Arcane Dropout 6 Read online

  Arcane Dropout 6

  Edmund Hughes

  This digital book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this title with another person, please purchase an additional copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. All other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Edmund Hughes

  Kindle Edition

  Contents

  Arcane Dropout 6

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 1

  The rhythm of sword fighting was an acquired taste that Lee Amaranth was still in the process of acquiring. There was a flow to it, a back and forth, offense paired with defense. It was nothing like the aggression of wielding his dagger, looking for that single, quick, well-placed strike.

  He danced back from Jack’s blade, fighting old instincts as he saw the vampire’s weapon dart upward in what he suspected was a feint. He played it slow, turning his own sword sideways in preparation to block the real attack.

  A sudden vibration ran through Lee’s hands as Jack reversed, slashing from low to high and connecting their weapons in the middle. He could feel the fatigue through his fingers and knuckles, through a half-dozen callouses and a healthy scattering of blisters.

  He counter-attacked, sweeping his sword in an arc at hip level. Jack twisted his hands downward in an awkward but effective movement, arresting the strike before it could land properly. Lee attacked again, pushing off from the clash and swinging to chop at the other side with similar results.

  He was readying a third strike when Jack’s body blurred, and a sudden burst of pain flared in the side of Lee’s calf. He grimaced, falling back a few steps and dropping the tip of the long stick he was fighting with to the grass. He leaned on it like a walking stick, sweaty and panting, bare-chested and tired.

  “First to three,” said Jack. “I win.”

  “Looks like you do,” said Lee. “Though I’m still not entirely convinced that you aren’t giving yourself an edge with your abilities.”

  “You have talents of your own, don’t you?” Jack grinned and wiped sweat from his pale face. “Besides, the sun is still out.”

  It was directly behind him, and he held his arms out as if gesturing to the orange corona sinking over the distant horizon of Lestaron Island. The cherry trees in the side yard of the Masterson mansion had just begun to blossom, clean white flowers opening for the first time that year.

  “I think I’m done for today,” said Lee. He rubbed his hands together, wincing as he noticed an ugly scrape across his knuckles from one of their previous bouts.

  The two of them had only ever used shafts of wood in their practices. The nature of their true weapons made them far too dangerous to risk using outside of a real fight. Jack’s spectral sword could cut through hardened steel, the dark weapon fueled by blood essence and ancient magic.

  Savoire Solaire was its polar opposite in terms of appearance, but Lee had as much if not more respect for the weapon from his short time with it in his possession. The saber’s enchantment was radiant, a mixture of holy fire and raw power. His decision to learn how to use a sword properly was as much about taking advantage of the weapon’s potential as it was for his own safety.

  Lee rolled out his shoulder as he walked toward the sidelines of their makeshift fencing circle. Tess was sitting next to Ryoko, and she grinned and stood up as he approached her.

  In a very real sense, that dimpled smile had become his world. She wore a sunhat and a cornflower-blue cotton dress, both of which fluttered as a gust of wind blew through the cherry orchard. Her big green eyes were full of life, more so than those of most living girls, let alone most ghosts. She was the waif-ish beauty who remained steadfast by his side, and he often wondered what he’d done to deserve her.

  “You looked so cool!” she said. “Though it would have been cooler if you’d won.”

  “I’m here to learn, not to win,” he said. “It was pretty close though, right?”

  “Um… sure.”

  “Don’t patronize me, woman.”

  “I’m not! You’re right, it was a very close matchup.” She gave him a quick kiss. “And in my opinion, you look better with your shirt off.”

  Lee glanced toward Jack who was also shirtless, and whose thin upper body was adorned by several long, ugly scars. They’d been inflicted by Savoire Solaire, the very weapon he was now learning to use through Jack’s unorthodox sword-fighting lessons.

  Tess’s eyes darted down to the hand he’d taken a scrape to. She took hold of it, gently running her fingers along the edge of the scrape and frowning. Ryoko, Jack’s girlfriend and the mansion’s resident caretaker, also took notice and quietly cleared her throat.

  “Would you like me to get the first aid kit and take a look at that for you?” she asked.

  “It’s nothing,” said Lee. “But thanks for offering.”

  “You should take her up on it,” said Tess. “Those sticks you train with are disgusting. It could well end up infected.”

  “Trust me, it’s fine,” he said.

  Ryoko briefly glanced at him. Lee smiled and shook his head, nodding toward Tess, who he was well aware she couldn’t see. Since arriving at Lestaron Island, he’d become much more comfortable talking to Tess openly, which was sometimes confusing for the residents of the mansion without the mystic sight.

  “Tess,” said Ryoko, addressing the open air. “The first aid kit is in the upstairs bathroom if you’d like to insist that Mr. Amaranth attend to his wound properly.”

