by H B Lyne
Weaver and Wind Talker glanced at her and she quickly looked between their worried faces and tried to brush off their concern. Nobody else seemed to be looking at her strangely so she hoped that it was only her pack mates who had noticed anything odd.
'Prove your worth,' Sparking Clank said in an ominous, deep rumble. A hatch on his belly opened and several car batteries thumped to the floor. Claws inched forward carefully and picked one of them up.
'What would you like us to do?' he asked.
'Burn,' the construct replied.
Stalker looked around in alarm and Claws glanced uncertainly back at Wind Talker, who remained calm and nodded once. Stalker watched as Claws dug his fingernails into the join along one edge of the battery and ripped it open with a grunt. The acid spilled out over his hands and arms with a ferocious hiss and smoke billowed up from his skin. His body shook and back arched and Stalker tensed herself, ready to grab him and subdue him if the beast took over. Claws took a slow, shaking breath and tossed the battery onto the floor as his temper settled.
Sparking Clank shifted his weight and seemed to tilt his head thoughtfully for a moment. A strange noise issued from his metal jaws, a sound like nails spilling onto the floor and Stalker realised the construct was laughing. 'I like you,' he rumbled and turned to leave.
Claws looked down at his smoking hands and Stalker stepped cautiously to his side to give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. His skin was badly burned and there was a hint of an un-shed tear at the corner of his eye.
'Let's head back to the house,' Weaver urged, her eyes darting around anxiously.
'Good idea,' Stalker replied.
Claws bowed to Glimmering Wires and the elemental waved a lazy hand to dismiss them. They backed out through the gate, Unchained Lightning floating along with them and once they were out in the street the gates swung shut.
'Are you all right?' Stalker asked Claws. He nodded and gave his hands a shake.
'Let's go,' Wind Talker said gruffly and they set off at a jog. Stalker kept her eyes peeled for trouble. As they reached the end of Legion Way, Stalker caught sight of the two huge, black birds that they had seen watching them several times. They cawed and took flight from their roof-top perch. As the pack turned the corner Stalker stopped in her tracks at the sight of a man hanging by his neck from a road sign on the other side of the road. The others came to a halt, Wind Talker bumped into her and she flung out a hand to hold them all back. The body turned slowly, limp and lifeless, and yet the bulging eyes were alive and focused on the Lightning Lords.
'That's Reeve-of-the-Condemned, an agent of something called The Hundred Court,' Wind Talker whispered.
'That doesn't sound good,' Stalker replied.
Unchained Lightning flew overhead, circling the pack and then dipping down into the street just behind them. He watched the hanged man carefully and crackled with static as if waiting for instruction.
The hanged man raised a grey, withered hand and pointed at them with one bony finger.
'You will be judged,' he said, his voice a hoarse whisper.
'Oh good,' Weaver said with a loud sigh and Stalker looked at her sharply, confused. 'Well the name and appearance rather suggested that we had already been judged and found guilty. If the judgement is yet to happen then maybe we can prepare a defence,' she explained quietly.
'What crime are we accused of?' Claws called out to it.
'Sins of the father,' the demon croaked cryptically. 'You must attend the hearing on the next half moon.'
'When is that?' Stalker whispered.
'Monday,' Claws replied, a crack in his voice. That was his moon, he was as attuned to the half moon as Stalker was to the new moon.
'How do we prepare for this hearing?' Wind Talker called out.
'Arrive alive,' the demon replied, a sickening rasp to his voice. The body slowly rotated again and seemed to grow thinner until it had vanished.
'Do you know where this Hundred Court is held?' Claws asked Unchained Lightning.
'The Court House,' he replied. His eyes rolled in their huge sockets. He rose off the ground and took off back towards Grove Street. Stalker caught Weaver's eye and they exchanged small smiles.
