Sorcerer's Creed Books 1-3

by N. P. Martin

  Of course, because you're an arrogant fucker with no respect for anyone.

  "Let me go," I said. "I can explain what's happening here."

  "Oh, I'm sure you can," Ace said. "But to be honest, Creed, I don't really care what you and Olive Oil had planned. I only care about making you pay."

  "Pay? What for? I saved your damn life, remember?"

  Ace snorted. "Yeah, you saved me alright." He applied more force to his chokehold and leaned his head in closer to my face so I could smell his whiskey breath. "But you also took something from me, Creed."

  "I didn't take anything," I said, my voice straining against his hold. "That was the hex."

  "Bullshit!" He spun me around then and slammed me into the side of the van with such force that my hand flew open, and I lost the powder I'd been holding. "You did that on purpose. Don't fucking lie to me."

  "Ace, I--" I shook my head in annoyance, having had enough of being pushed around by Ace and his crew. A blast of magick left me and knocked Ace right back into the wall with enough force to dislodge a lump of plaster.

  Once I did that, Jordan launched into action against the other three men. I was too busy keeping an eye on Ace to see much of what Jordan was doing, but going by the blur of movement and the cries of pain, it seemed like she was kicking those guy's asses. Even Ace seemed astonished as he looked for a second at his mates taking a battering. Then he gave a loud growl and sprang to his feet, his facial features now changed as the wolf in him came out. As he sprang at me, I moved quickly to the side, at the same time conjuring up a thin shard of pure silver that I sent flying towards Ace's leg. The shard pierced his thigh all the way through, and the werewolf howled like a bitch, falling to one side for a moment.

  "Back off, Ace!" I shouted, another silver shard already floating in the air in front of me. "Or the next one goes in your black heart."

  Ace roared, partly out of aggression, partly out of frustration because he knew I wasn't joking. Then gripping the shard of silver in his leg, he ripped it out and roared again, this time in pain. "You're dead, Creed!"

  "No, you'll be dead if you don't back off," I warned him, moving the shard of silver closer to him.

  There was still much scuffling going on at the other side of the van as Jordan continued her fight against the other three werewolves. Then all the activity stopped in the space of a few seconds as if they had all given up. Jordan appeared beside me a second later with blood on her face. Her breathing was heavier than normal, but otherwise, she seemed okay. "Your friends are all down," she said to Ace.

  "Bitch!" Ace spat back.

  "Charming," Jordan said like she was facing some snot-nosed kid who'd given her the finger. "I hope you keep that charm when you're on camera later."

  Ace looked confused for a second, and I took the opportunity to reach into my pocket and grab another handful of the knock out dust. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

  "Don't worry," I said as I took a step towards Ace and blew the dust from my hand into his face. "We'll make sure to film your good side. If you have one, that is." I couldn't help but chuckle and look at Jordan, who actually smiled.

  Ace was coughing and spluttering because of the powder I'd blown in his face, and before he could even ask what is was, his eyes rolled back into their sockets and he keeled over onto the ground. Jordan and I stood looking down at him for a second as if we'd just bagged our prize. "You took out those three on your own," I said to her. "Impressive."

  Jordan shrugged as she wiped the blood from her nose. "They weren't that hard," she said.

  "It was three werewolves."

  She shook her head as if she didn't know what more to say. "Let's get sleeping beauty into the van. We still have a vampire to get."

  14

  Sting Part Two

  We still had a vampire to get. As if it was going to be that easy. As if getting a damn werewolf turned out to be that easy. "Have you had much experience with vampires?" I asked Jordan as we cut across the city toward our next destination.

  She looked at me and frowned for a second as if she thought I was being sarcastic. I wasn't. Okay, maybe just a little. I like to think I'm the only experienced one sometimes. The truth was, I didn't really know what kind of world Jordan existed in, or what world she came from. I had no doubt she had been through the mill like the rest of us, but in what way I had yet to find out. So it was a legitimate question. "I'm no stranger to vampires," she replied, directing her gaze back to the road, the headlights of oncoming cars and the neon signs of Gomorrah illuminating her face, which in combination with the blood streaked across her one cheek, made her look scary like a stone cold crazy psycho bitch from a horror movie.

