Awakening (Birth of Magic #1) Read online

  Awakening

  (Birth of Magic Volume 1)

  By P.T. Dilloway

  Copyright 2013 P.T. Dilloway

  Published by Planet 99 Publishing at Smashwords

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  Prologue

  It all started with a bogeyman in a closet. I’d killed thousands of bogeymen before, a large number of them in children’s closets. The average bogeyman doesn’t have much in the way of courage; it’s content to hide in the darkest place it can find on short notice. Closets and basements then are where I usually find them.

  This one wasn’t any different. I was taking a nap in my bedroom so I could be rested for a big arms deal on the docks when Alexis woke me up. She sat on the edge of my bed, eyes closed as if she were sleeping. But she wasn’t; she was just concentrating. “I feel something nearby,” she said.

  “What sort of something?” I asked without moving. I didn’t want to get out of bed unless it was something really important.

  Alexis didn’t say anything for a minute. Her eyes were still closed, but her face kept twitching as she tried to concentrate on the disturbance. “It’s a bogeyman,” she said. “In a boy’s room.”

  I snorted at this. “That’s all? Bogeymen can wait.”

  “The boy is afraid. He’s so afraid.”

  “So he’ll run to his parents and sleep with them.”

  Alexis finally opened her eyes to glare at me. She summoned all of her big sisterly authority as she said, “Stephanie, please. This is serious.”

  “It’s just a bogeyman.” I rolled over to face away from Alexis, trying to get back to sleep. “It can wait until tomorrow.”

  “He’s a little boy. He needs help.”

  “Most kids are scared of the dark.”

  The mattress squeaked and I knew Alexis had gotten up. I knew what would come next. “If you’re not going to do anything about it, then I will.”

  I opened my eyes and finally rolled into a sitting position. “Goddamnit Alexis, can’t I get one night without you or Gretel pestering me about some monster?”

  “I’m sorry, but we can’t just let that thing terrorize the poor child.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Four hundred years ago, when I first started hunting monsters, Alexis made me a present. After I complained about not having anywhere to put my weapons, charms, and potions, she decided to sew a jacket for me. It was ankle-length gray leather with enough pockets for all of my accoutrements. It didn’t take me long to grab this jacket from off the door and to slip into a pair of boots. My tools were in the closet, the crossbow in its harness and the Colt in its holster. I strapped both of these on in less than a minute. I could do this blindfolded after four centuries.

  Before I left, Alexis couldn’t resist giving me a hug. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Just hope it doesn’t take long.”

  ***

  Alexis could feel the presence of dark magic, but she couldn’t give me an exact address. The most she could give me was a direction—east. I had to walk three miles, waiting for the alligator tooth necklace under my shirt to start twitching. I passed by houses with families in the windows, clustered around their radios. For just a moment I wished I could be inside with them, living a normal life. But my life hadn’t been normal in over four hundred years.

  I cursed my luck when the necklace began twitching in front of an apartment building. “Just great,” I grumbled. The apartment building was the kind that would have dozens of families in it. Any one of them could have a bogeyman in the closet. “Goddamnit.”

  At least the building had a fire escape along the side of it. The fire escape was rusting and creaked like it would fall off if anyone more than a hundred thirty pounds stepped on it, but it held up long enough for me to find the bogeyman. I had to go all the way up to the fifth floor before the necklace twitched harder, enough to free it from under my shirt. I reminded myself the next time I saw Andre to ask if he could make this thing a little calmer; a necklace swinging around your neck like a trapeze drew a lot of attention to yourself.

  I stopped at the nearest window and then reached into my inside pocket for my nightcrystal lenses. To anyone else they looked like a pair of dark spectacles, but they let me see in the dark as if it were still daytime. That always came in handy when dealing with nocturnal monsters.

  I peeked in the window and knew I had the right room. The wooden biplanes hanging from the ceiling and toy soldiers on the floor indicated this was a little boy’s room. The only problem was the little boy wasn’t in the room. Must have run to Mommy and Daddy, I told myself, something I would regret later.

  In the monster pecking order, bogeymen are at the bottom. Not only are they not very brave, but they aren’t very strong or smart either. It usually took me more time to find the bogeyman than to dispose of it.

  I stared at the closet, making sure the creature was still inside before I went to all the trouble of breaking and entering. I couldn’t actually see the monster, but I saw the shirts in the closet move. The bogeyman was bright enough to know I was here, getting ready to finish it.

  The window was unlocked, saving me the trouble of having to waste a spell to unlock it. I slipped into the room, trying not to make a sound that might alert anyone to my presence. It was such a pain in the ass when the police got involved in these things. There were probably still warrants for me in London, Paris, Vienna, and Boston among others if anyone bothered to look back a century or two.

  I tapped on the closet door. “You want to do this the easy way?” I whispered while I reached into my jacket for the crossbow. The crossbow was old-fashioned, but it didn’t make as much noise as the Colt. In this case, silence would be golden.

