B00N1384BU EBOK Page 9

  I became a true student of skin magic, travelling to many places in the world, seeking out everything I could lay my tattooed hands on - why bother remembering a particular incantation, when you can embed it into your skin and merely will it to happen?

  But even with the knowledge that I gained, my body gradually transforming into a painted piece of artwork as the years went by, I never found a single clue that would help me decipher the language and patterns of the sigil wound around my wrist.

  Standing in the restaurant in Raleigh, looking down at the bodies of the six henchman, a dozen warlocks, my target, and his girlfriend, all dead, I realized my years of study in sigils, and the numerous new protections I had placed on my skin before heading to the US to take out my target, had helped me little. In the end it had been that single pattern, burned into to my wrist - the one so intricate that I hadn't been able to even decipher a tenth of its properties - that had kept me alive.

  They had been expecting me, somehow. I don't know how they knew I was coming, but even with a week of trailing the guy, carefully and from a distance, they still managed to all be there when I took what I thought was a great opportunity to strike.

  I had wondered about the tarot card that had been sent with the letter, keeping it in my jacket pocket the whole time I was trailing the man. Occasionally I would take it out and stare at it, pondering how it could possibly be of help. The Lovers.

  I knew tarot cards, but how that particular card could apply to my situation, I couldn't fathom. The guy barely ever left the coven headquarters, and was constantly accompanied by at least two of the covens guards. All the snooping around I did turned up nothing.

  Until I'd been watching for a week and was getting desperate for some opening, anything.

  A quiet diner on the edge of the town, and him with only one henchman accompanying him as he met with a young woman I had not seen before. It was perfect, I thought, taking the card out of my pocket and smiling. The Lovers.

  But no sooner had I stepped into the place, than they all appeared. Guns were drawn. Spells were fired and reflected back by my prepared defenses, until I ran out of them. That was when my wrist started burning again. I was thrown to the floor, doubled over with pain. When it receded, and I could stand up again, the sigil was gone. My wrist was clean skin once more.

  Every person in the building, except for me, and one other, was dead.

  Before I could grasp what had happened, he was there once more, after ten years, standing in the middle of the diner, glancing at the bodies. I didn't move, but watched as he retrieved the piece of coin from the unfortunate, young target sitting across the table from his also dead lover.

  “Excellent work, my friend,” the ancient stranger said, still examining the piece of old coin.

  I looked around at all of the bodies. For a moment I thought about asking why he had killed all of them. But as I glanced up into those centuries old eyes, I knew. Anonymity. No witnesses. Would that include me? I wondered. Then I thought of them, already dead, and I was still living. If the stranger could kill them all in one instant, he could easily have extended that to one more.

  No, he wanted me alive. At least for now.

  “I didn't do anything,” I said. “They would have taken me out if it hadn't been for the sigil.”

  He looked up from the coin and smiled.

  “Maybe. But you are still here, and they are not. So it matters not,” he said. I noticed he was looking at the other sigils on my arms.

  “I see that you have made good progress already. That is impressive. We will have plenty of time to advance your knowledge, but this…” he said, indicating the piece of coin, “…must be dealt with first.”

  I nodded, realizing there was little point in hiding anything from this man who saved me from death…ten years before it had happened.

  “I have instructions to take that to a man named Levi Phillips,” I said. “He is my coven's leader, and he plans to put the coin back together when he chooses his successor.”

  The ancient, tattooed stranger nodded.

  “Indeed. But you will not be going there.”

  “I won't?” I said, confused. I was immediately worried, my mind scrambling to take stock of the consequences of disobeying an order from Levi Phillips.

  But the stranger continued.

  “No. No. I can't have my new protégé in danger before he is fully trained. You will return to London, to your new home, and await my return.”

  As I watched him, even more confused, the features of his face began to shift and change, almost to blur. In a few seconds his appearance changed entirely. Now, standing opposite me, looking back with a mischievous grin, was my own face.

