Dawn of a Dark Knight: Scimitar Magi, #1

By Zoe Forward

In the shadows of our world, a secret band of warriors fights to protect us. They are the last line of defense against an evil no human can stop.

An ancient nemesis has resurfaced. Duty demands that Ashor Vlahos, Scimitar Magi commander, recruit a magical healer to fortify the remaining eight magi. The gods' choice is the woman who helped him escape torture a decade ago. Ashor couldn't have imagined a better punishment for his vow-breaker homicidal incidents than for the gods to bind him irrevocably to the only woman in the universe he cannot have. The soul-searing desire she ignites in him is strictly forbidden.

Kira Hardy, M.D. is a brilliant, hardworking internal med resident with big secrets. But when Ashor asks for aid after a brutal daemon attack, she is sucked into his dangerous, secret world. Enslavement to the magi, no matter how hot they are, may be an unattractive life plan, but being targeted for death by their enemies is less tolerable.

She must trust the sexy, tormented Ashor to keep her safe while he must deny his ultimate desire and keep Kira at arm's length lest he bring destruction down on them both. As a centuries-old evil catches up to them, they face a crucial decision—follow the gods' rules or follow their hearts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zoe Forward
• Release date: Jan 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781733242905

Zoe Forward

Award winning author, Zoe Forward is a hopeless romantic who can’t decide between paranormal and contemporary romance. So, she writes both. Her novels have won numerous awards including the Readers’ Choice Heart of Excellence, Golden Quill, Carolyn Readers Choice Award, and the Booksellers’ Best Award. When she’s not typing at her laptop, she’s tying on a karate belt for her son or cleaning up the newest pet mess from the menagerie that occupies her house. She’s a small animal veterinarian caring for a wide range of furry creatures, although there has been the occasional hermit crab. She’s madly in love with her globe trotting conservation ecologist husband who plans to save all the big cats on the planet, and she’s happiest when he returns to their home.

Book preview

1

Ashor jolted awake with an eyes-wide holy hell as his car plowed into a telephone pole. His unsecured body did a header through the windshield onto the gravel shoulder. A side roll down the rough embankment ended with a splash land in a few inches of ditch water.

With a frustrated snort, he yanked several long, dripping, black strands from his face. The scant stars in the dark sky playfully winked at him between the clouds.

You guys getting a kick out of watching this? he yelled at the sky.

Some warrior for the gods he was. Reeking of ditch refuse, whacked out from lack of REM sleep, and bouncing between lunacy and sanity on a regular basis were not ideal qualities for the Prime Magus, the leader of the daemon-killing protectors of humankind. Maybe the gods would revoke his superhuman status.

Right. If they intended to release him from this hell, then he wouldn’t be lying in a ditch.

The warm wetness tickling his eyebrow and the all-too-familiar coppery smell meant he’d sprung a leak. Based on the bottle-rocket exploding in his brain, there was probably a river delta of leaks. They’d heal, and probably within hours.

Priority number one: Get out of this ditch before a Florida gator thought he’d make a good chew toy.

For a second his mind went foggy. He shook his head. Don’t pass out.

Blackout oblivion equaled disaster. That’s when crazy happened, and humans died. And that violated one of the gods’ rules: No killing humans unless in self-defense.

Waking to a bloody nightmare with dead people surrounding him was one scenario he planned to avoid tonight. He’d consumed enough caffeine pills to kill an elephant less than an hour ago. You knew they wouldn’t work. He’d pushed himself too far beyond the max. Seventy-four hours into a no-sleep bender—a point when no drug or caffeine OD had any hope of keeping him in the land of awake.

He would do anything not to kill. To have some measure of control over what happened when he conked out. In his defense, all his past victims had been the enemy, the ones that summoned daemons—the Hashishins.

He fought to sit upright. The world spun like a carnival ride with a guaranteed puke-fest ending. His visual field dimmed, but the threat of going blackout homicidal had his body surging a double shot of adrenaline. Time to call for an assist.

He pawed at his black cargo pants’ pockets, coming up empty. Damn. Cell was in the car.

Getting up the steep embankment required finger digging. Within yards of the car, he collapsed, overwhelmed by the whirling in his brain.

