Broken Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Free Download

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Readey For More?

  Join the Legacy world

  About the Author

  BROKEN

  Book 7 of

  The Legacy Series

  RYAN ATTARD

  Broken

  Ryan Attard

  Copyright © 2019 by Ryan Attard. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  Click or visit:

  Ryanattard.com

  Dedicated to my amazing beta readers including

  Phat Pauly, Beverly Gerald, Daniel Dunwoodie, Paige Sauvetterre, Nev Rawlins, J Steffey, C.E., Aspen Carr, Jason van Beurden, Mike Clarkson, Fox Red, Miles, and Amea Sharp, Steve Rush, Linda Howard, Tina Hayes, Debbie Farmer,

  and dozens more who wished to remain unmentioned.

  Thank you for once again helping me make my story truly amazing. You guys rock!

  Get your free copy of the Legacy Short Story Collection

  Click here to get started:

  www.ryanattard.com

  Chapter 1

  There were several indications that I was inside a nightmare, but the biggest one was the darkness.

  It spread like a never-ending blanket over everything in sight despite the overhead street lamps sucking out luminance and atmospheric light.

  The sound of growling and roaring, huffing and gnashing, echoed loudly through the dark alleyway in one of those city corners frequented only by bums and drug addicts. The two creatures I saw were made out of shadows and about as large as Rottweilers. Their master scrambled behind them and kept going, eager to put distance between him and whatever was pursuing him.

  The attacker approached slowly, his footsteps heavy and loud. A metallic clang resounded on the pavement. As he came into the light, part of his body armor came into view.

  He was over six feet tall with broad shoulders, thick limbs, and covered from head to toe in obsidian-colored metal armor. Some parts looked wet and slick, while others were disturbingly functional. Sharp metallic spikes jutted out of his armor and covered his shoulders, legs, forearms and fists, making him look like a porcupine. The helmet resembled a spider with six long legs of metal coming out, three on each side. They curved upwards and were reminiscent of a crown or headdress. His face was covered, save for a pair of glowing red eyes, malice pouring from them.

  The two shadow beasts snarled at him but they remained in place, trembling. As constructs of magic they reflected the emotions of their master—and if their master was about to piss his pants at the sight of the knight, then that fear would also be transferred to the beasts.

  The knight stepped forward again, stalwart in his motions, and one of the beasts leapt.

  A massive two-handed sword appeared in the knight’s hands, the blade as tall as he was, and about as wide as a telephone pole. He swung it down with unexpected speed for someone as big as he was.

  The beast dissolved upon contact with the blade.

  The knight kept his momentum and swung a fist at the second beast. It leapt and latched onto his forearm, jaws digging into the flesh beneath.

  The knight looked at it, curiously.

  “Yes!”

  The man was watching from the entrance of the alleyway, big dumb grin on his face. As soon as the knight turned his eyes on him, the guy realized he’d made a terrible mistake.

  He turned to run but the knight was faster. Raising that massive sword overhead, the knight threw it like a dart, and the sword sliced cleanly through the guy’s leg, severing the limb with grim ease.

  His screams punched my stomach, and I felt as if my eardrums were going to rupture.

  Momentarily ignoring his prey, the knight raised his forearm, with the shadow-beast still attached to it, and slammed the beast’s head into the wall. With his free hand he started pummeling the beast, like that scene from Rocky where he punches slabs of meat.

  The shadow-beast helplessly took the beating, whimpering, before the knight drove his spiked knuckles into it one last time, and it dissolved.

  Meanwhile, a scraping sound echoed as the guy on the ground started pulling himself away from the knight. He fumbled with a vial of sorts, quickly slotting it inside a one-shot injector and emptied its contents into his neck.

  Magic surged from him, taking the form of shadow tendrils. He snarled as he willed them towards the knight.

  In turn, the knight raised his hands like a boxer, the tendrils whipping and slicing into his armor. He took a step forward.

  The guy doubled his efforts, blood squelching from his severed leg, and sweat dripping from the rest of him.

  The enormous blade, still stuck in the ground from when it had severed the guy’s leg, flew back towards its master, slicing along the guy’s arm on its flight path. Two fingers fell on the ground. The guy clutched his injury and screamed, while the sword flew into the knight’s hand.

  The knight dashed forwards, swiping with the sword. The guy ducked, and got his shoulder sliced instead of his head. The knight kicked him, shattering his remaining knee.

  The guy rolled into the alleyway, reaching for the shadows. Umbramancy was many things, but it was ill-suited for direct combat. Shadows bounced pathetically off the knight’s armor, and the latter battered the last of them away as he grabbed the guy by the neck.

  The guy struggled as the knight slammed him into the wall. Blood oozed from the back of the guy’s head. The knight pulled him forward and slammed him again, and again, repeatedly, until the guy vomited blood and gore.

