Loe raamatut: «Enchanter Redeemed»

Chapter 1

Sorcerer, enchanter, wizard, witch, warlock—they were all job descriptions that were synonymous with “idiot.” A person could be born of witch stock and blessed or cursed with natural talents, but it was lunacy to make magic a profession.

This raised the question of precisely why Merlin Ambrosius had been a professional enchanter for over two thousand years and had earned the laughable title of Merlin the Wise. By most standards, he was the most powerful magic user in the land, but that wasn’t always an advantage. While Regular Joe Enchanter might have a bad day and blow up his cauldron, Merlin had ripped the souls out of the entire fae race. Merlin the Wise? Not so much.

And now here he was, about to peer through a portal torn through time and space to spy on the scariest creepy-crawlies to ever sprout horns.

His workshop was on the top level of an old warehouse, while the bottom floor was occupied by an automotive repair shop. It was a good arrangement, since Merlin preferred to work at night when the employees had gone home and wouldn’t be tempted to ask about funny smells, indoor hailstorms or a flock of flying toads. Today, though, the shop was shut and he had the place to himself. This was a definite bonus, even if it meant getting up before noon. Superstar wizard or not, stalking demons on a sunny afternoon was slightly less terrifying than on a dark and stormy night.

The ritual circle was drawn in chalk in the middle of the floor and the scant furniture pushed aside. The curtains were pulled, softening the light. Empty space yawned up to the rafters, the shadows untouched by the dozen sweet-scented candles flickering in the draft. A hush blanketed the room. Merlin sat cross-legged in the middle of the circle, his comfortable jeans and faded T-shirt at odds with the solemnity of the magic. The truth was, ritual robes didn’t matter. Only strength of will and focus would help with this kind of work—which was, in effect, eavesdropping.

Merlin needed information. Specifically, he needed to know what Camelot’s enemies had been doing in recent months, because rumors were flying on the magical grapevine, blog sites and social media accounts—not to mention Camelot’s spy network. On one hand, there were the fae. They had been far too quiet since the autumn—no attacks, no gratuitous death threats, no random monsters unleashed to trample a city—and the silence was making everyone nervous.

On the other hand, the demon courts were stirring. Arthur, with Merlin’s help, had thrown the hellspawn back into the Abyss during Camelot’s glory days. But no banishment lasted forever and sooner or later the demons would try to return. Was that what was going on?

He cupped his scrying stone in the palms of his hands, willing answers to flow his way. The stone was cool, smooth and heavy and he concentrated until it was the only object filling his senses. Popular culture loved the image of a wizard with a crystal ball, but to tune into Radio Demon, dark red agate was best. The good stuff was rare, and Merlin had searched for centuries for a flawless globe the size of a small pumpkin. When he’d finally found what he wanted, it had cost enough gold to purchase a small country, but it had been one of his go-to tools ever since.

He spoke a word, and the solid rock dissolved into a cloud of dark gray streaked like a bloody sunset. He still held a hard sphere, but it was like a bubble now. Inside was a window into a complex web of realities that included Faery, the Forest Sauvage, the Crystal Mountains and many more separate but connected realms. He nudged the vision until he was staring into the demon territory called the Abyss.

The mist parted and Merlin had a view of two figures. It wasn’t the best angle—he was somewhere above and to the left—but that was an advantage. Spy holes were unpredictable and he had no desire to get caught. Grumpy demons had sent the last unlucky eavesdropper home in a soup bowl.

At first he could only see two figures talking, but a quick shake of the ball fixed the audio.

“What do you mean, you were summoned?” asked the taller of the two in a scholarly accent. He was dressed in a well-tailored suit, his head bald and his black beard neatly clipped. He would have looked at home in any metropolitan city except for the claws, pointy teeth and yellow eyes slitted like a goat’s. Merlin knew this demon’s name was Tenebrius. They’d had uneasy dealings before.

“I know,” replied the other demon, who called himself Gorm. He was small, about the size of a large cat or a smallish monkey, and his leathery skin reminded Merlin of an old shoe. “In these days of computers and binge television, who bothers to summon a demon? But there I was in a chalk circle just like the old days. Talk about retro.”

“Don’t try to be funny,” said Tenebrius, narrowing his eyes. “Who was it?”

“LaFaye. You know, the Queen of Faery?”

The image of Tenebrius stiffened. So did Merlin. Morgan LaFaye had caused most of Camelot’s headaches until she’d been imprisoned. She shouldn’t have been able to summon so much as pizza delivery from inside her enchanted jail.

“What does she want?” asked Tenebrius with obvious caution. He was staring at Gorm with something between suspicion and—was that envy?

Gorm shrugged. “Power. Freedom. King Arthur’s head on a platter.”

Tenebrius looked down his nose and clasped his hands behind his back, resembling a supercilious butler. “The usual, you mean.”

“She is a queen locked up and separated from her people.”

Tenebrius snorted, releasing a cloud of smoke from his nostrils. “She rose to power by trading on the fae’s grievance against Camelot. I’d hardly call that a good qualification for a leader. They’re better off without her, even if they have lost their souls.”

