Hidden Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 6) (25 page)

"They work on shifts. It's a cushy job," Dancer replied somewhat defensively.

"Um, okay. What now?"

"Now? Now we kick their asses and send them screaming to somewhere nasty and hopefully very hot."

"I've been there, it's not nice."

"Good."

Back out through the main library, into the lobby, and things were worse than before. Seems that in our absence the gremlins—who must have been here to find out what had happened, and had clearly been told—had joined in the fray, not to mention every other Hidden in the building.

It was carnage on a soul-sapping scale.

Bodies small and large lay strewn in various states of defilement. Limbs missing, heads mushed, holes blasted through, fur stuck in clumps to the walls, even the ceiling high above the landing.

Wyrmlings were out of control, whooping and yelping, manic and fueled by rage and the release they'd been given by Dragon. And there he was, stood in the middle of it all, soaking up the death and the destruction as if it fueled him.

As colors and magic swirled around him in a growing vortex of protection and power, it was clear that was exactly what was going down. He was getting stronger off it, off the hyped-up energies and the magic released into the Empty as our people and our non-people lost their lives.

But we weren't giving up, and we fought. Hidden that wanted to be left to fight amongst themselves in peace and not intrude on the Regular world would not be made to cow-tow to this madman, no matter that he was the founder. Shifters shifted, gremlins bit and spat, trolls smacked bodies through walls, and wyrmlings shot spiteful magic at anything they could.

The air raged with the turmoil, dangerous forces now utterly wild and unstable.

Dragon screamed and a bubble of death expanded out from his body, taking Hidden and wyrmlings alike out in a flash of death like a fireball, clearing a space around him.

The air was sucked away like a sonic boom and for a moment all was silent.

I stared around in shock, at the fact he held his own worshipers in such contempt.

"Time for you to join me, to begin again," he said, calm as if we were at a tea party.

The air shifted once more, the magic raged, and the front door opened with a suitably eerie creak.

Zombies!

Undead Dinner Guests

"Aw, come on, you have got to be kidding me," I whined. "Dancer, the next job had better be a damn easy one or I'm going back into retirement."

"Me too," he said, smoothing back his hair, the blood of others a rather morbid gel that smeared over his face as he wiped away the magic sweats.

Digging deep inside myself, to places that stored the last of my strength and ability to use magic, I drew my own power and that of the Empty in as quickly as possible. I knew I was close to losing it, to hitting the comedown whether I wanted to or not. There is only so long I can keep using magic without basically running out of mental strength and psychical willingness, and I was close to hitting the supernatural wall now.

I felt my body fight against my instructions, the magic coming slower and less forceful, even as my tattoos were engorged once again. The time under its influence too extended now, and me certainly not used to such deep immersion.

But I knew I couldn't stop, couldn't give in and slump to the floor, letting exhaustion take me. I had to fight on, to the bitter end.

This wasn't just about me, it was about all of us. About Dancer and Kate and Grandma and Mithnite and the gremlins and all of us that kept the rest of the world safe in our own rather twisted way.

Dragon would decimate the planet, so I blasted the damn zombies, well-preserved and many still aware of what they were. Followers of the Dragon, worshiping him for the twisted gift he'd bestowed upon them. The rancid immortality they'd been given as the worst kind of prize for following him blindly through madness after madness.

They dropped, but more kept on coming through the door, and as gremlins jumped onto their backs and ripped at their faces, the lobby became crowded with undead and living wyrmlings and those of us fighting for survival, until we were all trampling over the bodies of loved ones and hated ones, a terrible dishonor to our fallen friends.

"Up the stairs," I shouted, stepping back and onto the lowest step as I blasted away, magic stuttering and coming in sporadic bursts now, hardly even enough to kill those already undead, the shots at their brains becoming less and less effective.

"Move, everyone move," Dancer ordered in a voice full of authority and tinged by magic as if he were vampire and could use Voice to make our people obey.

