Shadow Maker: Morrighan House Witches Book One

by Amir Lane

  “You piece of shit,” Alistair growled, bringing his foot down on Dieter’s face.

  Dieter coughed and spat blood onto the concrete. He tongued at the cut in his mouth. When he lifted his eyes, he could see the burns he’d left on Alistair’s face.

  Alistair was screaming. Abigail and Abaddon mimicked the sounds. They renewed their onslaught on Dieter’s Shadows with increased vigour.

  It was Dieter’s turn to scream again. He couldn’t see through the blood running down his face and the black spots forming in front of his eyes. He pushed his hair back, but it did nothing to clear his vision. There were words to Alistair’s shout. Dieter couldn’t make them out. The pain in his face was nothing to the pain at the center of his skull. His head felt like it was being chiselled open from the inside. He’d had splitting migraines before, but this was a whole other monster.

  Dieter lifted his head as much as he could without vomiting. It took him longer than it should have to realise that the blackness in his vision wasn’t from the pain but from what seemed like hundreds and hundreds of Shadows. Every Shadow he’d managed to block out was right in front of his eyes. And they weren’t just visible, but audible. Screams and screeches and whines and wails filled the air.

  He wiped the blood from his eyes. Through blurry vision, he could see them circling him. He braced himself for their attack, but it never came. They hovered around him, stopping Abaddon and Abigail from getting anywhere near him. An occasional space between them gave him enough of a view to catch glimpses of Shadows clawing at Alistair’s skin. Dieter screamed for them to stop, but he couldn’t tell if any sound came out over the Shadows’ shrieks.

  Dieter clamped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t tell if it was him or Alistair or the Shadow screaming. The Shadows swarmed around him. His vision kept darkening with each passing second. And with each passing second, the pain got worse and worse until he couldn’t take it anymore.

  EKKEHARDT SCHNEIDER was not a cruel man. He wasn’t even a cruel father. He wasn’t a good father, not by a long shot, but he wasn’t cruel.

  The twins had been a surprise. Eva Lindemann had gone through two miscarriages before they’d been conceived. They had only been a few months old when she died, and Ekkehardt had never fully recovered. It wasn’t fair to his children, and he knew it. The guilt it brought on only made him recede further into himself.

  He didn’t need to look over to feel Dietelinde’s glare on his back. She had one of those glares that could burn through steel. Not like Diederich. Thinking of his son sent a pang through Ekkehardt’s chest. If he hadn’t just been given a clean bill of health, he might have suspected a heart attack. But he’d been having enough of these pains over the past month to recognise them by now. He inhaled through his nose and counted, ‘Eins, zwei, drei,’ in his head before forcing himself to turn around.

  It was only the second time Ekkehardt had seen her since her brother bad been pushed into a coma. Again. He stayed out of their lives as much as possible. It was better that way. He had too much… What was the English expression? Baggage.

  “How did you get in here?” he asked.

  “You haven’t changed the security code in, like, seven years,” Dietelinde said.

  “I changed it last week.”

  Dietelinde frowned, then shrugged.

  “Then I guess it was a lucky guess. I do this thing where I pull numbers out of my ass and they just tend to be right. Magic.”

  Ekkehardt pressed his lips into a thin line. There was no sense in lecturing her about the crudeness of her speech. Even if he had the patience to deal with the onslaught of sarcasm he would receive, it wasn’t his place anymore. While financing Diederich’s education gave him some influence in the boy’s life, he didn’t have the same pull with Lindy.

  The three mirages that always followed him moved around Dietelinde. He shifted his eyes, and the spots moved away from her.

  “Why are you here?” he asked.

  Lindy looked up at the ceiling and stuck her hands into her back pockets, slouching her shoulders.

  “I’ve got a funny story for you. So once upon a time, there were two people that I couldn’t see. One was you, and the other was Dieter. I figured it was because you’re family. Biologically, at least.”

  Ekkehardt let that one slide. He deserved it.

