by J M Hemmings
A stuttering mantra of disorientation, of confusion, of a shattered mind, the many brittle shards of which were held together only by the flimsiest strands of glue.
‘Let me handle this, Jun,’ he whispered to the teen. ‘Let me take her hands.’
Jun reluctantly released Parvati’s hands from his grasp. Lightning Bird then gripped one of her stiff claw-hands in his. He closed his eyes, honed his focus and sent slow, calming surges of energy from his hands into hers. After a while, the avalanche of panicked whisperings began to slow to an arrhythmic, irregular stuttering, and the fear started to leave her eyes. Eventually she stopped speaking and her eyelids closed; sleep had come over her. Lightning Bird wished he could allow her to sink for long hours into its soothing depths, but for the moment he simply could not. Their enemy was coming for them, and he would neither rest nor stop.
In fact, the enemy’s spies and informants were probably feeding him information at this very moment. Moving a one-hundred-and-eighty-kilogram motorised wheelchair, along with its legless occupant, was not something that could be done discreetly, and Sigurd had eyes and ears everywhere.
Their current location would be safe for a few hours at the most … or perhaps not even that long. And when dealing with an adversary as ruthless and powerful as Sigurd, it would not do to take risks.
Lightning Bird stared out of the window at the city of Albany, its urban jungle stretched out to where the horizon blurred the meeting of ground and sky into a long, dirty smudge. He had known that Sigurd would want to capture Parvati, now that her location had been revealed, but neither he nor anyone else had expected that the Viking would do this himself. They had all assumed that he would get his minions or perhaps his Huntsmen allies to do it, yet he had surprised them all. This was worse and more perplexing than he had previously thought. Something about the fact that Sigurd had come here himself to hunt them made things all the more sinister and foreboding, and more dangerous, of course, for himself, Jun, Daekwon and Parvati.
He had been counting on doing this on his own, with assistance from Jun, Daekwon and other trusted acquaintances who could help along the way, but now he was not so sure of that. Certainly, none of the people he knew would be able to help defend Parvati against a foe of Sigurd’s calibre. No, he, Daekwon and Jun would need additional assistance now, at least until they could get Parvati off of American soil, for the only refuge that would be truly safe for her would be somewhere extremely remote and inaccessible. Time, however, was needed to make plans and arrangements for such a thing, and time was not something they had very much of right now.
Just then there was a knock on the door, with the knuckles rapping out a distinctive rhythmic pattern. Lightning Bird recognised it at once, and walked over to peer through the peephole, his hand curled around the grip of the firearm inside his coat. Daekwon was standing outside, and Lightning Bird exhaled a sigh of relief when he saw that the young man was alone. He opened the multiple locks on the door and let him in, and then locked the place up again as soon as he was inside.
Daekwon was dressed in baggy jeans and an oversized hoodie, with the hood pulled over his head to cover as much of his face as he could. Despite the gloomy rain clouds that were bunched thick and grey in the sky overhead, he was wearing aviator sunglasses – again, for the purpose of disguise. He had grown a beard in the days since they had left Graeagle, and on the rare occasions he went out in public, he had to put makeup on to cover the distinctive vitiligo on his skin. Under his hoodie a Glock Seventeen pistol was secretly holstered; it went with him everywhere.
Paola’s passing had hit him hard. He had run the gamut of emotions, from intense grief to blinding rage to hopeless despair over the past few days, but the tragedy had neither paralysed him, nor induced in him a state of helplessness. Instead, it had galvanised his will, and given him a forge-tempered sense of determination and purpose. All he cared about now was exacting vengeance upon those who had taken from him the first girl he had ever loved.
Jun, on the other hand, had bottled his feelings up even tighter, shoving them ever deeper into his core. He had become even more reticent and withdrawn than he had been before. William had been the one person with whom he felt comfortable communicating, but now he was a continent away. He felt a strange, inexplicable closeness with Parvati, but he could not talk to her of his technology addiction, not in the way he could speak of it to William. He still had moments where he lusted ferociously after communion with a screen, a screen of any sort; it was a desire as ravenously desperate as any junkie’s for a fix. He knew, however, that to do such a thing would be to bring death upon not only himself, but all of these people, so in silence he suffered through this drawn-out, tortuous period of withdrawal.
