Warlock For Hire: Arcane Inc. Book 1 Read online

  Suddenly everything made sense to me. It was like a light had flicked on in my head. I should’ve seen it sooner really. Killian Myers was a seer. He saw what was going to happen and then jotted it in his journal so he could either make it happen or avoid it. But he was seeing things in too much detail. If the journal was any indication then he was getting visions constantly throughout the day. In my experience seers didn’t get them that frequently. One a day was considered gifted. Killian was a freak. When I’d met him in the restaurant he even seemed to be able to read my thoughts at times. I flicked back to the front of the journal and looked over the pages I’d skipped. It wasn’t just visions of the future that he’d noted, there was other information too. He had a detailed background on Ashley and myself. Too much detail. I dropped the book and grabbed hold of the desk for support. He knew things about me that only very few people knew. Things that I wished I could forget. I wanted to burn the book. Remove it from the face of the earth. But what good would that do? He already knew the information now. I bent down and retrieved it. I considered taking the page on Ashley, intrigued to learn more about her, but thought better of it. Unlike Killian Myers, I was not a complete scumbag. I threw it back in the drawer and slammed it shut before continuing my search. I needed more. I needed something I could use against him.

  In the next drawer, I discovered a wooden box about the size of a hardback dictionary. I lifted it out. It was heavy. I pulled open the lid and my question was answered. The box was filled with tiny cuts of lapis lazuli. Small green rocks used by seers to heighten their powers. With the amount Killian had, I was surprised he hadn’t had an aneurysm.

  “I’ve found they help with the visions that don’t come naturally. The stones give them a little push to the front of my mind,” Killian said from behind me. I wheeled around and saw him standing casually in a dark grey suit that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.

  “You’ve been cheating,” I said to him. I wondered how he’d managed to sneak up on me. I should have felt him coming the moment he entered the room.

  “I’ve had some work done on the room. I hired a wizard to magic proof it so to speak. That’s why your powers didn’t alert you to my presence,” he said in answer to the question I’d never asked. Magic proofing the room was a smart move. Easier than forcing me into iron cuffs again. It explained the weird feeling I’d experienced when I closed the door as well. It was my magic being subdued.

  “So you can read my mind?” I asked.

  “In a manner of speaking. Certain indications of your thoughts come to me. Not all, though.” He undid the buttons on his jacket and then lowered himself gracefully into one of the chairs. “Why don’t you sit down, Mister Lancaster. We should have another talk.” I looked around for Jeffrey and was relieved to see he was not here. No bullet in the back of my head today.

  “I’ll stand,” I growled, not moving.

  “As you wish.” He stood back up. Maybe he’d seen something bad happening if he remained sitting whilst I stood. I noticed that his tie-clip was encrusted with a small lapis lazuli. He had another on a ring on the little finger of his left hand. How many more would I find if I searched him? I hadn’t noticed any of them on him in the restaurant. I must have been too preoccupied with looking for an escape.

  “Without all those stones how gifted are you really?” I asked. I suspected that he was no more gifted than any other seer.

  “It hardly matters since I will never be without my stones,” he said confidently.

  “You’ll be without them when you’re dead. You saw the vision of your own death,” I said, trying to irk him. He grimaced.

  “I saw a vision of one possible future. The other was me becoming invincible. That is the one which I have chosen to take. Many seers think their premonitions of the future are set in stone. Unchangeable. They accept them as fate. Destiny. That is the card they have been dealt and that is the card they must play. They’re wrong. There is no such thing as fate. No such thing as destiny. I have never seen a vision that I could not change. Not even my own death. I have already set the ball rolling in the opposite direction. The man with the hourglass tattoo will not take my life.”

  The man with the hourglass tattoo. That was interesting. “How can you be so sure?” I asked.

  “Because Miss Sheridan will see to it that nobody can harm me. I have already seen her success.” He didn’t speak with the same confidence as usual. He wasn’t certain that she would succeed. After all, he’d seen two possible futures. Until one actually happened he couldn’t be certain which would take place.

  “She doesn’t have the ability to make you invincible,” I told him. I wasn’t just trying to wind him up; it was true.

  “I know,” he said, not annoyed at all. “That is why I am relieved that I had the sense not to have you shot dead last night, Mister Lancaster.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you do have the ability. Even if you don’t realise it, I know that you do. And I want you to help her.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Last night he’d drugged me, kidnapped me, threatened me and then murdered a man in front of me. And tonight he was asking for my help. The irony was if he’d come straight to me from the off then he could’ve hired me for the job anyway. No threats necessary. I rarely say no to money. That ship was sailed now, though. Sailed and long gone.

  “You’re having a laugh, right? No amount of threats is going to get me to help you.”

  “No threats, Mister Lancaster. Money. In exchange for your services, I will pay you one million pounds. Imagine what you could do with all that money. Move out of that grotty room you call a home. Buy a big house. Buy a fancy car. Maybe even purchase an outfit that doesn’t look like it was sewn by a blind child in a third world country.” He gestured towards my clothing and grimaced. There was nothing wrong with what I was wearing. Sure it was cheap but it did its job well enough.

  His offer was tempting. So tempting, and if he’d made it twenty-four hours ago I wouldn’t even have thought about it. It would have been an instant yes. But now things were different. I’m not sure why. I’m not the kind of guy to get plagued by morals, but something was screaming at me not to take the deal. Doing a deal with this man was wrong and I would regret it. Maybe it was just because of who he reminded me of. The sort of person I despised.

  “No.” I enjoyed the look of genuine surprise on his face. Clearly he couldn’t see everything even with all his lapis lazuli stones.

  “No?”

  “That’s right. So what are you going to do now? I don’t have any parents to threaten remember?”

  “No, you don’t. And that still makes you angry doesn’t it? The way they died. Such a horrible scene for someone so young. Such a tragedy,” he said. He knew what he was doing. He knew which buttons to press. I could feel myself getting angry and I knew that if he didn’t shut up then I would lose control. He might have blocked my magic, but he didn’t have any guards protecting him today. “Tell me something, Edward, do you still blame yourself? Do you still cry yourself to sleep thinking that if you just hadn’t been you then maybe they’d still be alive? If you hadn’t been such freak maybe you wouldn’t have got your parents killed.”

  Now, I’m not generally a violent guy. I don’t believe that it’s a very civilised way to get things done and frankly, I’m not very good at it. But Killian was asking for it and I was too weak to refuse him. I swung my fist full strength, a neat right hook headed right for his face. He lifted his arm faster than I expected and blocked the shot.

  “Oh, we’ve resorted to savagery,” he said casually. I swung with my left. He blocked that too. I kept swinging and jabbing, but every move I made he blocked, even when I tried to kick him. “This is really rather futile, Edward. I can see everything you’re going to do before you even decide to do it,” he said calmly, as I continued to strike and he continued to block. Foresight alone would not give him the skills he was exhibiting, he was a trained fighter. In one las
t ditch attempt, I kicked up at his chest. He grabbed my ankle with both hands, blocking my attack. Before I could react he twisted my leg and sent me crashing to the floor.

  I won’t lie. The fall hurt more than just my back. My pride was hurt too. Frankly it was embarrassing. I hadn’t managed a single hit. What was worse was the fact that he hadn’t even broken a sweat and I was drenched in it. I stayed on the floor, panting with exhaustion and rage.

  “Are you finished?” he asked as if addressing a toddler. “Never mind, I can already see that you’re not.” He slipped his jacket off and hung it over the back of the chair before rolling up his shirt sleeves. I saw then that he was far more muscular than I’d realised. He was packing some pretty big guns under that jacket and my attempt at fighting him felt even more foolish. I tried getting up but I just didn’t have the energy.

