The Devil You Know (Jacob Graves Book 3) Read online

  Also by Sean Stone

  Jacob Graves Series

  Phoenix Born

  Blood Bound

  Arcane Inc.

  Warlock for Hire

  Warlock Wanted

  Dark Warlock

  Warlock At War

  Dead Warlock

  Undead Warlock

  The Complete Series

  The Cedarstone Chronicles

  Cursed

  The Cult of Osiris

  The Ancients

  Reunion

  Abomination

  The Devil You Know

  Book Three of the Jacob Graves Series

  Sean Stone

  This one is for the lovely healthcare assistant whose name I’ve forgotten.

  I may have got his job title wrong too.

  He looked after me in the night and he did a great job. That’s all I remember.

  Contents

  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

  Subscribe

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Sean Stone

  Chapter One

  I could barely keep my eyes open. I’d spent almost every waking hour for the last seven days training to hone my magical skills. Magraval was stronger when it came to wielding magic, so I needed to increase my skill in order to defeat him. I’d witnessed Dorian’s wizard, Simon Delacrue, successfully go toe-to-toe with Magraval and he’d managed it through skill. I wasn’t unskilled myself, but I wasn’t yet on Simon’s level. Dorian only had the best on his payroll. And now I was technically on his payroll too.

  One week ago, he’d offered me the contract to kill Magraval. I’d rejected it at first. Magraval had been tormenting me enough and I wanted no more to do with him. He always seemed to be a step or two ahead of me. But then I learned that he’d murdered my cousin. So I took Dorian’s contract. I was going to kill him anyway and this way I got paid for it. Plus, Dorian agreed to offer his resources where appropriate. And that is how I ended up in a meeting with Dorian Gray and his two chief Orchids, Monroe and Simon.

  We’d been summoned to Dorian’s mansion in the northern most part of the city, far away from any other form of civilisation. We were gathered in his library discussing how we were going to proceed. Usually when I took a contract it was just Drew and me who worked on the job. This was a special circumstance.

  Dorian was sitting on the edge of his desk watching my uncle keenly as he went through our theories on how we could potentially defeat Magraval. Monroe, the vampire who ran the Orchids, was leaning against the shelves in the back corner of the room. Simon was sitting next to Dorian’s desk and I was sitting in one of the comfy leather chairs that had been brought in for the meeting.

  Nobody looked at all impressed by the ideas Drew was presenting and there was a very good reason for that. They were all bullshit. Drew and I had no idea how best to kill Magraval because he was too bloody mysterious. Usually we stalked a target until we knew their routine. We figured out every aspect of their lives and deduced the best way to strike. We learned their weaknesses. That was impossible this time because Magraval stayed hidden until he wanted to be seen. We had no idea where to find him. Drew had known he’d need to tell Dorian something, so he was kind of winging it.

  Dorian let out a long sigh when my uncle finished delivering his sermon of shit. ‘I’ll be honest with you, Drew. None of this is particularly inspiring.’

  ‘We’re doing the best with what we’ve got,’ Drew said, keeping his tone respectful. My uncle did not like Dorian, but he was clever enough to keep that to himself. I wasn’t particularly fond of him either.

  ‘From what I can gather, you’ve just rattled off a list of execution methods that anybody could have come up with. Hardly fitting for the legendary Wraith,’ Simon said snidely. The Wraith was the moniker I used when I killed. I’d worked hard at creating a terrifying and very famous reputation for myself. The Wraith was considered to be one of the best assassins in the country, though my most recent jobs did not support that claim. My last couple of targets had been more problematic than usual, and I’d been distracted by various things. My distractions were now taken care of. More or less. Magraval was the last one.

  ‘Look,’ I said standing up and addressing the group. ‘Magraval is a special case. He’s a complete mystery. We can’t work him the way we usually would. We haven’t even seen him since the battle in the Hall of Wizardry.’

  ‘A battle in which I did most of the work,’ Simon said to me, smiling like a particularly fat cat that had recently got his paws on some cream.

  ’I was the one who brought Magraval to his knees. I seem to remember you being on the floor with a nasty wound in your chest at that point.’

  Simon’s smile slipped away and his hand went to his chest. I couldn’t see it, but I was willing to bet there was a nasty scar beneath his shirt. Magraval had ripped him open like he’d been gutting a fish. Magical wounds with enough power behind them never fully healed.

  ‘You brought him down with a sneak attack. One that you wouldn’t have managed had his attention not been on me,’ he replied. The smugness was gone and a cold quietness was in its place.

  ‘You wouldn’t even have got into that building if it hadn’t been for me. I brought down the defences keeping you and your minions out.’

