The Midnight Front--A Dark Arts Novel Read online

  “Because if I had, you’d be dead.”

  She recoiled, offended by his undertone of pity. “Damn you.”

  He looked almost remorseful but said nothing as she hurried out the door into the hallway—where she collided with Cade.

  He backed up, hands raised. “Hey! Sorry, I—”

  “Must be nice to be special,” Anja said, cutting him off and leaving him speechless. She pushed past him and sprinted up the spiral stairs, wanting nothing more than to leave him and Adair and everyone else behind. She stormed into her bedroom and slammed the door.

  Every passing day made her oath to Adair more painful to honor. Over a year had passed since the war began, and with each day her urge to join the battle grew more acute. After all the master had done for her, the notion of leaving him felt unthinkable, but every day she spent helping train this selfish young American was another day her duty to the Soviet went postponed.

  Someday soon, she knew, a more solemn vow would call her away. And when it did, she would have no choice but to answer.

  Until then, she would continue to do her master’s bidding.

  But only until then.

  * * *

  Yoking a demon, Cade learned the next night, was not substantially different from striking a pact with one. In some respects, it was easier. The circles of protection were simpler to draw and required fewer elements. In one regard, however, it was more tedious, and that was the wording of the agreement. Cade was daunted by the verbiage Adair had asked him to memorize.

  “Do I really need to say all this?”

  “Every word,” Adair said. “Demons come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing the fiery gits have in common is they honor their pacts to the letter. Some’ll let you use their powers for a specific duration, some’ll let you use their powers only a limited number of times. Each demon’s terms are unique, so it’s vital that every word in a demonic pact be perfect, and leave nothing to chance. Get sloppy and you’ll wind up empty-handed in the middle of a fight.”

  “It’s all just so arbitrary,” Cade said. “All the grimoires told me to ask LUCIFUGE for seven hundred years of life. But if he can give me seven hundred, why can’t I ask for a thousand? Or just simple immortality?”

  “Because the beast would have refused and offered you seven hundred, in accordance with the Law.”

  That sounded to Cade like a cop-out. “And I’d have been obliged to accept it? Why? Because that’s just the way it’s always been done?”

  “I didn’t write the rules of magick, lad. I just teach them.”

  With a grudging shake of his head, Cade continued to review the language of his pending pact with the spirit known as XAPHAN, a demon whose body was composed of the Flame Everlasting. The pact gave Cade the right to yoke the demon for up to ninety consecutive days and during that time wield all of its powers as his own, without restriction, before having to discharge it and summon it again. The catch—because there always was one with demons—was that for every day of power XAPHAN gave to Cade, it demanded payment in the form of Cade’s submission to a century of torment in the afterlife.

  Before the sea battle, Cade would never have worried about selling a soul he hadn’t believed existed. But now he had seen demons with his own eyes. Knowing that they and Hell were real made it hard for him to be blasé about pledging himself to eons of Infernal torment.

  He held up the contract to Adair. “This thing wants to grill me a hundred years for each day I use its powers. Are all the deals like this?”

  “Eternity’s a long haul. They need something to pass the time.”

  Cade shook his head. “Do your contracts have these terms?”

  “Aye. It’s just boilerplate. Nothin’ to get on about.”

  A rueful chuckle. “Yeah, sure. Just eternal damnation. No big deal.”

  “Trust me, it’s a hard debt to collect. Do as I say, and it’ll never happen.”

  The ritual went off without a hitch. It was packed with dreadful howls, stomach-turning odors, and acts of petulance by the spirit, all of which Cade had expected. A few thrusts of his wand forced XAPHAN to stop presenting itself in false forms—first as a beautiful maiden, in a transparent effort to seduce him; then as a mass of gelatinous flesh, eyestalks, and tentacles meant to intimidate him—and appear in its true shape: a tall slender man with a body of fire. Its voice was the hiss of steam dancing across hot iron.

  Once the spirit was subdued, Cade calmed his mind before reciting the details that would govern his pact with the demon. XAPHAN simmered through the dictation of terms, which took Cade nearly twenty minutes to enumerate.

