Sorcerers of the Nightwing (Book One - The Ravenscliff Series)

Diversion Books
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Copyright © 2002 by Geoffrey Huntington
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

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First Diversion Books edition June 2013
ISBN:
978-1-626810-73-0

Ted March called it the Hell Hole.

It was his son’s closet—a plain, ordinary little closet with sliding maplewood doors, where the six-year-old boy hung his shirts and tossed his sneakers, where his stuffed animals were tumbled in a pile on the floor. A closet that, at first, seemed like any other,
no different from those in the rooms of the other little boys in the tidy little houses that lined their tidy little street.

But in Devon March’s closet, green eyes stared out from the darkness.

“Daddy,” the boy asked, “what’s in there?”

Ted March called it the Hell Hole, but not so Devon could hear. Ted was determined that the boy he was raising as his own would grow up as normally as
possible—that the truth of his past would not prevent him from living his life like any other little boy. Everyone had agreed it was best that Devon not know the truth of his birth and the identities of his real parents, and so Ted had taken the child far away from the place where he was born. He’d spared him the legacy of his birthright—and the reason why his closet was a gateway to hell.

“Daddy,” Devon cried, pointing. “There are eyes in there!”

And indeed there were. Until now, Ted had managed to keep the demons at bay. He’d caught the few that had slithered out of the closet like snakes, wriggling across the boy’s floor and taking up posts under his bed. Ted had caught them and stomped them, sending them back to where they came from. So far, they’d all been small creatures—stupid,
reptilian things, easily snared with the ancient skills Ted had learned from his own father.

“Daddy!” Devon cried louder. “Something’s moving in there!”

Until now, the boy hadn’t actually seen anything—but he had heard them, whispering and hissing at night, their nefarious scuttling about in the Hell Hole awakening him from a sound sleep. He had called out for Ted, who had learned to sleep
with one eye and ear open. Moving to another house was pointless: the demons had followed them here from Misery Point and dug their filthy hole, and they’d surely track them down no matter where they fled. For Devon had something they wanted, and wanted desperately.

He also had the fears of any six-year-old boy awakened in the middle of the night. And as hard as his father would try to console
him, the one thing Ted wouldn’t do was lie. He wouldn’t tell the child the sounds were only his imagination; he wouldn’t deny that the hissing and scratching in his closet were real.

“Daddy, look,” Devon said, more frantic now. “The eyes are moving!”

And they were. Ted March stood staring into the darkness of his son’s closet. He felt the stifling heat, the throbbing pressure. Green bloodshot
eyes blinked languidly, once, then twice, over the pile of sneakers and stuffed animals.

“They can’t hurt you, Devon,” Ted whispered to his son. “Remember that no matter what. You are stronger than they are.”

“But I’m scared!” the little boy whimpered.

Yes, that was the rub: the demons might not have been able to hurt Devon, but they could frighten him. Frighten him badly, at least while
he was still a child. Ever since the Madman had opened the Hell Hole in Misery Point, the demons had been loose, and Ted had known all too well that the sealing of the Portal six years ago hadn’t corralled them all. They had followed them here, hundreds of miles away, burrowing down deep into Devon’s closet to forge a new Hell Hole, taking up residence in their house like rats in a basement.

Ted watched as the eyes grew larger in the darkness. It was waking. It sensed them, and its eyes narrowed in contemplation. Ted could hear the demon’s breath now, hissing like a faulty radiator.

“Stand back, Devon,” he told his son.

The little boy shrunk in terror beside his bed. His father stood facing the closet. The demon within stirred, one long arm stretching out from the dark, human
except for the talons where fingers would have been.

Ted glanced quickly around the room, his eyes landing on Devon’s baseball bat. Grabbing it, he raised it into the air. “By the power of my father and my grandfather and my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather, I order you back!” he shouted, swinging the bat down hard on the creature’s arm.

A roar of pain and anger shook the room. Devon
clutched onto his bedpost, his little eyes wide in fright. When the demon screamed again, the boy covered his ears, and his eyes grew large as the thing in the closet crawled out into the room.

Into the light.

Ted had seen many demons in the flesh: in his youth, on the moors of England, he’d battled hundreds of the tribe, stuffed dozens of the filthy brutes back down the throats of their
Hell Holes. But never had the sight of them not elicited repulsion, and this one—tall and gaunt, dripping puss and slime, skeletally human except for its talons and fangs—was particularly beastly.

“Get back, you hellspawn,” Ted shouted, landing a savage roundhouse kick to the monster’s gut. It roared, its strangely humanoid face grimacing in both pain and outrage. Its long unruly hair, growing
from both its head and body, swung furiously, slapping Ted across the face and filling his nostrils with the stink of death.

“You can’t touch Devon,” he called to the creature. “He’s stronger than you are—and you know it!”

The thing reared back on its haunches, as if to spring. But instead, it lashed out with a sweep of its long arm, slashing Ted across the face with its talons, drawing
blood.

“Daddy!” Devon screamed.

Ted lunged. Gripping the creature around its middle, he pushed it back into the closet. It roared again from the darkness, jolting the room like an earthquake. Model dinosaurs and miniature cars came raining down from Devon’s shelves; his bookcase tipped over, spewing DVDs across the floor. The demon, enraged, bolted once more from the closet and grabbed Ted
with its long talons, tossing him across the room. Only the wall stopped his flight. Ted thudded hard against the plaster, sliding down into a sitting position, stunned and helpless as the demon advanced toward him.

“Daddy!” Devon cried.

The creature lumbered across the hardwood floor. The tears ran down Devon’s face as he watched the thing approach his father. Its long red tongue darted
out of its mouth and licked its sharp teeth. Later, such scenes would be remembered by Devon as horrible nightmares, but in the moment the little boy stood terrified, convinced he was about to watch his father be devoured, and that he was next.

“No!” Devon shouted.

That was all: just a simple no, and the creature turned, its eyes blazing terror.

“No!” Devon repeated, and instinctively
put out his hand.

You are stronger than they are
, his father had always said.

“No!” Devon commanded.

The demon roared. Devon bit down hard on his lip and concentrated with all his might. “Go back!” he cried, and with a sweep of his little arm, he sent the demon flying through the air and back inside the closet. The door slid shut with a bang, and the room fell suddenly silent.

“Daddy?”
Devon asked in a very small voice.

Ted March opened his eyes. The demon was gone. The heat that had filled the room was gone, too. He looked up and saw his little dark-eyed son standing over him. He smiled.

Devon had yet to lose all his baby fat, but in some ways he was already a man.

“Daddy, are you okay?” Devon asked, his little eyes welling with tears.

“I’m fine, Devon,” Ted said,
opening his arms. His son fell into them gratefully. “You are a strong boy, Devon. You are stronger than they are.”

He held the boy close. He could feel Devon’s six-year-old heart beating wildly, his small frame trembling.

Yes, he was stronger than they were, but not nearly so cunning. Ted knew they’d use that against him. This one was clumsy, ignorant—but there were others who were far
smarter, far more shrewd, and Ted knew they’d come too.

And the Madman—Ted didn’t believe for a second that he was really gone for good.

Ted March had pledged his life to little Devon. He vowed again that no harm would come to him, that he would live as a normal boy might, that his life would be as free from the horrors of his birthright as possible.

Not an easy vow, Ted knew, when the
monsters in the closet were real.

For one long moment the mournful howl of some distant animal obscured the sound of the wind. Devon March stepped off the bus, one hand lugging his heavy suitcase, the other clasping the medal of the lady and the owl in his pocket, squeezing it so tightly that it pinched the flesh of his palms.

He felt the heat,
even on this damp, windy, cold October night, the heat and the energy he had recognized ever since he was a small boy.
They’re out there
, he thought.
In the night. Watching me, as they always have
.

He headed down the steps, stepping off onto the concrete. Behind him, the bus driver yanked the doors shut and the bus screeched off into the night.

The station was left in darkness, with just
an autumn moon to light Devon’s way. Only one other person had gotten off the bus with him, a man whose footsteps now echoed through the empty terminal ahead of him. The rain had not yet come, but Devon could feel it already in the wind and the salty dampness blowing up from the sea. Mr. McBride had said it would be this way: “Why else would they call it Misery Point?”

Devon walked out of the
station and into the parking lot. He looked around. A car had been promised to meet him, but there was no one to be seen. Perhaps they were just late; perhaps the bus had been a few minutes early. Devon yanked his phone out of his coat pocket and saw he had no bars. What kind of place was this that phones had no reception? He tried texting Suze but it wouldn’t go through. As the shadows flickered
in the windy moonlight, Devon couldn’t shake a sudden sense of foreboding.

He tugged at his collar. For such a windy, raw night, he still felt the heat underneath, which meant that the demons were near. Of course, Devon had fully expected that they’d follow him here, that they wouldn’t simply allow him to get away. What he hadn’t expected was the intensity of the heat: it seemed to be ratcheting
up by the minute, as if the creatures were getting closer. From the moment Devon had stepped off the bus, the heat had been far more intense than it ever had been in New York.

This place holds answers
, the Voice inside himself said.
That’s why your father sent you here.

In the distance, thunder rumbled. He pulled his coat more tightly around him.

What had the old woman said to him on
the bus?

“You’ll find no one there but ghosts.”

“Excuse me,” came a voice, interrupting his thoughts.

Devon turned. In the empty parking lot stood the man who had gotten off the bus with him a moment ago.

“Are you waiting for a ride?” the man asked.

“Yeah,” Devon replied. “I was supposed to be met here.”

The man carried a suitcase not unlike Devon’s own. He looked to be in his
late thirties, tall, handsome, dark. “Well,” said the man, “I can’t imagine a less hospitable place to be stood up. Do you need a ride into town?”

“I’m sure I’m not stood up,” Devon told him.

The man shrugged. “Okay then. Just wouldn’t want you to get caught in the rain.”

Devon watched him. The man continued on his way to his car—a silver Porsche—parked a few yards away. It was the only
car in the lot.

This man knows. This man knows what I came here to find.

The Voice came to him as it always did: small, sure, far back in his mind. It was a voice unlike any other thought: clear and sharp, and unrecognizable to Devon as his own.

He knows
, the Voice told him again.
Don’t let him get away.

Just what the man knew Devon wasn’t sure, but one thing was certain: if he hoped
to find answers in this place, he needed to listen to the Voice. It had never failed him before.

“Yo!” Devon called.

But the wind had swelled up fiercely, drowning him out.

“Yo!” he called again, louder. “Hey, Mister!”

The man, still oblivious, opened his car door and slid inside. Devon heard the kick of the ignition. The car’s headlights switched on.

There’s no time
, Devon thought.
He wouldn’t see me if I try to make a run for him.

There was only one way. He prayed that it would work. Sometimes it did and sometimes it didn’t. Devon concentrated. The car began to back out of the stall. Devon closed his eyes. He concentrated harder.

And suddenly the driver’s door blew open.

“What the—?” the man shouted.

Devon grasped his suitcase tightly and ran toward the car.

“Hey!” he called.

The man leaned out from the open door, finally aware of Devon. Yet he seemed more concerned with checking his car door hinges than with the boy running up to him.

“Hey,” Devon said, reaching him, a little out of breath, “your offer for a ride still good?”

The man looked over at him, then quizzically back at his door. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Sure, kid. Jump in.”

“Sweet,”
Devon said, beaming.

He has answers
, the Voice told him.

Answers Devon had come to Misery Point to find.

Devon March was fifteen years old.
He was not like other boys; he’d known that since the age of four, when he made his dog Max, a wiry Yorkshire terrier, levitate across the room. One time, running a relay race with his best friend Tommy, Devon had sprinted across the playground before any of the other kids had even left the starting gate. Since then, he’d stood face to face with demons—so close he could see right up their nostrils,
demonic nose hair and all. That wasn’t something he imagined many other kids his age could claim.

No, not like other boys.

“You have a gift,” his father had told him ever since he was a little. “You can do things others can’t. Things people wouldn’t understand. Things they might fear.”

“But why, Dad? Why can I do these things?”

“Why doesn’t matter, Devon. Just know that all power ultimately
comes from good, and so long as you use your power in the pursuit of good, you will always be stronger than whatever else is out there.”

He felt kind of like Clark Kent on
Smallville
, except he knew there was no rocket ship hidden in some barn to explain his origins. His father promised him that someday he would understand everything about his powers and his heritage. But until then, he had
only to trust in the power of good.

“Call it God, as many do,” his father had told him shortly before he died. “Call it a higher force, the spirit of the universe, the power of nature. It is all of these things. It is the light within you.”

Dad had started talking in these weird riddles in his last weeks, and Devon had sat there trying to make them out as best as he could. But in trying
to figure them out, he had gotten exactly jack—and then Dad had died, leaving Devon with a whole new set of mysteries to ponder.

“You’re going where?” the old woman sitting next to him on the bus had asked.

“Misery Point,” Devon repeated. “It’s way up north on the coast of Maine.”

“I know where it is,” she’d said, all eyes and shriveled mouth, “and you’ll find no one there but ghosts.”

Up until that point, the old woman had taken a liking to him. She’d asked where he was from, and he’d told her upstate New York, a little town called Coles Junction. They’d exchanged pleasantries and watched the colors of the New England foliage pass outside their window. But once he’d spoken the words Misery Point, Devon had found her strange and recoiling.

“Ghosts?” Devon asked her. “Whaddya
mean, ghosts?”

“I know these parts,” she warned. “And that is not a place for a young man to go. Stay away from there.”

Devon laughed. “Well, normally I’d take your warning under advisement, but you see, my dad just died, and he left guardianship to an old friend of his who lives there. So my choices are rather limited, you understand.”