Like Daekwon, he too had to dress up in a disguise of sorts whenever he went out in public, but his involved a long wig, and dressing in girl’s clothing; his androgynous features and willowy figure were easy enough to pass off as a girl’s, especially with a bit of makeup, a wig, fake eyelashes and lipstick. However, under the dresses he too was armed, always, with a nine-millimetre pistol.
‘I g-, got err’thing you needed,’ Daekwon said to Lightning Bird, setting down two canvas shopping bags on the floor. ‘And I didn’t see n-, nobody followin’ or watchin’ me.’
‘Good, good,’ Lightning Bird said, taking the shopping bags over to the nearby counter. ‘Thank you, Daekwon. You have done well.’
‘We gon’ be movin’ again soon?’
‘We will be, yes.’
‘Thank God,’ Jun murmured. The walls of this tiny studio apartment had been feeling as if they were closing in on him.
Lightning Bird walked over to his desk and picked up the satellite phone to call William, for William had a number of connections all over the Eastern Seaboard of the United States – some of them rather unsavoury – and the Rebels were hoping that some of them could provide them with the assistance they so badly needed at this moment. He punched in William’s details and then waited for his friend across the ocean to pick up.
‘Lightning Bird, brother, what’s going on? Is Parvati safe?’
William was almost stumbling over his words in his haste to get them out of his mouth; the direness of his urgency was apparent.
‘She is,’ Lightning Bird replied, ever calm. ‘But we have a problem. Sigurd—’ Lightning Bird halted in mid-sentence; if he told William that Sigurd himself was here in New York, he would likely insist on coming himself to deal with the situation, and that was something that the Rebels could not afford to do, not with all the plans they had so carefully laid out. William could not be trusted to be rational when dealing with Sigurd, so deeply did his hatred of him run. Lightning Bird promptly inserted a white lie into the conversation. ‘Sigurd’s men came after us, but we managed to escape them. But now, my friend, we are in great danger; Sigurd has been informed of the situation – wherever he is – and has closed his net tighter, and ordered in more reinforcements. Without assistance, and I mean tough, heavily armed assistance, we won’t make it out of here alive. Well, Daekwon, Jun and I won’t, and they will take Parvati for Sigurd. If she falls into his hands and he is able to pry the secrets from her mind, somehow…’
‘I understand how disastrous that could be. All right my friend, listen, I’ve got an idea on who can help you to both protect her and get her out of there safely. I’ve got a connection in the city, a Ukrainian mobster. He and his lads are as tough as they come, and he owes me a favour or two. Er, don’t ask … but trust me, he knows who I am and how much I can pay, and he hates the Huntsmen with a passion, because even though he doesn’t know anything about the existence of our kind, Huntsmen Inc has done a lot to hurt his personal, um, business interests.’
Lightning Bird frowned as he spoke, aware that William could not see his face but unable to avoid making the gesture nonetheless.
‘As loathsome as it is to cooperate with such individuals, I suppose that due to the direness of our current need, th
ere is no other way out of this.’
‘I know, mate, I know,’ William said. ‘Hang tight and I’ll give my friend a call right now. His name is Maksim Vovk. Oh and listen, send me your location via encrypted message on our secure network. I’ll let him know that you need to be picked up, stat.’
‘Thank you, William.’
‘All for one and one for all, as the old musketeers used to say, eh? Don’t worry brother, I’ve got you on this. Right, enough nattering, I’ll get my friends on the case right now. Speak soon.’
‘Goodbye, Tiger.’
Half an hour later somebody knocked on the door, and the sound quickly roused Lightning Bird, Jun and Daekwon from the half-nap they had fallen into. Each scrambled for his weapon, and pointed it at the door, resting their fingers on the triggers.
‘Who’s there?’ Lightning Bird demanded, making sure his voice was as rough and aggressive as he could make it.
‘Lightning Bird?’ a gruff, deep voice, heavy with an Eastern European accent, asked. ‘I am a friend of William’s. He sent me here to help you. My name is Mr Vovk, Maksim Vovk.’
