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    The Malefic Curse
    The Malefic Curse
    The Malefic Curse
    Ebook115 pages2 hours

    The Malefic Curse

    By Charlotte E. English

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    About this ebook

    Konrad Savast is the Malykant: the most secret servant of the God of Death. His job? To track down the foulest of murderers and bring them to The Malykt's Justice. No mercy. No quarter.


    Something is gravely amiss in the city of Ekamet.


    The body of a homeless man lies under a bridge, torn to pieces. The serpents say it’s not murder — not exactly. A merciless, violent death dealt by something... not human.


    The trail leads into the Spiritlands, and Konrad must follow — whatever dangers await. And the dangers will prove severe. For something ancient and evil stalks the city at night; in hunting it, the Malykant may learn more than he ever wanted to know about the past...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFrouse Books
    Release dateJul 21, 2019
    The Malefic Curse
    Author

    Charlotte E. English

    English both by name and nationality, Charlotte hasn’t permitted emigration to the Netherlands to damage her essential Britishness. She writes colourful fantasy novels over copious quantities of tea, and rarely misses an opportunity to apologise for something. Spanning the spectrum from light to dark, her works include the Draykon Series, Modern Magick, The Malykant Mysteries and the Tales of Aylfenhame.

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      Book preview

      The Malefic Curse - Charlotte E. English

      The Malefic Curse

      The Malykant Mysteries, 11

      Charlotte E. English

      Copyright © 2019 by Charlotte E. English

      All rights reserved.

      No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by EU copyright law.

      Contents

      1. Chapter One

      2. Chapter Two

      3. Chapter Three

      4. Chapter Four

      5. Chapter Five

      6. Chapter Six

      7. Chapter Seven

      8. Chapter Eight

      9. Chapter Nine

      Chapter One

      A knock came at the door of Bakar House.

      Konrad, ensconced in the best parlour with Nanda, did not move so much as a muscle. He had a butler for a reason. Hopefully the caller would prove inconsequential, and easily fobbed off; Gorev was good at that kind of thing. At three in the afternoon on so foul a day, sleet driving down from the skies in great torrents, and the streets awash with the half-melted snows of early spring, he rather wondered that anybody had troubled to travel to his door at all.

      ‘It seems our reverie is at an end,’ said Nanda. Resonant footsteps were indeed approaching the parlour; Konrad heard them as clearly as she, though he toyed briefly with denial.

      ‘Come in,’ he sighed, when his butler’s discreet tap sounded at the half-closed door.

      Gorev entered, and bowed with an apologetic air. ‘It’s the inspector, sir. He’s—’

      Konrad sat up. ‘What? Well, let him come in! He need not stand on ceremony.’

      Gorev cleared his throat. ‘I meant to say, sir, that the inspector has sent someone. A policeman. Shall I say that you are at home?’

      ‘Is it Karyavin?’

      ‘That was the name given, yes.’

      ‘Send him in, quickly.’ If the inspector had sent a human being rather than a note, then the matter was of some urgency. If he had not come himself, doubly so.

      Gorev withdrew, and a moment later Karyavin came in. A young man, he was high in the inspector’s good graces, a consequence of his quick wits, level head and obliging nature. Konrad rather liked the man himself. He was everything Konrad might have liked to have been in his own youth. ‘Sir,’ said Karyavin, with a bow for Konrad and a smile for Nanda. ‘There’s been an, ah, incident…’ Karyavin’s eyes wandered about the parlour for a moment, dwelling on the majestic carved fireplace with its enormous mirror, and travelling to the silk-upholstered couch and armchairs. He had not, perhaps, expected to find Konrad surrounded by such extravagant splendour.

      ‘Nuritov sent you?’ Konrad prompted.

      ‘Yes, sir. He’s down by the river. He asked that you come as soon as possible. And,’ the young man added, his gaze turning on Nanda, ‘Miss Falenia as well, if you’re at leisure, ma’am.’

      Nanda, slouching in her chair in a half-doze, blinked and awoke. ‘Me? He asked specifically for me?’

      ‘Yes, ma’am. The incident is of an unusual nature, and he thought perhaps your unique abilities might be of use.’

      Nanda exchanged a look of mild disquiet with Konrad. ‘Just what is the nature of this incident?’

      ‘There’s been a death.’

      That got Konrad’s attention. A death? Murder? No. Were it murder, surely he’d have heard by now. The serpents were vigilant about that kind of thing. But if it were a natural death, or some accident, why summon Konrad?

