Black Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 1)

by Al K. Line

  "As long as he behaves."

  "Go away."

  I went. And I actually got out of there that time.

  A Sigh of Relief

  Outside the room, I took a deep breath of air less tainted by the stench of decay and unholy age, set my eyes back to normal, and did a good job of holding back the sickness even from such minor use of magic. Bret and Bart were there, ready to take me into the city or home—yes, they know where I live. Everyone does.

  Ours is a small world, and we all know too much about each other. In some ways it's like living in a tiny village where there's no privacy and everyone knows your business, but it's what has kept us under the radar. They frogmarched me out the front door, past more scary-ass vampires than is good for anyone's nerves. Taavi's Army of Ghouls, I like to call it, made up of the younger ones that can function in day as well as night.

  His house is guarded so well it's ridiculous. He takes no chances and this was just the bit he let me see.

  Deep underground in crypts would be hundreds, maybe thousands, of very old vampires, sleeping the day away. Some stay down there for years, decades, or longer, lost in their dreams of the past, conserving energy so they can arise for special occasions before sleeping through the centuries once more, catching up now and then and seeing what the future holds before retiring and taking another snapshot.

  It's kind of appealing, being able to see how the future unfolds, like being a time traveler but with a lot of teeth and an unquenchable thirst for blood. And it is unquenchable at their age.

  For regular vampires it's little but a choice, blood or fade away, for the older ones it grows into an addiction that is unbreakable, and then into something more—it becomes all they are. It's why they sleep. When they wake they will feed nearly constantly, probably like Taavi was right now.

  The youngsters—and I say that relatively speaking—just revel in the health and vitality given them by the blood they steal, thriving on the blood magic that courses through their veins.

  But, just like anyone who takes from the Empty, when they drink they are sick to their stomachs. The pain is unimaginable, I was once told. Like every nerve comes alive, screaming for release, and your blood, now tainted, burns so much many new vampires rip through their flesh to ease the fire within.

  But they continue, do it anyway as it's part of the deal. It hurts like having your skin flayed and your exposed flesh soaked in vinegar, but you knock the clock back maybe another few months or years each time you take in that little bit of magic from the poor person laying at your feet, life over.

  The older you get, the more brief the results. It's why the newly turned are so full of life no matter the age they were when infected, and the older ones are grumpy as hell and sleep so much. Just like everyone else, they need a way to escape their lives—the oblivion of sleep. Although I can't imagine what their dreams must be like.

  I admit, I didn't know what to do. I had nothing to go on apart from a scrap of paper and the faint memory of a job I'd taken the day before. Now I had to go see Rikka, pray he didn't just kill me on the spot, and then deal with the mess.

  I'm no Sherlock Holmes, in case you haven't guessed, but I had little choice. Plus, if I'm honest, I was anticipating a little vengeance. I'm not a violent man, but I was seriously looking forward to ripping someone's head off and maybe leaving the country.

  Once we'd weaved our way through the dark corridors and rooms of Taavi's vast home, a vampire never out of sight, we finally made it back to the entrance. To fresh air, and if not sunlight, then at least not gloom.

  Oliver was there, waiting, a smug smirk on his face that made you want to slap him and shake him and shout in his face, "What's wrong with you? Why do you do that?" You know the person I mean? He just has this look about him, this little sneer or smile always on his face that tells the world he's better than everyone else. In other words, the kind of face that needs to be hit. Hard.

  Oliver is extra annoying as he is rather a handsome man—apart from the smackable sneer. For the first few centuries, certainly the first century or so, vampires pretty much remain as they were when first infected by another vampire. So you get all shapes, sizes, and ages.

  This man was a pompous fool when reborn, and remains one to this day. I believe he is at least three hundred years old, although it's not information they often share, but he's kept his looks. A forty-year-old with shoulder length sandy hair, piercing blue eyes, high cheekbones, a straight nose, only let down by a weak chin that I know will break if punched. He's six feet, with an athletic build but weird square shoulders that make him look like a fit clothes hanger. The worst thing of all is that Taavi trusts him, uses him for a lot of business, and Oliver has strong control over the other vampires in Taavi's employ.

