by Gareth Otton
“Then what happened?” Lizzie pressed, wanting to move past memories of art. No matter how pretty those statues might be, they were hardly news worthy.
“A guy storms in, angry like I’ve never seen. He’s yelling at the delivery guys for opening everything up and kicks us out like it was our fault these guys messed up. The place only needed a couple more hours of work, but they didn’t want to hear it. They didn’t want us back the next day either. It was a week later before they called us in to finish the job, only I couldn’t go. I was sick. I also didn’t like the situation. The guy was way too angry, kicking us off the job like that. It didn’t feel right…”
His words trailed off once more and the third whiskey disappeared. Lizzie got the impression that it wouldn’t matter how many more drinks she bought him, this story was coming to a close. There was a haunted expression on his face that the whiskey wasn’t touching. She needed to finish this quick.
“What happened, Jalen?”
“An accident, they said. Killed everyone who went there. Thing is, what kind of accident happens on a site right when you’re finishing the job. Everything’s pretty much done then, everything’s secure. No, they were killed because they saw something they weren’t supposed to.”
“So you ran?”
“Of course I did. Wouldn’t you? There’s no way that was an accident. I told the police, but they didn’t want to hear it. The moment I said where I was talking about, they acted like I was some crazy who came in off the streets. Not a single one of them would look me in the eye, and I got the message pretty quick. Whoever killed my friends had the police in their pocket. And here I was, shooting my mouth off like an idiot. So yeah, I ran. I came here, thinking they’d never find me. Now you’re here and I need to run again. Don’t know where this time though.”
He downed the last drink and pushed himself away from the bar, staggering before righting himself. Then without a backward glance, he walked away at a surprising pace. Lizzie had to hurry to catch up. By the time she was out of the pub he was already half way down the alley, like he was picking up speed with every step. If she didn’t catch him soon, he would be flat out running and in his current state she suspected it would only be a matter of time before he fell over… maybe into a road.
“Jalen, wait,” she shouted after him. “I can give you a lift somewhere. It will be quicker than running.”
Even in his drunken state, her words got through to him and he slowed to a walk, though he never stopped moving entirely.
“Come on. You know this is the right option. All I need to know is one more thing, and then we can get out of here. You see this?” she asked, lifting the hem of her top to show the new tattoo over her left hip. “You’ve seen these on the news, right? You know what they can do?”
His steps slowed to a stop as something about the round tattoo with its intricate lines caught his attention.
“That’s a dreamcatcher,” he whispered, sounding a little awed.
“That’s right. It means I can take you anywhere in the world with a thought. You want to run, this is the best way. All you have to do is tell me one more thing.”
He looked around like someone might be standing behind him, but there was only the empty alley and the surprisingly lifelike characters on the graffiti covered walls. Rubbing the back of his neck for a moment as he was lost in thought, he finally decided.
“What do you want to know?” he asked, defeated.
“What’s the address of the building you were working on?”
“It’s a tower called New Olympus. It’s in Ath—”
His words morphed into a wet gurgling sound as suddenly his throat opened up from ear to ear and blood gushed out of his neck, covering the front of his shirt. It was so sudden that Lizzie’s mind didn’t even have time to experience horror before Jalen was falling to his knees, eyes wide and fingers scrabbling for the terrible wound.
His crumpling body revealed a bizarre figure standing behind him. For a moment Lizzie flashed back to the dragon incident in Cardiff, remembering how strange it was to see two-dimensional dragons moving in a way that interacted with the three-dimensional world. This time, rather than a strip of fabric come to life, it was instead a painting from a wall.
One of the graffiti characters from the wall had separated from the rest of the paintwork and slit open Jalen’s throat. It was such a bizarre sight that Lizzie didn’t even glance at Jalen as he continued his fall to the ground, giving up the fight to stay alive and going still. She could only watch in terrified amazement as the flat planes of the figure seemed to fill out, as the bright colours lost their saturation, and the figure morphed into the shape of a man. The most bizarre part was that it didn’t feel like a physical change, but more like her mind was just suddenly seeing the truth. By the time it was over, she wondered how she had ever thought this person could have been part of the graffiti.
He was a man of average height, but that was the only thing about him that was average. His smooth skin was tanned, his black hair was glossy and long, and she had only seen eyes like that on two other people. However, where Stella and Leon had vibrant blue eyes, these eyes were a green so luminous they shone like LEDs.
Lizzie’s mind was in such a state of shock that she didn’t put the clues together until it was too late. He was one of the eidolon. He had come to kill this man and now he knew that she’d been seeking Jalen’s secrets. Worse, she recognised the glimmer of recognition in his eyes. He knew who she was, and she very much doubted that would mean anything good.
The terrifying blade in his fist caught the light of the sun as he moved, flashing it into Lizzie’s eyes and forcing her horrified brain into action. She flinched as he lunged for her, her mind jumping to the tattoo on her hip and her salvation.
She wasn’t quick enough.
The man was less than ten feet away and he was fast… inhumanly fast. No sooner had she thought about that tattoo on her hip when he caught her arm, holding her in place with a grip so hard it left bruises.
