Magic Revenge: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Spirit War Chronicles Book 2)

by Stephen Allan

  Well that’s a shame, because I’m gonna kill him first.

  “However, you haven’t perfected it yet, and you’ve only mastered the basic teleportation spell. It’s also a lot easier to do it when you are alone. I noticed when you finished teleporting that your knees gave out, that you staggered some. Here, that’s progress. When you’re fighting a demon, though, that’s an opening for them to do some serious damage to you.”

  He pointed to a spot about three-quarters of the way down the side.

  “I want you to teleport there,” he said. “But then, as quickly as you can, teleport back to the place we first came from. Don’t worry if you struggle, just do it.”

  Though feeling a little tired, my eyes heavy and my body craving rest, I did as commanded. I shut out the exhaustion, the pain, the anger at Mundus, and concentrated on nothing but teleporting. I felt the same sensation as before, but anticipating the bend, I compensated for it and remained on my legs. Then, as soon as I felt my weight return, I briefly opened my eyes, located the spot, and teleported there too.

  The exhaustion was such that I staggered to the wall, leaned against it and slid down to my butt. Carsis appeared, reaching into his jeans pocket, and handed me what looked like a protein bar.

  “It’ll get your energy back,” he said. “That was good, pleasantly surprising, though you still need to raise your magic endurance.”

  “The what?”

  “Magic endurance. It’s like physical endurance. A man can only run for so long before he needs to recover, whether that’s by catching his breath or eating food. Same thing with magic. You can use magic for only so long before you need rest or food.”

  “So just eating—”

  “Yes, it’s the same thing. Magic may be magic, but it still requires physical exertion on your part.”

  I feel like I’m in one of those Snickers commercials.

  “And, like physical exercise, doing more of it will increase your endurance.”

  “So I would imagine someone like Mundus would have nearly unlimited magic.”

  I could see Carsis’ face twist in disappointment. Well, that was not the reaction I was hoping for.

  “Mundus is a pure demon, the king of the underworld, the dark lord, the emperor, the czar, whatever title you want to use. I cannot say if he has unlimited magic endurance or not, but I can say that as far as I know, he has never lost a battle because of fatigue and lack of magic. I would not recommend you test him on that count. As it is, most of your battles will not last long enough once you reach a point to exhaust you.”

  Well, that was encouraging.

  “And in my demon form?”

  “I—”

  Carsis clearly didn’t want to answer the question, for he turned away.

  “You should focus on other matters.”

  “Not until I know what my demon side will do to my magical energy.”

  “Sonya, we went over this already. Your demon side is something that you should be extremely cautious unleashing. I would frankly prefer if you almost never—”

  “Why? What are you scared of?”

  “I’m scared of you becoming something you cannot control and hurting those you don’t want to.”

  I groaned, first remembering how I wanted to first kill Carsis in my demon form. He was just acting in his own self-interest. Surely, I could eventually learn to control my demonic side.

  But then I remembered how the sight of Brady had calmed me down after my battle with Nuforsa. My brother living, contrary to the image of Nuforsa, had quelled my demonic side and made me human again. I hadn’t quelled my demon. Brady had.

  But it was my first time.

  Still, I could see Carsis would not budge.

  “Just answer me this one question, Carsis, and I won’t ask anything else.”

  “OK. Yes, your demon side has more endurance. That is all I will say on the matter.”

  And that’s all I want on the matter.

  I finished the bar he gave me, which tasted like crunchy, peanut butter chocolate, and slowly found the strength to rise.

  “Good. Now, let’s do all of that again.”

  Chapter 7

  I honestly couldn’t say how long I practiced teleportation in the room. It felt like hours, but being deep in the catacombs of the church made it impossible to know for sure. With increasing intervals, I would teleport, at first doing double jumps—teleporting to one spot, then immediately to the next—then doing as many as six jumps in a row. Carsis would give me one of the bars whenever I became too exhausted to continue, and within ten minutes, the bars would kick in, giving me the energy needed. I don’t know what he put in those bars, but it felt better than taking an IV.

