The Absent Man

by Robert Enright

  The crunch of grass underfoot drew his attention.

  Zeroing in, he estimated the distance and time he had before the soldier was within reach.

  After slitting the throat of the soldier to draw them back to the top of the Necropolis, he had rushed in the direction of the fallen, knowing the soldiers’ flanking patterns. They would have regrouped at the corpse and would slice the Necropolis into four equal quarters and sweep the entire ground looking for him. One of them would guard Mandrake. From the glimpse Argyle had taken when executing the guard, the general was incapacitated and seriously wounded.

  He would wait.

  Another crunch as the soldier approached, its white-clad face slowly sweeping from left to right, looking for any sign of life. In both hands it clasped the circular blades, ready to end Argyle’s life without hesitation.

  One more step.

  Argyle spun and rolled over the tombstones, thrusting a heavy foot forward and catching the Other by surprise with a clubbing boot to the chest. It stumbled back two steps before drawing its fists up, the razor wrap shimmering in the moonlight. Argyle drew his sword and the two soldiers took a moment to acknowledge their duel.

  To the death.

  The creature swung fists like a champion boxer, the blades slicing the falling raindrops and narrowly missing Argyle as he ducked and weaved. Argyle ducked a fast right, but failed to spin in time as the left hook sent the blade into his arm, slicing the skin across his bicep. Without flinching he spun back, blocking the next blow with the solid band that wrapped his wrist. Deflecting the strike, Argyle swung his sword, the blade slicing through the flesh and bone of the soldier’s wrist like it was hot butter.

  The creature gurgled as a stream of thick, black blood chased after its severed hand before it tried to swing its remaining fist.

  But it too was severed from its arm.

  A sickening dark spray splattered its white mask, but before it could muster another noise, Argyle drew the sword back and lunged, plunging the steel through the armour and into the creature’s chest. Twisting the blade, he yanked it back, watching the creature drop to its knees, its life rapidly leaving it.

  Now reduced to four.

  Argyle, a few tiers down and hundreds of tombstones from the tomb, bent down and pulled the severed hand from one of the round blades, impressed by the craftsmanship. The edge was dangerously sharp – the blood oozing down his arm would testify to that. Hunching down to keep low, Argyle ran quickly through the mud, the pelting rain, and the darkness. He circled the vast, towered grounds that housed centuries of death.

  His steps were silent.

  Ahead and to the left, another faceless member of the Legion stalked the graveyard, a sense of death in the air. Without breaking stride, Argyle whipped the circular blade through the air, the metal spinning like a propeller as it sliced through the night sky before bedding into the soldier’s neck. Severing an artery, the soldier’s jet-black blood pumped down its chest like a shadow.

  As he approached, Argyle spun his blade from his back, and in one swift motion disembowelled the soldier. He moved on, not witnessing its innards fall to the ground but hearing the squelch as its intestines hit the mud.

  The body followed swiftly after.

  Another Legion fallen.

  Now reduced to three.

  As he rounded another corner, Argyle stopped behind a large tree. The leaves had long since deserted and the jagged branches reached for the sky like broken fingers. Argyle scouted the area. The faint outline of his next adversary was shuffling slowly between the protruding stones. Argyle was trained for combat, he knew that this was what he was trained to be.

  But the feeling in his chest wasn’t adrenaline or the thrill of the battle, the feelings he was ordered to feel to be a true soldier.

  What he felt was hate.

  Hate for the Legion.

  Hate for the vile commander who lay prone in his broken fortress.

  Hate for what they had forced him to be all those years.

  Suddenly, a searing pain overpowered his mind, and a burning roared from his side as the jagged blade sliced through his armour. The masked soldier pulled it back harshly, ripping through Argyle’s muscles and skin, the pain causing Argyle to stumble forward, his hands grasping at the gaping hole in his hip. The creature stepped forward, wielding its sword with both hands and slashing diagonally for Argyle, who dove and rolled just beyond its reach.

