Darkness Awakes: Blackwell Magic, #5

By Kevin McLaughin

The Northshield Nexus hides a rift, a breach between our reality and one populated by horrible monsters.

But they want out.

Ryan's fought one of them and the battle almost killed him. Now a legion of the creatures is trying to break free from their extra-dimensional prison. They've found humans willing to help them smash down the magical barriers keeping them locked away.

Ryan has to stop them. If the demons invade Earth, everyone he's ever known and loved will be in jeopardy. Even his magic won't be enough to save them.

Stopping their human catspaws before they can accomplish their mission is the only hope. But they know Ryan is coming for them. They know his strengths and his weaknesses, and have a plan to stop him in his tracks.

They think they know Ryan Blackwell, but they've never faced off against him when his friends' lives are on the line. Can he stop this deadly menage before the Darkness Awakes and destroys our world?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin McLaughin
• Release date: Nov 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223442301

Kevin McLaughin

Kevin McLaughlin is a USA Today bestselling author of science fiction and fantasy novels, with over thirty books published. He has been a speaker at Boskone, Dragon Con, the Nebula Conference, 20Books, and other events. He believes in giving back to the writing community that helped him out during the early days of his career, so he uses his experience and success to boost others that the chain of writers helping writers continues unbroken.

Book preview

ONE

Bright sun overhead, gorgeous seas in perfect blue colors, and a crisp wind at my back. It was a gorgeous summer day off the Florida coast. I wished I could enjoy it a little more, but that wasn’t in the cards. Some days my life seemed like one big chase scene, because there I was, running as hard as I could yet again. Only this time I was in a sailboat instead of a BMW.

The wind I’d summoned up whipped against the sail. I leaned out over the side of my little boat, struggling to provide enough counterbalance that the gusts driven by my magic didn’t tip the whole thing over. I wasn’t used to exercising this sort of fine control over a spell. Most of the time I was applying as much power as I could to my magic, pouring everything I had into a spell. I had something of a reputation for blowing shit up, right?

This was different. Now, if I applied even a little bit too much pressure to the sails, I’d flip the boat. At the same time, if I didn’t apply enough, the motorboat coming at me from behind would catch me before I wanted it to. The strain involved in keeping my magic fine-tuned to such a degree felt harder than just cutting loose ever had.

The day would have been a glorious one to be out sailing. The sun was bright. There was plenty of wind. Even a little too much, but that wasn’t a bother for me. I could shape the wind, will it to do what I wanted. If I wasn’t trying to make a getaway, this would be fun.

My muscles strained to keep hold of the line and rudder. My left arm especially burned with the effort. It had only been a couple of months since I’d taken a bullet through that arm. I healed fast, thanks to my magic, but there were limits even to magical healing. A body simply took time to recover after that severe an injury. My arm felt like someone was taking a red hot poker to the healing muscles. Every gust hitting the sail yanked at the wound and sent sharp, stabbing pain through my whole shoulder.

I glanced backward. There were four men in the little speedboat chasing me. All of them were wearing nondescript clothing, the sort of outfit any random tourist might wear while on vacation in Florida. Unlike the average tourist, all four men were armed. I’d spotted the shoulder holsters under their fashionable light coats right away. I’d built an eye for that sort of thing over the past year. Hey, when trouble follows you around, you learn to watch for it coming.

But what really tipped me off that they were my sort of trouble was that they were warded against magic. Someone very strong had taken the time to surround them with a lot of magical protection. A lot of magical protection. The sort of high-caliber stuff that you’d only use to go after a really big, truly powerful target.

Like me.

While I didn’t know precisely what the nature of their projections were, I was pretty sure I could punch through the shields they wore. It would take time and a lot of magic to break each one, but I could do it. The problem was that I wasn’t sure how long it would take to smash through, brute force style. I just knew it would take some time.

Time enough for the other three men could use to take me down while I was focused on one of them. Even if I was fast and strong enough to stop two of them, the other two would have me. I had a feeling I knew who these guys worked for, and if I was right I definitely didn’t one to end up in their custody.

To fight or to flee, that was the question. When I first spotted the men on the shore, following me, there were a ton of other people about. That made my decision for me. I couldn’t in good conscience let bystanders get caught in the crossfire.

I ran for it instead, making a bee-line for the waterfront. I’d grabbed the first boat on the dock, untied it and set sail before anyone could react. Sailing was something I’d been doing since I was little. My Dad taught me the basics, and I took to the waves often as a kid. That was before I knew I could use magic. These days, I could out-sail just about anyone by just bending the wind to my will. I kicked up a strong wind and lit out of there like hell was chasing me.

For a few minutes I thought that I’d gotten away cleanly. The shore slipped away behind me quickly. Then I saw the tell-tale wake of their motorboat in pursuit. They hadn’t given up after all. They’d just taken the time to find a ride that could catch me no matter how fast I sailed.

But there was more than one way to skin a cat, or to stop a boatload of magically shielded strangers. I had an idea of how to deal with these assholes, but I was taking a real risk trying for it. If this went badly I’d wind up far from any possible help with a bunch of gun-wielding goons hot on my tail.