Those that could, made a dash up, Dancer and I either side of the stairs, giving a shove to those that needed it, a smile and deepest sympathies to all. Others battled with wyrmlings, swapping magic in unfriendly ways, and I made a quick dash for Macdubhgall as I saw him about to be stomped by a huge beast of a man.

"Sorry to pick you up like that. Hope you're okay?" I said as I cradled the pissed off furry little fella, then rushed up the stairs, nothing more I could do. Macdubhgall squawked and batted huge eyelids over sad eyes, infinite pools of misery, no longer lost to the peace of sleep.

I let the sad creature down at the top and it scampered off, fur matted with blood and almost dead on its feet.

This was getting ridiculous. There was no way we could beat all these wyrmlings, even with the trolls still batting bodies below. There were too many and Dragon was too powerful. Even as Dancer joined me and everyone else moaned or shouted behind us, Dragon's magic expanded once again, taking down trolls, the rock bodies exploding into constituent parts, shale and dust flying every which way.

They'd regroup, but it would take valuable minutes we didn't have.

"Move everyone back to safety, Dancer. I'll deal with this pretender."

"You sure?" Dancer surveyed the carnage, wincing at the vision of Dragon moving over the mangled bodies, his followers beside him, basking in the never-ending glow of his strong magic.

"No, but I'm not gonna fail on my first job for you."

"Definitely good to have you back," he said, before he barked orders and ushered everyone to relative safety, at least for a few minutes.

This was it, him against me, and I knew I didn't stand a chance. As Dragon took the first step, elemental forces whirling, tearing at the air, I brought up every last ounce of magic I had inside me and mingled it with all I could take from the Empty. I felt my body literally spasm as my flesh consumed itself in an effort to do as I bid. Felt my ink tear at my clothes, pushing hard against fabric as I expanded, growing larger with the force of my will.

Just do it, Spark, you are immortal and part giant, show him what you're made of.

I screamed, feeling myself tear apart, flesh grow hard and indestructible as I readied myself for the battle of my life.

And then I stuttered, body unable to meet the challenge of my mind. I was me again, less than whole. Spent.

Dragon smiled. And I smiled right back at him as I collapsed onto my knees, feeling all kinds of sick, nothing left inside of me to stop the payback. My vision clouded, my mind screamed, my flesh crawled, and I waited for the hurt to encompass me, once more my fight to overcome the pain that was due a losing battle.

But then I felt the change in the air, and I opened my eyes, looked down the stairs at the bulging front door, as with a
whoosh
it exploded inward, the head of a dragon turning left then right.

It snorted, caught the scent of the corrupt wizard that had stolen her name, and she roared one hell of a roar before speaking in a voice unlike anything I had ever heard before.

A deep rumble full of the promise of a fiery death, grating and overwhelming the mind with its pure magical malevolence.

"Hello, my dear husband. I have come for you."

It was about time.

An Unhappy Reunion

"Delilah," spluttered Dragon, magic leaving him as he took in the sight of his naked wife, standing in the smashed doorway. An otherworldly vision of utter beauty, the mess of a reality behind her enough to send you mad if you looked for too long.

"My bad, bad husband. Once again I have to come lock you away. Why will you not stay away from the human realm and leave these people to their own devices?"

"You know why. Because they need me. I cannot desert them. They require guidance."

Delilah looked at the carnage with a frown, then at the wyrmlings already on their knees. They knew this was Dragon's wife, not understanding the relationship, only that he'd once been with a powerful woman and she was seemingly reborn as a dragon. They were utterly subservient in the face of such power.

"They don't need you. It is you that needs them. You feed off the strength of others, and I will not let this continue."

"Just try to stop me. You left, you failed me. You would rather play in that dungeon you call a home. It's ancient history, that crumbling mess of a cave you think is so beautiful." He spat his words, but I could see the need in him, the despair that one such as her had left him, their games through time that he loathed yet craved just so he knew she still cared enough to try to stop him.

"You go too far this time. Once again you destroy rather than build."

