infiltrating a demon prison and making a display of my telekinesis wasn’t enough to convince him. That was why I took great pleasure in punching a hole in the air, and then dragging my fingers in a wide arc to burn a portal from here to the mountains.