Arcane Inc.: Books 1-4 (Arcane Inc. Box Set), page 30
“I’d hoped we’d have to chance to explore our feelings but that’s gone now.” I tried to find a way to give her a genuine goodbye. No words seemed enough. I’m not really good at all that sentimental stuff. “You are the biggest enigma I’ve ever met. And I’m sorry I’ll never get the chance to figure you out. I’m sorry for what happened here. I will make it right.” I pulled away from her ear and took my hand from her mouth hoping that she’d consumed enough of the inoculant to do the job. I rubbed the wound with my other hand and the skin closed up as if the slash had never happened. “Goodbye, Ashley Sheridan.” I looked at Matt and Emma. Goodbye to you guys as well. Knowing—”
“I said you could say goodbye to one. Let’s go,” Rachel ordered. I gave my friends a brief nod and then made my way back off the stage. Pete was snarling at me like a rabid dog. I guess I know who he blamed.
“Don’t come after me,” I said to them all as I left. I’d given Ashley my blood so she could get herself and the others out of there before Inspector Richards turned up. I didn’t want them implicated.
And that was the end of the show. As I walked out of the auditorium with Rachel and Cameron the curtains closed on the stage. My time in Maidstone was over. My time as a free man was over. This probably isn’t what you expected. You thought I’d find a way to stop the bad guy and save everyone before it was too late. But I failed. I could say a bit more but I’m really not in the mood. So I’ll just leave it here. No romance. No heroics. No happy endings. Just tragedy. This is the end of my story. Thanks for reading and I’m sorry it ended so miserably. Goodbye.
Interlude
Ah, got ya! It’s not really the end. Obviously, like it was going to end like that. How depressing. It’s not Shakespeare. And like I’d give up so easily. Some bitch walks in, kills my potential girlfriend’s mother and I just roll over and walk into a life of servitude. Oh no. No Siree Bob. This was far from over. Rachel always had a back-up plan and so did I. I just needed to figure out what mine was.
19
Rachel’s car was parked in the alley around the side of the theatre. She had a Black BMW. It was nice but I wasn’t about to compliment her on it.
“Are you going to take the curse off me?” I asked sullenly.
“Cheer up, Eddie. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. You might as well try to enjoy it,” she said chirpily. She was always so happy when she got her own way.
“Are you?” I reiterated.
She stopped walking and turned to me. “I think I prefer you with it. Maybe when its done its job I’ll take it away. But by that point I think you’d rather keep it.”
“Its job?”
“To make you less of a whiney little wanker.”
I heard sirens blaring somewhere nearby. The police had finally figured out where I’d gone. It took them long enough considering I’d left the answer in my cell. Taxes well spent.
“Looks like it’s time to go,” Rachel said. “Get in the car.” I doubt the police would have been able to do any good. Rachel had enough magic to decimate the entire force but she had always preferred to stay in the shadows. She kept her name off everyone’s radars. She was like the monster under the bed. You know it’s there but you can never see it. Never get any evidence of its existence. Not until the moment before it strikes and by then it’s too late. Even if you do know she’s coming you can’t stop her.
Cameron took the driver’s seat and Rachel slipped into the back with me. I noticed that the windows were tinted so even if we drove right past Inspector Richards he’d never know I was in the car.
“Oh, and don’t bother with any sneaky spells. The car’s protected,” Rachel said. I felt out with my magic and sensed hers all over the car. There was no chance I’d be able to do anything to the car. That was a shame because flipping the car mid-drive could have caused quite a bit of damage considering neither of them bothered to put on their seatbelt. I put mine on. Just in case.
“Where are we heading then?” I asked as Cameron drove us away from the theatre.
“We’ll go to my place to get my things and then we’re off.” I was surprised that she gave me a straight answer. She was usually so secretive. Maybe she had changed a bit over the years.
“Off where?”
“Anywhere and everywhere,” she said. “Think of all the power we’re going to gather. I think a tour of all the sorcerer hotspots is in order. Cedarstone’s the closest, we’ll start there and then go through the rest sequentially. Or maybe we’ll just pick random places and make it more fun.”
“Cedarstone? I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I’ve been to Cedarstone before and have no intention of going back. Rachel was powerful but there are sorcerers in Cedarstone that make her look like a child. Maybe I should take her there. Someone could kill her for me.
“I do the thinking, Eddie. You just follow my orders,” she said curtly.
As we turned onto the High Street, five police cars flew past us, blue lights blazing and sirens blaring. I wondered what the police would make of the scene they were about to discover in the theatre. Three-hundred-and-fifty corpses. I pushed the thought aside before it caused me any damage. I’ve never had much remorse for the things I’ve done but I regretted this. It was just so… unnecessary. I wanted to blame the curse. The darkness. But I couldn’t. That was the easy way out. The coward’s way. I had done it and I would just have to live with it. Not that it would be that hard Truthfully, the only reason I regretted it was because Ashley had seen it.
“Why do you want me so badly?” I asked.