  When he finished, the demon asked with droll boredom, IS THAT ALL?

  “Do you feel underexploited? Should I demand more?” He raised his wand. Adair had warned him not to let demons seize the upper hand, whether by threats, flattery, or sarcasm.

  I ACCEPT YOUR TERMS. I WILL AFFIX MY SEAL AND TRUE SIGNATURE IN YOUR BOOK.

  Cade rotated the lectern to face his grimoire toward the spirit. XAPHAN took up the pen of the Art and added his imprimatur to the book of pacts, just as its Infernal master LUCIFUGE ROFOCALE had done the night before.

  It set down the pen and shrank while awaiting its servitude. I AM PREPARED.

  With one hand, Cade raised his wand; with the other he cast a fistful of gold dust into the brazier of smoldering coals at his feet. “Adiuro animae meae anima tua potestate mea sit potestate, in condicionibus foederis.”

  The spirit faded until it was almost invisible, and then it leapt forward and shrank as it merged with Cade, vanishing inside him as it did. Silence reigned over the grand circle, and the odor of burnt metal that had announced the demon’s arrival dissipated.

  Adair, who had observed the ritual from the protection of a secondary circle outside the main seal, asked, “How do you feel, lad?”

  The sensation pulsing through Cade’s body was almost narcotic. “Amazing.”

  “Enjoy it while it lasts. The hangover’s going to be a bear. Tomorrow I’ll show you how to scribe circles for calling up several spirits at once.”

  “When do I start learning how to use this?”

  “Patience. Right now you’ve got a belly full of fire. Tomorrow we’ll get you a shield and a way to see magick coming. Once you’ve got those, we can teach you how to fight.”

  Cade forced his emotions into check. “So, by tomorrow I’ll have three demons yoked at once?” His master nodded. “What’s the most you’ve ever yoked?”

  “Eleven.”

  “What’s the most anyone’s ever yoked?”

  The Scot shook his head. “The most I’ve ever heard of was thirteen.”

  “Who did that?” He inferred the answer from Adair’s dour expression. “Kein.”

  “Aye.” He stepped out of his circle and snapped his fingers to extinguish the ceremonial candles, leaving the room dark but for skewers of moonlight through the windows. “But you’ve a long road to walk before you brave a stunt like that.” He pointed Cade toward the stairs. “Tomorrow’s another long day, so sleep tonight—if you can.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning, I’d put a bottle of whisky on your nightstand if I were you.”

  8

  FEBRUARY

  “Magick is a science,” Adair said to Cade as he juggled three orbs of fire. “Master its rules and you can learn to bend them.” He made the fiery globes orbit above his head. “And even break them.” The tiny fireballs turned to ice, shot off in separate directions, and shattered against the castle’s walls of stone. “You try.”

  Cade concentrated on the names and powers of the four demons he had yoked. XAPHAN, the first, let him conjure and control fire. He held out his right palm and envisioned a ball of flames. Short-lived tongues of reddish fire danced above his hand. A deep breath slowed his racing heart and helped him imagine the fireball with greater clarity.

  It popped into being, an orb of cold flames swirling above his hand.

 
“I did it!” He looked to Adair. “What’s next?”

  “Make another in your left, but with blue flames. And hot as hell this time.”

  Again he focused his thoughts on the demon and its native talent. More reluctant licks of fire danced in his left hand before the teal-colored fireball appeared. Its heat shriveled the hairs on the back of his hand. “Okay,” Cade said. “One hot fireball, one cold. Now what?”

  “Toss ’em in the loch,” Adair said. “No way you’re bringing those in the keep.”

  Cade hurled the fireballs into Loch Duich. The red orb spawned a patch of ice on the lake’s surface, and the blue orb blasted it to bits that turned to steam in midair. “That was wild,” he said, stunned to have seen such raw power in his own hands.

  “That was nothing,” Adair said. “Before I can teach you to fight, you’ll need to be able to attack and defend at the same time, and switch from one power to another on the move.”

