A Darker Shade of Sorcery (The Realmers Book 1) Read online

  A Darker Shade of Sorcery

  The Realmers- Book One

  By William Collins

  Copyright 2016 by William Collins. All Rights Reserved.

  Terms and Conditions:

  The purchaser of this book is subject to the condition that he/she shall in no way resell it, nor any part of it, nor make copies of it to distribute freely.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

  Related Novels:

  Moonlight War- Act I

  The Realmers Series- Book 2

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HLGKL9U

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01HLGKL9U

  PART ONE

  Magic Rising

  To whichever race you belong, orc, elf, djinn, human or other:

  You are now a Venator.

  Welcome to Veneseron Fortress, school for Demon Hunters.

  Your job is to travel through the many realms on missions we assign you.

  Your tasks may range from preventing goblin abductions, capturing wild dog-dragons and calming down drunken yetis, to the more serious threats of shadow-drinkers, noble Gliders and any Moonlight races gone rogue.

  Of course, your most important purpose will be battling demons and the Dark-Venators.

  Here at Veneseron we will train you to use enchanted weaponry, from Spellzookas to elemental grenades. And wield whatever form of sorcery you possess, from Curse Breaking to Creature Summoning.

  All so you may save countless lives against the eternal evil.

  Enjoy your stay.

  (P.S. Please specify at the front desk whether you’re arriving by Airship, Alien craft, Bubble-sphere or other means.)

  Veneseron Fortress welcome note

  -Written by Padrake Poniferous, Master of Illusion.

  Chapter 1- Imagined Worlds

  You should never have let her die.

  Evan Umbra tried to ignore his thoughts as he walked back from school.

  Water bled from a bruised sky, soaking the streets as gusts of wind shoved him with cold hands. Cars groaned along the roads and a church bell pealed, but the heavy rainfall smothered most of the city sounds. It beat down mercilessly, turning his brown hair black as the strands stuck to his face like leeches.

  Evan looked behind him on instinct. Paranoia had been a constant ghost at his shoulder since the first attack. He didn’t see them, but they could be near. Evan tensed, ready to run at the first sign.

  You should never have let her die.

  Stop it! You couldn't have done anything. It was always going to happen one day, but why so soon?

  Last night had been bad. He’d distracted himself all day with school, but now the nightmare wouldn't stop replaying in his head. Maggots had taken up residence in one of her eye sockets. The other eye stared at Evan in accusation.

  In the dream he was back in the front room, staring at Gran in her beloved armchair. The cloying stench of death made him gag.

  “Why,” his grandmother had croaked, “why did you let me die, Evander?”

  “Gran,” he'd cried. “Gran, I'm so sorry.”

  The carcass cackled, its black tongue lolling. “You were never good enough, boy. I'm glad I'm free of you now. You're pathetic, worthless. Your own parents didn’t want you.”

  “Please Gran, I…”

  She’d risen to her feet, stretching out one rotting hand.

  Evan had screamed as talons clawed out chunks of his chest, and he woke up trembling.

  He wished he could seize the recurring nightmares and rip them into pieces. If he'd just been there, he could've called an ambulance, he could've…

  She’d died five months ago and yet he still missed Gran terribly. She was the only person he'd ever loved and the only person who'd ever loved him.

  Evan took a deep breath and composed himself as he crossed the road, leaving one grey street and entering another. He missed the countryside, but being dumped in some obscure part of London was the least of his problems.

  Evan thought his dreams might’ve been getting worse ever since the murder. Death follows me like a hunter, he mused, picking off everyone around me until I’m the only one left.

  The children’s home was still reeling from Pete’s murder one week ago. No body, but a huge amount of blood had been found in Pete’s bedroom, the room right next to Evan’s, but that was all anyone knew.

  The orphanage staff refused to tell the kids anything. They’d surmised that Pete was killed and his body deposited somewhere. Police were still looking for a missing person, but everyone said there’d been too much blood for someone to survive. No one was allowed in the room, of course. But two days ago Evan knew he’d glimpsed claw marks on the wall through a gap in the door.

  He hadn’t known Pete well, he didn’t really know any of the kids he shared the orphanage with, but it was still horrific. It didn’t feel real that someone could be murdered. Evan was terrified; he’d hardly slept since, fearing he’d be killed in his bed too. He didn’t know who or why anyone would murder Pete, and paranoia made him think he’d be next.

  Was one of the other kids the killer? One of the staff? Evan couldn’t stop the horrible thoughts boiling in his head.

  Stranger still was his dream that night. But he dismissed it for the hundredth time.

  You’re way too old to be dreaming of monsters, Evan.

  Cruel laughter cut through the air.

  He recognised it straight away. His body went cold. He was about to run when he saw them. Ollie and his mates had a small boy cornered. As Ollie shoved his victim against the wall, Evan saw it was Tommy.

  Evan barely knew him, but Tommy was much smaller than him, and right now he was crying in fear.

  Ollie and his gang had beaten Evan up weekly since he’d moved to London. He didn’t know they had a more vulnerable target too. He couldn’t stand here and watch them do it.

