The Prince of Darkness (The Freelancers Book 3)

by Lee Isserow

  Jules nodded. Took a deep breath. And tried with all his might to quash the anger that bubbled away inside. For the moment, he would keep it there. . .

  “You girls ready to leave this hallway or what?” Ana scoffed.

  The two of them turned. Whilst they had been muttering to each other, she had lassoed the door with a magickal whip of her own creation, and dragged herself along the floorboards towards it, which broke the infinite corridor ward that had cursed them since they entered.

  She turned the handle and the door swung open, to reveal a living room, although it was 'living' in name only. . .

  Everything from the furniture to the carpet was covered in a thick layer of dust, inches of the stuff. It was so thick to the point that they left footprints with every step they took, as if it were grisly, grey snow. The couches were threadbare, bundles of newspapers piled high up from the floors to the ceilings. Cobwebs arched across the stacks, that Ana dare not linger on, for fear of finding yet more neighbourhood pets entombed within.

  There was a coffee table between the couches, on which were a number of bowls and mugs, saucers and saucepans, all of which had a dark brown crusting goop that lined the insides. Rafe led the way to a door on the left-hand side, and they found themselves in a corridor that looked almost identical to the one they had just left. The three of them walked along to the door at the far end and found themselves in another living room that looked just like the one they had been in only moments previous, but all the furniture and stacks of newspapers had been rotated clockwise by ninety degrees. And there were no footprints in the thick dust on the carpet.

  “Are we trapped in a loop?” Ana grumbled.

  Rafe walked through the door at the far end of the room, and discovered that it lead to an identical corridor again. He turned and tried the door to his right, it too led back to the same corridor.

  “You just had to say it, didn't you. . .” he muttered.

  “Really? Is it my fault your friend is an arsehole who likes to trap people in dusty mazes?”

  Rafe looked around the room, something was different from the last time he had been there. He crossed between the couches, walked towards the stacks of newspapers and peeked between them.

  “Little help?” he said, with a glance over to Jules, who walked over to see what he was indicating too. There was a door hidden behind the newspapers, but they were packed so high and so thick, none of the pillars would topple.

  Jules raised his hands and took control of the shadows between each layer of newspaper. He closed his fists, pulled them apart, and the stacks scraped across the carpet and ceilings, parted ways like a red sea of dead trees, to reveal a door that was not like the others they had seen thusfar. It was neither cracked nor broken, as if the paint had not been impacted by the degradation that cursed the rest of the house.

  Rafe pushed the door open to reveal a kitchen with all the mod cons. A large black refrigerator, microwave and kettle, coffee machine and four slice toaster, oven and washing machine. They all looked new, spotless, and yet they were surrounded by more death than Ana had seen in one place in all her life.

  Carcasses of animals were strewn on the counter top, furs and pelts dried on the dish rack, bowls and dishes filled with various organs and entrails lay next to pint glasses and measuring cups filled to the brim with blood that looked as though it was congealing―perhaps intentionally. And the sink was full of cooking utensils, saucepans and frying pans, the jug from a blender and parts of a juicer, all thick with dried viscera.

  The air was thick with the stench of rot, an air extractor hummed away impotently above the stove, doing its very best to dispel the acrid aroma, and was failing spectacularly at its sole task.

  Rafe continued onwards to the door on the other side of the kitchen. He did his best to ignore the mephitic reek that penetrated through his nasal cavity, and punched at his frontal lobes with every inhalation. His face slammed into something solid, the door way ahead rippled, light swum on the air.

  He rolled his eyes and shouted “Carrogan! It's me, no need for this bullsh―” he jumped backwards as a spear of light came towards him from the barrier, and tripped as he did so.

  Further spikes came for him, and he fell to the ground, taking Jules and Ana with him as the lances of light shot down from the ceilings and across from walls.

  “Carrogan!!” Rafe shouted, as the three of them landed on the floor in a pile. The razor-tipped edges of the lights came ever closer, grazed their skin, as the house's defences prepared to skewer them like a damn shish kebab. “Carrogan bloody Squeef, you come out of the bastard shadows right damn now!”

  From beyond the undulating light, small, round eyes squinted at them with curiosity on his brow, that turned into recognition

  “Clarke? Rafe Clarke? Is that you?!”

  Ana couldn't make out the accent, it sounded like it might have been Texan, but felt too cartoonish to be real, as if the little squinting old man had been genetically engineered from Yosemite Sam offcuts.

  “Hey Carrogan. . .” Rafe stuttered, aware that there was a spike directly under his throat, and any sudden move might provoke it to give him a piecing he wasn't in the mood for. “Could you give us a hand here?”

  “Serves y'right for breakin' in! A house don't like t'be broken into! Certainly not all unexpected-like! A skewerin's the least of what you deserve. . .”

  Chapter 31

  An old wound

  It took twenty minutes of explanation, with spears of distorted light that continued to graze Rafe's throat at every word, for Carrogan to decide not to stab them all to death for entering his home without permission.

