Some superhero you are. The voice was his, but he could imagine Charlee saying it.
Chapter Six
Sindri had been watching the riots in England with sharp interest for weeks. Brixton, Birmingham, Leeds…the poorest of the poor in major cities around England were taking on the police and venting their frustrations.
Like most rioters, they would end up losing. But what caught Sindri’s attention were not the riots, but the reasons for them. He absorbed all the many news reports with a growing sense of excitement, for it was clear that these people were not protesting over an ideology, but pouring out their fears and anger upon the authorities for the deprivations they suffered daily, they and their children.
The poorest of the poor were nearly all children and their lack of a promising future was driving the rioters’ fury.
Fury. Violence. Fear.
It was perfect.
Sindri made his arrangements. He sent several of the Brennus to England, to keep a watch over critical areas in that country while he completed a few preparations of his own.
Then, two weeks later, as summer was bursting into being, the word came and along with it a location: Manchester.
Sindri hurried to the London hall and caught one of the human trains from Euston station. Three hours later, he stepped out of the Piccadilly station in Manchester and waved down a taxi. The taxi driver glanced at him sharply, but accepted the fare. Sindri had not bothered overly much with costume or disguise. He wore human street clothes, but his head was bare as always. In England, for these strange times, he would not stand out terribly much, and virtually not at all once he had reached Bradford.
His Brennus contact had been right. The taxi came to a halt a quarter of a mile away from the stadium, unable to proceed, for a mob had formed in the middle of Ashton New Road, blocking off any traffic in either direction.
“Gotta drop yer ‘ere,” the taxi driver told him. “I ain’t gone ter go near that mob. Yer right daft if yer thinkin’ yer will.”
“My thanks.” Sindri pushed a fifty-pound note through the window.
“You betta wotch yerself!” the driver called as he tucked the note away and pulled the taxi around in a tight circle.
Sindri studied the mob ahead, taking note of the low buildings on the side opposite the stadium. There was more green space here than he had been expecting. The stadium itself was protected by a barrier of hip-high concrete walls. He studied the stadium. It was more than sufficiently tall, but there would be security.
He weighed the risks, then crossed the road, slipped over the concrete and with a pinch more effort, over the fence that surrounded the building. He strode toward the stadium entrance, already whispering the incantations he would need, letting them roil and build power inside him.
Inside, he struck remarkably little trouble. Only one guard challenged him. Sindri dealt with him easily, leaving him bundled in an electrical cupboard. He would wake in six hours, none the worse for his confinement and clueless about how he had arrived there.
The lack of security bothered Sindri, until he realized that most of the guards would be watching the mob building out on the road, assessing it for any danger to their stadium. He could hear the mob’s low murmur leaking through the walls as he climbed the stairs.
He made his way to the back row on the top tier, where windows gave him a view of the road and the mob. He had to stand on the back of a seat to reach the glassed-in section of the wall, but his view was unobstructed and he would be unobserved, as he was tucked in behind the edge of the scoreboard.
The police were confronting the mob now, dressed in full riot gear, Plexiglas shields held at the ready like a modern-day version of the wall of shields the Romans once used to mow down their enemy. Nothing ever really changed, Sindri thought dryly.
He examined the top of the wall beneath the window area. It was wide enough to stand upon. He just had to get up there. He looked around once more for observers. He couldn’t use a cloaking spell. They used up far too much energy and he would need every skerrick of his power for what was to come. Lifting and hovering didn’t draw nearly as much because he was so practiced at it. He just didn’t want anyone to see him do it.
The stadium was utterly empty. There was not even a bird sitting on the edge of the roof, soaking up the bright sunlight.
Sindri lifted himself up, until his toes were level with the top of the concrete wall. Then he stepped onto the wall and spread his feet, adjusting his balance. The glass was bare inches from his chest, making balancing a challenge, but the heavy-duty plastic gave him an unobstructed and undistorted view of the crowd below. He could see many heads down there, while the police lines were dotted with black helmets that glinted in the strong sunlight.
