Dead Warlock: Arcane Inc. Book 5 Read online

  “The latter, I assure you,” Gabe said on my behalf. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I cleared my throat.

  “Yes. The latter indeed,” I reiterated. I walked around and sat at the head of the table. After a moment of consideration Tarquin sat too. “Gabe,” I said in my most kingly tone. “Tell me about the disturbances that took place today.”

  Gabe pulled out the chair to my right and lowered himself elegantly into it. Paul turned and looked at him grouchily.

  “The main problem today happened in Penenden Heath—” Gabe started, but Paul did not want to let him finish.

  “Before you blame it all on us let me explain,” he interjected. Werewolves have always been associated with hot tempers. It’s one of those stereotypes that seem to have stuck over the years, like black people being criminals and white people being unable to dance. Paul was not helping disprove that stereotype.

  “Oh, yes, please let the beast explain the situation,” Cheryl said with a flamboyant wave in Paul’s direction.

  “Beast is it?” Paul growled.

  “Enough!” I snapped. “Seriously, is this how these meetings usually go?” I asked Gabe incredulously. I was trying to imagine Clara’s reaction if her people behaved this way in one of her meetings.

  “We’ve never actually had all of them in one meeting before,” Gabe replied.

  “I can see why,” I said. I looked around the table. “Paul please explain your side of the story,” I told him. I felt like a parent with two squabbling children.

  “We need somewhere to go on the full moon when we change. Penenden Heath has plenty of woodland,” he said in an almost calm tone. “But they,” he pointed one long finger at Cheryl. “Won’t let us.”

  “We have claimed the area and would like to roam the woods freely without fear of being hunted down by a mangy wolf,” Cheryl replied. Despite her incredibly offensive tone what she was saying wasn’t unreasonable.

  “Surely there’s somewhere in Ringlestone you can run around during the full moon?” I asked. I wasn’t bothering to hide how bored I was. With all the shit I had going on in my life here I was trying to resolve an argument about where some werewolves could play once a month.

  “No there isn’t,” Paul said sulkily.

  “Seriously?” I turned to Gabe. He shrugged helplessly. “Why did you choose to settle down in a place so unsuited to your needs?” I said to Paul, grinning annoyingly. If he was the one they’d decided to follow as their leader I shuddered to think how stupid the rest of them were.

  “Couldn’t they just let us use the woods once a month?” Paul demanded.

  “No, because we would like to do spell work that requires the full moon,” Cheryl pointed out.

  “This is just the first of the disturbances,” Gabe whispered to me. It was going to be a long meeting unless I did something to speed things up a bit. Just as Paula and Cheryl looked like they were going to get up and rip each other to pieces I rose to my feet and slammed my palm down on the table. The bang reverberated around the room and everybody fell silent.

  “This stops now,” I said in quiet anger. “These… incidents stop now. I don’t know if you’ve lived in Maidstone for years or if you just came her to get away from Clara or Aldric, and I don’t care. I am in charge here. If you don’t like that you can leave. You might think that things would be better for you if I wasn’t in charge but think about what would happen were I to step down, or heaven forbid, one of your pathetic assassination attempts actually worked. Maidstone would be up for grabs. Clara and Aldric would turn this place into a war zone trying to take control. Sure, you lot would fight them. Maybe you could even team up for long enough to form an alliance, but even if you got the whole town to stand with you it wouldn’t be enough. You would never be able to beat them, and let’s face it you can’t even agree on sharing a woodland for fuck’s sake, you’re never going to be able to sort a proper alliance. I am the only thing keeping Clara and Aldric out of Maidstone. Accept it.” I looked down at their disgruntled faces and saw that my words were sinking in.

  “You are all welcome here. Everyone is welcome here. Vampire, witch, wizard, warlock, imp, fairy, werewolf, whatever. Come on in. But you follow my rules. Now, I’m a pretty laid-back guy. I don’t have many rules. Don’t draw attention to our kind. That means not fighting in the streets, not leaving bodies around for the humans to find. It means if you are going to do something that you probably shouldn’t, don’t get seen. And one thing you do not ever do if you value your life at all, is come after me or anyone associated with me. I’ve been pretty lenient so far. No more. My girlfriend was killed by people who wouldn’t accept my rules. They were killed in punishment. And so will anybody else be if they break my rules from now on. I don’t care about your issues. You deal with them and deal with them quietly without drawing attention.”