She screamed and struggled to get free, but it was no good as the man was too strong for her and she didn’t have the time to try anything clever.
A sharp pain flared through her, cutting off her scream abruptly as it felt like she couldn’t breathe. She glanced down, horrified to see the attacker’s knife sunk so deep into her stomach that the handle was flush against her shirt. Blood was spreading around the wound, soaking the front of her shirt.
“I’m sorry about this. I don’t have a choice.”
She looked up at the odd words, surprised to find moisture in her killer’s eyes, but then her attention was pulled away once more by a new pain as the knife was pulled from her gut. It almost hurt worse coming out.
As if to give her better data to compare the pain, he stabbed her again, and again. It hurt so bad, that this time Lizzie couldn’t even scream.
5
Saturday, 24th December 2016
11:59 (Local time)
Deo stepped back, letting the girl fall to the floor without looking at her. He was more focused on the hot, crimson liquid covering his hands.
He had never seen so much blood.
He took a step back, but his foot nearly slipped out from under him as he stepped in something else that was wet and warm. Horror ran down his spine at the thought of what he was stepping in and he couldn’t hold in his yelp as he leapt away and looked down at the pool of red liquid on the floor, reflecting the alley and the dead body lying face down at its source.
You killed that man, he thought, unable to believe what he had done.
He had been sent on a mission like this before, when he was sent to Cardiff to deal with Stella Martin. His lack of success there was the reason he was here today, to make up for past mistakes. He had only been sent after the man though, the one who saw what he shouldn’t when working on Elias’ penthouse. The girl was a surprise and a welcome one. He knew she was also on the council’s hit list and he would make some serious he
adway in getting back in their good graces if he could take her out as well.
That’s two lives you’ve taken.
For some reason the thought made him feel sick, and when he heard the groan from near his feet, he took another step back. The girl was still alive, barely. Her pretty face was a mess of tears and locked in an expression of pain as she hunched up around the wound, curling into a foetal position with her hands over her stomach as though to hold in the blood.
Don’t leave her like that, he thought to himself. You wouldn’t let an animal you hit with your car suffer like this.
Unbeknownst to him, Deo was shedding his own tears as he scolded himself, a part of him unable to comprehend what he’d done. Absently, he wiped them away, smearing blood across his face without realising it.
His inner thoughts were right. He couldn’t leave her like this. She deserved more than to be in such agony in her last minutes. Part of him wanted to get her help, to sit by her side and nurse her back to health so that he could make up for what he had just done. Instead, he firmed up his nerve, stood over the girl and tightened the grip on his knife.
“I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve this,” he whispered. Then, before he could lose his nerve, he reached down to slit her throat.
The impact came from nowhere, and it felt like a truck hit him. One minute he was standing over the girl ready to finish her off, the next the bones in his left arm shattered, causing the knife to fall from his nerveless fingers, and he was flying across the alley only to impact with the wall hard enough to crack the stone and break two of his ribs.
Agony exploded through him like he couldn’t have imagined, and his vision went hazy as the world spun. He collapsed to the ground, coughing up blood and trying to make sense of what just happened.
I didn’t even hear the engine, was his first thought as he rolled onto his side and looked for the car that hit him... Only, there wasn’t a car.
Instead, there was a muscular figure standing protectively over the girl, staring at Deo with a look of hatred that Deo had never seen on that face before. Brilliant blue eyes as bright as Deo’s own stared back at him with such malevolence that the gaze hurt almost as much as his injuries. More than this, Deo felt fear like he hadn’t felt before.
The fury in that gaze promised retribution, and seeing who that gaze belonged to, Leon knew that this was one of the few people on the planet who could deliver such punishment. A normal human he need not fear, even in his injured state. He would even go up against one of those dreamwalkers and fancy his odds, especially outside the Borderlands where they weren’t at their strongest.
But Leon was another matter.
“What are you doing here?” he asked between gasps.
Leon didn’t answer. His eyes just hardened and his knuckles popped as he tensed his fist and took a step forward.
That isn’t good, he told himself, and knew he needed to get up. Agony screamed through his mind as he tried to move his left arm and take a deep breath, but fear was a stronger motivator right now. He didn’t like the look in the eye of his childhood friend, and he knew he needed to act fast if he wanted to survive this. Somehow, despite the pain, he scrambled to his feet and darted away… and not a moment too soon.
Leon didn’t crack the wall behind where Deo had been just a moment earlier. He punched straight through it, knocking bricks out of the wall and shattering others. Deo gulped at the thought of that kind of strength being turned on him.
“Wait. Please, this isn’t my fault,” Deo begged as he hopped backwards, calling on his talents to blend with the world around him, to make himself look like part of the alley. For a second it worked as Leon’s eyes lost focus, but the thing about alleys that Deo couldn’t replicate right now was that they didn’t move. It didn’t take long for Leon to find him again.
“Not your fault?” Leon hissed. “You just killed two people and—”
“They made me do it. You know what they’re like, Leon. When you get an order, you have no choice but to do it. More than my life hangs in the balance.”