  “You’re a fast learner indeed,” Carsis said. “But we need to up the ante some. Give me your guns.”

  Hah, as if.

  “No,” I said reflexively. “I don’t give up my guns for anyone. Brady could ask me and I’d tell him no. The only person who touches Ebony and Ivory is me.”

  Carsis opened his mouth to argue, but I crossed my arms and made it clear I’d fight him over the topic. Simply put, I would quit training before I gave Carsis my guns. It’s not like I was about to learn anything revolutionary.

  “Here’s the deal, Sonya. I need to bring in demons so you can practice under pressure. Give me your guns, and they’ll be demons you can kill with your bare hands. Don’t—”

  “And you’ll make it harder? I’ve killed demons with my hands already, Carsis. Snapped their necks, heard them crunch like fried chicken. All after I’d been captured and knocked out. If you think the prospect of going hand-to-hand with a demon is a challenge, then you haven’t been watching me as closely as you think you have.”

  I could see the flummoxed look on Carsis’ face, and it brought a cocky smile to my face. I’m ahead of the syllabus, I know.

  “All right, so be it,” Carsis said.

  A portal opened at the far end, and I saw a familiar foe, one whom I had beaten the first time I teleported anything. The Arachtar.

  “Oh hey buddy, do you remember how I broke you by shooting you in the back? Yeah, sorry about that, it’s just—”

  “Silence, you pathetic wrath of a human,” the demon said with Nuforsa’s voice. “Come here so I can mutilate your body and ravage your corpse.”

  “That seems unnecessarily aggressive.”

  I heard Carsis sigh to the side, and I almost broke concentration and laughed.

  “Sonya…”

  “What? I’m just pointing out his anger issues—”

  But I had to shift into fighter mode when the Arachtar teleported just about a foot from my face. I instinctively rolled to the side, but found myself pinned against the wall. Well, maybe I should have thought better than to talk to someone not in battle.

  “What did I just teach you?” Carsis said, I think taking schadenfreude at my predicament.

  Oh, right. Teleport.

  I focused my energy, which by now had become an automated thing, and teleported just a couple of feet behind the Arachtar.

  “Sweet dreams, pretty boy.”

  I lined up Ebony and Ivory and fired… at a blank space. Instinctively, I teleported five feet to the side, narrowly missing the sharp, pointed arms of the Arachtar that would have killed me. How much would that have sucked—killed Nuforsa, but have perished during training?

  “Hahahaha, you thought it would be that easy?” the Arachtar sneered. “Come, I—”

  But I had a surprise up my sleeve. Instead of teleporting along a two-dimensional framework, I teleported above him, landing on the beast’s shoulders. I landed a shot straight in his neck, and then fired a few more orbs of energy into his back for good measure. The creature collapsed and I took a dramatic bow, admiring my work as the demon turned to dust. Carsis just laughed with his arms crossed.

  “You have a unique way of doing things,” Carsis said, which I felt was the most backhanded way of delivering a compliment. Especiall
y for an angel!

  “I don’t like to just copy other people,” I said. “I’m Sonya Ferguson, CIA agent and an independent woman. I don’t just steal. I add my own twist. Or, sometimes, my own flair. You know, like a good bartender.”

  “As long as you serve up wins during battle.”

  “Pfft. I’m practical, not philosophical, in my actions.”

  Carsis just said “nice” and then summoned two more Arachtars, a scene that looked more terrorizing than it actually was.

  “Twins!” I shouted. “You guys should go star in some commercials. I’d bet you’d get a million hits on YouTube.”

  “Shut up!”

  The same trick as before worked perfectly. I teleported on one, popped a cap in its skull, shifted to the other one, and took it out in the same fashion. When I landed, I creaked my neck to the side, listening to the bones settle back into position. I gave a pleasant sigh, twirled Ebony and Ivory on my fingers, and holstered them like a cowboy.

