Warlock Wanted: Arcane Inc. Book 2 Read online

  “I didn’t kill them,” I said again. I could just show him the picture of the monster on my phone but he wouldn’t accept it as evidence. He’d think it was a poor attempt at a practical joke and probably arrest me anyway.

  “Then who did?” he snarled.

  “You’re the detective. You figure it out,” I said and then walked away. I was very quickly becoming tired of Inspector Richards. If he didn’t back off soon then just doing his job or not I was going to do something to get him off my back. Now I realise that sounded like a murder threat but that is not what I meant. I have no intention of murdering Inspector Richards. Or do I? I don’t. I really don’t.

  “Yes!Yes!”Yes! I gotcha you little bastard!” Ashley screamed as she jumped up and down in front of her house waving her phone about in excitement. I had a hunch what she might be so pleased about.

  “Caught a new one?” I asked as I approached. Pokemon Go is the latest craze the Western world has been taken by. Kids and adults love it. It was better than Haribo. Sorry. I’m sorry. I’ve been trying really hard to put a cap on the bad jokes but sometimes they slip through.

  “Pikachu. I’ve wanted him for ages,” she said. I was astounded at how pleased she was that she’d caught a virtual creature.

  “I’m not sure Pikachu is a him.” As far as I was aware the majority of Pokemon don’t have genders.

  “Well he is to me,” she said stubbornly. How could I argue with that?

  “Well, if you’re finished with your Pokemon we’ve got a real monster to hunt.” I waved my phone at her and then ushered her into her house.

  I told Ashley everything that had happened yesterday and she listened in jaw-dropped silence until I was finished. It took her a few minutes to process everything before she found her voice again.

  “Let me see the picture,” she said and held her hand out for my phone. I handed it over and she stared in awe at the monster on the screen. As you know, she’d already seen it in person but neither of us had such a good look at it. We hadn’t exactly been able to stand around and admire the view the other night. Not that this particular beast was anything to be admired. I mean I can guarantee that Belle would not have been able to forget about this one’s looks and fall in love with it no matter how appealing its personality might be. Or how rich it was. No, this thing was destined to die alone. And hopefully soon.

  “So what is it?” she asked when she passed my phone back to me.

  “I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me since you’ve been doing the research,” I said in a mock telling off tone.

  “I haven’t found anything that fits this. An ugly massive pale thing that lives in a cave, eats people and hangs their flesh off the ceiling,” Ashley said summarising the creature nicely.

  “Wendigo,” Margie said as she plodded into the room. She took my phone from me on her way to her chair and as she sat down she nodded and said, “Yes, definitely a wendigo. Ugly one too.” She handed my phone back to me. I wondered what the better looking ones looked like.

  “You’re sure?” I asked. How could she categorise it just like that? And why hadn’t Ashley asked her first?!

  “Eddie, I know a wendigo when I see one and that is a wendigo,” she assured me as she pulled a handkerchief from up her sleeve and blew her nose noisily.

  “Why didn’t my magic work on it?” I asked. It had worked but barely. Even the fire caused it little harm.

  “Wendigos have a natural resistance to magic,” she explained. “The only things that can hurt them are fire and silver.”

  “Is that how you kill it?” The sooner I killed it the better. I could collect my fee from Derek and lay low for a while. Some time away from Richards stalking would do me some good. Maybe some time away from Maidstone. Then I remembered I couldn’t leave Maidstone because Rachel would kill all my friends.

  “You need to cut its head off using silver, cut out its heart and burn it to ashes. Then scatter the ashes in different locations to ensure it doesn’t come back,” Margie said. She spoke as if she was telling me a recipe for a cake and not giving me instructions to kill a wendigo.

  “Is that possible? For it to come back?” Ashley asked at once. The fear was apparent. I could understand why. The wendigo was frightening enough without the idea that you couldn’t keep it dead.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never experimented,” Margie said with a casual shrug. To an outsider it might seem like she was being sarcastic but she wasn’t.

