Within Each Other's Shadow

by Jan Turk Petrie

  ‘They’re hardly pets.’ When she chuckles, the vixens return a chorus of sharp barks.

  ‘Funny,’ Bruno says, ‘how your mates Quentin and Ása got rid of their packs when they were no longer useful to them. But you – you seem more sentimentally attached to these animals. Why is that? Maybe you’re capable of more empathy than you pretend?’

  ‘You’re so perceptive – I almost forgot all human life is sacred to me.’ That laugh again. The nearest vixen opens its mouth; head back, it gives a high-pitched cry. ‘I haven’t got time for your bullshit,’ Freyja says. ‘Now step aside.’

  He shakes his head. ‘That door is reinforced, you’ll never blast your way through it even with that thing.’

  ‘Then it’s as well I brought one of these.’ A S85 blaster appears to his left. ‘I’m quite prepared to go through you, not around you.’

  ‘I promise you Avraham’s not in there – only his wife and daughter. They’re innocent – didn’t you once take an oath to protect the innocent? Whatever the commander may or may not have done, you can’t hold them responsible.’

  ‘Look around you at all this opulence. His wife must have known you can’t finance this sort of lifestyle on a public salary. She’s complicit alright and that makes her part of the problem.’

  The S85 is now only centimetres from his chest. Bruno takes one step backwards then holds his hand in front of the weapon. He can feel the latent heat radiating off it. ‘Listen,’ he says. ‘I know exactly where Avraham is. He cuts himself off when he’s working so he won’t be aware of what’s happening.’

  ‘I know where his study is.’

  ‘You won’t find him there; believe me. There’s a whole army on its way over here. Remember your primary aim is to neutralise the commander. Why let yourself be distracted? You told me you wanted to avoid collateral damage.’

  ‘I lied.’

  ‘Okay, you might blast a hole in my chest – in that door even, but you’ll still have to search this whole place. Risk is, that will give Avraham the time he needs to escape.’ He looks down to where her face must be. ‘If you spare his family, I can show you precisely where he is right now.’

  Above the din of the siren, another disembodied laugh. ‘I’d say we have a slight problem,’ she says. ‘You don’t trust me and I certainly don’t trust you.’

  ‘Look, you have a decision to make – you either stay here to wreak vengeance on people who don’t deserve it, or you can finally achieve the retribution you’re looking for. What’s it to be?’

  The vixens crowd around the apparently empty space in front of him. ‘I warn you,’ she says, ‘if you’re lying to me, you’re as good as dead.’

  ‘There’s too much at stake for me to risk that.’

  Her unseen hand lowers the S85. ‘Okay, so where is he?’

  Forty-Nine

  They shove Nero in the back as he climbs the steps of the plane; a small army of grey suits surrounds him. Once inside, he can see it’s a twelve – no, a fourteen-seater. The retail price of such aircraft must be off the scale.

  His ribcage is girdled in pain and he tries not to breathe very deeply in case the tip of a loose bone punctures a lung. There must be plenty of broken ribs to choose from.

  The side door slides across and locks into place Then the tone of the motor alters as the aircraft rises almost vertically; it banks steeply to the left and heads out across the radiant city. He can’t see Viktor though he’s certain the man is sitting up front, just behind the blue curtain.

  Nero doesn’t need a stud to tell him exactly where they’re heading.

  It’s been a long time since he’s looked down at the earth from an aircraft. The plane skirts around the lit-up plumes from G-Therm; like white smoke, steam pours into the night sky and then dissipates over the mountain range beyond. From the air it looks like some magical land – an earthly paradise.

  It occurs to him that this might be his last ever view of Eldísvík. Whilst he has no death wish, the possibility doesn’t scare him; hadn’t he already survived more often in his lifetime than straight odds should have allowed?

  Nero tries to push out the gag with his tongue, but it won’t budge even when he starts to retch. His physical pain is in curious contrast to the way the seat envelops him in padded luxury. The others have buckled up but no one bothers to fasten his seat belt – now there’s a surprise.