      Serpents? Konrad called. Have there been any murders in the city today? The kind that I ought to know about?

      No, Master, they chorused.

      Yesterday? Last night?

      No, Master.

      Konrad, at a loss, asked no further questions. He set aside the book he’d been pretending to read, and rose. ‘Give me a moment to change, Karyavin, and we will be with you.’

      ‘I’ll await you in the porch, sir.’ Karyavin, discomfited perhaps by the grandeur, made his bow and withdrew.

      ‘Curious,’ said Nanda.

      ‘Before you ask, no, the serpents are aware of no murders.’

      ‘Can they be wrong?’

      ‘I haven’t known them to be.’

      ‘Right.’ Nanda hauled herself out of her chair, causing Konrad a moment’s concern in the evident effort it cost her to do so. Last night had been especially difficult for her, he judged; not from anything she had said, but from her pallor when she had arrived at the breakfast-table, and the air of heaviness and lethargy she’d displayed all day. Her unwelcome entourage had subjected her to a special depth of torment, he supposed. Nightmares of the very direst.

      He had his serpents scouring the spirit-lands at every opportunity, seeking out the wretched fae with claims upon Nanda. When they found them, his displeasure would be… violently expressed. The errand had distracted them, possibly, from their regular duties, for the spirit-lands were wide and complex, and the search occupied a great deal of their energy and time. He may arrive at the river to find that the case was one of murder after all.

      But still, the serpents were not given to mistakes. Their purpose was a simple one, and they performed that duty with enthusiasm.

      Why, though, was Nanda also summoned? That was the most intriguing part of the business.

      To his own surprise, he felt his disinclination to leave the house — and to engage with another horrific murder case — lifting a little in the anticipation of an interesting problem. The worst part of Assevan winters, arguably, was the utter boredom of it all.

      image-placeholder

      Half an hour later, Konrad ducked under the dripping frame of Parel’s Bridge, and inched his way underneath. The river’s waters were on the rise, swollen with melting snow and sleet. A strip of sodden earth only a few feet wide served as the bank, upon which Konrad found the inspector.

      ‘Savast,’ said he grimly. ‘I wouldn’t have wasted your time, or Nanda’s either, only we’ve… got a problem.’

      Konrad tried to see past him, to whatever it was he’d been guarding. But the daylight was fading fast, the underside of the bridge was not illuminated, and Alexander seemed to be trying to block his view of whatever it was.

      ‘Well,’ said Nanda, coming up behind him. ‘What is it?’

      ‘What it is, chiefly, is messy,’ he replied, and stepped aside.

      Konrad moved forward, stooped over, but managed to strike his head against the damp, oozing boards of the bridge anyway. ‘Ow,’ he muttered, but the slight pain in his head vanished from his thoughts upon beholding Alexander’s problem.

      A man lay there, or so Konrad supposed from the figure’s general proportions. Few identifying features were left, for the body had been brutally savaged. Half the face was missing, dissolved into a bloodied pulp; the deathly pallor of the rest was marred by great, blood-soaked gouges. The rest of the body was in much the same condition, the chest broken open, and the inner organs lacerated. Konrad had not light enough to determine whether any were missing, but he thought not. This had not been done with the precision of an organ-harvester. This was a frenzy of pure violence.

      That did not preclude the possibility of someone or something’s having… eaten them, however.

      Something indeed, for nothing about the man’s state suggested that ordinary mortal weapons had been used. ‘Those look like claw marks,’ he said.

      The inspector nodded. ‘Or— or teeth.’

      ‘Nothing human, anyway.’

      ‘That’s what I thought,’ Alexander agreed. ‘But is it an ordinary beast, either? I cannot think of any dog or — or even a wolf or something, that could have done this kind of damage.’

      ‘Is there something else?’ Konrad asked, for nothing that he’d seen or heard yet explained the inspector’s insistence on Nanda’s presence. Given the choice, Konrad himself would rather have protected her from such a sight.

      ‘Karyavin?’ said Alexander.

      ‘I was the first one on the scene, sir,’ said Karyavin. ‘A beggar found the body, and came to the police house to report it. When I got here, the corpse was thick with crows. Feasting, as you’d imagine; it is their nature. Only, they didn’t fly away.’

      ‘They aren’t here now,’ Konrad said, confused. ‘What do you mean, they didn’t fly away?’

      ‘They… dissolved, sir. Vanished. Faded out like shadows at dawn. I don’t quite know how to express it.’

      Konrad drew in a

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