  “Anyway. So Dieter brings home this guy, Alistair. He’s got these really freaky eyes. He just stares. Creeps the fuck out of me. But anyway, I can’t see him either.”

  Ekkehardt swallowed thickly. She was going somewhere with this, and it was somewhere he wasn’t going to like.

  “So I’ve been trying to figure out what the three of you have in common. You know what that might be?”

  “I have no idea.”

  No, he had every idea what the connection was. Dietelinde leant forward, her lips pulled back in a sarcastic sneer.

  “Yes, you do. You’re all Sensitives.”

  Ekkehardt didn’t say anything. It seemed he didn’t need to. Dietelinde’s dyed eyebrows went up.

  “Necromancer. You’re a goddamn Necromancer. Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Watch your language.”

  The response was reflexive, a clear indication that he had nothing else to say. He’d kept it from her as long as he could, but he’d known since day one that he could only keep it from her for so long. Spirit blindness or not, Seers would eventually figure everything out.

  “Is that all you have to say about it?” Dietelinde asked. “You let Dieter think, for all these years, that he was schizophrenic. And all this time, you knew. You knew!”

  When Ekkehardt didn’t reply, Dietelinde grabbed a plate off the table and smashed it on the ground. It was an immature reaction that Ekkehardt would have scolded her for if she wasn’t completely within her rights to react that way.

  “He told me he was better,” Ekkehardt said, guilt tying a knot in his lower intestine. “How was I supposed to know he wasn’t?”

  “You see the same things he does!”

  “I do not. I don’t see the same spirits he does, I don’t see them the same way, and I’ve never known of anyone who hears them.”

  Dietelinde grabbed handfuls of her black hair and let out a frustrated sound.

  “So, what, that makes him schizophrenic?”

  “Treatment was supposed to help him. Do you think seeing spirits is enjoyable? Sensitive or schizophrenic, he was suffering.”

  All he’d wanted to protect his son from the life he’d led. A life of spirits and blood magic. Perhaps it hadn’t been his decision to make. Given the circumstances, he’d done the best that he could. There was nothing he could say that would make this better, nothing that would make up for the years of anti-psychotics, nothing that would justify convincing Diederich that what he saw wasn’t real and wouldn’t hurt him. Maybe if he’d let himself admit that his son needed more than medication and therapy, he could have stopped all of this from happening. But it was far, far too late for that.

  Dietelinde snorted and shook her head. Her lips were quirked upward in disgust.

  “He told me he was getting better on the medication,” Ekkehardt continued. “I couldn’t have known that he wasn’t. You knew he was not getting better, and so did he. Neither of you told me. You both lied to me. I am not responsible for this.”

  No, Ekkehardt was absolutely responsible. Diederich was his son, his responsibility. Anything that happened to Diederich was his responsibility and no-one else’s. He should have known better. He was a Necromancer for God’s sake. Not only was he a Necromancer, he was the Necromancer. Ekkehardt Schneider was one of the most powerful witches in the city. And yet, he couldn’t even take care of his own children.

  There was nothing he could do to fix Dieter. That was in the hands of the Awliya. This was their area of expertise. Most things were. But there was something he could do.

  “Before you start yelling at me again, let me ask you something. You
know who did this to your brother?”

  Dietelinde raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah. Why? What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “You know I’m law enforcement, right?”

  Ekkehardt didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure if being a police dispatcher counted as law enforcement. That wasn’t relevant right now, though, and the last thing he needed to do was start another fight with his daughter by questioning the validity of her career choice.

  “Whatever. Yeah, I know who he is. Alistair Cudmore,” she said.

  “Cudmore. Why do I know that name?”

  “Sister went batshit and knifed the family.”

  Of course. Ekkehardt had heard the story, everyone had. Abigail Cudmore had been the worst kind of example of Necromancy gone wrong. He had gone to the house to clean up after the incident. The spirit fragments that littered the perimeter had been jarring at best. He hadn’t been able to look at his son and the spirits surrounding him for weeks.