  Laughter filters through from the front section of the plane but the goons around him sit in studied silence. These guys screwed up big time tonight and now they’re worried. Through their collective negligence he’d not only entered the Nordic Cross unchallenged but made it all the way upstairs to crash the hitherto sacrosanct poker game.

  It would be difficult to pick out any of these individuals in a line-up. Impressive muscles bulge the sleeves of their uniformly grey suits.

  Shallow breathing is beginning to make his head spin. He feels himself growing faint, has to will himself to concentrate – find the devil lurking in the details. The interior lights are bright enough for him to pick out specifics using his one good eye. He starts with the guy in the next seat. The man reeks of sweat and garlic. That nose looks like it’s been broken more than once. Full head of fairish hair, his skin is beginning to wrinkle here and there so most likely in his late forties.

  Persson seems to have a penchant for hiring sandy-haired Nordic types like himself. Though they all have their backs to him, he tries to register peculiarities – small telltale idiosyncrasies. Three of them are at various stages of hair loss. Quite a number are sporting discreet piercings in their ears or around their lips. The dark edge of a tattoo is peeking up from one man’s collar. Wedding rings glint on a few hands. One guy has a chunky blue-stoned ring on his pinky; another has a small strawberry mark on his right cheek. When Nero closes his eyes, they all merge into one like a many-headed hydra.

  If Bruno was here he’d probably remind him how, according to the myth, there was no point in Hercules simply cutting off one of the hydra’s heads because two more would grow in its place; the only way he could succeed was to aim for the creature’s immortal head in the centre.

  Bruno. Oh fokk! Through closed lids he sees the boy standing with both hands raised and a S85 blaster pointed at his chest. Nero groans out loud.

  The man next to him digs an elbow in his ribs to keep him conscious. He tries not to cry out; instead he bunches his fists and more pain shoots up both arms. Damnit – why couldn’t that boy ever listen to advice?

  He remembers his grandfather saying those exact words. For a second, he’s back sitting at their kitchen table with the old man shaking his head over the latest incident. ‘Why don’t you ever do what I tell you?’

  Across from him, Nonna is trying not to smile as she gives him a sly wink. Her answer is always the same: ‘Because the boy’s just like you.’

  The plane is now flying low over the fjord, its rotor blades flattening the dark surface of the water. They bank to the right before levelling off. Down below, he can pick out a white outline where waves are breaking against the island’s cliffs. Set back from the edge, a collection of buildings is ringed by perimeter lights. A flashing beacon is guiding the plane towards a landing pad marked with a huge black cross.

  They hover above the mark and then the aircraft begins its descent. Touchdown is so gentle it takes Nero a moment to realise they’ve actually landed.

  As soon as the side door opens, the goons begin to pour out. Broken-nose grabs his arms and fresh pains shoots through him taking his breath away. Partway down the steps he stumbles, and someone grabs him before he falls.

  They push him into one of the open buggies waiting on the asphalt. In procession, the line of vehicles heads off towards a wide entranceway set into formidably high walls. Nero’s reminded of the medieval walled settlements dotted all around Italy.

  As they get closer, he looks up and sees rolls of rusting razor wire on top of the walls. The place looks like it might once have been an offsho
re facility – a former prison or maybe a detention centre from the first wave era.

  The buggies glide on through the entranceway into a well-lit courtyard. He recognises the tall figure of Viktor climbing out of the first one with Dr Arthur by his side. Together, the two casually walk up some steps and disappear through a doorway.

  ‘Come on, you,’ one of the bald guards says shoving him in the back. He follows where the guy leads, grateful they’ve decided to give the manhandling a rest – after all there’s nowhere for him to run.

  Baldy leads him to a side entrance. Once through the narrow door, they walk the length of a long corridor, which turns out to be a dead end. Baldy opens the last door into a small, sparsely furnished room with a single bunk. Shutting the door behind him, Baldy unties the gag and yanks the rag out of his mouth.

  Nero spits out blood and saliva. His tongue runs around his mouth to the gap where a tooth is now missing. The back of his throat is raw.