  I watched as the knight began kicking, punching, and slashing at the guy, ripping him to pieces. His armor soon became drenched in blood and viscera, the wall behind the guy ripped apart with grooves from the sword and the knight’s claws and spikes.

  Once the guy was literally in bits, the knight stepped back and admired his work. I could hear the grunting from beneath the helmet.

  He raised his head and turned to look straight at me.

  The black faceplate split at the mouth, revealing a maw of red light inside, and the knight screamed, before swinging his sword right through me.

  I snapped awake, Djinn held at the ready. The magical shortsword blazed azure and dark blue, illuminating my bedroom. I tore the sheets away from my feet and kept the sword by my side.

  As a wizard, nightmares were nothing new. But this was something different, something real.

  I found myself at my window and peering outside. A storm was raging outside, rain drumming against my window, accompanied by the crash of thunder and the flash of lightning .

  Through the latter I saw something move i
n the middle of the street.

  A creature with spikes all over and a massive two-handed sword looked up back at me.

  I didn’t stop to think or reason. Leaving logic behind, I began pulling on my shoes, and seconds later I was tearing down the stairs and running out of my office, right in the middle of the street, Djinn held in front of me, its glow like a beacon.

  Only now that I was outside, the street was devoid of knights and nightmares.

  “Erik?”

  Abi was behind me, her red hair plastered to her head under the downpour. She held a gun in her hand, her stance ready for a fight.

  “I saw something,” I said. Rainwater blinded me. I rubbed my eyes, and scanned the street again. “I saw something.”

  “There’s nothing here,” she said. “The alarms didn’t go off. Not until you ran outside.”

  My office had a series of crystals that served as a magical barrier, making the building the equivalent of a supernatural Pentagon.

  But I was so sure I had seen the knight from my nightmares.

  So sure.

  Wait.

  Was I though?

  “Must have been my imagination,” I said, turning to her. “Let’s go back inside.”

  We hurried off to shelter, and I closed the door.

  “I was so sure,” I began.

  She set down her weapon and began toweling off her damp hair. “It’s fine, Erik,” she said.

  It wasn’t. This was going to be a discussion tomorrow but my guess was she was tired.

  I nodded. “Sorry.”

  She waved me off and climbed the stairs back to her room. From the corner of my office I spotted a pair of feline golden eyes staring straight at me. Amaymon, my cat, blinked once, then went back to sleep.

  I forced myself to inhale and slowly exhale as I made my way back to my bedroom.

  “Get a grip, Erik,” I muttered softly to myself. “Get a fucking grip.”

  Chapter 2

  I tried not to grit my teeth as I slid inside the giant tubular machine. Its walls came inches away from my face, but I managed to quell the bout of claustrophobia. A loud whomp-whomp-whomp drumming rose and then diminished, only to rise again.

  I closed my eyes: to hell with the doctor’s instructions not to move.

  “You’re doing great, Mr. Ashendale,” came the technician’s voice. “Lie still now.”

  Yeah, thanks, buddy, that’s real helpful.

  I hoped he couldn’t see my brain waves flipping him the bird, and instead exhaled softly.

  My name is Erik Ashendale, wizard, monster hunter, and, for the next fifteen minutes, a compliant patient getting an MRI.

  I have survived worse horrors than the machine, but there was something about hospitals that terrified me to the point of disarming me completely. They say hospitals are a place of healing, but to a wizard the stench of death hangs heavy in hospitals. I tried not to linger on that thought too much, and instead focused on why I was here.

  The headaches had not ceased since my resurrection.

  Oh, yeah, did I not mention that? I had been dead. For almost an entire year.

  Some might say coming back with a bit of headache is a pretty good deal. But those people did not have to live with my nightmares. I had thought they would subside over time. Instead, they kept growing more intense.

  More real.

  One night I had found blood on my hands. Other nights my clothes had been torn up. I kept waking up on the floor, in the bathroom, sometimes in my bed, still clothed in my gear.

  Hence the hospital visit. It sucked that I had to keep it a secret, but I knew my friends were already worried enough about me without adding my sleepwalking to the mix.

  God, I hoped it was just sleepwalking.

  “I’m what?”

  The doctor frowned at me but I didn’t care. “You’re absolutely fine, Mr. Ashendale,” he said, setting down a sheet of paper. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with you.”

  I scoffed. “But the headaches…”

  “Could be a sign of stress,” the doctor said. “Or perhaps you have altered your daily routine in the last few months.”

  You mean like getting thrown off a helicopter, getting chased in Limbo by the Grim Reaper for a few months, coming back to fight the former Demon Emperor, and then resuming a life of hunting supernatural horrors?

  Yeah, I’d say there had been a few changes.

