Dark Places of Control Read online

  Dark Places Of Control

  Book 3 of the Suffolk Sentinel Series

  ©2019

  Having purchased this eBook from Amazon it is entirely for your own personal use. It may not be copied, reproduced, printed or used in any way at all other than in its intended Kindle format.

  This book is published by the author C P Sennett and it is entirely meant in its original format as a novella story.

  This is a fictional story and the characters and events depicted in this bear no relevance to any persons living or dead. It is purely a work of fiction and as a result it should be treated this way.

  We hope you like this and be sure to look out for the next instalment to be released before Q2 of 2020.

  Titled – Real Brokers Of Power

  Prologue

  Christmas came and went as did the new year. I often thought about Fern and Tabitha, what they were doing now but I took some comfort that I had kept them and myself safer. Tough love really seems to suck.

  Still, Tabitha would now be learning more of the arts than I could ever teach her. The whole student – teacher thing just isn’t for me.

  Fern though, she was a survivor, annoying as hell but she would get by. It didn’t do her any good to be here with me, despite her insisting she was in danger and that she needed to remain. If I am honest, I just think it was easier for her in some way and it wouldn’t have surprised me if she was feeding on someone local. She had to eat after all.

  I know you weren’t here, but you can just imagine the atmosphere and fallout after THAT conversation, both of them lost it but I had to be strong.

  Now, with Tabitha studying at the Order, Fern being somewhere else and no longer my problem, life is back to normal.

  I flat out refused to hold Kent for the Order as after the death of Malcolm Kelly, the Sentinel of Kent, they had asked me to consider taking it for a short time. There was no chance of that, no way at all, no matter how desperate they were. I know I am not the only Sentinel covering more than one county but I would have been the only one with three and that wasn’t happening.

  Suffolk and Essex were already too much, so I told them no, just a flat-out no. Then, to my surprise I was informed that they had covered it although I was also given the news that they still wouldn’t appoint a permanent Sentinel to hold Essex... No genuine reason given to me when I asked why but I think it’s just because nobody wants it. The vampires of Essex are too brazen for most and it meant a lot of night work.

  Ordinarily you would think us magical people would be ok about working at night but we’re not. We can’t really see any easier than the rest of you and if we do light the place up with our magic we stand out. This, above all else gives the enemy the advantage and Essex comes alive at night.

  I had made the most of my time though. I had done a lot of study, looked into a few loose ends and even had a conversation with another Broker. Apparently, we were not supposed to speak to other Brokers as the information flow wasn’t supposed to work that way, but I had gotten around it and other things. My hope was to find out who killed my Broker, Monika, so, in two days’ time I would meet an actual real-life Broker, not that I had ever met Monika but now I would be meeting some guy called Jones.

  Right now, now it’s a wet day in April 2018 and I am standing in the middle of a farming field dealing with a really nasty spirit.

  Chapter 1

  The creature snarled and slammed at my ward and again it held firm. This was a special ward, a specific incantation designed to hold sprits, something of a specialty of mine.

  The large black dog stood around four feet at the shoulder. Powerfully built, like an American Bulldog. This was a strong-looking beast and physically even stronger than it looked.

  The black creature gave a low growl as it looked at me, it’s dark eyes cold, alien and altogether not of this world. Its growl seemed to travel on the wind and it made the hairs on my arms and neck stand on end. The deep bass of its growl echoed all around, as if in stereo, carried by the strong crosswind.

  This was the infamous Black Shuck and I had been looking into it for some time. Now, I was face to face with it on a bitterly cold night.

  The dark creature looked at me, almost with a look of recognition. Perhaps it recognised me or more likely the magic restraining it. Then, oddly, it fell silent, as I avoided its eyes in case it could affect my mind in some way because many spirits, too many, can do this. Also, I wanted it to know that I had its number!

  Where we were was fairly open. There was a constant banging of cable or something else against metal boat masts and the relentless wind hammered around us as we stood facing one other.

  Old Shuck, as some call it, is an unusual type of spirit. It’s a Querella Spirit, meaning a Ceaseless One. This means nobody really knows how to permanently destroy it. You can destroy THIS appearance or showing of it, but it will return at some point.

  Many books and tomes offer theories on what to try with the Querella but now wasn’t the time to get creative.

  Tonight’s parade of planets, if I could have seen them, would have looked amazing. There had been so much activity among the five visible planets since March and through into April that it was a good indicator of spiritual unrest. With research and a bit of educated guess work I felt that this would be a trigger event for this spirit to appear and I was right. Also, based on some sightings and local history, this spirit seemed to have an affinity of some sort with this spot in Old Felixstowe.

  Why it was here I didn’t know, but I knew what it wanted. Fear, the chase and most likely to kill.

  Thankfully, though, we were a long way away from anyone. Just the two of us alone in the darkness of night accompanied by some of the most chilling winds I had known in a long time. The terrain was low so there was little to break up the relentless bite of the wind.

  The Shuck slammed into the invisible barrier again. Although this time it ran its body alongside it as if feeling around where the walls trapping it were. This showed me a few things, such as the spirit was a spirit, an animal spirit I suspected, which meant it was cunning rather than outright intelligent.

