Wild Spark Read online

  The terrier ran up the steps and sat waiting patiently for me to follow. I took a long look around just to ensure this was real. The street was littered with trash and everything needed some serious work. The little park was surrounded by rusted fencing, and the grass was yellow, dying in the strong summer heat. A drying pond looked more like an oversized muddy puddle with a couple of bored ducks bobbing up and down listlessly.

  Heavy air smelled sour, like the drains didn't work, and the cars that were present were old and battered. It explained the numerous free parking spots. Nobody wanted to leave their vehicle in such a dodgy area.

  My attention turned back to the house as the door opened. The dog barked once then darted inside. Jerard stuck his head out, said, "Sorry about the leg," then disappeared, leaving the door ajar.

  "And the troll," I muttered, then took the steps two at a time and walked into something I ought not to have walked into.

  You know me, I do like a mystery. Plus, I really didn't want to meet any more trolls.

  Confusion

  "You're responsible for all that out there, aren't you?" I asked as I walked into a spacious and light living room. The house was a revelation. Large, airy, beautiful tiled floor in the hallway. All fittings old, probably nineteenth century, and pure craftsmanship.

  The man I assumed was Jerard was sitting with one leg crossed over the other on an antique wooden chair, reminding me of Morag and her posturing, looking elegant in that offhand manner only people of certain breeding can pull off without it being really annoying and making you, or maybe just me, want to punch them on the nose and shout, "Get over yourself, dick."

  "And that is the easy magic, mon ami."

  "Damn."

  "Oui," said Jerard.

  "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

  "No, you most definitely are not." He smiled, not a nice smile, and with that everything went black.

  A Darkness

  It was impossible to tell how long I'd been here for. For the first few hours I kept track religiously, a timer running in the corner of my mind counting the minutes, but truth is I got scared and the counter kept going jittery. Hours, minutes, and seconds jumping all over the place. Rushing forward manically, stressing me out, then counting down just as fast as though my life was running out and soon I'd be obliterated. I just gave up, the little red numbers in my head merely befuddling me further.

  Sometimes I am so stupid, and this was definitely one of those times. I think maybe I'd got cocky, or cockier, and although I always wing it, walk into situations without having the full picture, usually I get a chance to do battle and at least try to run away once I realize I'm in over my head yet again.

  This time I had no such chance.

  As I sat in the darkness, and I use the term "sat" loosely for there was no floor, no anything for that matter, I had plenty of time to think about my own seemingly limitless capacity for doing stupid stuff.

  I was reminded of endless horror movies where the characters hear a noise in the basement after already being utterly freaked out by shenanigans upstairs and then off they toddle down the rickety steps with only a flashlight that keeps blacking out. And you're screaming at the TV, "Don't do it, this never ends well."

  That's what I was like. A character in a B-movie who'd walked right into the one place everyone was screaming at him to stay away from.

  Why?

  Why had I done this thing I ought not to have done? Because I was so used to doing stuff that could get me hurt. It was how I'd always done things. Sometimes I was cautious, to a degree, other times I was foolhardy and rushed in not knowing what to expect. Guess I just had an impulsive nature, but I knew I was lying to myself.

  As I looked back on my life, on all the enforcer jobs, all the issues that had arisen in my magic-drenched existence, all the mishaps and the missed opportunities, all the death, the loss of friends and family, I realized one very important thing. Something that was obvious if I'd taken the time to consider it.

  I had a death wish.

  As soon as things started to go bananas in my life, if I was on a downer, if events hadn't played out how I wanted them to, if I was lonely or distraught, questioning the meaning of existence, then I'd take unnecessary risks. Maybe that was understandable. Depression and the life of an addict certainly makes even the most sane of individuals act irrationally, but that wasn't all I did.

  The better things went in my life, the more stupid I got.

  I put obstacles in my own way to prevent myself experiencing true happiness. It was a hard thing to admit, and at first I shook it off as just the extended stay in the darkness making my mind get carried away and think wild and dangerous thoughts. But when I looked back on it all I had to accept that my conclusions were true.

  I did everything I could to ruin my chances of happiness. And often I took others down with me. The closer I got to things working out, the worse I became. Just look at the last few years. I'd met Kate, and somehow she fell for my charms. So what did I do? I tried to blow it. Did stupid stuff, got her into trouble, tried to put a wedge between us.

  And when things got even better, when I defeated the woman who killed my parents, what then? That's right, I gave up magic, went all moody for years, and yet still Kate put up with me.

  And now? We were married, I had to do one job and we would maybe, if Morag was true to her word, be able to have a child, yet I seemed hellbent on ruining it.

  Was I looking for a way out, a way to ensure I failed at this? It bloody well looked like it. I was so close to having what I had come to realize I always wanted in my life and what had I done? I'd walked through the open door of the man I was after and who had veiled his street to fool people. A man who's admittedly less that terrifying dog had savaged my leg, and who'd undoubtedly set the troll on me to break me into tiny Faz Pound pieces.

  I'd come to take something from him whether he wanted me to or not and after all that I'd just sauntered in through his front door like an utter fool.

  What had I expected to happen?