  “I remember,” he murmured.

  “So what are you going to do to him?” Lindy asked.

  “Nothing that I should tell a law enforcement professional.”

  Dietelinde did something that she never did, at least not around him: she laughed. It was cold and biting, but it was a laugh.

  “You know what?” she said. “I don’t even care what you do to him. He deserves it and then some. You want me to find his address? I got a guy who owes me a favour.”

  Ekkehardt didn’t want to know the details.

  “No, that is fine. I will find him myself.”

  All it took was a shift of his eyes for one of the mirages to fade out. It wouldn’t take long for the spirit to find where this Alistair Cudmore lived. And when it did, he would destroy the man who hurt his son.

  The long silence was awkward at best. As soon as the spirit returned, he ushered Dietelinde out of the house. Dietelinde couldn’t get out fast enough. Finding Cudmore was even easier. It would have taken seconds to destroy Alistair without even leaving his living room. But that wouldn’t have been fair.

  Ekkehardt knew he should have asked someone else to deal with Cudmore. He was too invested in this one. It had to be him, though. Nothing would take away the weeks of seeing Diederich in a catatonic state, doing nothing but staring at the wall without responding to a single word. Nobody would give Cudmore what he deserved but him.

  ALISTAIR CUDMORE lived in a small apartment at the edge of town. It reminded Ekkehardt of his first apartment when he first moved from Germany a lifetime ago. The smell of blood magic and death tainted the air. The former was an occupational hazard, but the latter was something else entirely. It clung to everything and left an ashy taste in Ekkehardt’s mouth. It was more familiar than it should have been.

  Ekkehardt sent his spirits out to survey the house. Cudmore was inside with two spirits of his own. He hadn’t thought through what, exactly, he was going to do. Disciplining wasn’t usually something done alone, and it was absolutely not something done without approval from the entire Mohr’s Circle. As a general rule, Ekkehardt did few things better than distancing himself from these cases. But none of those cases involved one of his children. The ramifications of what he was doing were irrelevant right now.

  The door clicked open, courtesy of his spirits. Ekkehardt let himself into the mess of an apartment. His footsteps echoed off the walls.

  “I figured it was only a matter of time before one of you showed up. I thought you usually come in pairs.”

  Ekkehardt didn’t turn around. Instead, he closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids, he could see Cudmore. His own two spirits lurked around the edge of his vision.

  “This is a special case,” he said.

  “Yeah? And why is that?” Cudmore drawled.

  “That boy you tried to separate from his spirits is my son.”

  Cudmore snorted.

  “Yeah? Poor kid. Hey, are you aware that your son fucks older men? Probably because you never loved him.”

  Ekkehardt’s nostrils flared, but he kept still. He was already compromised enough as it was.

  “He was fucking one of his professors. Did you know that?”

  “I did not,” Ekkehardt ground out.

  “Apparently, he does it a lot.”

  Cudmore’s grin made Ekkehardt want to retch.

  “I bet you also didn’t know that he likes to call me ‘daddy’ in bed. Makes me wonder if he’s like this because what he really wants is you to fuck him. Or maybe you already did. Maybe that’s it.”

  A surge of rage ran, white and hot, through Ekkehardt’s body. A light bulb burst overhead and a window shattered.

  “Struck a nerve there? He’s so pretty when he begs for it.”

  That was it. Ekkehardt was done playing this game. He turned around. The tendons in his hands and arms were visible from the tightness of his fists.

  Cudmore laughed. It was a raw, broken sound. He looked like he hadn’t slept in months. The burn scars on his face and neck may have contributed to that. He was thin, his hip bones sticking out from above his low-hanging jeans. Ekkehardt’s eyes caught sight of deep scratches on his arm where the sleeve of his sweat-drenched sweater was pushed up. They couldn’t have been older than Cudmore’s altercation with Diederich, and they looked infected. The mirages moved around Cudmore, draining what little colour that was left in his face. It was something Ekkehardt had seen more than once. Spirits were almost always stronger than the humans who sought to control them. Almost every Necromancer eventually gave in. From the look of it, Cudmore was right on the brink. Ekkehardt might have felt bad for him if not for the previous comments about his son.

