Dark Harbour: The Tale of the Soul Searcher

by Joseph Kiel

  He could feel that pressure cooker effect about to happen again as the blood ran thickly behind his temples. Maybe if he splashed some cold water over his face it would help to stop it, help to prevent what he knew was coming, what always came after he unboxed certain emotions.

  Or maybe taking a good look at himself in the mirror would help to distract his mind. He only ever looked at his reflection to see if his hair was in place or his clothes were straight. He never gazed into the mirror to look at himself properly, the same way he searched inside everyone else.

  Within these grey and dingy toilets he ventured a little peek. Tepid, salty water ran from his face as he edged a little closer, bringing his ever so dark eyes closer to their reflection.

  It happened.

  Vladimir smashed his fist into the mirror as hard as he could. Fragments of glass shattered over his hand, slicing into his fingers. He rammed his bleeding fist into the broken mirror once more. And again, until he could feel the glass slicing into his bones, mashing his reflection into a fragmented, unrecognisable mess.

  Blood gushed from his hand into the metal sink, turning the water to a dull brown colour. The pressure slowly eased. As his heavy breathing decreased, he started to feel calm again. His composure was returning. He was the sublime Vladimir again, in control of everything. This was just a tiny blip.

  As he ran his bleeding hand under the cold water tap, brushing out the tiny shards of glass from his cuts, he told himself that tonight’s failure was only a minor setback. He would still keep searching. Nothing would ever stop him doing that. One day he would find that man with the tattoo of the black widow spider on his back, the man who had murdered Jeremy Tuckwell’s brother and grandfather. When he did find him he would redefine the word torture as he would make the rest of this guy’s life a living hell by putting him through the same sort of despair that he’d put Jeremy through.

  He would beat him for days on end, for weeks, for months. He’d tie him up and lash him. He’d get broken bottles and slice his skin up, for now that Vladimir had just sliced up his own hand he knew how painful that could be.

  He’d break his bones. One by one he would make them all snap. He’d chop off his limbs, even castrate the bastard. He’d get a hammer so that he could drive nails into the guy’s skull, drive nails under the guy’s finger nails. He’d get chopsticks and hammer them into the guy’s ears. And then he’d get a knife so that he could slice off layers from his eyes.

  He’d get a vice and put the bastard’s head in it, oh so gradually turning it tighter until he heard his skull crack. He’d douse his feet in petrol and set fire to them. And finally he’d get a blunt machete and hack the fucker’s head off. Slowly.

  That would avenge his crimes, as best as possible. But until then he would have to carry on searching. Somewhere he was out there. Unlike Henry who searched for the Akasa Stone, Vladimir knew that his own search would eventually lead to success.

  And unlike Henry’s goal, searching for the man with the tattoo of the black widow spider was the perfect sort of job for the Halo of Fires organisation. Revenge was what they were all about, not finding spiritual treasures.

  They were there to help the victims of life. Victims like poor Jeremy Tuckwell, the young boy who had run away to Alan Hammond. Vladimir had seen to it that Jeremy was hidden where no one would ever find him.

  The young boy would still haunt him though, as he was doing now in the toilets of the Rose and Crown.

  It can’t be. You’re not here anymore.

  As blood dripped from his fingers, Vladimir could clearly see the boy across the room from him. He was the same fair-haired Jeremy, wearing his beige shorts and blue shirt. In his hands he still held those action figures, like he’d just walked inside from playing out on the beach. Rosy faced, full of playful adventure, gentle, thoughtful.

  But no smiles on his face.

  Sad thoughts. There on the surface of those haunted eyes, like a murder victim buried in a shallow grave. Rotting, putrid flesh decomposing in a lonely place where no one would ever find it.

  Empty despair. Such a mangled, fucked up, twisted, fucked up, broken, fucked up spirit.

  Fucked up beyond all recognition and then fucked up some more.