Lightning Bird nodded to Daekwon, who walked over and pressed himself up against the wall before cautiously opening the door, his pistol ready to be pressed into the side of the head of whoever stepped through the threshold. Lightning Bird, meanwhile, lowered his hand, keeping the gun close to his body, and he drew his long overcoat over it to conceal it, the pistol pointed forward in case he needed to fire quickly; he did not have the luxury of being able to trust anyone. Jun crouched behind the ratty sofa, his firearm at the ready.
The door creaked open on its rusty hinges and a dark figure, visible only as a silhouette against the harsh fluorescent lighting of the hallway, walked into the dimly lit studio apartment. Maksim stepped into a pool of light, revealing his features. He was a short man in his fifties with a round, bald head and a broad face creased with deep lines. His thin-lipped mouth was downturned, and this, combined with his small, very deep-set eyes, gave him a resting look of annoyance or ill humour. From his torso a prominent beer belly protruded, forcing its bulk through his open leather jacket.
A second after Maksim stepped into the apartment, Daekwon pressed the muzzle of his pistol against the Ukrainian’s temple. Maksim froze immediately, and also noticed the slight bulge in Lightning Bird ’s coat, near his hip, and saw the muzzle of Jun’s pistol aimed squarely at his chest from behind the sofa. He slowly raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.
‘I come here unarmed, friends,’ he said. ‘I would appreciate it if you could extend me the same courtesy.’
‘How do I know I can trust you?’ Lightning Bird asked coolly.
Maksim shrugged.
‘You don’t, I guess, but do you have any other option right now? From what William told me, it’s me or the Huntsmen. He’s promised me a generous sum for helping you out, but hey, I got plenty other ways to make money, you know? Your choice, man; you can come with me, or I’ll walk outta here and go do something else. But if you want my help, you gotta trust me, okay? I can’t work with people who don’t trust me.’
Lightning Bird opened his coat and holstered his pistol, and nodded to Daekwon and Jun, who lowered their firearms too. He then looked up at Maksim and nodded.
‘All right, Maksim. I trust you; I have to.’
Maksim’s insubstantial lips parted, revealing a shimmering mouth full of gold-capped teeth, and he clasped his hands together in front of his ponderous stomach.
‘Good, good. Okay, we won’t waste any more time. So, William tells me you need to move a, how you say, a handicapped woman who’s in a heavy wheelchair. This is her, yes?’
He pointed one of his stubby fingers at Parvati, who was still asleep in the chair.
‘That’s her, yes. Listen, she’s very frail. We need to take great care in moving her.’
Maksim smiled sympathetically.
‘Don’t worry, my friend. You know, one of my hobbies is collecting antique violins. I love classical music, I just love it! I cannot play very well myself, but nonetheless, I just want to assure you that I know all about the care needed for handling delicate items. Now, I got a question for you: The lady, she is okay to be out of the chair, yes? For transport.’
‘If she is handled carefully, then, yes.’
‘Inside a piano?’
Lightning Bird raised a single eyebrow.
‘I beg your pardon, did you say inside a piano?’
A smile lifted the ends of Maksim’s lips, and a sparkle of boyish mischief twinkled in his eyes.
‘I did. I have a piano moving company. It’s good cover for, how you say, other things that I move. You know, stuff I don’t want Mr Sam finding out about.’
‘Uncle Sam.’
Maksim laughed loudly and abruptly.
‘Hahaha, yes, yes, Uncle Sam, Uncle. Anyway listen, my boys have the van downstairs. We can bring up an empty piano shell, put the lady inside, carry it out and load it up. Nobody sees anything, nobody knows anything. And the chair, we can take it apart quick. One of my boys is a mechanic, real smart. He can take any motor apart and put it back together better than it was before. We’ll take the chair apart and put it in the piano too. Nobody will know anything. What do you think?’
Lightning Bird had to agree, for there was no other option really, but he could not completely erase the frown of consternation from his face.
‘It seems like a safe enough plan,’ he muttered, ‘considering the desperate nature of our circumstances, and I suppose don’t really have any other options right now anyway. Fine, bring your men up.’
Maksim reached inside his jacket to retrieve his phone, but as he pulled it out Lightning Bird dashed forward and darted out his hand, clamping it shut around Maksim’s wrist.
