by Max Kramer
The girl’s room was a riot of mismatched colors, not something the blind girls would notice of course, but an effect that sighted visitors often found overwhelming. As long as it was soft and fluffy the twins were happy. Here they were safe from bumped heads and stubbed toes, hazards they found in abundance if they ever let their concentration waver in the outside world.
Rex had departed with the twins, but the room wasn’t empty. His sister was lying against the richly curtained wall beside Mist’s bed. She wasn’t breathing.
***
Frederick William Konstantin went mad.
He was a broken man. Deep inside himself dwelled something dark. Born of fear and pain, it had been spawned in the dungeons of his childhood. The hierarchs of his order had recognized it, fostered it, and directed it. It had been his close companion on the hunt. It had almost consumed him in the Wilds. It had allowed him to assassinate two warring chieftains on the same day, in cold blood.
It was Hate.
Frederick William Konstantin was filled with Hate.
It was usually a tiny black thing that lived nestled in the damp nooks and crannies of his small intestine, periodically creeping up to tickle his rib cage.
Not this time. This time it was an inexorable wave, an overwhelming urge, an explosive force.
It raced up his spine and took root in his lower brain, that place where man is beast, and emotions live before they are given a name. Its icy claws gripped his broken heart and tore it asunder.
Hate filled him, and Hate overfilled him. Hate oozed from his pores in wispy black tendrils, like steam after a summer rain. There is magic in Hate. It is the bad kind.
Konstantin leapt from the balcony, into the spring sunshine.
***
He hit the ground hard, landing amidst the flower and shrubs which encircled Merlin’s house. Ignoring the bracken tangled in his hair and clothes, he climbed to his feet and took off running after the dark splotch in the otherwise clear sky. His blood boiled. Rex was getting away.
There was a hubbub behind him. He looked back, witnessed Merlin’s sedan roaring across the lawn, tearing great strips in the manicured grass. It slid to a halt beside him. Deirdre was inside.
“Get in.”
Even blinded as he was by rage, Konstantin responded to the threat in the black-skinned witch’s voice.
“Why?”
“What are you doing?”
He pointed at the swiftly departing airborne Inquisitor. “He killed Brita.”
Deirdre’s jaw clenched. She had been crying, her eyes were puffy and red, and her normally perfect complexion was blotchy.
“What were you going to do, climb a tree and grab at his ankles?”
Konstantin wasn’t in the mood to be criticized. He made to step around the idling car. Deirdre’s will hit him like a ton of bricks, pulling him back toward the passenger door.
“Calm down damn it. He has the twins. Wishing isn’t going to get him to fall from the sky onto your lap. I don’t know what you’ve done to yourself, but my guess is you wouldn’t know how to control whatever this is enough to not hurt the girls.” She could see the black steam still curling around him like a molasses fog as well, “Luckily that’s not our only option. You promised those girls you would protect them, remember. So help me protect them, and GET IN THIS DAMN CAR.”
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to fly.”
Merlin’s mighty car whirred. The traffic was light. In record time they were screeching into the secure parking lot outside the local Coast Guard compound. Iceland never had gotten around to building itself a freestanding military. If you needed military grade hardware, you went to the Coast Guard.
Deirdre and Konstantin jumped out of the car and stalked toward the open hangar. They were greeted by a worried looking young man in stained mechanic’s coveralls.
“Mistress Raven, I’m sorry but this is a secure facility. You can’t be here.” Two pairs of dark eyes skewered the youthful technician.
“Please…don’t hurt me.”
Deirdre’s glare didn’t soften a bit. “We need a bird. What’s ready to go?”
“No, no, I can’t do that, you don’t have clearance. I’m sorry, I’m just a tech.”
“Hey! Focus! We need to go NOW. Understood?”
He chose discretion as the better part of valor. He pulled them into the hangar.
“I prepped her this morning, she’s due to go out on a routine snoop in a few hours. If you need up now, this is your girl.”
Their girl was a small, naked looking helicopter, all tubular frame and bubble cockpit. Konstantin could see three seats behind the polished glass, and not much else. Deirdre tapped a fingernail against the tail rotor.
“A Bell 47?”
The mechanic was impressed. “Yes mistress, a 47G. She’s old, but she flies true.”
“What’s her name?”
“This here is the Hunin.”
“Really? Perfect.” Deirdre opened the door and showed Konstantin how to climb in. Taking her place in the center seat, she began flipping switches, bringing the tiny flying machine to life. Konstantin strapped himself in and settled a spare set of headphones over his ears.
The mechanic was waving his arms and shouting something, but it was lost in the rotor wash.
“What is he saying?”
Deirdre shrugged, focused on her preflight checks. “Something about the chopper’s range. It doesn’t matter; it will simply have to last until we catch up with him. Hopefully before he gets to where he’s going.”
“Rome.”
She nodded, “Rome. He’s got to be. My gods, he’s going to bring the girls before the tribunal. They’ll be tortured and incinerated.” Her eyes had lines in the corners Konstantin had never noticed before. Like him, she had lost something precious to the Church. Like him she was in pain.
“No.” Konstantin shook his head, “we’ll catch up to him in time. We’ll save them. We will.”