Delilah walked into the large foyer, body pure and perfect, naked flesh entrancing. Then she waved an arm and the wyrmlings close to her simply melted away, dissolving into pools of flesh as if she were in dragon form and had breathed fire.

The zombies halfway up the stairs were spared such an ignominious death and they continued upward, not spellbound like the others while their craving for living flesh and human brains drove them up and at me. I tried to blast them but I was spent now, little but a tiny spark of inferior magic left, and it failed to do anything but burn little holes in their tattered clothing.

"You cannot kill me," roared Dragon, stepping back as Delilah came forward.

"Oh no? Is that what you think? I have given you thousands of years to right the wrongs you have done, or to become a better man, but you are beyond redemption now."

Delilah bent forward and I stood, transfixed, as she shone green, steaming as her body took on the impossible form of the dragon. She filled the space as she kept on growing, body stretching out and beyond the doorway, smashing the wall as her hide grew green scales while she continued getting bigger and bigger. Breaking the building apart as she became ever more powerful as her true nature was revealed.

Then she snapped, huge jaws larger than a person, taking Dragon by his head and upper torso between monstrous teeth, her open mouth revealing a forge of orange where the fire waited.

She lifted her head, body half in her mouth, and she opened her jaw. Her husband slid down her throat, screaming as fire engulfed him. He turned to ash in a moment, then she swallowed, and he was no more.

Wasting no time, I retreated back up the last few stairs even as her body, still full size, began to shrink, her metamorphosis enough to trash half the steps and much of the ground floor, the upper story still mostly intact.

The zombies were right behind me, faster now that the spell of the dragon was completely gone. I turned at the top and saw her step backward, a look of utter sadness on her face. I guess when you chase through the millennia playing such strange games with a man you once loved it's bound to make you a little upset when you eat him.

"Zombies, better get ready," I shouted to the waiting Dancer and the survivors of the fight.

It didn't matter that Dragon was dead, these were still flesh-obsessed undead and we were trapped.

A Bum, a Battle

As the first of the zombie wyrmlings reached the top of the stairs, I kicked out with a gore-stained winklepicker, sending it crashing back into the others, half a dozen tumbling behind it. The rest just kept on coming.

It would have been nice if Delilah had felt she could spare the time to stop us being munched on but I guess she had paninis to make.

I turned back to the others, wishing the damn trolls would hurry up and pull themselves back together, but knowing we'd be dead if we waited for them. Rushing back to Dancer, the gremlins, the wizards, and the shifters still alive, I think we all had the same thought at once. Let's just fight and get this damn thing over with one way or another.

The building was unstable, and no matter what the cake-eating wizard and his muttered words did now there was no stopping the inevitable—the place was gonna blow, and soon. We'd be lost forever, unable to get back to the world if that happened with us inside.

I caught sight of a familiar vision in skintight jeans. Persimmon retreating down the hall, cheeks wiggling like the time I wrapped two Kraken eggs in a bag of silk—don't ask, it's another job that didn't end well—and my resolve faltered. I hadn't known she was here and I admit I had a soft spot for her. Not just because she was divine, but because of her relationship to a lost friend. I still had nightmares about Plum and what she had become in those final minutes and I would not stand for any more sorrow.

Seeing the gremlins there, come from far and wide to avenge the murder of their kind, seeing everyone steady their resolve, I think maybe I understood for the first time that although we fought and bickered and did terrible things, we were a family of sorts. You looked after your family no matter what.

Thinking of Kate, and of Mithnite, hopefully both safe and sound at home, I knew I would fight until my last breath left me so I could try to make it home to my strange new family. I wondered if Kate had put out milk for the hobs, or maybe she'd got Mithnite to do it.

"Spark, what the hell is wrong with you?" shouted Persimmon, now by my side, a rather fierce looking sword in hand. She'd clearly gone off to get it and I'd been daydreaming while she returned.

She sliced out fast with powerful muscles, taking the top of the head right off a zombie too close for comfort, and then we all kind of lost the plot.