  The poor boy was so lonely. Clink clack, his action figures fell from his little hands. Kid’s games don’t mean anything. They’re not real. Not like the real haunting by the real Jeremy and his real despair here.

  Vladimir realised that the boy had something for him tonight. Jeremy raised his little arm and slowly released his clenched fist. The vigilante couldn’t see what was within his palm because a brilliant purple light shone from it.

  Vladimir squinted in the light as his eyes stung like blunt thorns had been poked into them. When he opened his eyes again Jeremy had gone. It was just him and a dingy pub toilet that wreaked of stale urine.

  Close your eyes and you’ll kill the boy.

  He faced the broken mirror once more and his multitude of shattered reflections.

  ‘Keep it together, Vladimir. Keep it together.’

  Chapter 11.3

  It wasn’t quite two o’clock, still early for Vladimir, yet he felt exhausted. He sat huddled against the graffiti-covered wall down White Horse Passage. There looked to be some additions to the spray painted art since he’d last walked down there, but as usual there were no vandals to be seen.

  He looked at his bandaged fingers once Jake had finished wrapping them up in lint. It was difficult to bend them. He figured he wouldn’t be able to use them for anything over the next week or so. If only he’d used his right hand instead of his good left hand. Not that he ever had any presence of mind when the pressure cooker reached explosion point.

  ‘Sure you’re okay?’ Jake asked as he leaned against the fence on the other side of the alley, fishing out another cigarette.

  ‘I’m fine. It’s just my hand. I have another one.’

  Vladimir seemed calm now. Jake had been with him a couple of times before when he’d become unhinged, his mighty composure crumbling as the monstrous ego inside broke free. Possessed with that rage, Vladimir’s alter had done much worse things than this before. But right now he was almost himself again, the usual Vladimir infused with a little serenity, or perhaps it was just numbness.

  ‘So, did you win?’

  ‘Don’t think we’ll get any more trouble with that mirror,’ Vladimir replied dryly.

  ‘And who gives a damn about seven years of bad luck, eh?’

  Vladimir laughed bleakly. ‘Not when you’ve already had a lifetime of it.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Jake muttered as he turned to face the alleyway that led into a thick darkness, their route back home.

  Vladimir looked up at him. In his eyes, Jake was more of a colleague than a friend to him. He had to keep a distance. Colleague first, friend second.

  ‘Thanks for your assistance tonight. There was no one else I could have asked.’

  ‘That’s okay, Vlad. What happens now? You just keep searching?’

  The answer seemed too obvious. Vladimir lowered his head, as something caught his eye down the alley, the way they’d just walked. It was a small, dull light: the dim light of hopelessness, shining like the eye of a ghostly Cyclops. It was Jeremy again, the forlorn lost soul whose misfortune would forever haunt him.

  ‘I know he’s out there. I know he’s close,’ Vladimir replied as he gazed into the purple light.

  ‘But what if you never find him?’

  ‘I’ll keep searching,’ he replied with calm defiance. ‘Until the day I die. I’ll never give up.’

  ‘What if he’s already dead? Or what if he was sorry, and he’d changed?’

  ‘Doesn’t mean anything to me. It doesn’t erase the crime.’

  The light was getting closer to him. He wished the boy would just leave him alone. Vladimir closed his eyes, hoping that shutting out the light from his eyes would make Jeremy disappear.

  Close your eyes and the b
oy will go…

  ‘You think we’re all perfect, Vlad? Do you think even Halo of Fires don’t deserve to be visited by Halo of Fires?’

  Vladimir opened his eyes again. The light was now diminishing. Jeremy was going to leave him alone now, until next time.

  Make him go away. Jeremy has to die…

  He turned to face Jake, who was inhaling deeply on his cigarette and then biting his lip as he puffed out the smoke. His face seemed to be squinting as he stared down the path ahead, probably chewing on a difficult thought that had filled his mind and demanded to be dealt with, maybe dwelling on one of his defective characteristics that undermined his physical perfection. It was such a tragedy. He could so easily be a Superman if only he knew how.