He settled his feet more soundly and spread his arms. The light raincoat he wore billowed out behind him at the movement.
He could feel the crowd, feel their anger. Good. It rose into the air like warm currents that only he could feel. He sank into the miasmic stench/feel of emotions roiling through and above the mob, sampling it. There was power there, but not enough, yet.
Summoning the words he needed made his body throb. This was going to take an enormous effort, but the potential payback was worth it.
Sindri gathered the power within him and sent it out to mix with the mob, to soak them with its fallout.
The mob almost flinched with the impact. The volume of their chanting and cries leapt upwards as they moved forward almost in unison, in the cohesive and fascinating gestalt in which mobs seemed to work. This time, though, their union was real. The power Sindri was feeding them was also uniting them in an intangible but very real way.
Their combined emotions rose like a heat haze over their heads, visible to someone like Sindri. Visible and arousing. He responded, his power swelling and feeding back to them.
The mob pulsed forward again and the police stirred. Batons were raised, the Plexiglas shields grounded more firmly. Now Sindri could feel their fear. It mingled with the emotions of the mob and added to the feedback loop. The mob responded by pushing forward yet again.
Then the first rock was thrown. It smashed against the Plexiglas with a solid, unexciting ‘thunk’. But that was all it took. The police stepped closer and so did the mob.
Violence. Sindri closed his eyes and breathed in the unique bouquet. It added to the hysteria like yeast, lifting it higher and higher. The riot had been birthed and was squalling with hunger. Sindri didn’t have to feed it anymore. It was breathing independently.
Instead, he switched polarities, drawing in instead of feeding. It took conscious effort to draw because the mob-being was hungry, sucking in every little heartbeat and anxiety anywhere near.
Sindri could feel its power, now. It was a growing thing. A huge thing.
He closed his eyes once more and concentrated on syphoning the pure, raw power from the crowd. The crucible was ready, waiting to accept the white-hot and pulsing power. It began to glow warmly against his flesh, throbbing with the energy it was absorbing. He had prepared the crucible well. It had almost infinite capacity to take power into itself.
The police were shouting. The mob was screaming. Batons rose and fell. Individuals staggered away from the fraying edges, blood streaming from cracked heads, nursing broken arms. But still the mob persisted, pushing and harassing the police. The noise was simply amazing.
But then, when the crucible had received all the power it could pull from the crowd, the mob for the first time paused. It staggered and became a collection of individuals once more. The power that had been driving them was gone, locked within Sindri’s crucible.
The police were well trained. They moved forward to disperse the crowd despite no longer being driven by the combined energies swirling around them. Now their job was much easier. People were looking around, taking in their surroundings. Some were surprised, others puzzled. The power had gone, letting them think once more.
In the space of a few heartbeat
s, what might have been one of the worst of the English riots had dissipated and blown away like so much pollen in a breeze, all their fury and violence and fear evaporated.
The police would congratulate themselves for dispersing the crowd so efficiently and it was possible even the media would give them a small line or two of applause. None of them would ever come close to realizing the truth, Sindri thought as he lowered himself down to the level of the seats. He closed the raincoat over the crucible and became once more just an odd-looking human with some remarkable tattoos.
One or two sensitive humans in the crowd might wonder at the sudden turn of the event. They might tell their friends about how the stuffing got sucked out of the rioters (“fucking cowards!” they would declare), but no human could possibly guess the truth because in their world, magic didn’t exist and power was something that ran their lights and microwaves.
Which suited Sindri just fine. “All the more for me,” he murmured and climbed down the steps, human-fashion.
* * * * *
Lucas tapped on the front door of the house two up from theirs. Subconsciously, he noticed that the white paint was fresh and so was the green trim around the door. There was a pot of some pretty red flowers on the stoop, nodding in the early summer light. He didn’t know what the flowers were (betcha Einie would), but the effect of neatness and homeliness was not lost on him.