  The stranger smiled, showing teeth that were identical to my own.

  “I will be going to collect the artifact.”

  August 1

  It was too early in my feigned sickness to be bedridden, but I was getting tired of the long nights on the porch with Matthew. Things were different now. Before, we would drink the rotgut and smoke some herb, neither of us talking for hours. He'd make a run to the cave to check on the stills and be back before we turned in for the night.

  But now, the conversation felt forced, contrived. The son of a bitch sent letters out to the coven, putting them on a quest and summoning them to replace me. And he signed my name to it. I wasn't sure how he was going to kill me but it didn't matter. My plan was in motion and I was three steps ahead.

  I coughed more each evening on the porch and I drank as much shine as I could without killing myself too early. The body I was in was doomed. I knew that two years ago when I began to fill the toilet bowl with a crimson wash. I hadn't expected Matthew to turn on me in hopes of grabbing leadership of The Black Fang for himself, but it didn't matter. That wasn't going to happen.

  “You ain't eating as much,” he said.

  “Your cooking sucks. Same old shit every day.”

  Matthew smiled while rocking back on his chair. The full, lush green of the August forest arrived and would stick around for a few weeks before the rusted colors of autumn moved in.

  “You know where the skillet is. And the spatula.”

  “I'm not feeling so great,” I said. “These old bones aren't gonna hold me up for too much longer.”

  I rationed out hope to Matthew, one sentence at a time.

  “Maybe we should go into town? See the Doc?”

  “Humph,” I said with a wave of my hand. “For what? I don't want to save this body. It's almost done anyways.”

  “Then maybe we can git you another?”

  Another body? My mind flashed to the dead witch hunters in the cave. The boy gave me an idea and I tucked it away for when I could pursue it further.

  “Nah. I think my time is about up. I'm tired. Not sure I can go another hundred years, especially the way the world is today. Damn global warming's gonna burn us all off anyway.”

  Matthew nodded and took a sip of his moonshine but he couldn't hide the grin beneath. I was saying exactly what he wanted to hear.

  The Story of Arthur Billington by T.W. Brown

  “America…why does it have to be bloody America?”

  Almost on cue, a family of four—father, mother, teen daughter, and toddler that I was almost certain had to be a boy—hurried past in that typical and undignified way that Americans have when on holiday. I scowled at the boy child who gaped at me from over his father’s shoulder, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. I was tempted to put a curse on the lot of them and send them back to the colonies with an intestinal virus that would ensure they never returned to my beautiful Cardiff ever again.

  Sadly, I did not have time for such pleasant distractions. According to the scrawled note, my flight left in six hours. At long last, perhaps years of service to my beloved Black Fang will result in the reward I so richly deserve. Although, certainly this task of retrieving a relic coin had to be one of the most ridiculous ideas ever put forth.

&n
bsp; Why would Levi stoop to such eccentricities? I wondered as I paused to let my valet open the door to my limo. This just seems so beneath our usual protocol. If the old man is to pass on and wishes to have his successor in place, why send us off on some Arthurian quest?

  “Where to, Mister Billington?” my driver asked. I really should try to keep the names of my staff straight. Perhaps if I prove myself on this silly little quest and become the new master of the Fang, then I will strive to do so, I vowed internally.

  “Heathrow,” I said as I leaned my head back and shut my eyes.

  “Very good, sir,” the driver answered smartly.

  I could feel the questioning gaze of my valet as he sat across from me. I am sure he wondered why I was holding the Wheel of Fortune tarot card in my hand. If I had the answer to that question, I would already be making plans for how I would run The Black Fang.

  ***

  “What a filthy little place,” I murmured as the Boeing 777 came down through the clouds to reveal what was being touted as the Port Columbus International Airport.