  ‘You know, Vlad, I could tell you stories,’ he began, his words consumed by sighs. ‘Go back to when I was a teenager, I got up to a lot of stuff. I could tell you things right now that would make you cringe. Things that would make you look at me differently.’

  Vladimir remained silent, giving him the space to unburden his thoughts.

  ‘But what I’m saying is: who’s really above all this? Who can be that perfect that they wouldn’t deserve Halo of Fires descending on them and delivering them their punishment, for whatever they’ve done? Are you? Can you tell me that you’ve never done anything wrong in your whole life?’

  Vladimir considered the question carefully before responding. ‘No one can escape karma.’

  ‘So there could be someone out there who would say you’d done something wrong and that you deserved some sort of punishment? I mean, what about everything you do with Halo of Fires? What would your Bible thumper say about it?’

  ‘They don’t know what I know.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  Perhaps what he knew was too difficult to put into words, at least words that Jake would understand.

  ‘I’d never intend to hurt anyone, no one who didn’t deserve it, that is. No one who didn’t need it.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What if we ever made a mistake? Say we went and beat someone to shit and it was completely the wrong person.’

  ‘That would never happen.’

  ‘How can you say that? What about that guy tonight?’

  Vladimir waved his hand dismissively. ‘I know people! No one ever got something they didn’t deserve.’

  ‘But I don’t know people. What if I got the wrong person? Would you then avenge what I had done?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because… because! You’re my friend, goddamn it. You live this life like I do. You’re in this with me.’

  ‘Yeah, but…’

  ‘What’s the matter, Jake? So you were a tearaway when you were younger. So what? If the universe didn’t want this Halo of Fires organisation to exist, then it wouldn’t. If it didn’t want people to get what they deserved through us then they’d get it some other way. Like I say, whatever karma you have is something you can’t escape from.’

  ‘I’m far from perfection, Vlad. I’m nothing like you.’

  ‘And I’m nothing like you. We help each other.’

  ‘You don’t need me!’

  ‘You think I can do all this on my own?’

  ‘I still don’t get it though. Why you? How do you do it?’

  Vladimir’s eyes shifted away from Jake. He’d said enough to him tonight. He clambered to his feet. Although he wasn’t tired anymore, he wanted to start walking towards home. The purple light was still there, faintly, but still enough to daunt him.

  ‘I know you have your demons, but when I look at you I see a good soul. I know you probably don’t even believe me yourself, but that’s what I see.’

  ‘I often wish I could be like you. You always know what’s right. You make it all mean something.’

  Vladimir just nodded. He’d always felt that he and Jake made a good team, and right now he could see why so clearly. All in one superheroes were extremely rare, but Vladimir combined with Jake would make that super heroic force.

  With Jake’s built body, Vladimir’s perceptive mind, and the sapient spirit of Alan Hammond, the original Angel of Karma, Halo of Fires really was a perfect force.

  ‘Come on. Let’s get walking.’

  He turned away from Jeremy as they carried on walking up White Horse Passage, into a darkness that neither blinded them nor troubled them. They were both well accustomed to the dark.

  After walking a few yards, Jake had one final question. ‘And what about Jeremy? Think anyone will ever find him?’

  Again, Vladimir had no answer.

  Chapter 11.4

  In the early days of the Fires, Alan Hammond and Henry Maristow were eating lunch one late summer’s day in Alan’s favourite pub, the Welby Arms. Henry had ordered a ten ounce rump steak, but Alan was going to give him something much bigger to chew on.

  The skies were cloudless that day, and the radiant sun had filled every last nook of the town, making it one of those days when one felt that anything was possible, a day that inspired belief and ambition.

  They’d been in partnership for nearly a year, their new enterprise starting to find its feet amongst those poor souls who’d been unfairly troubled and wanted some way to seek justice.

  With his fedora in his hand, Alan fanned himself to keep cool as he waited for his salad to arrive.

