Shadowed reckoning, p.1
Shadowed Reckoning, page 1
Shadowed Reckoning
by
Olivia Huntington
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
World Castle Publishing, LLC
Pensacola, Florida
Copyright © 2023 Olivia Huntington
Smashwords Edition
Paperback ISBN: 9798891260504
eBook ISBN: 9798891260511
First Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC, September 25, 2023
http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com
Smashwords Licensing Notes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.
Cover: Cover Designs by Karen
https://www.cover-designs-by-karen.com
Editor: Karen Fuller
Chapter 1
John woke with a start, his cries piercing the pre-dawn silence. The echoes of screams still rang in his ears — the ghosts of his failure, relentless in their torment. Fumbling in darkness, his trembling hands found the bottle of whiskey on the nightstand. He brought it to his lips with desperation, not even wincing as the amber liquid seared his throat.
Sleep had granted no reprieve, only visions of the night that had shattered him. They came in fragments, visceral as memories day-fresh. The Dark Mark was leering down like some hellish moon. The heat of flames against his skin. The screams and sobbing, people running blindly to escape the carnage. But there was no escaping, not for John. He was rooted in place, utterly helpless as lives were extinguished around him.
He could still smell the smoke, choking and thick. Still feel the surge of dark magic crackling in the air. The details haunted him — a child’s small shoe lying broken in the street, streaks of blood smeared across the bricks. And the bodies. Broken bodies strewn like discarded dolls. Blank eyes stared up at him in perpetual accusation.
You failed us, those empty eyes seemed to say. We died because you failed.
The visions tortured his soul. John pressed the heels of his palms against his sockets until starbursts exploded. But nothing could block out the memories. They were seared into his mind, raw and bleeding as though the destruction unfurled again and again on some endless loop of torment.
The digital clock read 3:17 a.m., but sleep would elude him now. John rose on unsteady feet, staggering through the dark apartment more by muscle memory than sight. He did not bother turning on a light — what was there to illuminate? Peeling wallpaper and threadbare furniture cast in shades of gloom. This dreary place was as hollow and ruined as his soul.
He stumbled into the bathroom, gripped the basin’s counter, and glanced up at the mirror. The face staring back from the bathroom mirror was haunted, all sunken eyes and gaunt hollows. Days-old scruff patched his sagging cheeks, flecked with silver that had not been there before. His ashen complexion resembled a corpse pulled from the dark water. Deep lines of grief and horror were etched beneath his eyes.
With a guttural cry, John slammed his fist into the glass. Fissures spiderwebbed across his reflection but left the surface strangely intact. Drops of crimson slid down his knuckles, pooling in the sink below. The physical pain centered him, driving back the smothering darkness with brilliant clarity. Slowly, he breathed, focusing on the staccato drip into the basin until the red haze lifted from his mind. He splashed some water on his face before roughly bandaging his hand.
The bleeding had stopped, but the gashes still oozed as he shuffled to the kitchen. He tore open a new bottle of Jameson, indifferent to the hour. The whiskey had become as vital as oxygen or blood, the sole barrier between John and utter dissolution. He downed one burning gulp, then another before dropping heavily into a chair.
There on the table sat the damned letter he had been ignoring for days. His name and address were written in a neat feminine hand that conjured Claire’s lilting voice. Another plea for help, no doubt. As if he had anything left to give anyone. As if he was anything but a hollow ruin. John let out a bitter laugh. Let the mages keep chasing their fool’s hope. He would drink until he faded away entirely.
The streets were still hushed and empty as John stepped outside, the moon a waning crescent low on the horizon. He walked in solitude, collar turned up and shoulders hunched. Just another shadow drifting through the urban abyss. The anonymity suited him. He kept his eyes trained down, carefully avoiding the newsstand on the corner. But the headlines seemed to glare at him from the periphery of his vision.
Massacre In Diagon Alley. Mages Fail To Stop Rampage. Deadly Attack Exposes Flaws In Ministry Protections.
Ten years on, but still, the reports dredged up the gruesome details — homes collapsed to rubble, bloody maws where windows once housed cozy kitchens. Stores turned to char and ash. They tallied the numbers like ghastly statistics — eighty-seven injured, forty-six dead. Yet behind each number was a face, a life extinguished because he had been careless. Because he had failed when people needed him most.
John quickened his pace until the newsstand was far behind him. But there was no outrunning this particular demon. Not when its fangs were sunk so deep into his soul.
The smell of stale beer washed over John as he stepped inside O’Leary’s pub. Only a few die-hard regulars occupied the grim space. Old men with nowhere to go, nursing pints in the relentless pursuit of oblivion. They glanced up with darting eyes as John sat at the bar but looked away just as quickly when they recognized his face. He had become another fixture here at the end of the world — the disgraced mage who drowned his dishonor in whiskey.
“You’re here early.” The bartender’s gravelly voice roused John from his stupor. He was a brawny man with a brawler’s squashed nose and gnarled knuckles. John gave a noncommittal grunt, not wanting conversation. But the keepsake game banners and framed photos of laughing patrons marked the bartender as the gregarious type.
