Relics and Runes Anthology

by Heather Marie Adkins

  He led the way to the garage, passed me a helmet and thrust out his hand.

  ‘Keys.’

  I jammed the helmet on and swung a leg over the driver’s seat. ‘Your turn to pillion. I know where to take this hairclip.’

  He didn’t reply, but his hands fisted at his sides. He slid on behind me and flicked down his visor, anger fairly seething off him.

  Out on the street, the bike roared between my knees as we sped through the soft warmth of the night. Fear sleeted through my body. I wasn’t usually afraid of much, but today I honestly felt like I wasn’t coping, and that was new.

  Where are we going? His voice sounded harsh.

  Somewhere we can ditch this hairpin and maybe lead them on a bit of a goose chase for a while. Keep them busy while you and Maeve get me up to speed.

  Where?

  There. I flashed an image and he grunted. His anger eased.

  They’re getting closer but they’ve turned away from the house to follow us. His tone held satisfaction.

  I gunned the engine, flying along the quiet suburban streets, only slowing to the speed limit when we arrived in more populated areas. Even then, I risked police notice over and over as I dodged between cars and slipped through the tiniest of gaps. Logan’s fingers dug into my hips. I grinned in fierce enjoyment.

  We reached our destination and I yanked off the helmet. A mournful horn tooted and we ran towards the dock. All around, laughing, jostling crowds of people waved and shouted. Music blared from a nearby restaurant and coloured lights danced off the harbour’s smooth, inky water. The smell of diesel mingled with mangrove and saltwater scents in the still air.

  High above, towering far into the dark sky, the bulk of a cruise liner blotted out the stars with regular lights and shadows of its own. The entry ramp had already been taken away and the boat’s great motors thrummed a low-key, disconcerting rumble that stirred unease in my stomach. We stopped at the edge of the dock as the boat slid, ever so slowly, through the still water.

  I groaned. ‘We’re too late!’

  Instead of replying, Logan peered through the dark at the passengers lining the railing. Several waved to friends and family seeing them off, or admired the night time cityscape.

  ‘Give me the clip.’

  I slapped it into Logan’s outstretched palm.

  He released a soft exclamation of satisfaction and drew back his arm. I caught the edges of a thought, not directed at me. Far above, her face just a white-and-shadow blob in the darkness, a girl named Michelle peered down at Logan. He threw the hairpin with all his impossible strength and accuracy. The girl snatched the glittering gift. A ‘thank you’ drifted down and Logan turned away with a satisfied smile.

  I raised my brows at him. ‘What the…?’

  He pulled me away from the thinning crowd, heading back towards the large darkness of the nearby parking lot.

  ‘I suggested she heard me shout her name and that I was her boyfriend, come to give her one last gift before she left.’ He watched as the ship eased its way to the open ocean. ‘That should keep our guys busy for a while.’

  Clutching at his arm, I pointed. ‘We’re not out of the woods yet, lover.’

  A black fourby screeled to a halt in a spray of gravel. Doors opened and spewed forth men in black and grey camouflage. Armed with tasers and dart guns, they cut us off from the bike. My hard-faced friend from previous encounters was not among them. Which was almost disappointing. It would be satisfying to hear bits of him go “crunch”.

  The parking lot was empty, poorly lit, and distant from the restaurants and shops. That left us without either witnesses or assistance. I turned back to the enemy. Rain drifted down from a heavy, orange-grey sky; light and cool. Thunder rumbled.

  Logan smiled grimly. ‘Two for me, two for you. And they haven’t yet called in that they’ve found us. We still have a chance to make them think you’re on that boat. But we need to take these guys out now.’

  My heart pounded. I tried to calm my nerves. ‘What’s the plan?’

  ‘Jen Gifted you the knowledge of telekinesis,’ he murmured. ‘Think you can use it?’

  I edged backward as the men approached. ‘Not a chance. Instant brain-fry. Not going there.’

  ‘Right.’ His mouth stretched into a humourless grin. Then try and stay out of the way of the darts.

  Helpful.