“That’s no excuse for murder,” Leon snapped, stalking his friend like a tiger stalking its prey.
He lunged for Deo with such speed that he almost blurred to Deo’s vision. If Deo were a normal person, he would have been caught easily. But he was eidolon and had enough speed of his own that he could dodge fast enough that Leon caught nothing but his t-shirt. Grunting at the pain, Deo pulled away with such force that the sleeve of his t-shirt tore away from his right arm, freeing him from Leon’s grip. It put a lot of pressure on his left arm though, and his vision swam.
I can’t fight him like this. There is no way I’ll survive.
A twitch of movement out the corner of his eye gave him an idea, and he seized the opportunity.
“She’s still alive,” he screamed, jumping back again to avoid another strike from his childhood friend. He wouldn’t have escaped this time, save that his words landed on Leon like they had physical weight. Jumping on this opportunity, he took another few steps back, increasing the gap between Leon and himself. “But she won’t be for long. If you want any chance at saving her, you need to act now. You can’t waste the precious seconds it will take to kill me.”
With every word he was stepping away, and only Leon’s concern for his friend was keeping him from following. Deo hoped that his words got through to his friend because the truth was he didn’t think the time it would take Leon to kill him would matter at all to the girl. She either wouldn’t die in those seconds, or she would have died regardless. However, Deo knew his old friend. He was a good man and wouldn’t stand by while a friend bled to death.
A good friend to have then, he thought to himself. Not like you.
Unbidden flashes of memories rushed through his mind of a time when they were children, two godlings amongst mortal men who could only be themselves around each other. He remembered the trouble they used to get into, the amazing things they accomplished. Seeing the coldness in his old friend’s eyes was almost more painful than the agony of his left arm and his inability to breathe.
Making his decision, Leon spun away from Deo and sprinted back to the girl. He covered the distance in the blink of an eye, the movements so sudden that Deo flinched rather than relax as the danger passed. Then he could only watch on in amazement as his friend scooped up the dying reporter, eliciting a sharp yelp from her, before a light flared from underneath the sleeve of his t-shirt and they both vanished.
Deo blinked a few times, not believing what he just saw. As the adrenaline from fleeing for his life faded and and his pain consumed him, his mind was too preoccupied to put the clues together fast enough to understand what just happened. Right now, he could only be amazed that Leon had travelled like a dreamwalker, and be thrilled that he had somehow survived.
You won’t survive long if you don’t move soon. If he can travel like that, he could be back here any moment.
Once again, his dark thoughts sobered him up. He took only a few seconds more to look at the dead body that had been left behind in a pool of its own blood, then at the other puddle where the girl had been laying. Thinking of Leon’s furious expression, he mourned for his lost friendship and wondered at just what kind of man he had become before the instinct to survive took over and Deo did what he should have done the moment Leon disappeared.
He ran.
6
Friday, 23rd December 2016
22:58
“The attack at your house wasn’t an isolated incident,” Norman said, his words meant for Tad but falling on deaf ears. The fury that had driven Tad to confront Kuruk was long gone and Stella now saw only a beaten down man, lost in dark thoughts.
She never had a home she loved as much as Tad loved that house, and couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking. Knowing him, he would blame himself, and having seen his earlier reactions to dark thoughts, she desperately wanted to get him alone so she could talk to him. She couldn’t have a repeat of what happened in Sw
ansea.
However, now wasn’t the time for a heart to heart. They were back at the DTHQ, locked away in Stella’s office with Norman and Ryan. She had to settle for reaching for his good hand under the desk and squeezing in silent support while she also took up the slack in the conversation.
“There were other attacks?” she asked.
“All over the country,” Norman agreed. “Even Downing Street didn’t escape. But Mitena’s wards did their jobs well. Most of the attacks were turned back, or at least held off long enough that the quick response teams could be mobilised.”
“So this is how they start? With attacks just before Christmas?” Stella asked, wondering just what the Americans were thinking. “I thought they needed public support. How are they going to get that if they act like terrorists at Christmas and start burning people alive in their houses?”
“They didn’t use those tactics everywhere, but even if they did, it wouldn’t matter. The Children of ADaM have claimed responsibility for the attacks tonight.”
“Bullshit,” Tad spat, speaking for the first time. “That was Kuruk outside my house. We know it was the Americans.”
“We do,” Norman agreed. “But don’t forget that no one else knows Kuruk is working for them. He’s built his army in secret.”
“So let’s tell the world,” Tad snapped, working himself into a rage despite Stella squeezing his hand a little harder. “I’ll grab Lizzie and we can—”
“Tad, calm down,” Stella said, her words barely more than a whisper, but her grip on his hand stressing her point. His mouth snapped shut and he looked away, but she could feel the tension in him. This meeting couldn’t be over quick enough.
“We can’t tell the world,” Ryan said to fill the silence as the Prime Minister watched Tad with a worried frown. “It would be my word against theirs. The mission I was doing wasn’t the kind where I could stop to take photos. I don’t have the proof we need to show the world.”
