The Midnight Front--A Dark Arts Novel Read online

  It rankled Cade to be bullied into a decision, but he had more pressing matters to address. “Will learning magick help me avenge my parents?”

  “It’s the only thing that will.”

  Cade steeled his gaze and straightened his spine. “How do I start?”

  A wide smile brightened Adair’s craggy face as he slapped a callused hand on Cade’s shoulder. “You just did.”

  1941

  5

  JANUARY

  The new year dawned gray and cold. Cade awoke from nightmares to stare at the ceiling. He had feared the night before that he might have trouble sleeping after lying insensate for sixteen months, but in fact he had found himself exhausted, physically and emotionally.

  He considered rolling over and returning to sleep. Rising to face the day would mean confronting his grief, but surrendering to dreams would plunge him back into the past, a prison of nostalgia. Awake and in motion he might distract himself. Work seemed his only hope for restoring his equilibrium. He tossed the sheets aside.

  Half an hour later—shaved, showered, and dressed in clean clothes—Cade entered the banquet room to find himself without company. He circled the table and looked for any sign of Adair or his apprentices.

  “Hello?” His voice echoed in the keep, but no reply came.

  One place was set at the table, so he sat there. Two servants, a man and a woman, both tall, dour, and of indeterminate age, entered from the same passage he’d followed outside the night before. Their hands were laden with items of silver: She carried a four-piece coffee-and-tea service on a tray; he held in one hand a circular platter covered by a dome.

  Cade nodded at them and smiled. “Morning.” Neither servant acknowledged his greeting. Both regarded him with unblinking stares he found unnerving. He wondered if he had violated some point of etiquette. “Was I supposed to wait before I sat down?” His question was met with more silence. “I’m sorry, but do either of you speak English?”

  They had all the verve of mannequins.

  “Parlez-vous français?… ¿Habla usted español?… Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” He sighed in frustration. “Look, I’ve never had servants, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.” He lifted his empty cup from its saucer. “Can I just get a cup of coffee while I—”

  The woman reacted with speed and precision. She circled the table, balanced the heavy tray in one hand, and filled Cade’s cup with the other. After she put the pot on the tray, she stood beside him as if she were a statue.

  He nodded at the tray. “You can put that down if—” She set it on the table, backed up, then returned to stand beside her colleague.

  Spooning some sugar into his coffee, Cade told the manservant, “If that’s my breakfast, you can serve it whenever you’re—”

  The mute steward walked around the table, set the platter in front of Cade, and removed its lid to reveal a plate piled with scrambled eggs, sausages, beans, and a buttered scone.

  Cade cracked an awkward smile at the retreating man. “That’s great, thanks.”

  Hunger took over. He picked up his fork and knife and dug into his breakfast. Between bites he smiled again at the servants. “Nice to meet you, by the way. My name’s Cade. What’re yours?” Innocent inquiry collided with mute indifference.

  He’d had at most one bite of each item on his plate and two sips of coffee when his repast was interrupted by Adair’s foghorn bellow from the staircase.

  “On your feet, lad! Time to go.”

  Cade mumbled through a mouthful of egg and scone, “I just started.”

  “Too bad.” Adair grabbed Cade’s collar and hefted him out of his chair. “No time for pity.” To the servants he added, “Clean this up.”

  The servants cleared the breakfast dishes. Cade rescued his half-full cup of coffee and did his best not to slosh it on his hands as he pursued Adair. They walked down the courtyard passage, detoured left into a short transverse, then turned right at a T-shaped intersection.

  The old Scot’s voice resounded off the stone walls. “Long day ahead.”

  Cade trailed the master through a narrow corridor and down some dark stairs. Halfway across a long passage he had almost caught up when he tripped, and a splash of hot coffee seared the back of his hand. “Son of a bitch.”

  His grumbling drew a look from the master. “Not much for pain, are you?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Learn to deal with it.” He led Cade down a switchback stair.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Workshop.” He pointed at the cup in Cade’s hand. “Finish up. I need your hands free.”

