Evil Spark (24 page)

That, or get pulled apart and die horribly, which I had no intention of doing.

I parked in the country lanes a few minutes away from House Taavi and turned off the engine. I picked up the vial that would dull my scent, making me a ghost to olfactory senses no matter how powerful the nose.

Reluctantly, I took off the cap and sniffed. My sense of smell was working well, more's the pity, and the aroma of rotten meat and sour milk combined with the worst case of body odor you can imagine filled the interior, overpowering the air freshener and the new car smell.

There was nothing for it, so I slammed the liquid down my throat in one go like a bad shot and tried not to regurgitate it as it hit my stomach like I'd drunk weeks-old curdled milk.

Next came the camouflage potion. This was worse. Like a thousand pairs of smelly socks distilled to their essence of stinky nastiness then bottled for my pleasure. At least with Grandma's potions you got a hit of lavender—the Chemist doesn't go in for such niceties.

Down it went. I was done.

Within thirty seconds, I felt the alchemy taking effect. These were potions for Hidden, and this is what makes the Chemist special. He never makes them for Regulars—if they drank what I had, all they would get was a bad belly. This was magic, for magic users, and it relied on your connection to the Hidden to work.

Boy did it work.

The alchemic liquids churned in my guts like poison, and if it wasn't for the steering wheel I would have been doubled over and rolling round on the floor. As it was, I simply sat and moaned quietly to myself, feeling sad and sick and squeezing my belly like I could massage the pain away.

It could have been worse, although I'm not sure how. Soon, the Chemist's gifts called the Empty to me whether I wanted it or not. My head felt like a fat maggot was right there in the center of my brain, eating its way forward, chewing right to my eyes which snapped black. Familiar pinpricks of silver sparks flashed angrily in the emptiness of my sight before the world revealed what it truly is—nothing but magic.

I watched my arms, the ink wriggling like a pole dancer in a sausage skin, and stared, fascinated, at my hands clutched tight to the steering wheel, white under the pressure as my tattoos sprang to readiness, engorged with dark magic that coursed through my veins and my manmade veins.

My skin was searing hot and pulsing with power as chakras funneled the contents of what I had consumed around my body, engorging me with their foulness until every blood cell, every part of my body, was soaked with the powers given me by the Chemist. So, yeah, it had a kick to it, and then some.

It was like if you raided everything in the booze cabinet, got all those half bottles of weird cleaners from under the kitchen sink, poured them all into a washing-up bowl after you'd done some very greasy dishes, then drank what remained. And I had to pay for it, too!

My belly turned from feeling like it was being thumped from the inside by the Chemist's ghoulish hands, to numb in an instant. It spread, taking away the sickness of the draw of the Empty. I was brimming with magic, enhanced by the potions.

I was ready.

Adjusting the rearview mirror, I raised my eyes, pleased with what I saw. Which was a distinct absence of me.

Getting out of the car, I stood for a moment, making sure I didn't try to look at my feet, and let muscle memory close the door. I locked it. Now I was ready.

I wasn't so much invisible as perfectly camouflaged. If I really looked, I could see the faintest outline of myself, but for all intents and purposes it was the same thing. Yeah, baby, I was the invisible man. I know it was juvenile, but I smiled at the thought of what I would have done when I was a kid if I had such a potion. It wouldn't have involved infiltrating vampire headquarters, that was for sure. It would have involved climbing ladders and peeking into the bedrooms of sexy ladies. Come on, admit it, you had the same thoughts. Bet you still do.

The secret to coping with being invisible is to not think about it. If you try to look at your feet, and concentrate on walking, you will fall flat on your face. Same with your hands. Attempt looking for them as you go to grab something, or move something, and you will be way off the mark. But let muscle memory take over and you will be amazed how precise you can be.

Well, I have over a hundred years of muscle memory, so I can pretty much do anything without needing to look, including taking off a bra. Yeah, I was thinking of Kate again. Hey, I could be dead soon, give me a break.

I took the lack of a scent on trust. There was no other way to confirm it.