  When I finished speaking the room was silent. They were all processing my words, deciding whether or not they would accept what I’d said. Ethan let out a low chuckle and stood up, his smug face lit up by the overhead lights. “I did not risk my life standing up to Aldric Ashworth, so I can be bossed around by some cocky little warlock who’s about three-hundred years my junior,” he said mockingly. “It will be a cold day in hell when I bow down to you.” With his piece said he turned and headed for the door. Alison and Sharon were blocking the doors in a flash.

  “Do the ickle baby vampires want to fight me?” he said putting on a child-like tone.

  “As I’m sure you know,” Gabe said darkly, “these ickle baby vampires were made with Aldric Ashworth’s blood. You can’t kill us. But we can certainly kill you.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Gabe,” I said. I glared down the table as Ethan turned back to face me. The stupid smug grin was still on his face. I was looking forward to changing that. The others at the table were looking down awkwardly as people do when an argument breaks out at a party.

  “Think you can talk me round Eddie?” asked Ethan.

  “No. We’re passed that.” I stared into his eyes and focused. I focused heat right at him, right at his insides. Specifically at his blood.

  “Ooh,” he said, his hand going to his chest.

  “Starting to feel that burn, mate?” I asked him, not taking my eyes from his. I focused on boiling his blood fast. I envisioned the fluid in his veins starting to bubble.

  “Argh!” he was running his hands over his chest as if that might help. “What are you doing, warlock?”

  “Just boiling your blood a little.”

  Tarquin stood up nervously. “Hey, come on now,” he said feebly. Nobody else said a word.

  Ethan let out a yelp as blood started to leak from his eyes. Steam rose from the red fluid as it tracked down his face. It began to drizzle from his ears and his noise too. “Stop!” he cried, gargling on more blood.

  “No,” I said calmly. Inside I was anything but calm. I was angry. I was furious, because this shitbag had stood up to me. I was angry because he had insulted me. I was angry because I was being fought over by Clara and Nick. I was angry because nobody respected my authority. I was angry because my girlfriend was dead. Ethan was on the receiving end of it all.

  His mouth tore open and one long shrill scream came out. The sound carried for an eternity it seemed. His pale flesh reddened and blistered horribly. The other leaders got up and shuffled to my end of the room just as Ethan exploded and the bloody fragments of his corpse rained down all over us.

  Once again there was silence. Nobody knew quite what to say. Nobody moved. Gabe, who was also now on his feet, silently handed me a handkerchief. I wipe the blood off my face, ignoring the fact that the rest of me was covered too, and then handed it back to him. “My rules. That’s final,” I said quietly to the stunned room. “Gabe help them come to some agreements so that the disturbances stop. None of them leave this room until you are satisfied that all matters are resolved.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gabe replied. I noticed the sir instead of my na
me.

  “Alison, Sharon, got to Tovil and inform the vampires there that they need to elect a new leader who will report to Gabe immediately. Sabrina, you can come with me and keep your mouth shut this time.” With the example made I left the room confident that the disturbances would finally be under control. Maybe I went a little too far by blowing Ethan up, but I really didn’t care. It made me feel a hell of a lot better.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ashley was playing on my mind all the way home. I needed her back. Nick knew how to raise the dead. He said he couldn’t do it anymore but maybe if we worked on it we could find a way to. He was family, surely he would help me do the impossible. He’d done it for himself. I could tell him that was my price. If he wanted me to join him then he had to help me get Ashley back. I wasn’t sure how a guy like Nick would take an ultimatum like that. Surely he wouldn’t kill his own grandson?

  Then there was the other question. How would Ashley feel about being brought back? Was she at peace now? I didn’t know how it worked over there but maybe she was reunited with her parents. Maybe she was happy. Maybe she’d forgotten all about me… No, that wasn’t likely. What kind of an afterlife would that be?