  Cade gulped the last of his coffee on his way downstairs. At the bottom another servant—a pale, humorless woman—relieved him of the cup. She carried it upstairs while Adair led Cade down the corridor. Cade glanced over his shoulder for another look at the servant, but she was gone. “Tell me you didn’t hire your staff for their charm.”

  “Hired? They were summoned.” He unlocked the workshop door, then faced Cade, whose confusion must have been evident. “They’re lamiae. Demonic servants.” He opened the door and welcomed Cade into the tidy confines of the workshop.

  Looking around at the rock walls, the workbench, and the array of tools, Cade remained fixated on the lamiae. “You let demons walk around free in your castle?”

  “Far from it. They’re minor spirits, so low they don’t even have true names. Their kind get pressed into service for years, sometimes decades. They don’t talk, but they can follow simple orders: ‘Serve the food.’ ‘Wash the dishes.’ ‘Do the laundry, make the beds.’ You’re lucky to get one that can cook.” With a wave of his hand he shut the workshop’s door. “But make no mistake: Lamiae are demons, and they hate us more than you can ever know. If they weren’t properly summoned and bound, they’d kill us all.”

  “Then why use them?”

  “Because they’re cheap. And since they don’t sleep, they’ll serve at any hour without complaint.” He pressed a mallet and chisel into Cade’s hands. “Unlike apprentices.”

  Cade was befuddled by the implements. “Woodworking tools?”

  “Aye.”

  “I thought you were gonna teach me magick.”

  “If you want to learn the Art, first you need to learn to make your own tools. Thirteen blades, your own grimoire, a wand—”

  Disbelief raised Cade’s eyebrows. “Can’t I just buy some of that?”

  “There are no shortcuts in magick, except to the grave. An operator needs to make all his own implements, according to—”

  “Wait. What’s an ‘operator’?”

  A long-suffering sigh. “I’m getting ahead of myself.” He picked up a list from the workbench and gave it to Cade. “These are the items you need to make before you can start learning the Art. Do you have any skill for glassblowing? Woodcarving? Metalwork?”

  “Some.” A humble shrug. “My mom was a chemist. She taught me glassblowing. Don’t know much about wood or metal, though.”

  “I’ll have Anja teach you metal, and Niko can show you how to carve. Stefan’ll help you get the rest of your kit together, and get you started on the books.”

  “Books?”

  “Aye. Magick is a skill, one that most persons can learn, given time. But it’s also an Art, which means some are born with more of a knack for it than others. And I have it on good authority that you possess just such a knack.” Adair clasped his shoulder. “It takes most new adepts a year to learn how to make the tools of the Art.… You’ll have four weeks.”

  He was sure he’d heard the master wrong. “Four weeks?”

  Adair dismissed Cade’s objection with a raised hand. “It usually takes three years to master the basics of the Art. I need you ready to go into battle at my side in three months.”

  “Are you crazy? You just said there aren’t any shortcuts in magick.”

  “There aren’t.”

  “Then why rush my training?”

  The master s
kewered Cade with a black look.

  “Haven’t you heard? There’s a war on.”

  6

  Four weeks had sounded to Cade like too short a time in which to master several complex skills. Only after the work had begun did he realize how long a day could be, never mind a week or a month. January was only half gone and already he was exhausted.

  Most days Anja rousted him from bed before dawn. The young Russian permitted him less than a quarter hour each morning to bathe, dress, eat, and ready himself for the day’s teachings. She was by far the strictest of the three apprentices. Once her lessons started, she always demanded Cade’s complete attention. The first thing he’d learned was how much she hated being made to repeat herself. The second thing he’d learned was that she hated his guts.

  After suffering a few hours of Anja’s tutelage every day, Cade had found working with Stefan and Niko to be a relief. Each, in his own way, treated Cade like a brother.

  Hours sped by as Niko told Cade of his youth in Algiers, and of how he and his younger sister Camille—children of a Greek mother and a French Algerian father—had escaped lives of poverty by smuggling themselves to France as teenagers. Somehow, while regaling Cade with his life story, Niko also taught him the basics of woodcarving and engraving.

  Stefan was less talkative. His manner was quiet, kind, and unfailingly polite. Despite his reticence, it was clear to Cade that the Dutchman possessed a keen intellect. But what Cade liked best about him was that he comported himself as a gentle soul.

  The first week of Cade’s training had been a success, as far as he could tell. His experience with blowing glass had proved useful, inasmuch as it had spared Anja the need to teach him the basics. While she had taught him about metal ores, Niko had instructed him in identifying different types of wood, and Stefan had helped Cade assemble a reading list.

  Week two had been far more trying. Forging metal was new to Cade. Melting down raw ore, separating liquefied metals by temperature, and then casting them into shapes was draining both physically and mentally. He and Anja did their smelting outside in the courtyard. The blaze had no bellows, but Anja used magick to make it burn white-hot. Its heat felt as if it could cook the front of Cade’s body while his back went numb from the winter cold.

  His hands had ached when he woke this morning, the fifth day of his second week of training. Every time he struck the hammer to metal on the anvil, he winced as needling shocks radiated up his arms, into his shoulders. He grimaced at the crescent-shaped lump he was beating into shape. “What’d you say this is called?”

  Anja answered in a monotone. “A boline. You might call it a sickle.”

  “Actually, I’m calling it a pain in the ass.”

  “Stop whining. Focus.”

  He brought the hammer down again. Sparks danced from the point of contact. He sighed. “Why can’t I start with a straight blade and make the fancy curvy thing later?”

  “Because the boline is the only tool without runes. You must use it to inscribe all the other blades you will make.” She gestured at the hunks of steel waiting to be worked. “Those you will use to inscribe your other metal pieces, and to carve your grips and your blasting rod.” She noted his confusion and clarified, “Your wand.”

  Another ringing strike of the hammer kicked up orange sparks. Cade sleeved sweat from his brow. “So the order in which I make the tools matters?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good to know.”

  He cleared his mind of questions and tried to recall what she had shown him about folding and shaping the metal. In different circumstances, he might have resented her for the torrent of information she’d dumped on him, but as matters stood he was grateful. Every moment he spent on the minutiae of his training was one he didn’t spend stewing in grief and anger.

  * * *

  “Let the knife do the work,” Niko said. Cade let Niko correct his grip on his carving blade, then his hold on the narrow branch of hazelwood in his other hand. “Turn the wood but keep the blade steady to cut a spiral up the length of the wand.”

  Cade resumed his practice carving. “Like this?”

  “Oui, très bien.” An encouraging smile. “You’ll be ready to carve the real thing any day now. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were born a carpenter.”

  “Hardly.” It was difficult for Cade to keep the angle of the spiral cut consistent with each turn of the branch. “I’ll be lucky to finish this without losing my thumb.”

  Niko studied him. “What did you want to be? Before all this, I mean.”

  The question took Cade by surprise. He stopped carving. “No idea. I was on track to take a First in Classics at Oxford, with a bit of Arabic on the side, but I’ve no idea how I planned to make a living at it. Anyway, I’ve always wanted to tackle the big questions: ‘Why are we here?’ ‘What does it all mean?’ ‘Why does my toast always land jam-side down?’ That kind of thing.”

  “If arcane truth is what you seek, the Art will suit you well.”

  “What about you?”

  A broad grin lit up Niko’s face. “My sister and I always said we’d open a café in Paris. She would be the hostess, and I would be the chef.” He dug his wallet from a pants pocket and from it pulled a cracked and faded portrait of a young woman who bore him a strong family resemblance. “This is Camille.”

  “She’s lovely,” Cade said.