And that summed up the damage caused by the spell Merlin had used to banish the demons. Gone was the fae’s love of beauty, their laughter, their art. Now they were emotionless automatons sworn to take vengeance on Camelot and feast on the life energy of mortals. Old, familiar guilt gnawed inside him, no less sharp for all the centuries that had passed.

Gorm frowned. “Her Majesty has a grievance.”

“Don’t we all?” Tenebrius examined his claws. “Do you trust her?”

“Would you trust someone who summoned one of us?”

Tenebrius rolled his slitted eyes. “But why you? Was her magic so weakened by prison that she was forced to grab the first demon she came to?”

“Uh—” Gorm started to look up, as if sensing Merlin’s intense interest in the conversation, but was distracted a moment later.

“Who’s grabbing whom?” came a third and very female voice.

Merlin all but dropped the ball, his mouth suddenly desert dry. The image warped and churned until he forced it back into focus—and then wished he hadn’t. Vivian swam into view. She looked as good as she had the last time they’d wrestled between her silken sheets. Scholars claimed demons were made of energy and therefore had no true physical form, yet there was no question that Vivian was exquisite. She was tall and slender but curvaceous in ways that were hard to achieve except as a fantasy art centerfold. A thick river of blue-black hair hung to her knees and framed a heart-shaped face set with enormous violet eyes. Warm toffee skin—bountifully visible despite her glittering armor—stirred dangerous, even disturbing, memories. Beyond Vivian’s inhuman loveliness, her demon ancestry showed in the long, black, feline tail that twitched behind her.

Ex-lovers were tricky things. Demon ex-lovers were a whole new level of dangerous. Merlin still wanted to devour her one lick at a time. Merlin the very, very Unwise. He closed his eyes, hoping she’d disappear. Unfortunately, when he looked again, she was still there. Then he cursed the loss of those two seconds when he might have been gazing at her. Vivian had been his, his pleasure and poison and his personal drug of choice. He’d moved on, but she’d never completely left his bloodstream.

“Gorm got himself summoned,” said Tenebrius.

“Who was the lucky enchanter?” Vivian asked. She gave a lush smile with dainty, feline fangs.

“The Queen of Faery.”

“Oh,” said Vivian, quickly losing the grin, “her. It’s almost tempting to give the fae their souls again. Then they’d get rid of LaFaye themselves.”

Tenebrius gave her a sly look. “You don’t think the situation presents some interesting opportunities?”

Merlin wondered what he meant by that, but Gorm interrupted. “Is it even possible to restore their souls?”

“Theoretically,” said Vivian. “Everything’s possible with us.”

“But we could do it?” Gorm persisted.

Tenebrius shrugged. “The spell came from a demon to begin with. Therefore, demon magic could reverse it.”

By all the riches of the goblin kings! Merlin sat frozen. Hope rose, wild and shattering, and he squeezed the ball so that his hands would not shake. He had searched and searched for a means to fix the fae, but had found nothing. Then again, he’d been searching among healers and wielders of the Light, not hellspawn. Demons corrupted and destroyed. They did not improve.

And yet Tenebrius had just said that the demons could provide a cure. Impossible. Brilliant. Amazing. Merlin struggled to control his breath. How was he going to get his hands on a demon-crafted cure? Because it was immediately, solidly obvious that he had to, whatever the cost.

His gaze went from Tenebrius back to the she-demon again. At the sight of her sumptuous body, things—possibly his survival instincts—shriveled in terror while other bits and pieces heated with a toxic mix of panic and desire. Any involvement with demons was an appallingly bad move. Sex was beyond stupid, but he’d been there and done that and insanely lusted for more.

Vivian wanted him dead, and some of her reasons were justified. To begin with, he’d stolen from her. The battle spell that had gone so horribly wrong had come from her grimoire—the great and horrible book of magic that rested on a bone pedestal in her chambers. Maybe she had the power to help the fae—but that would mean facing her again. Now, there was a terrifying idea.

The door behind Merlin banged open with a loud crack. “Hey, you busy?”

Startled out of deep concentration, Merlin jumped, dropping the globe. With a curse, he snatched it up.

“Oops. Sorry, dude.” The new voice seemed to ring in the rafters, blaringly loud against the profound silence of the magical circle. A corner of Merlin’s brain identified the speaker as his student, Clary Greene, but the rest of him was teetering on the edge of panic. When he righted the globe, the swirling clouds parted inside the stone once more. He peered until the image of the room grew crisp. Three demon faces stared back at him with murderous expressions.

Merlin said something much stronger than “oops.”

Vivian’s eyes began to glow. “Merlin!” she snarled, his name trailing into a feline hiss that spoke of unfinished business.

Merlin quickly set the agate ball on the floor and sprang away, colliding with Clary’s slight form. His student’s pixie-like features crumpled in confusion. “What’s going on?”

“Duck!” he ordered, grabbing her shoulder and pushing her to the floor.