'Obviously,' Stalker mouthed and Weaver started to laugh but quickly stopped herself. They moved quickly and quietly through the streets back to the house and only crossed the veil once safely inside. Wind Talker stomped through the house, his face red and temper obviously frayed.
'What's wrong?' Weaver asked him.
'It was probably on the map,' he snapped. 'The Hundred Court was probably on the map but it was stolen. St. Mark's doesn't have a court house, it's not as simple as our patron would have us believe.'
'Maybe it used to have one, like the Watchtower, it's not a Roman look out now, it's Claws' office building, but in Hepethia it's still the Watchtower,' Weaver said, her optimism undeterred by Wind Talker's bluster.
'It wasn't on the map,' Claws said with a nod of certainty. He tapped a finger to his temple. 'Photographic memory.'
'Eyes might know,' Stalker suggested. 'Perhaps he came across the history of the judiciary in Caerton in his law education.'
'Good point,' Wind Talker said, his temper beginning to settle. 'We'll ask him later. We only have four days until the half moon, we can't sit on this.'
'We won't,' Stalker said, firmly.
Eyes didn't return to Grove Street until late that night, having spent the day sorting things out at his house and then spending time with his family.
'I snuck out after they were asleep,' he explained. 'I feel dirty.'
Stalker gave him a hug and made him a cup of coffee.
'Do you know if St. Mark's used to have its own courthouse?' she asked him. Eyes frowned.
'Yes it did, it was knocked down in the fifties when everything was centralised. Why?'
'The birds and weird demons that have been watching us are envoys of something called The Hundred Court,' Weaver told him. 'One of them spoke to us today and told us we have to attend a hearing on Monday.'
'What are the charges?' Eyes asked, his eyes wide with surprise.
'We don't really know, all we were told was that it was to do with “the sins of the father”,' Stalker said. 'So, I think it must be to do with the Blue Moon.'
'Remember the Knight-of-Shadowed-Fear said that he expected us to keep the bargains he made with the Blue Moon?' Weaver said. 'I'm sure he isn't the only one who expects that. Demons are tricky like that and elementals are too primal to be able to distinguish easily where one pack ends and another begins.'
'Do you know where the old court house was?' Stalker asked Eyes.
'No, but it'll be public record,' he replied.
'I was thinking about the house we need to heal,' Claws said. 'We should research it, check the news archives, investigate the family. See what we can find. I was going to go to the library tomorrow to do that, I could look up the court house too.'
'Good idea,' Eyes said, his face lighting up. 'Stalker, you go with him and help.'
Stalker blinked at him, research was hardly her forte. She wasn't about to question his orders, however and she simply nodded in agreement.
The following morning, Stalker and Claws set off for the library in Caerton city centre, taking his car and parking right by the central plaza. It was a sunny day, though there was still a distinct chill in the air and the streets bustled with workers and shoppers, while buses and cars sat chugging out fumes in the sluggish traffic. One of the major roads that surrounded the plaza was closed and traffic was being diverted away from it. Stalker glanced at the sign tied to a lamppost informing people of the road closure.
'It's for the underground,' she muttered to Claws as they hurried past the cordoned off area. Deafening drilling shook the ground and filled the air with dust.
'Oh?'
'Looks like there'll be a station right here in the city centre.'
They walked briskly across the plaza to the library and Claws led
the way upstairs to the computer room.
There were a couple of students working quietly and an old man sat at a desk reading a newspaper, the room was quiet but for the hum of a dozen computers. Claws shrugged off his jacket and flung it over the back of a chair. Stalker sank down into the chair next to it and opened a browser on the computer.
'I don't even know where to look,' she whispered.
'Here.' Claws leaned over and typed an address in, a digital news archive site opened up and he gave her a wink. 'I use it a lot for work. You see what you can find about the house. I'll check the electoral register for the name of the family and go from there.'
Stalker nodded and started putting in search terms that might yield results. She was still scrolling through useless articles a few minutes later when Claws let out a little “whoop” and leaned over. 'Got them. Just one adult registered at that address, Julia Bennett.'
'Great, thanks, that should help me here.'
She added the surname to the search and immediately got some likely-looking results. She scanned the headlines and clicked on one that read “Murder in St. Mark's”.
Local entrepreneur, George Bennett, was found dead in his home yesterday morning following a burglary. His wife, Julia Bennett, and their two-year-old daughter, were away visiting family and discovered the body upon returning home.
This is not the first time such a tragedy has befallen the occupants of this property. Shortly after its construction in 1937, the owner, Leonard Finchley, was brutally stabbed by an escaped convict.
Stalker stopped reading and took a few notes. She slid the note paper across the table to Claws, who looked down to read it. They exchanged nervous glances and Stalker went back to the search results to look for more. The pair of them spent several hours digging up everything they could find. Between them they managed to plot out a timeline for the house and noted many of its previous owners. There was a record of planning permission acquired for a nuclear bunker in the fifties and Stalker thought of the door in the basement with a shiver. In the sixties, the owner who had had the bunker built was killed by a pack of wild dogs. Stalker read over the article that mentioned this several times, a hard knot forming in her stomach.
The property was later auctioned off and bought by the B. M. Development Consultancy, who promptly renovated it and sold it on. The company folded shortly after this. 'No prizes for guessing what the funds were used for,' Stalker muttered. Sure enough, the Blue Moon Betting Shop officially opened for business three months after the development company went under.
'I think we've got everything we need here,' Claws said as he shut down the browser. Stalker did the same and followed him out of the computer room. He led her to another room on the top floor of the huge city library, where paper archives were kept. The assistant greeted them as they entered. 'We're looking for old maps of the city, specifically St. Mark's from about seventy years ago.'
The assistant showed them where to look and soon they were rolling out an old, yellowed street map of Caerton. Stalker leaned over it, intrigued. It was huge, covering a large table and the assistant helpfully placed paperweights on the corners for them and then left them to it.
'Look,' Stalker said, pointing to a spot just over halfway up the map. She had immediately looked for the most obvious, familiar place: Grove Street. That would orient them. The city had changed enormously in the last seventy years. On this map there was no telecoms tower, in fact, Redfield wasn't there at all, it was still countryside. Most of Northgate was still rural too, with the industrial area of the city confined to the docks on the coast and riverside. There was even some of the old Roman city wall still standing there, including the north gate that the area came to be named after. 'I wonder what happened to the wall.'
'Probably damaged in the blitz,' Claws replied, also scanning the map carefully. 'Or torn down afterwards in the name of progress.'
Stalker ran her gaze down the river, looking for the courthouse. To the west of Grove Street she found St. Mark's church, marked by a cross on the map and just opposite it was a small, slightly smudged black crown.
'There!' She jabbed the paper with her finger. In tiny, faded writing under the crown were the words Arlow Crown Court. 'What's there now?'
'A car park,' Claws replied.
'Shame,' she said. Historical landmarks being torn down and replaced with concrete monstrosities should be illegal, she thought.
'Why is it called Arlow Crown Court do you think?' she asked.
'I guess that's what the area used to be called.' Claws gave a shrug.
They packed up the map but before leaving Claws got the most recent street map of the city and made a copy of it on the library's special printer for large copies.
'We can start fresh, make our own map,' he said as he rolled it up. Stalker thought it was a good idea and a nice thing to do for Wind Talker.
As they walked back to the car Stalker found her thoughts running over everything they had pulled up on the house. She felt a bitter taste rise in her throat. It seemed like the Blue Moon were haunting them, their legacy was the bane of the Lightning Lords. How were they supposed to move on when they had constant reminders of their fallen pack? Could the mentors that she had trusted so much when they took her in really be behind so much death? She didn't want to think about it but she was going to have to confront the answer to one question, at least. What secret were they hiding in that bunker?