  With another lunge, the soldier thrust its blade downwards, missing Argyle as he spun away, its blade plunging into the deep mud. Wrenching at the handle like a demonic King Arthur, the soldier reached for its side blade in vain. Argyle had already launched his blade with as much power as he could muster, hurling it through the air like a spear. Covering the short distance between them in no time, his sword ripped through the chest of the Other, the propulsion sending it blasting through its spine and bedding into the mud behind it.

  Argyle could see the tomb through the gaping chasm in the creature’s chest as it fell forward, collapsing on its own blade and bleeding out within seconds.

  Argyle could feel his own blood pouring down his leg.

  It would hinder him.

  But it would heal.

  Now reduced to two.

  Yanking his sword from the mud with one forceful wrench, Argyle slowly limped up the slight incline, the broken walls of the tomb in his sight. At the door to the fallen building, the guard had been joined by his final comrade, the two soldiers putting on one final, united stand.

  It was to the death.

  Argyle knew that there was a good chance he would die at the top of this hill, overlooking acres of death. But he would face it like a true soldier, with pride in his heart and death on his mind.

  He would fight to the end.

  Whatever the end was.

  As he approached the final row of tombstones before the entrance, he scouted the two soldiers. Both of them towered over him, their broad frames wrapped in armour. Their white masks hid their dark eyes, but Argyle knew they were watching.

  Waiting.

  Argyle pressed a hand to his hip; it returned dripping with blood.

  Like Parker holding a heart.

  Argyle’s mind immediately jumped to Bermuda, his partner who had run willingly towards that murderous creature. The one that had left him for dead on this very hill.

  Parker would kill Bermuda.

  That much was certain.

  With his partner’s safety now fresh in his mind, Argyle took one deep breath, closing his eyes and pushing all the anger and pain from his body. He thought of his partner, his only friend in the world.

  Bermuda needed him.

  Ottoway’s voice filtered into his mind, reminding him of his primary objective.

  Protect Bermuda at all costs.

  Argyle’s eyes shot open. His stare was of pure focus. Every raindrop that struck the earth clapped loudly like thunder. Every slight twitch of the Legion soldiers rumbled through the air like sonar as his senses heightened.

  His mind cleared of everything except death.

  Argyle moved.

  Whipping round the final tombstone, he instantly shot his Retriever, the blade snaking through the cold air and shattering the shin of the nearest soldier. The chain tightened as the blade imbedded into the bone, and Argyle wrenched it back like a fisherman with a prize catch. With its other foot planted in the mud, the soldier slid forward like a struggling gymnast, its legs split open. Its sword was still in its hand, and Argyle ran and swiftly kicked the handle, the blade flipping into the air, while he simultaneously swung his own blade at waist height.

  The blade cleanly took off the soldier’s head, the white mask falling from its face as it bounced onto the mud.

  Now reduced to one.

  Catching the other sword in the air, Argyle spun under the swinging blade of the final guard before planting the sword in its chest. He quickly followed it with his own blade, the two swords stacked atop one another and
sticking out of the dying soldier’s chest like a terrifying dartboard. Grabbing both handles, Argyle let out a roar of anger as he swiftly pulled them outwards, slicing the soldier open, its head and shoulders falling backwards as its body flopped to the ground.

  They were the Legion.

  They were no more.

  Stood in the rain with the two swords held down by his side, Argyle took a moment to catch his breath. Killing his own kind had always weighed heavy on his mind; the banishments he recited as he collected their essences and sent them back to his world were always trying.

  This was different.

  He would not honour any of those fallen.

  Both worlds were better with them gone.

  The blood pumped out of the hole in his side and the slice across his arm. The rest of his armour was splattered with the blood of the deceased.

  All eight of them.

  The sound of brick colliding with brick brought him back and Argyle dropped the second blade, returning his own to his back holster with an expert spin. With careful, measured steps, he approached the doorway to the tomb like an avenging angel of death.