The comparison started up the old itchy, uncomfortable feeling deep in his gut, the one he got whenever he thought about his home in comparison to someone else’s. So he deliberately turned and looked out into the street, where kids were bouncing a basketball across the road, one sidewalk to the other, in between passing cars. Their throws were heroic, making them grunt with effort to get the ball all the way across in one bounce and making the kid on the opposite side jump high to catch it.
The door opened, pulling Lucas’ attention back around. Darwin Baxter stood in the open doorway, his head almost brushing the top part of the doorframe. There was grey in his hair and his beard, but the rest of it was as black as he was. “You’re Charlee’s brother, aren’t you?” he said.
“Yes, sir. Mr. Baxter, did Charlee come visit you for her lesson today?”
Darwin looked at him sharply. “She isn’t at home? I’ve been worrying for about an hour now.”
“Then she didn’t come,” Lucas said, something tightening up inside. It wasn’t the same as thinking about home. It was a very specific worry. “She’s in her bedroom,” he told Darwin. “At least, I think she is. She hasn’t come out of it for three days.”
“Not even to eat?” Darwin asked.
“Charlee, well, she likes you teachin’ her, so I figured she might have come here like usual and then you might have asked her what was wrong.”
“What is wrong?” Darwin asked sharply.
“I dunno.” Lucas shook his head.
Darwin stepped back. “Come in.”
Lucas stepped into the very neat, tiny front room and Darwin shut the door behind him. There was a clock ticking away the time somewhere, but what caught his eye were the books. Shelves and shelves of them, wherever there was a wall with space to put up a few inches of MDF. It was so much not like home, so different, that the usual tight itchiness didn’t rise in his belly. Instead, Lucas looked around curiously. Tentatively, he decided he liked all the books. It didn’t feel like a dusty, must-stay-quiet library, which was the only place he had seen more books than this gathered in one place.
He could see why Charlee kept coming here. It was peaceful. There wasn’t even a TV in the corner.
“So tell me about Charlee,” Darwin said. He picked up a book that had been lying open and face-down on the easy chair, slid a bookmark into it and closed it properly. “Did she go to school the last three days? You said she’s been staying in her bedroom.”
“I thought she went to school. She left like always, but I think she snuck back home. Her bedroom door is closed when I get back and I always get home long before she does. Charlee barely makes it back for supper, most evenings.”
Darwin’s brow lifted. He sat on the footstool in front of the easy chair, sinking down onto it like he was barely aware of what he was doing. Lucas got the impression he was thinking hard.
“She didn’t come down for supper Thursday night or last night. She yelled through the door that she wasn’t hungry. I haven’t seen her since Wednesday,” Lucas added.
“You didn’t go into her room to check on her?” Darwin asked.
Lucas could feel his cheeks heating in response. Not because it was a prurient question, but because he understood the assumption behind the question. Darwin hadn’t asked if his parents had checked on her. He was asking if Lucas had. How much did he know about home, anyway? How much had Charlee told him?
“She locked the door,” he replied. “I think she’s sneaking out at night when everyone’s sleeping, and using the bathroom and stuff, but she won’t talk to anyone.” He couldn’t help adding, “Not even me.” Because at the bottom of his concern, he was hurt—just a bit—that Charlee didn’t trust him enough to come to him with whatever the problem was. What could be so dire in an eleven year old’s life that he couldn’t fix it for her, after all that he had mended?
Darwin was looking at him again with the same penetrating stare as before.
“I figured she might come talk to you, though,” Lucas finished. “She likes you.”
Darwin blinked. The corner of his mouth ticked upwards. Then he sobered. “What about that friend of hers? Did you ask him?”
