Heart's Darkness Read online

  Heart's Darkness

  Book V of 'The Magician's Brother' Series

  HDA Roberts

  CONTENTS

  Heart's Darkness

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Copyright © 2019 HDA Roberts

  All rights reserved.

  Any resemblance to any person living or dead is unintentional.

  Cover by Warren Design

  Chapter 1

  As was so often the case, this screw-up started as it meant to go on... badly.

  It all began six weeks after my breakup with Cathy, six weeks which I would not be remembering fondly. After too long feeling sorry for myself, I decided that I needed a distraction and, fool that I was, I thought that trying for my Level Ten Magical Proficiency Certificate would be the way to go.

  In my defence, it did distract me... even if it did absolutely nothing for my stress, and this at a time when I was anxiously waiting for my A-level results. All things considered, it was a miracle I made it through without suffering a minor stroke.

  Other than the self-flagellation, my life had otherwise been quiet. I hadn't annoyed anyone, insulted any dignitaries, offended any god-like Entities, started any wars or blown anybody up. I was, essentially, minding my own damned business for a change, and yet trouble was still quite willing to swoop down and crap all over my head.

  On the day it started, I was enjoying the fading August sunshine at a small park in Stonebridge, eating an ice cream and simply relaxing for what felt like the first time in months. It was a very peaceful moment; the tree I was sitting under was shady, the grass was green and the sky clear of clouds; I was surrounded by the happy babble of people having a good time.

  I let out a sigh and closed my eyes for a moment, smiling as the cooling breeze washed over me and blew a few of my cares away, even if only for a little while. And then, just as I was at the most peaceful I'd been in ages, that's when I felt the power start to flow. It was a dim thing at first, barely noticeable in the most Magical city in the world, but notable for the fact that it wasn't human, it was Fairy.

  I'd barely had the chance to notice it before it was on me... and then in me, reaching deep into my chest, where it felt like a great hand had taken a hold of something important and yanked on it, hard.

  As you might imagine, it hurt. A lot.

  I clutched at the spot, right where my heart was, feeling for damage even as my mouth started to open in a scream, only to find that the pain had stolen my breath. I felt nothing wrong, and it didn't take me long to figure out that it wasn't a physical attack at all, it was something much worse. I felt another tug, and then an awful, almost horrifically slow, wrench, the pain increasing to something truly monstrous, until the Spell (for that was all it could be) finally managed to rip out two pieces of me, of my very soul, if I was any judge, and carry them away.

  I finally managed to draw enough breath to scream; an awful sound that spoke of terrible loss and dreadful heartache. I could feel the gaping holes where those parts of me had been, where I'd been attached to something precious to me, something that was now gone...

  My screams had drawn stares, and people were coming over to help, bless them. The last thing I saw before I collapsed into darkness were concerned faces and phones put to ears.

  I woke up, after a fashion, into a very dark place, not that this was normally a problem for me; darkness and I were old friends. As I became more and more aware, it brightened up a little, revealing my library at Blackhold, the residence of the First Shadow, and my home. I was lying next to the fireplace, which was unlit.

  It didn't take long to realise that this wasn't really my Blackhold. The place where I lived didn't usually have huge holes in the walls that looked out over a vista of eternal darkness.

  "That's just disturbing," said a cheerful, familiar voice from behind me.

  I tried to conceal a cringe. If I was where I thought I was, then he was the very last person I wanted to see.

  "Dare I ask what you're doing in my head, Neil?" I asked as nonchalantly as I could, turning to look at the man who I was fairly certain was the Devil.

  He was a stylishly dressed man, appearing to be in his late twenties, with dark hair and sparkling, nearly black, eyes. His face was finely chiselled, with classical features and a vaguely aquiline nose. As always, he was immaculately dressed in a dark suit, carrying a black cane topped with a silver snake's head.

  "Sorry if I'm intruding," he said politely, taking a seat on the sofa next to me, "Open goal, and all that."

  I rolled my eyes and shifted myself off the floor and into an armchair.

  "What happened to me?" I asked.

  "Immense damage to your soul," he replied with a smile, pointing his cane at the hole in the wall, which stretched to the floors above and below, "Just be thankful it didn't hit the more delicate parts of your psyche, or you'd never have woken up."

  "What did it?" I asked, though I had a fairly good idea. My memories were starting to come back, though they were still a little fuzzy around... whatever had happened to drop me into this state.

  "Oh, I couldn't possibly comment," Neil replied smugly, "I'd imagine you'll figure that out on your own, anyway."

  "You still haven't told me why you're wondering around inside my head."

  "Angels exist to shepherd lost souls, didn't you know? And you are a very lost soul."

  I gave him a look, which made him smile.

  "Fine, I'm here to see if I can prod you over a moral cliff while you're too weak to do anything to stop me, are you happy?"

  "Not especially."

  He chuckled, "No, I wouldn't be either. You have had a rough run of things lately, haven't you? Demons landing on your head, ancient horrors trying to eat you, that delectable bit of blond goodness giving you the boot..."