  Tess grinned and moved smoothly to Ryoko’s side, pulling a small notebook and pencil out of the housekeeper’s pocket to scribble a note on it. They’d become fast friends over the past few weeks, and Lee couldn’t help but notice a certain synergy between Ryoko’s quiet, thoughtful nature and Tess’s ghostly condition.

  Ryoko let out a single, reserved giggle at whatever Tess had written for her. No doubt a joke at his expense. Lee smiled. She’d fallen back into her old habits of playing pranks, setting them up wherever she could within the mansion’s austere walls, everything from stealing towels while people were in the shower to switching the saltshaker out with sugar.

  “It’s getting dark,” said Jack. “Lee, your sister and Mira are arriving back tonight. Would you be willing to head down to the beach with Ryoko to wait for them?”


  Lee raised an eyebrow. “They’re arriving back from where, exactly? You were fairly vague about what their mission was when they left.”

  “Nothing you’d disapprove of, I can promise you that much.” Jack pulled his shirt back on. “I know you have your own opinions on the nature of the conflict between the Independent Coalition and the Order of Chaldea, but it’s been quiet, despite the tension. More of a cold war than an open engagement.”

  “How reassuring,” he said dryly. A bit of the old tension that existed between them, or rather, between Lee and the Dealmaker, seemed to creep back into the space between the cherry trees. Ryoko was the one to break it.

  “Um, do you mind getting dinner started then, sir?” she asked Jack. “I bought ingredients for salmon and roasted vegetables. It’s all in the fridge if you could just take it out and start cutting the carrots and potatoes.”

  “No prob!” Jack grinned. “Don’t give me that look, Ryoko. I can handle chopping vegetables.”

  “Of course you can, sir.”

  “I hope you and Tess will join us for dinner tonight,” said Jack, turning to Lee. “There’s some new information I’d like to discuss that might be relevant to you.”

  Lee felt an all-too-familiar stab of guilt as he thought about his reason for coming to Lestaron Island in the first place. He’d grown comfortable, complacent, even, over the past month. It was the first time in a long time that he’d been able to live openly without having to pretend or lie about what he was, the first time he and Tess had been able to be together without secrecy.

  But he’d made a promise, one he desperately needed to keep.

  “Is it about Eliza?” he asked.

  Jack gave him a small frown and a slow shake of the head. “No. I’m still attempting to reach out to the person who helped me with my own demon problem. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear more. I appreciate how patient you’ve been.”

  He had been patient. Perhaps a little too patient. He felt his thoughts spiraling off in a dark, pitying direction as he pictured Eliza’s face. The Unavowed Queen’s face, crimson eyes and scarlet cracks across her skin.

  “Hey.” Tess’s hand took hold of his, and she flashed her perfect, dimpled smile. “It’s okay. We’ll find a way to help her.”

  “We will,” he said. “We have to.”

  CHAPTER 2

  The beach was empty, no real surprise given the season. Lestaron Island’s main allure was its remote, unspoiled nature, a cozy island town in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

  It was a place that lent itself perfectly to Ryoko’s skillset. Lee watched from the sand as she stripped out of her jeans and t-shirt, adjusting the one-piece bathing suit underneath. Tess had changed into a bikini on the way down, and she walked into the ocean alongside the other woman, the latter shivering and clutching her body from the cold.

  Ryoko was a water nymph, which meant that, in essence, the ocean was her highway. She could travel to and from any sufficiently sized body of water that she’d visited before and bring others through with her. It was an invaluable ability and served a similar function to the Arcane Way the Order of Chaldea used to move their agents around.

  “Lee!” called Tess through chattering teeth. “The water is freezing!”

  “I could have told you that,” he said. “Why’d you get in?”

  “What else are you supposed to do at the beach?”

  He sat down on the sand in answer to her question, watching the remnants of the sunset dance across the roiling ocean in the distance. Tess gave up on swimming and took a seat next to him, and they watched as Ryoko waded out to chest level before diving under the waves.

  “Are you looking forward to seeing your sister again?” asked Tess.

  He shrugged. “It’s only been a couple of days since she left.”

  “That doesn’t mean that you can’t admit to missing her.”

  “I’m not denying it,” he said. “It’s just… I went years without seeing her or hearing from her. Even after I finally made it to Primhaven and found her, we were still estranged, on opposite sides, basically.”

  He dug a hand into the sand, lifting it up and letting it drip from his fingers. Zoe’s presence had been part of why he’d become so comfortable on Lestaron Island, despite being a double agent in what amounted to the stronghold of his “enemy.”

  “She believes in this, you know,” he said.

  “In what?”

  “The philosophy of Jack, and the House of Shadows. The idea that the Order doesn’t have the best interests of the supernatural world at its heart.”

  Tess sidled up next to him, blinking her big green eyes. “And what do you believe in?”