“What friend?” Lucas stretched his memory, searching for a clue about who Darwin was talking about. Charlee didn’t have friends. In the merciless hierarchy that was the school caste system, Charlee was a freak. She wasn’t pretty by normal standards, and she waltzed through classes and scored top marks with what appeared to be little effort. That would be enough to ostracize most kids, but to add insult to injury, her family was… a drunk. Her mother is a drunk.
No one ever said anything to their faces, and neither Charlee nor Lucas ever invited anyone into the house to visit, where they would see the facts for themselves, but somehow, people knew. Maybe their parents talked too much over dinner, maybe someone in the neighborhood had noticed all the beer bottles. It didn’t matter. In the mysterious, deadly swift communication channels that kids used, word had passed. The Montgomery family had a drunk mother and were the poorest of poor. It marked both of them indelibly. Lucas got around it by being damned good at any team sport they picked him for. It won him an acceptance that was denied Charlee.
All of this went through his mind at lightning speed, barely registering in coherent terms, but the itch started in his belly, crawled up to his chest and squeezed. “Charlee doesn’t have a lot of friends,” he said.
“The one that likes books and history,” Darwin clarified.
“That’s you.”
He shook his head. “There’s a boy. He’s smart. He’s been lending books to her.”
“Mr. Baxter, you gotta understand. No one hangs with my sister. She goes to school, she comes home. She visits you on weekends.” Even as he was saying it, Lucas heard the still voice in his head add, but where does she go between school and home, huh?
Her school, PS 157, got out just after three. She didn’t walk in the door until supper time, which was supposed to be five-thirty, but was usually closer to six by the time their mother got herself sorted out. She would slide in through the front door and hurry up to her bedroom, dump her bag and come back down to sit at the table even as the plates were being handed out.
Mom never noticed and even Dad, who might have commented once, didn’t seem to care. The medicines that littered the table next to his recliner seemed to take away any interest in the world beyond his knees.
Lucas had noticed, but he had deliberately not questioned Charlee. Everyone was entitled to their secrets (like the second-hand copies of Hustler under your bed, right?). Charlee always came in looking refres
hed and happy. Whatever she was doing, it was essentially harmless and seemed to be good for her, so Lucas had kept his mouth shut.
Now he regretted it. If she had a friend of the male persuasion who she was hiding from him, what did she and her friend get up to that made her look so damned happy?
She’s only eleven, he reminded himself. But was he going to have to sit her down and give her the same lecture his father had given him four years ago? Were his parents so deep into their own concerns that they hadn’t noticed how tall she was getting?
The tightness in his chest increased and Lucas looked at Darwin unhappily. “I don’t know about any friend.” But you do. You did know, but you didn’t care enough to find out what she does after school.
Darwin sighed. “Then something happened on Wednesday. Something that has upset her. Charlee doesn’t dump her problems on anyone without encouragement. She’s holding it in and working it out for herself. What happened Wednesday that you can remember? Anything significant?”
Lucas thought that Darwin had got closer to the essence of Charlee than anyone had ever bothered to try. She did figure things out herself. She was so fiercely independent that sometimes Lucas thought she preferred to be by herself, to do it herself. It wasn’t anything he could understand. He liked hanging out with friends, talking shit over and hearing how they’d resolved problems. It made everything seem lighter that way.
“Wednesday night, she didn’t eat dinner. She sat at the table for about sixty seconds, then dumped her plate—” He stopped suddenly, surprised at his own observations.
“What?” Darwin prompted.
“She dumped it in the sink. She didn’t scrape it. She always scrapes her plate. Ours, too. But she dropped it in the sink. Then she went upstairs and that’s the last I saw of her.”
“Was she upset?”
“Quiet. But that’s usual.” Lucas frowned. Why hadn’t he taken better notice? He had wolfed down his own dinner—he was always hungry these days—with half an eye on the TV playing in the corner. He couldn’t say now whether she had been normal, or if she had been holding something in. “I shoulda looked harder.”
The Branded Rose Prophecy Page 9