The Hunin lifted off from the hangar floor with a lurch. Some deft piloting later and it was outside, rising swiftly above the tarmac.
Konstantin settled into his seat. In his mind he crafted a barbed threat, and cast it out on a gossamer nightmare ahead of their throbbing whirlybird.
We’re coming.
***
Solomon Rex’s laughter stopped abruptly. Something a lot like fear crossed his face. Unsure why, but unwilling to take the time to find out, he adjusted his grip on the unconscious twins and flew South as quickly as his mutant wings could take him. He didn’t stop glancing back over his shoulder until Iceland’s rocky coast faded from view.
***
Secure in their underground fortress, in the room with the mirrored walls, protected by the might of an entire nation, three old figures slept on three thrones of hardwood. They tossed and turned fitfully. One let slip a quiet moan. Unpleasant were their dreams.
21
The handsome young man took a moment to check his reflection. He could see himself clearly in the window beside the front door. He was both pleased with what he saw, and accustomed to being pleased with what he saw. He ran a hand through his long blonde hair. It would need another trim soon. The young man whistled an off key tune. The box of chocolates he had purchased while in town rattled in his vest pocket almost rhythmically. Felix Magnusson was having a wonderful day.
He cracked the door open and peeked inside. Nobody was in view. Good. He would never hear the end of it if Naoise caught him with the candies he had bought for Brita. He might be twenty-seven now, but in his older brother’s eyes he was a perpetual adolescent.
When Felix had left for town that morning, nearly everybody was safely out of the way in the nearby greenhouse, but they could have returned since then to ruin his plans.
Felix couldn’t help but laugh at himself. Here he was, a grown man, sneaking around with a school boy crush. If his friends caught him, he’d deserve their good natured abuse. He entered the h
ouse. Not a creature was stirring. Because they were dead. He just didn’t know it yet.
Felix resumed his whistling. It must be his lucky day. He wiped his boots carefully on the reed mat before beginning his search for Brita. She could usually be found playing with Hrist and Mist in their upstairs bedroom. To get to the stairs, he took a shortcut through Merlin’s formal dining room. The long table was set for lunch, but none of the food had yet been touched.
Felix’s whistling achieved fever pitch. It really was his lucky day; everyone had waited for him to return before eating. He sampled a chicken drumstick. It was cold. Uh oh.
If they had been waiting long enough for the food to grow cold, they were not going to be in good moods. He increased his pace, hoping to find Brita before anyone else found him.
Felix was a smart guy. He might not have figured out something was wrong when he found the cold meal, and he might not have figured out something was wrong when he walked through the entirety of Merlin’s house without seeing another soul, but he definitely figured out something was wrong when he became the second person to trip over Merlin in the stairwell.
“Merlin, oh fuck, what the fuck?”
The tough old buzzard was still tenaciously clinging to life, but he didn’t look pretty.
“Help! Somebody help! Merlin is hurt! I think he fell down the stairs!” Where was everybody!?
“Felix.” Merlin was trying to gain his attention, “It’s just us. An Inquisitor came, there was a fight.”
“Konstantin.”
“No, not Konstantin. Someone else.”
“Shit. Oh shit. Shit!”
“I need. First aid kit. In the closet. Down the hall.”
“Right, umm, right yeah,” Felix backed down the stairs, “you just stay here.”
Merlin gurgled a faint laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”
Felix barreled down the hallway to the end closet. He found the emergency first-aid kit buried under some extra blankets and a stack of board games, and brought it back to the stairway. Slowly and carefully he pulled Merlin down off the stairs, getting him where he could actually work on him.
He wished Brita was there to help him; he was a little out of his league. “I wish Brita was here to help me, I’m a little out of my league.”
“She was upstairs with the girls, the Inquisitor went up there and Fred followed. Nobody has come down yet.” A couple sloppy bandages and some pain killers later and Merlin was already looking better. He really was tougher than he had any right to be.
Felix had done what he could to make the old man comfortable. Now he had to figure out what happened to everybody else. He went back up the stairs. They were creakier than he remembered.
“Damn it!” he yelled back downstairs, “Merlin, I found Brita! She’s not breathing!”
***
Every time he thought of Brita, Konstantin felt like he had been punched in the chest. Light flashed at the corners of his gaze as he gasped for breath.
“What is it?” Deirdre still sat hunched over the controls in the pilot’s chair, guiding the helicopter South-east over an endless expanse of white-capped waves. “What’s wrong?”
“I…don’t know.” Konstantin was already sinking back into his daymares. “Everything I guess.”
***
He felt his murder-mates shifting on the branch beside him, their presence a constant source of comfort. There was safety in numbers. Never good to be alone.
He bent his head, preened glossy feathers with a sharp beak. Life was good for the clan these days. The world was getting loud again. Whenever the world got loud, things got dead.
The clan fed well.
He had barely finished his cleaning when he felt the summons. The goddess was in trouble. The goddess was alone. He dropped from the branch with a cry, flapping across the beach and out over open water. He would guide the goddess home.
***
“Wake the fuck up!”