  I nodded at her answer. "And what does that mean exactly? You've been around them? You know how they operate? How scary powerful they can be?"

  She mashed her lips together as she threw me a glance. "Are you questioning my ability to handle the next part of this mission after I just put down three very large werewolves all by myself? Werewolves that wouldn't have been there if it weren't for your past indiscretions. What did you do to that guy anyway?"

  A smile creased my lips. "It's a long story," I said. "Let's just say I hindered his ability to go balls deep."

  "Why?"

  "Because he deserved it. He hurt too many people. Too many women. So I castrated him." When Jordan raised her eyebrows in shock, I added, "Figuratively speaking. Mostly. I removed his desire ever to have sex again."

  "With magick, I'm guessing."

  "Correct."

  "He seemed like a real asshole anyway."

  I smiled at her, and she gave me a smile back. At least I was getting somewhere with her. She was starting to trust me, if not completely like me. Hopefully, once my loyalty had been established thanks to the mission, her father would trust me too. Then I could make inroads towards getting the Dark Codex.

  Outside the van, the night was full and black but illuminated on all sides by the neon landscape of Gomorrah. Gomorrah was the nickname given to the city's sex district, which consisted of three square miles of real estate dedicated solely to accommodating Blackham's abundance of sex workers and even greater number of consumers. Needless to say, Gomorrah was a favorite haunt of supernatural predators, especially vampires. When someone was killed or went missing in Gomorrah, not too many fucks were given, quite often because the victims were nobodies with no family and no one who would miss them. Low rent hookers were most at risk in this regard because they represented easy pickings for hungry vampires and other predators who fancied a quick meal. I directed Jordan to the east of Gomorrah and the fringe where most of the low-rent streetwalkers could be found selling their ravaged wares, usually just to fund their drink or drug habit.

  Jordan parked the van around the corner from one of the back streets. "What's your plan?" she asked. "I intended to lure a vamp out of one of the clubs like I did with the werewolf in the back there."

  "Too much trouble," I said as I shook my head. "This way will be easier. All you have to do is pose as a prostitute and lure one to you. I'll be waiting to take them out."

  She didn't seem amused by the plan. "You mean you want to use me as bait?"

  I shrugged. "Isn't that what you did with the werewolf? What difference does it make?"

  "None, I suppose." She looked down the street to see two hookers standing at the street corner. Both had on ridiculously short skirts and tight fitting tops that left their scrawny midriffs exposed. "I'm not exactly dressed for the part."

  "I know, which is why this will work. Any vamp that lays eyes on you will think their luck is in, believe me."

  Jordan seemed to flush slightly as she quickly looked away, and I couldn't help but smile at her bashfulness. Obviously, she wasn't used to compliments. Like someone else I know. "I can't believe I'm about to pose as a prostitute." She shook her head. "I suppose it isn't the worst thing I've ever done."

  "What is then?"

  She turned to look at
me. "What's the worst thing you've ever done?"

  "I killed my own father. Does that count?"

  Jordan couldn't keep the shock off her face. She also seemed somewhat disturbed by the notion of someone killing their own father. Who knows, maybe she had considered the same thing herself? With a typically domineering father like Gordon Grayson, I couldn't blame her if she did. "Why?" she asked.

  "He was about to destroy the whole world," I said, a disturbing image of Mr Black popping into my head as I spoke. "I didn't have a choice."

  "Wait, this was recent, right? That's what that portal in the sky was about, with the giant fucking tentacle poking through?"

  I nodded. "Yep."

  "That was your father doing that?" She shook her head. "We kept a close eye on that situation, though we didn't know it was your father doing it."

  "No one did. It was a version of my father really. I called him Mr Black."

  "And how do you feel about...killing him?"