  I say employ, but it's more protection than employment, although they certainly get paid, and well. Taavi is Head of the Vampire Council, the only Council where they actually have members, refusing the rest as they see it as beneath them or merely hate that they can't always get their own way. They do send representatives to the Hidden Council when told though. Nobody refuses such an order, not even vampires.

  Taavi needs eyes and ears out in the world to maintain his position, and Oliver is often the man that runs it all. Today was my lucky day as he was strictly mine. What joy.

  "Spark," said Oliver as he nodded and walked with me and the Chinese twins to the car.

  "Oliver." I ignored him then, otherwise I'd say something that would get me into trouble. He smirked. Ugh.

  Back in the car, the fight for a man's right to spread his legs wide, no matter the circumstances, resumed, but we soon arrived back where they'd picked me up and I was dropped off in the city center.

  "How about a lift back to my place?"

  The twins shook their blank heads in unison. Oliver turned around in the passenger seat and smiled at me. How I stopped myself from slapping him is testament to my emotional control. I stepped out into the drizzle. So did the creature known as Oliver.

  I checked my watch—it was only ten in the morning. Man, I had a long day ahead of me.

  Food. I needed food.

  Time for Breakfast

  If you ever happen to find yourself in Cardiff and are hungry, then there is only one place to go. Madge's Cafe. And that was exactly where I was headed. I think better on a full stomach as it dulls the pain and the sickness, and besides, I was ravenous.

  I pulled my suit jacket tight against my shirt, huddled against the cold, and tried not to act like people much worse than the police were after me. Sticking to the alleys, I wound my way through town out to Splott, took turn after turn deep into student accommodation territory, and finally made it to Madge's on the outskirts of a small industrial estate.

  Oliver trailed me the whole way like some kind of needy puppy, but he kept quiet, sullen and clearly unhappy about his orders for the day. I knew him though, knew he was waiting for me to slip up so he could take advantage and watch me unravel. No chance.

  "You're going in there? Seriously?" The handsome coat hanger scowled at the battered sign and the steamed-up windows, the scuffed door and the peeling paint of a place I adored.

  "Yup. You got a problem with that?"

  "You have things to do," he said, almost like an order.

  "And I'm doing them. I need to eat. We don't all live through the destruction of others, some of us just pay for our meals with cash, like normal people."

  He sniffed and sneered. "Normal people," he spat.

  "Yeah, you know, community spirit, keeping the old businesses alive, supporting the locals, all that." He stared at me blankly. "Whatever. Wait here, there's a good boy." Oliver's fists clenched and he bared his canines. I shrugged.

  Opening the door to the cafe was like coming home, except I wouldn't dream of letting my sanctuary get dirty or smelly. The greasy, warm air hit me like a smack across the head with a loaf of moldy bread and I sighed, breathing easier for the first time since I came to my sense
s that morning.

  Aromas of fried bread, bacon, eggs, tea and toast assaulted my nostrils and I probably gained a few pounds just inhaling the air. Aah, it's the small things in life.

  The buzz of the cafe was more welcome than you can imagine, a little normality in a sea of strangeness. I couldn't believe it was still so early, and the cafe was packed.

  As I stepped inside, a number of heads turned, and the room if not fell silent then certainly quietened down. Those that knew me stared open-mouthed, those that didn't, well, they carried on about their business, which mostly consisted of shoveling inexpensive, tasty food into their mouths, asking their eating companion how Madge managed to do it all so cheap, and groaning as their waistlines expanded and kept the city's fixer of snapped zips in brisk and regular business.

  Madge was behind the counter, scowling at customers, wiping surfaces with a cloth probably as old as her, shouting over her shoulder for her poor kids to get a move on and stop messing around. She is a grumpy one and I love her for it.