  I pondered these deep insights, something I wasn't usually too big on, and finally accepted that I was half right, half wrong. Maybe I was trying to delay my own happy ending, as part of me was certainly unsure about whether raising a family was a good idea or not, for obvious magical reasons, but I was being a little harsh.

  This was who I was, what I did. It wasn't all foolishness and asking to get my ass handed to me, this was how I worked, how I got the job done. If I planned I tended to fail. If I barged in and fought for all I was worth I succeeded. I didn't have a death wish so much as a lust for danger.

  This final admission surprised me, but I don't know why.

  I just liked using magic.

  Yeah, deep and meaningful, Faz. Not. Anyone could have told you that. So sue me, I'm slow on the uptake sometimes. I hadn't realized until this point quite how much I liked my job.

  I liked to feel scared out of my wits and be in mortal peril. It was the only thing that really got my heart racing and made me feel alive.

  Time to get out of this rather unfortunate predicament and go kick Jerard's French ass.

  Bored

  The fear left eventually. There's only so long you can stay freaked out before you grow tired of it, and I became increasingly frustrated. If Jerard had planned anything devilish then he'd sure lost the tension to create maximum effect. What was he playing at? And how had he done it?

  Over and over again, I tried to think back to our encounter and racked my brain for a clue as to what he'd done or what had happened. Maybe this wasn't down to him at all and I'd merely banged my head and had an embolism. Or was I dead?

  Was I lying in a coma somewhere, unable to move or show any sign of still being alive? Or was I just waiting my turn in whatever hell I was booked into for an extended stay?

  None of that rang true, though. I knew in my bones that this was something else. Something worse. Jerard had used funky magic on me and it had happened so fa
st that I hadn't had chance to even see it, let alone react. If I got out of this then Morag was gonna get some serious grief for allowing me to go after somebody like this without fair warning.

  Around and around in my head the speculation went, me learning nothing, everything remaining the same.

  Eventually, after an eternity of darkness and feeling myself slowly losing the tenuous grip on reality I had, I decided to get up and move. I say get up, and I say move, but those are just the closest approximations to how it was. There was nothing to get up from, nothing to walk on, but get up and walk I did.

  My body felt weird, hardly even my own. I could touch it, feel it, but it was distant, as though sensations were dulled and I was only partially experiencing myself. Sorry, hard to explain, but it was like my entire body was covered in warm thick mittens so sensation was muted. My thoughts were the same. Wrapped up and muffled, fuzzy and light, making rational thought not difficult but just out of reach. Everything I tried to hold on to in my mind and think about properly seemed to move away, only basic thoughts solid enough for me to cling to.

  So I walked.

  I put one foot in front of the other, swung my arms, and I walked.

  And I kept on walking through the dark emptiness, moving faster and faster, building a rhythm that turned me into a machine striding through nothingness. I used the movement to recharge myself like I was a robot running low on power and was now plugged into the mains.

  Magic built within, something I somehow knew had almost left me, had been taken, and I focused on that, let everything else fade. I let any thought that wasn't concerning building power just pass on by in my mind, watched my marching meditation and dismissed any wayward musings as not currently important. The only thing I focused on was the familiar yet somehow incongruous sensation I knew was the way I usually felt. Magic tingling as it hit my system, everything primed as it spiraled, arced, meandered, and zipped around my body. Enhanced and focused by ancient markings on my skin now older than almost any Regular who had ever lived.

  Slowly, over what I was sure was many hours, I got a sense of being myself again, of returning to my body. Everything cleared. I was Faz Pound, Dark Magic Enforcer, and magic was mine. I stopped suddenly, felt the energy surging around my system, building and almost screaming for release. There was the faintest of lights as magic crackled and spat off me in dark blue shards of violence that lit the emptiness for the briefest of moments.

  But I couldn't release the power, tried to let magic build in my palm then shoot it away, but it was as if my fingers were capped with corks, the pressure building until it became incredibly painful. Sweat beaded my brow and I shook all over, but nothing would come out. It backed up in my system, making me nauseous and fearful.

  I was brimming with magic but it had nowhere to go.

  "You're doing it wrong," said a familiar voice from behind me.

  I turned and said, "Mithnite, what are you doing here?" He looked weird, almost silver. Sparks flew off him in every direction, tiny motes danced around his frame, and he glowed with vitality and an otherworldly presence I'd seen many times before but never with such strength. "You're a ghost?"

  "Haha, nope. Wanna guess again?" he asked, smiling.

  I thought for a moment and studied him more closely. He was him but not him, whole but not. Solid yet ephemeral. Then it came to me, and I understood.

  "We're in limbo. Not dead. Um, this isn't me, you aren't you. Right? I'm my soul."

  "You got it buddy. And Faz?"

  "Yeah?"

  "You kinda ruined my party. I was going to have people over again tonight. Been having some fun, and girls were gonna come this time. Real girls! I had to cancel it all. I met someone and I think she likes me, but now..."

  "Sorry, dude, that's a shame." I was taking this rather well I thought. That, or I'd just lost my mind. Truth be told, I thought I was dreaming or something. It was too surreal, too nonsensical for me to actually believe what was happening.

