Shadowstrut

by Orlando A. Sanchez

  Shadowstrut

  A Night Warden Novel

  Orlando A. Sanchez

  Description

  Sometimes fear of the dark can keep you alive.

  Grey and Koda have a lead on the supplier of Redrum X—a new strain of the deadly drug that creates UV resistant vampires. Preventing the streets of New York City from being flooded with the mindless creatures was only the first step.

  Each night as darkness falls, body counts rise. Someone or something has made nights in the city…fatal. Grey must find who or what is doing the killing and stop them. He only has one clue. Rumors of a Mr. Dark are being whispered in the streets.

  Is this Mr. Dark responsible for the deaths? Now together with Koda, Grey will enter a world no Night Warden has encountered. A world of darkness no one has escaped.

  Can a dark mage wielding a darker blade bring light to save others?

  ONE

  The night for one of the night, the day for one of the day

  —Basque proverb

  Maybe you have to know the darkness before you can appreciate the light.

  —Madeleine L’Engle

  “He said he wasn’t scared, never scared of the dark.” Street looked down at the broken body. “That was the last time we spoke, then this.”

  The arms and legs were bent at unnatural angles. Pieces of bone protruded through his clothing. It reminded me of a child breaking a doll, except the doll was a young mage. Someone-or something-angry did this. I looked past the brokenness and blood. Life made us all a little broken and bloody. What made me pause was the face. Whatever this mage faced in his last moments, it had scared him out of his mind.

  This mage had died terrified, and it had been painful.

  Sweet bitterness filled my mouth. It was like biting down on a lemon and chasing it with a spoonful of honey. Ambient magic caused my taste buds to fire…one of the side effects of my condition. Every death was different. The sweetness in this one meant serious power had been unleashed.

  Street was jumpier than usual, a bad sign. A jumpy mage of his power, with no recollection of his abilities, meant dead bodies. First thing I needed to do was get him calm.

  “How about we go to The Dive and get some food inside you?” I asked. “When was the last time you ate?”

  “Ate…ate?” Street looked around, his eyes darting in every direction. I could feel the energy coming off him in waves. “Can’t think of food. Look…look!”

  “How about some place closer?” Koda asked, looking at Street’s face. Her eyes gave off a faint red glow as she glanced at the body of the dead mage. “We may want to get him away from the body, Grey. It seems to be bothering him.”

  Koda, a Night Warden in training, had joined me when Hades had informed me of her imminent retirement. She had worked for him as a cleaner, an assassin, who had botched a job. Corbel, the Hound of Hades, had to step in and fix the error, but that was enough for Hades. She either worked with me, or stopped breathing…permanently. I preferred working alone, but I wasn’t going to let Hades ghost her, even though she was a headache of epic proportions.

  She had modified her look since she had started working with me. Her long, cascading black hair had lost some of the red streaks. These days, she kept it in a long braid, tipped with iron ornaments. Her pale, translucent skin was covered by wordweaver leathers with similar properties to my duster.

  In addition to being an intense migraine, Koda possessed abilities that made her dangerous. She was a runic cipher. Ciphers were considered nil, nothing, both figuratively and literally. In a different age, when no energy signature could be found, ciphers were killed at birth. These days, the magical community would shun and ostracize her, but they would fall just short of trying to eliminate her…overtly, of course.

  Aside from her weapons, Koda had no energy signature whatsoever. She was a runic ghost. This made her rare and targeted. Hades knew this and had probably felt my life wasn’t exciting enough when he’d ‘suggested’ I take her on and train her as a Night Warden.

  “Let’s get this place sealed off,” I said. “I want to know who, or what, did this.”

  A hint of cinnamon lingered in the air. I looked around to see where it may be coming from, but I saw nothing.

  “Are you going to check now?” Koda said, pulling out caution tape. “It’s going to attract attention.”

  “Can’t be helped,” I said. “Once the authorities get on the scene, they’ll taint the area with too many energy signatures.”

  “How many homeless mages are there?”

  “More than anyone wants to admit,” I said, keeping the anger in check. “Cast-offs, ostracized by their sects or banned. Use the wrong spell and no one is clapping.”

  “Is that what happened to you?”

  “People try to kill what they don’t understand.”

  “Mages too?” Koda asked, surprised. “Wouldn’t they be more—?”

  “Especially the magical community,” I growled, remembering the Night Wardens after Jade. “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down…and then crushed.”

  “And these homeless mages?”

  “Crushed and beaten nails.” The anger gripped me. I took a long breath and unclenched my jaw. “If that wasn’t bad enough, now someone—”

  “Or something,” Koda added.

  “Or something,” I conceded, “is using them for target practice.”

  “Who speaks for the voiceless?” Koda asked quietly. “This is bad.”

  “I do—we do,” I said, my voice hard. “That’s what it means to be a Night Warden. When everyone says no and washes their hands, we’re in the thick of it. Now, move out of the way so I can do this.”

  “Fine,” Koda said with a shudder. “Let me get Street out of the park before you start. You know how he gets when you do that sword thing.”

  I nodded as Koda left the area with Street.