  “S'nice to make your acquaintance, missy,” he said, as he shot a hand out to Ana.

  She glanced down at it, the palm caked with what looked like dried blood. In a quick glance over to Rafe, she glared with the implication that she was going to take revenge somewhere down the line for touching the disgusting man, and shook the hand with a huff.

  His tiny squinting eyes glimmered as their skin met, a smile crawled up his cheeks, and his lips parted ever so slightly to reveal the gum below like an old wound that had reopened. She tried to hide how repulsive she found him, and yet couldn't stop herself from grimacing at the pleasure he gained from their handshake.

  “Got a good grip there, for a girl.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Say 'for a girl' again, and see what happens. . .” she snarled, as she took her hand back and wiped the remnants of decaying viscera on a Rafe's coat.

  “Like a girl with some fight in her!” the old man chuckled, entirely unaware that his continued misogynistic talk was only encouraging her to come up with a plethora of creative ways to make him suffer as soon they had what they needed from him.

  He would suffer, and then she decided she would make Rafe suffer. After all, it was him that put her in the position to be belittled by a crazy old man.

  Jules stood behind Ana and Rafe, and tried not to get annoyed at the observation that the old man hadn't made any effort to introduce himself, and almost seemed as though he were intentionally avoiding eye contact.

  “Now y'all got what I need for this here casting?”

  Rafe looked over to the kitchen, to the blood that sat in the various glasses.

  “Don't you have enough blood around here?”

  “S'all used up, ain't no good for our purposes. Need fresh blood, y'should know that well enough, boy. Been through this kinda think before, ain't we.”

  Rafe decided it was best not to answer, in case it led to elucidation on Carrogan's part.

  “Blood ain't all I need. Y'all got any intestines spare?” His beady little eyes navigated Ana's body, and she crossed her arms, as if to hide her intestines from his prying gaze. “Gonna need intestines then too. . .” he muttered, reached around in his pockets and pulled out a pen, then a pad, and began to make a list. “Y'all know the apothecary, right?”

  None of them dared say a word in the affirmative.


  “S'over in London, ask around and you'll be pointed in the right direction. They'll have alkahest, and I'll need panchrest too. . .”

  He scribbled the words on to the notepad in letters that seemed almost indecipherable, as if ink-covered spiders had attempted to mate on the page.

  “Then I'm gonna need y'all to take a trip to the British Museum for me.”

  “Do I want to know why?”

  Carrogan shot him a wide smile, his tiny eyes crinkled even smaller, yet somehow glinting all the more.

  Rafe wished he hadn't asked the question. In fact, he wished he hadn't got out of bed, let alone agreed to do Slugtrough's favour in the first damn place. . . but it was too late now. He was not only involved, but invested. And Ana was too.

  Before the day was out, they would have crossed more lines than either of them would have thought possible, and would be so far out of their depth that they might well drown amidst the ensuing fallout.

  Chapter 32

  The truth

  Carrogan opened a door for Rafe to head out to get the first items on the list, whilst Ana stayed behind with Jules. He was a wanted man, there would be eyes everywhere looking out for him, so he couldn't risk going on a ridiculous shopping expedition.

  As much as Ana wanted to accompany Rafe, there was a nasty feeling in her gut that kept her by Jules's side. Something about the way Carrogan looked at him, out of the corner of his eye. She wasn't sure if it was simply a magickian thing, sizing up the man, and the magick in his blood―or if it was something more nefarious and race-related. She had never seen any racial bias from magickians, the closest was how some of them considered mundanes' lives to be worth less than their own. . . but she figured there had to be some racist magickians, and the way Carrogan refused to look Jules in the eye, let alone shake his hand, left an awkward atmosphere in the air.

  And yet, the old man was friends with Rafe, who was at least half indigenous Australian. Maybe it was an American thing, she wondered. Perhaps there was less tension with Rafe being from another country, and living in England, whilst Jules was obviously African American. . . She growled to herself, at none of it making any sense, whether it be Carrogan's treatment of Jules, or racism in general.

  It had never made much sense to her, the idea of harbouring hate towards someone for just their skin tone, let alone their religion, or sexuality, or gender, and so on. . . there were certainly better reasons to hate people, she figured, and started making a list.

  People that walk slowly, and people that stop right in front of you whilst you're walking. Obnoxious people on buses and trains that play music on their phones. People that post “What a terrible day!” on Facebook, and just wait for the sympathy to roll in.

  “What are you thinking about?” Jules asked.

  Ana decided it was better not to try and explain the thought process, as it had gone a little bit off the rails, and was certainly nothing close to relevant in regards to their current situation.

  “Nothing,” she said with a shrug.

  He chewed his lip, and his gaze swept the floor. “You could have gone with him, you know. I don't need a babysitter.“

  Ana glanced over to Carrogan, who turned sharply as if aware that he was being watched.

  She locked eyes with Jules, tried to ignore the prying stare of the old man, which she could practically feel sliming its way up her body. “You shouldn't be alone, not now.”