  Looking around, he shakes his head. ‘I’m afraid there’s been an administrative error,’ he says. ‘I distinctly remember booking a double with an ensuite.’

  ‘Do I look like I’m laughing,’ Baldy says.

  He walks right up to the man and stares at his face trying to memorise every last ugly detail – there’s a lot to choose from. ‘Like I said, there’s been a mistake,’ Nero says. ‘You seem to have brought me to the wrong quarters. No offence, but I’m guessing this type of shithole is reserved for muscle-bound yes-men like yourself.’

  Baldy’s jaw muscles twitch like he’s about to laugh or bite. Before Nero can take full advantage, there’s a sound in the corridor and then a head appears round the door. ‘We’re wanted upstairs, Erik.’

  ‘Off you go, Erik,’ Nero says, ‘Run along to your master like a good little doggie.’

  Before leaving, the man points a warning finger at him. It’s no surprise when he hears the lock turn in the door.

  Fifty

  Bruno leads her down the main staircase; the gun in his back is a reassurance that she’s still there behind him. In the last fifteen minutes the mansion has been transformed into a war zone. Through a cloud of hanging dust he sees gaping holes in the walls; it looks like some renegade workforce has been drilling holes in the floor. Amongst all the debris, it’s hard to pick out the powder-covered bodies – at least at first. Then they seem to be everywhere.

  On each step of the stairs, fragments of plaster crunch under his boots. The vixens bound on ahead, pouring down into the hallway like unstoppable lava.

  As they reach the bottom step, a photon blast sings past his right ear and slams into the main control panel. Sparks rain down and then the whole place is plunged into an eerie darkness. The stricken siren becomes one long shaky note fading to nothing.

  In the silence, Bruno’s ears continue to ring as if his own internal danger signal refuses to be hushed. The acrid stench of burnt flesh and burning plastic catches in his throat causing him to cough and retch at the same time.

  Seconds pass before the emergency lighting kicks in and everything takes on an amber glow. Do people panic less in orange light – is that the idea?

  ‘Don’t just stand there gawping.’ She shoves the barrel hard into his backbone.

  All the doors have sprung open. Navigating through dust and smoke, he stumbles as he tries to sidestep the corpses and their fallen weapons. Vixens surround him on every side; their white muzzles and tail tips the only visible parts.

  He leads Freyja all the way through the ground floor. It annoys him to see the way the foxes trot straight across the bodies like they’re indistinguishable from rubble. He’s tempted to grab one of the weapons from the floor, but knows it would be the last thing he ever does.

  Bruno loses count of the dead – so many men and women whose lives amounted to no more than collateral damage to this woman. Nero had been right about how dangerous those damned suits are. After playing the victim too many times, Freyja has been utterly corrupted by such invincibility. Thanks to Magnus Jónsson’s overstuffed brain, he knows it was Lord Acton who said: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The guy might have been talking about political power but in the end it all amounts to the same thing. Invincibility has extinguished every last drop of compassion in Freyja. Tonight, she’s crossed a line – there won’t be any going back from this.

  He leads her through the main rear exit. Outside, the air is fresh and cold and he gulps it in. For a moment everything appears tranquil – no sound except for the wind knocking together bare branches. Without lights to spoil the view, he looks up at a blanket of stars.

  Freyja’s gun barrel nudges him on. ‘Where to now?’ He’s tempted to spin round and grab the fokking thing off her.

  Once his eyes have adjusted, it’s easy to pick out the pale surface of the path. He hears her footsteps hitting the hard surface. A few minutes later, a structure looms up out of the darkness.

  The vixens divide; some peel away to the left, others go right. Though they can’t even see the woman, Freyja is somehow controlling their movements.

  The path leads them to a closed door. A photon gun materialises to his right – she’s intending to blast her way inside. Bruno’s heard enough gunfire for one night. Noticing there’s a door handle, he holds up a hand. ‘Listen,’ he says, ‘why don’t we try a traditional approach for a change?’