  “I would say you talk too much during battle, but—”

  “That’s only second to taking my guns away, sir,” I said playfully ominously. “What good is fighting if it’s not fun?”

  I once again left Carsis tongue-tied by my words as I just chuckled. I teleported over to him, took another bar, and bit in.

  “Take your time with that one, Sonya. I think we’re good for today.”

  That didn’t seem smart. For how quickly I learned…

  “Well, hold on. If we’re training with magic, why don’t you just teach me all that you know? Or at least give me sneak previews of what is to come? Or at least move your honors student into advanced placement?”

  “I’m surprised you as a CIA agent, trained in espionage, would say such a thing,” Carsis said.

  I instinctively revolted, stopping mid-chew to give him an annoyed look. But when he continued speaking, I recognized the lesson from someone else who had served as my mentor.

  “It’s far better that you master a couple of skills which will benefit you in battle than to be a jack of all trades, as a jack and a joker of all trades are the same thing. I could teach you everything I know, yes. Until you remember I’m an angel who has had centuries to train, not a few days.”

  I grimaced but accepted this truth. It would make the battle simpler, if not easier. And I trusted Carsis to teach me more later. But you better teach me more later. And you’d better teach me anything essential to rescuing my brother.

  “Come, I’ll take you home and we can formulate a plan to get your brother back with DJ.”

  We climbed the smaller flight of stairs before reaching what looked like the empty hallway. I listened more carefully to what Carsis said, but it just sounded like “innomine day Yevon ah pear e.” I committed those sounds to memory, if not the actual words, and followed him up the remaining stairs and to the main sanctum of the church. Inside, two people remained, with only the man in the black hat having left. Ever cautious, I scanned the ceiling, the stained glass windows, the crevices, and the pews. I also kept my hands on my hips. When I glanced at one of the murals, a man in the painting unmistakably blinked at me. I stared at it for several seconds, but it did not repeat its action. It didn’t change my mindset, just heightened it.

  I followed Carsis out of the church and we walked under the humid sky. A glance to the sky suggested it was about 11 a.m., a passage of time that was not as bad as I thought. I quickly perked up when Carsis started swearing.

  “Yevon damn it,” he said, jogging a few feet ahead before returning with a shaking head. “The car’s gone.”

  “Towed?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. There’s no such thing as coincidence.

  “No, stolen,” Carsis said. “Not like that was a nice car, either. I think they know we’re here. We best walk back home. Won’t take more than an hour.”

  “Not even gonna take an Uber or taxi cab?” I said incredulously, but I said to ignore that statement seconds later. Perhaps fatigue was setting in harder than I’d anticipated. Those bars didn’t carry the pack that they did in the spiritual realm.

  “The problem is they have the element of surprise. And even if we had the Sword of Spirits, they have the element of surprise.”

  “Sword of Spirits?” I said, my eyes lighting up.

  “Something from my time,” Carsis said. “Nothing you need to worry about. I’d trust your guns long before I’d trust a sword.”

  I couldn’t disagree with that, especially for how much I loved my precious firearms. Carsis led the way back home while I tucked my hands into my jacket pockets, never too far from the guns. The walk back started in silence at first as I fought off fatigue and Carsis had to fight visible frustration from the carjacking. Eventually, when we passed a Burger King and went through what looked like a neighborhood full of young, distracted people, I talked to him.

  “So how does it happen that you are in Amsterdam when I, the woman most wanted by the king of the underworld, arrives?”

  “Oh, I’ve long been the owner of Durty Nelly’s,” Carsis said with a smile. “I’ve been there for as long as the building has existed, in fact.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, what better place to watch for demonic activity than the Red Light District?”

  I couldn’t find much room to argue with that. The closest I could come was Las Vegas… or maybe Macau… but no city seemed as indulgent in what the moralists considered impure vices than Amsterdam.

  “Your arrival, fortunately, coincided with the rise of demon activity. But I also feel pretty certain that if you weren’t staying at Durty Nelly’s, I would have gone to find you.”

  “On Yevon’s orders?”