  The bogeyman decided to try being cunning by quickly throwing back the door so it could lunge at me. I already had my left hand reaching into my pocket for a piece of string with a knot tied in the center. To a human this couldn’t do more than give you a slight case of rope burn. The bogeyman saw this and cried out like a puppy that had been whacked on the nose with a newspaper. It scurried back into the closet, trying to protect itself with the kid’s shirts.

  I kept the charm pinned to my jacket so I could use both hands to load the crossbow. Whether it’s a bogeyman, demon, or vampire, silver is always the key. Caroline had a couple theories about this, but she died before she could come up with anything definite. No one else in the coven had the interest or the brains to continue her work.

  I fit the silver-tipped bolt into the crossbow. I didn’t want to leave a sign by ruining the kid’s clothes, so I aimed beneath the hem of the shirts, at the bogeyman’s cricket-like legs. For someone else it might have been a difficult shot, but I’d made a lot tougher ones. The bolt hit the bogeyman in the center of its left leg. Before it could scream with pain, I reached into the closet to force its head down into the floor.

  “That’s enough out of you,” I whispered. The bogeyman tried to thrash around like a fish caught in a net, but it didn’t have much in the way of strength. I managed to keep it down while I tore the bolt from its leg. Just like humans, a shot to the leg wouldn’t kill the bogeyman. I had to stab it in the heart to kill it.

  I held up the bolt like a dagger. Using the nightcrystal lenses, I found the slight dent in its shell, the weak s
pot in its armor. Then I brought the bolt down at an angle so that it would pierce the monster’s heart. The bogeyman gave one muffled cry and then went limp. I pulled out the bolt and then stood up.

  Now that the bogeyman was dead, it was a simple matter of uttering an Ashes to Ashes spell to dispose of it. The body turned to ash in seconds, leaving a pile of gray dust on the floor. From my jacket I took out a miniature brush and container to sweep these into. A few bits of ash wouldn’t draw any attention, but the boy’s parents were certain to question a whole pile of them.

  I had just tucked the container back into my jacket when I heard a tiny voice ask, “Are you an angel?”

  Even before bending down, I knew what I had done wrong. In my hurry I hadn’t checked under the bed, assuming the kid must have run to his parents. Instead he’d hidden himself under the bed. He’d probably seen the whole thing. Damn it, I thought, barely keeping myself from saying this aloud.

  He was about six years old, his blond hair mussed from hiding beneath the bed. Just an ordinary little boy. I smiled as brightly as I could manage while still cursing myself for being so stupid. “That’s right. I’m an angel.”

  “But you haven’t got any wings.”

  “They’re under my jacket.”

  “Can I see them?”

  At this point I wished Alexis had come along. She had raised three sons; she would be able to deal with this better than me. There wasn’t any time to go back and get her, though. I would have to handle this myself. “How about you get back in bed and I’ll show you?” I said.

  The kid thought for a moment and then took the bait. He crawled out from under the bed and then scrambled on top of it without any help. He even pulled up the covers himself. “Now can I see them?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Alexis had an Angel Food potion that could give me wings, but I hadn’t brought one with me. That might have made things a lot simpler. Instead, as I shrugged off the jacket I mumbled the words for a Blackout spell. What little light there had been in the room disappeared, leaving complete blackness.

  The kid whimpered, but he didn’t scream for help. Through the nightcrystal lenses I could see him burrow under the covers, his reaction not much different than the bogeyman’s. He was still under the covers when I peeled them back and then wrestled him onto his back, keeping one hand over his mouth.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” I told him. From the way his eyes widened, he didn’t believe me. “Relax, kid. This won’t hurt a bit.”

  To his credit, the kid bit my hand. I let out a muffled curse, but I kept hold of him. He certainly had a lot more moxie than the bogeyman. I put my other hand on his forehead while still keeping the one on his mouth. I whispered the words for a Memory Lapse spell. His eyes widened again before rolling up into the back of his head. His body went still beneath my hands.

  Using a Memory Lapse spell on anyone could be difficult, but especially with a child. As I tucked him back in, I hoped I hadn’t wiped his mind back to that of a toddler or worse yet, a baby. If he woke up bawling and wetting himself tomorrow there was going to be hell to pay. “Forget all about this, kid,” I whispered. I patted his cheek and then added, “Good night.”

  I slipped out the window without anyone chasing me. I thought it was over—it wasn’t.

  Chapter 1

  If there was anything to admire about Hitler, he had great taste in real estate. He could have put his minions up in any number of empty buildings in Berlin, Bonn, Hamburg, or Stuttgart, some nice nondescript factory or warehouse. Instead he dispatched them to Neuschwanstein Castle, roughly between nowhere and the middle of nowhere.

  The castle hadn’t seen much action since the last war except for the odd tour group. There wouldn’t be any more tour groups for a while, not with der Fuhrer’s goons using the place. The only road leading up to the place had been gated with nasty-looking guys carrying machine guns making sure no intruders got through.

  There were some people being allowed in, though. Hitler wasn’t about to let his favorite scientists starve or strain themselves taking care of their own trash. Every morning a bus loaded with two-dozen people drove up the twisting path to the castle, arriving at five. They left in the same bus at nine pm to go down the same road to the nearest town so they could do the whole thing over again.