Move. Your. Ass. His body rejected the command. Stay awake.

He feared killing an innocent. Who knew how far he’d go when the blackout insanity hit. Time to admit to the others he needed help.

The blackout episodes were a nasty side effect of too many life-threatening battles with hellish daemons, the Orc-like caricatures of long-dead humans obsessed with dark magik that some Hashishin had summoned back into the human world. Daemons emitted a corrosive evil that slowly eroded a magus soul’s energy. When he exhausted that inner élan vital, the kem-seki—the growing id-based darkness lurking in his mind, the state that took over during blackouts—would own him. He’d Turn into a monster little better than those daemons the gods mandated he execute. That time looked to be coming soon.

Suicide?

Tried it. And failed.

That failure had nothing to do with lack of follow-through. He figured since he wasn’t quite immortal he could eventually find something that would work. But it turned out the gods put a little fuck-you into his contract, making suicide impossible. Apparently, only a daemon or fellow magus could take him out. None of his fellow magi would step up and offer him a suicide assist, at least not right now. Not until he Turned completely.

The solution? Self-imposed insomnia. The downside was shit like this. Falling asleep at the wheel was unacceptable. He loved the supercar whose front end was now wrapped around a phone pole.

Happy New Year.

Time to buck up. This was the price he paid for his life, even if it hadn’t been his choice, at least this time around. At some point millennia ago, he had vowed his eternal soul to the daemon-kill thing. That meant every time he was nixed in the Human Realm, some god jammed his soul back into a new body to start all over again.

With a roll, he pushed up only to see sparkles light up his visual field. Bloody hell.

Ashor’s lids popped open. Above him a plastic pink flamingo went triple-count. Then back to single, and multiplied again.

Throbbing pain gripped his skull. Pain he could handle. It was nothing new.

He yanked the lawn ornament out of the ground and chucked it. With a cheek swipe, he removed the pine needles adhered to his face. The unfamiliar, poorly manicured suburban backyard belonged to a dilapidated, early-eighties doublewide—a tribute to crappy eighties engineering. A POS sedan sat cock-eyed in the drive. Its front left tire rested on an unkempt flowerbed as if the driver had been a piss-poor parker. Or rushed.

His left forearm burned. Rotating it into view showed three knife lacerations deeply bisected one of his more intricate blue tribal tats. The bleeding had long since stopped.

Great, he thought sarcastically. Blackout amnesia again.

A detailed area scan found one body a few feet away. The human lay sprawled face down at an angle that suggested a cruel death. The guy’s arms had several half-healed linear lacerations in a pattern distinctive for spell blood-letting, a common practice amongst dark-magik casters. He crawled to the guy and moved greasy hair off the back of his neck. The concentric circular symbol tattooed at the V of his neck confirmed him to be an Order of Assassins Hashishin. Not a higher-up. Not enough rings in the tat. Probably a Dais or new initiate. The body was a bloody mess of knife cuts. Not a loss to the world and definitely a relief that he hadn’t killed an innocent. But he’d fucked up again. Another black hole in his memory. Another gruesome murder.

He collapsed a few feet from the dead guy and gazed sightlessly at the now starless sky. All he wanted was out. For over a century, he’d lived by a doctrine of discipline, leadership, and cogent action. These past few months of losing control at random had been pure hell.

Fuck daydreams. They were for retirement-plan wusses who sat in high-rise offices all day, drove family sedans, and denied anything out of the norm existed. These were the ones he was supposed to protect. He had responsibilities.

His ridiculously brief indoctrination from man to magus over a century and a half ago gave him little prep for the intensity of this life. The Egyptian gods informed him his soul belonged to them. He’d vowed eternal servitude long ago. They gifted him with supernatural powers and specified a few rules. Human to super-warrior in five minutes. No instruction on how to use the new supernatural abilities came with the deal. With no memory of previous lives, he’d been a virtually immortal screw-up for decades. Now that he’d figured out how things worked, he was a master at avoiding the one thing he desired most. Death.

Retina-scalding light lit the backyard. Time to get going since someone had just hit the flood lights.