  ‘Yes, and those defences are now back up. He’s not using the same blood magic, but the building is protected with spells and wizards. We won’t get near Magraval without fighting our way into the building. It would take a full-scale assault. Hundreds of people would be needed and we don’t have enough magic wielders to take on the full force of the Hall,’ Drew said, stepping in before Simon and I could get into a full on argument.

  ‘Going in to the Hall would be a disaster,’ said Simon. ‘The building is spelled to defend against any attackers. That’s why we lost last time. The only way to win is to draw them out.’

  ‘I do not want such a battle to take place. I hired an assassin, not a mercenary. I will not turn the city into a warzone. I want this matter handled before it turns into a full war,’ Dorian said.

  ‘We will never be able to sneak into the Hall again. They’ll be expecting it,’ I replied. ‘We need to draw Magraval out somehow.’ For once I was agreeing with Simon. It left a dirty feeling beneath my skin.

  ‘Magraval is not in the Hall,’ Dorian said. He was fiddling with his cufflinks as he spoke. ‘My source on the inside has confirmed it. He has instructed the Elders to keep all the wizards and witches under their leadership inside
the Hall until he needs them. He is preparing for a battle and I am not going to give it to him. He must die before then.’

  ‘Who is your source?’ I asked. I knew he had one of the four remaining Elders working for him, but I didn’t know which. There were two that I could rule out right off the bat. Marcus was a Magraval supporter through and through, and Jeremy wanted nothing to do with either side of the war, he was a good friend of Drew’s. That left the only two I knew little about; Agatha and Paul.

  ‘I am not going to divulge that.’

  ‘They could be quite useful.’

  ‘They are useful, but not to you,’ Dorian said firmly, looking up at me for the first time. ‘Magraval is not in the Hall. The Elders are of no use to your job. Magraval is hiding elsewhere. The fact that he is hiding worries me. He’s planning something dastardly and he cannot be allowed to execute whatever it is.’

  ‘Maybe he’s with the vampires. He mentioned that they were on his side,’ Drew said. The vampires all lived in the South End of the city, where Dorian had banished them to decades ago. Their banishment had always made them resent Dorian. Magraval provided the perfect opportunity for a rebellion.

  ‘I’m dealing with the vampires. They won’t be a problem for much longer. If he’s hiding with them I’ll know soon enough,’ Monroe said from his corner. His expression was as ever impossible to read. He’d mastered the art of keeping his face neutral and yet still managing to inject just a little grumpiness into it.

  ‘I don’t think he’d hide with them anyway. He’s too confident in his own abilities and he’d never trust the vampires to protect him. It would only take one of them to betray him,’ I said. Wherever Magraval was I was fairly certain he was alone. ’Speaking of betrayal, whose side is City Hall on?’ The former mayor had allied with Magraval taking the police with him. Dorian had killed the mayor for his treachery but I was still unclear on what that meant for the police and city council now.

  ‘The acting mayor is completely loyal to me. The police chief has been given a formal warning about his past conduct. The police will remain loyal from now on.’

  ‘A formal warning?’ I asked, knowing that a formal warning was undoubtedly something far more sinister than a simple dressing down.

  ‘We have his daughter,’ Monroe informed me.

  ‘She will be returned unharmed after Magraval has been dealt with,’ Dorian said. ‘Which leads us back to the main topic. Without knowing who he is, deducing his motives and methods is something of a chore. So, let’s discuss the true identity of Magraval. Who is he?’

  Drew glanced my way and I nodded. We usually kept things close to the chest, but on this occasion it was in all our best interests to share our findings. If we wanted Dorian to help us rather than just leaving us to it, then we needed to give him full disclosure.

  I sat back down in my chair and waited for my uncle to share his theory with the group.

  ‘I have a theory. Do you remember Roland Black?’ Drew asked Dorian. He drew from his back pocket a small piece of paper and handed it to the immortal.

  Dorian nodded as he looked at the paper he’d been given. I couldn’t see what was on it but I assumed it was a photograph of some sort. ‘I do,’ Dorian said. ‘This is an old picture.’

  Drew must have only just found the picture because he hadn’t shown it to me yet.

  ‘The only one I could find. He’s kept his head down.’

  ‘For somebody as shady as him it makes sense. Are you saying you think Roland is Magraval?’ Dorian placed the picture down on his desk and looked back at Drew.

  ‘I believe he is. Since coming to Sangford who has Magraval targeted?’

  ‘Jacob and myself,’ said Dorian.

  ‘Exactly. And through Jacob he is targeting me too,’ Drew explained. ‘Roland has hated me ever since I caught him performing the forbidden ritual to siphon another’s life force. The same ritual that Magraval uses.’