Chapter Twelve
18th February
Fights-Eyes-Open
Monday morning rolled around and Eyes drove slowly across St. Mark's, his palms sweating and his gaze flickering frequently to the legal documents folded neatly in an envelope on the passenger seat. It was a stretch to describe them as “legal” and now he owed his shady solicitor contact two significant favours.
He pulled up outside the house and took some deep breaths before picking up the envelope and making his way from his car to the door. His hand shook as he raised it to ring the bell. He could hear movement inside and a woman called out to someone else as she approached the front door. It was flung open and a slightly flustered woman stood in the doorway, a child's lunch box in one hand and hair brush in the other.
'Mrs Bennett?' Eyes asked, though he knew instantly who she was.
'Can I help?' she asked, her voice cracking with stress and a deep frown on her brow.
'I'm afraid I have to serve notice that your property has been red flagged as containing asbestos.' He held out the envelope and she took it hesitantly. 'You and your family will need to evacuate the property within 24 hours and allow access to workers to remove the asbestos.'
Mrs Bennett glared at him and she ripped open the envelope. She skim read the documents, flicking through the pages. Eyes glanced around her cautiously and saw a young girl, a few years older than Amy, standing a little way up the hall looking at him with curiosity. She had dark circles under her eyes and chewed on her finger as she watched him through her bushy brown hair. He felt a flutter in his gut and couldn't help but be reminded of his own daughter. Resolve planted itself within him and he drew himself up to his full height. If this plan worked, he would not only be healing his own family but this one too. They were doing a good thing and he was not going to waste any more hesitation or guilt on the matter.
'This is ridiculous,' Julia Bennett snapped. 'We can't just evacuate our house at a moment's notice.'
'It's a court order, I'm afraid,' Eyes said stiffly. 'We need to ensure the property is safe for your family, Mrs Bennett.'
He seemed to have said the right words as the harassed-looking woman closed her eyes and breathed deeply before nodding.
'Of course,' she whispered. 'I'm just about to take my daughter to school. I'll make the arrangements today.'
'Thank you. I do apologise for the inconvenience.' He meant it sincerely and she nodded in acceptance of his apology. 'I'll return tomorrow morning with the crew to collect the keys.'
She nodded again and closed the
door. Eyes turned and walked briskly to his car, his hands were trembling as he got behind the wheel. He sighed with relief that the worst was over and set off for Grove Street.
The rest of the pack were finishing breakfast and getting ready. Claws had his suit on and sat nervously on the sofa waiting for the others.
'How did it go?' he asked as Eyes sat down next to him.
'Fine. She seemed to believe it anyway, we can start tomorrow.'
'Good. Do you think this hearing is going to be much like a human one?'
'I highly doubt it,' Eyes replied with a slight smile.
Wind Talker came jogging down the stairs and into the living room. Eyes tried not to laugh at the sight of him in a suit, his broad shoulders and chest stretching the fabric at the seams and one of Claws' ties tied badly at his throat. 'Very nice,' Eyes said with a barely hidden smile.
'It's symbolic,' Wind Talker said, adjusting the tie.
Weaver and Stalker came in from the kitchen, chattering nervously and finishing their breakfast, both dressed in smart clothes and looking nothing like themselves. The blue had nearly washed out of Stalker's hair now, but she had it scraped back in a short pony tail and a shiny black Alice band on her head.
'Are we all ready to go?' Eyes asked, standing up.
There was a jumbled chorus of affirmative replies and Eyes led them out to his car. He drove them the short distance to St. Mark's Church. It stood on a raised mound, surrounded by neatly cut grass and a road ran all the way around the base with other roads leading away from it like a huge wheel. Opposite the eastern side of the church was a small multi-storey car park and Eyes pulled into it and found a space on the ground floor.
'What do we do?' Stalker asked quietly. Eyes looked at her in the rear view mirror and took a deep breath.
'I think we just cross over and see where we end up,' he replied.