Bolts of power blasted from the agate globe in rainbow colors, arcing in jagged lightning all through the room. With three demons firing at once, it looked like an otherworldly octopus, its tentacles grabbing objects and zapping them to showers of ash. Merlin’s bookshelf exploded, burning pages filling the air as if he was trapped in an apocalyptic snow globe.

“Making friends again?” Clary asked, flicking ash from her shaggy blond head. Her words were flippant, but her face was tense.

“Stay low. They’re demons.”

Clary’s witch-green eyes went wide. She was Vivian’s opposite—a lean, fair tomboy with more attitude than magical talent. She was also everything that Vivian was not—honest, kind, thoughtful and far too good to be in Merlin’s life. She was a drink of clean water to a man parched by his own excesses, an innocent despite what she believed about herself. Everything about her had beckoned, woman to man, but he’d kept their relationship professional. It was bad enough that she had begged him to teach her magic. He should have refused. Nothing good came to anyone who lingered near him.

And right now lingering was not an option.

“Move,” he snapped, forcing her to creep backward one step at a time. The slow pace was nerve-racking, but it gave him a moment to weave a protective spell around them both.

He was just in time. Lightning fried his worktable, shattering a row of orderly glass vials, and then his bicycle sizzled and warped into a piece of futuristic sculpture. Merlin scowled as the seat burst into flame. Maybe he should rethink the slow and steady approach.

Vivian’s clear voice rang from the agate globe. “Curse you, Merlin Ambrosius. I vow that you shall not escape me, but shall suffer due vengeance for what you have done!”

“What did you do?” Clary whispered. “She’s really mad.”

“Not now,” Merlin muttered. Not ever, if he had a choice.

He sprang at the agate ball, intending to break the connection between his workshop and the demon realm with a well-placed bolt of his own. Before he was halfway there, a purple tentacle of energy lashed out and fastened on his chest. A blaze of pain sang through him, fierce as a sword stroke. He thrust out a hand, warping the stream of power away before his heart stopped.

Then Clary cast her own counter spell, just the way he’d taught her. The blow struck, but only clipped the edge of the stone ball, rolling it outside the containment of the ritual circle. Merlin pounced, but the damage was done. Once outside the circle, the demons were free to cross over into his world. As he groped on the floor for the agate, Vivian’s armored boots appeared in his field of view. He looked up and up her long legs to her shapely body and finally to her furious eyes.

“Who is this witch?” Vivian pointed a claw-tipped finger at Clary. Her long black tail swished back and forth, leaving an arc in the ashes coating the floor.

“Darling. Sweetheart. She’s my student,” he said in calming tones as he got to his feet, still clutching the stone. The agate sparked with the demons’ power, as if he held a heavy ball of pure electricity.

“Does she know what you really are?” Anger twisted Vivian’s beautiful face. “Or should I say, does she have any idea how low you will stoop for power?”

Clearly, the demon was still mad that he’d stolen her spell. Or, more likely, she was furious that he’d left their bed without a word—but there had been no choice, under the circumstances. It was that or hand Camelot and everybody else over to the hellspawn.

Vivian’s furious form was just a projection of energy—half in her own world and half in his—and yet Merlin took a cautious step back. “Clary is only a student, Vivian. I can promise you that much.”

“I’m standing right here,” Clary snapped.

It was the wrong tone to take with an angry demon. Vivian flicked a bolt of power from her fingertips that hurled Clary against the wall. To Merlin’s horror, the young witch stuck there, suspended above the floor like a butterfly on a pin. Clary grabbed at her chest, tearing at the zipper of her leather jacket as if she needed air.

“Enough!” Merlin roared. “She is nothing to you.”

“But she is something to you. I can smell it!”

“She’s under my protection.” He lashed out, breaking Vivian’s hold.

The demoness rounded on him, fixing him with those hypnotic violet eyes. Her predatory beauty held him for a split second too long. As Clary crumpled to the floor, Vivian’s claws slashed at the girl, leaving long, red tracks soaking through the sleeve of thin burgundy leather. Vivian snarled, showing fangs. In moments, Clary would be dead—and for no reason other than because she’d interrupted his ritual.

Desperation knotted Merlin’s chest. He lifted the agate globe, infusing it with his power. Part of him screamed to stop, to guard his own interests, but the fever of his grief and guilt was too strong. With a howl, he smashed the globe to the floor. It exploded into a thousand shards, taking most of his earthly wealth with it. Vivian shrieked—a high, pained banshee wail—and vanished with a pop of air pressure that left his ears ringing. A heavy stink of burning amber hung in the air, borne on wisps of purple smoke. Clary began to cough, a racking, bubbling gasp of sound.

Merlin fell to his knees at her side. “It’s over.”

He put an arm around the young woman, helping her to sit up. The warm, slender weight of her seemed painfully fragile. Witches were mortal, as easily broken as ordinary humans, and Clary’s face had drained of color. He touched her cheek with the back of his hand to find her skin was cold.

His stomach clenched with panic. “How badly are you hurt?”

She didn’t answer. She wasn’t breathing anymore.