Hidden Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 6) (13 page)

"He's not an outsider. It's Mithnite, give him a break." Dancer would have heard about the problem with his teacher and the fact his buddies were dead, but the same as the rest of us he wouldn't have known Mithnite had been alone and had nowhere to stay. If we'd known we would have helped, but I guessed maybe I should have thought to tell Dancer that he was going to be involved in this.

Dancer studied me for a while, then nodded, understanding. "Fine, but you better not cause any trouble," he said, warning the young apprentice.

"I won't, promise. I'll keep quiet and let you guys talk."

"Good. Take a seat, Mithnite, and don't interrupt," warned Dancer. "Right," he said, all business, "tell me what happened." I told him, leaving nothing out.

"So you just left the most powerful man in the world there and ran away?"

"Well, now that you put it like that... Yeah, I guess I did."

"Good. Damn, what are we going to do?" Dancer was nervous, and the new him, the one who'd come out to me about his true age and identity, shouldn't be so ruffled by this. I didn't understand what was going on, not a clue.

"I think you have some explaining of your own to do. Why are you so freaked out by this guy? I don't like him, not after the whole possession thing, but why are you so jittery?"

"You really don't know all the stories about him, do you? Guess Rikka missed a lot out from your schooling, or... Ah, maybe he didn't know either. Look, Dragon is seriously bad news, I mean the worst."

"But he gave us everything, didn't he? Brought magic from the Empty for the first time, taught others how to use it. Wrote books, has been a help down the ages for all manner of powerful Heads. What's the problem?"

"The problem is that he's utterly nuts, that's what the problem is," said Dancer as he obsessively rearranged pens and pads on his neat desk. "Do you know how we have zombies and vampires, how they came to exist?"

"Of course, everyone does. Magic got warped somehow, corrupted, and it caused a virus to mutate, or made the virus, and some poor sap back in the day was infected and was the first, and then when they bit someone else they became infected too. But it's so long ago nobody knows who the original was, or how it really happened."

"Well, I do. I know, I know all about it."

"You mean because of the... You know what?" I didn't say it out loud as nobody was supposed to know Dancer was much older than anyone thought and had been living under an assumed identity. I don't think even the Council Heads knew, or maybe they did. I'd have to ask him.

"Yes, because of that. My family, a long time ago, told me all about it, and they were masters of knowledge, knew and understood so much. Why do you think nobody has had contact with Dragon for so many thousands of years, or hardly any, anyway?"

"Dunno. Everyone assumed he was dead, didn't they?"

"Yes, for millennia the Hidden communities believed he was dead, but that's never been the case. He pops up, stays for a while, then disappears again. Probably to do things like he's just done with the dwarves, whiling away a few centuries where magic is strong and he just soaks it up, like charging up his powers or something. He has a system he's never shared with anyone else, but it makes him incredibly powerful, Spark, and very dangerous."

"Look, no offense, but where is this heading? I didn't know any of this and went to deal with a dragon for you, but it was him instead. I didn't stand a chance."

"I know. I'm not blaming you, just stating fact. But he's the cause of the infections, Spark, all of them. Every warped Hidden that is of human descent, vampires and zombies, a few others, they all come from a single source."

"Let me guess," I said, sitting up straight in my chair. "Dragon."

"Yes. He's a vampire, he's a zombie, he's a wizard, a sage, a necromancer, and so much more besides. The man spent centuries as a seer, watched his own future unfold and managed to come out the other side of such a life, took away the power from himself after deciding it wasn't for him, and that is not possible. None of it is, but there you have it."

"Are you telling me that he caused the viruses in himself and then spread the infections on purpose?"

"That's exactly what I'm telling you."

"Shit! He's one seriously messed up guy."

"I know. And now he's here. It won't be good, for any of us."

"But why? Let's say all that is true, and no, I'm not calling you a liar. Even if he did that it was a helluva long time ago, so what's that got to do with us now?"

"Because I remember when he turned up in... Damn, I can't talk with him here. Mithnite, please excuse us for a moment, I need to talk to Spark in private."

I nodded to Mithnite and he said, "Sure, I'll wait outside."

After he closed the door behind him, Dancer said, "What's with the kid? You know it's dangerous to take him with you."

"I know, and trust me, it wasn't an easy call, but he's lost and he needed a boost. I'm gonna let him live with us for a while, as long as Kate agrees."

"Blimey, getting soft in your old age."

"Maybe, or maybe I don't want what happened to me to happen to him." Dancer nodded. "Okay, what's going on?"

Dancer leaned forward across his desk and spoke in a low voice. "Spark, he is a total nut job. Yes, I know he's like the founder of all this, the one that brought us magic, but that's not really by design. Once he kind of let the cat out of the bag there was no stopping others learning about magic, and he ended up founding schools way back when in Finland, but he's also one crazy old man. He thrives on chaos, thinks about things differently to us. All the major issues we've had with zombies or vampires getting out of control, it's down to him."

"And I left him alone. What has he done? He wouldn't hurt anyone would he?"

"Yes, he would. It's too late now. I sent a team to go after him but he's gone."

"Oskari. I met Oskari on the way here."

"I know, I heard."

"What! How?"

Dancer put a hand through his hair, looking utterly stressed. "Because I'm the damn Head, that's why. It's my business to know. Hell, where is he? If Oskari has him it won't be good."

"You think Dragon would side with the vampires?"

"No, I think Dragon will side with himself and do what the hell he wants to."

Dancer's phone vibrated across the desk, bouncing to the edge where he caught it just in time. "What?" he snapped, then listened, eyes growing wider by the second. "Okay, thanks." He tapped his phone then set it down.

"What? What is it?"

"It's begun."

"What's begun?"

"The end of everything." Dancer seemed calmer, as if resigned. He sank back into his chair, opened a drawer, and pulled out a beautiful cigarette case. He put two in his mouth, lit them both with a battered Zippo, then passed one to me as he took a deep drag on his own.

I hadn't smoked for years, and then only the odd cigar, but I have to tell you that first hit of nicotine was incredible. So I stubbed it out in the ashtray he'd placed down. "I've got enough addictions," I said, knowing the last thing I needed was another one.

"I haven't," he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

I waited while he took another puff on his cigarette then listened as Dancer coughed—he'd clearly not been smoking much. "Okay," he said, a deep sadness hitting him, "get ready for a busy time of it, and let's hope we survive this."

"What's going on?"

"Seems somebody has slaughtered the gremlins."

Just Wait

"Wait here," I told Mithnite as I pulled up at a nondescript section of hedgerow not far from where I knew the gremlins had their home. I stepped out into the night, the way ahead lit only by the headlights of the car.

A hundred yards along the hedge, Macdubhgall Carmine stood shaking and shivering so much I thought the poor gremlin was having a seizure. But as I got closer, and looked into its oversized eyes, I saw what the real reason was. It was in shock, eyes glazed, jabbering away in a tongue impossible to understand.

Gremlins are like tiny children, can only say a word or two in English, have always communicated by gesture rather than words, but Macdubhgall was talking non-stop in their own language, a mobile phone in front of it on the ground where it must have somehow found enough fortitude to call for help.

The secret access point to their home, a place I had the honor of visiting once before when I saved one of their kind, or it saved me, was utterly trashed. It was as if somebody had gone through it with a hedge cutter, hacking away indiscriminately at the ancient hedgerow, clearing away the hawthorn and the briar, exposing a clearing where the gremlins hid all manner of electronic devices that they tinkered with, played with, and generally broke down to constituent parts because it was simply their nature to mess with the technology of mankind.

This was their little home, where they had their burrows and where they lived as a small community, still young to the Hidden world, only popping into existence because of the blame First World War pilots put on "Gremlins" for their planes malfunctioning.

Gremlins are adorable to look at, all huge black eyes, long pointed ears and more fur than you would think possible, but as I stood towering over their clearing with Macdubhgall beside me, both our eyes filled with tears—there was nothing but ugliness.

I'd been right about the hedge cutter, and the desecrater hadn't stopped there. Once through the overgrowth, somewhere nobody should have known about as the gremlins never invited anyone to their home and as far as I knew I'd been their only visitor, the sick person had just kept on going.

They'd cut down the gremlins like they were nothing but weeds, slashing and butchering until all that remained were blood-soaked tatters of body. Fur matted with blood, limbs and torsos, heads and feet, ears and sections of face and sharp teeth strewn across the scraps of technology so it was impossible to tell what was what, how many there had been, and if any had survived.

I bent, trying to make sense of something that never would, and found that their burrows had been just as desecrated. The holes had been excavated, dug out as if a dog had gone wild, great scoops of earth shifted manically aside.

In the exposed homes were more dead gremlins, the only saving grace that they'd been dispatched quickly, heads ripped from bodies, or eviscerated then left where they were, little families clutching tight to each other, terrified and knowing no help would come as they went wherever such creatures would go after such an ignoble end to their short Hidden lives.

I've seen some sick things in my time, but this was something else. There was no rhyme or reason to it that I could see, just killing for its own sake. Was this Dragon? Surely not? It was one hell of a coincidence otherwise. But why?

I slumped to a sitting position, and Macdubhgall clambered onto my lap, its fur soaked through with tears. I cradled the warm, soft creature, my own tears falling freely as it whimpered and clung to my arms as I moved it gently side to side, hushing it, trying to take away just a little of the pain but knowing it was futile.

At some point it must have fallen asleep, exhausted, unable to cope with the horror any longer, and it called out and twitched as the nightmares came to it. As I sat there in the dark, I knew that those terrible dreams would never end, that for as long as it lived, and hopefully found more of its own kind to help it cope with the terrible days and worse nights surely to come, it would always remember with absolute clarity the scene I now sat looking at, an uncaring moon highlighting just how sick and perverse people can be.

For I had no doubt that it was a human being that had wreaked such destruction—we're the only ones capable of such extremes of unconscionable violence.

I took the sleeping, or too exhausted and terrified to stay awake, gremlin back to the car and handed it to Mithnite. "Look after it. Keep it warm and don't wake it up, okay?" I whispered.

"Sure, what happened?" He reached out a hand to stroke the gremlin but I grabbed him.

"Don't stroke it, it isn't a pet. If it wakes up and finds you doing that it will bite a chunk out of you."

"Sorry."

"Just wait here."

I went to the back of the car and found a tarp that had rope running through eyelets around its edge, there for emergency repairs but now perfect for a rather more grim cleanup operation.

Steeling myself, I went back to the clearing and sank to my knees. Piece by ruined piece, I gathered up the remains of the Cardiff gremlin population after tying the tarp closed at one end, and put them in with as much respect as I could under the circumstances.

My vision clouded as the tears fell fast and free while I worked without stopping until the horror was contained, then took it back to the car and placed it gently inside.

I got in the car and we drove back to my house without a word, Mithnite showing his maturity and understanding now was not the time to talk. It was obvious to him what had happened and I guess one look at my soaked, angry face told him everything else he needed to know.

Halfway home I called Dancer, knowing I should pull over to make the call but if I stopped I'd break down and was only just holding it together. I told him what happened and could hear him gasp and swear even though he'd moved the phone away to do so. Mithnite was crying as I hung up after I told Dancer to let me know if anything else happened but that I had to go home and would see him in the morning.

Back at the house, I parked up and shone the headlights onto a rough patch of ground by the side of the forest. Then I went and grabbed a shovel from the shed, shouting to tell Kate I was home.

As I came back around to the front, Kate came out. "Well, how was your first day back on..."

I grabbed her and pulled her close, great sobs racking my body as I held on to her for all I was worth. But this was no good, I had to finish this while I still had the strength. "Someone killed the gremlins, nearly all of them. Mithnite's in the car, with Macdubhgall, and I need to bury the rest."