  “So how is this going to go? You’re going to take me in to be judged by a coven of your peers?” Cudmore asked.

  “No. This is not a sanctioned visit.”

  An anxious look came over Cudmore’s face. Ekkehardt got no satisfaction from it.

  “So how is he, anyway?” Cudmore asked. “Still a vegetable?”

  “He is going to be fine. You… you are not.”

  Cudmore’s spirits threw themselves at Ekkehardt. Ekkehardt only had to flick his wrist to stop them. The anxious look was replaced with one of sheer panic. It occurred to Ekkehardt that Dietelinde was right about his eyes. He looked so young, so vulnerable. He looked scared. Ekkehardt couldn’t let himself follow the train of thought. Regardless of how young Cudmore was, he had used spirits to murder two people and to hurt his son. Either he was losing control, or he was deliberately hurting people. Either way, it had to stop.

  “Please,” Cudmore said, his voice tight, “I can’t control them. I didn’t want to hurt him. I really love him.”

  Ekkehardt felt a pang of sympathy. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d felt his own spirits wrenching control from him. He wondered how long it would be before Dieter’s mind turned on him. How long would it be before someone had to put his own son down the way he was about to do with Cudmore.

  “I am not going to enjoy this. Just so you know.”

  Cudmore laughed and wiped his eyes.

  “Just get it over with.”

  “It won’t hurt,” he promised.

  Ekkehardt closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose. Despite what Cudmore had done—what he’d done to Diederich—Ekkehardt knew how painful it could be to lose control of spirits. There was no sense drawing this out. He wasn’t getting any pleasure out of this, and he hadn’t expected to. He’d known that as soon as the anger had passed. It was worse than he’d imagined it would be, though.

  He nodded his head toward Cudmore. Cudmore’s head was jerked to the side, and his body dropped to the ground. Two of the mirages thinned out until there was no longer a disruption in the air.

  The room suddenly felt too empty. It made the hairs on the back of Ekkehardt’s neck stand on end. Crouching down, he closed Cudmore’s eyes with two fingers. After a short moment of silence and a brief
prayer, he rose and left the apartment. He would face whatever consequences came from this later. For now, it wasn’t important.

  DIETER STARED out at the lake. Yasir’s singing came from inside the cottage behind him. It was comforting, even though he still couldn’t understand a word of Arabic. The sound was just nice. He always wondered how Yasir could do the things he did with his voice.

  Selima sat down beside him and stroked her hand through his hair.

  “How are you feeling, habibi?”

  Dieter didn’t respond. Seagulls walking across the sand. He could only focus on one thing at a time. Right now, he was focusing on the seagulls.

  Even though his broken nose had healed—quite well, actually—his eyes were still bruised. Granted, the lack of sleep may have contributed to that. On average, he could get three, maybe four, hours before nightmares woke him. And then his screams would wake Yasir and Selima, but they never seemed to mind. If they did, he couldn’t tell.

  Right now, the only screams came from Shadows.

  Selima made a motion to stand. Dieter grabbed her hand to stop her.

  “It’s okay, I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

  She kissed his hair and wrapped her arms around him. Her heartbeat was a nice, steady rhythm that followed the motion of her hand moving through her hair.

  Yasir’s singing got louder and louder until it was right behind them. He sat down on the other side of Dieter and leant against him. He’d been in town working all week, but he was back for the weekend. The three of them watched the seagulls together. The silence was interrupted only by Yasir’s humming. It didn’t take long for Dieter’s attention to shift from the seagulls to his voice.

  Neither of them ever pressured him to talk. It made the times when he was trapped inside his head easier. Not that being trapped inside his head was ever easy. It was less often now than it had been, but it still happened. And it was awful.