  Madge is sixty, going on four hundred, and has always looked the same. Thick spectacles, a mass of frizzy gray hair, deep frown lines, and the greasy apron I swear must be glued to her. She's a witch I guess, although she doesn't get involved in magic business or politics.

  She likes to run her cafe, scream at her kids—poor things, they're still under the thumb and not one of the three of them is under two hundred—and practice her highly evolved art of utter contempt for all things sentient on her many customers. She also knows everything that goes on in the Hidden world, and I guess she is a mother figure to many of us—if your mom is a sourpuss and mostly ignores you and you like being insulted. Hey, you take what you can get, right? I know I do.

  I squeezed past the mess of mismatched tables and chairs dotted haphazardly around the cramped room, smiled fondly at the sticky linoleum and the flock wallpaper dripping with the greasy residue of a million fry-ups, and tried to ignore the looks I got. It wasn't easy.

  This was a mixed place, half full of students, factory workers, and truckers getting a cheap breakfast, half full of people from my world, and most weren't pleased to see me. Even less pleased than usual, as in my line of work some shrink at the sight of me as it means Rikka sent me and knows what they did.

  Nodding at familiar faces, I got a few scowls in return, and decided to blank the lot of them.

  I needed food, then I had work to do. I tried not to think about my impending visit with Mage Rikka—another Finnish dude. For some reason they have a monopoly on all things magic related.

  The rumors go that Finland is where it all somehow started many thousands of years ago. Someone uncovered a way to unleash the Empty, and peel back the layers of the Hidden world, and things sort of spiraled from there. You know, the usual—unleashing the demons from hell scenario and magic pours forth into the world, and some dude managed to deal with them and then there you have it, magic is a thing. You can know it, own it. Become it.

  Go to any country and those at the top of the food chain will be either direct descendants of ancient Finnish warriors or more usually hard-nosed aristocracy, or at least have some of that blood coursing through their veins.

  Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was the seat of ancient powers that welled up there for some reason. I don't know, and at that moment I didn't care. I just wanted a cuppa and a big fry-up.

  I watched some of the wizards, the half-dead, or the who-knows-if-they're-dead scroll through their tablets and phones, amazed I was still alive. None of them would look at me now I was close. There was no point hiding, it would only cause more trouble, so I may as well fill my belly before I continued with what would be a very long day. One I would hopefully stay alive to see the end of.

  "Morning, Madge. Usual please, love. You're looking particularly radiant this fine morning."

  "Your hair looks stupid," said Madge as she slammed a cup on the counter and splashed tea in from a metal teapot.

  "You look divine." I winked, spooned two sugars in, then added a splash of milk. "Bring it over?"

  "Don't I always?" Madge shouted orders to her kids and I took a seat at an empty chair. The two students already sat at the table continued their conversation, ignoring me. Perfect.

  I was done for, shattered already and the day had just begun. I dared not close my eyes for fear of falling asleep, but I tried to piece together the night before and what had led me to do what I did. What a mess.

  I had all of thirty seconds before I got a tap on the shoulder. I say tap, it was more like somebody dropping half a house onto a deltoid.

  Here we go, I thought, knowing it wouldn't be someone wanting to say hello and wish me a pleasant day. I turned.

  "You make mess. You make it bad. Your job stop this happening. You do opposite. Tree not like trouble. Tree want quiet life."

  This was all I needed. I craned my neck and looked up, and up, and up, into the deeply furrowed face of Tree. It didn't look happy, not that it ever did. Mind you, the mini-mountain never looked sad or gave signs of any other emotion really. It didn't have the most expressive of features.

  Tree is what you would call a troll. Actually, it is a troll, no doubt about it. You'd be surprised how many of them there are. You'd be surprised how many of everything there are. You know that thing I did earlier, the whole blending into the background so you don't notice me? Well, certain species have that kind of built in, like it comes with the package—lucky them.

  As it's part of who they are, they don't have the sickness as part of their daily lives. Yes, they are using magic, but it's innate for certain things, like being able to blend in and stop Regulars seeing you as you really are. Their magic is what makes them, it's their essence, so no sickness. It's only humans that have to deal with that side of the equation.

