Wild Spark Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  No Parties

  Welcome to Paradise

  A Peculiar Ride

  Settling In

  And Relax

  Several Issues

  Seeing the Sights

  Corny but Cool

  A Right Witch

  Party Time

  Happy Birthday to You

  It's New

  The Usual Nonsense

  Striking a Deal

  Five Minute Fluster

  Some Wrangling

  Just One Night

  Burning Rubber

  Too Easy

  Bad Traffic Warden

  The Joy of Sitting

  That's Mine

  Confusion

  A Darkness

  Bored

  Feeling Freaked

  A Slight Tear

  Cup of Coffee

  A Little Help

  Wounded and Dangerous

  A Decoy

  Getting Somewhere

  An Explanation

  Ooh, Sausages

  Alien Abduction

  Full Bellies

  Revelations

  Favors and Flings

  Secrets, Spies, and Pies

  Sneaky Witch

  Back We Go

  On the Run

  Don't Panic

  Stinky and Slippery

  Slightly Nervous

  Tricky Trickster

  Getting Angry

  Too Close for Comfort

  Bit of Bother

  But First...

  A Struggle

  A Sentry

  Always a Price

  The Exchange

  Repercussions

  The Pain

  Wild Spark

  Dark Magic Enforcer Book 8

  Al K. Line

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  Copyright © 2016, Al K. Line. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No Parties

  "No parties," warned Kate, waggling her finger in Mithnite's face. He backed off, hands held high to ward off her evil vibe, but he couldn't stop smiling.

  Kate kind of growled, then turned her attention to other, just as important matters. She arched her back until it cricked, then stood on tiptoes and pushed down on the suitcase she'd made Mithnite haul onto the table. For a devilishly strong kick-ass vampire it was a strange thing to make the poor lad do, but after the third one he gave up protesting and just did as he was told.

  Kate turned and repeated, "No parties," then scowled at the suitcase as she continued trying to close it.

  "I should be so lucky," Mithnite chuckled, his smile widening. He was hopping from one leg to another like he desperately needed to pee, his excitement brimming over.

  "Hell, dude, you may as well just shove us out the door, you're so keen to see us go," I said, knowing he was up to something.

  "Don't know what you're talking about," he mumbled, pushing Kate aside and jumping up to sit on the suitcase. He zipped it up, dropped down, dragged it to the floor and was back in seconds asking, "Any more, or is that it?"

  "See, he's totally up to something, Faz. Look at him, he's got guilty teenager written all over his naughty little face." Kate got right up in Mithnite's personal space and peered into his eyes. "I see your plans, Mithnite Soos. I see everything."

  Mithnite went white, then red, then white again, utterly freaked. "You can't really see what I'm thinking, can you? I didn't know vampires could do that." He pulled at his brown shirt collar, eyes darting anywhere but to Kate.

  "Stop messing with him, Kate," I chuckled. "Poor lad's gonna have a heart attack."

  "Anyway, I'm not a teenager," he protested, "I'm a grown man. And I haven't got anything planned. Much," he admitted, sheepish smile back on his face.

  "Hmm," said Kate.

  "He's young, let him enjoy himself." One thing I'd learned over the years was if you get a chance to be happy then you'd better take it. If he trashed the place then so be it. He'd have fun, maybe even meet some girls, and what's stuff, anyway?

  Mithnite spent his formative years living with parents he got away from as soon as he could, then it was wizard training, and now he was with us. The only naked women he'd seen were shifters turning into panthers and eating folks, or Kate when we all fell down the hole in our kitchen floor and got incinerated by lava. Oh, and the dragon known as Delilah. Come to think of it, he'd had more action than me at his age, which is seriously depressing. All exciting stuff, no doubt, but not exactly ideal when your hormones are raging and you want the naked women in you bedroom, not when they're out of their mind and certainly out of your league.

  "What about the house?" asked Kate, looking at the ordered kitchen like it was the last time she'd see it.

  "Don't sweat it. I wish I'd had the chance to let my hair down and have a house to myself at his age. He won't mess anything up, will you?"

  "No, of course not," protested Mithnite. "Kate, I promise everything will be as you left it. Go and have a good time and don't worry." With that, he pushed us toward the front door and began dragging the suitcases to the car.

  "What the hell have you got in them all? You know it's only for a week, right?" I said, still trying to get to the bottom of the mystery that was Kate's packing.

  "Just stuff. Stuff I need," she replied cryptically.

  I gave up. Some things will forever remain a mystery to the likes of me.

  Mithnite came back, grabbed more luggage, and we watched as he huffed and puffed until we were set to go. Talk about keen.

  "Don't forget to feed the hobs," warned Kate. "If you don't—"

  "I know, they'll make the house a mess and won't help with the garden."

  "Exactly," said Kate, as if she hadn't told him a hundred times already.

  Mithnite ushered us to the car, helped Kate in, gave her a kiss, then came around to my side and closed my door even though I wasn't quite ready.

  "Happy honeymoon," he shouted, running back inside before I'd even started the engine.

  "He's up to something," said Kate, looking suspicious.