  That was a relief as if it wasn’t a spirit it would have walked right out of that ward and been on me. If it was a human or fully sentient intellect It could have looked and seen the thick lines of Travis Perkins finest rock salt which I had used to seal the ward.

  The creature quickly reached the end of the ten by ten feet force that imprisoned it. Then, it turned back towards me.

  “Do you understand me?” I asked, keeping a good twenty feet away from it and raising my voice to counteract the wind.

  The creature looked at me. Its dark eyes looking longingly as if it could almost taste me. I suspected it was dreaming of the pleasure it would enjoy when it got hold of me and how it wanted to make me run. To begin the chase was what it wanted. I swallowed down the odd pangs of fear I felt at facing this. It was an old spirit and fairly well documented, almost a local celebrity.

  I reminded myself that preparation is key, and that I was very well prepared. I had my staff at the length of a cane at my side. Then as I subconsciously moved the cane a little, the creature’s eyes flashed towards it as if recognising the residual magic it contained.

  “You do recognise things, don’t you?” I said with a whisper, starting to separate fiction from fact.

  Then it turned away from me and started to growl again. A different growl, though, this was something else. It had a vastly different sound to it, not quite a pained yelp but it was a natural dog- sounding noise. It carried on the wind all around us as the Shuck turned fully in a circle in the confines of my ward. Then, it settled again facing me with its head bowed.

  When it did this i
t looked every inch the good dog awaiting its master’s command.

  Then, its head lifted and it growled again but this time a deep-throated noise. This new sound was an even lower-sounding growl than before. It was slower, then in an instant it snarled and dived forward at my ward again.

  I wasn’t sure what it was doing but it looked as if it was doing something. My ward stopped it and kept it in place, but to me this seemed as though it was something else.

  The foul dog dived forward taking on a near ethereal look now as it turned into living shadow.

  The spirit still had a dog shape to it, but it was fast, too fast to see at first. The creature slammed again and again into the ward bouncing off it on all sides with such fury. The ward held as I had expected it to. I had arrived earlier and hedged my bets as to its exact arrival point and I had put a lot of rock salt around knowing or expecting it to run into one of three areas. Thankfully, the middle one of the three areas I had prearranged struck gold.

  The creature appeared whole again, still enraged and still confined to its invisible prison.

  Tonight though, I was facing down a spiritual dog which after this, even if I destroyed it would want its revenge. Spirits typically have two things on their side, time and hatred and that’s never good to be on the receiving end of.

  “You are caught dog.” I said, loud enough for it to hear.

  It eyed me again.

  “You understand me, and you know you can’t get out. I know what you are and it’s time to deal with you.”

  The creature crouched down, as if looking to strike again.

  Spirits, though – these are my strongest suit. I’ve read up on them a lot, I’ve faced a couple not even listed in any books I’ve read, and I’ve taken them down. This is what I do as this is what Suffolk needs and being Suffolk’s Sentinel I have to keep a lid on spirit problems.

  Oddly, the attack didn’t come.

  The Querella Spirit did something unexpected. It looked as if it was panting, not something it would need to do as it wasn’t alive like you or me but it started to pant like a dog while I knelt down and put my hand into the bag at my side to reach for my ever-reliable cocktail mixer with ice already inside it.

  “Time to go and I’ve got a new home for you.” I knew it would be one it would take a long time to get out of.

  The dog reared up on its back legs with its front paws resting on the ward, like a dog against a fence. I knew what I needed to do now, and it was all about timing. I needed to dispel the ward and time the entrapment of the Shuck into its new vessel perfectly. It would be quick, and as my planning had paid off I had the thing bang to rights. Then I could catch it for a more in-depth study and see if I could permanently remove it from our world and send it back onto the other side of the Veil.

  Old Shuck was doing something, but I didn’t know what. I stood tall and looked about as I emptied the ice contents from the cocktail mixer on the floor.

  The ice ran out over my fingertips as I chanced a glance around, all looked good.

  Just as I was about to enact my plan I heard a noise from behind me, a voice.

  I looked over my shoulder seeing a man some distance off running towards me. He was old looking and he ran slowly, appearing to be shaking his fist at me.

  He was dressed as any walker would be for this weather and then something flashed into view. A dog, a black Labrador dog ran past me at a fast pace about ten feet away to my side.

  Why the Shuck didn’t set the dog on me I don’t know. It would have been on me, biting before I had the chance to do anything and it could have helped its cause.

  Then, I realised its plan…I could hear the old man calling out to his dog and not me. “Bailey, get back here,” he shouted after his canine companion.

  I turned toward the Querella Spirit and realised what was happening. Fuck, I thought…

  The dog was so fast that it raced past me and ran up toward what looked to it to be another, albeit, big dog to play with. The Querella Spirit had called the dog and the stupid mutt ran straight to it breaking my ward and destroying the barrier…

  “No.” I called out raising my arms in frustration, it was all I could do. Stupid, stinky Bailey had other ideas though as I felt the ward break.