  “When did all this start?” the doctor asked.

  I had answered that question already at the start of our appointment, but I fought the urge to get snippy.

  “About a year ago, give or take,” I replied. I realized my hands were clenched together and consciously separated them.

  “And did your life change in that time?”

  Hah!

  “No,” I lied. “Business as usual.”

  The doctor sighed.

  Never a good sign when doctors sigh.

  “Mr. Ashendale, I’m going to be very frank with you,” he said. “The scans show nothing wrong with your brain. As far as this report is concerned, you are a perfectly healthy young man.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “Right?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But from our previous appointments I can see the extraordinary signs of trauma on your body.”

  He rifled through my medical file and pulled out the X-rays I had taken a few days ago.

  “The cartilage in almost all of your joints has been torn. I detect several micro-fractures along your legs and arms, and those are just the ones I can see. And while the MRI showed no anomalies in your brain, you are exhibiting high levels of alertness, fear, and paranoia. If I did not have your blood test results, I would certainly assume you were on some kind of drug.”

  I blinked at him for several long seconds, stupefied.

  “So I have the body of a crash test dummy, and the brain of a junkie,” I surmised with a chuckle.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” the doctor said, seriously. Then, a smile. “The crash test dummy would be dead by now.”

  “Oh great, now you have jokes.”

  “Jokes aside, Mr. Ashendale,” the doctor went on, the levity vanishing from his tone, “whatever this is, it is taking too much of a toll on your body.”

  I exhaled. My jaw hurt. I was clenching my teeth again. My eyes were locked on a vein on the wooden surface of his table.

  The doctor had no way of knowing this, but the news was more troubling than he thought.

  I am cursed. Have been since I was a teenager and had sacrificed myself to save my sister from a rampaging phoenix. Somehow I had survived that, triggering a family curse and mutating my ‘magic genes’.

  All of that magical power was locked inside my body, healing it from pretty much anything. I’ve been shot in the head, ripped in half, torn to bits, mauled, knifed, speared—pretty much anything you’ve seen on a Game of Thrones episode.

  But before I was thrown out of that helicopter, a mysterious, nigh-omnipotent entity had shut off my magic and tossed me out, allowing me to properly die.

  Now I find out that, despite my magic having returned, there was a fault in the system.

  “Mr. Ashendale?” I heard the doctor say.

  I jerked my head up, looking at him. “Yeah, sorry,” I said. “It’s been a hell of a week.”

  The doctor nodded, clearly not buying my bullshit. He took out his notepad.

  “You have to take it easy, Mr. Ashendale,” he said, scribbling something down.

  “Hold on there, Doc,” I said. He looked up. “I’m not taking any antidepressants or any of that shit.” I didn’t care about keeping a civil tongue anymore. “No pills.”

  The doctor pursed his lips.

  “No pills,” he repeated. “At least not yet. Your condition is not physical, Mr. Ashendale, but mental. You need to take a break. Before your lifestyle breaks you. My advice: hire an assistant and head off to somewhere nice and relaxing. Hawaii is lovely this time of year.”

  “Too
many tourists,” I said.

  He shrugged. “The destination is irrelevant.” He tore the prescription sheet off and slid it across the desk.

  I took it and read it.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Marijuana is now legal, Mr. Ashendale,” he said. “And before you protest, it has no known side effects. Many of my patients use it before bed, but I’ll leave that up to you.”

  I pursed my lips. “Never would have guessed you people would peddle this stuff.”

  The doctor raised his eyebrow and sighed in a way that made it clear this meeting was over.

  “There’s a dispensary down the block,” he said, standing up.

  I stood up too and held my hand out, hoping he wouldn’t think I was the biggest asshole he’d ever met.

  “Thank you, doctor.”

  He shook my hand.

  “Mr. Ashendale,” he said. “I've heard rumors about you. About what you do.”

  Crap. Here it comes.

  “Nothing too bad, I hope,” I said.

  “Eureka is not a small town but it’s small enough,” he said. “And I cannot presume to know what your job entails. However, I can tell you that if you ignore this, it will only get worse.”

  He stared at me and I stared at him, and finally I nodded.

  “Thank you, Doc.”

  My phone buzzed as soon as I settled my bill with the receptionist.

  “Yeah?”

  “Erik,” said a familiar voice. “It’s Roland.”

  Detective Roland March was one of the few cops who knew about the supernatural. Better yet, he was the rare sort that did not have his head up his rear end, and knew to call in the professionals—me—when something went bump in the night.

  “I have a case,” he said.

  I noticed how he kept his voice low, a telltale sign that there were other cops around him. Sure, Roland was a pretty decent detective and a good cop, but if the precinct decided he was too loony to handle, they had methods for getting rid of him.