A Darker Shade of Sorcery (Sample of now published novel.)

Chapter Two

The sleet worsened, turning to hailstones that bounced off the ground like a gang of tiny white frogs. Evan stumbled home, hunched over, face pulled tight in a grimace. The downpour beat against his aching body and the wind crawled across his skin, cold as a corpse's caress.

He walked through the gates of Helken Place and up the winding path to the drab children's home, stomping up the stairs to his room. He wanted to cry as he closed the bedroom door, but it wouldn't help. Nothing would.

He stripped off his school clothes and slumped on to his bed. Just one more year, one more year and I'll be done with school, free of Ollie. Free of everyone. Evan had to tell himself that, to keep himself sane.

He looked in the mirror to check the bruises. As usual his pale face was marred by ugly abrasions. His left cheek had swollen to near double its usual size. He lifted up his shirt and winced at the discolouration there. Evan told the staff he just kept falling over. They asked questions, but he pushed them away. It would only make things worse.

He would've liked to call himself tall, dark and handsome. Really, he wasn't much taller than average, his hair was a dull brown, and he wasn't handsome. At least, no one had ever told him he was. Dark grey eyes, made darker by pale skin, stared back at him miserably. Oddly, tiny red scratches adorned each iris, like the grey was a stone that'd been cracked and was now bleeding. It was the only interesting thing about him.

Evan pulled up the chair by his desk and sat down to write. Writing was his favourite, well only, hobby.

Pages and pages of his scrawling littered the untidy desk, reflecting the rest of the room. He picked one at random and began reading.

This one was about his hero Alwar. Alwar was the exact opposite of himself. Strong, courageous, amazing in every way, he was the stuff of legend. Evan loved writing about his many adventures.

With the warrior Alwar he could lose himself, forget Grandma's death and his miserable life. He could escape. He could make Alwar conquer terrible opponents and the most ferocious of beasts. Evan couldn't even escape Ollie and his thugs.

He peered out of his small window, noticing the hail had now morphed into heavy clumps of snow that splattered onto the ground, lighting the garden with a ghostly sheen.

Evan forced everything else out of his head as he wrote long into the night, immersing himself in imagined worlds and allowing reality to slip away.

*

Winter descended upon London, its cold touch bathing the streets. Snow fell heavily, carpeting roads and walkways. Not a street lamp glowed as silence ruled the midnight hour.

In a dark alleyway, the shadowy veils of night shattered as light filtered through a gap in space and time. The beam of light flashed scarlet as it expanded into a swirling mass.

Out of the portal stepped a monstrosity not meant to touch this world, a demon from the blackest of hells.

Quickly, he distorted his features, transforming to what could pass for a man, providing no human looked closely.

He took in a deep breath, inhaling the air of Earth, inhaling the air of men.

It appeared he'd come to the right place.

The demon's lips hooked up; it had been a long time since he was last in this realm. He would take great delight in killing the boy, regardless of his Master's orders.