  Ollie hadn’t seen him yet. He could turn back round and run. Part of him wanted to. But Evan knew his conscience would never forgive him. He had to help, or at least try. Anger surged through him, burning out the fear. “Oi!”

  Ollie and his two mates turned as Evan shouted. He needed to lure them away from Tommy, even if that meant getting his own ass kicked. “C'mon then Ollie, you fat pig, I'm right here.”

  No one had ever spoken to the bully like that before, but Ollie’s surprise quickly turned to rage. “Get ‘im,” he roared.

  As soon as he saw Tommy escape, Evan sprinted the other way, hounded by the laughter of his pursuers. He veered into the nearest alley, hoping to lose them. He soon realised his mistake.

  Alone. Cornered. Trapped.

  At the alley’s end loomed a metal fence, blocking his escape. Evan knew his chance was slim, but he threw himself at the gate anyway. He scrambled up like a demented monkey. He was almost there. He was going to make i—

  Hands seized him.

  One moment Evan clung to the cold metal, the next he was yanked down, and thrown back against the unforgiving steel. Just let it be over quick. His body trembled, and he tasted bile in his throat. The thugs laughed in his face.

  “What’s the rush, Ev?” Ollie snarled.

  Evan opened his mouth to speak. Ollie slapped it hard.

  “What you gonna do, mate?”

  Before Evan could reply, the wind rushed out of him as Ollie’s fist slammed into his stomach. He fell to his knees, gasping for air. They were double his size. Evan knew fighting back would make the beating worse. He just hoped that after him, they wouldn’t feel the need to hurt
anyone else.

  He closed his eyes and braced himself. It would be over quickly. Maybe the pain could distract him from thinking about Gran for a while.

  His head snapped back as Ollie’s fist smashed into his jaw and he slumped to the ground.

  All three bullies shouted incoherently. Evan was silent.

  Ollie stamped on his hand, a sharp flash of pain. Another punch. Evan saw a faint trail of black smoke snake across the ground. The mist appeared to be coming from Evan’s fingertips. This happened once before, he thought. The punches in his last beating had made him see mist too.

  He thought he saw the mist morph into a clawed hand that crawled across the ground, but just as it looked ready to seize Ollie's ankle, the mist dissipated.

  Finally Evan's torture came to an end.

  “Try that again and we'll kill you. That’s a promise.”

  Ollie punctuated his threat with a last kick to the stomach.

  Evan covered his face, gritting his teeth and trying not to cry out at the pain.

  Their laughter haunted him as they sauntered out of the alley, leaving him curled up in a ball against the cold metal fence.

  *

  The sleet worsened, turning to hailstones that bounced off the ground like a gang of tiny white frogs. Evan stumbled home, hunched over, face pulled tight in a grimace. The downpour beat against his aching body and the wind crawled across his skin, cold as a corpse’s caress.

  He walked through the gates of Helken Place and up the winding path to the drab children's home, stomping up the stairs to his room. He wanted to cry as he closed the bedroom door, but it wouldn’t help. Nothing would.

  He stripped off his school clothes and slumped on to his bed. Just one more year, one more year and I’ll be done with school, free of Ollie. Free of everyone. Evan had to tell himself that, to keep himself sane.

  He looked in the mirror to check the bruises. As usual his pale face was marred by ugly abrasions. His left cheek had swollen to near double its usual size. He lifted up his shirt and winced at the discolouration there. Evan told the staff he just kept falling over. They asked questions, but he pushed them away. It would only make things worse.

  He would've liked to call himself tall, dark and handsome. Really, he wasn’t much taller than average, his hair was a dull brown, and he wasn’t handsome. At least, no one had ever told him he was. Dark grey eyes, made darker by pale skin, stared back at him miserably. Oddly, tiny red scratches adorned each iris, like the grey was a stone that’d been cracked and was now bleeding. It was the only interesting thing about him.

  Evan pulled up the chair by his desk and sat down to write. Writing was his favourite, well only, hobby.

  Pages and pages of his scrawling littered the untidy desk, reflecting the rest of the room. He picked one at random and began reading.

  This one was about his hero Alwar. Alwar was the exact opposite of himself. Strong, courageous, amazing in every way, he was the stuff of legend. Evan loved writing about his many adventures.

  With the warrior Alwar he could lose himself, forget Grandma’s death and his miserable life. He could escape. Alwar conquered terrible opponents and the most ferocious of beasts. Evan couldn’t even escape Ollie and his thugs.

  He peered out of his small window, noticing the hail had morphed into heavy clumps of snow that splattered onto the ground, lighting the garden with a ghostly sheen.

  Evan forced everything else out of his head as he wrote long into the night, immersing himself in imagined worlds and allowing reality to slip away.

  *

  Winter descended upon London, its cold touch bathing the streets. Snow fell heavily, carpeting roads and walkways. Not a street lamp glowed as silence ruled the midnight hour.

  In a dark alleyway, the shadowy veils of night shattered as light filtered through a gap in space and time. The beam of light flashed scarlet as it expanded into a swirling mass.

  Out of the portal stepped a monstrosity not meant to touch this world, a demon from the blackest of hells.