  The spirit raced at me, the second the ward broke Bailey realised the error as the Labrador cowered away from the bigger dog and ran off. Old Shuck, he only had eyes for me as he came at me at fighting speed.

  Now, I had to alter my plan on the fly.

  As the dark spirit dog raced towards me I had raised up a shield, “Kesantas” was the activation spoken to use this spell.

  The force of the Black Shuck slamming into me knocked me off my feet. I rolled down the hill to the sound of its snarling and biting action. The dog couldn’t get past the closed aura around me, shielding me from its bite. How long I could keep this up for I wasn’t sure but it had brought me time and kept me alive from its first assault.

  I hit the bottom of the grass slope and as I tried to get up the beast was on me, teeth snarling and snapping at my face. My hands were up to protect myself in instinct as I lost my grip on the cocktail mixer.

  I had to be careful here as certain types of elemental forces don’t affect spirits too well, depending on their type and I didn’t want to chance using lighting here. Illusions, not that I am good at them, seldom work either. When tackling these things, you need to know what you are doing. Many a promising apprentice has died on their first encounter with a spirit but I was no apprentice.

  The dog’s head drove past my hands and its teeth snapped at my face. It was dark out but even darker with my head being buffeted about by this spirit. It was disorientating as I was being shaken like a rag doll. First, I was the right way up then, I wasn’t sure where I was as the creature threw me around like a chew toy.

  My mind was holding up and I wasn’t letting the panic well up and consume me. I needed to keep my shielding spell up at all costs and I needed to keep calm.

  I couldn’t risk pulling the Shuck into my necklace as the Amulet of Toroco already had an ancient spirit which was far worse inside it. No, I had to think my way out of this.

  Then, my chance came. Oddly, the dog let go of me.

  I looked around, the old man was closing in on it. The poor guy didn’t have a chance, this was something the spirit couldn’t pass up, an easy kill. I wasn’t fully in control of my senses due to all the shaking I had endured but I was aware enough to hear the old man back off realising that this wasn’t a dog. Then, the spirit barked, a deep sounding bark, and then it moved away from me.

  The man’s scream was barely there as he died in an instant as he fled, and the shuck gave chase for a moment. The man’s mistake however had given me what I needed, a moment of clarity and an opportunity.

  The creature was facing away from me. Spirits like this would seek the easiest kill and I was proving too much trouble for the moment. They are often driven by urges or desires and this is magnified even more so with animal spirts like this. It behaves like a dog in many respects, enough to fool you. But that is the problem, as it’s not entirely a dog.

  I rose and realised I needed to take this thing down quickly or at least to trap this appearance of it. The beast turned to me as it stood over its kill. I could see the black shape of Bailey, keeping its distance as it wanted to rush over and protect its master, but the fear of this new dog was simply too much for it. It kept away and whined in anxiety at its owner’s demise.

  I half dived and half fell on the cocktail mixer as the Black Shuck eyed me. It stood like a hound over its kill and it wanted more, it wanted me!

  The beast looked at me and launched itself forward. Within a few strides it was diving through the air towards me, eyes wide in eager anticipation of another kill. Its white teeth were lit up by the moon as the beast’s bulk dived effortlessly towards me.

  I held out the cold cocktail mixer, the dog’s eyes flashed towards it as I spoke the ancient command word.
/>
  Then, as the creature lunged towards me it changed. Its shape distorted as it turned into the black shadow form it had shown earlier. Then, its shadowy form was pulled into the cold cocktail mixer.

  I wasn’t going to touch this, though, as I’ve done with other spirits. This was a tough one, as all Querella Spirits are. When you hold a spirit in its ethereal form you can learn things about it, markers and what drives it, and I was sure this was its natural form.

  The force of my magic held the creature in the cold mixer. Then, looking at the poor man on the floor I walked over to pick up the lid of the mixer, securing it, then putting it packed tightly back into my bag.

  The black Labrador Bailey started to come closer. On the wind I could hear the Labrador’s whimpering cries. I’m not a dog lover so I don’t get all mushy around them but as I walked towards the old man I could see this dog was loyal and it wanted to help its master but it didn’t know how to.

  The man was in his late fifties and not as old as I first thought. His long black and white beard made him look older though. It was in one of those new hipster designs people seem to be sporting these days. I considered checking him for some ID but I needed to get out of here and fast.

  It’s horrible to say but I had to leave it to someone else find this man’s body. Any autopsy on him would show he died of a heart attack, nothing more, as that is typically what kills you when attacked by spirits. Some do attack physically but this one, well it looked like it frightened him to death.

  “Sorry man” was all I said and “look after him Bailey.” That was all I could muster as I walked headlong into the wind back towards my Beast, my black Range Rover and out of the horrific weather.

  Chapter 2

  A few hours later I sat up in the bath after submerging my head under the water to clear my thoughts. My audiobook was still playing in the background, something I had recently taken up. I found something passive in the background stopped my thoughts running away especially when I was trying to have a break from all things magical for a bit.

  Every now and then my brain gets too amped up and I need to let it settle down and this, yeah this was one of those times.