Black Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

have, not that many of them are jolly. They aren't big conversationalists, although once, in a rather unexpected outpouring of more than a few syllables each, they'd explained why they had ditched their Chinese names at the turn of the century and insisted on Bret and Bart now—to make themselves more modern.
    Nothing crazier than a vampire, apart from a Chinese vampire. Okay, apart from the Welsh, they are proper crazy. Must be the confusion about the signs, or the damp.
    "Um, okay. Nice chatting, see ya." I moved to step around them, which was quite a distance, but I knew it was no good, and besides, there's no getting away from these guys once they are given a job.
    The twins may look like lumps of Chinese granite, all roughly chiseled features and way too much time spent in the gym to make up for their five foot nothing stature, but they are not to be trifled with. And anyway, I knew who had sent them after me, and to be honest the alternative wouldn't be much better.
    Many Hidden would be baying for my blood the moment what I did hit the news or the underground networks, so in a way it was a relief. The kids from earlier were just playing, knew better than to try anything, but the twins, they would fight if they had to. Although I couldn't see that they would have been given orders to mess with me in the middle of the street on a busy Saturday, if it was Saturday—I was in no mood to find out.
    Did I go along quietly with the Chinese vampires? Hell no. I knew they wouldn't be at their best in the daylight as they were a few hundred years old. Enough had come back by now for me to know who I was and a little of what I, and they, were capable of. I was an enforcer, but I was also an Alone.
    An Alone has drawbacks, the main being you don't have others with you to help focus magic, and numbers are always good. But it has advantages too, like the fact people who can do what I do are pretty damn selfish and not very nice people.
    Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of lovely people who can use magic, and some even live relatively normal lives, but most don't. Once you understand our world it's easy to see why.
    I steeled myself, not really in the mood for any meetings until I found out why I'd done what I did, and could think of a way to not get killed for it. Maybe by Bret and Bart's boss, or my own, and readied myself for the sickness.
    Even thinking about drawing power from the Empty made my guts churn and my palms sweat, but I went with it, let it build, let the darkness envelop me and I felt my tattoos swell with the power.
    The nauseating dark magic spread from my knuckles up my arms, across my shoulders and down my torso, just as I felt it come from my feet, writhe along my calves, scamper up my thighs like a hairy-legged giant centipede craving the dark and moist most private parts I owned, and it all met at my navel.
    It meant I was covered head to toe in the ink, and I'll have to show you some time. It's pretty impressive and it hurt like hell getting it done, but that was long ago, a memory so distant it may as well be from another life, another person—which isn't far from the truth.
    The ink helped me prise open the door to the darkness where the magical forces that permeate the Universe abide, and made more possible than the bag-laden and desperate looking shoppers around me could possibly know.
    As the sickness descended, and my heart felt ready to explode, I not so much vanished as faded from memory and sight. If you were witnessing it then I wouldn't be all see-through like a ghost, you'd just not really take any notice as I was there but not there. Like the most nondescript person you could ever imagine. You wouldn't be able to describe me, you wouldn't even remember you'd seen an unmemorable person, I just faded from the world most folks live in.
    My head felt like the bone was contracting, as if the twins' muscular fingers were clamped down hard like two Asian vices. My throat was as rough as sandpaper,