Blood Hunt
(Book Three of the Secret Magent series)
by F. A. Bentley
Kindle Edition / Copyright October 2017 F. A. Bentley
Cover Art by Cormar Covers
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This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents occurring herein are solely the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales are entirely coincidental.
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Working hard means playing hard for sorcerous secret agent Charles Locke. However, his quiet vacation in Cancun is ruined when Nine Towers drops a dangerous top secret mission in his lap. Forced to content with rival mages and sinister cultists, Charles must harness allies and a dubious she-devil’s aid, or face a fate worse than death.
This is the third volume in the Secret Magent series; a novel.
Contents
Blood Hunt
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
About the Author
Chapter 1
I knew she was trouble the second I caught sight of her two piece micro bikini. Her fit body, done up hair, and graceful strides weren’t enough to hide the fact that she was a sorceress. She practically radiated magical power.
Lament was the first thing that hit me. A whole wave of it. I was on a well deserved vacation in Cancun that I’d been planning for months. The very last thing I wanted to come between me and a fortnight of wine, women and relaxation was work.
But that didn’t stop work from coming along looking enticing.
She didn’t even try to be subtle about it. The woman simply sat down on the pool chair next to mine, interrupted my conversation with the blonde woman that seemed terribly interested in going out to a club with me later on, and cleared her throat noisily.
“Mr. Locke, I presume,” she said.
“Um, excuse me?” demanded the blonde.
“You’re excused,” the black bikini said.
I groaned. As thrilling as watching a cat fight pan out in real time might be, business was business. “I’ll call you later, Cindy. This is work.”
Cindy the blonde bombshell went red with rage, stomped a sandal onto the poolside, and beat a hasty retreat towards the beach.
“Mr. Lo--”
“Miss micro bikini,” I said, cutting her off sharply. “Nine Towers had better be on fire with Demons banging on the front door, Dagonians tapping on the windows, and the goddamn IRS bursting through the back, because otherwise? I’m going to tell you what I told the ones holding my leash. I’m. On. Vacation.”
To her credit, she didn’t panic at my stern warning. She simply extended her hand out to me and said, “Desdemona. It is a pleasure to finally meet you.”
I sighed, and shook her hand. “Let me take a wild guess then.”
“A guess?” she asked.
“You’re with the Divination division from Nine Towers. One of the Oracle’s minions to be precise. You were sent here because the big wigs wanted to try to convince me to take another mission by using the velvet glove before they resort to the iron fist. And what better way to velvet glove me, a well renowned appreciator of the fairer sex, than to send a scantily clad young woman to entice me, one way or another, to do what they want me to do.”
Desdemona looked mildly impressed. “Not just a square jaw and a pointed chin, are you, Mr. Locke?”
“Less compliments, I’m immune to that venom. You can take your sunglasses off by the way.”
She did. Desdemona was with the Oracle alright. Blind as a bat from all the divination magic she’d done. Not that it stopped her from looking ridiculously tantalizing. I heard tell that they could still see the world with their other sight.
“Why don’t we go somewhere more comfortable to talk, Mr. Locke.”
“Not in the mood for a seduction scene. If the Towers want something, just give it to me straight without the honey and vice.”
“Am I not your body type?” she asked.
“You’re not my personality type. That factors in to the equation too.”
“Is that why you spend so much time with that Devil?”
I stopped at her words. The faintest whisper of a grin widened on the oracle’s lips. Not many people knew that I was on a first name basis with a capital A Adversary. This wasn’t some middle manager wanting to speak to me, then.
“Tell me what they want,” I replied, coldly.
“They’d rather tell you themselves,” she replied.
“Perfect. This way maybe I can do some of the shouting too. Follow.”
I led her away from the poolside and into the towering resort. We hopped into the elevator, and before long a satisfying ding echoed through the lift. Top floor. I jammed the keys into the lock, and opened the door to my ‘humble’ penthouse apartment.
Lavish was a good word for it. Spacious and luxurious were close runners up. An immense, king sized bed with sheets in disarray occupied the middle of the bedroom, and the rest of the apartment was focused around a breathtaking balcony. Deep blue sea as far as the eye could see spread out beyond.
Lis, the Devil Desdemona was talking about earlier, was thankfully nowhere to be found. That meant that I got to save up on rushed explanations regarding such things as why I was on a pleasant tropical vacation with a girl trying to suck out my soul in a sense different than what you might normally expect.