The light source moved close.

An echoing, otherworldly voice ordered, Get off the ground, Ashor Vlahos. This pity party is over.

Bloody hell. Now I’m hallucinating, Ashor mumbled, throwing an arm across his eyes. There was no change in the eye-numbing radiance.

A glowing hand clamped his wrist, prying the arm off his face. Its fingers melted into his skin with the scalding intensity of boiling oil. He jackknifed up, roaring. Futilely, he yanked against the soldering vise grip like a fish on a hook.

The glowing entity released without warning.

Ashor fell on his ass. He scrambled like an uncovered crab away from the radiant being. Momentarily he glanced at his burning wrist to watch in repulsed fascination as the divots of digit impressions filled in black and coalesced into a tattoo of a black eye.

The Eye of Horus. A sign of divine protection.

He squinted to see into the brilliant face of what was probably one of the original members of the Egyptian pantheon. One of the oldest gods in existence.

Horus?

I have been called many names. That name to which you refer is pronounced Hàru. Horus sounds crass.

Aren’t you guys only able to enter the Human Realm if we do one of those asinine—I mean, long summoning ceremonies? Ashor used his hand to shield his eyes against the radiance.

Some make rules to dictate their actions, like your handler, Ma’at. Now there is a goddess that loves to lay down new edicts. I do not care much for rules. The others do, though. And you have certainly broken one of those recently, have you not? Shimmering gold eyes darted to the dead human.

It’s not like that piece of shit is a loss to the world. If you’re here to punish, then get on with it. I’m not in the mood to kiss your ass like Ma’at requires we do. Kill me.

Horus chuckled. We will simply reincarnate you, if I send you from this life. I find you far too entertaining to release from your mess right now. It also matters not to me if you kill Hashishins. Their death simply means you have created a new daemon to run around in the Middle Realm.

Why are you here? Ashor caught Horus’s critical look. Not good. Okay. What do you want me to do?

"Retrieve the akhrian."

You tell me who and where our healer is and I’ll go get him.

"You know exactly who the akhrian is. We gave you that information years ago. Waiting has weakened all of you and dwindled your number to eight. You are in danger of losing your healer. The Hashishins threaten this one. If they kill this akhrian, it will be a few decades before we can arrange another one to enter the Human Realm."

Protective instinct surged. Ashor ground out, "She is not the akhrian."

Horus sent him a condescending grin. It is time for you to accept what is meant to be. In a millisecond, the god disappeared.

Ashor sat blind in the abrupt darkness for a few seconds. He rotated his left wrist. His watch indicated he had less than an hour to make his meeting.

He fingered the still burning Eye of Horus, now a permanent resident on his forearm. That god had been real.

Gods did not do personal visitation. The honor he should feel was absent. He’d been doing this long enough to know the gods were not into altruism.

Was the sky-god’s visit only about the fact he hadn’t recruited the akhrian in a timely manner? Maybe she was in danger. His pulse picked up. Apprehension clamped his gut.

He had last laid eyes on her over a decade ago. She appeared out of nowhere to rescue his tortured carcass from an Order of Assassins prison on the eve of their coup de grace execution ceremony. Then she disappeared into obscurity. Yet he always knew where she was. With a little focus, he could find her essence. She clearly wanted nothing to do with them. For saving his ass, he’d heeded her wish to stay away, thinking her safe. But her protection was his priority.

He allowed himself to feel for her, something he’d classified as an off-limits activity years ago since it was addictive. Touching her essence was like snorting top-tier narcotics—pure, hard, and powerful.

Within a second he felt her spirit. His body jolted. She was close. An surge of exhilaration blasted through him a second before he tasted her fear. Then he felt them. Hashishins were near her, threatening her. Rage squeezed his chest.

He jumped up. More humans were going to die tonight.

As he rounded the corner of the mobile home his shitkickers skidded to a halt. Son of a bitch, he mumbled as the smidgen of hope the others didn’t know about his hunt-and-kill episodes died.

Javen waved a hand through the busted supercar’s windshield and whistled.

I thought Ashor loved this car. He left her running in this neighborhood? Nate asked while kneeling to view the car’s front bumper. He had a frontal collision. Must’ve gone through the windshield.