“Don’t play the moron, Eddie, you know why. Your ability to harvest magic,” Rachel replied.
“You’ve never been bothered by killing people. You can take magic the old fashioned way, you don’t need me. So why put so much effort into finding me?” The traditional way of stealing power is to use the warlock’s ritual. It involved murdering a sorcerer using an athame and siphoning the magic into the blade. Rachel had used that method before she’d met me and I assumed she’d used it after I ran away.
“When I use the ritual all the magic gets trapped in my athame. If I use you the magic goes directly into me,” she explained. It made sense. If a warlock’s athame was destroyed then the magic would be released. The only way to rid Rachel of the magic absorbed via my ability was to get me to take it. Killing her would release the magic as well. When a sorcerer dies the magic gets trapped in the place of their death. “Plus, why do things the boring original way? Always do one better. Or two better. I am not content to be an ordinary warlock. Ordinary is boring and frankly not worth it. Look out there.” She pointed out the window at the pedestrians we passed. “All those people. All those humans. The most ordinary and boring existence on the planet. Just look at them all, so ignorant about the fact that they could be so much more. I couldn’t think of anything worse than having to live a single minute of their dull grey lives. Does that answer your question?”
I didn’t quite know how to respond to that. I wouldn’t admit it to her but I agreed. Being an ordinary human was a scary thought. I couldn’t imagine life without the esoteric. There’s no way I could ever lead a human existence with a nine to five job. I’d sooner roll over and die. The difference was I wasn’t going to go around enslaving and killing people just to make myself more unique. Then again, I’m already about as unique as they come.
“What’s the end game?” I asked. It was a question that I’d often pondered when it came to Rachel.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, when you’ve got all the magic you can possibly consume, what then? What will you do? Retire from being a bitch or just find new ways of tormenting people?”
Her face fell grim and her eyes bore angrily into me. “Be careful how you speak to me, Eddie. You’re valuable but that does not mean I won’t punish you,” she said quietly.
“You’ve taken everything from me. I’m not afraid of your punishments. Bitch.”
No sooner were the words out of my mouth than she pointed her index finger at me and my chest exploded with agony. It was like something was inside me lashing at my insides, chewing up my organs. I leaned forwards screaming uncontrollably. I wasn’t sure but I think I might have been begging for her to stop. The pain vanished at once. There one second, gone the next and I was left clutching my chest and panting furiously. I glared at Rachel but didn’t say a word. I’d learned my lesson, for now at least.
“That was a three on the punishment scale. It ranges to a hundred,” she said calmly.
“She’s not joking,” Cameron chimed in. It was the first time he’d spoken all night.
“I’m surprised you’d know. You’ve always been such a good little boy,” I mocked. He didn’t reply.
“Even Cameron has had his transgressions,” said Rachel. “Now, I want to make our position clear, Eddie. I left four people alive in that theatre. Call it a show of good faith. If you go back on your word even once, I will take you back there and you will watch them all die. One by one.”
“I get it, I’m your servant until I die.”
“Yes. And I don’t intend on letting you die for a very long time.” She smiled at me and there was a disgusting glint in her eye as if she was keeping something horrifying from me. We were approaching a roundabout and I saw a bus coming down the first exit.
“How long are we talking?” I asked Rachel. I didn’t care about her answer I just needed her distracted because when she was jabbering on she wasn’t paying attention to much else.
My magic couldn’t touch the car but it could touch things outside. First I threw a spell on the bus concealing it from Cameron. He wouldn’t be able to see it as he approached the roundabout. The next bit was just a matter of timing and concentration. I waited for Cameron to drive out onto the roundabout and then I snapped my fingers. I didn’t even try to hide it. I wanted Rachel to know that what happened next was because of me. She’d die knowing I killed her. I quickly threw a protective spell around myself. It wouldn’t protect me from Rachel but it didn’t need to. It would protect me from the bus. The bus whose brake lines I’d just severed.
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What did you just—”
The bus smashed into the side of the car and threw us up in the air. I saw Rachel and Cameron tumble around in the car whilst my protection kept my perfectly safe. They really should’ve worn their seatbelts. The car smashed down on to the road upside down and rolled several times. By that point my protection spell broke as did my seatbelt and I was subjected to the same fate as Rachel and Cameron. All sense of geography evaporated as I careened about in the vehicle, my head and limbs rebounding off the structure. I could hear horns blazing and other cars crashing around me. People were screaming and shouting. Just as the car stopped moving and was about to settle another vehicle ploughed into us and sent us flying again. This time I was not prepared at all and went flying head first through one of the windows. I hit rock hard pavement and several bones smashed. My whole body felt like it was being ravished by prickling fire. I tried to move but was unable and just lay there instead. I could feel my consciousness slipping away but it didn’t matter. I’d done what I intended. Rachel and Cameron were dead.