  “Are you serious? I can barely call up one power at a time.”

  The master took Cade’s complaint in stride. “Wielding yoked powers is always hard at first. It’s like learning to play music.”

  “Music?”

  “Aye. When you start, it takes all your focus to make one perfect note. You worry about the note itself, about where your fingers go … and then you worry about the next note. But the more you practice, the easier it gets to follow one note with another. And each demon is like a new instrument, with its own quirks and techniques. Then, one day, you’ll find that you never even think about the notes anymore. Then you’re free to just play.”

  It was a beautiful metaphor, one Cade could finally understand. “Okay. So now…?”

  “Learn to tell your sharps from your flats. When you can do that, we’ll start on chords. Until then … let’s see if you can throw some lightning.”

  * * *

  “Magick is fun, mon ami.” Niko passed the wine to Cade. “And never let anyone tell you different!” They had nearly finished off their third bottle of Côtes du Rhône for the afternoon, in between what Niko said were sessions of instruction but which were really little more than him showing off his knack for the magicks of mind control.

  A swig of red wine vanished down Cade’s gullet. He sleeved some from his chin. “What the hell is fun about having demons in your skull? I’ve had a headache for three days, and I’m starting to think I might never shit right again.”

  “Your stomach will adjust. As for your head”—Niko took the bottle—“drink more.”

  Cade laughed while Niko drank. “Was it this hard for you at first?”

  “Harder. Took me eighteen months to make my tools. Another eighteen before Adair said I could make my first pact. Three years I was a novice—you will be a karcist in three months. Count yourself lucky.” He passed the bottle to Cade. “Want to see a party trick?”

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  Niko snapped his fingers, and the near-empty bottle was instantly full again. “Better than Jesus! But drink it fast—an hour from now it’ll turn to piss.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’ll happen after I drink it, with or without a demon.” He downed a mouthful of the summoned wine. “Not bad. Is there a whole field of hooch magick?”

  “It is called a cantrip. Minor magick. Still uses demons, but for trivial things.”

  “Adair told me never to use magick for anything that can be done some other way.”

  Niko let slip a cynical chortle. “Adair says lots of things.”

  Now Cade was curious. “Something I ought to know?”

  “Just that there is more than one way to work magick. And some—” He took the wine. “—are more fun than others. Case in point: truth magick. I will ask you a question; when you answer, try to tell me a lie.” He leaned forward and looked into Cade’s eyes while marshaling the power to compel the truth from someone: “What do you really think of Anja?”

  “She scares the shit out of me,” Cade said. His eyes went wide. “Jesus. I wanted to say, ‘She seems nice but a bit tense.’ Hell of a trick you’ve got there.”

  “Now imagine what you could do with power like that in a poker game.” An impish grin. “As I said: Magick is fun.”

  * * *

  “Magick is beauty.” Stefan delivered his proclamation without, as far as Cade could tell, the least hint of irony or self-consciousness. They were alone in the conjuring room; Stefan had said they would review the finer points of demonic control, but as usual he had spun himself off on a tangent. “Hidden within the mysteries of the Art are the secrets of the universe.” He paced around Cade, fading in and out of sight with every other step, and each time he reappeared, some detail of his attire or person had changed in color or style. “Science has only begun to grasp what magick has long known: that we live in a realm of mysterious connections. Our cosmos exists on scales both greater and more minuscule than we can possibly comprehend.”

  More than with any of the others, Cade loved to listen to Stefan talk. “Is that why you chose to study magick?”

  He stopped circling Cade and faced him. “No. My … friend … was a student of Kabbalah.” He took off his glasses, pulled a cloth from his pocket, and polished the lenses. “I was going to join him and his rabbis. Then I met Adair. When he showed me what the Goetic art could do…” He lost himself in a memory. “I knew then what path I had to follow.” He put away the cloth and fixed his glasses on his slender nose. “The question, my friend, is what path will you take?”

  “Path? You mean like the Left-hand Path or the Right-hand Path?”