I bet that sucked, Javen replied in his crisp British accent. He twirled his favorite serrated dagger with an eerie smile. Three one-inch diagonal inked scars coursed from Javen’s forehead to chin. Another spanned the circumference of his neck, all the result of a nasty daemon strike decades ago. The relaxation in his massive frame indicated he’d given his knife a workout, something the cranky century-old Brit hadn’t been allowed since the others voted him off daemon-killing duty a few months ago.

The threat of Javen Turning, of the kem-seki taking over and changing him into an insane creature with no moral compass scared the shit out of the others. But not him. Several good magi had seen the lethal end of his blade when they Turned. Not a duty he took pride in. But this was the screwed-up way of things.

When they voted on Javen’s status Ashor had said let-him-fight, whereas the other six voted no-way. Democracy won. But none anticipated the outcome.

Javen spent most of his time when not in the gym drinking, shooting up, or smoking weed. Or everything at once. Drugs had but a dulling effect on them, which meant, on bad days when drugs and hard liquor weren’t enough to suppress Javen’s need to fight, he pounded a magus into oblivion. But not the Prime. None challenged him with that kind of bullshit.

Ashor sauntered to the car. Both magi head-swiveled with slack-jaw oh-shits. So, they hadn’t wanted to be caught tailing him.

You guys just in the area?

Something like that, Javen replied. You look like blood-covered shite.

Busy night? Ashor pointed at two SUVs parked a hundred feet up the dirt road. Blood decorated both cars like an exploded strawberry daiquiri. He estimated at least half a dozen dead bodies littered the lawn nearby. How did Javen manage to stay clean?

You? Javen parked his blade into the prime real estate upside down on the left-hand panel of his tactical vest.

Ashor scowled, but remained mute.

Those Hashishin shits were trying to ambush you. You’re welcome, by the way.

He expected the dark-magik bastards would get organized at some point. He’d been hunting them against his will for several months. But that didn’t mean it was right for others to violate the gods’ no-kill rule.

The heavy bass hip-hop song blasting from his car radio was interrupted by, "It’s official. Sources claim the Jacksonville gas station explosion was a terrorist attack. So far, no group has publicly taken credit for the incident."

Javen whistled low and laughed hard.

Ashor mumbled, What is the world coming to?

That better not be a tear coming out of your eye, Javen. Nate plucked at an eyebrow ring, something his sergeant definitely wouldn’t have approved of in his old life as a Ranger. As a magus, the hardcore face metal worked, even if he was still stuck in newbie land.

What? Ashor glared at the two.

Javen laughed harder. He waved at Nate between snorts. Meet the FBI’s most wanted felon. Nate, the gas station terrorist. He wiped at his eyes.

Nate flashed a middle finger.

What did you do? Ashor demanded.

They can’t pin it on me. Car’s untraceable. And it’s not like I stuck around for a mug shot.

This is almost as good as last month when you put Chicago O’Hare into blackout, Javen said.

My phone needed charging before we got on the plane. How was I to know the outlet would spark me and shut down the airport?

Ashor pinned Nate with a glare that had him shifting on his feet. He barely held the surging kem-seki in check and knew his eyes probably swirled the blackest possible with its stain on his irises. What happened?

Accidentally ignited my car while pumping gas.

Did anyone get hurt?

No.

Electrical fuckhead, Javen grumbled low. It’s been almost a decade since you got initiated. It’s time you found some control.

Go home. Both of you. I do not want to hear that they’re calling in the National Guard because there’s been another explosion. I’ve got to meet with Christian.

And with her.

2

W ho’s the girl? the Asian asked, emerging from the shadows at the edge of the parking lot. With an antsy shrug, he adjusted the lapels of his upmarket suede jacket. His black eyes squinted toward the darkness just beyond the light cast by a nearby streetlight.

Seems I’m not the only one who thought showing up stag was a bad idea. Markus eyeballed the three muscled ogres hovering near the Asian.

Who is she?

My authenticator. Markus grinned as if he was about to down a mai tai at a beach party.