  Mandrake, trying his best to remove the collapsed wall from his body, looked up with the resignation Argyle had seen at many an execution.

  His former commander had removed some of the bricks, but Argyle could see the damage. His legs had been flattened, the bone to dust, the muscle to paste.

  Mandrake would never walk again.

  The two soldiers looked at each other for a moment before Mandrake’s face turned into a hideous snarl.

  ‘Do it!’ he demanded, tilting his head back and presenting his neck.

  ‘Your men are dead.’ Argyle spoke softly. ‘You are relieved of your command. You will be tried for your crimes against both human and Other, and you will be held to your punishment.’

  ‘Other?’ Mandrake spat at Argyle. ‘They even have you saying it? You truly are a disgrace.’

  Argyle ignored him and continued. ‘For your mutiny of your council, you will be tried for treason. For your murder of Tobias Hendry, you will be tried for murdering a human. Punishable by death.’

  ‘Kill me then.’ Mandrake again tilted his head. ‘Go on, do it. Kill me, you coward.’

  Argyle drew his blade and held it to Mandrake’s face. The crippled commander tensed, ready for the eternal blackness. The blade sliced into the scales on his cheek, three vertical lines that bore the legacy of treachery.

  The very scar that Barnaby had worn.

  ‘You will wear that mark for our kind to know what you did,’ Argyle said, slowly returning the sword to his spine. ‘You will be put to death, but not by me. It is not my duty and you are not mine to kill.’

  Argyle turned and headed for the door.

  ‘But you killed a human too,’ Mandrake snapped after him.

  Argyle stopped and turned. ‘Your lies will not save you, Mandrake.’ Argyle dropped the rank. ‘I am sworn to protect these humans, and I will do so with my life.’

  ‘You killed her. You may not have held the sword, but it was because of you that we had to.’ Mandrake spoke with a sickening pleasure. ‘We didn’t think you would survive.’

  ‘Survive what?’ Argyle dropped to one knee, grabbing his former commander by the neck of his armour. ‘Who did you kill?’

  ‘Cynthia.’ Mandrake smirked. ‘Cynthia Blaine.’

  ‘Cynthia Blaine? Who is she?’

  The entire Necropolis froze.

  ‘Your mother.’

  Argyle released Mandrake and stood, staring at the brick wall but seeing nothing. Raised in the dark barracks of Healund, he knew nothing of his lineage. Only that his appearance and very existence was despised by the other soldiers.

  By every Other he had ever come across. Mandrake could see him trying to connect the dots and spoke with eagerness.

  ‘Your mother was human, Argyle. She is the one that Caleb seeks. We took her when she fell pregnant – the first ever human to be impregnated by one of our own. He may have been wearing a human body, but what he put inside her was not. His seed was of our world. Our kind.’

  ‘No,’ Argyle uttered under his breath, his world slowly dissolving, the drab colours of his surroundings merging into one.

  ‘We couldn’t allow a hybrid to be born,’ Mandrake continued. ‘A cross-species would lead to a revolution, the chance to merge both worlds that some have taken to extremes. Like Barnaby. There would be several more like him, believing that the worlds could be combined. We took Cynthia through the threshold, back to Healund. Our atmosphere turned her to ash within seconds. But you survived. From the ashes, you were born.’

  ‘You let my mother die?’ Argyle spoke through gritted teeth.

  ‘We had to protect our species. What would you know? You fight for just the humans. We took you and decided to train you, to see what you would become, if we could harness your unique structure. You look more human than any of us. You fought with the ferocity of our fathers. But you could do what none of us could. You could walk in both worlds. You didn’t need one of these.’

  Mandrake ripped the dark green emerald from his armour and threw the latch stone at Argyle. It bounced off his breast plate and clattered in a dark corner.

  ‘You were our greatest soldier, Argyle. But you turned on us. You sided with the humans without knowing what you truly were.’ Mandrake shook his head in sorrow. ‘So for that, I am glad I killed your mother.’