  I looked around the park. Nightfall usually emptied it of all except the most brave…or foolish. Word of this attack would get out, and the NYTF would get here eventually, but it wouldn’t be a priority. In a city this size, this death was one of hundreds today. By the time the NYTF arrived on this scene, I’d be gone.

  I extended my arm and formed my sword, kokoro kokutan no ken, which translated loosely to Darkspirit. The sword was special because, aside from being a dark blade holding the sentient manifestation of Izanami—the goddess of creation and destruction, it was the only thing keeping me alive these days. Its black blade glistened in the low light as the red runes along its length pulsed with energy. Black tendrils enveloped me as the sword absorbed the remaining light around it.

  I buried the point of the sword into the ground next to the corpse and then I stepped back. Tendrils of energy flowed around the body of the recently deceased mage. The bitterness in my mouth increased, and I spat to one side.

  “What are you getting?” I asked. “He doesn’t look like a rummer.”

  A few years back, in the pursuit of power, I, together with several other Night Wardens, had unleashed a forbidden spell—an entropic dissolution. The spell had become unstable, killed my partner Jade, and proceeded to do the same to me…just slowly. I managed to get the spell under control, but not before the damage was done. I had made peace with the idea of dying, until a conversation with Hades changed that.

  ‘A dark blade for a dark mage.’ Those were his exact words. ‘This sword can keep you alive.’ I didn’t believe him initially, and by the time I did, it was too late. Darkspirit and I had bonded. He gave me the sword, and then suggested I locate the source of the tainted Redrum being unleashed in my city. Like I’d ever had a choice.

  I was in the middle of pursuing a lead when Street had called me about this dead mage. At first, I thou
ght it was another rummer who had burned out from too much of the drug, but this was different. The broken body lying on the ground in front of me was no rummer.

 

  “I’m getting that,” I said into the night. Izanami could communicate directly into my brain. I refused to answer her the same way, even though I probably could. Call me old-fashioned. “Can you trace it? Who or what could cast this spell? Was it a pavormancer?”

 

  “Older than pavormancy?” I asked. “Any idea what it could be? ‘Older than pavormancy’ is a little on the vague side.”

 

  “That’s going to be a no on the blood-dipping.”

  Izanami was constantly looking for opportunities to get extra doses of blood. Damn sword needed to belong to a vampire, not a dark mage.

 

  “Shit,” I said, reabsorbing Darkspirit. “That means homework, but we can’t leave the body like this.”

  I cast two spells. First, a spatial displacement spell. This would make it impossible for anyone to accidentally ‘discover’ the body. The second was more complicated: a temporal regression spell. It allowed me to take a sample of the corpse under the influence of what had killed him. The time component alone was promising to split my skull with a world-class headache. I gritted my teeth and cast.

  Before my bond with Izanami, this cast would’ve been excruciating. After the bond, it was a dull, throbbing, ice pick of pain from the oncoming migraine. The bond didn’t remove the pain entirely, my condition was too far advanced for that, but it did mitigate the worst of the symptoms and stopped me from dying, but no one said I would be pain-free.

  I patched into the NYTF through my communicator.

  “Ramirez,” I said, and waited. A few seconds later, the gruff voice of Director Ramirez of the NYTF came on the line.

  The New York Task Force, or NYTF, was a quasi-military police force, created to deal with any supernatural event occurring in New York City. They were paid to deal with the things that couldn’t be explained to the general public without causing mass hysteria.

  They were led by Angel Ramirez, who was one of the best directors the NYTF had ever had. After a certain Agency started doing business in the city, our friendship had grown strained due to the constant destruction. I promised him I would have a conversation with the demolition duo soon.

  “Grey,” Ramirez said, sounding tired. “Where’s the body?”

  “How did you know I wasn’t just calling to invite you to The Dive?”

  “Simple. When Simon, his devil-dog, and the Brit are involved, I get calls about the buildings in my city exploding. It’s usually a landmark or something historic, difficult or impossible to replace. I swear those two must hate me.”

  “And me?”

  “Bodies…plenty of bodies,” Ramirez answered, his voice grim. “Now, tell me where so I can have my guys pick it up.”

  “The park, near the lake in the trees, just west of the Bethesda Fountain.”

  “Did you do one of your spatial things where no one can see it?”

  “Yes, look for the caution tape.”

  “Another rummer?” Ramirez asked. “I hate those.”

  “No, this is something else,” I said. “If you hear anything out of the ordinary, let me know.”

  “Out of the ordinary? In this city? You must be joking. Everything is out of the ordinary.”

  “I meant more than the usual,” I said. “Street found the body.”

  “Shit,” Ramirez answered. “How is he? And, more importantly, where is he?”

  “I’m going to drop him off at Haven for a few days, at least until he calms down.”

  “Thank you,” he said with a sigh. “He’ll be safer out of the park.”

  “So will we.”

  “Do you have any leads?”

  “One, but it’s thin,” I said. “I’ll let you know what I find.”

  Something older than pavormancy meant I had to go visit the largest magical library in the city.

  I needed to pay Aria a visit at the Cloisters.