  Rain plummeted in fat, cool drops that turned the oily tarmac slippery. Steam rose from the still-warm ground.

  A man with a taser rushed at me. I bared my teeth in a snarling grin. People were idiots sometimes…ok, a lot of the time. Too keen for glory. All he had to do was stay back and let the darts guy shoot, but this moron chose not to. Good.

  He came within range to use the Taser and paused. He was still too far away for someone to get to him. Someone normal anyway.

  Lightning flashed.

  No need to hide my skills here. I launched myself at him. Not quite fast enough. He pulled the trigger reflexively. His eyes widened as I twisted aside. Only one barb connected, making the weapon useless. I ripped it out of my thigh, grabbed his gun hand and squeezed. The weapon, and his bones, crunched.

  The man’s strangled scream drowned in thunder. His cry became a squeak as I spun him around and held him before me as a shield. Two darts slapped into his body – one into a thigh and one into his bulletproof vest. He glanced down and gave his companion an angry glare. His body sagged in my arms as the drug took effect.

  I swore and dragged him forward until he became too much a dead weight and I had to stop.

  Off to my right, movement and grunts said Logan dealt effectively with his assailants. My second man stood out of reach, dart gun wavering between myself and Logan. Fool. He shot at me. The dart hit my cover, just millimetres from where my arm wrapped around his chest.

  I drew out my favourite throwing knife. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled almost simultaneously. My opponent flinched and glanced up. One quick flick and the dart gun flew from his hand. My blade protruded from his forearm. I dropped my shield-body and covered the remaining distance in the time it took the man to blink at me in shock.

  He screamed as I yanked the blade from his wrist. I slid an arm around his neck, choking off the sound with a sleeper hold. I lowered him to the ground. His left hand scrabbled against my shoulder. His movements weakened and he slipped into unconsciousness. I released the sleeper hold, picked up the dart gun and shot him in the thigh.

  The scuff of feet on gravel brought my gun-hand up, ready. Logan staggered towards me. Two dark, crumpled bodies lay motionless behind him, glistening in the rain.

  ‘Hurt?’ I slid under an arm as he listed to one side.

  ‘No. Caught a couple of darts. Must be getting old.’ He grimaced, his words and movements deliberate. ‘Assuming it’s the same drug they used on you, I’ll be out for a while. Before that happens, I need to cover our tracks and add to the … misdirection. Drag whichever are still… alive together.’

  His two attackers were dead. Their bodies were already cooling, necks broken, eyes staring into darkness. Mine lived. Shaken, I did as he instructed. He knelt in a puddle and placed his fingers on both of their heads at once. His handsome face twisted with the effort of whatever he did. At last, with a satisfied nod and a faint sigh, he slumped into oblivion.

  I groaned. Left alone with two bodies and three unconscious men in a dark port facility, in the torrential rain. What the hell did I do now?

  Logan had killed two men. Yes, he was protecting me, but I’d sworn never to kill again. How could I trust and work with someone who did that so easily?

  His bike wasn’t far away. I could take it, his phone, find Anna and get her out before any of them woke up. Then I could work on these Mors Ferrum on my own terms. At the thought of them, the caged darkness in my head rattled against its prison.

  I looked at the black-clad, gun-carrying men lying on the sodden ground beneath Logan’s still, helpless form.

  Damm
it! I couldn’t leave him. Not when he and Maeve might know how to help me govern whatever was so desperate to control me.

  I dug through pockets until I found the car keys, opened the vehicle and stuffed bodies and men into it. Next I pulled out a coil of rope I found in the back and, as an afterthought, both of the dart guns, tasers and all the darts I could find. I’d never known a drug to put me under so fast, so it might be useful to have a sample.

  The rain eased to a light drizzle, making the next task slightly easier, but not much. Using all the rope, cut into pieces, I tied Logan to the bike. I climbed on, balancing it awkwardly as I strapped him to my waist. Then I threw the car keys as far as I could into the darkness and gunned the bike into life.

