Hidden Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 6) (10 page)

This is why the dwarves never let us have much. They knew we treasured it for the value, unlike them adoring it simply because of what it was, and let just a little see the light of day. If this hoard went topside the world markets would absolutely collapse. Still, it didn't explain what was going on.

Dragon kept tutting and grabbing for things as the ever-shifting floor made making tea rather awkward, especially with the small fire and stand he had set up—definitely a little magic going on to make such a thing possible—and Urrad searched for chairs, causing golden landslides that kept freaking me out. I tried to take in the enormity of what I saw.

It was impossible to get my head around.

While the fussing continued, I took the opportunity to let my mind assimilate what was happening. It was a mountain of gold that told of the lives of the dwarves and the insane amount of work that had gone into not only mining the gold, but making it into beautiful objects, and then getting it here. Although, I still didn't understand why so much was amassed in one room.

Urrad came with three chairs, set them down as best he could on a relatively stable section of gold and then did a runner before he got asked to do anything else, not even saying goodbye. I sat and took my tea, warned Mithnite with a glance to keep quiet, then began a tirade of questions, beginning with the obvious.

"Don't you miss the sunlight?"

"What?" Dragon said, distracted by his tea. "Oh, that. I've got one here so I don't get SAD."

Now that he mentioned it he did seem to have rather a good tan. "Got one what?" I had a feeling I knew the answer, but surely not?

"A sun, just a little one." Dragon frowned, lost in thought for a moment, then clicked his fingers, a loud snap echoing around the chamber. The room burst into glorious daylight.

You don't realize how much you miss it until you've spent time deep underground. It's a weird psychological thing. I knew it had only been hours since I was above ground, but knowing there could be no natural light made me feel like a part of who I was as a human being was missing. Dragon gave it back.

An orb maybe the size of a man's head bathed the room in perfectly natural seeming sunlight. Already it was warmer, and as I looked up, then turned away quickly, the only way I can describe it is that it was exactly like looking at the real sun. It looked the same size, an illusion since it was closer than ours and much smaller, but it felt the same. It was totally disconcerting.

"You like it?" he asked, sipping his tea and studying me for a reaction. Damn, but he was intense, in a relaxed and jovial way, which made it even more disconcerting.

"It's utterly incredible. This whole place is incredible. You're incredible."

"Haha. Why, thank you young man. Now, let's get this over with, shall we?"

I was nonplussed. "Get what over with? What's all this about."

"It's about your death, of course."

Uh-oh.

Little Ole Me?

Mithnite shifted, ready for action, but I put a hand out to him. I shook my head, telling him to stay right where he was.

I had to smile. Here we were, sat drinking tea with the most powerful man alive, and the young kid was ready to try to defend me if the need arose. Now that's loyalty. Mixed in with an incredible amount of stupidity.

"What do you mean, my death"? I asked, staying calm, sipping daintily on my tea as if we were talking about the weather.

"Let me ask you a question. Why do you think you are here?" asked Dragon, leaning forward in his chair, keen to hear the answer.

"The dwarves want their gold back and thought I could help," I said, the words sounding ridiculous even as I spoke.

"Yes, but why you?"

"They heard I was good at my job." Now it really did sound daft.

"There are better enforcers than you, Black Spark, certainly better wizards."

"I guess."

"Haha, I didn't mean to be rude, just stating fact. No, they got you because I may have happened to let it slip to Urrad that you were powerful and one of the few men alive who could get me to relinquish my hold on their gold. Dwarves do love to gossip, you know?"

"I know. So, what, you set it up so they'd come get me? Why?" This was making zero sense. What was his game? Why me? What was he after and what was this about my death?

"Because I am bored and wanted to meet the man who was killed by a giant yet given life again, and magic. You are an immortal now."

His words awoke something inside of me. Since I got back from Japan and had time to contemplate the magic Reade had given me, I'd often wondered what effect it would have on my life. Sure, many adepts live for thousands of years, but it isn't true immortality, it's life extension. Was I something else now? "Can I be killed?"