  “Forget the dogma. Magick is poetry, and vulgarity. Its power comes from darkness but can be used to shed light. It is yin and yang. But we must choose. Our will defines it. So what path will you choose? Light? Or darkness?”

  “Does it have to be black or white? Can’t there be a middle path?”

  Stefan paired a slow nod with a troubled frown. “The path of shadow. A difficult road. One never knows where it might lead. Take that path with great caution.”

  “I think you could say that about any aspect of the Art,” Cade said. “From where I’m standing, it looks like there isn’t a single part of it that can’t get you killed.”

  His observation made Stefan chuckle. “Very true. A dangerous way we follow.”

  “So what’s the secret? The real secret, I mean. How do I do this and not die?”

  It seemed to Cade that if anyone would give him a straight answer to that question, it would be Stefan. The master’s senior apprentice considered the matter in earnest.

  “Some would call my advice foolish or naïve,” Stefan said, “but it is all I know to be true. Ground your actions in love and compassion, in empathy and generosity. Never act out of hatred, or for selfish gain. The Art elevates those who humble themselves before the Divine, and it humbles those who seek to clothe themselves in glory. Only when you let go of the ugliness of this world will magick reveal to you its true and endless beauty.”

  * * *

  Forked lightning stung the wand from Cade’s hand. An unseen blade of ice pierced his gut and dropped him to his knees; then an invisible hand slammed him against the keep’s western wall hard enough to rip open his forehead and paint his face with his own blood. He staggered backward and collapsed in the snow, stunned and gasping for air.

  Anja regarded him without pity. “Magick is pain. Forget that, and you will die.”

  * * *

  Fire crackled in the billeting room’s hearth. Cade lay in front of it, stretched out on a champagne-colored antique rug, letting the warmth soothe his aches. “I really think she’s trying to kill me.”

  “If she was, you would be dead,” Niko said. “She just wants you to suffer.” He and Stefan sat at the small round Chippendale gaming table in the center of the windowless room, nursing glasses of the master’s best scotch. The bottle of thirty-year-old Macallan was already half empty, though it had been open less than an hour.

  Stefan nodded between sips. �
��Niko is right. She toys with you.”

  “Lucky me.” Cade watched firelight dance with shadows on the low, barrel-vaulted ceiling. “I just want to know what I did to make her hate me.”

  Niko drained his glass with a tilt. “‘Hate’ is a strong word.”

  “Then why did she tell me she hopes I die in training?”

  The senior apprentices laughed. Stefan refilled Niko’s glass as he said to Cade, “She resents the attention you receive from the master.”

  Cade sat up and felt the blood rush from his head. “Resentment I can handle. But she acts like she’s got it in for me. How can I trust someone who hates me to train me?”

  “She respects the master too much to let you come to harm.” Stefan tipped some scotch into a third glass and passed it to Cade. “Be patient. Your training has been hard for her.”

  “Why? I’ve done everything she’s told me.”

  Niko said, “You are a good student. Better than expected. And that is the problem.”

  Stefan added, “You mastered the basics faster than anyone else we have ever trained.”

  “Why is that a problem?”

  “Because,” Stefan said, “though Anja is skilled, it took her many years to master the Art. It did not come naturally to her.”

  “She got this far only because Adair treats her like his own.” Niko lowered his voice. “Had I been as slow as her, he’d have thrown me in the moat and told me to swim home.”

  Knowing more about the dynamic between Anja and Adair only made Cade worry more. “I’ve heard Adair say you two are leaving soon.”

  “Oui,” Niko said. “Special missions. Behind the lines.”

  “Great. Who’ll save me from Anja after you’ve gone?”

  Stefan topped off Cade’s glass. “You will just have to win her over.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  Niko grinned. “Be patient. Her feelings are hurt, but she will get over it.” He took a long swig of scotch, then added, “Or she will stab you in your sleep. Either way, it will work out.”

  Cade sipped his drink. “Thanks for reminding me why everyone hates the French.”