  I rode at a painfully slow speed. The extra, uncontrolled weight made the bike hideously unstable. The wind turned my wet clothes ice-cold, even in the warmth of the tropical night. Luckily, being a rainy Sunday night, traffic was minimal and I avoided most of it. I had no idea which way to go to the new safehouse. The best I could achieve was to put distance between us and the last place my pursuers had seen us.

  Shelter had to be my next priority. Unfortunately, most shelter also included people. Logan’s condition would only invite unwelcome questions and medical attention. There had to be a motel somewhere nearby. But in my efforts to avoid main roads and traffic, I’d picked an area of town remarkably devoid of motels. Houses, closed shops and the occasional kids’ parkland were all that seemed to be around.

  Desperation made me consider the possibility of breaking into one of the darkened houses in a quiet street. There was just no way of knowing which ones were long-term empty and which ones had occupants that would turn up any minute. It was, frankly, a relief when, after about half an hour of aimless riding, Logan stirred and groaned behind me.

  Ahead lay a small, triangular garden in the middle of the road. An afterthought of poor road planning, or maybe saved by environmental activists. One giant fig tree, surrounded by smaller bushes around the edges of the drip line, sprouted from the centre. Shadows plunged the area beneath into gloom.

  It would have to do.

  Mounting the gutter with difficulty, I scraped through the bushes, eased the bike into the shadows and killed the engine.

  My fingers were cold and clumsy. I fumbled with the knots and cursed my own rope-tying efficiency. Logan grunted as I struggled with the bindings that held him safe. Finally they loosened. I dragged him off the bike. Hauling him to the tree, I kicked away the litter of crushed beer cans and broken glass then propped him up between the buttress roots of the ancient fig.

  A car approached, its lights cutting through the night and turning the rain into silvery mist. I flicked up the kickstand and lowered the bike onto its side to hide it behind the shrubs. The last thing I needed was some do-gooder stopping to help. The car swept past with a swoosh, spraying water from a puddle. I shielded Logan from the worst of it and swore as it trickled down the back of my neck.

  Beneath the giant tree was relatively dry and sheltered. Logan groaned again and raised heavy eyelids, his eyes clouded by vague non-recognition. It seemed to be taking him longer to recover. Perhaps because he’d taken two darts instead of one.

  If he felt anything like I did, he’d want water when he woke. I rummaged through my bag and pulled out a half-empty bottle salvaged from my gym bag. I held his head and trickled water onto his lips. It dribbled down his chin and his eyes closed again.

  Not good.

  We couldn’t stay here long. Rain poured from the heavy sky with a seriousness that spoke of monsoons. Thunder rolled again. Fat drops of water found their way through the leaves. I shivered as adrenalin drained away and the chill seeped into muscles, leaving me clumsy and vague. There must be a way to wake him up.

  He slid sideways and I hauled him upright again. When I withdrew my hands, one glistened dark-red in the streetlamps’ orange-sick light. I yanked at his shirt, tearing it open, searching for injuries.

  I stopped, blinking rain away. Beneath his shirt Logan wore some sort of metallic-threaded, flesh-toned vest. Thin and flexible, it could only be a bullet-proof vest of some sort, though not anything I’d ever seen or heard of. There were no tears or holes in the material. The blood on his shirt wasn’t his. He sighed slightly, head lolling to one side. Relief flushed me with temporary warmth.

  Another search of my bag, and the guns and darts scavenged from their attackers, revealed no convenient antidote. Frustrated, I stood up and leaned my back on the gritty tree trunk. Looking up at the rustling darkness of the leaves above I shivered and wiped a drop of water off my face. The leaves sounded like voices.

  Voices! That was it. I needed to connect him to the sianfath thing. But how?

  16

  Logan? Logan?>

  …

  I touched Logan’s throat. His pulse was thready, his face pale and damp. His mind was a messy blur of nausea and confusion that made me want to retch. Right, so he wasn’t going to be able to guide me. What then? How had I done it before, at the creek?

  On impulse, I leaned his cheek against the tree trunk. Then I placed his hands onto the rough surfaces of the roots to either side of him, pressing his palms firmly onto the bark.