  TWO

  “Koda, we need to drop Street off at Haven and then head uptown to Aria.”

  “Got it,” she answered, heading up the stairs. “Meet you at the Beast. My bike is close.”

  The Beast was my mode of transportation. Some felt she was evil, but I knew differently. Killing three drivers doesn’t make a car evil, just cursed. Her body was based on a SuNaTran modified 1970 Chevy Camaro. Like the Phantoms they provided, the Beast was equipped with armor plating where it mattered. Cecil, the owner of SuNaTran, initially tried to paint her Byzantium. It didn’t take—the paint burned right off, and left the exterior matte black. It might not be evil, but she had taste. The Beast could never be purple, no matter how fancy you dressed up the color.

  I took a moment to admire the fountain. The Terrace had come a long way from the place to get your drugs in the seventies. Now, it was a tourist attraction—and a final resting place for the mage I’d just found. Temperance, Purity, Health, and Peace weren’t in attendance tonight. No angel was going to descend upon the waters and bring that broken mage back. I was sliding headfirst into a morose mood, and shook myself loose from the gloom that filled my thoughts.

  Some ghosts never leave. No matter how hard you try, they cling to you, like blood that can never be washed off. God, now I was going positively Shakespearean. I needed to get the hell out of the park.

  I had left the Beast on Terrace Drive, near the entrance to Bethesda Terrace. I’d have to head downtown on the east side of the city to drop Street off at Haven, and then shoot uptown to Aria. I let my senses expand as I crossed the pink stone surrounding Bethesda Fountain, and felt…nothing. This area of the park was usually empty at this time of night, but not devoid of ambient signatures.

  Something was wrong.

  The first thing I felt was the undercurrent of fear, which lasted all of half a second. The fear tried to embrace me but found nothing to latch on to. I had faced and made peace with all of my fears long ago.

  I’d had my partner—the woman I loved—die in my arms. I’d seen my closest friends perish, or become drug-addicted, mindless creatures of the night. I had faced death and embraced it, and still did…every day. There was nothing left for me to fear.

  Something was approaching, and the first play was to get me scared. Epic fail.

  “You don’t feel fear?” a voice said in the night. “How curious.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” I said, facing the fountain. The acoustics of the Terrace made it hard to pinpoint where the voice came from. “That your work?”

  I pointed to where the broken mage lay.

  “How do you not feel fear?” the voice asked again. “Everyone feels fear of some kind.”

  “Fear and I have an understanding,” I said, opening my duster, giving me access to my gun, Fatebringer. I’d had to have Aria recreate it after Lyrra, the former head of the Night Wardens, decided the first one was better in pieces. Remaking it had been a project of epic proportions. The rune work alone taking several days. Aria had used some choice curses…most of them directed my way. Between Fatebringer and the leathers for Koda, I’d owe Aria for the rest of my life.

  “What kind of understanding?”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “Did you kill the mage?”

  “One of mine facilitated the end of the mage.”

  I wish I knew what the hell that meant.

  “One of yours?” I let my hand drift over to Fatebringer. My senses still read that I was alone in the Terrace. “Who are you, again?”

  I didn’t materialize Darkspirit, because I had a feeling that the moment I did…all bets would be off. Whatever this was, it was testing the waters.

  “You know me, mage.”

>   “No, can’t say that I do,” I said, backing up. I was getting a distinct ‘time to vacate the premises’ vibe. “I’d remember a disembodied voice trying to scare me.”

  Bitterness filled my mouth. The same bitterness I’d sensed near the broken mage, but with no aftertaste of honey. Serious dark magic. The level of power around me began increasing. Slowly at first, then exponentially. Whatever I was facing was rapidly approaching ‘out of my league’ in power. A bass rumble echoed around me, removing all doubt about the level of power I was facing.

  “You…KNOW ME.”

  The words reverberated around the Terrace, and I stopped backing up. I wasn’t alone any longer.

  “Saying it louder doesn’t mean it’s clearer… Oh, shit.” I began to sense more energy signatures. “What did you say your name was?”

  Laughter echoed around the park. “You will learn it soon enough, if you survive.”

  “That sounds very glass-half-empty.”

  No response.

  I sensed them all around me, and realized this was what must have happened to the mage. The smell of strong coffee mixed with something foul filled my lungs. Powerful magic leaning hard on the dark side.

  Rummers had entered the Terrace, and they weren’t here for a chat.

  Whatever the voice was, it had the ability to mask an entire area. The rummers closing in on my position were reading slightly off. I could sense the influence of the Redrum, but there was something else, something…dark.

  These rummers were being controlled by the power I was sensing around me.

  THREE

  Redrum destroyed most of the brain, turning the rummers into little more than ravenous animals who were incapable of speech. The creatures closing in on my position weren’t going to be swayed by words—pleading or begging.

  Not that I was going to attempt any un-bladed conversation.

  I had loaded Fatebringer with LITE rounds—Light Irradiated Tungsten Entropy rounds. They were perfect rummer erasers for garden-variety rummers, and after my last run-in with ogres, that little dash of entropy covered my ass against anything—rummer or more.