  “How did it get in Mote Park?” It was more of an out loud ponder than a question but Margie answered anyway.

  “Wendigos don’t travel,” she said. “They stay in one location unless forced to move. Even if it was forced out of its last habitat it would have been noticed on its way to Maidstone. Especially if it is ten feet tall like you both say it is. That and the fact that there’s all those trapping spells about and I’d guess that somebody put it there.”

  “But why would anybody do that?” I asked. My first thought yet again was Rachel but she had no reason to do it and she never did anything unless it served a purpose. It didn’t make sense. Maybe somebody had some issue with the people who had been killed. But how could they guarantee that those people would be the ones that went missing. And who could have a grudge with a kid? Maybe they only had a problem with one of the people and the rest were just decoys. Collateral damage. It didn’t matter really; my job was to kill it, not figure out its motive. Although, the council would probably want the person behind the wendigo dealt with as well. Unless I just didn’t tell them there was somebody behind it. I liked that idea.

  “Hang on,” Ashley said in horror. She had a large book open in her lap. I hadn’t even noticed her picking it up. “This says that humans can turn into wendigos.”

  “Yes, that’s right. All wendigos were once human. They turned into cannabalistic monsters.” Margie was about to continue when a violent cough seized her and she ended up coughing a massive blob of phlegm all over the coffee table. I tried not show how revolted I was. “Oh dear,” she said. She pulled the hanky from her sleeve again and wiped the mess up. Then she coughed three more times. “I must have caught it off—” more coughs cut her off and she resorted to pointing upstairs at her husband instead.

  “How is he?” I asked. I hadn’t any coughing from him so far.

  “Worse,” Ashley replied. She looked worried. “He’s not coughing much anymore but he’s got a horrible fever and weird swollen lumps. We’ve had to move him to the spare room upstairs where he can’t infect the rest of us.”

  “Swellings?” I repeated and she nodded. “Sounds like the plague.” I meant it as a joke really but judging from her face it was not taken as one.

  “It’s okay,” Margie said and waved a hand. “I knocked up a potion. Just a matter of waiting for it to take effect.”

  I smiled but didn’t have much confidence. Potions typically don’t take that long to get to work. I didn’t say that, though. I just thanked her for her help and hastily left before I caught the plague too.

  “There’s a few more things to look out for,” Ashley said as we walked to Matt’s house. He didn’t know we were coming; it would be a nice surprise for him. It would be an even nicer surprise when he found out we wanted his brand new Smith-Slayer sword. It was silver plated which made it the perfect weapon to use on a wendigo. I hoped.

  Ashley had decided she was coming on the hunt. I tried to talk her out of it but it was pointless. She was more stubborn than I was and frankly I could do with the help.

  “Go on,” I said. She was still reading out of the book she’d had at the house.

  “The wendigo is highly intelligent and capable of concocting traps for its prey. It can also mimic any human voice as long as it has heard it before.”

  “That’s just creepy,” I said. A monster with a human voice wasn’t right. It seemed unfair somehow.

  “It doesn’t like the daylight but will go out in it if for
ced.”

  “Good to know.” If we moved fast enough then we’d be hunting the thing during daylight hours which would give us a small advantage. “Anything else?”

  “Nothing we don’t already know. Super strong. Tall. Eats humans.”

  “Okay. So, we get the sword, we find its lair, we kill it, we burn it, and then we scatter the ashes. Simple,” I joked. It wasn’t really the time for joking but I often find it never is.

  “Well we already know where its lair is,” Ashley started but I shook my head.

  “The police found that. Richards told me this morning that they’d found all the bodies. The police will be all over that cave which means the wendigo will have moved.”

  “Unless it just killed them all.”