  He twitched and grasped the buttresses weakly. His face, slack with the drug, firmed into something close to awareness and though his eyes remained closed. A furrow appeared between his brows.

  I opened my mind just enough to follow his skill, to see how the Healing process worked. Given the earth-connection had not caused me pain last time, it shouldn’t this time, either. The ability to heal myself would be invaluable.

  There followed a subtle shift closer to full consciousness as he pulled from the tree what he needed to eliminate the drug from his system.

  He opened himself to the sianfath.

  Easing in with him, I took a moment to orientate. The giant tree became my anchor point from which to explore this surreal connection to the world. I tasted ozone and earth in the life-pulse of the tree and the bushes around me; even the ragged grass clinging to the verge along the concrete gutters. The edges of Logan’s thoughts brushed mine. I withdrew, far enough that I wouldn’t interfere, but close enough to sense what he did.

  Describing the experience wasn’t easy. Words didn’t do it justice. The right ones didn’t exist. Every living thing seemed to have a sort of muted silver-green glow, even Logan himself, although it wasn’t a light and also not a colour. The prickling under my skin energised and woke me.

  Logan drew only from the little parkland around. I watched him draw strength from the plants and channel it back into his own body. He used the energy on a cellular level to break down the drug into more basic molecules. His skill was extraordinary; delicate; precise. Was it instinctive or learned? Would a knowledge of biochemistry help?

  Drawing the energy wasn’t difficult. It just took a degree of control to make sure none of the plants was overly-stressed; to make sure life went on after the small amount of energy was drawn. Individual strands of force were visible as greenish non-light, twisting and intertwining into one thicker strand that wound its way back into the centre of Logan’s chest.

  Why, didn’t he take from animals or the hot, orange pulse of humans? Surely they were equally valid sources? Some sort of ethical choice? As far as I could tell, there was little difference and the proximity of so many humans gave the sianfath a brilliant luminosity; one that exerted a powerful attraction. The urge to stretch out and encompass all within my reach, to pull strength from them to augment my own, was almost overwhelming.

  I gave up trying to analyse it and extended further, into this other world, tasting not only the trees, and humans, but the darting small lives of insects and the swift squeaking flight of insect bats overhead. I explored my newfound freedom and connection, excluding Logan’s focussed thoughts. This experience needed to be mine, alone.

  In the surrounding houses and a nearby cafe, diners ate and chattered, their auras of or
ange non-light varied; some clear, some muddy swirling messes, some vibrant, some dull with physical or emotional pain. I heard their skittish inner thoughts running at odds with their mouths: a mother worried about her sick child; a father angry at his teenage son’s defiance. Lying to each other and themselves, hiding secrets, laughing, crying, pain and joy intertwined.

  Following life-threads, I reached further, drifting on the gossamer connections like spiderlings on the wind, touching a thousand diverse lives, drawing a thousand diverse breaths. I revelled in the sense of both union and utter freedom. Union with life itself. Freedom from the limitations of physical form and the power imposed by chemistry and hormones, flesh and bone.

  With this much energy within my grasp anything was possible. If I opened myself a little more to the world, stretched a little further, I’d have enough power to cure Logan and more. I could absorb enough to destroy his enemies, and mine.

  The darkness, ever vigilant, flew with me, eager. It stretched through me, with me, until I was one with it and the sianfath. It whispered in my thoughts, promising me safety and strength. Tempting. Together we could do anything. Control anyone. Burn everything.

  Logan sucked in a shuddering breath and raised his face, opening those extraordinary grey eyes. They widened. His brows snapped together.

  Still stretched and basking in the euphoric power of the sianfath, I saw his mental presence as both warm and bright. He dropped his smooth mental shields and wrapped me in an embrace more intimate than a physical one. Within him lay incredible mental and physical strength, extraordinary intelligence, and great depths of hidden pain and anger.

  Then, before I could make him aware of the power at my disposal, he pulled on all the delicate threads of my consciousness and flung me back into the doughy heaviness of my body.