  "He's young, and it makes a change. Poor guy's been working hard and deserves a break. So do we." I leaned over, gave Kate, my wife of three weeks, a long, steamy kiss, and said, "Let's go have our honeymoon."

  "Ah, I can't wait," said Kate, all smiles. "A whole week with no stress, no weird goings on. No dealing with Council business, no stupid games with other vampires. No shifters, trolls, ghosts, or ghouls. Just us, Paris, and a king size bed."

  "I know. It's gonna be perfect." I started the car and off we went.

  You can just imagine how wrong I was, right?

  Welcome to Paradise

  The flight was uneventful and we landed less than two hours after taking off. Not the longest trip in the world, but short and sweet suited me just fine. More time to relax, less time stressing about falling out of the sky in a huge metal bird that failed to obey the laws of gravity as I knew them.

  I've seen all manner of strange things in my time. I've been to hells, ridden on the back of a dragon, even levitated a little, but nothing is as confounding as flying in the air in an eighty ton plane with several hundred other people all seemingly with a mental block about how exactly we happen to be airborne. It drives you nuts if you think about it, so landing was more than welcome and st
epping foot on terra firma even more so.

  After the usual wait at baggage claim, playing spot the suitcases and only taking the wrong ones off the stupid carousel three times, we loaded up a trolley with the requisite wonky wheel and pushed on through the nothing to declare section of customs.

  "So far so good," I said warily, wondering how come no gremlins had tinkered with the plane, no mischievous imps had opened a suitcase and thrown Kate's special honeymoon underwear all over the carousel, or any number of other things I was sure would happen. Yes, I was nervous.

  "Relax, we're on holiday. Nothing bad will happen. It's just us, Faz. A week of soaking up the culture and eating great food, drinking expensive wine and chilling out." Kate put her arm through mine and I steered through the doors to arrivals with one hand, boosted only slightly by magic to keep the trolley from veering off.

  "Are you using magic?" she scolded.

  "Er, just a little so the trolley doesn't cause a scene."

  "Well stop it. No magic. No Hidden stuff this week. In fact, don't even mention the Hidden or the Council or wizards or enforcer jobs or any of that. Let's just be normal." Kate released my arm and helped me push the trolley between the barriers where the other passengers were exiting and either dashing to loved ones or hurrying to start their vacation.

  "Okay, just newlyweds having their honeymoon in Paris. Normal. I like the sound of that." I smiled, thinking how strange it would be to act like Regulars for a week. It felt liberating. Nobody knew us here, nobody had sent us to do a job, nobody cared. It was just a slim guy with a nice vintage suit, polished winklepickers, hair freshly bleached for the occasion, and his super-hot wife. Kate's blond hair was salon fresh, her body lithe and powerful after the warm spring we'd taken advantage of to expand the gardens and vegetable plots. What was more normal than that?

  "Yeah, okay, Regulars. Just a happy couple here to relax and... " I trailed off, finding the way blocked by a man holding up a sign. "Excuse us," I asked, not really looking at the guy, still smiling at Kate and dreaming of a week of bliss.

  "Excuse us," said Kate, a slight frown creasing her beautifully made up face.

  Keeping calm, reminding myself this kind of thing was normal and he was probably French and didn't understand, I looked at the large man properly.

  Not a guy. To Regulars he appeared as an overweight man wearing ill-fitting casual wear, but I saw his true self. Nine feet tall, almost as wide, head a block of granite, body the same. Fingers as thick as my arms, thighs like tree trunks, and about as emotional as a mannequin that had been stabbed repeatedly then had its face melted off just to make sure.

  "You honeymoon humans?" asked the troll, accent so bizarre and mangled he sounded like no French person I'd ever met.

  I read the sign he was holding in front of him, Faz and Kate Pound scrawled in spidery writing, and he lifted it slightly until it was at head height as if we couldn't read it otherwise.

  "Er, yes," I said, knowing it was best not to lie.

  "Did you do this?" asked Kate, the frown having spread.

  "No, absolutely not."

  "Head Dancer arrange," said the troll, dropping the sign and shoving me aside as he picked up the luggage trolley with two fingers, lifting it several feet off the ground.

  "Oh no. No way," I said, grabbing the trolley and trying to yank it back down to earth.

  "Got orders. Take man look like mop head and pretty lady to hotel. Orders."

  "We can get a taxi, thanks," I said, still trying, and failing, to get the luggage back.

  "Orders." The troll lifted the luggage higher so I let go, landing with a tap of my shoes on the tiles.

  Before we knew what was happening, the troll scooped us up with his free arm and jiggled us about until we were tucked up together close to his armpit, bodies parallel with the floor. He marched through the crowds, everyone unsurprisingly making way for what to them would look like a fat man hugging two startled newlyweds.

  "Welcome to Paris," I said to Kate brightly.

  She glared at me and groaned.

  A Peculiar Ride

  "You got special treat," said the troll as he unceremoniously dumped us outside the terminal building. We only just caught ourselves before falling. Steam hissed from an otherworldly, nefarious pile of green, fibrous poo and the first view we had of Paris was the head of a large gray horse, tail swishing to keep flies away from its ample posterior.