  ‘I’ve got the boy,’ he said.

  Henry knew exactly whom he was talking about, and he knew exactly why it had taken him this long to tell him.

  ‘He’s alive?’

  Alan nodded.

  ‘You do know,’ Henry began before stopping suddenly. He looked around at the other people in the pub. They looked like unassuming strangers, but, even so, Henry now leaned over the table and resumed in a hushed tone. ‘You do know that they’re looking for him.’

  ‘No. But it’s what I expected. Know why?’

  ‘He’s a witness, isn’t he? And best get him before he grows up.’

  ‘Why didn’t they just kill him when they had the chance?’

  ‘I don’t know. Where did you find him?’

  Alan placed his fedora on the table and leaned in closer. His blue eyes were twinkling, ready to release the details of the secret they’d been holding.

  ‘Late one night I was at home just watching the news when there was a knock at the door. When I go answer it, there’s a girl, a young woman, standing there, and she’s crying. Tears streaming down her face. I ask her what’s the matter and she tells me she just doesn’t know what else to do. It was at that point that I noticed him. He was holding her hand, but standing behind her. Shy, like the very first time I met Jeremy. I crouched down to say hello and it was then that I noticed he looked rather poorly, haggard. She eventually explained. Once she’d calmed down, she told me that she’d found him at Moonlight Cove. She’d taken him back to her home, some small chalet up on the cliffs, I believe. She had intended to look after him, but all the while Jeremy kept telling her that he needed to find me. Tuckwell must have told the boy to go looking for me, good old Ulric. When the boy started to get ill, and when he told her more about the people that killed his brother and grandfather, the girl figured it was best if she went looking for me.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘I don’t know. She never told me her name. She just said that she would be back one day to come and see Jeremy again. I haven’t seen her since.’

  ‘No address for her?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘Where’s Jeremy Tuckwell right now?’

  ‘He’s with my sister.’

  ‘Where does your sister live?’

  ‘She’s out of town.’

  ‘Think he’ll be safe with her?’

  ‘Well, what do you think, Henry?’

  Henry breathed in wearily. ‘I think they’ll keep looking. I don’t think anywhere’s safe. I know it might sound nasty, but you’re putting your sister in danger.’

/>   Alan nodded knowingly. ‘Henry, this isn’t just any old kid, you know.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘He’s different. I think he could be one to really change things in this town.’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe someone else thinks that too.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

  Henry looked at the morsel of steak on the end of his fork. The meat was quite rare, as Henry liked it, and it drizzled with a thin blood. ‘Alan, it’s not just your sister. It’s us too. If they keep looking for the boy then they’ll eventually get to you and me.’

  ‘So, what are you saying, Henry?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s a lot to think about.’

  ‘If there’s no point hiding him anywhere…’

  ‘Then…’

  ‘Then we need to consider an alternative.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘You’re in this too now, Henry. I told you this wasn’t going to be an easy path. I tried to warn you.’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’

  By now, Henry had completely lost his appetite. He pushed his plate away from himself and then rubbed his eyes. ‘What do we do, Alan? What are we going to do with him?’

  Alan put the fedora back on his head. In the shadow of its brim, his eyes now looked like a bulbous swelling of veins.

  ‘There’s only one option.’

  ‘What?’

  Alan explained. It was a plan that meant the two Seraphs wouldn’t have to worry about hiding the boy anywhere, wondering when the killers would find him. It would be very difficult, but then Alan was never one for shying away from those sorts of decisions in life.

  Part 12: The Bite

  Chapter 12.1

  Samuel Allington, the son of a local bigwig, a young man who had almost everything he could possibly want, a man blessed with power, grace and a heartwarming smile that could brighten the day of even the most manic of depressives, stood on the beach as the sun was setting on the waves and on his world.

  Rooted to the same spot for the past half hour, the tide had started to edge its way up the sand and wash over his ankles, but the cold that pinched his feet had not yet registered in his mind.