Tommy Black and the Coat of Invincibility Read online

  TOMMY BLACK AND THE COAT OF INVINCIBILITY

  JAKE KERR

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Dedication

  England

  1. Visiting an Old Friend

  2. Tea in the Library

  3. "Chin Up, Black."

  4. A Change in Plan

  5. The Retired Gardener

  6. A Reunion in the Library

  7. The Castle That Was a Cabin

  8. An Angry Naomi

  9. Discussions by Firelight

  10. The Last Bastion

  11. Naomi and I Make Our Own Plan

  12. Bait & Hook

  St. Petersburg

  13. We Arrive in St. Petersburg

  14. Hunting an Angel

  15. Tears in the Morning Shadows

  16. Illusions in the Bar

  17. Answers

  18. Following the Lead

  19. The Angel

  20. The Princess

  21. Implosions & Bombs

  22. The Parting of the Archmages

  23. The Way Station

  24. On the Train

  25. The Secret of the Staff

  26. The Great Dragon Zahhak

  Paris

  27. Arrival

  28. A Telegram From Cain

  29. Iggy

  30. The Regent's Garden

  31. The Plan

  32. Parc Monceau

  33. Rest & Healing

  34. Artifacts Out of Balance

  35. The Demolished House

  36. Staff & Coat

  Learn More About Tommy Black

  Free Books From Jake

  The Guildmaster Thief series

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Jake Kerr

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover art & design by M. S. Corley

  Edited by Eric Jackson & Lea Zukas

  Published by Currents & Tangents Press

  Dallas, Texas

  For Mom & Dad

  PART I

  ENGLAND

  1

  VISITING AN OLD FRIEND

  As the watery mud seeped into my shoes I couldn’t help but laugh. I had expected an unpleasant visit. I just didn’t expect it to start the moment I stepped out of the taxi. The driver stayed in the warm, dry car, holding his hand out the window, his palm collecting rain drops. “Are you certain you don’t want me to drive you closer?” he asked. “A storm is brewing.”

  I motioned over my shoulder as I paid him. “It’s a surprise visit.” He nodded but then stopped as he caught sight of my cane. He continued to stare as I started up the road, but I couldn’t tell if it was because he recognized me as the Archmage or whether he just thought it was strange for a sixteen year old to be using a cane.

  Setting a brisk pace, I approached my destination, the mighty Citadel of London. With each step the tapping of my cane on the cobblestones made small splashes. My hope was to get the whole unpleasantness over with as quickly as possible.

  It had been two years since I had walked through the gates of the Citadel. The previous time I had the help of friends. This time I would be on my own. I didn’t want to be alone. My friend Naomi had helped me escape before, and I wished she were with me now, but I hadn’t seen her in a long time.

  I knew that she was studying magic in England, but I didn’t know where, and she didn’t seem interested in letting me know. I was in England, too, and Naomi knew that she could reach me through my great grandfather at Balmoral. Every visit to my great grandfather I would inquire about a letter or telegram from her, but he would shake his head, shrug, and change the subject. I eventually stopped asking if Naomi had contacted him, and the fact that she didn’t made the distance seem an unbridgeable chasm between us.

  She was an extraordinary magician, and I missed how she would casually prep dangerous spells to relax herself. I missed her wit and sarcasm. I missed her strength and spirit. I missed how beautiful she was, and I missed how she drove me crazy.

  Naomi never said so, but I believe she left because I had saved her life. While she was thankful, it seemed like she saw it as a challenge or even an affront. When she went off by herself to study it was my belief that her goal was to never have to be saved by someone ever again. I admired that, but I still missed her.

  The modest entrance to Fort Belvedere—the Citadel—soon revealed itself. It was an illusion, of course, hiding a mighty fortress behind the facade of a country estate, an illusion created at the hands of the man I was going to meet: Cain.

  I still didn’t know Cain’s role in the English government. I assumed he was some nebulous member of the Army Council, in charge of magic. With magic all but gone from the world I figured everyone just left Cain alone.

  And Cain left alone was dangerous, as I had experienced first hand.

  During my previous visit, Cain had done his best to intimidate me into giving him the artifact I now carried. Rather than work with him I had spent the past two years freeing the enslaved Marids—magical creatures that powered the trains in England and the United States.

  He had sent master level magicians to stop me, but I had learned much and escaped them easily. My power with the staff, which I initially considered to be the useless ability to create light like a mere lamp turned out to be much much more—by manipulating light I could defeat practically any creature, magical or otherwise. Each day brought me more confidence.

  Having freed the Marids, I intended to move on to the next victims of magical oppression, whoever they were. Were the mighty furnaces in Forest of Dean powered by Ifrit? I didn’t know, but I had an idea that Cain would. Hence my visit.

  I decided it was safest if I stopped time from flowing around me. It was an extraordinary power I discovered by accident and was one of many things that turned the seemingly useless trick of manipulating light into something much more powerful. Inspired by the words of my great grandfather, who nonchalantly asked me if light could bend, I studied Einstein, whose theories of space and time were based on the constant of the speed of light. Einstein taught that my power with the staff was truly awe-inspiring.