Konstantin rubbed his gritty eyes and stretched as well at the cramped cockpit would allow. “I’m not asleep. I was just thinking.”
It was true. He couldn’t come close to sleep with the torment of Brita’s loss twisting his insides. Konstantin brooded for a while longer; watching the ocean come ever closer to the helicopter’s landing skids.
“Deirdre, why are we losing altitude?”
“We’re almost out of fuel. We’re running on fumes.”
“So what do we do?”
She gestured at the unbroken expanse of black water below them, the only thing visible in any direction.
“What can we do? This thing is going to drop out of the sky any minute. I don’t know about you, but if the crash doesn’t kill us, I’m going to keep swimming after that psychotic bastard until I catch him or until I’m dead from hypothermia, dehydration, or the Kraken.”
“Deirdre, hold on,” Konstantin pointed out his side of the aircraft, “We might still have a chance. Look!”
A glossy black raven was pacing them, flapping madly to keep up with the slowly sinking helicopter. The bird seemed to be able to sense their attention. As soon as they both looked at it, it peeled off at an angle and started winging away across the water.
“Follow the bird! If it made it out here, we can’t be too far from land.”
Deirdre complied, looping off from her previous course to chase after her namesake. She was the first to see the dark smear on the horizon.
“It’s an island!”
“Yeah, but which one?” Konstantin wondered.
“I don’t know, possibly one of the Faroe Islands. Who cares, where there is land, there might be people. If there are people, there might be fuel. It’s a dim hope, but it’s better than swimming.”
The approach to the island was a tense affair. There was no guarantee that they would find anything at all when they reached land, and the aircraft had already experienced a few ominous misfires. If they crashed now, there was little chance that the twins would survive beyond the next few weeks. The nearest stretch of land hove into view as the helicopter was sputtering through its last bit of fuel. It was heavily forested all the way up to a slim stretch of rocky coastline, the island’s interior dominated by a craggy mountain range which was partially obscured by mist and cleft by a sheer sided canyon.
Fingers were crossed, nails were bitten. The helicopter was moving slowly, its rotors barely maintaining lift. It was going to be close.
“I think we’re going to make it!” Deirdre exulted. Then the helicopter’s engine putt-putt coughed, and they were crashing.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Deirdre screamed, while Konstantin groaned like a wounded animal.
Forest. Beach. Ocean. Forest. Beach. Ocean. Forest. Beach. Ocean. Breakfast.
Konstantin vomited across the cockpit windshield as the chopper’s death spiral continued; his sick blocking their view of the rapidly approaching ground. It didn’t need to be seen. It let them know when it had arrived.
They crunched into the corner of an old dock first; it’s dry, dusty timbers slowing their fall as it disintegrated beneath them. Even with Deirdre shrieking a powerful shielding spell, the mangled remains of the helicopter still hit the ground hard enough to rattle its occupants to the bone. Exposed electronics sparked and smoldered as they skidded up above the edge of the surf, but the ruined aircraft never exploded. There was no fuel left to burn.
“Shit! Fuck!” Deirdre thrashed against her restraints, kicking and punching against the closest bits of the cracked and crumpled interior of the helicopter. “That monster is going to get away! We’ll never catch up to him before he gets back to Rome if we don’t have a way to fly! I should have checked the fuel before we left. Oh All Father…the girls…I failed them.”
“No.” Konstantin grabbed her flailing arm, “No. You didn’t. You’ve gotten us this far, and we’re still alive. You’ve done well. Rex is a monster, but he’s still mortal. He can fly faster than we can run, but he still has to eat, and
sleep, as do the girls. They’re of no value to him dead. He’ll keep them safe and unharmed until he gets back to Rome. We have time.” During their flight, Konstantin’s desperate rage had evolved into something equally as powerful, but more coldly logical and calculating. “Even if we don’t catch up with them before they get to the city, even if we have to walk to Rome and break down the gates with our bare hands, we’ll get the twins back. And I WILL kill Solomon Rex.”
Deirdre fought for calm. She had done well. The two were both bruised and battered, but still alive, and as they climbed from the smoking ruin onto the rocky beach, lights could be seen glowing on the horizon. She calmed herself with visible effort of will, and nodded decisively. She even surprised Konstantin with a cruel smile.
“You’re right. We will catch up to them. Even if we do have to pound on the gates of Rome itself. But if we’re going to do that, there’s no reason we have to do it alone.” she unclipped her harness, slipping gracefully out of her crooked seat. “Come on. Let’s go raise an army.”
Preceded by their winged harbinger, Deirdre and Konstantin started walking.
***
After limping a few miles on the beach and then turning inland along the steep bank of a swiftly moving river, they were relieved to see the lights grow into a strange little village perched along a ledge on the canyon wall. Invisible from out in the open water; they probably would have never seen it if they hadn’t crashed where they did.
Never more than a few streets wide, the village hugged both riverbanks for several miles but never spread up above the top of the canyon. They approached cautiously. There were motorboats moored to the community dock, some vehicles parked beside a few of the larger buildings, and what might have been an anti aircraft gun emplacement stored under a tarp on the more populous side of the river, but no people were visible.
“What is this place?”
