Eddie Lancaster Box Set 2 Read online

  The Eddie Lancaster Series

  Volume Two Books 4-6

  Sean Stone

  Contents

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  Also by Sean Stone:

  Warlock At War

  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

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Dead Warlock

  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

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Undead Warlock

  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

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Also by Sean Stone:

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  Also by Sean Stone:

  Arcane Inc.

  Warlock for Hire

  Warlock Wanted

  Dark Warlock

  Warlock At War

  Dead Warlock

  Undead Warlock

  The Eddie Lancaster Series Volume 1: Books 1-3

  The Cedarstone Chronicles

  Cursed

  The Cult of Osiris

  The Ancients

  Reunion

  Abomination

  Chapter One

  The first thing I saw when I entered the strip club was the dead body. A tall beefy looking bloke, probably a bouncer, was on his back. His misty dead eyes were wide with fright. His skin was pale, dry and wrinkled. I knelt down and turned his head, so I could get a clear view of his neck. Two tiny but clear puncture marks along the artery.

  ‘We’ve got thirty more just like it,’ said Detective Chief Inspector Richards. I know, mouthful, right? I just call him Richards.

  I looked round at the rest of the club and saw the discarded bodies. Some were sitting down, others were lying, and some had just been dropped in uncomfortable looking heaps. The entire venue was splattered with blood from floor to ceiling. ‘Wow,’ I said under my breath.

  ‘Vampires?’ he asked. I nodded. It wasn’t the first vampire attack aftermath I’d seen, although it was the biggest. And the messiest.

  ‘Are these guys safe?’ I asked referring to the officers. I needed to know if I could speak openly in front of them. Richards nodded. There was a small unit of officers who knew all about the supernatural, obviously, these were those officers. They’d all witnessed me doing a bit of magic a few months back.

  ‘What is this? Some kind of feeding frenzy?’ he asked.

  I walked farther into the club and looked around at the destruction. Tables were upended and some had been smashed apart in apparent struggles. ‘When was the last time you went to dinner and threw your meal all over the restaurant?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘When vampires feed they aren’t so careless with blood. They rarely spill any. This was a message.’

  ‘What’s the message then?’ Richards asked apprehensively.

  ‘The Syndicate is here.’ The Syndicate was a large group of vampires from Medway, who had spent the last year or so building up their forces and expanding their territories. Maidstone was next on their list. ‘And they aren’t interested in hiding.’ It was believed by the Winters Organisation, a group of people who were responsible for keeping the supernatural secret and safe, that the Syndicate wanted to expose the vampire race (and possibly other races too) and position themselves at the top of society. This debacle confirmed that theory in my mind. ‘This mess is their way of saying they won’t bother hiding their activities and they don’t think anyone in this town can stop them.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Richards said. I’d told him everything I knew about the Syndicate, which is pretty much everything I just told you. ‘And can anybody stop them?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘Eddie could,’ said a gruff voice from the doorway. We both turned and saw Dean Tenson. He was a well-built guy with ginger hair and stubble. He pulled on the collar of his leather jacket as he walked carefully into the room and began examining the first body. Dean was part of the Winters Organisation. From what I could gather he was fairly high up. He worked directly with the Organisation’s leader, Clara Winters.

  ‘No I can’t,’ I said resignedly. I’d already told Clara that I wasn’t getting involved on numerous occasions. She wasn’t one for giving up.

  ‘You mean you won’t.’ Dean gave me a sullen look before moving over to the next body. ‘These attacks will continue. They’ll get messier and much harder to cover up,’ he warned.

  ‘And covering them up is about all you can do,’ I told Richards. ‘Fighting a group of vampires this size would be suicide. They already control five or more towns.’

  ‘This whole town will go to hell. The Master vampire will take over completely. Just like he has in all th
e other towns he’s moved into,’ said Dean.

  ‘I’m a warlock. I’m hardly under his authority,’ I said.

  ‘The Medway Coven thought they’d be exempt too. Now they’re not allowed out of Hoo Village at night-time,’ Dean said casually. He continued to move between the bodies.

  ‘From what I heard they agreed to a truce. The Syndicate hardly forced them into submission.’ Shirley Demelza was in charge of the Medway Coven and there was no way she would’ve been forced into anything.

  ‘What about the humans here? They’ll be treated like cattle. As you can see.’ He gestured the bodies surrounding us.

  ‘Not my problem,’ I said and shrugged.

  ‘Thanks, Eddie,’ said Richards. I ignored him. I wasn’t going to be guilted into embarking on a suicide mission. Not to mention the fact that nobody was offering to pay me. My services do not come free.

  ‘They will expose the supernatural. That includes warlocks,’ Dean said. I could see he was getting annoyed with me, but I just didn’t care. I was not going to take on an army of vampires. There was no way I’d win, no matter how much faith Clara had in my resourcefulness.

  ‘I’m adaptable,’ I said coldly. ‘Why are you here, anyway?’ I said in an attempt to change the subject.

  ‘This is my area of expertise. I used to be a vampire hunter before joining the organisation,’ he told me.

  ‘A vampire hunter? A bit of a waste of…’ I realised then that I’d always assumed he was a sorcerer because he worked with Clara who was a sorcerer. It only just occurred to me that he might be something else. ‘What are you? Sorcerer or what?’ I said tactfully. I’m not really a tactful guy. You probably know that from the other books in this series. If you haven’t read them then go back and start at the beginning. Who starts from book four?

  He snorted at me. ‘Hundred percent human. Nothing supernatural about me,’ he said proudly. I don’t know why he was proud of that. No offence but being a regular old human would suck.

  ‘And now you work protecting the supernatural? How did that happen?’

  ‘I’m not here for an interview. I’m here to convince you to stop being a selfish prick and come up with a solution,’ he growled.