  The smallest of smiles came to his lips. “Thank you.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “And I'm sorry, for getting you guys involved in all this.”

  She scoffed. “Does it look like I've got anything better to do? If we weren't running around committing crimes with you for an unknown evil entity with a mysterious agenda, we'd probably be getting ourselves in some other kind of trouble. . . rescuing a cat stuck up in a tree and discovering that it's the leader of an invading army of feline warriors, or putting a stop to an evil entity that lives on the Internet, siphoning the sexual pleasures from compulsive masturbators who specifically only get off on watching young women tickle each another, or helping a restaurant put down a demon rat that had possessed the chef to pee into every dish he served, or deal with one of any number of haunted paintings. . . You have no idea how many haunted paintings there are. . .”

  Jules stared at her, eyes wide, with an incredulous expression. “Those all came to you far too quickly to be made up. . .”

  She rolled her eyes, let out a little chuckle and nodded. “There are seriously way too many haunted paintings. . .”

  He smiled wider. And Ana wondered if it was the first time she had actually seen him genuinely at ease, if only for a moment. Not that the moment lasted long, as the smile faded swiftly.

  “I. . . know what it's like,” she stuttered. “To be forced to kill someone. . . To be, you know, turned into something that you're not.”

  Jules didn't know what to say. There were no words that could sum up the wealth of emotions that came with the memory of the murder he had been forced to carry out all those months ago on the banks of the Thames. . . It was so brutal, inhuman, and as Ana had said, it felt like a world away from who he believed he was. But it seemed like this line of conversation was less about him and his experiences, and more about her having something she needed to get off her chest.

  “I. . . killed a man.” She couldn't make her eyes meet his. The shame was painted across her face. The regret, the self-hate at it all. “When I first met Rafe. He doesn't know.” She added that quickly, as the fear washed over here, that Jules might mention it in front of her partner. “It was. . . It was just like you, with the guy and the shadows. . . I tore him to shreds. . . didn't even mean to do it, not properly. . . something came over me, something that wasn't me. . . as if it was the magick in my blood taking over.”

  “Like the realm you're a part of was acting through you. . . protecting you. . . using you as its avatar in the Natural World.”

  She nodded. There were no further words that could explain it. But it was not the only thing Ana wanted to talk about, now she had him alone. “There's something. . .” She stopped herself, unsure how to phrase the question that had been burning away. “I mean, well, I've been meaning to ask. . .” It didn't feel right to ask, and it certainly wasn't the kind of question she thought she'd ever have to ask, even in better times. She let out a huff and tried again. “You and your husband. . . How did you end up, y'know. . .”

  His eyes began to get glassy. She didn't need to explain herself any further, he knew what question was coming.

  It was a question he never liked to answer, as it always required a lie.

  But that sense of familiarity around her pervaded, and for the first time since Natan's birth, since he told his grandmother, Jules realised he could actually tell the truth.

  Chapter 33

  Blink of an eye

  “I was always terrified at the idea of raising a child, you know? With how the world is with―how the world has always been, I guess―but specifically with how the world is these days. Just thinking of a kid growing up the way things are. . . Then magnifying that tenfold, because he has two dads. . . Another magnification again because one of those dads is black and the other is a lapsed Muslim. . . But with Akif, as soon as he even broached the subject, all that fear evaporated in an instant. Well, close to an instant. . .

  “That's what love can do, it can change who you are with a blink of an eye. You don't even notice it when it's happening, just kinda look back weeks, months, or years later, and realise just how much you've changed as a person. Changed for the better because of the person you're with.

  “That's what it was like with Akif. I wasn't even looking for a relationship at the time, we just kind of fell into it, a fling that was suddenly a bona fide grown-up partnership. It wasn't just me living my life any more, it was us living our life, together. Marrying him was the best thing I ever did. . . Second best, maybe. In comparison to agreeing to raise a child together.

  “He m
entioned it in passing, at first. Just wanted to test the waters. He must have seen the fear in my eye, because he burst into laughter. Harder and for longer than I'd ever seen him laugh before. It must have been written all over my face, how it took me by surprise, and how much anxiety I had at the idea.

  “It didn't take long for him to quell my fear. He held me as we talked, curled up on the couch, I think Eraserhead was playing on the TV. . . Really don't like to think how that got him thinking about having a baby. . . He barely had to say a few words and I was convinced. Not that I let it show, didn't want him to think I was that much of a pushover.

  “We spent months talking about it, coming up with a plan. Before we even had the chance to ask one of our friends back in New York to be the surrogate, she volunteered, begged to be our vicarious womb. It was so simple, so weirdly quick and easy to go through the whole process, a few months and the IVF did its thing. . . And we spent the next six months coming up with names―so many names―you literally have no idea how many names we came up with. . . we could have published our own baby name book.

  “And then we got the call.

  “It wasn't her, she couldn't put the words together, she couldn't tell us. . . Her partner had to be the one to call. . .

  “To tell us she lost the baby. . .

  “. . .

  “I didn't know what to say.

  “What can you say?