  She doesn’t stop him grabbing the cold handle. If the door’s rigged, she’s already protected – he’ll be the one taking the full blast.

  As he imagined it would, the door opens without a hitch. No one leaps out to attack him. ‘Ladies first,’ he says.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ This time she jabs the thing into his shoulder blade.

  He’s surprised when regular lights flicker on; it must have its own independent power source.

  At first glance it seems like a normal art studio. Except for art equipment, the room appears to be empty. Freyja lets him lead her all the way inside.

  Paintings are neatly stacked along each wall. On the central table, pots of brushes run in lines from the shortest to the longest. The tubes of paints are arranged according to their precise hues. On a side table, palette knives and other tools are laid out like surgeons’ instruments. He even spots a couple of scalpels amongst them. This place doesn’t see much in the way of anarchic creativity.

  Half a dozen vixens have followed them inside leaving the others to guard the outside. Without a discernable signal, the six split up to search the room, sniffing and pawing behind the canvases until they topple and are scattered in heaps across the floor.

  An easel has been placed dead centre of the room. Bruno walks over to examine a landscape scene precisely sketched out on a canvas. He can smell the fresh paint used for the sky. A brush still loaded with the same colour is balanced on the edge of the table; some blue paint has dripped down onto the pristine floor.

  He examines the work in progress – a view of snow-capped mountains rising from a lush valley. Whatever else Avraham is, he’s a man with very limited artistic talent.

  ‘Well now, Mastriano?’ The gun moves around him until it’s levelled straight at his chest. Freyja’s head pops up in front of him. ‘You promised me Avraham.’

  It hurts when she thrusts the photon into his breastbone. ‘You’re supposed to be a telepatico,’ she says. ‘Tell me you know where the bastard is right now.’

  He smiles down at her. ‘Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you look when you’re angry?’

  ‘What, you seriously think you can fokking flirt your way out of this? Unbelievable!’

  A vixen slinks over to stand behind her; eyes on him, muscles twitching in anticipation. Looking down into Freyja’s eyes, he catches the exact same expression. They’re in sync – all of them – a single unit working together.

  Could she be another one of Dr Arthur’s chimeras? It might explain why, unlike the others, she won’t be parted from her pack. Physically, there’s nothing about her to suggest s
he’s anything other than a normal, good-looking woman – well, apart from the fact that she’s obviously a murdering psycho. She’s around the same age as the other two. Arthur could have deliberately chosen an embryo with very different genetic traits as a control subject.

  If he’s right, then, after what happened in the factory, she could have figured it out for herself. What would it feel like to know you’re not fully human?

  All he needs to do is reach out and touch her face and he’ll know one way or the other. The temptation is making his fingertips tingle.

  ‘Well?’ She’s so close he can smell the sweat on her skin. There’s a scalpel within easy reach. All he’d have to do is plunge it into her throat.

  ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘I’m waiting – you should have learnt by now that waiting tends to make me mad.’

  Fifty-One

  Left alone, Nero gradually lowers himself down onto the bunk. By small increments he lies back. Once he’s succeeded, he closes his eyes, tries to focus only on his breathing. It’s becoming more regular. Good. Beginning with his feet, he wills each part of his body to relax and ignore the pain. Lastly, he concentrates only on the red-black space inside his closed eyelids. It takes on a brightness that shimmers and twists like the patterns of the aurora – only then can he turn his mind to Bruno. He senses the full weight of the boy’s thoughts as they become his own. ‘You will survive this.’ He utters the words out loud. ‘You have to.’

  There’s a noise out in the corridor – Erik coming back right on cue. Nero’s mind refocuses when he hears the lock turn.

  ‘Okay, Sleeping Beauty, on your feet.’ The man’s breathing hard as he approaches the bunk. He’s out of shape, that’s clear. ‘I just told you to stand the fokk up; now do it.’

  Nero grabs the hand that’s shaking him then twists the thumb back on itself until he hears it snap. Erik’s cry brings others running. Someone slaps his face hard and then they haul him out of the room and up a steep staircase.