  Mithnite shrugged and sparks danced away into the darkness. "Guess it doesn't matter. Gotta do my wizardly duty, right?"

  "Who are you?" I asked, a memory tickling my mind, something that happened a year ago.

  "Just a wizard in training," said Mithnite.

  "No way, there's something else happening here. If this is my soul, and yours, then I know for sure you're something different to what you seem."

  "It doesn't matter, not now," said Mithnite, coming closer without moving. "What matters is you get out of here before it's too late."

  "Too late?"

  Mithnite looked confused for a minute then brightened. "Ah, you don't know, do you? You've been here for three days now; it's taken me that long to find you. I felt it when you came. I have a link for you same as Kate, so I know if you guys are okay or not, and since then I've been searching for you. I have to keep leaving, go back to my body, as this is dangerous, but you, you've been here the whole time."

  "I don't understand. What are you talking about? It's been hours, surely, not days. And how'd he do it? How did I get here?"

  Mithnite shrugged his shoulders. "Dunno, I am still training, remember. I know how to get here, because, of, er, who I am, but I don't know how to put anyone else here."

  "Please tell me you know how to get me out, though?"

  "Sure, that's easy," he said brightly. "You just have to rip through the barrier and go back into your body."

  "Oh, right. And, er, how do I do that?"

  "Quickly," said Mithnite. "You haven't eaten for days, haven't moved, and if you don't act fast you'll be dead."

  "This is the worst honeymoon ever," I said.

  "This is nothing, wait until you try to get back."

  He wasn't making me feel any better, but it was good to see him.

  Feeling Freaked

  Discovering you're dissociated from your body is, unsurprisingly, rather disconcerting. For one, if I was me, which I was sure I was, then how was I also my human body? There can't be two of me, so how did it work?

  Mithnite must have seen my confusion and said, "Don't think about it. It drives you nuts." He pushed his long hair off his face—it had grown a lot in a year and he'd even got some patchy stubble to grow—revealing features almost those of a grown man now.

  It was odd, but although he was ghostlike I could somehow tell he wore an expensive thick green shirt open to reveal a low cut t-shirt that showed off his muscles pretty well. His jeans were stupid, though. Holes in them when he bought them, actually done on purpose! I knew it was him, not a figment of my imagination. It all felt too real to be anything but the truth, and that was a lot scarier than when I'd thought it a dream.

  "Okay, but how? How are you here?"

  "Because I traveled all the way to France so I could get close enough to connect with you. I tried from home but it didn't work. I needed to be near so I'm not far away. Don't worry, I haven't tried to get you, I think maybe I, er, might get myself into trouble if I did that." He looked a little embarrassed but I was immensely proud. "And Kate doesn't know. I figured you'd rather she didn't worry, not yet."

  "You did the right thing. Thanks, buddy, I really owe you one after this. Okay, so I'm me but not me. I shouldn't be here and I've stayed too long. Just like Morag."

  "Who's Morag?" asked Mithnite.

  "It's a long story. But I, um, well, I screwed it up."

  "Pretty spectacularly."

  "Don't rub it in. But you're safe?"

  Mithnite rubbed at his soul beard. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just tired. Look, you have to get out of here now."

  "Okay. Tell me how. Without my body I can't use magic."

  "I told you already. Just rip it, Faz. Rip through and think about your physical self. Fix on something and tear anything apart that gets in your way."

  "That's it?"

  "Yup, and I gotta go, I don't feel good. Hurry, or you'll be stuck, and dead."

  He was gone.

  It was dark.

  I was alone.
>
  A Slight Tear

  A little information was better than none, so I decided to work with what I had. I wished I'd learned a little more about this side of the Empty and the magical world in general, but it was too close to spiritual matters for me to ever study it much. It takes a certain kind of person to want to tamper with a soul as it's just not done, almost taboo.

  You don't mess with the afterlife, especially your own, not like this, and you certainly don't do it to others. Who knows what godly vengeance will be rained down on you for messing where you ought not to mess? But right now, I wished I'd studied and knew how the hell to get out of this.

  Maybe Mithnite was right and all I had to do was focus on breaking through, connect with my body and get back where I belonged. The million questions I had about my young apprentice could wait, as if I got out of this then I had him to thank. As I changed my focus to get back to the land of the living, I felt a surge of pride that he'd sought me out in the way he had. Maybe I wasn't such a bad mentor after all.

  Now I knew what had happened, I found new focus. Just think about my body, about my physical form. Search it out and will myself back into place.

  This wasn't my world, this wasn't where I belonged. I belonged back on solid ground where I could blast the dark arts and Kate would fix me when I inevitably got broken.

  Broken! That was it!

  Focus on the pain. I was good at pain, it was my closest companion and had been for as long as I could remember.

  Focus on the dog bite. Let the sensations of ripped flesh and chipped bone overwhelm me. Feel the shredded muscle, the terrier's teeth against my shin as it scraped flesh and bone.

  And my suit! That damn dog had torn my suit. It was a real smart one, too.

  Something clicked into place in my reality as my anger rose and my indignation at being abused in such a manner consumed me. For once, my obsession with looking dapper would help me out of my slight predicament.