“Another all-nighter?” he asked, eyeing the dark hollows below John’s bloodshot eyes.
John’s mouth twitched with something too bitter to be called a smile. “Sleep and I aren’t on speaking terms these days.”
The bartender nodded sympathetically as he poured two fingers of Jameson into a glass. “Aye, I know a few gents like that around here. Plenty of demons to keep a man restless at night.”
John tossed back the whiskey in one burning swallow. His hand trembled when he lifted the empty glass, silently requesting a refill.
“Thank you,” John muttered hoarsely. He did not elaborate on the nature of his demons. There was no need. In this place so far from daylight, every man’s torment wore plain across his face.
When the lunchtime rush filtered in, their raucous voices grated against John’s frayed nerves. He glanced around the pub through narrowed eyes. Laughter and easy smiles felt foreign to him now, artifacts of a life abandoned long ago. What right did these people have to their mirth when so many had perished choking on screams? When ghosts stalked John’s every waking moment?
Their normalcy seemed obscene somehow. An offense against the immense toll evil had extracted from the world. From him most of all.
By mid-afternoon, the Jameson had worked its magic, swaddling John’s psyche in gauzy cotton. The voices around him faded to a distant murmur. His limbs grew pleasantly heavy, their weight tethering him blissfully to the barstool. Nothing could touch him here in this cocoon of detachment.
But as afternoon gave way to evening, the liquor’s grip began to loosen. Jagged reality crept back in as John slid off his perch and stumbled onto the sidewalk outside. He cocked his head back to welcome the light rain speckling his face. Anything to wash away the lingering haze of inebriation, leaving only pure sensory clarity behind.
He didn’t make it far down the block before his roiling stomach seized control. John lurched into a nearby alley just as the Jameson forced its way back up his throat in a vile deluge. Bracing his hands against damp brick, he retched until nothing remained inside him but foul strings of bile.
When the heaving finally ceased, John collapsed against the alley wall, spent. He sat in refuse like a vagrant too broken for even a gutter. The soles of his shoes soaked up a week’s worth of rainwater and piss, but he was numb to the discomfort and stench.
Because in his darkest moments, the ones he tried desperately to blot out with whiskey, the truth confronted him plain. He had no right to comfort or dignity, not after what his arrogance had cost.
John closed his eyes, surrendering to the bone-deep exhaustion weighing down his limbs. His chin slumped to his chest as clammy skin kissed cold brick. But rest provided no reprieve from the past that stalked his every moment.
Even with eyes shut tightly, he saw them — himself and his mage partner Miles grinning and smoking behind the holding cells, drunk on their early success. Two rookie hotshots brimming with swagger. The photograph was from the front page of the Prophet, right above the fold. He had kept a framed copy on his desk for years like a badge of honor. Until that desk had been cleared out by some Ministry lackey when the offices and positions they’d earned were stripped away.
“You’re damn lucky they didn’t toss you in Azkaban, traitor.” Miles’ words after the inquiry still rang in his ears. There had been genuine loathing there beneath the pain of betrayal. Perhaps a part of Miles wished they had locked John up and thrown away the key. It would have been easier than seeing his disgraced partner wander free each day, a living reminder of how profoundly they had failed.
When John staggered up from the alley sometime later, the streetlamps were aglow against the dusk. He shuffled down the sidewalk with his collar turned up, less a man than a ragged coat animated by sheer reflex. The city bustled around him — workers heading home, shop owners locking doors and pulling metal gates. Night’s rituals proceeded as they should for all but those trapped in the past’s grip.
Out here, amongst ordinary lives unfettered by regret, John was keenly aware of his apartness. He was an open wound oozing invisible toxins, destined to corrupt whatever he touched. He had proven that beyond any doubt.
As he waited at a crosswalk, the sorrows John worked so hard to muzzle crept from their cages. A young couple with a little boy in tow passed in front of him. The boy beamed up at his parents, swinging their entwined hands in careless delight. Love illuminated their faces as they smiled down at him. Something about the unguarded joy carved out John’s chest.
That could have been you. It should have been. If only you hadn’t ruined everything.
The memory ambushed him viciously — Marissa’s beautiful face contorted in a scream as their apartment burned around them. The heat seared his skin as he clutched her limp body. Her belly was round with their unborn child. The boy who would never see first steps or birthdays. More bones for him to bury when the mages pulled them from the rubble.
The bile rose up in John’s throat once more. He staggered into the crosswalk just as the light changed. Brakes screeched, horns blared, but the oncoming traffic barely registered. At least if a careening truck plowed him down, the pain of shattered bones might eclipse that pulsing from his heart.
But the cars swerved around him, leaving John untouched on the opposite sidewalk. Once, there were those who relied on him for their safety, who trusted he would shield them from harm. They did not know the man entrusted to guard them was a hollow sentinel, powerless against the dark forces lapping at their world. Not until it was too late.
As he shuffled on down the block, the familiar visage of the run-down Oakridge Apartments emerged — an architectural blight blockish and utilitarian as a warehouse. It suited him perfectly. Most of its residents had given up on better prospects long ago. They hid here among fellow outcasts, nursing their regrets and disappointments.