  “Do you have a boyfriend, Sabrina?” I said, already knowing that I would regret allowing her to talk, but I needed a second opinion and hers was the only one available.

  “Well… there’s a guy I’ve been seeing. Wouldn’t call him a boyfriend,” she said with a shrug.

  “Hmm,” I said it myself. “If someone you loved died would you bring them back? If you could.”

  Her eyes flicked about whilst she thought about it. “Well, I mean… I can’t. So why think about it?”

  “Imagine you could,” I pushed. “Would you?”

  “No,” she said after a long pause. “I think the dead should stay dead.” And there it was, the answer I hadn’t wanted to hear.

  “Easy for you to say, you’re immortal,” I grumbled.

  “Have you figured out a way to bring Ashley back?” she said, quite rightly guessing I was asking for Ashley. It was a bit obvious.

  “No. But Nick knows how to. I just need to figure out how to contact him,” I told her. “See if he’ll do it.”

  She didn’t talk again for the rest of the drive. Unlike Gabe she did not open my door for me when we arrived, she was too busy texting. I was really starting to appreciate how lucky I’d been with Gabe.

  Once inside I grabbed myself a cup of tea, mixed a little rum into it and then sat down in the living room. Me and Ashley had chosen the sofa I was sitting on. A few months back we’d decided to redo the living room. Put our own spin on the decor and all that. We’d thought that choosing out a new sofa would be a long and arduous task, but we actually liked the first one we tried. It took about half an hour and most of that was getting to the shop. We’d been looking forward to curling up on it and watching movies. We never actually did that. Not once. Life was so busy. I really hated Clara and Aldric for forcing me to become king. Didn’t they realise how much they’d ruined my life? Obviously not or they wouldn’t still be demanding things from me. Well, Aldric wasn’t so bad, but Clara… that didn’t matter though. If Nick could reverse the damage then Ashley would be back with me. She could tell me what I was supposed to do. Maybe we could just ditch all this and ride off into the sunset together. I could leave Gabe in charge, he was good at it. We could go somewhere far away from all this.

  But I needed to get Nick to agree to help me. That meant getting hold of Nick and he hadn’t given me his phone number. I doubted I could say his name three times and summon him that way. He wasn’t Beetlejuice. How the fuck was I supposed to get hold of him? I went to sip my tea, found the cup empty and lobbed it across the room. It smashed against the far wall showering brown dribbles across the cream wallpaper. Margie would’ve done her nut if she was still alive. But she wasn’t. None of her family was.

  A car passed outside and as it did the light glared in through the window and for a second the tea drizzling down the walls turned red like blood. Of course! I jumped up from the sofa. Nick was testing me. He wanted to see how resourceful I was. He wanted me to figure out a way of getting hold of him. Blood. If he was my grandfather, then I had his blood running through my veins which meant I could use it to track him down. Maybe even summon him. All of the Sheridan grimoires were in Ashley’s office. All I needed to do was find a spell…

  I heard the front door fly inwards. The force of it hitting the wall shook the house. I looked at the hallway in puzzlement. Sabrina ran for the front door and seconds later went hurtling through the air towards the kitchen. Who the fuck was attacking me in my own home? Surely the factions hadn’t decided to retaliate so quickly. If they had what did that mean for Gabe and the others? I ran out into the hallway. Several people in dark clothing were hustling through the door.

  “Who the—” I started. One of them pointed at me, sending a spell my way. Instantly I felt the drowsiness set in. I’ve cast enough sleeping spells to know they work too fast to fight. Still, I raised my arm to return a spell their way but before I could even concentrate the world slipped away and I was falling.

  I woke up on an uncomfortable single bed. It seriously felt like I was lying on one of those gym mats from school, the thin blue ones. The ones you never actually trusted to protect you from a fall. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked around at my surroundings. There wasn’t much to see. The light was coming from an orb suspended above me. Magic. Sorcerers were behind this. They’d hit me with a sleeping spell. I did not appreciate the irony of that. Was it Cheryl, Goku or the other one? I couldn’t remember her name, only that she lived by the river.