  Trolls, as you may have guessed, are not the most imaginative of fellows. You can't blame them for that though, they are made of rock after all, and the whole moving about at speeds faster than a glacier and talking thing is a very recent advancement.

  These are ancient beings, like seriously old. There at the beginning of the world after everything settled down and rock was solid and mountains were real. They lived up high where the air is clear and oxygen levels are low, and they were alive but not alive. They hibernated, I guess you could call it.

  Trolls never thought much of anything, just went about their troll business. Very slowly. But now and then one would turn up on lower levels, and the increased oxygen to their crystal brains sort of woke them up, to a very limited degree. They gave themselves names, like Rock, or Tree, or Boulder—the usual trollish stuff—and some found themselves managing to survive, sometimes even thrive, in the world of man and once-man.

  So they had to adapt, and credit where credit's due, they did. Suffice to say, that you can't walk down the street looking like a seven, sometimes even nine foot troll, with a head made of rocks and a body like a mountain in an ill-fitting tracksuit and not draw attention to yourself.

  But that's not what people see. When they look at Tree they see a big guy, overweight, in serious need of a fashion makeover, but just a regular bloke. Just as well, because if you were seeing what I was seeing you would be in no mood to eat your breakfast.

  Let me give you a warning. If you see someone that just looks big, tall, or maybe with a rather square head and minimal facial expression then be nice to them. It hurts when they hit you. And if you see someone really tall, but slim like a basketball player, then be extra nice—they aren't trolls, and I'm not about to tell you what they are, but they make trolls seem real softies. It's why I don't watch the game. Too many bad memories.

  "Leave me alone, Tree, I've had a bad morning." I slurped my tea, so thick you kind of half ate it, and pretended like the tablecloth was of interest.

  My shoulder felt like it had turned to runny eggs, and not in a good way. "What you gonna do, eh?"

  Man, I knew it was serious. This was the most I'd ever heard Tree say in... Well, e
ver! "I'll sort it. I just need to eat, to think. Don't worry." I kept my eyes down. Tree was easy to take offense if it saw the slightest hint of a smile, and I'm an optimistic kind of guy.

  "Tree is worried. Tree not want trouble."

  "I know, buddy, and I'm sorry, okay?" I lifted my gaze from the table and addressed the rest of the people in the room as many were now staring at me, waiting to see what happened. "Look, everyone, something happened to me, somebody did something to me, and I woke up and, well, you know the rest. But I'll deal with it. Have I ever let you down?"

  There were murmurs of approval, and disapproval, but the fact was they all knew me, and knew I was very good at my job. I keep them safe; I keep them hidden. Nobody wants a war; nobody wants to be labeled a freak and hunted, and that was what would happen if Regulars knew about us. We just want to be left alone to beat the crap out of each other in private. You know, magic style.

  The students were confused, the magic folk were in two minds about killing me or letting me be, and I was starving.

  "Here you go, Spark, and sort that hair out." Madge plonked the plate down on the table, threw cutlery at me like she wanted to do me serious harm, handed me a bottle of ketchup that was so congealed at the lid I was sure it smiled at me, and retreated behind the counter.

  "Thanks, Madge." I admired the plate of food. Two sausage, three bacon, three eggs, beans, hash brown, toast, black pudding. Bliss. I picked up the knife and fork, rolled my shoulder now it was minus one troll, and tucked in.

  I didn't even get to dip my toast in runny egg.

  "Spark, I'm gonna kill you."

  Uh-oh.

  No Eggs for Me

  Toast poised mid-air over that golden goodness, I tried not to gulp and pushed my chair back. I stood, crunchy brown slice still in hand.

  "What do you want, Dancer?" I asked, and no, he doesn't like to boogie. His skill involves much more co-ordination and subtlety, primarily bringing the dead back to life. A necromancer. He is also a mean bugger and has no friends. Dancer also works for my boss, on a much more regular basis than me.