Doctor DArco Sorceror Of London – Kathryn Colvin (1)

In their minds and memories the outbursts of their fellow spectators were merely out of fear and surprise at the ghastliness of the image, the vague sense of disquiet in the chest and bone and viscera no more than the effect of the organ’s booming throb. Here on his illusionist’s stage, Reinhardt unleashed his sorcery in plain sight.

The conjured skeleton seemed to grow, looming over the stage with eyes aflame, until the devil-women tore the image asunder with their tridents and the rest dissipated into smoke. Reinhardt stepped cautiously into the circle as its light faded, picked up his hat, dusted it off on his knee and swung it back onto his head as he flashed a rakish smile. Applause!—a pause, as red-skirted tables were hastily wheeled in behind the wooden flames—and then the show continued, alternating and augmenting what I understood by reputation to be stage magician’s tricks with the fantastical illusions of Reinhardt’s sorcery: I witnessed one demoness sawn in half and smilingly reassembled; the other reclined and was levitated, and after Reinhardt passed her form through a ring to ensure the apparent impossibility of ropes, she floated out toward the audience, burst into flames, and vanished—all but for a red skull, which rolled from the edge of the stage to drop nonchalantly into the first row.

From the cries and commotion, it seemed to have fallen into the lap of a woman with a rather outsized hat, and she fainted promptly away (to the relief, I imagined, of those seated behind her headwear)—but the offending skull was never found. The grand finale was an infernal game between Reinhardt and the second devil-woman; after the incident of the skull she was, by appearances, understandably reticent to assist in his further experiments, and tauntingly appeared and disappeared in various locations across the stage as Reinhardt leveled his wand at her each time, always a moment too late, the miss of each supposed burst of magic from his weapon indicated by a puff of smoke like a bullet strike in dust.

From the pages of Doctor D’Arco, Sorcerer of London A power rose in me—like a shadow returning, a black tide gathering back into the midnight sea—and I stopped, and let it pass with my silent tears, because it felt too much like him. I could not risk summoning his phantom to me now; I could not in a thousand lifetimes allow him the sight of these lamentations of a lunatic.

He was my professor, the deathly Doctor D’Arco, and I imperiled even now my vow as his apprentice. But cold logic melted in the fire of my heart and my mind, and when I closed my eyes I saw only him, standing alone on the sea- cliff of a foreign shore, the impossible abyss of an ill-starred fate widening between us like a black chasm, a rift in the earth. If only I could call to him —speak his name thrice⁠— No. A half-dream.

A nightmare. The abyss and the sea-cliff faded, but I could not tell anymore my cold sweat from my tears. And I knew then, for good or for evil, that I could not go on thus—this thing inside me, haunting me, must now have the dignity of a name. The night would pass, I knew, and my mind surpass this madness, and my strength return.

But while the night endured, before sleep made me forget, I would exhume Truth from her burial within my heart, and breathe into her a part of my soul, and allow her for an hour to live: Against all the will of the world⁠— All the will of the world but my own. Beneath the bedclothes in the dark I clutched his water-stained grimoire against the beating of my heart, the warmth of my breasts, and the small, convulsive sobs that racked my body.

Against all the will of the world, I was falling in love with Doctor D’Arco. OceanofPDF.com OceanofPDF.com This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental. Doctor D’Arco, Sorcerer of London Copyright © 2024 by Kathryn Colvin All rights reserved. First edition: August 2024. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews or articles.

ISBN: 979-8-9910923-0-2 (ebook) ISBN: 979-8-9910923-1-9 (paperback) Cover and Doctor D’Arco Emblem by Ronen Blanquera (www.ronenblanquera.com) Edited by Giulia Tomasso www.kathryncolvin.com OceanofPDF.com Contents 1. Midnight, Witch’s Corner 2. The Shadow in the Steel Mask 3. The Talisman of Thoth 4. An Apparition 5. A Circle of Ash 6. The Gathering of Magisophists 7.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: c7717253904a0138
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 3,927,081 bytes (3.745 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9798991092302, 9798991092319
• Pages: 710
• Language: English (en)

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