  I stood up and saw that I was in some sort of clear box. A cage made of glass or plastic. Mine was just one box in a row of many. There were no windows about, so I discerned that I was in some sort of dungeon. Each box had its own orb hanging inside it. I touched my hand to the glass and tried to crack it with a spell only to find I had no magic. Was the box blocking my power? Then I saw that I was not alone. Two boxes down sitting on the floor of her box sat a woman. A woman I had seen before. It was Lauren, the warlock whose hearing I’d attended at the…

  “Fucking bitch,” I said under my breath as I realised I was at the AOC. It didn’t make sense, though. There was no way Clara would actually have the gall to arrest me from my own town for no reason. Had the factions gone to her for help? Had Richards? I was about to get my answer.

  I heard her heels on the concrete floor before I saw her. Clara Winters. Back in her full blue suit, hair up formally. Gone was the more casual, younger girl I’d seen in her office. The bitch-witch was back.

  “You better tell me what the fuck you’re playing at, Clara, and you better tell me quickly,” I threw the words at her as if they’d be able to cause her some damage.

  She stopped on the other side of the glass and took a deep breath, forcing herself to look me in the eye. “I didn’t want to do this, Eddie,” she said quietly. She sounded unsure of herself.

  “Do what?” I asked, wondering exactly what she had planned for me.

  “Arrest you. When I heard you were trying to contact Nick… I panicked. I couldn’t let you go through with it. I couldn’t risk you joining him. You’re too dangerous,” she explained. She wasn’t being forceful or domineering like she usually was, she was being reasonable, almost humble.

  How did you even know I was going to contact him?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at her. Had she bugged my house? I wouldn’t put it past her.

  “Sabrina has been feeding me information,” Clara admitted.

  “She is so fucking dead,” I growled. I started to pace angrily. “And you…” I stopped and glared at her. “How can you not see that this is a serious breach of our trust? How am I ever going to believe you again?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge another day,” she said sadly. She obviously regretted doing this, but I didn’t care. I was too angry to care. I wanted to hurt people.
First her and then Sabrina.

  “I wasn’t going to join him. I just wanted to talk to him,” I said. “But you can rest assured that I’m going join him now. Who the fuck do you think you are?” I walked right up to the glass and pushed my face as close to hers as I could. She didn’t back away.

  “I’m sorry, Eddie.”

  “Sorry!” I screamed. “Let me the fuck out of this cage right fucking now or I swear to god I will make you understand the meaning of sorry!”

  She backed away slowly as I raged at her. Her eyes were wide and horrified. She’d never seen me this angry before. Very few people had. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever even been this angry before. It was a good thing I didn’t have my magic because if I did this building would be burning to ashes. “I’ll come back when you’re calmer,” she said quickly and then hurried away. I screamed after her until she was long out of sight and even then I continued to scream. I screamed, and I shouted, and I kicked and punched at the glass, but nobody came to answer me.

  Chapter Twenty

  Gabe drove himself straight to Eddie’s house, the newly signed document detailing the agreement between the factions in his hand. This was what he’d been aiming for when he’d first come up with the idea of letting the factions form. Now running the town would be so much easier. The factions would do all the work and Eddie would only need to oversee things. He hoped that Eddie wasn’t harbouring any ill-will towards him for not running his ideas by him before today. Truthfully Eddie had been in no state to run the town. He was grief-stricken and barely functioning. He could barely dress himself without guidance and Gabe had happily provided that guidance. Eddie meant a lot to Gabe. He had given his life direction.

  Before becoming a vampire, Gabe had been nothing. His parents had pretty much disowned him after he’d dropped out of college. He wanted to find his own way through life, not follow the route they’d planned out for him. He certainly did not want to be a teacher which was what his father had wanted for him. He preferred the idea of being a lawyer, or an entrepreneur. Unfortunately, after dropping out of college he found he didn’t have the right grades to get on a law degree and he had no idea where to start with being an entrepreneur. His parents kicked him out and he ended up living in a grotty bedsit on Union Street with job seeker’s allowance as his only income. That was until he’d been kidnapped for the Mondersons' experiments. Queue Eddie’s rescue and several months later here he was, the leader of Eddie Lancaster’s vampire team.