“We’ll need the bed for this,” Desdemona said, tugging me by the hand towards the king sized bed.
I perked an eyebrow at this. “That set on the sex? For all you know I could be hideously disfigured.”
Desdemona laughed reservedly at that. “Charles Locke, I don’t need Mundane sight to see those sharp green eyes of yours looking up and down my body. Or your well honed physique’s subtle little hints. However, this is part of the ritual. I promise.”
“Ritual?” I asked.
“On the bed. Close your eyes and count to one
hundred.”
“I’m not into bondage,” I warned her, but did as she said.
Desdemona, still nearly nude, retrieved a piece of chalk that had been held up by the tautness of her bikini bottom. She first drew three circles, each larger than the last, then an undulating runic diagram in the smallest circle, before moving to the middle one and finally the largest.
I’d heard of these before. A modern take on magic that had been conceived by Native American shamans thousands of years ago. Heavily modified to account for the vast distances involved. Desdemona was about to send me on a spirit journey.
Literally.
Kneeling down at the side of the circle, the Oracle’s whispering chants made me feel drowsier and drowsier with each passing second. In the end, all it took to complete the ritual was for me to blink just once.
When I opened my eyes, I found myself sprawled on cold stone blocks. The stench of centuries old magic assaulted my nostrils. When I looked to my hands and body, I saw that I had the appearance of a particularly thick ghost. My consciousness had been sent careening half the world away in the blink of an eye, leaving my body behind in Cancun.
God forbid we use a video chat.
When I looked up from the stone floor, I found three pairs of eyes staring down at me. “Yes. That’s him,” spoke a familiar voice. “Stand to your feet, demon monger, we don’t have all day.”
Of course he’d be here, ready to greet me with arms wide open.
“Cazador,” I said.
Chapter 2
“When it rains, it pours,” I muttered, my voice little more than a ghostly echo.
“Insolence will not be tolerated in such a formal lo--” Cazador almost finished retorting, before a wrinkled hand rose up to cut him off.
“Please spare us the infighting. I hate formalities more than him. Trust me,” spoke a man a full foot shorter than me.
He had modest gray stubble on his chin, a gnarled staff leaning against the mahogany desk he sat at, and his eyes looked to be those of a man whose day was in tatters but still wanted to make the most of it. Sitting next to him was a scowling man whose face was ninety percent beard decorated with a stubby hooked nose. He was definitely the more unhappy of the two.
The big bosses. You could tell by the uniforms. That and the fact that there was two of them. They never let Nine Towers go without at least two of those nine Towers on hand to damage control.
“Do you know who I am, Charles Locke, Warlock First Class? Who we are, rather?” the old man asked, rubbing his stubble thoughtfully.
Ornate black robes? Stark blue cowl? Sandals poking out from beneath the robes in direct contrast with the otherwise daunting ensemble of a master magician? There was only one member on the council that cared so little for pomp and circumstance.
“Archmagister Gilbert Gelwer,” I said. “Or would you prefer to be addressed by your title, Lord Summoner?”
Gilbert snapped his fingers, and from a puff of smoke a single star shaped sticker that belonged on the desk of a third grade teacher manifested from thin air.
“Very good. It sounds like you know what I’m about, Warlock Locke,” he began, attaching the sticker to what looked to be my file sitting on the dark wood desk. “The gentleman next to me is Nikita Gogol, the Lord Illusionist, and it seems you’ve already met Cazador. Brilliant. Let’s skip the rest of the pleasantries so you can get to work and I can get back to my research.”
Another snap of his fingers summoned a chalk board. I wondered how he could possibly enact such complex summoning rituals without the necessary diagrams and arcane symbols when I caught sight of the back of his hand. Thick tattooed runes crawled up his arms and into the folds of his robes. Nice tats.
“What do you know of Mesoamerican Supernatural history?” Nikita Gogol asked, rubbing his eyes.
I shook my head. “Next to nothing.”
“Well, what about this name then?” Gelwer piped up, conjuring up a pink and purple swirly chalk.
Rushed scribbles upon the board came together to form a strange word. Nagual. It sounded familiar somehow.
“I remember seeing it somewhere, but I can’t place it,” I replied.
Cazador scoffed at my response.