  It was a fair question, and a damned hard one to answer. He kissed her instead, though he could tell by the less-than-enthusiastic movements of her lips that his deflection wasn’t appreciated.

  A splash came from the water around where Ryoko had disappeared, followed by the emergence of three soaking wet women. They hurried out onto the beach, grabbing towels to dry off with and leaving wet footprints in their wake across the sand.

  Zoe looked much the same as she had when Lee had last seen her. Her short hair and tall physique always making her look like the tomboy that she fundamentally was at heart, and she flashed a smile when she saw him waiting for her.

  Mira was almost the polar opposite in everything but height. Her blonde hair hung in scraggly wet locks, and she wore a tiny black bikini that was doing an inadequate job of keeping her large breasts properly covered. Lee tried and failed to keep from ogling her, only pulling his eyes away from her legendary endowments when Mira caught him and turned her lips up into a devious grin.

  “It’s so good to be back!” said Zoe. “I need a beer and a night’s rest in my own bed.”

  “I’m sure that can be arranged!” said Ryoko.

  “Where is Jack?” asked Mira.

  “I left him at the house to begin the basic preparations for dinner.”

  Mira and Zoe exchanged a look.

  “Right,” said Ryoko. “We should probably hurry back.”

  Zoe sidled up next to Lee as they started walking up the path toward the mansion. “Little brother.”

  “Zoe. Staying safe, I hope?”

  She raised a shoulder. “Safe enough.”

  Lee shot a glance toward Mira and Ryoko before leaning in a little closer. “I’m serious. With how tense the supernatural world is right now, I can’t help but worry. I don’t want you in the line of fire of the Order, Zoe.”

  “We aren’t fighting them directly,” she said. “We aren’t soldiers. Obviously. Shannara and the Melting Pack might enjoy taking on direct fights, but Jack doesn’t. Our strategy is more nuanced than that.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “I can’t yet,” she said with a frown. “Let me talk to Jack. We do want your help, Eldon, it’s just…”

  She let her sentence hang, and he was glad for it. Having his sister admit that she didn’t necessarily trust him wasn’t an awesome feeling. Zoe turned her attention to Tess in the wake of the awkward silence.

  “It’s good to see you, Tess,” said Zoe. “Have you and my brother been adjusting alright?”

  “We have!” Tess grinned, eager to be talking casually with the other woman, another rare mystic. “It’s so calm here on Lestaron Island. The estate is lovely, and the people are so nice.”

  “I felt the same way when I first came here,” said Zoe. “Jack has worked hard to make sure the essence of the island has been maintained over the years. It’s why the bulk of the House of Shadows’ members live on the mainland. He doesn’t want to involve the people here.”

  “How thoughtful of him.” Lee couldn’t keep the skepticism from edging into his voice, and he saw the way his sister’s eyes narrowed in response to it.

  He’d seen and learned enough of Jack and the House of Shadows to understand, on an objective level, that they weren’t evil. It was harder to dampen his innate emo
tional reaction, however.

  He’d spent so much time at Primhaven, so many months viewing them as the enemy. He still viewed the Melting Pack, technically part of Jack’s wider Independent Coalition, as an enemy. It was hard for him to adjust to the idea of former foes as new friends and vice versa.

  Harper was always at the edge of his mind. At least for the time being, that was where he needed to keep her.

  ***

  Several pizzas were arrayed around the dining room table when Lee and the others returned. Ryoko folded her arms and shot Jack a questioning glance.

  “What happened to the salmon?” she asked.

  Jack looked abashed and cleared his throat. “Cooking has never been my forte. Luckily, there were some frozen pizzas in the back of the freezer.”

  “Oh, my sweet Jack.” Mira moved to give him a kiss and pull him into an embrace. “I suppose it’s the effort that counts.”

  Lee felt a bit off as Zoe proceeded to also give Jack a kiss and a hug. He had been trying to build a mental diagram of the various relationships between the women and the man of the house, and it seemed like more of a love circle than a love triangle.

  He took a seat at the dining room table, pulling a chair out for Tess and helping himself to some pizza. More often than not, the two of them took their dinner separate from the others, partly due to Tess being invisible to most of the household, but also because of how cautious Jack and Mira typically were with their words around him. He was curious as to why Jack had invited them to the table that night.

  “So,” said Jack. “Did you find her?”

  “We did.” Zoe glanced around the table, her eyes settling on Lee for a moment, strangely enough. “I think it would be best if we discussed the details in private, however.”

  “Fair enough,” said Jack.

  “How goes the war on the home front?” asked Mira.

  Jack snorted. “About how you’d expect. Shannara and the Melting Pack have continued with her guerilla attacks against the Order wherever she can. Her strikes have been focused and controlled for the most part, though I don’t like how secretive she’s been about them.”