I had confidence I could beat them. All I had to do was get a little further out from shore. I needed to be out in the deeps for this to work. I shaped the wind and headed out toward the Gulf Stream, leaving the Florida Keys behind me.

For most people, taking a twenty-foot sailboat into the Stream when it was blowing as much as it was right now was asking for trouble. I was already seeing four foot waves, and I had the feeling that they were getting bigger as I went along. I was already in a lot more danger from those men than the ocean could possibly provide. And I was betting those waves would give my pursuers at least as many issues as they gave me.

A freak wave slammed into the side of my little boat, tilting it wildly. I shifted my weight quickly to keep from tipping over and focused more magic, forming little shields which kept the waves from swamping the boat. I was maintaining multiple spells at the same time, which was taxing my concentration in the same way that the exertion was taxing my body. I just had to hold on a little longer. I was almost far enough.

I’d taken to going on long sailing expeditions shortly after Dad had dumped me at his house in the Keys. He’d said I t would only be for a couple of weeks while he made inquiries at the Pentagon, but that had been two months ago. For most people, spending the summer in the Keys would have been an amazing vacation. It wasn’t so much fun being stuck there, unsure when and if someone might come looking to finish the job their assassins had failed at the beginning of the summer. I knew too much about too many things that powerful people wanted to keep secret. My hunch was they weren’t going to leave me alone.

Some days, I hated being right.

I’d done the best I could to take advantage of my forced tropical vacation, given that I was supposed to be staying out of sight as much as possible. But I’d been too worried about what was happening out there in the world to enjoy the time as much as I might have. I knew Fletcher and Grey were OK from the emails they sent.

What I didn’t know was who might still be after me, or what they might do once they found me. I’d uncovered some nasty surprises about the Army’s magical corp. Learning those secrets had almost gotten me killed. Were they going to let me walk away, after that? Or was that first encounter just a shot over the bow, and I’d be fighting them again soon?

It seemed like I had my answer today. The men I’d spotted had all been wearing civilian clothes, but their haircut and mannerisms screamed military to me. That’s what had caught my eye first. The guns and their wards were the icing on the cake. My enemy had finally found me. It had taken them long enough, but they’d located me at last, and they were here to finish what their goons had tried to start.

But these were my stomping grounds! I knew this part of the world like the back of my hand. I’d sailed these waters for months. Most importantly I knew the things that lived here.

There were powerful things living in the dark corners of the world, and in the deep ones too. Not all of them were foul. Some just wanted to live in peace away from humans. It was one of those I was looking for right now. I’d helped her out not long ago. My best chance right now was that she might be willing to return the favor.

TWO

The power boat was gaining on me despite all the effort I was putting into my wind. They’d picked a good one, something with a lot of power in the motors. If I was going to get where I was going I needed to slow them down a little bit. Could I hold the shield over my bow, maintain the wind headed into my sail, and still do something else to foil them? I wrinkled my brow, worried. Trying to maintain two spells at once was already a lot. Adding a third, even for a brief period of time, was going to push me to my limits. I had the power, but being able to maintain my focus was going to be tough.

I spread my focus as thin as I could over the existing spells and then raised power into the wind and waves just south of their boat. The water surged toward them, rising into a ten foot wave. It crashed along their starboard side, spinning the boat a quarter of the way around and knocking men flat when it broke over their side. I hadn’t managed to swamp them, but I’d slowed them down and made them more wary. At the very least, they were cold and wet now. Despite that, they swung the boat’s nose back around to follow me. I’d put some extra distance between us. I could only hope it would be enough.

Then I brought my full concentration back to what I was doing — and realized to my horror that I was too late! I’d taken too long with the wave spell and lost too much focus on the other magics I was working. The wind had grown a little bit too strong and my boat was inches away from tipping over. Panicked, I dropped the wind away entirely. That was the second worst thing I could have done. Instead of lowering back to the water slowly, the rising side of the boat — the one I was hiking out over the water on — crashed back down into the oncoming waves. The sail swung around. All of the tension in the line I was holding vanished in a moment, and I fell into the ocean.

The water around me was cold enough to be shocking after the warm summer air. I was surrounded by bubbles everywhere and for a moment I couldn’t tell which way was up. I relaxed and tried to just allow my body to float back to the surface, but I hadn’t had time to take a full breath. My lungs were already burning. I blinked, caught a glimmer of sunlight, and kicked toward it.

I bobbed up above the water, gasping for air. A wave crashed over my head a moment later, filling my mouth with brine and driving me back under the water. I kicked upward again. My boat was only about fifteen feet away, the sail flapping limply in the wind. I swam a couple of strokes toward it, but it was moving away from me faster than I was closing with it. A glance back over my shoulder showed me that the speedboat was back under their control and coming straight at me.

Fighting to stay atop each wave — they seemed to be growing larger by the moment — I drew on more power. It looked like they were going to get the showdown they wanted after all. This wasn’t a place I wanted to be fighting from. If I’d had to pick, I would have preferred battling them on dry land. But I wasn’t going to just roll over.

Assistance needed?

The thought that popped into my head wasn’t mine. I exhaled a sigh of relief. I’d made it out far enough. The being I was looking for was out here. Nearby, close enough to reach me mind-to-mind.

Yes, please! I thought back. The men in the boat are hunting me.