  Quickly, he distorted his features, transforming to what could pass for a man, providing no human looked closely.

  He took in a deep breath, inhaling the air of Earth, inhaling the air of men.

  It appeared he’d come to the right place.

  The demon’s lips hooked up; it had been a long time since he was last in this realm. He would take great delight in killing the boy, regardless of his Master’s orders.

  *

  Evan trudged through oceans of snow on his way to school. His body shivered and his hands grew numb as the frost bit deep.

  His grandmother's face haunted his thoughts. He’d accidentally knocked her photo over this morning. The glass had shattered. She was smiling in that photo, her face kind and warm. Her face had been cold and slack when he'd found her. Her body was there, but she wasn’t. She was gone, she…

  Evan forced the memory away. He wouldn’t think about that, he couldn’t.

  She wasn’t his real grandmother; he’d been abandoned by whoever his parents were, just like he’d been abandoned in London now.

  He rounded the corner and Elfort School came into view. It was a typical English school, a mass of brown buildings, usually cluttered with litter as much as it was pupils.

  But Evan was late and there was no one else around.

  Except one.

  A large figure stood by the school gates. He was as wide as he was tall, but hidden by a long trench coat and low-hanging hat. As Evan drew closer the feeling of dread engulfed him. For some reason, he was horrified by whatever waited at the gates. He didn’t know why. Everything just felt wrong.

  He froze, not wanting to get any closer to the stranger.

  With agonising slowness the stranger’s face, half obscured by a scarf and hat, turned to look right at him.

  Evan gazed in horror at the repulsive figure. He wanted to run away as fast as he could, but he was rooted to the spot.

  Terror clutched at Evan’s mind, squeezing his stomach and constricting his chest. He had the innate feeling this stranger meant him grievous harm.

  A double-decker bus, filled with raucous students, abruptly turned into the street and glided towards the school.

  The stranger turned away fast and walked in the opposite direction. Soon he'd disappeared from view, swathed by the screeching wind and swirling snow.

  The bus pulled up by the gates and the pupils filed out, complaining how the snow had made them late.

  Evan breathed heavily, trying to stuff down the panic and bile crawling up his throat. He had no idea who the stranger was. He’d always had an active imagination, and right now his mind was telling him the eerie figure could’ve had something to do with Pete’s death. No, you’re being stupid. It was probably just some homeless man.

  Trying to shake it from his thoughts, he headed to class.

  Throughout the rest of the day, Evan couldn’t stop thinking about the stranger and the sense of dread that’d overwhelmed him.

  He was so distracted that he paid less attention in class than usual. He was terrified when it came to the end of the day, not of Ollie and his friends, but that the stranger might be back. That thing frightened Evan more than Ollie ever had.

  He walked out of his English class with great trepidation, trying to fight the urge to run all the way to the orphanage. He was almost relieved to see only Ollie and his friends at the gates.

  Evan attempted to walk past them unseen, trying to blend in with the other students, but as always Ollie spotted him. Since Evan had first arrived and answered one too many questions in his English lesson, the thug had made his life hell.

  The smoke of Ollie’s cigarette lingered about his nostrils, furthering his resemblance to an angry bull.

  “Oi, Umbra!”

  Ollie had four friends with him today and all five of them chased Evan as he broke into a sprint.

  Adrenaline coursed through Evan’s veins as he darted between pedestrians and cars, cutting acro
ss the road in a desperate attempt to shake them.

  The streets retreated and a park came into view. He was nearly at the orphanage.

  He’d never made it home before they’d got him though.

  Evan leaped over the park fence, only to fall face-first in the snow on the other side. Regaining his balance using the merry-go-round, he pushed off and continued to run. Vaulting the fence had cost him. Ollie and his thugs made the jump easily and Ollie managed to snatch the back of Evan’s coat and swing him round with ruthless force. Evan’s head whiplashed and he veered sideways, tripping over and crashing to the ground.

  A cruel chorus of laughter broke out amongst Ollie’s friends, but the leader himself wasn’t smiling. Perhaps he felt especially vicious today.

  Before Evan could stand, Ollie booted him back down.

  “Why do you always run, eh?” he snarled.

  Ollie aimed a kick, but Evan rolled to his feet.

  “C’mon!” Ollie shoved him. “Do sumin’.”

  This time he landed a punch to the jaw. Evan crumpled under the blow.

  “Get up!” Ollie bellowed.

  Evan’s anger rose to a crescendo within him, but he lacked the courage to let it loose. Ollie seized his coat and hauled him to his feet.

  “Look at you. You’re nothing,” he spat, his nose almost touching Evan’s.

  The other boys screamed abuse, threatening to beat Evan to within an inch of his life.

  I don’t deserve this. He felt tears at the back of his eyes.

  “Aww, you gonna cry again, mate?”

  Ollie’s gang shrieked their mirth.

  “Don’t see him mouthing off today, do we, boys?” Ollie looked to his peers for encouragement.

  “You really are pathetic, aren’t you, Evan? Tell me, is it true you're not even an orphan; you just live in that place because your parents abandoned you? I can see why they would.”