  I think we would’ve heard if that had happened,” said I. Richards would no doubt have blamed me and arrested me again. “We know it can’t have left the park because the symbols, so all…” I trailed off as we turned the corner and I saw the black BMW parked just ahead. I didn’t stop to admire the car although it was a magnificent thing. I stopped because of the registration plate. It read: RACH2.

  “Go home,” I said quietly to Ashley.

  “What are you on about? Why?” She said. She looked around but couldn’t see what had given me the chills.

  “Rachel is here. You need to go now,” I said firmly. I was happy to take Ashley on a wendigo hunt but there was no way I was letting her get caught up in the Rachel fiasco.

  “Too late for that, Eddie,” a male voice said from behind me. I turned around and saw Shay smiling smugly at me. “Get in the car.” He nodded at the BMW.

  “Let Ashley go and I will.” I wasn’t going to take any orders from a pathetic excuse for a warlock like Shay. He may have stolen all my magic from my unit but Rachel had taken the bulk of it. He didn’t have enough in him to to take me on and I had Ashley with me. Although I wasn’t sure how useful she’d be in a fight.

  “You don’t call the shots,” he said aggressively. He still hadn’t gotten over the time I’d used the mind control serum to make him stab himself. I’d let my inner darkness take the reigns back then. It’s good to let it out every now and then just as long as it doesn’t get to stay out for too long; then it’s a nightmare to shut away again. You’re probably wondering what I’m going on about, all this inner-darkness stuff. You should’ve read the first book and you’d know. Don’t worry, though, just for you I’ll pause the story to explain. Again. Basically, deep inside me I keep this nastiness hidden. I think there is some badness in everyone but mine is… worse. Maybe I was born with it but I think not. I think it’s a result of my past. Everything that happened with Rachel left a nasty stain on my soul. It’s the reason I don’t allow myself to consume too much power. The more power I have the more my darkness seems to wake up. It’s like it feeds off it. Power corrupts and when there’s already corruption present bad things happen. Anyway, I keep the darkness shut away but every now and then I let it out or it breaks out. When I let it out I can just about keep control but when it breaks out, it controls me. Luckily it hasn’t broken out for a good many years and I don’t intend on it breaking out any time soon. The last time it made an appearance was when I killed Killian. I’d tapped into it to give myself the extra motivation to see the job through. I’d kept it tucked away since. Now that that’s cleared up let’s get back to the story.

  “Well you certainly don’t call the shots,” I said with just the right amount of mocking.

  “Do you want to test that?” He bared his teeth. They were not well maintained; all yellow and crooked.

  “Rachel isn’t here,” I said calmly. His face remained blank so I continued. “She has a lot of power. Power that has passed through me. Do you know what that means? Obviously not so I’ll tell you. I do like to cater to the thick.” That seemed to strike a nerve and his face twisted in annoyance. “I can feel the power that’s passed through me. If Rachel was sitting in that car then I would be able to feel her presence.”

  “No you wouldn’t. Let me cater thickly to you,” he said. I ignored his jumbled attempt at handing my insult back to me. “Rachel knows you can sense the power and she’s masked it. You can’t sense it now.”

  “Is that so?” I asked as I considered the possibility. I’d never heard of power masking before but I’ve always been a firm believer that with enough power anything is possible and she definitely had enough power. Then I thought of something else. “Rach two,” I mumbled to myself.

  “What?” he said.

  “The car. It’s her second car. She never uses her second car. She isn’t in there.” I had known Rachel long enough to know her habits. She had a whole fleet of cars; she was filthy rich you see, but she never used any car that didn’t have a number one on the registration plate. She’s a massive narcissist but I’m sure you already knew that.

  “You can’t know that.” His face confirmed that I was right. I was bored of the altercation now.

  “Let’s see what you’ve learned,” I said, wondering how much Rachel had taught him when it came to magic. She was a good teacher but Shay was fairly dumb. I thrust my hand into his chest and passed a spell through. He staggered back a couple of steps.