  "Gloating is a terrible trait in an immortal being."

  "That explains why you have so many enemies," he replied.

  Ouch. He had a point, but still...

  "Well, all that's over now. New school, new opportunities. New chances," I said brightly.

  The smile on his face turned positively evil, and that is not a good look on the bloody Devil.

  "What?" I asked, perhaps sounding a little exasperated.

  "Nothing," he replied, looking away, still smirking.

  "Just spill it."

  "I am but a poor Angel-"

  "Archangel," I interrupted, he pretended not to notice.

  "-just a mere servant of the cosmos. What could I possibly know about your upcoming trial against the darkness?"

  I gave him a very dry look this time, "Isn't that a touch melodramatic?"

  "You're going to lecture me about melodrama? With your track record?"

  "Do you have to be such a prick about this?"

  "I'm the Devil, and you really might consider not being quite so rude to me," he replied, his eyes narrowing.

  "Seeing as how you'll likely arrange for unpleasant temptations and calam
ities whether I kiss your arse or not, I see no particular downside to it."

  He laughed again, "Oh, I do like you, Graves. You're quite straightforward for such a fantastic liar."

  The Devil liked me... oh dear. As if being kissed (and groped) by the odd Demon wasn't already enough to explain to St Peter (and that didn't begin to cover the rest of the sinning I enjoyed. My record on Sloth alone was going to take some fast talking).

  "Hey, I have cut down on the lying!"

  He waggled his hand back and forth. I rolled my eyes.

  "So... how are you feeling?" he asked, looking right at me.

  "That seems like a loaded question."

  "And so it is. The damage ripped out some important parts of your emotional core. I can't imagine you'll be entirely stable. Any homicidal urges?"

  "One or two," I replied, giving him a glare, "And souls heal."

  "Not quickly. You've already begun sliding down a very interesting slope, young Shadow."

  "Seriously, melodrama."

  He harrumphed (yes, I'd made the Devil harrumph), but he didn't look any less amused.

  "Deny it all you want, but I'm really going to enjoy this. It's so much fun watching the really righteous ones fall to their Demons."

  "Oh, is Gabby around?" I asked innocently, looking behind me.

  Gabrielle was the Succubus Neil had appointed as his 'liaison' to me, which was really just a euphemism for 'walking temptation'. No doubt he saw the success Tethys had at wrapping me around her little finger and figured that was the way to go. If my enemies ever figured out that all they needed to do to get me on side was to send a pretty girl to ask me nicely, I was so screwed...

  "You know very well what I mean, stop ruining this for me!"

  I chuckled and looked out of the hole in my 'wall'. It was dark out there, but in a familiar way, swirling with dark purples and blues, undulating gently. It was quite relaxing, actually.

  "In all seriousness, Graves," he said, his tone taking on a more human note, which brought my attention back with a vengeance, "I owe you for what you did for my Gabrielle. What's coming will be... unpleasant. Try not to die before you've fallen."

  His tone was almost... parental.

  "I don't suppose you'd like to give me a clearer warning?"

  He lifted a very expressive eyebrow. I rolled my eyes in reply.

  "No, I suppose you really can't."

  "Clever boy, you're learning!"

  He opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped, cocking his head.

  "Ah, good, the damage has healed enough for you to wake up! I leave you with this final thought: if Demonic doesn't always mean 'evil', then can Angelic always mean good?"

  "Just what the hell is that supposed to me-" I started, but then everything went a sudden, blinding white, and the world disappeared.

  My real eyes snapped open, and I sat up with a start, only to find myself tangled with tubes, catheters and cannulae. I was wearing a hospital gown, which left me feeling exposed. Alarms bleeped madly from a monitor next to the bed...

  My bed?

  I was a bit groggy, but I recognised my bedroom in Blackhold (the real one, this time). The walls were covered in dark wood panelling, which also made up various shelves full of books, DVDs and electronics. There was an open door opposite the bed, which led to the bathroom and a closed one to my left, which led to the rest of the house.

  The conversation with Neil was fading like a bad dream, and I desperately tried to hang onto the details even as I was panicking slightly from the jarring transitions. I did my best to slow my breathing, as I'd been taught, but before I could really get started, the door to the corridor burst open and a complete stranger came rushing in.

  She was dressed all in white, middle aged with steel-grey hair and beefy arms. She had a nurse's watch pinned to her lapel and a phone in her hand, which seemed to be beeping in time to the alarms next to my bed.

  "Stop that, you'll tear your tubes out!" she snapped, shoving me back down, which hurt and served to further fray some badly jangled nerves.

  I noticed a pain in my chest that only seemed to intensify as I became more and more aware of it. It was hard to describe, almost like a physical manifestation of loss, of grief. It was horrible, and it was making me more anxious with each passing moment. I wanted to run, to move, to scream, and I didn't appreciate this behemoth of a woman shoving me around like a slab of meat.

  "Get off me!" I shouted, still disoriented, still groggy, and now veering towards panic.

  She didn't listen; in fact, she shoved even harder on my torso, right where that aching wound was. That turned the pain up to eleven and really was the last straw.

  Entirely on instinct, reacting to the sudden pain, a tendril of hardened Shadow came out from under the bed and swatted her like a fly. She flew through the doorway and into the wall opposite, where she fell to the ground in a heap. She was already stirring to come at me again (I hadn't hit her too hard, thank God), and I didn't like the look in her eyes.

  I threw together a quick Sleep Hex and put her down properly before she could break my neck (it was that sort of look she had on her face).

  Before anything else could come at me, I started yanking the tubes and monitoring things off (and out) of me. The ones in my plumbing were the most painful, but I wanted out of that bed. I was functioning on some sort of fear response, even though, objectively, there was nothing to be afraid of. I was in Blackhold, the safest place in the country for me to be. I could feel the power of the place, the active defences that meant destruction for anything or anyone meaning me harm, and yet I was still practically on the verge of hysteria. I felt almost like a cornered animal.

  And there was still that pain in my chest, driving those emotions, making them worse.

  It was grief, I could understand that much, but couldn't begin to reason why I felt that way. Nobody I knew had died, to my knowledge. It was confusing me, driving me to distraction; I suddenly felt tears in my eyes that had nothing to do with pulling a tube out of my bits (though that hadn't been pleasant...).

  I finished freeing myself and tried to stand, only to discover that my legs weren't working properly. I fell to the carpet, the tears in my eyes flowing freely as I gathered my Shadows to me and they propped me up. An effort of Magically-infused Will got me moving towards the door. I had to find Tethys, or Cassandra. They'd know what was going on.

  I staggered into the corridor, checking for more nurses who might be lurking. Wait... nurse? I looked her over, and the details I'd noticed earlier began to crystallise at last. That left me feeling terribly ashamed of myself. My household had obviously arranged for this woman to come in and take care of my needs while I was healing... and I'd knocked her out.

  I would have to make that right somehow, but not this minute. I needed answers.

  I cast Mage Sight and looked around. I relaxed slightly as I saw that people were coming, likely attracted by the noise (or by the sentient book running the house's defences telling someone to come help me before I did something stupid). I still almost conjured my shields, I was that amped up, almost paranoid.

  "Matty!" I turned to see Tethys sprinting for me, and I relaxed a little more. She almost leapt into my arms, wrapping her own around me and squeezing me tightly to her.

  Tethys was the kind of beautiful that has started wars in times gone by. She was tall and statuesque, pale skinned, with a soft, heart-shaped face, full, kissable lips and deep violet eyes framed by long and slightly curly ebony hair. Her normally elegant wardrobe had been replaced by jeans and a cotton shirt, with no jewellery except for my signet ring on her left pinkie. She radiated sensuality in the way only a Succubus can, but it had been a long time since I'd learned to look past that and to the wonderful friend that lived underneath. She and I were very close, closer than I was to anyone, in fact, especially in those days.

  "What happened?" I whispered, barely containing my tears, keeping the strain from my voice by sheer stubborn willpower
, "I feel like I lost someone, but I can't remember who..."

  "Hush, Matty, it's alright, I'll explain everything, just breathe. Relax, calm," she said. She kissed my cheek and stroked my hair, "And easy with those Shadows, they're coming up on some very intimate places!"

  "Sorry," I said, noticing that my constructs had wrapped themselves around us to the waist. I concentrated, but they didn't budge, "Damn, my focus is all messed up."

  I gritted my teeth and they slowly slithered away, back into the recesses, except for the ones that were keeping my legs and back straight.

  "Better," she said, cupping my face before taking me by the hand, leading me back towards my bedroom on my shaky legs.

  She settled me on a sofa and gestured at the woman on the floor.

  "Why'd you swat the nurse?" she asked with a grin.

  "She startled me, tried to hold me down, I didn't mean to," I said softly, "She's only sleeping, not hurt."

  I started to shiver. Tethys brought me a blanket and wrapped it around me, rubbing my shoulders.

  "Okay," she said, "first, you've been out for two weeks, this is day fifteen."

  I blinked. That would explain why I felt so weak. But... two weeks? My parents must be a wreck by now.

  Before she could continue, Demise and Cassandra came barrelling in, both of them were carrying weapons, a pair of pistols for Cassandra and a black rod for Demise. Their faces drained of tension when they saw me conscious.

  Cassandra Vallaincourt was my Warden Commander, sort of my chief bodyguard. She was a tall woman with black hair and classically beautiful features, built like a gymnast, but stronger than an ox. She wore a conservative suit, black with a white blouse, very neat and tidy. She was like the sister I never had, the one who kept me humble and grounded, my rock in many ways.

  The other, Demise, was also a Warden, a Death Mage of whopping skill and power. She was a little shorter than Cassandra, but more severely beautiful, with dark brown hair and eyes. She was whipcord thin and looked deadly, even at rest. Trust me when I say that the 'look' badly understated what that woman could do if she was angry.

  The pair darted for me, almost tripping each other over in their haste.