20
But were they dead? I hadn’t seen them die. I couldn’t be sure. I pulled myself back from the dimness that was closing around me. I could lose consciousness later. Right now I had to make sure Rachel and Cameron were dead. Before I could move I’d need to take care of my injuries. There was a very sharp pain in my hip and both arms. I guessed they were all broken. Yes, I know, I broke my hip, like an old man. Shut up. I closed my eyes and sent healing magic throughout my body fixing what I could. The pain I was in was counterproductive to my concentration which made it harder to heal myself. I managed to mend my bones but that was about it. All the scrapes, cuts, bruises and whatever else I was suffering from remained. I’d have to deal with them later when I could concentrate better. There were more pressing matters right now. I rolled onto my front and the world spun around me. I waited for it to settle before attempting to stand. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was. We had been near Mote Park, now I was outside a grubby building that looked like a block of council flats. A few people, mainly women in tracksuits, had come to see what was going on. None of them offered to help me, they just watched from the distance. I climbed to my feet and rubbed a hand down my face. The right side of it was coated in thick sticky blood.
“Are… are you alright, mate?” one of the woman asked. Despite her kindness the chaviness of her voice irritated me. I was about to answer when she screamed and something smacked me in the side of the head and knocked me onto my knee.
“You dumb fucking dick!” Cameron roared. His fist came down again but I got my arm up in time to block it. With my free hand I landed a punch in his balls and he doubled over making an oofing noise. I know, I have no honour. Honour has no place in a fist fight. Or any fight for that matter.
He looked just as bad as I felt. His face had blood running all over it, his clothes were torn and ragged and there was a piece of metal sticking out of his leg which he seemed not to have noticed. Adrenaline I guess.
I stood up but before I could do anything he ran at me. He grabbed me around the middle and slammed me into the building. When he let me go I crumpled onto the floor.
“You couldn’t just learn your fucking place and do as you were told could you? You always have to ruin things.” I tried to get up but he kicked me back down.
“Ruin things? You wanted me as a slave,” I mumbled through blood.
“It wouldn’t have been that bad,” he snarled and kicked me again. “Think of all the magic we could’ve gathered. All the power. We could have ruled the fucking world with Rachel but you just had to go and kill her!”
“She’s dead?” the words came out far too jubilantly and his anger increased tenfold. He pulled his fist back and released it at my head. It took both hands to catch it and stop it from connecting. I quickly moved my hand onto his wrist to stop him from pulling it back.
“NO! NO!” he screamed as it dawned on him what I was about to do. I called to his magic. He struggled with more strength than he should have been able to considering what he’d just been through. It wasn’t enough. It never was. I sucked his power right out of him and left him with none. When I let his arm go he staggered back in horror. “You… you…”
I climbed back to my feet. “You wanted me to just give up? Go with it? Follow orders like a good little boy?” I asked as I advanced. The darkness was slithering forwards again. I was getting used to it now. I didn’t fight it. I welcomed it. On this occasion we both wanted the same thing. Cameron dead.
“It wouldn’t have been that bad. I did it and I was okay,” he said, continuing to back up. He knew he was fucked.
“You’re half right. You did follow her orders like a loyal dog. But are you really okay?” I asked. “You don’t look so okay from where I’m standing.”
“Eddie, please—” I swiped through the air with my arm and he flew backwards. His legs and arms flailed about as he came down towards the spiked metal fence. I stopped him. I held him with the spike millimetres from his heart. If I dropped him it would tear through his back and kill him.
“Are you okay?” I asked again as I walked to his side. “You… You betrayed me. You pretended to be my friend. All to help her get me. Do you even comprehend what that did to me?”
“Eddie, I…”
“I was a fucking child!” I screamed.
“So was I,” he said. Tears leaked from his eyes. He was just scared of dying. “How do you think I ended up with her, Eddie? She found me just like she found you and she wanted me.”
“For what? What do you have that interested her?” I’d always assumed Rachel had some kind of emotional bond to Cameron but thinking about it now that seemed foolish. The only emotion Rachel knew was anger.
“I can find things. I can track people even if they use concealing spells. How do you think we kept finding you?” he said. His voice was choppy and fearful. He could feel the spike digging into his back. “She took me when I was a kid. Years before we found you. When we did find you I was so happy. I finally had a friend. Someone to talk to.”
“It was all fake.”
“It wasn’t fake. You were the only friend I ever had.”
“You betrayed me remember? Don’t lie about it being real,” I snapped.
“I had to betray you. She gave me a choice. Betray you or…”
“Or what?”
“She didn’t kill my parents. I went with her when she asked. She promised to make me a great warlock. One of the greatest in the world. When she told me to betray you I said no. Because you were my friend. She said she’d take everything from me. She said I had to drop you. I had to kill your parents to convince you or she’d take all my magic and she’d kill my parents. I couldn’t let her kill my parents. I love them, Eddie, they’re my parents. I did what I had to do but I regret it. I’ve always regretted it. Please, Eddie, I’m sorry. I am. I wish I could fix things.”
“I wish that too,” I said quietly.
“Do you believe me? Please say you believe me, Eddie,” he pleaded, crying openly. I hate seeing people cry. It really pisses me off.