  “What was—” he lurched over and let out a heavy stream of vomit all over the pavement. I jumped back to avoid the splash back. You probably think it was a juvenile attack but when it comes to people like Shay I find the juvenile attacks amuse me more. I made him shit himself once.

  “You little bastard,” he said when he was finished. “You want to see what Rachel’s taught me?” He thrust his hand out and I quickly stepped out of the way. Whatever spell he’d thrown hit the wall behind me and several bricks exploded.

  “Did you just try to blow me up? Can you imagine Rachel’s reaction?” I asked him and he looked utterly terrified. Rachel liked her collectables alive and undamaged.

  “Enough of this,” Ashley said. She swung her foot round and kicked him in the gut. He whimpered and as he hunched over she grabbed the back of his head and brought it down at the same time as her knee came up. The two connected and he whimpered again. He fell on his arse clutching his bloodied face as I looked on in appreciation. I’d never pegged Ashley for a street fighter. She wasn’t done either. She waved her fingers at the broken wall and several chunks of brick darted through the air and bombarded Shay in the face. He let out a small moan before he fell backwards out cold, but sadly not dead.

  I pointed at the mess that was Shay. “You can telekinetically attack someone with bricks but you can’t heat yourself up?” I asked in complete confusion. The more time I spent with her the more of an enigma she became. The only reply she gave me was a small shrug.

  “Where did you learn the arse-kicking skills?”

  “After the Killian thing I started getting lessons in fighting,” she replied as if it was obvious.

  I dragged Shay down the street and tossed him into the back of Rachel’s second car. As I thought Rachel was not in there. The only person there was the chauffeur and he was nobody I recognised.

  “Tell Rachel she needs better staff. And tell her not to send anyone else to pick me up. I’ll come for her when my schedule’s a bit more clear.” I knew it was a stupid idea to antagonise her, she would definitely lash out in retaliation but I really wanted to show her I wasn’t scared even though I was shitting myself really. “Oh, no offence about the getting better staff thing. I’m sure you do a wonderful job,” I added before I slammed the door shut. The car pulled away immediately and me and kick-ass Ashley continued on our journey to Matt’s house.

  It took Matt forever to get to the door and when he finally did I saw why. He was dead on his feet. I mean that in more literal terms than the expression is usually used for but not completely literally. Obviously, he was alive but he looked pretty zombified. His skin had lost a lot of colour. He looked like he’d lost weight since I saw him yesterday. His eyes were accompanied by dark heavy
bags and he looked like he was having trouble standing.

  “Eddie, I was’t expecting you,” he mumbled. He wandered back into his living room and gestured lazily for us to follow. He looked a bit better when sat down but not by much. “So you’ve finally brought Ashley to meet us. We’re not your dirty little secret any more,” he mumbled. At least he was still trying to make an effort to be his usual self.

  “Matt what’s happened to you?” I asked. This was more than your average illness.

  He shrugged. “Luck must’ve finally turned. Now I’m paying for all the goodness.” He issued a small laugh and then looked like he regretted expending the energy it took.

  “Yeah, looks like it,” I said as I thought about what could have caused it. There was definitely something funny at work. People don’t get so sick over night. “How’s Emma?”

  “Better than me. But she’s caught whatever it is too.”

  “Maybe there’s a sickness going round. My parents are sick too,” Ashley suggested but I thought not.

  “Different kinds of sickness, though,” I pointed out. “I’m going to knock you up a potion mate. It’ll take care of this in no time.”

  “Thanks,” he said. His eyes were closing as if he was about to fall asleep.

  “I need to kill a monster first, though, and to do that I need that sword you got on Ebay,” I said.

  “Why?” He was trying to fight off sleep but not very well.

  “It’s got silver plating and only silver can kill a wendigo,” I explained. I expected him to need more convincing but in his current state he had no resistance in him. He mumbled instructions of where I could find the weapon and then he drifted off. I retrieved the sword and then me and Ashley headed out on a monster hunt.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN