His Love Read online

  HIS LOVE

  Tales of the Magi Saga

  Book 2

  By

  Andrew Dobell

  By Andrew Dobell

  Booklist

  The Magi Saga – Urban Fantasy

  When Amanda discovers she’s a Magi after being attacked by a werewolf on the streets of NYC, she’s introduced to a magical society and drawn into a hidden war for the fate of mankind.

  Magi Dawn: The Magi Saga Book 1

  Magi Rising: The Magi Saga Book 2

  Magi Omen: The Magi Saga Book 3

  Magi Edge: The Magi Saga Book 4

  Magi Odyssey: The Magi Saga Book 5

  Magi Descent: The Magi Saga Book 6

  Wasteland Road Knights

  Liberation

  Exploration

  Tales of the Magi Saga

  The Angel of Tarut

  His Love

  Hack Imperfect

  Casino Red

  Uprising

  Pilgrimage

  A Thoroughly Modern Witch

  The New Prometheus - Cyberpunk

  When Frankie’s brain is transplanted into a Cybernetic body after being shot, she must go on the run from the mega-corporations who want her and her cyber-body’s designer dead.

  The New Prometheus

  The Prometheus Gambit

  The Prometheus Trap

  Prometheus Vengeance

  The Magi Saga Short Stories

  Only available through my mailing list;

  www.andrewdobellauthor.co.uk

  The Angel of Tarut: The Magi Saga Prologue

  His Love: A Magi Saga Short Story

  Anthologies I am part of:

  The Expanding Universe – Sci-Fi

  The Expanding Universe 3 – Sci-Fi

  For more of Andrew’s work, including Free Short Stories and Artwork visit my Website and Sign up to my Mailing List.

  www.andrewdobellauthor.co.uk

  For my Grandfather, who was a continual inspiration and support.

  Thank you to my wife and family for their love and tolerance.

  It had been a long night. Father Diego looked down the street ahead, and sighed. More lost souls to try and turn to the light. Once every so often, Father Diego would come out onto the streets and talk to the Prostitutes in his local red light district, with a thin hope that one or two of them would see the error of their ways. He had made a few friends talking to them, and was getting to know some of the regulars. The rain had stopped about half an hour ago, but the streets were slick with water, glistening like crystal sheets in the neon glow.

  Once in a while there was a new face on the streets, and he often took it as a personal challenge to talk to them early on in the night, one such challenge had already earned him a slap to the face tonight.

  He rubbed his cheek absentmindedly; it was still stinging ever so slightly. She packed quite a punch that one. But then he guessed they needed to, these girls had to be tough, had to stand up for themselves.

  He put one foot in front of the other and headed towards another poor soul. She was ambling along the sidewalk in those ridiculously high heels they always wore, in a skirt far too short for any decent human being, and seemed lost in her thoughts. She walked with her head down, staring at the floor, not looking where she was going.

  Quickly he offered up a quick prayer to guide him in this latest attempt, and asked God to keep him from further attack.

  Taking a breath, he stepped forward, stopping just short of her, directly in her path. She didn’t see him at first, but eventually stopped just short of walking right into him. She slowly raised her head from her downward stare and focused on Father Diego’s face.

  Her eyes narrowed slightly, and she cocked her head to one side.

  Father Diego smiled.

  “Hello there my child, my name is Father Diego, I was wondering if I may have a moment of your time to speak to you?”

  She barely moved, and said nothing, but just seemed to be weighing him up, gazing at him, as if she found him to be somewhat curious.

  She was a striking beauty he thought. Raven haired, fair skinned, with dusky eyes and high cheek bones, she’d make lesser men fall at her feet, of that he had no doubt.

  No answer seemed forthcoming from her, but she remained where she stood, just looking at him.

  “Well you see I’m just doing the rounds tonight,” he explained, wanting to fill the silence with something, “which I do once a month or so, and I would be grateful if I may just take a moment of your time. Do you have a name my child?”

  Her gaze, that never wavered from his eyes made Father Diego feel very much on edge and uneasy, but he waited for her answer anyway, even though he felt keenly that he should move on and leave this girl alone

  “Lucia.” One word, said slowly and deliberately, each sound enunciated carefully by her melodic voice.

  “Ah, Lucia, how lovely to make your acquaintance. Now, Lucia, I can see you’re an intelligent girl, and very pretty too, so may I ask, have you accepted His love?”

  Again, she just regarded him, not reacting to his question, just looking at him.

  After a pause of a few moments with no reply, he decided to continue.

  “Well, you see, there is always an alternative you know. You don’t have to be out here on the streets. You don’t have to degrade yourself like this. You can let His love into your heart and lead a better life, be more than this. Don’t you feel degraded by what you have to do? You do have a choice, you don’t have to sell your body, you’re one of Gods children, and as any father would, He hates to see you doing these things!”

  He paused for dramatic effect, he took a breath, watched her, and was about to continue when she suddenly spoke.

  “I’m not a prostitute,” she said, narrowing her eyes slightly.

  Father Diego stopped for a moment, he suddenly realised he had made a mistake. He had seen her clothes and mistook her for a Lady of the Night.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought, I mean, I just saw your…” he gestured down at her body, and then stopped, putting his hands behind his back “…erm, well, no harm done I suppose. I do apologise, it’s been a long night.” He backed off as he finished his sentence.

  He was looking everywhere but at her, at Lucia, and he knew those dusky eyes were looking right at him. Suddenly he felt naked, and vulnerable. There was something not right about this woman, something he couldn’t put his finger on, and the feeling that he should get away from her flared to life in his mind again as he backed away.

  “Well, Miss, I must get on, you know, no rest for the….err, yes, must get on. Well, it was nice to meet you. Good even…”

  “Your God doesn’t love you.”

  It came from nowhere, five words that stopped him dead in his tracks. He wasn’t sure he had heard her right, but he must have done.

  “E…e…excuse me?” He said.

  She just looked at him, her head was inclined backwards, her chin held high, but as he looked at her she brought her head back down, making it fall into shadow, framed by that jet hair.

  Suddenly a strange feeling came over him, intense dizziness, he felt like he was falling into an Abyss, and a feeling of loneliness washed over him. Not just a feeling of being alone, but of disconnection, of separation from his God.

  Father Diego felt nothing. The Love of his God was gone, only shadow remained. He steadied himself, the dizziness still there below him. The Woman, the Monster before him still stood there, taking in his weakness, scrutinising him. Diego felt afraid for the first time in a long time. Not just any old fear, but mortally, morbidly afraid, and afraid of her, of Lucia.

  He gathered what strength he could muster, trying to get hold of himself, calm himself. He repeated to himself it was just a dream, o
ver and over in his head, it’s just a passing vision, a passing sensation. Maybe he had forgotten his vitamins today? Yes, that could be it. He was feeling unwell. He staggered past Lucia, using the wall to help him, and felt the dizziness pass as he walked further and further away.

  The woman who had called herself Lucia looked back at the Man of the Cloth behind her, struggling to steady himself. Oh, how she loved taunting men of God.

  The Church doors loomed before him, tall and dark. Sanctuary. Father Diego walked forward, still a little feint from his encounter with that strange woman a little while earlier. He had chosen to call it a night and get back to the Church and then to bed. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. It swung shut behind him.

  He knew it straight away, something wasn’t right here. The Church looked as it always had done, old and dank, shadows in every corner, these things where normal, but there was a feeling, a sense of wrongness, of something fearful in here. Movement caught Diego’s eye and he found his vision chasing shadows out the corners of his eyes. Things seemed to move but didn’t.

  He clapped his hands to his face and shut his eyes. This was silly, there was nothing in here, his mind was merely playing tricks on him.

  “Forgive my weakness lord!” he whispered to himself.

  He walked up the centre Aisle towards the Altar, and noticed the cross hanging above it was upside down.

  He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the Gold Relic, it was indeed inverted. He crossed himself quickly and offered up a prayer.

  How could this happen? It had been the right way round when he had gone out. Someone must have done this, broken in and done this on purpose. They knew what this meant and did it out of spite.

  Something was wrong behind him, and he spun to see what it could be. He was greeted with darkness. Utter darkness. The back wall had gone, the aisle had gone, everything was gone, just black remained. He spun right around and indeed the whole church had gone. He stood on… something, but what? He couldn’t see anything around him, in fact, there were no points of reference for him at all and suddenly that dizziness returned with a vengeance as he fell to his knees.

  “Not scared of the Dark are we Father?” said that familiar lilting voice from earlier that night. The woman he had met, Lucia, was stood not 20 foot from him, as if lit by a light that wasn’t there.

  “You! How did I…how did you…ah…what’s going on? Where am I?” He gasped.

  “You’re nowhere,” she said calmly.

  “What?” He replied, panic rising within him. “What do you mean I’m nowhere? I was in my church, where’s it gone?”

  She just stood there, gazing at him in vague interest. As one watches a fly caught in a spiders web, struggling to get free, but knowing it’s doomed to failure.

  “Answer me Damn it! What’s going on here?”

  But still she just watched him. Frustrated, he began to stand, making as if to move towards her.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I where you.” She said, and suddenly the floor he stood on was visible. He was on top of a Column of rock, barely 2 meters across its reasonably flat top. He dropped to his knees again clutching the floor. He peered over the edge, the column just descended into Darkness. Utter confusion and terror fell upon him as he gazed slack jawed back at Lucia, who seemed suspended in mid air in the blackness.

  “Your god doesn’t love you because he doesn’t exist, Father. He never existed. None of the Gods you Mortals worship do. They were made up to replace the true Gods that had long since withdrawn from the world. Ironic isn’t it that we fought so hard to be free of them, and when we were free, we made up other ones to take their place.” Her tone was light, conversational almost, and it served only to frustrate him further.

  Father Diego wasn’t sure what he was hearing, but it sounded like gibberish to him.

  “What are you talking about Lucia?” He said desperately.

  Lucia seemed to snap out of a reverie she had slipped into staring into the middle distance, and realise he was still there. She stared right at him, her eyes nearly boring holes into his skull.

  “My names not Lucia,” she snapped.

  “But, you said…”

  “I know what I said.” She let her words hang in the air, as if waiting to see if he would answer her back, but he couldn’t. Father Diego felt lost, cast adrift and utterly terrified, so he said nothing, hoping it was all a dream, until she spoke once more.

  “What I’m saying is, welcome to your new home!”

  She spread out her arms as she spoke to gesture at the vista that became suddenly visible to him. A shadowy bluish landscape spread out to the horizon in every direction. Other columns became visible, hundreds of meters tall each. Below him the columns sank into a choppy sea of sickly blue-green, beneath those waves things moved, huge things with tentacles hundreds of metres long. Beyond, in the haze, vast cyclopean monolith’s jutted from the ocean, and things moved in the air. Ungodly things that hungered and screamed in the night glided lazily through the low clouds lit from within by blasts of lighting. But the thing in the distance was far bigger than the columns or the Monoliths, and it seemed to be moving this way.

  It was then that he went mad, the Fathers fragile sanity snapping like a simple twig.

  Leaning against the outside of the church, in the shadows, the girl sighed. She straightened up, and walked into the night, leaving the priest within the church where he lay on the floor, screaming at the imaginary world that now filled his head. A world he would never escape from, until he finally took his own life.

  Author Note

  Thank you for reading this second book of the Tales of the Magi Saga.

  This was a much shorter story than I usually write, and serves more as a character piece than anything else.

  I’ve set this book at the cheapest Amazon will allow.

  This short was actually written well before any of the Magi Saga works, and the girl in the story was originally not meant to be Yasmin, but, as the world of the Magi Saga took shape, this story fit right in, and became a short character piece about my favourite villain.

  I hope you enjoyed it.

  The correct order for these books is as follows;

  The Angel of Tarut: Tales of the Magi Saga 1

  His Love: Tales of the Magi Saga 2

  Magi Dawn: The Magi Saga Book 1

  Magi Rising: The Magi Saga Book 2

  Hack Imperfect: Tales of the Magi Saga 3

  Magi Omen: The Magi Saga Book 3

  Casino Red: Tales of the Magi Saga 4

  Magi Edge: The Magi Saga Book 4

  Uprising: Tales of the Magi Saga 5

  Pilgrimage: Tales of the Magi Saga 6

  Magi Odyssey: The Magi Saga Book 5

  A Thoroughly Modern Witch: Tales of the Magi Saga 7

  I hope you enjoy the ride.

  You can connect with me at the Magi Saga Fan’s group here:

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1700893393268961/

  You buy me a monthly coffee and get free stuff through my patreon:

  https://www.patreon.com/CreativeEdge

  Thanks, Andrew.

  By Andrew Dobell

  Booklist

  The Magi Saga – Urban Fantasy

  When Amanda discovers she’s a Magi after being attacked by a werewolf on the streets of NYC, she’s introduced to a magical society and drawn into a hidden war for the fate of mankind.

  Magi Dawn: The Magi Saga Book 1

  Magi Rising: The Magi Saga Book 2

  Magi Omen: The Magi Saga Book 3

  Magi Edge: The Magi Saga Book 4

  Magi Odyssey: The Magi Saga Book 5

  Magi Descent: The Magi Saga Book 6

  Wasteland Road Knights

  Liberation

  Exploration

  Tales of the Magi Saga

  The Angel of Tarut

  His Love

  Hack Imperfect

  Casino Red

  Uprising

  Pilgrimag
e

  A Thoroughly Modern Witch

  The New Prometheus - Cyberpunk

  When Frankie’s brain is transplanted into a Cybernetic body after being shot, she must go on the run from the mega-corporations who want her and her cyber-body’s designer dead.

  The New Prometheus

  The Prometheus Gambit

  The Prometheus Trap

  Prometheus Vengeance

  The Magi Saga Short Stories

  Only available through my mailing list;

  www.andrewdobellauthor.co.uk

  The Angel of Tarut: The Magi Saga Prologue

  His Love: A Magi Saga Short Story

  Anthologies I am part of:

  The Expanding Universe – Sci-Fi

  The Expanding Universe 3 – Sci-Fi

  For more of Andrew’s work, including Free Short Stories and Artwork visit my Website and Sign up to my Mailing List.

  www.andrewdobellauthor.co.uk

 

 

  Andrew Dobell, His Love

  Thanks for reading the books on GrayCity.Net