Get serious, please, thought Kira. This black-market art deal was about to get drenched.

Markus glanced down to find his navy blue aloha shirt was buttoned one off toward the middle and took to fixing it. The shirt’s wrinkles suggested it had been worn for at least a day beyond social acceptability.

She was not part of the arrangement.

Kira didn’t miss the sneer of disapproval and eye roll the Asian threw at his three bodyguards. With Markus, she couldn’t tell if the button malfunction was a ploy to make them classify him as a harmless moron or a classic Markus moment. Just this once, she wished her cousin could be more like his twin, Kane, the ex-Army Ranger—a man who lived to be organized, efficient, and deadly. Too bad he hadn’t tagged along, but his international security job kept him out of the country a lot. She suspected the government still owned Kane, even if he wasn’t military anymore.

Goosebumps studded her arms as the winter Florida air brushed her skin. The bushes at the edge of the parking lot rustled. She scrutinized the shadows and tried to tune out the cacophony of music polluting the air from Jacksonville’s downtown. The attempt failed. The city was hopping at eleven on New Year’s Eve. Every restaurant sounded to be throwing a blowout. Stragglers roamed. Fifty yards away a couple chose that moment for an intimate lip suck. One staggered, the other laughed, and they strolled away whispering.

A light breeze shifted the ambient temperature down several degrees, blowing in the smell of approaching precipitation. A chill slithered down her spine. The temperature variant, however, had nothing to do with the reaction. Evil lurked nearby. Something far more dangerous than the four edgy Asians.

Check them, ordered the Asian. His hand shook as he smoothed his short, graying black hair.

Markus backed away from the hulking bodyguard headed his way. His gaze locked on the guy’s hypertrophied arms.

No weapons. That was our agreement, not that you kept up your end. Markus pointed at the bodyguard’s beltline where his jacket bulged. I’m but the middleman here, Ryom. Where’s the trust?

Fuck trust. I’ve barely survived two assassination attempts over this thing. Why should I trust an American? He waved his man toward Markus and another Kira’s way.

The guy assigned to frisk her leered at the cleavage line of her scoop-neck black sweater. Her stomach lurched.

She forced a demure smile and murmured, Not like I can hide anything in this outfit.

The guy smirked before he ran his hands down her top, copping an unnecessary feel of her chest. She forced herself to ignore her instinct to squirm. His hands smoothed along her practically pasted-on skinny jeans down to the tops of her black, leather boots. God, how she loved the boots. Slick, high heeled, black leather zips. Any idiot knew what came next. A trained operative would demand those boots off for a little look-see and that couldn’t happen.

As he came up from his crouch, the bodyguard stared deeply into her eyes, transfixed. Even with their almost twelve-inch height differential, the unique two-toned pale coloring of her irises mesmerized him, as expected. His eyes would remain glued to hers until she blinked.

She suggested, You don’t need to worry about the boots. They’re too tight to hide anything.

He nodded. Loudly he reported, She’s clean, sir.

Most of the time she sought to conceal her unusual abilities, but not tonight. They needed to get through this alive. In her book a little cheating was okay.

She watched Markus remove his loafers. His big toe protruded from a ginormous sock hole. She caught his gaze and cocked an eyebrow. His cheeks flushed as he shoved his foot back into the shoe.

Let’s see it, Ryom. Markus waved Kira close and drawled, I want to be sure my buyer is getting his money’s worth.

Ryom extracted a cloth-wrapped item from his inner coat pocket. Carefully, he exposed an Egyptian beaded collar. His gaze turned reverent, and he caressed the piece.

Is it the real thing, Doc? Markus asked.

Could you turn it over, please? Kira watched Ryom flip it.

Waves of mystic energy assaulted her. She backed up a step and eyed the collar. It exuded an ancient and seductive energy that was pure evil.

"Yes. It’s real. It looks like the Necherophes wesekh from the Cairo museum." At least she thought it looked like the pictures Markus had shown her two hours ago of a decorated beaded collar owned by some pharaoh millennia ago. She wasn’t a professional archaeologist. Her skill was reading energies, not that Markus knew that. He believed her gifted at discerning an original artifact from a fake based on sight alone.