"Haha, of course."

Ah well, it was worth a shot. "But if I don't get myself killed I can live forever?"

"Forever is a long time, but yes, if you don't do anything foolish you will live until the last of days. Nobody lives forever, things have to end at some point, but until then..." Dragon shrugged, as if that was the end to that.

"No way! You're immortal, Spark. That's seriously badass," Mithnite interrupted, getting more awed and overwhelmed by the minute. It was easy to forget he was a young boy at the start of a very long magical journey. Talk about lucking out. What I wouldn't have given at his age to meet such a legend as Dragon.

"I wanted to meet you, see for myself what the first human being to be given true giant magic was made of. You seem like a nice boy."

"Boy!? I'm over a hundred years old and..." I trailed off, realizing how daft my words sounded to someone of his age. Heck, even Dancer was many hundreds of years old, but somehow he didn't give you that impression. Dragon was different, he gave off a vibe of ancient power the likes of which I had never seen or felt before.

"Not to be rude or anything," I said, "but what is this all about? Why are you here? Why are you stopping the dwarves having their gold? Why am I really here?" Whatever Dragon said, I knew there was a lot more to it than he was letting on.

Dragon put down his tea and leaned back in his chair. This was so surreal. Sat in a priceless sea of riches, deep underground in a Hidden realm, drinking tea with the man that started humanity down this road of madness. And he'd made it so I came to visit. None of it made sense. Giant magic or no giant magic, it didn't explain what I was doing here.

"I've been waiting, and I've been growing my power."

"How?" I asked. I was about to give Mithnite a look, to make sure he didn't interrupt, but he was too caught up in the moment to even think of talking. There was hope for him yet.

"The dwarves' gold, of course. This is magic with bells on, this stuff. Each piece of gold is a slice of magic in its own right, and here I am surrounded by it. I've been soaking it up for hundreds of years, just waiting for the moment to come when I was ready to rejoin the world of man. Now I am."

"Okay, that makes sense. Sort of. But why me? No lies."

"Because you are tied up with all things Hidden in the human world in the UK, and that is where I wish to visit. But I, er... Oh, this is rather embarrassing. I can't get out of here. Nobody else knows this, but," Dragon looked around as if we might have company, then whispered, "I'm stuck here. I forgot how I got in and now I can't get out."

"Just get Urrad to show you the way."

"I can't. I may be strong with magic, but even I can't hope to walk out of here alive. The dwarves are rather miffed with yours truly, I'm afraid, and I can't bring myself to kill them all just so I can go topside again. Mark my words, the moment I step foot out of this room they will be on me in their thousands. I'm not about to wipe them all out." Dragon looked at me as if I had the answer. He wiggled his eyebrows and realization dawned.

Icy warnings clawed up by spine, telling me to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. I stood and said, "No way. How dare you ask such a thing of me?"

Dragon picked up his tea and took a leisurely sip, utterly composed. "Who said anything about asking? I just need someone that can withstand my presence."

"What's going on?" asked Mithnite, baffled by the conversation.

"Nothing, we're going. Right now."

I moved to grab him but Dragon continued, "Sorry, but there's no other way."

My reality collapsed as I felt it begin. I knew what Dragon had wanted the moment he wiggled his eyebrows at me, suggesting the blasphemy, and understood why he wanted somebody touched by the giant's immortality—it was the only way he could hope to keep a body alive long enough to escape.

Whatever foolish reason he'd once had that led him to hide away with the dwarves' gold, he knew he could never get out alive. He may be strong but he couldn't hope to defeat them all, and no way would they let him live for what he'd done.

There was only one alternative. He had to walk right out of there with nobody the wiser.

My skull split apart and my body screamed in utter pain as Dragon suddenly lunged. Magic was thick in the air as he walked right on up to me and kept on walking, his magic-infused body morphing to pure Hidden energy as he stepped inside of me and performed the ultimate taboo, the ultimate horror for any human being.