  ‘Tell Clara to whip up her own solution.’

  ‘You know she has a truce with the vamps. If she goes against them it’ll be war between the Syndicate and the AOC.’

  ‘Not my problem,’ I said with the same coldness as before. ‘Hang on, what’s the AOC?’

  ‘The Alliance of Covens. Clara just managed to make it official a few days ago. The dynasts of several Kent covens have agreed to an alliance with Clara as their leader,’ Dean explained. A dynast is a leader of a coven by the way.

  ‘How lovely for Clara. I’m still not doing her dirty work for her.’

  Dean huffed and looked around the room before turning to Richards. ‘If I were you—’ Suddenly one of the bodies flew up off the floor and latched onto Dean’s back. Everyone in the room jumped back and stared on in horror. And that included me. It opened its mouth wide revealing long fangs. Moving faster than I thought a human could, Dean whipped around, a stake suddenly in his hand and thrust his weapon right through the vampire’s heart. The man shrieked as dark red blood oozed out around the wood. Not much, but enough to see from across the room. His eyes rolled back in his head and Dean let his body drop to the floor. He didn’t bother to retrieve his stake. He straightened out his jacket and then turned nonchalantly back to face us.

  ‘See? Do you see?’ Dean growled at me. ‘This was a trap. New vampires don’t wake up until nightfall. That vampire was hiding there waiting.’

  ‘That seems unnecessary,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Does it? Don’t you think that maybe it seems like they wanted to send an even bigger message by killing the people who tried investigating them? Crush all forms of resistance?’ He waited for an answer and when I failed to provide one he turned to Richards. ‘As I was saying, you should burn these bodies, or at least decapitate them. They may have been turned into vampires.’ He walked across the room. As he passed me he said, ‘I’ll see you again soon, Eddie. Why don’t you surprise me and do the decent thing next time we meet?’ Then he left the club.

  ‘On a scale of one to ten how fucked is this town?’ Richards asked me.

  ‘About… twenty-one.’

  ‘Terrific.’ He didn’t bother trying to talk me into fighting the Syndicate. He knew how obstinate I could be. He did ask me to help prevent any further vampiric risings which I was happy to do. A flick of my wrist set the bodies burning and once they were ashes and the fires were out I made my way out of the club.

  So, here we are again, faithful reader. You’ve come to experience another of my little adventures first hand. You’re probably wondering why I refused to help Clara. Well, there are many reasons. Number one — it’s incredibly dangerous and there’s not much in it for me. I really don’t think I have much to worry about. If the Syndicate comes storming in, they only want to control the vampires. Besides, I can look after myself. And even if I did feel like getting involved, how would I take down an army of vampires?

  Number two — I’m not a big Clara fan. I mean, she’s alright. She’s not a bad person. But I disagree with her cause. Not the keeping our kind secret and safe, that makes sense. It’s the whole joining up to one big unit all under her control. That does not bode well. I do not want some supernatural overlords telling me what I can and can’t do and potentially punishing me for my crimes. Let’s face it, there’d be loads. So, no, I will not help Clara kick out the vampires so she can take more control. She might say it’s all about protection, but there are a lot of covens under her control at the moment and I’m certain more will follow. I won’t oppose her, but I don’t want her in Maidstone. I kind of like to think of Maidstone as a bit of a free-for-all. Come along, whatever race you are, and do what you want. Just stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.

  So yeah, those are my reasons. Now, back to it.

  As I walked away from the club I looked out to make sure nobody was close. It was still pretty early so the street was fairly clear. I held my hand palm up and conjured a small fire in my hand. A second later the fire took the shape of a dumpy woman who stood looking up at me with bright yellow eyes. Margie Sheridan, my girlfriend’s mother. She died a few months back, but then I conjured her using a fiery-ghost spell and since then she’s decided to stick around rather than going back to ghost land. Since I conjured her in fire she’s now stuck being a fire-spirit. She can only appear of her own volition in a place where fire naturally would be, like a candle or fireplace. I ended up removing all the candles from my bedroom. She’s popped up a couple of times during private moments, if you catch my drift. I’m talking about sex. I can conjure her wherever I want which she prefers because if I conjure her outside of a fireplace (or another fiery place) she can move around freely and not get stuck there.

  Anyhow, I wanted to check that I was doing the right thing by not getting involved. I explained the vampire situation to her.

  ‘Sounds awful,’ she said with a shake of her head.

  ‘Mhmm.’ I nodded. ‘Should I get involved?’ Since meeting Margie she’d taken on a bit of a motherly role to me. Giving me advice and such, as well as telling me off too. I didn’t care much for the telling off.

  ‘Absolutely not. Vampire business is for vampires, not sorcerers. And Clara Winters is more than capable of dealing with them herself,’ said Margie firmly.

  ‘She does have some dodgy diplomatic stuff to worry about, though,’ I pointed out. It was odd that I was suddenly opposing my own argument.

  Margie waved a flaming hand dismissively. ‘Your job is to look after my Ashley. Fighting a vampire army is the opposite of that. You keep her out of danger for once.’

  ‘You’re right. You’re right.’ Ashley, of course, had no idea that Margie had been back for the last month. Margie had sworn me to secrecy, knowing very well that it would have
a very bad effect on Ashley. She’d just come to terms with losing her mum, having her back in fire form wasn’t going to do her any good. The entire grieving process would be undone.

  ‘Have you found a nice flat yet?’ she asked. Ashley had been living in my rented room with me since finding out her father had a secret family. It was a bit cramped to say the least.

  ‘We’re going to view one this morning.’ I noticed a group of men in suits approaching. ‘Gotta go,’ I said quickly and closed my fist, extinguishing her. She hated it when I did that.