  “No,” Carsis said, with a level of annoyance that I felt I wasn’t supposed to hear. “Yevon gives us free will, sometimes to a fault. We can watch whatever part of the world we want, although the Powers among us generally communicate well with each other. But some of them are more strict in their interpretations of Yevon’s core values, including refusing to get involved in the war until a human is killed. But with more demonic uprising, I needed to find someone willing to fight. I’d heard the stories of the half-demon types, but they felt like unicorns more than anything. When you arrived… something about you caught my interest. You could say I felt your presence and a disturbance when you arrived.”

  “Cute, like Star Wars,” I said with a laugh. “How does one become a Power anyways?”

  Carsis thought for a long time as I turned my attention to the neighborhood we were passing through. Gone was the yuppie neighborhood and here was one with a bit more grit and grime to it. An inordinate amount of graffiti, some in American, some in German, and to my surprise, some in Turkish covered practically every wall, every door, every brick within reaching distance of a human. I saw men who had a clearly distinctive Turkish look—the darker, tanned skin, the thick facial hair, the smoking—and wondered if we’d somehow accidentally transported to Istanbul after leaving the training. A glance at a German street sign confirmed that was not the case, but it was pretty clear when I saw an Iranian restaurant to the left that we’d entered some sort of refugee area or just a neighborhood full of Middle Eastern immigrants. I didn’t feel unsafe by any stretch, but I didn’t like going through an area I didn’t recognize.

  “It’s been so long since I became one, it is hard for me to say,” he said, his voice softening to avoid eavesdroppers. “As far back as I can remember… to when I was human… I was a soldier in the Medieval times… the Black Plague, I believe, took me out… the details are hazy, you know. When you’ve been dead for hundreds of years, things kind of blur together.”

  The Black Plague, huh. That must’ve sucked. And to see medicine come along since—there’s no way I wouldn’t be wondering what if.

  “No, I can see that,” I said, disagreeing in my head with my own words. How could I possibly understand that at 20 years old? “And how did you become a Power, I mean? Like you died and went to heaven, but how
did you get that role?”

  “Simple,” Carsis said, having to clear his throat as he spoke. “It was a job that Yevon felt I could do well as time went by, so it is a job that I have carried on. It has its perks. I get to stay attached to the real world some and see history unfold and—”

  He paused, and I did too. He sniffed the air, and so did I. The smell of weed here was overwhelming, as if it were trying to choke the oxygen out of the air. But it wasn’t just any strand of marijuana.

  “It’s Devil’s Eye,” Carsis said, and my hands slid out of my jacket and over my guns. “We have to be careful. The demons are becoming more aggressive.”

  “Haven’t they always been out in the open?”

  “To some extent, yes,” Carsis said as he began walking once more, but this time with eyes darting every second. “But they always remained in the shadows. The amount I can smell here, though, is not good. It won’t be long before they are confident about attacking the rest of Europe out in the open.”

  I could just imagine it now. Demons unleashed all over Europe. A world war starting, America and other countries against the demon-controlled Europe. It would pit our allies against us, except they wouldn’t really be our allies anymore. Nukes would fly. Bombs would drop. Damage would run through the world. World War III, except it wouldn’t really be a world war, but a Realm War.

  Although, really, Realm War didn’t roll off the tongue quite as smoothly as World War III.

  It’d be the Spirit War.

  Huh, I kind of like that. That should be the name of a movie someday.

  Carsis and I made our way through the neighborhood as discreetly as we could, cutting off all conversation whenever someone was so much as in eyesight, let alone earshot, and moving at a hasty pace. We were prepared to fight, but the last thing we needed was to create a presence here. More demons would mean more trouble, and more trouble would mean more demons, and the cycle seemed vicious enough without creating a scene.

  It took us thirty minutes of intense walking, darting eyes and ready hands, but we finally reached the other side of the sketchy neighborhood without incident, now only fifteen minutes away from our home in Berlin. The smell of Devil’s Eye had mostly vanished, though it was so strong it still reeked on our clothes.