“The Nagual was something of a thorn in Nine Towers side back when I was just an apprentice. Ignatio Nahua was his name. Famous back then. Genius at body magics. He could internalize magic like no other. Saved a lot of lives in the Mesoamerican region. Unfortunately, that fame turned to infamy when it was discovered that he was causing the catastrophes that he’d then ‘save’ people from. He became a boogeyman for it. A mythological creature. Half shaman, half monster,” the Lord Summoner said.
“Messiah complex gone terribly wrong, I take it. And you want me to kill him then?” I asked.
Gilbert snapped his fingers and a second later, an immense boulder that he’d summoned up fell from on high and smashed the chalkboard into smithereens. “Exactly.”
“Why wait half a century to sic the dogs on him?” I asked.
“Because,” the bearded illusionist replied instead, “Nine Towers already killed him once.”
I let out a low, ghostly whistle. “I can see why you wanted to keep this hushed then. It’s pretty impressive when a non-necromancer pulls resurrection off,” I replied.
They both nodded gravely.
“Nine Towers does not need a scandal about enemies rising from the dead and making us look bad. The political climate is already feral. The nobles are getting jumpy, the deal with Australia looks to be falling through, the Russian Coalition wants to withdraw,” Gilbert paused, glaring at the Lord Illusionist out of the corner of his eye, “And if those bastards in the Caribbean get it in their heads to ‘annex’ one of Nine Towers’ protectorates in Brazil, I promise you there will be war.”
“The Russian Coalition would be better suited as allied but nevertheless separated from Nine Towers,” Gogol muttered offhandedly.
The Lord Summoner pointed a gnarled finger at the bearded man accusingly. “Don’t drag this out of the meetings.” he said before turning back to me. “Due to shortages, Cazador has been reassigned to HQ and will oversee your mission from here. He will be your guide and your ear on the inside.”
I glared at the man in question with almost the same intensity and hate that he shot my way. “Working under Cazador? You’re too kind, Lord Summoner,” I said.
Sarcastically of course.
To say that there was a bit of bad blood between me and that fire tosser would be a grievous abuse of euphemisms. Cazador had always been an oddball among warlocks. He wasn’t some hedge mage scrub like the rest of us but actually came from what passed for ‘noble blood’ among the big names in wizardry. Not that he ever spilled the beans as to which family he spawned from.
He was so eager to help build up Nine Towers in a hands on capacity that he revoked his own noble status to come kill renegades and Supernatural trouble makers with the rest of us peasants. Must be the inquisitor blood in him. Supposedly his ancestors spearheaded the Reconquista in Spain.
We’d probably get along great if he wasn’t such a massive asshole.
“It gets better,” Gilbert added.
Another snap of his fingers summoned up an immense ogre holding a sprawling map open between his hands.
“The Nagual’s resurfacing coincides with an announcement by an archaeological team from Mexico regarding evidence leading to the possible location of Xibalba.”
I perked an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Nikita Gogol added. “That Xibalba. The so called ‘Atlantis’ of the Supernatural world. A million and one myths surround the place. Even has all the earmarks of a Supernatural realm of it’s very own, but no matter how hard Supernatural and mage alike would search, no evidence has ever been found to suggest it was more than fiction. Until now. Leave it to the Mundanes to actually find directions to the mythical lost realm when we could not.”
I shook my head. “Then this means--”
“Correct, Warlock Locke,” Gilbert said, itching his stubble. “The mission is to eliminate the Nagual before he taps into whatever magical power lies buried within Xibalba. Your contact is named Narani. Should be able to track her from where you’re staying. If not just ask around. Best of luck, Locke. Dismissed.”
Another snap of the Lord Summoner’s fingers and I found myself on familiar bed sheets. Just like I’d just woken up from a bad dream. Isn’t most work like a bad dream though?
I got up off the mattress to find the penthouse empty. Desdemona must have let herself out. For the best, I think. There wasn’t much time to play around now that the clock was ticking.
Anxiousness gnawed at me. A ticking clock wasn’t the only red flag I inferred from that little meeting of the minds. No arch mage would ever willingly take the time to brief a warlock like me. The fact that Gilbert and Nikita not only spoke to me personally but went to great lengths to pull me out of my vacation?
Something big was in motion. World changing. As I poured myself a shot of high class rum to get me started, I noticed a note on the fridge.
My Querido Charlie,
I’m at the Dia de (los) Muertos festival downtown. Come for the candy skulls, stay for the plenty of leads for what I think Nine Towers maybe possibly wanted to talk to you about. I’ll try to keep a low profile til you show up.
Blood Hunt (Secret Magent Book 3) Page 1