A car or two passed as I walked toward Taavi's, farmers on the narrow roads off to do whatever farmers do so early in the morning, or late at night. I moved fast, knowing I had to make it inside before the potions wore off.

They better stay working, otherwise in a few minutes time I would be ripped apart by vampire Doberman, and I didn't fancy that happening. It had been a bad enough few days already.

Plans are for Lightweights

Was I nervous? No, not really. Magic was too strong inside me, the connection too powerful. The Black Spark doesn't get intimidated. He might get a little worried about being ripped to bits by vampire dogs and vampire humans, but he refuses to get freaked out by them.

In fact, he is so damn cool he writes about it in the third person.

Okay, honestly, I was a little worried. Heck, I get worried about going to Taavi's when I have an invite, so sneaking over walls and through heavily patrolled grounds to exact vengeance on an ancient Finnish vampire intent on taking over the UK and eliminating the old Head certainly isn't the best way to relax.

A nice bath with candles, bubbles, weird lotions that make you slide about like an eel in a bowl of "massage" oil, and an early night is best for that—oh, but wait, the vampires, and maybe me and Rikka too, had broken my house, so I was a homeless enforcer with a job to do.

This time it was personal.

Haha, I've always wanted to say that. But yeah, it was. Occasionally, I wish I'd settled down and got married. Had kids, maybe a steady job where I got to eat my sandwiches behind a desk, and got an early night all the time. But my life took a different path. Sure, I can blame the fact my parents were Hidden, that Grandma is a mad witch, that my folks got killed by vampires, but it would all be a lie. I live for this stuff. It's me, who I am. It makes me alive.

The truth is I'm an addict, just as much as a vampire is. My addiction is to the Hidden and all it has to offer, good and bad. Plus the dark magic, of course. That's the true cause of it all. The draw. It changes you and there is no forgetting it once you let it in. Why would you want to?

Sometimes, I get these flashes of insight, which you may think is obvious as I creep through the dark lanes of the countryside on the outskirts of a small city in a tiny country on a tiny island, invisible, unsmellable—I'm still not sure if that is a word or not but I'll go with it—sick to my stomach, ready to invade a vampire den because they'd pissed me off and I'd been told to by my boss, but, you know, I'm kind of used to it. I've been involved in magic, had it in me, for over a hundred years so I have done a lot, seen even more.

Okay, it's not like popping out to the supermarket for some milk, but when demons, wizards, shifters, vampires, and zombies are part of everyday life I guess you get a little blase about the whole thing.

At this moment I could definitely see the absurdity of the situation though, or not, as I was so damn well camouflaged!

Yeah, I'm Black Spark, Dark Magic Enforcer, Laugher in the Face of Vampires, Wielder of Invisible Hands, Creeper Through Bushes, and Longer for Sexy Times with Best Friends. That's right, all I could think about was if Kate was naked in bed and if she'd mind if I climbed in once I'd hopefully got out of the vampire den alive.

Visions of firm buttocks and wobbly boobies gave me more motivation than I can tell you. No way would I die before I squeezed them all. If I could do it all at the same time then all the better, but if I had to I'd do it one hand at a time. Let nobody say I'm not prepared to follow through on my fondling promises.

For the first in a very long time I had something real to look forward to. A future. A life. A family of my own. Me and Kate, the odd couple, and I wanted it more than anything.

My musings were interrupted by the sounds of dogs barking behind a large wall that hid Taavi's headquarters and more vampires than is healthy for even an invisible dark magic enforcer to try to deal with.

With visions of soft and wobbly female flesh replaced with visions of gnawed and screaming flesh of the Faz Pound kind, I hitched up my trousers, dug my winklepickers into the stonework, and climbed up and over the wall.

Ninja Spark

I was some distance from the house, although house hardly does the scary-as-hell vampire headquarters justice. It would give me a little wiggle room to test out the potions before I got into the thick of things, as I figured having one vampire Doberman chasing you was better than a hundred.