  “Oh,” he said with disappointment. “You’re going to get blood on my shirt.” I hadn’t even decided to attack him again yet but it seemed that he already knew I was going to. Actually, he wasn’t going to give me the chance. He reached down and hoisted me off the floor with both hands on my neck. He lifted me up, legs flailing and then tossed me through the air. I landed on the wooden coffee table and it shattered under my weight. The air was forced from my lungs. My whole body screamed in agony. I needed to escape. Pride was no longer a factor. Running was the only option. If I could just leave the suite I would have my magic back. I rolled onto my front but he forced me back onto my back. He knelt over me and began pounding his fist into my face with all the strength and fury of an ape. He hit me again and again. Blood exploded from my nose, splattering over his shirt as he had predicted it would. He moved down and began working on my torso. I felt my ribs crack under his fists. I tried to shield myself from him, but he flung my arms aside as if they were nothing. By the time he was finished I was reduced to little more than a bag of bones. I could hardly move.

  “I told you I could look after myself, Mister Lancaster,” he said between pants, at least he was out of breath too.

  “Yeah. So I see,” I said, still struggling to breathe. I tried to push myself up but he pushed his knee into my stomach and forced me back down.

  “You are going to help Miss Sheridan. And just to be clear the million-pound offer has been retracted. You think that because you don’t have parents that you don’t have anybody for me to threaten. You are mistaken. Remember that kindly old lady who lets you lodge in her house. And of course her son. If they are not incentive enough then what about your dear old friend Matthew Stoker and his partner? Make no mistake if you displease me I will kill them all. Can you really live with more deaths on your conscience? Do the right thing, this time, Edward. Make the choice that doesn’t end in death. ”

  He threw my out of his suite, not caring what the other guests and staff might think. He probably owned them too, like he owned everyone else. Even me it seemed. Once outside my magic was restored and I sent healing power throughout my body. Within minutes, I was starting to feel better, but it would be hours before I was fully recovered. I pulled myself to my feet and began my way back to the lobby. Besides the beating I’d received and the fact that I now had to work for Killian Myers as well, I was still in fairly good spirits. I’d discovered that Killian was not omniscient. He could not see everything. The proof was on my wrist. If he was capable of seeing everything then he would never have let me leave that room alive. I rolled up my sleeve and gazed fondly at the back of my wrist where there was a tattoo of an hourglass.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I’ve never taken a life before but I was happy enough for Killian to be my first. I only wish that he’d written more detail about how I killed him in his little diary. I could do with some ideas because I didn’t know where to start. For now, I’d just have to do as he wished and wait for the opportunity to present itself. Killian could try all he liked to make one future become reality, but I would be rooting for the other one.

  I know what’s probably on your mind right now. You’re wondering what all that malarkey about my parents was, right? You want the scoop. The full story on what happened to them. Why I blame myself. Etc. Etc. Well tough. It’s personal. Get over it. In life, you don’t always get the answers to the big mysteries. When I was a kid I always wondered where God came from. I realised pretty quickly that it was easier not to believe in him. But there is still a part of me that wants to know where he came from. Does he wonder where he came from? It’s such a conundrum. I’m sure you’ve got questions just like that at the back of your mind. Don’t tell me what they are. I don’t care. We’re talking about me, not you. This is my story.

  Logically, once I left the Hilton I hailed a taxi and went straight to Matt’s house. A few spells later and we were sitting in his living room. He was looking at me expectantly, waiting for an answer as to what the actual fuck was going on. Emma was there too looking rather nervous. They hadn’t seen me act like this since the incident with the troublesome vampire.

  “Alright, so I’ve got some explaining to do,” I said awkwardly.

  “Let me guess,” Matt said. I could tell I was in for a telling off. “You ignored my advice, went after Killian Myers, fucked everything up and now he’s coming for us. Am I right?”

  “Not far off,” I mumbled, looking down at the carpet. It was a horrible colour. Like old porridge. Now’s hardly the time to be going on about the carpet, though.

  “Un-fucking-believable,” Matt said.

  “Eddie,” Emma’s voice was brimming with disappointment.

  “Nobody is coming for you,” I assured them. “I’ve sealed this house with every magical defence I know. It would take a shit tonne of magic to break them all. And besides, he won’t do anything so long as I do as he wants.”

  “Are you going to do what he wants?” Emma asked. Hoping.