I was possessed.

Taboo

We blast each other, we kill, we use magic to warp the very elements. We torture, maim, imprison, dupe, lie, cheat, steal, double-cross, triple-cross, no end of despicable things. Heck, I suck the magic out of miscreants for a living and I've taken my fair share of lives, but one thing nobody does, ever, is possess another Hidden.

Vampires glamor, necromancers can do a similar thing because of their connection to the next realm, but it's still not the same as actually setting up residence inside another and taking control.

It's taboo.

The one thing you absolutely, under no circumstances, not even if your life depends on it, even consider doing. Not only do you risk sending the other person stark raving mad, lost to the most hellish of insanities for the rest of their life, but you risk the same, or much worse, happening to you.

You risk losing the essence of what it is to be yourself, an individual. Even with the most intense focus and power there is no escaping the fact that you're sharing head space with another person—you cannot escape the barrage of shared emotions and thoughts.

Everything becomes a jumble, two becoming one in the most intimate and despicable of ways imaginable.

Dragon had either made a very serious mistake, or, and this was more likely, he was so powerful that he would come out of this unscathed. The same could not be said for me unless I was a lot stronger than I'd thought.

With no choice, it was time to find out. Immediately, I knew that this would be the battle of my life.

Forget ancient vampires, immortal giants, succubi, malevolent fae, any of the endless Hidden I'd dealt with over the years, this was on another scale of epicness altogether and I almost lost the war the very moment it happened.

I felt like the worst kind of foolish as Dragon entered my system. I was two now, and within seconds reality split down the middle, my ability to focus waning under the onslaught of a man that was beyond human, had lived through endless millennia, and yet had still done something foolish.

He'd chosen to restore and grow his powers to a degree I couldn't even begin to comprehend, yet had still made a mistake, and the mistake was greed. Having been welcomed by the dwarves—who would refuse such a guest?—he'd found that the room of gold gave him exactly what he'd been searching for down the ages. A place to rest without interruption or concern for the human world above, and where he could gather magic, move on to the next stage of his transcendence.

He'd wallowed, grown stronger, and outgrown his welcome. He took the dwarves' gold, gaining power as he did so, until finally he had finished with them and theirs, but found himself unable to leave without resorting to genocide and even then it was doubtful he'd ever find his way out. Even one such as he had his limits and if he murdered his way to freedom, if that was even possible, he would never have peace for as long as he lived.

Dwarves never forget misdeeds, and he'd already angered them enough. To compound it with a mass killing was signing his own death warrant.

So, here I was, the only person in the UK that could help because I was no longer merely human either.

And I hated him.

I despised him with every ounce of my being for what he was doing to me.

"Don't even think about it, boy," I said to Mithnite as he called to the Empty to try to help me. He stopped, studied my face, and let the magic disperse.

But it wasn't me talking. Dragon was in control. I was no match for him, for his magic, for the fact he'd been planning this ever since he'd heard what had happened to me and decided to use it to his advantage. I raged and I tried to call on the magic inside me and that of the Empty, but Dragon shut me down as if I was a noob.

He spoke inside my head, told me to quiet down, to accept the fact he was the one in charge and that he was sorry, but it was the only way to leave.

The most annoying damn thing about the whole situation was that he was showing compassion, being kind, apologizing, even as he did the most terrible thing our kind could imagine. It still didn't make what he did anything like approaching okay with me, but I understood, and that weakness allowed him to increase his grip on my mind and body.

"Just act casual, tell the princess Spark here dealt with the terrible Dragon, and we'll be out of here in no time," said Dragon speaking through my own lips. "Okay?" I barked, giving Mithnite the evil eye.

"Okay," he mumbled. Poor kid looked completely lost. What had been a great adventure had turned sour on him.

Unable to stop myself, I bent and stuffed my pockets with gold, saying, "May as well grab some while we're here. After all, the dwarves promised me I could take as much as I could carry, but that's just being greedy."