  Kate glared like this was somehow my fault, and I panicked that my winklepickers were dirty but luckily I'd avoided the steaming pile.

  "You ride in back," said the troll, hitching a thumb at the carriage behind the horse.

  With a terse, don't-argue-with-me word from the troll, the horse trotted forward smartly and he put out a hand to steady it. Many animals are sensitive to the preternatural world, and this magnificent beast was no exception. It glanced warily at the troll, but calmed nonetheless and let a hand larger than its head gently stroke its mane. It quieted as the troll whispered—which sounded like pebbles shifting as the tide goes out—nonsense in its twitching ear.

  "I am not going for a ride in a bloody cart driven by a troll," hissed Kate.

  "It might be romantic," I ventured, trying to look on the bright side. Kate put a hand on her hip and gave me a "look." I'm sure she'd been taking lessons from Grandma. Damn but this was not going as planned at all. What the hell was Dancer doing? Why would he think this was a good idea? That we'd want to start our honeymoon being grabbed by a lump of rock and sat on a wooden bench as we breathed in the stink of a horse during full summer in France.

  The heat was a surprise. I'd expected the weather to be like the UK but a little more foreign, not so hot and humid. We'd lucked out in that regard, but not in any other, it seemed.

  "Okay, I'll have a word," I said, unable to stand the vibe Kate was giving me a moment longer. I moved closer to the troll and our luggage, and said, "If it's all the same, we'll just get a taxi. We just want to get to the hotel and unpack. But thanks for the offer."

  The troll turned his attention to me, thick brow bulging as he processed what I was saying. "Got orders. Orders say take you to hotel. See sights on way."

  "Honestly, it's not necessary, we'll go and—Whoa!" Seems this dude was a stickler when it came to following orders. He pinched my jacket collar between thumb and forefinger, lifted me off the ground, then swung me up and onto the seat. I landed with a soft thud on the red padded bench seat. Kate frowned up at me and I shrugged my shoulders.

  "Fine," she said with a huff and climbed up to join me while our escort loaded the luggage. Before we knew it, he was sitting on the reinforced driver's seat, where a lot of heavy-duty steel support was cleverly disguised beneath the antique outer frame, and with a "Giddy up," the horse stepped out into the chaos of traffic exiting Charles de Gaulle airport.

  "I think if we make it to the hotel I'll just stay there for the week," I said to Kate, wishing I could grab hold of Dancer and strangle him.

  "You dare!" she warned. "I'm going to see the sights even if it kills me. And you," she added.

  "Okay, but Dancer better not have any more surprises in store for us. What's wrong with him?" Usually he was all business, not worrying about organizing sightseeing tours for his employees, but I guess we were friends, and had been through a lot of late. Like dealing with a slight issue of both being bitten by zombies and slowly turning into the walking dead.

  "He's gonna get an earful from me," said Kate, "but I suppose it's understandable. He probably thought you weren't up to organizing it so wanted to help. Make it perfect."

  "Ha, you call this helping?"

  "No, but I bet I know what happened."

  "What," I asked, turning to Kate so I didn't have to look at the traffic and wonder how long we had left to live.

  "I bet Persimmon suggested it, told him he should do something nice for us while we were here."

  "Aha, of course! He's turned into a right pushover since they hooked up. I still can't b
elieve it. What does she see in him?" I was half joking, half serious. They'd started dating and then things seemed to get serious pretty quickly. Now they were a real couple. Dancer was an oddball and no mistake, but he was a good guy underneath the weird, funeral director surface. Persimmon now knew of his past, of his true age and who he really was, Kate too, but it still made for a strange partnership.

  A panther shifter of incredible beauty and a necromancer of many hundreds of years who was also Head of the UK Hidden Council, talk about a match not made in heaven.

  "Faz! He's not a pushover, it's called being considerate and compromising," scalded Kate.

  "I call it being under the thumb. He's like a puppy chasing after its mommy."

  "It's called love. They love each other. And anyway, he's probably done it because he thought maybe you'd not be romantic."

  "Me! I can do romantic. I can, right?" I could, couldn't I? I'd always thought I was pretty good at doing the couple thing. At least when I wasn't getting her dropped through the kitchen floor into burning pools of lava or chased by zombies, but that's an occupational hazard.

  "Yes, normally. But after last year... Well, you were down for a long time. I know it hurt, hurt so bad, maybe he thought you wouldn't be ready." Kate wasn't accusing or judging, just being honest. It was fair enough.

  I've had plenty of low points through my life, felt like I couldn't possibly sink any lower. I'd been wrong, very wrong. The previous year I had been betrayed and duped in the cruelest of ways possible, and I took action I'm still not sure was right. On the one hand I had to stop anyone ever being cheated like I had, but on the other I'd hurt myself badly by letting a very volatile side of me out. There are plenty of times when I'm violent, but this was different. This was violence born of anger and a sense of injustice rather than to protect others.

  It was colder, harsher, and I knew it. Kate knew it and so did Dancer. And it was hard for us all to come to terms with.

  After it had happened, after I killed and felt so goddamn sad and empty inside I didn't think I could ever crawl back out of the pit I'd dug for myself, I knew I'd gone too far, stepped over a line.