  As powerful as it was, I hesitated to use the Staff. My great grandfather had also told me that the staff was ultimately in control of its own magic, and as I used it over the previous two years I could sense it more and more—the staff was affecting me. How, I didn’t know, but it was there. But there were times when I had no choice. Facing Cain was one of them.

  I closed my eyes and stopped time, the motion of light held still by the power of the staff. I opened my eyes to a frozen tableau. It was always uncomfortable living in a world of stopped time. The sense that it was wrong seemed to permeate everything. Still, I never failed to marvel at the stillness of the world around me.

  Splashing mud from marching boots looked like chocolate milk. Rain was suspended in the air like glass beads. Even the dark clouds above me appeared to be blobs of paint smeared across a drab canvas. The activity around the Citadel appeared frantic even as it was frozen in time around me. We were at war with Germany, and troops were everywhere. The expansive lawns of the estate, which had been mostly empty during my previous visit, were full of columns of soldiers. Everything smelled of gunpowder, and the grass lawns were ground into dirt under the constant pounding of boots.

  There were no magicians in view, just soldiers and guns and cannons. Technology had elimina
ted the need for difficult-to-learn magic, and magicians were for the most part nothing more than street performers—certainly not powerful soldiers.

  I approached the door that led to Cain’s office and paused, holding the cane tight. Despite my developing power, he was still frightening. He truly was an awesome illusionist, as great as any among the ages.

  The last time I had visited him he had set me on fire with nothing more than his mind. I was sure that he was still outraged that I had freed the Marids, and with his power I needed to keep him off balance. I didn’t want to find myself on fire again.

  I passed through the doorway and into Cain’s section of the building. There were no magicians on duty, which surprised me. The entry was guarded by a bored looking soldier, his hand caught in the act of scratching his bushy mustache. I wondered if there were any powerful magicians remaining in England.

  There was one other change I noticed: The electrical lights that were previously attached to the pillars of the long hall that led to Cain’s office were gone. They were no longer necessary, as I had created a home for the ominous Shadow creatures, creatures that could absorb anything and move it to a place without any feeling at all. Their leader, Vingrosh, had requested a home without light, and I had given them one. The Shadows had not been seen since.

  Opening the door to Cain’s office, I walked over, and sat in the chair facing his desk. I leaned forward and looked at him. Even with Cain frozen in time, my hands clenched the staff. He looked older—more drawn and with thinning hair—but he still oozed power. He was writing a note, the pen stopped mid-stroke. The office itself was little changed. As I looked around, I tried to assess what Cain’s role was with the English government, but it was impossible to tell.

  I took a deep breath and let light flow again.

  “Hello, Cain.” His head jerked up, but only for the slightest of moments. As a magician, his self-control was extraordinary. He looked me over, smiled, and leaned back in his chair.

  “Tommy Black. What a pleasant surprise.” He put his pen down and folded his arms across his chest. His shoulder twitched in one of the tics that I was told were a sign of his years of doing illusions. “Why look how you’ve grown. How old are you now?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Sixteen years old, imagine that. Did you know that when I was your age I was helping our war effort in France by creating illusions to fool the German scouts?”

  I shook my head and remained alert. Cain’s power was not to be underestimated.

  He frowned. “Contrast that with you, a traitor and coward by any definition. You’ve destroyed our rail infrastructure while we’re in the midst of a war.” Cain stared at me, his eyes narrowed in a challenge.

  My confidence withered under his gaze, but in the end I knew that what I had done was right. “I freed slaves, Cain. That is all. There are other ways to power locomotives.”

  Cain leaned forward and slapped his palm on his desk. I flinched at the sound. “There is blood on your hands, Black. Mark my words.”

  I shrugged, doing my best to present nonchalance, although the idea of having caused deaths troubled me. There was a war, after all. Still, I held my ground. “I was helping others.”

  Shaking his head, Cain replied, “You foolish boy. Do you know how long it has taken to refit our trains? While we were rebuilding our supply lines, Germany took over half of Eastern Europe. If you had any honor at all you would use your powers to assist us.” Cain picked up the pen and started writing again. “I don’t have time to deal with children.”

  “I am not a child. I am the Archmage.” Even as I said it, I felt rather embarrassed. I was relying on my title and not my actions or the moral power I felt lived behind them.

  Cain calmly placed his pen down, and looked at me again, his intimidating stare only interrupted by a twitch of his eyebrow. “You are nothing but a coward.”

  I tapped the end of the cane on Cain’s desk and he glanced down at it, startled for the barest of moments. His fear, fleeting as it was, helped restore my confidence. “I am not a coward, as you well know. I simply disagree with your methods.” Cain said nothing, and I continued. “I would like to help, Cain, but there are other battles. My legacy demands that I free the enslaved magical creatures.”