  “Too much for her own good.” Niko tucked away the photo, then shoved his wallet into his pocket. “Be glad you never had a sister. They are nothing but trouble.”

  * * *

  Cade dreaded the end of each day’s work. He kept telling himself it had been over a year since the sinking of the Athenia and the deaths of his parents, but his grief remained too fresh to bury.

  Lying in bed each night, with no one to crack jokes at, he struggled to find the peace to sleep. After hours of reading musty tomes of the Art, all he could do was lie awake and listen to the wind howl across the loch to shake his windows.

  Being alone with his thoughts felt like teetering on a precipice, one step from a plunge into despair. He had been ready to sink into the darkness that night in the water; part of him still imagined that such a surrender could bring only relief.

  Then he would think of vengeance, and his urge for self-destruction would abate.

  And so he ended each day, nurtured by dreams of violence.

  * * *

  Anja’s words guided Cade’s hands. “Feel the curve take shape.… Heed the metal. When it resists, take it to the fire.… Remember what I showed you. Fold the steel.” She punctuated her instructions with bursts of Russian profanity Cade was happy not to have translated.

  Her lessons had taken on a rote quality that let Cade empty his mind of everything but the task before him. He found solace in simplicity. His past was forgotten, his future out of view. All that mattered was the present—the fusion of heat and pressure in a strip of steel caught between a hammer’s head and the back of an anvil.

  He became one with his work, and in those brief moments he had peace.

  * * *

  Columns of stacked books surrounded Cade like a literary Stonehenge. Dust caked the tomes’ spines and dulled the shine of gilt pages. Motes lingered in dying rays of daylight slanting through the study’s windows, lending the keep’s most secluded room an aura of timelessness.

  Open on the table in front of Cade was an ancient volume bound in oak and calfskin: Clavicula Salomonis Regis, which was also called the Lemegeton but was better known by its modern name, The Lesser Key of Solomon. It claimed to be an instruction manual for the conjuration, binding, and control of demons. The edition Cade was reading, which Adair had insisted was the “definitive version,” had been obsessively annotated by hand. Much to Cade’s dismay, its marginalia had been scribbled using the same archaic Latin as its main text.

  At least I get to read by electric light, Cade consoled himself. The codices in Adair’s library of magick were too valuable to risk being
exposed to flames, which meant Cade had no need to fear he would go blind straining to read by faltering candlelight. I just hope I don’t go mad trying to parse ancient Greek and Aramaic.

  He knew that at any moment he might fall asleep sitting upright, and then he would end up facedown in the gutter of an open book. He marked his place with a white feather, closed the book, and sat back to rub his tired eyes.

  In the corner of the study, Stefan looked up from the book he was reading. He had been so silent while hunkered down in his favorite armchair that Cade had forgotten the senior apprentice was still there. “Have you already finished with the Lesser Key?”

  “Just halfway.” He quailed from the mountain of words before him. “How the hell am I supposed to memorize all this in three months?”

  Stefan adjusted his wire-frame glasses. “You have less time than that, I think. Most of this you need to know before you conjure your first spirit.”

  “Tell me you’re not serious. I have to read all this just to summon one demon?”

  The Dutchman stood and walked to Cade’s reading table to survey the books stacked upon it. “At the least, you must know the rituals of Waite’s Ceremonial Magic. And we will all be safer if you have read Pseudomonarchia Daemonum.”

  “But the rest—”

  “Are still vital. The Heptameron. Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy. Weyer’s Officium Spirituum. Any of them could save your life one day.” He lifted a book from the top of the stack nearest him and read its title aloud. “Necronomicon.” He set it down. “Maybe not that one.”

  Cade remained intimidated by the mass of knowledge he was being asked to cram into his brain in so brief a span. “Is it really possible for one person to learn all this? Did you?”

  “I read every one of these books during my training.”

  “And how long did it take you?”

  Stefan hesitated to answer. “Four years and three months.”

  “Four years? Then why does Adair think I can do it in four weeks?”