I hoped the only thing I had to be concerned about was noise, so I lowered myself down the wall as carefully as I could, trying not to curse as my winklepickers scraped against the stone. I seem to be going through an awful lot of shoes lately.

The patrols were usually about as subtle as an imp with an open jar of Marmite and a brown stain around its smiling mouth, but all was quiet as I dropped to the grass. Weird.

Wasting no time, knowing I had to get away from any dogs and somehow manage to infiltrate House Taavi and do nasty things to Yrjo, I did that weird crouched over running you always do when you are trying to be sneaky, even though nobody could see me anyway—at least I hoped they couldn't.

Up a gentle rise through the woods, then back out into the open grounds that stretched for what felt like eternity with no cover whatsoever. I prayed my potions were doing their job or I was seriously screwed. There is no way you can outrun a dog or a vampire, and I was in the thick of it all.

But things weren't right. As I got closer to the building, I saw the first patrols, but they weren't walking slowly, bored with their tedious jobs. Quite the opposite. Men and women with dogs on tight leashes were rushing toward the house from all directions.

It was obvious why.

House Taavi was burning.

Coming from the side, everything had looked normal, the monstrous edifice declaring its seventeenth century splendor in all its gray and intimidating glory. But as I sped up and moved to the front of the building the fire was impossible to ignore.

Smoke drifted down to the ground, the air heavy. A fog that clawed into my lungs and it was all I could do to stop myself coughing—should have thought about a potion to stop sound as well as scent.

It was pandemonium.

The guards were running back and forth, shouting and unsure whether to go help or to continue their rounds. Vampires spilled out of the entrance in a tide of ancient cruelty. The grounds teemed with them.

So much for plans. Um, okay, I didn't have an actual plan, but I had a goal. Kill Yrjo, preferably slowly. Gravel crunched, fire licked higher, and vampires shouted and ran around wildly, while others stood and stared at the numerous windows and tall spires as glass blew out and tiles crashed to the ground.

The place would be an inferno soon enough, and there was no doubt it would be decimated before help arrived, assuming it had even been called for.

I couldn't imagine the fire brigade turning up and not hightailing out of there real quick once they were confronted with so many odd looking people—I wondered what they would actually see if they did show. Just a group of strangely dressed people from countless eras all looking a little on the sleepy side, or brimming with vitality? It would certainly be odd, no matter how Hidden the vampires were.

It would probably just mean a snack for the ancient ones, awoken from their centuries-long slumbers and now stood in groups staring at the building, uncomprehending, new to the modern world and even the possibility of the building being saved.

I stood some distance from the groups of vampires, my goal forgotten amid the carnage. A massive crash split the air as a steep roof collapsed, timber, tiles, and brick crashing down into the interior, the fire erupting out the top like an oversized medieval torch declaring "Here be Vampires."

I almost felt bad for them. Instead, I felt bad for the rest of us.

It's one thing knowing there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of vampires of all ages and strengths on your doorstep, many sleeping away the years behind closed doors, in crypts or locked in darkened rooms throughout a very spooky building, it's quite another to realize that they have no home and could be roaming the streets of your city with less than charitable intentions.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was walking toward a specific group of vampires stood staring at the building as the flames took hold and their home blazed—there was no saving it now. It would be dust by the morning.

Bonfire of the Vampires

At least three hundred sleepy and almost crumbling vampires stood or slumped in various states of confusion on the drive or grass, looking dazed and utterly bewildered. I hadn't realized there were quite so many ancient ones behind the walls.

There were hundreds more in their prime. Active vampires I had seen over the years then never again. Many spent their lives close to House Taavi, while others preferred to roam the world looking for entertainment, amusement, or new horrors to inflict on the innocent. Each one of them looked like a little child after being told the truth about Father Christmas. If they weren't such cold and merciless killers you could almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

The old ones were the hardest hit. Awake for only a few minutes—with no time to orient themselves or draw on what blood magic still coursed through their veins, no chance to feed and restore their vitality—they were like lost children, except with fangs, and stupid clothes.