  “Yes.” I nodded.

  “For fuck’s sake, Eddie, I can see that you’re lying!” Matt shouted.

  “I”m not. I am going to help Ashley with the ritual. However—”

  “Here we go.” Matt folded his arms and leaned back. His lips pursed, eyebrows raised.

  “However, if an opportunity arises I will take it.”

  “Opportunity for what?” Emma asked nervously.

  “To kill him,” I said as if it was obvious.

  “You’re going to kill a man?” Matt said in disbelief.

  “I had a hard time believing it myself, but it’s been foreseen,” I said as if I no longer had a choice.

  “By who?”

  “Killian. Oh yeah, he’s a seer.” I wasn’t sure if I’d told him that already.

  “So he’s had a vision of you killing him, and he hasn’t killed you first?” Matt asked, needing clarification.

  “He doesn’t know it was me in his vision. He only saw my tattoo.” I held my wrist up to show them the hourglass.

  “Oh that bloody stupid thing,” he muttered. Matt had never liked it. He wasn’t a tattoo kind of guy.

  “I like it,” I replied defensively. Everyone was getting tattoos when I was eighteen and I wanted one too. There was meaning behind it, but I don’t want to go into that right now.

  “You promise us, Eddie, that you won’t do anything to put us in danger,” Matt said.

  “I promise,” I said without thought. I would never put my only two friends in danger. Friends are not that easy to get, not for me anyway. I wasn’t going to risk losing the only two I had managed to snag.

  “Well trying to kill Killian will put us in danger,” Emma said. Her cheeks were flushed red. She had a point.

  “I won’t do anything unless I’m sure it will work.”

  “I suppose that’s the best we’re going to get. But you owe us, Eddie. Big time,” Matt said. He was relaxing a bit now he knew that he wasn’t in any immediate danger. Yet.

  “Yeah, yeah. Add it to my tab.”

  So as you can see things weren’t exactly going great for me. To put it bluntly, I was in a shitty place. I know
what you’re thinking, I’ve only got myself to blame, right? Well, you are right. It is my fault. Usually, at this point, the main character would say something like, “I was only trying to help!” Well, I can’t say that because I wasn’t really trying to help. I was being a nosey fucker. Whilst helping Ashley was one of my goals, it wasn’t my main goal. More like a bonus goal. I just wanted to know how Killian Myers knew so much. I know the answer now and it would be great if I could just walk away. But I can’t. I’ve been sucked in. Caught. Ensnared. Now I had to do Killian’s bidding too. Do you want the truth, though? I wasn’t that bothered. Honestly, Killian had just given me another challenge. Two challenges actually. The obvious one being to figure out how to make him invincible and then pull it off. That was an interesting challenge. More so because it meant spending time with Ashley again and she was fascinating and not just because of her ample bosom. The other challenge was to stop a man who knew everything I was going to do before I’d even decided to do it. The more he stacked the deck the more I wanted to play. All I really had to do was rid him of his lapis lazuli and then his visions would be greatly diminished. I just had to figure out a way to get the little green stones off him. Luckily, I’m a resourceful guy. I just needed to mull it over until the solution came to me. In the meantime, there was work to do.

  I love cake. Too much. I used to be a bit of a fatty so now I have to watch how much cake I eat. What I don’t love is admitting I’m wrong, which was exactly what I was going to have to do when I saw Ashley. Therefore, I would need some cake to ease my suffering. Luckily Ashley worked in a cake shop, so both things could be done in the same place. Ashley worked at Mindy’s Cakes. I’ve never actually been there because I can’t be bothered to walk all the way to the bottom of Gabriel’s Hill when there are so many places to get cake that are closer. This time, I didn’t get the choice, though. It wasn’t a particularly busy cake shop. In fact, I was the only person there when I walked in, including staff. Whilst I waited for someone to come to the counter to serve me I pondered over which delicious treat I wanted. I was torn between the chocolate eclair and the red velvet cupcake. I was leaning towards the eclair when Ashley walked in from out the back. I was hoping someone else would serve me so that I could have the cake first.