  I snorted. "Ask me again when I've figured that out for myself." Jordan went quiet as she stared at me, clearly disturbed on some level. "What about your father?"

  She shifted in her seat. "What about him?"

  "Do you have a good relationship with him?" I knew what her answer would be before she even said it. My meeting with her father told me all I needed to know about the man. I was too familiar with his type--a borderline sociopathic megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur to put it bluntly--not to recognize it. I also recognized the behavioral signs of someone with a tyrant for a parent. Seemingly obedient and loyal on the outside, but underneath torn and conflicted, and full of self-loathing.

  "I love my father," Jordan said like a good, loyal daughter.

  "You can love someone who is still a complete bastard."

  Her face hardened as instinctive anger flashed in her eyes, which I was offended by. Her anger was not at me, but at the fact that she knew I had a point, which stirred up the self-loathing she had at continuing to remain under her father's thumb. I could have been reaching, but I didn't think so. Given everything, it wasn't hard to work out. "Mind your own business," she snapped.

  "Hey," I said. "It's fine. I understand completely."

  "You talk too much." She took her gun out and popped the clip, checking it before slamming it back in again.

  "Okay, a conversation for another day then."

  "I don't think so." Jordan popped the gun into her bag and opened the van door.

  "I'll be close by," I said. "Don't worry."

  "I won't. Go wherever you want."

  She left the van then, slamming the door behind her. I let out a sigh as I watched her walk away and then turn up a narrow side street. I had pushed one button too many there. The more time I spent with Jordan, the more I felt sorry for her. She seemed to have given over her whole life to serving her father, and was no doubt feeling the pinch of that giant commitment. Already, I wanted to help her, my lack of resistance to a damsel in distress kicking in once again. Jordan was a good person. That much I could tell. She also didn't seem to hold the same conviction for the cause as her father did. She was just following his orders like a loyal daughter. I decided right then that I would do my best to save Jordan when SciCane inevitably fell. The whole thing was Gordon Grayson's doing, and I had no doubt Jordan had suffered enough for his ambitions. Hopefully, things would work out that way, but I knew better than anyone that things often didn't. Look at what happened to Margot Celeste. I thought I would be able to save her as well. And of course Leona, who I saved but who isn't the same person anymore.

  I shook my head, wishing I had my whiskey flask with me (it was still in a bag in Red Ridge Forest somewhere), but as I didn't, I merely took a deep breath to center myself and jumped out of the van. Then I walked to the side street Jordan had turned up earlier. As I peeked around the corner, I saw her standing about halfway up, not far from another lone woman that had on something closer to a belt than a skirt. The hookers around there were so low-rent they didn't even have a pimp, which was good news for us because it meant we wouldn't have to deal with some angry slimeball shouting that we had muscled in on his territory.

  Jordan spotted me looking around the corner, gave me a hard stare and then turned her back to me. Still tetchy, it seemed. I couldn't blame her. It was a natural reaction to someone drawing attention to the fact that you were a part of an abusive relationship. As much as the relationship itself hurt, it hurt more when other people talked about it.

  Across the street, there was a liquor store, the bottles in the window not only giving me a thirst, but also an idea, which was perhaps a mere justification to sate my craving for the hard stuff. But who cares? So I went across the road and bought a fifth of Jack Daniels, and then went and sat fifty yards from where Jordan stood leaning against the wall like a lost high-class escort. I raised the bottle at her as I sat down on the pavement with my back against the wall, and she shook her head at me as if to ask what the hell was I doing. "Ignore me," I said, just loud enough for her to hear. "I'm just a bum."

  She made a face as if to agree with me on that one, then turned her back to me once again. Up the street, the other hooker headed off somewhere with a John.

  Over the course of the next two hours, Jordan was approached by no less than four different men who wanted to pay her for sex. Two of the men walked off when Jordan politely told them to go fuck themselves. The other two men fled when Jordan pulled her gun on them. All four men completely ignored me, so I guess I was doing a good job of pretending to be a bum. Some might say I didn't have to pretend too hard. Those people, although they might have a point, can go fuck themselves.