  My impressions did not improve as I made my way to baggage claim. How we lost the war to these people is beyond me, I thought as I watched a woman easily tipping the scale well over twenty-one stone while she shoved a half dozen people aside to grab her bag from the carousel. I could not help myself. Tapping on some of the energy that I kept stored, I sent a curse her way that I only wish that I could watch unfold. The next time she sat down to eat, she would be compelled to stuff her gob until her insides literally tore open. Her death would be most unpleasant.

  My gaze shifted up and I found myself looking in a reflective sheet of stainless steel. The gray fringe of hair that circled my head was unkempt from sitting in the faux-leather seat of that cursed plane for so long. I ran a hand over my pate to try and smooth things down, but it was simply useless.

  “Mister Billington,” a soft voice with just a trace of an accent that gave away its Asian origins spoke from right behind me.

  I turned to see a petite woman looking rather dapper in a gray business suit. She was flanked by two hulking figures that stood in stony sentinel at each shoulder; their black glasses keeping me from seeing what I assumed to be menacing glares on the other side.

  “Kuan Si sends his regrets that he could not be here to meet you in person,” the woman spoke after I did little more than give a slight nod. She was obviously hired help, and as such, not an individual that I was inclined to speak with directly. “He wishes me to inform you that it is still within your power to return home. Until you step out of this facility, you are not bound to face him. However, once you step foot outside this airport, the binding will be in effect and you will have no choice but to confront him. You will forfeit your soul upon losing.”

  “There is a flaw in your statement.” I fixed the woman with what I hoped to be a look of no concern. “I do not intend to fail.”

  “None ever do,” the woman said. And with that, she turned on her heel and walked away, her two escorts a perfect pace behind and just outside of each shoulder.

  Once I had my bag, I headed for the exit and stepped out to the plethora of sights, sounds…and smells of this forsaken armpit of a town. I stepped up to the closest taxi and opened the door. A man in a business suit that would hardly allow him to dine in a proper establishment made the mistake of trying to slip in past me.

  As the taxi pulled away from the curb, I glanced out the rear window and made no attempt to suppress a smile as the foolish and rude American stood immobile on the curb for a handful of heartbeats before suddenly lurching forward and stepping out in front of a car that was passing by. I let the button that I had snatched from the cuff of his shirt drop to the floor and allowed the flow of energy to ebb. If I was tired before, I was simply exhausted now. It seemed as though an extra day might be required before I sought out Kuan Si to retrieve that golden coin.

  Mind control curses were so taxing.

  ***

  Laying out all of the contents from my valise on the bed, I glanced at the page I had opened my tome of blood curses to and made my selections with careful deliberation. Curses of this nature were a delicate business. One mistake and a warlock could find himself in quite the quandary.

  My eyes returned more than once to that infernal tarot card. Supposedly, the key to my success in this endeavor relied on my ability to decipher just how I would defeat Kuan Si based on the clue revealed by that card.

  “This is preposterous,” I muttered.

  After making my selections and preparing everything I thought I would need, as well as a few nasty surprises just in case, I was as prepared as I could possibly be for the confrontation with this guardian. My first course of action would be to try and reason with the man, but I doubted that would come to anything. He looked to be of Korean heritage, and my few experiences with warlocks from any of the Asian provinces had left me with the impression that those bloody bastards thought that they had the monopoly on the mystic arts.

  Glancing outside, I could see the gloom of night encroaching. For the most part, the sky looked to be clear of clouds. That would play into my favor with a few of the lesser curses that would receive a bit of a nudge from drawing their energy from moonlight.

  Walking down the hall to the lift, I caught just the slightest shimmer of something at the edge of my peripheral vision. I swore I heard the strains of music from a carousel. Taking nothing to chance, I activated my ward against any sort of scrying. If this Kuan Si was that concerned, then perhaps I would have this coin nicked and be back in the comfort of my Cardiff estate in time for tomorrow’s tea.