‘Wait!’ the shaman hissed, his dark eyes suddenly aglow. ‘Are you sure that every one of your men can be trusted?! Are you sure, beyond any shadow of a doubt?!’
‘These boys of mine, they were street urchins, orphans with no families, starving on the streets of Kiev in the eighties and nineties. I rescued them, every one. I am like a father to them; they would never betray me, ever. I assure you of this.’
Lightning Bird relinquished his grip.
‘I hope and pray that is the truth, Maksim, because I cannot begin to explain how terrible the consequences would be if this woman falls into the hands of the enemy.’
The grin on Maksim’s face was not only excessively broad with confidence, it was almost cavalier.
‘Relax, my friend, relax. You are in good hands here, no, the best! Nobody will see us, nobody will find us. And if they do, well, let me say this: we got enough weapons in that piano truck to outfit a small army.’
Lightning Bird’s face was still awash with consternation, but he had no choice but to cooperate.
‘Very well,’ he conceded.
Maksim nodded sympathetically and then made the call. An hour later the piano, with Parvati and her wheelchair hidden inside, was loaded up into the van on the street, with Lightning Bird, Jun and Daekwon looking on as they shot suspicious glances at every passerby.
‘Come my friends,’ Maksim said after his men had loaded up the van, ‘it is time to go. You must relax; you are in good hands now. There is nothing to worry about.’
‘My sixth sense tells me otherwise,’ Lightning Bird murmured, ‘but there is nothing I can do about that.’
He, Jun and Daekwon followed Maksim to the front of the van and climbed in. As they drove off, a homeless man huddled under a pile of rags and dirty newspapers across the road reached into the pocket of his ragged jacket and pulled out a brand-new phone. He dialled a number and put the phone to his ear, his bloodshot eyes darting from side to side as he waited impatiently for the other party to pick up. They did, eventually.
‘Hey, I got ‘em,’ the homeless man whispered. ‘Both of ‘em. They in a big van, white with red an’ blue trim. It says Boris’s Piano Movers in big letters on each side, a
n’ on the back doors.’
He then rattled off the licence plate number and waited. There was silence for a few moments from the other end, but then a laugh started, a whispery trickling at first, building up to a booming cackle that became distorted through the tinny speaker.
‘Well done,’ a deep, rough voice with a slightly Scandinavian accent rasped after the laughter had ceased. ‘Well done, little worm.’
55
SIGURD
13th October 2020. A mansion outside Salem, Massachusetts, USA
‘There is an energy here,’ Lightning Bird said as he stared out at the phalanx of ancient trees below, their green speartips bronzed by the slow-burning fire of the late afternoon sun. ‘A strong energy. An old energy.’
Maksim pulled a diamond-studded hipflask from his jacket, taking a hefty swig before speaking.
‘So you think there is something to those old witch stories they tell about Salem, about this place, yes?’
Lightning Bird continued to study the trees as he answered.
‘Perhaps. Stranger things abound in this realm. I can tell you that much.’
Maksim opened the hip flask, imbibed another slug of the liquid inside, and then burbled an appreciative sigh before wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand. He then offered the hipflask to Lightning Bird.
‘Vodka, my friend? It is the finest. Grey Goose, very smooth, very smooth indeed!’
‘I must refuse your generous offer, friend. I do not partake.’
Maksim shrugged, grinning.
‘More for me then, yes?’
He laughed boisterously, clapping his left hand onto Lightning Bird’s shoulder as he brought the hipflask to his lips.
‘I would like to go for a stroll around the grounds,’ Lightning Bird announced after Maksim’s laughter had subsided. ‘Please keep an eye on my friends, if you don’t mind,’ he said, gesturing with a nod at Parvati, who was snoozing in her wheelchair, which had been reassembled and given a service by Maksim’s mechanic, and Jun, who was sitting next to her, reading a book. ‘If anything seems strange, call me. But be aware, her mind does tend to … wander. She may start a sentence and then simply stop speaking halfway through. If you introduce yourself, she may have a long and in-depth conversation with you about your life and your past, but seconds later she may forget your name and recoil from you in fear, as if you are a complete stranger. This is normal for her, sadly.’