  The fifth man to come along seemed slightly different to the other four. This man was taller than Jordan at over six feet, and athletically built. He also wore a dark suit as if he was a resident of The Highlands who had wandered too far across town. Except this guy didn't wander anywhere by accident. He was there by design, seeming to almost glide through the darkness with the practiced prowess of an experienced predator. As he glided by me, he approached Jordan almost silently like a Jaguar approaching its prey. Jordan had spotted him of course and obviously knew immediately that the man was a vampire. Even in the darkness with only a single street lamp for light, I saw the momentary look of fear on Jordan's face. She was smart enough to know that vampires were highly dangerous. It wasn't for nothing that they were apex predators and top of the food chain in Blackham and most of the rest of the world.

  "Well, this is a surprise," the vampire said as he walked up to Jordan. "Are you sure you aren't lost? Such a lovely specimen does not belong in a back street such as this." The vampire held out his hand. "Come, why don't you? My limo is parked just around the corner. I can take us somewhere more fitting for a woman of your...class."

  As I slowly got to my feet so the vampire wouldn't notice, I saw Jordan hold out her hand to him. "Let's go then."

  Was she playing along, or had she been glamoured by the vampire? It was hard to tell. It didn't really matter. As long as she kept the vamp's attention so I could blast him with magick first, and then finish him by throwing a handful of Oblivion Powder in his face. There were spells I could have tried that would render the vampire unconscious or incapacitated, but the thing about vampires is that many of them were smart enough to keep themselves warded against magick spells. A long time ago, the vamps realized that being just powerful wasn't enough to thwart a magickal attack from an accomplished sorcerer or witch. So the vamps developed means to protect themselves against such devious attacks, and such knowledge was handed down to every new vampire, including the one standing by Jordan, no doubt. If I tried any spells and they failed, the vamp would be alerted to my intentions, and I would have a fight on my hands. A fight I didn't fancy my chances in with no gun and no knife to even the odds.

  A magick blast however, was a straight physical attack, and one which the vampire couldn't block if he didn't see it coming.

  The attack would have wo
rked if I hadn't have underestimated the vamp. The bastard had obviously sensed me as a threat from the beginning. As soon as I unleashed a large blast of vermillion magick, the vamp sidestepped in a flash and Jordan took the full force of the blast, which lifted her off her feet and sent her flying back into a nearby dumpster with a loud thud. Then she hit the ground and lay there unmoving. "Shit!" I said, preparing another blast as the vampire turned to face me.

  "I'm not sure what this is," he said in a calm voice. "But whatever it is, did you think it would really work?"

  My answer was to send another blast his way, but he was so fast he managed to reach me before the blast even got halfway towards his previous position. In a flash, his hand was around my throat, lifting me clean off my feet, his steel grip crushing my windpipe and the arteries in the side of my neck.

  "Stupid human," the vampire said, his eyes now burning red in their sockets, his fangs fully out as he sneered at me. "You can be my starter tonight before I have the woman for my main course. Then maybe I'll take your ID, find your family, and have them for desert."

  Good luck with that, I thought, or think I thought anyway. My head was so fuzzy I couldn't tell. Then as unconsciousness raced towards me, my left hand twitched slightly, and I remembered I had something in it. I couldn't think what it was, but some instinct was telling me to throw it at the vampire.

  So I did. I took what was in my hand and threw it in the vampire's face. Through slits for eyes, I saw the vamp recoil as a cloud seemed to form around his face. Then mercifully, his grip around my neck loosened for a moment as he coughed and spluttered. Finally, he let me go, and I fell to the ground. Two seconds later, the vamp fell to the ground beside me as I was choking and trying to deal with the massive rush of blood and oxygen going to my head as consciousness fell back into the driver's seat again. "Oh, fuck..." I said as I rubbed at my neck. "Motherfucker."

  The vamp was out cold on the ground. I guess he wasn't expecting me to throw a handful of Oblivion Powder in his face.