  ‘Except Magraval no longer needs to do it via ritual. He can feed directly from the source.’ My mind was filled with the image of Magraval sinking his teeth into my father’s cheek and sucking the life right out of him. A chill washed over me that I tried my best to suppress before the others saw my discomfort.

  ‘Is that the only link you have? It seems a bit tenuous, wouldn’t you agree?’ said Dorian.

  ‘I would,’ Simon said, eager to kiss his boss’ arse.

  ‘There’s more,’ Drew said, pointedly not glancing Simon’s way. I would have made a snide remark back, but Drew preferred not to dignify the rat-faced man with a response. ‘Back when I was a private investigator I caught Roland performing the ritual.’

  ‘As you already said, and you handed him over to me and I banished him,’ Dorian said.

  ‘Which explains his vendetta against the two of us.’

  ‘And yet he seems to have targeted Jacob far more than he has you. It’s rather an odd way to get to you. Jacob never did anything to Roland Black.’

  Dorian was correct on that account. I’d never even heard of Roland until Drew had first mentioned him last week.

  ‘I can see where you’re going with this, Drew. Some years later your son performed the same ritual—‘

  ‘He learned it from somebody he met at the Hall. He wouldn’t tell me who, but I found a record at the Hall in Artemis Saxon’s journal. Artemis met with Roland Black. Maybe Roland and Artemis were planning their rebellion even then. It didn’t say what they discussed, but it proves that Roland was here in the city at the same time as Sam learned the ritual.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ the immortal said impatiently. ‘And then when you caught Sam performing the ritual you did the right thing and brought him to me.’

  ‘What?’ I said, sitting up straighter as Dorian dropped that bombshell. ‘You handed Sam in?’

  Drew looked at me, the hurt evident on his face. Dorian spoke before he could say anything. ‘He hoped that by coming to me I would show mercy. And I did. I gave Sam the same punishment that I gave Roland. Banishment.’

  ‘So, he didn’t run away. He was banished?’ I said, trying to make sense of it.

  ‘He still ran,’ Drew said. ‘The plan was for the two of us to go with him. But his jealousy toward you was too much for him. He thought I loved you more than I did him. He ran away on his own rather than staying with us.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ I said in a whisper, staring at a blank space across the room as I processed this new information.

  ’So, I assume you believe that your son found Magraval and it was at his hands that he died?’ Dorian asked.

  Drew still looked rattled that Dorian had revealed something he’d kept secret for years. I could see why. How could he ever admit that the reason his son had ran away was because his own father had turned him in?

  ‘Yes,’ Drew nodded.

  ‘But there was a rather large gap between Sam leaving the city and Sam dying. How do you explain that?’

  ‘Sam served as his apprentice for a while. According to the stories I gathered, Sam challenged him to a duel. Knowing Sam he lost his temper over something.’

  ‘And paid with his life,’ Dorian finished. Drew nodded again. ‘Do you have any other evidence that Roland is Magraval?’

  ‘I followed the trail everywhere that ritual happened over the last ten years. Roland was seen in several of the places around the same time.’

  The room fell silent as everybody digested the information that had been thrown around by both Drew and Dorian. But there was something else on my mind. ‘You said you showed Sam mercy?’ I asked Dorian.

  He glanced my way, surprised by the interruption but not irritated by it. ‘I did. I banished him rather than having him executed. That ritual is punishable by death.’

  ‘But you banished Roland too. Why did he get mercy?’

  Dorian smiled slyly. ‘Very astute, Jacob. Roland was researching foreign magic. Magic that I thought might be able to help me with a problem of my own. And no, I will not tell you what that i
s. I allowed him to live so long as he looked for an answer to my problem.’

  ‘And did he find the answer?’

  ‘He might have done. I never heard from him again.’

  ‘But if he was working for you…’

  ‘Then it seems odd that he would now return to Sangford to torment me. Or usurp me. Or whatever it is that Magraval seeks to do.’

  ‘He was never working for you. He said what he needed to say to stop you from killing him,’ Drew said. ‘The fact that you never heard from him again proves it. He left the city and did all the research he said he would. He made himself more powerful and now he’s come back for revenge on the two people who threw him out of the city in the first place. And my nephew is being used as a stepping stone to get to me. Just like my son was. He stole my son, he killed my son, and now he’s come to take what little I have left,’ Drew’s voice cracked toward the end and I didn’t blame him. But after hearing Dorian’s side of things I was no longer completely certain about Drew’s theory. It didn’t sound as solid now that it was coming under scrutiny.

  After a moment of contemplation Dorian stood up. Simon followed suit leaving me as the only person sitting. Begrudgingly I stood up too.

  ‘If you are right then Roland will be shown no mercy this time,’ Dorian said.

  ‘You’re damn right he won’t,’ Drew promised. ‘My boy will see to that.’ He nodded my way.