The Mage's Revolt (Shadows in Darkness)

Prologue

Pete Davis hated Fridays at the Well, especially during the school year. Fridays were the busiest night of the week and it was the night that they got the weirdest reports from customers and staff alike.

Pete was nearly fifty years old and had worked in clubs like this since he was nineteen and dropped out of Blinn Community College after it became clear his history of football injuries would prevent him from ever getting that scholarship to Texas A&M University. He had taken what little he owned and ended up living with a female friend in Houston. She got him a job at the club she danced at, first as a bouncer, later as a bartender. For two years, they shared jobs, lives, and her bed. Pete was in love with her. She was not in love with Pete. She probably was not in love with that guy Derek who took her away to fame and fortune in Phoenix (that was her thought, anyway; Pete hadn’t heard anything from her since). It left Pete alone in the little apartment. Luckily, he made enough to live in it by himself for another couple of years. He had moved around since then and had ended up managing the Well, a small goth club in Waco, Texas, for the last six years.

Pete really did not like the music these kids wanted played. He was a fan of Hank Williams, Jr., Loretta Lynn, and Patsy Cline, which meant he was usually miserable by the end of the night. It also meant that any opportunity he had to get away from the dance floor and that dark shit the kids liked, he took.

That was why Pete was moving downstairs to the storage area.

Pete reached the bottom of the stairs and was surprised to see a guy in the back of the room. He flicked on the switch at the bottom, which raised the lights in the rest of the room, and saw nobody there. Perturbed, Pete shook his head. For a moment, he thought about the stories that his staff sometimes came up with, the stories about dark figures and disembodied voices threatening them. He remembered the stories customers sometimes told about being alone in the bathroom and being touched, breathed on, and talked to. Pete dismissed the thoughts. These goddamn foolish kids stayed high on the drugs they were always taking, especially the customers at the Well. Those drugs, mixed with the horror-themed contents of the music, no doubt were what made them react that way. He chuckled to himself. Maybe the music was enough.

For some reason, Pete spoke to the room at large. “I know you think everybody in this building is scared of you. But I’m not. I don’t believe in you. You don’t scare me. In fact, I find you funny.” As he started crossing to the back of the storage room, Pete laughed sarcastically at the “ghosts” in the club.

His laugh faded as his laugh was echoed by another. “That’s good,” said a voice, “we find you funny, too.”

As Pete remembered he was alone, he felt the icy-steel hands gripping his throat. He could not be sure if the figure suddenly in front of him was dark or if it was the whole room.

Sierra Travers had been waiting for Pete to come back with a fresh bottle of bitters for too long. Now, her station was out. Luckily, she had a down moment. She stepped out from behind the bar, hoping Pete didn’t come back and see her away from her space.

She walked around to the back rooms, where the stairs were down to the storage room in the basement. She hated going down to the storage room alone. She paused at the door and took a deep breath. It can’t be helped, she thought, wishing again that her scholarship at Baylor University gave her enough money to keep her from having to work. Then I wouldn’t have to put up with catching Pete staring at my ass constantly, she thought, a small spurt of anger goading her into reaching for the door despite her discomfort at having to go downstairs by herself.

The room beyond the door was dark. She reached out and switched on the light at the top of the stairs. She shook her head at it, pissed that whoever had designed this place did not have the good sense to put in a light switch that would control all of the lights in the basement. Swallowing her renewed discomfort, she went down the stairs.

She peered into the darkness beyond the light, seeing a puddle of darkness on the ground. She took a deep breath. This was not the first time she had seen something dark just beyond the lights down here. Usually, it was shaped like a man standing just beyond the pool of light. Tonight, it was a puddle on the floor. She reached out for the switch on the wall, the one that would turn on the rest of the lights in the storage room, expecting something to touch her hand the entire way. That was, after all, how it usually seemed to work for her.

No invisible hand touched hers this time and she switched on the lights.

It took Sierra a moment to register that the puddle of darkness was Pete’s body, broken and boneless-looking, in the stark light of the overhead fluorescents. His eyes bulged out of their sockets and Sierra recognized the look on his face as one of sheer terror.

She whimpered as she realized he was dead. When she felt the hot breath on the back of her neck and heard the soft laughter of the spirit that she knew had to have killed him, she screamed.