  I knew this because for three days I sat up in a tree and watched. I studied the guards and their patterns, keeping mental notes to use later. On the last day I followed the bus back down to the town, watching SS men usher the men and women into a hotel for the night. As far as prisons went it was pretty swanky, a nice Alpine lodge right out of a travel brochure.

  It didn’t take me long to find the door to the kitchen; I’d worked in enough of these places when I’d been kicking around Germany a hundred thirty years ago. Other than the fashions, not much else had really changed. I left my jacket out back, going in wearing a plain white dress with a white kerchief covering my hair. Keeping my head down, I managed to walk right through the kitchen without drawing any attention to myself.

  For the rest of the night I pretended to be an employee of the place while gathering information on the workers. I grabbed a tray of tea and went into the dining room. No one gave me any trouble as I served tea to the workers. Most of the workers were young, but there was one woman about my supposed age, about fifty with green eyes just like mine. She said nothing as I filled her teacup; she just looked down at the table demurely—like a good slave. Later I picked up a duster and pretended to be dusting the second floor hallway as the SS thugs shepherded the workers into their rooms. I kept my eyes on the older woman, memorizing which room they took her to.

  The SS guys kept watch of the hallway and I didn’t doubt they would shoot me without asking questions if I tried to get into one of the rooms. I could have put them to sleep or turned them to ashes easily enough, but then I’d catch hell from Gretel about it. Magic was only to be used as a last resort so that we wouldn’t tip off the mortals to our presence.

  Keeping my head down I shuffled past the guards and then went back downstairs. I cut through the kitchen again, finding my coat where I’d left it. I took off the kerchief, tucking it into a pocket so that I’d be harder to see. Not that it really mattered since the SS were only covering the inside of the lodge. They hadn’t thought someone might levitate up to the second floor windows.

  I unlocked the woman’s window without any magic and then slipped inside the room. She was asleep as I approached and reached into my pocket for one of Alexis’s potions. The Good Night potion would not only keep the woman unconscious for twenty-four hours, it would make sure she had pleasant dreams too.

  I planted a hand over her mouth, startling her awake. Her eyes widened as she stared up at me. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you,” I whispered. “I’m just going to give you something to help you sleep.” I held up the yellow vial so she could see it. She tried to scream against my hand, but the sound was muffled enough that no one heard her.

  “It’s not poison,” I told her. “If I’d wanted to kill you I’d have done it already.” I brushed aside my jacket so she could see the Colt and crossbow inside. “Now, when I pull my hand back I want you to open your mouth and drink this. If you don’t, then I am going to kill you. Got it?”

  The woman nodded. She hadn’t been stupid enough to cross the Nazis these last three days and she wasn’t stupid enough to cross me either. I pulled my hand back and then put the vial to her lips. She drank it down without a sound. I stood back, waiting as she closed her eyes and began breathing softly.

  Since there was no one else in the room, I took the woman in my arms and vanished in a flash of white light. The bedroom of my former residence in Edinburgh was dusty, but it hadn’t changed since I’d last been there. I could have dropped the woman off back in Rampart City for Alexis to watch, but I didn’t want her to get involved. The woman should stay asleep until I finished up and then came back for her.

  I vanished back to the lod
ge. Using a Glow in the Dark spell I made my body glow bright enough so I could look around the room. The woman didn’t have a purse, just a thin bundle of papers, containing her identification and work permit. According to these, her name was Greta Bitterhauf. She was younger than she looked, only forty-four; apparently she’d done some hard living. I left the papers on the nightstand. Before going to bed, I made sure to conceal my jacket in the closet so I could retrieve it later. I’d have to do this without my weapons.

  I hoped it would be a simple reconnaissance mission. When Gretel had come to me a week ago, she said there was something going on at the castle, but no one knew what. We could have stormed the place and shut it down easily enough but for Gretel’s no-magic-use rule. There was also a second reason she spelled out for me during her visit. “These Nazis have been dabbling in magic. We need to know how far along they are.”

  That was the real purpose of all this. Gretel wanted to know what the Nazis knew about magic. I was supposed to go in there, find out, and then report back to Gretel so she and the other senior witches could decide what to do. Sounded simple enough, which was why I knew it wouldn’t be. Nothing is ever simple in my business.

  ***

  The SS goons and the guards up the road didn’t notice anything different about Greta Bitterhauf. If any of my comrades on the bus noticed anything, they didn’t say. Mostly they looked down at their feet, not saying anything to each other. These people were prisoners, not employees.

  The castle looked even more impressive up close. I’d seen plenty of castles in my day, but this was the prettiest one. That’s because unlike real castles, this one hadn’t been built to fend off barbarian invasions or attacking armies. This was meant to be a reclusive king’s playground, his conception of what a castle should be after reading too many fairy tales. Too bad he died before it was completed.

  I followed the other women with another SS guard into the kitchen. I stayed at the rear of the pack, faking a limp befitting my supposed old age. Without saying a word, the women set about stoking fires, fetching vegetables from the pantry, and cracking eggs.