  Stepping into the lift, I rode down to the lobby and made my way out to the street where I hailed another of those stench-ridden taxi cabs. I was pleased to see that the Americans suffered from some of the same maladies as we British when it came to Middle Eastern cab drivers holding such a blatant disregard for personal hygiene.

  “Thirty-eight-sixty Spangler Road,” I said, leaning forward just long enough to get the words out of my mouth. If the interior of the cab was rank, it was magnified to impossible levels when I increased my proximity to the olive-skin toned driver wearing a grease-stained Shemagh.

  The man muttered something, but I did not waste my time listening. He had his address, now he could simply do his job and get me there. I opened my window as far as it would go down to try and get some air as I watched the squalor and sprawl of the town named for a man that apparently the more foolish of the American population actually believed to be the discoverer of this upstart nation.

  At last, the taxi halted at the entrance to a long driveway that led to a modest looking little estate. I waited a moment, but it eventually became clear that the ignorant fool was not going to take me up the rest of the way to the house proper. Glancing at the meter, I fished the appropriate amount of money from my billfold and stuffed it through the small opening in the Plexiglas divider that separated us. I ignored the insults the fellow hurled from his window as he drove off, obviously jaded over the fact that I refused to submit a gratuity to a man who had forced me to endure his stench for the better part of a half hour.

  Overall, the residence was quite unassuming. There was an expansive yard that looked well kept, but I did detect just a hint of enchantment. Rather petty use for magic in my opinion, but to each his own. I was just about to step onto the path that would take me to the front door when a chill ran through me. Once again I heard the jangly strains of the music belonging to a carnival ride.

  “Damn,” I muttered as I felt two of my charms dissolve into the ether.

  Thinking through the Latin phrases that would invoke some of my more powerful protection charms as well as a particularly nasty curse that would backlash anybody so foolish as to try and dispel it, I climbed the five steps that led to the front door and rapped twice.

  No surprise, the woman from the airport answered. She was without her two bodyguards this time and looked even less imposing if that were pos
sible.

  “Kuan Si admits you freely, but your final warning is issued and will be considered void if you step across the threshold of the Guardian of the Florin token.”

  Extending my arm to brush the tiny woman aside, I stepped into the entry parlor and gave a sniff. Magnolia and sage. Now that was an interesting combination. I would have to ask later, once I had defeated this Kuan Si, as to the charm that such a cloying fragrance would enact.

  “I have come for the coin, Kuan,” I called. Surely the man was near since I had already entered his abode.

  The sound of a calliope wafted to my ears once more, but this time even louder to the point of not being dismissible, and I turned toward a flight of stairs that led down where the music emanated. It all seemed rather theatric, but if he wanted to play the game, that was fine. Now that I was so close that I could almost feel the coin in my hand, there was no way that I would consider failure as an option. Still, that cursed tarot card flashed in my mind’s eye, and I had to wonder how I could possibly glean a clue from such a thing.

  I reached the bottom of the stairs and discovered absolute darkness waiting for me. All I need do was take a step forward and it would engulf me. The line of separation between dark and light was razor sharp. I had long since learned not to fear the blackness of shadow. If this was an attempt to discourage me, Mister Si would be very disappointed.

  I stepped forward.

  ***

  “Welcome, Arthur Billington,” a man said as he stepped forward.

  Looking around, I was at a momentary loss. I was on the midway of a carnival from the looks of it. Colored lights flashed from a peculiar and unsettlingly vivid funhouse entrance; a half dozen cages with fantastic animals that included a Pegasus and a dragon among them, made a neat aisle that led directly to the dazzling funhouse with its typical but oddly lifelike clown mouth entrance. A man stood on a platform beside the entrance to the funhouse. I had no trouble recognizing Kuan Si from the picture that I had been given along with the tarot card. Only…he was somehow different. He was dressed in what I can only equate to the attire of a circus ringmaster; except his top hat and tuxedo jacket were a vibrant green that shimmered as if made of emeralds.