  I had returned the conversation to the reason for my visit. I didn’t expect Cain to understand, and if I were honest I didn’t expect him to help. But I had hoped he would respect my mission.

  Cain lowered his head and squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “I’m tired, Black. I have a war to fight and don’t have time to pander to some pointless crusade to restore your family’s honor.” He looked up, appearing more disappointed than angry. “The legacy of the Archmage demands no such thing of you.”

  I had expected this reply. Cain’s comment was true at its heart. My family had wielded the cane for centuries, and our only true legacy was to use its power. But it was my great grandfather who told me the truth about our history, of a magical artifact—the staff in the form of a cane—that had been stolen from Persia. When I realized that the most powerful magic in the world originated not from magicians but from powerful magical creatures that had been enslaved to do the bidding of man, I realized that the stain of my family legacy could be only be erased by doing good and freeing them.

  I was about to explain this when Cain held up a finger. “However, perhaps our goals are not in conflict.”

  “What do you mean?” I had expected further argument. I was hard-pressed to consider any common goal with someone like Cain.

  “You do realize there are trains in Germany?” Of course. I had focused on my own home of America and ancestral home of England, but there were enslaved magical creatures across the globe. I was guilty of the blinders of nationalism that I was trying to remove from others.

  I nodded. “And they are powered by Marids?”

  “Marids, smaller ones by Ifrit. You don’t think the vaunted German productivity is simply due to calloused hands? Their abuse of magical creatures is well-known.” I expected that Cain would exaggerate to get me to be in line with his goals, but the concept that there were enslaved magical creatures in Europe made sense. My former teacher, Mister Ali, had told me the story of how the Shadows were hunted down by the Germans over the previous centuries.

  “I will travel to Europe, but I don’t trust you, Cain. I will do nothing without my own confirmation.” Cain once again leaned back, smiling.

  “That’s the least of my concerns.” He laughed. “My goodness, I’ll even arrange transportation. I had hoped on using you to support our offensive, but this may be even better.” He stared at me again, only this time the intensity was of excitement, not intimidation. “What if I told you that the ironworks in Volklingen uses scores of enslaved Ifrit to power their furnaces?”

  “I would say that I would free them.” If possible, Cain’s smile spread wider.

  “I can have you escorted to Reims. From there you can find your way to Volklingen. Free those Ifrit, and you will have England’s undying gratitude. After that you can do whatever you like.”

  “Cain, I will do whatever I like regardless.”

  He shook his head. “The arrogance of the Archmage and the impetuosity of youth. But it matters not—of course! Do whatever you like! There are enough magical creatures there that will need your help to keep you busy for years. Frankly—and I’m sure you share the sentiment—I’ll be glad to have you far away from me.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “I think we have an understanding.” I stretched my legs. I hadn’t realized just how tense I was. “When can I depart?”

  “Give me a few days to make the arrangements. In the mean time I’ll have Lord Ainsley find you lodgings.” Lord Ainsley! I fondly remembered his kindness toward my grandfather and me. I looked forward to seeing him again.

  “That works.” I stood up, while Cain remained seated. I didn’t expect him to see me out.

  Before I turned
to the door he spoke up. “Black, did you know that I talked with your great grandfather after you escaped the Citadel?” I turned and looked at him. He looked bemused as I shook my head. “He didn’t say much, but he did say one thing that I considered interesting.”

  He paused again, so I played along. “And that was?”

  “He said I should fear you.” Cain scratched his chin. “Do you think I fear you?”

  The idea that someone as powerful and arrogant as Cain would fear anyone was laughable. I shook my head. “I don’t think you fear anything.”

  “Ah, Black. Such an attitude is foolish and a recipe for dying young. You would do well to remember that on the continent. Be that as it may, I do not fear you. Do you know why?”

  I shook my head, not even bothering to answer. I had no desire to take part in any verbal games. “I don’t fear you because you have a good heart, Black. You are predictable that way.” He waved his hand as if dismissing me. “But I know more about magic than anyone else on the planet, and I assure you that while I don’t fear you, I do respect your power.” He nodded. “So I have confidence that you’ll be able to handle what you are about to face, even if you cannot fathom just how dangerous it is.”

  I left and walked down the path to the wing with Lord Ainsley’s office. I didn’t spend much time thinking about Cain’s warning. I had faced master magicians, Shadows, Djinn, Ifrit, and even mighty Marids. I couldn’t wait to get going.

  2

  TEA IN THE LIBRARY

  I was at the Citadel for two days, and to my surprise I enjoyed every second. Lord Ainsley asked about my adventures with the trains and the Marids. Unlike Cain, he agreed over my decision to free them.

  “I was here when the Shadows helped you. You would have to be foolish not to know that our knowledge of the magic creatures is incomplete. Were they soulless animals or slaves? Well, with new information comes new understanding. Would I have done things differently than you did? Maybe, but I think freeing them was the right thing to do.”