  Argyle swung a boot, the metal plating knocking out three of Mandrake’s teeth.

  The defeated former general chuckled. ‘As for your father, he never got over it. I kept him chained in here like an animal. His mind left a long time ago, Argyle. The idea grew like a seed into a tree of obsession. He will not stop. He will kill again and again. All of your precious humans. Just like your mother.’

  Another vicious kick to the face, and this time a spray of blood shot from Mandrake’s mouth. He sloshed some of it round before spitting it at Argyle.

  ‘He will kill your friend, then as many as you let him. Your father, the murderer. Your mother, the human whore.’ Mandrake sneered. ‘The shame that will hang from you will be heavy.’

  Argyle leant down, a mere few inches from his fallen foe’s face. ‘I will send them to collect you and will watch with joy when they put you to death.’

  Mandrake’s cockiness fell.

  ‘You raised me to kill, to be a weapon that I will no longer be. Whatever fate awaits me, I will face it with the conviction that a soldier carries. But I will stop him.’

  Argyle stood, towering over the entire Legion, their blood and limbs littering the famous graveyard. Argyle turned, heading for the door and back to the town, to find and protect Bermuda and bring his own father to justice.

  As he stepped through the door, he stopped one final time as Mandrake’s voice echoed after him.

  ‘There is only one way to stop him. You know that as well as I do.’

  Argyle grimaced, the thought of agreeing with the vulgar creature sickening him. He marched through the anarchy of his battle, the severed corpses of the Legion littering his path to the streets below.

  The entire way to the gate, Argyle gritted his teeth with frustration, ignoring his handiwork as he battled the thought that burrowed into his skull like a ravenous termite.

  Mandrake was right.

  There was only one way for this to end.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  When Bermuda reached the gates of the Necropolis, he stopped. Casting a glance back towards the dark hill, he heard the clanging of metal. Argyle was fighting a heavily trained army to the death.

  For him.

  For humanity.

  Fighting every urge to turn back and run headlong into a brutal slaying, he pushed through the wet metal bars and felt the hard surface beneath his feet. The Necropolis had been churned up by the downpour, the mud welcoming each step and the ground doing its level best to swallow him.

  He looked like he had dived into a
mud bath. The thick, wet earth clung to his clothes. It dotted his face and thick clumps had engulfed his hair. Turning towards the city, he ran without caring. A few passers-by stepped carefully aside as this crazed, mud-covered man sprinted past. Bermuda focused ahead once again commending himself for giving up smoking.

  He still wished for a cyclist to approach like the previous evening, but he carried on. As he dashed through the rain, the bright lights of the gothic city soon emerged, beckoning him to the case’s conclusion.

  It would end tonight.

  Bermuda hoped Argyle was okay, refusing to accept that they had experienced their final goodbye. He turned down the hill where the cars had crashed that fateful night. There was no traffic and Bermuda ran in the middle of the road, pushing through the pain barrier.

  His lip had stopped bleeding, but the dirt had caused it to swell.

  His spine shook, the bones bruised after colliding with the wall again.

  He would heal, he told himself.

  He always healed.

  Turning onto High Street, Bermuda pushed forward. Soon he would be on George Street, which would lead him straight to the city centre. Someone would know where the bar was. As his breathing became heavier, Bermuda hoped to God he wasn’t too late.

  After almost a mile, he stopped outside the front of Queen Street Station, hunched over with hands on his knees. Doing his best to reclaim his breath, he felt the bitterness of the night nip at his skin like a playful puppy. He looked around, reminded of the confrontation he had had with Parker in this very spot.

  The hard crack of the concrete on his skull.

  The moment he thought he would die.

  Argyle saving him at the last second.

  As he controlled his breathing, Bermuda asked a young couple walking by where Waxy O’Connor’s was. Understandably cautious due to his appearance, the girl stepped away. The young man pointed over his shoulder and Bermuda offered a half-hearted thanks before he pushed himself forward again, racing as fast as he could to save McAllister’s life.