The old woman was shaking her head. “Don’t get off
the bus. You stay right where you are until it turns around and heads back to wherever you came from.” She looked at him. Her old eyes were yellow and lined, but they glowed with a ferocity he hadn’t expected to see there. “There are legends,” she said.

Devon’s hand sought the indentation of the medal of the lady and the owl through his pants. “What kind of legends?” he asked.

“About the
ghosts,” the woman said, lowering her voice. “I’m telling you true, my dear boy. All you’ll find there are ghosts. Oh, you young people today think nothing can harm you. You with your rap music and cell phones and Tweeter—”

“Twitter,” Devon corrected.

“Whatever. Point is, you’ve tuned out on the world around you.”

But that wasn’t true: at least not about Devon. He knew some things simply
couldn’t be explained, that there did exist a realm of … of … Something Else. When he was a boy, fearful of the monsters in his closet, his father hadn’t soothed him with assurances that such things didn’t exist. How could he, when Devon at six had already witnessed a slimy, hairy creature crawl out of his closet and try to bite off both their heads? Rather, Dad had comforted him by telling him
that he was stronger than any demon, that his powers were deep and rare.

Rare they certainly were, for they came and went with a frustrating frequency. In times of crisis—like demon invasions of his bedroom, for example, or the time Dad nearly fell off the ladder painting the house—they never failed. In those cases, Devon always managed to save the day thanks to his mysterious powers. But when
he tried to impress a girl by lifting a barbell with only his mind, forget it.

In fact, Devon’s powers seemed to have a will of their own, sometimes fading away, other times popping out with no warning. Like that day in WalMart, when he wasn’t more than seven, when he’d wanted that anime video game so bad. It had risen off the shelf and floated across the aisle, dropping into Devon’s book bag.
He hadn’t stolen it; it had simply followed him home. Devon was as surprised as Dad when he found it later that night among his books.

Then there was the time Mrs. Grayson had punished him for talking in class. She was a nasty old sow, a shriveled apple of a woman everyone despised. She made Devon turn his desk around the opposite way, facing the back wall. Mortified—Devon hated being singled
out from the rest—he wished with all his might that he wasn’t the only one so punished. Suddenly, every desk in the class turned around to match Devon’s. Snarly old Mrs. Grayson practically had a coronary up there by the chalkboard.

Yet other than the powers and the demons—not insignificant exceptions, Devon admitted—he was like any other kid his age. At least he had been before he was sent
away. He’d hung out with his friends, listened to music, watched TV, played video games. He’d been a good student and had lots of friends. He wasn’t the most popular kid in school, but he certainly wasn’t unpopular.

All that had changed when his father had died less than a month ago. Ted March had had a heart attack shortly before and had been confined to his bed. “You’ll get better, Dad,”
Devon had insisted.

His father just smiled. “I’m a very, very old man, Devon.”

“Dad, you’re only in your fifties.” He looked at his father intently. “That’s not so old.”

His father had just smiled and closed his eyes.

Dad lingered less than a month. He tried to rally but never found the strength. Devon found him one morning, just as the sun was breaking over the horizon. Dad had died
quietly in his sleep, alone. Devon just sat there for an hour at the side of his father’s bed, stroking his cold hand and letting the tears run down his cheeks. Only then did he telephone Mr. McBride, Dad’s lawyer, and give him the news.

How quickly his old life had been replaced. Practically all Devon had left from that old life was Dad’s medal. It was silver on one side, with an engraving
of a flying owl, and copper on the other side, with an image of a lady dressed in a long robe. The medal had once jangled among the coins in his father’s pocket, always at ready grasp. His father had called it a talisman. When Devon had asked what a talisman was, his father had smiled and said, “Just call it my good luck charm.”

All the way up to Misery Point, Devon had kept reaching down into
his pocket to cup the medal in his hand. The medal gave him a connection to the father he missed more than he could possibly express. Devon still woke up in the mornings expecting Dad to be out in the kitchen frying bacon and eggs for breakfast. He still expected Max to be panting eagerly in the hallway, wanting to go for a walk. For a terrible second every morning when he opened his eyes, Devon
would forget everything that had happened the past few weeks: the funeral, the lawyers, the reading of the will—especially the startling confession Dad had made on his deathbed.

But quickly it always came rushing back: Dad was dead, Max had gone to live with Devon’s friend Tommy, and the topper of them all: Dad hadn’t even been his real father. Devon had been adopted. That’s what Dad had told
him right before he died. That bit of knowledge proved to be even harder to absorb than the fact that Dad was dead.

“I may not have been your blood,” his father told him in a soft, weak voice, his frail body propped up with pillows, “but always know that I loved you as my own son.”