Inside his apartment, John sank onto the couch without bothering to kick off his soaked shoes or turn on a light. He sat in the dark, drops of rainwater sliding from his coat to stain the already threadbare fabric. When grief pressed its claws into his throat, he almost surrendered to its seductive pull.
John sat staring into the empty fireplace, turning the possibilities over in his mind. The unopened letter from Claire lay on the coffee table, his name neatly printed on its surface. Another plea for help, no doubt. He scoffed bitterly. As if the mages had any use for him now beyond being a cautionary tale.
With a resigned sigh, John picked up the envelope and tossed it aside unopened. Its promises were surely hollow. Even if redemption lay at the end of this path, it was not meant for one so irreparably damaged. The man Claire hoped to save had died alongside his victims years ago, leaving only this wretched shadow behind.
John dragged himself to bed but found no refuge in sleep. Visions of the night that ended everything still plagued him. Flames consuming Diagon Alley, its familiar facades reduced to rubble. The leering Dark Mark was again suspended overhead like some hellish moon. The doomed screams of the innocent rang out as they ran blindly from the carnage. But there had been no escaping their fate. Not with John frozen helpless nearby, all courage fled.
He awoke shivering and drenched in sweat as the first pale light of morning bled through grimy windows. John rose slowly, scrubbing a hand down his haggard face. He shuffled to the dingy bathroom and stared into the mirror at the ghost gazing back. Bloodshot eyes in bruised hollows. Sagging cheeks covered in graying scruff. Faded tattoos marking foolish youth. This feeble, ruined creature hardly resembled the mage who had tackled darkness unafraid. There would be no saving John now.
Resignation settled like stones in his gut as he went through the motions of his morning ritual — dressing, making bitter coffee, avoiding his own hollow eyes in the mirror. He wanted to crawl back into bed rather than face another empty day. But reflex propelled him upright, kept his feet shuffling toward the future that held only further desolation.
In the living room once more, John’s gaze fell upon the old photograph on the bookshelf. Faded and dog-eared, but his wife’s smile still shone up at him, hopefully. Beside her, John’s forever-young double grinned down at the blanket-swaddled newborn nestled in his arms. His daughter Lily was barely a week old when the picture was taken. That man had brimmed with fierce joy and promise. Would he even recognize the wreckage his choices had yielded?
John traced his wife and child’s faces, overcome with echos of that bright, ephemeral happiness. He had been so convinced it would last forever. Fate had mocked him cruelly for such arrogance. Now Marissa was gone, and she had taken Lily with her before she could even speak her first words. His wife, his daughter, his…unborn son. All because he thought himself strong enough to conquer the darkness. He had failed.
Tears burned trails down John’s gaunt cheeks. Even here alone, he despised this naked display of sorrow. But grief pierced his armor in these quiet moments when there was no drink or distraction or redemption to be won. Only the raw ache of irrevocable loss.
Chapter 2
John woke with a start, disoriented from another night of fitful sleep. He squinted against the gray morning light filtering through the decrepit blinds. For a long moment, he lay still, trying to shake off the haunting visions that plagued his dreams. John rubbed a weary hand over his face, feeling the rough stubble on his jaw. His mouth tasted like ashes.
With a groan, John hauled himself upright, joints creaking in protest. He sat on the edge of the sagging mattress, head cradled in his hands. The ghostly faces flickered through his mind again — men, women, children, all innocents. Their deaths weighed heavy on his soul. He should have saved them. He was a coward.
These daily confrontations with his past failures were nothing new. The horrors never left him, not completely. During the day, he could push them down and lose himself in mindless distractions to keep functioning. But at night, his defenses crumbled.
Sighing heavily, John forced himself to his feet. He shuffled to the bathroom, pointedly avoiding his reflection in the cracked mirror. He didn’t need the visual confirmation of what a wreck he’d become. The man who had stared back at him once — honorable, courageous, full of conviction — was long gone. All that remained was a shattered shell going through the motions.
John went through his morning ritual mechanically — shave, shower, brush teeth. The motions were rote, almost robotic. As he toweled off, the jagged scar on his shoulder caught his eye, a permanent reminder of battles fought and lost. He quickly averted his gaze.
After dressing in rumpled jeans and a faded T-shirt, John made coffee. He welcomed the scalding bitterness. Anything to burn away the relentless memories for a few precious moments. With its flickering fluorescent lights, the spartan kitchen felt more like a prison than a home. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d had a visitor here. Few had reason to seek him out anymore.
A harsh knock at the door jolted John from his gloomy thoughts. He froze, mug halfway to his lips. No one ever came here, at least no one with good intentions. The knocking repeated, more insistent. John set the mug down with a clatter and grabbed his wand from the counter. He crept to the door silently, muscles coiled to attack.
“John?” Called a vaguely familiar female voice. “It’s me, Claire. I need to speak with you urgently.”
John froze. Claire? It couldn’t be. He hadn’t seen or spoken to her in nearly five years. Not since everything had gone so horribly wrong. John closed his eyes, Claire’s voice sparking memories he’d tried desperately to suppress — late nights reviewing case files, celebrating victories against Dark Wizards, and the way they always had each other’s backs.