Shadowy, ominous energy closed in around them. It wasn’t from the wesekh. She recognized the distinctive icy darkness.

There are Hashishins here, she whispered to Markus. She glanced down expecting their favorite ensorcelled pet to slither through the asphalt beneath her feet.

Looking up she caught the tail end of Markus’s exasperated look. Clearly, he didn’t believe her. He shot her a get-it-together glare.

A knife hissed through the air. Rocks and debris exploded near Ryom’s foot.

A warning strike. Hashishins never missed. Never.

Kill them, Ryom yelled.

Within seconds bullets and throwing knives were zinging at random.

Markus body slammed her over the concrete rail surrounding the parking lot into the midst of wet, prickly plants.

Kira held her hands in front of her face, deflecting the spiky branches as she landed.

Immediately, she rolled to a crouch, ready. With a cringe, she worked to remove her ponytail from the branch on which it was caught.

She whispered, "You swore this deal would be a safe little exchange. I didn’t sign up for this—Chinese mafia and Hashishins. I’m an MD, not special ops."

She stayed low, squirming to a break between the prickly bushes. With a grunt, she seesawed her right boot off. Efficiently she checked and chambered her gun.

"They’re Korean mafia, actually. Kkangpae. Throw me my gun. I’ll get you out. Don’t I always? Hell of an exciting way to celebrate New Year’s Eve, eh?" He punctuated this with an exhilarated laugh.

She removed the other boot and tossed him his gun. Stop enjoying this. There are Hashishins here. Probably the Order of Assassins. Do you think the Koreans know they’re the targets of some major supernatural freaks? She rezipped the boots.

Christ, Kira. There’s no secret Persian assassin cult out there. I swear you must’ve watched a movie that freaked you out as a kid and tonight’s stress has triggered your paranoia. He squeezed her shoulder supportively. In the low ambient light, his face was a mask of pity. I’m sorry I dragged you into this.

They’re real. And they’re here. I swear it on my mother’s grave.

Now he used the you’ve-gone-loco look. This was exactly the reason she’d never divulged anything about her unique talents to either cousin. Neither would accept the fact some things weren’t just movie fiction. Yet to save his life she needed to convince him.

Markus led a slow crawl through the bushes.

She followed while urgently whispering, I know they’re here. Have you ever wondered why I’m so good at telling which of your art pieces are real? The truth is I can feel energies off the real ones. Just like I can feel the evil of Hashishins.

Markus halted so abruptly she smacked into him.

Let’s cut the bullshit talk right now, Kira. I need you to keep your head in the game. You absolutely cannot have one of your goddamned magi-Hashishin freak-out moments. Markus emitted a lengthy sigh and rubbed his forehead. I’m sorry. I just need for you to keep it together right now. Listen, I looked up the Order of Assassins group a few years back. Took some digging since they’re not mainstream. They claim to be an Arab-based group that studies magical arts in pursuit of self-awareness and some other holistic mumbo jumbo. Sounded like they’re a fanatical religious cult crossed with the Elk Lodge. Bogus shit. I’ll admit there’s a group whose members call themselves Hashishins, but I don’t think they’re here tonight. Nor do I think they’re anything more than a group of drug-addicted, hippie Arabs. You know what hashish is, don’t you?

Of course I know it’s pot. That’s all PR bullshit. Well, that went over as expected.

Hashishins here was bad news. For her, that is. Both Hashishins and their enemies, the Scimitar magi, sought people of her abilities, at least that’s what her mother had warned her. Magi wanted to use her for her healing gift as a resident supernatural medic. Hands down those guys were blazing hot and supposedly on the good-guys team, but she would be no more to them than an expendable accessory.

She’d met a magus once. And been utterly awed. In the eleven years since she helped the guy escape Hashishin torture, he had dominated her fantasies. That, however, was the very off-limits dream world. In reality the thought of being enslaved to mystical warriors for the rest of her life and targeted by their enemies was not an attractive life plan.

Capture by Hashishins, on the other hand, simply scared the hell out of her. An unpleasant death was the inevitable outcome. Those psycho, serpent-loving, black-magik assassins had already executed