Dark City (The Order of Shadows Book 1)

by Hallows,Kit

  I checked all the obvious places; park benches, bus stops, dumpsters, doorways, and alleys. I didn't bother with the homeless shelter, Tom liked being on the streets. No, maybe like is the wrong word. He seemed to need to be on the streets. Like he was protecting his domain.

  "Where are you, Tom?" I shone the light from my phone into the gap behind a newsstand, straight into the eyes of an old man huddled under a moth-eaten blanket. I put a couple bucks in his hand and apologized for waking him.

  It seemed finding Tom wasn't going to be easy. And when I actually thought about it, I don't think I'd ever actually attempted to look for him before. He just always had a strange knack for turning up, and notably during some of the most significant events in my life.

  Like moments after the first, and last, beating I received on my third day of high school. Or when he'd arrived just as my foster father kicked me out onto the street, his evil twisted girlfriend hanging off his arm. My father had stuffed my clothes and what little I owned into a trash bag and mumbled something about being sorry, and how it was for the best. Well, it was for him at least.

  But as I'd seen his disgusting girlfriend's grin, I'd lost it. Thankfully Tom had appeared at that moment and pulled me away, but not before making me take back the flippant curse I'd thrown at the bitch.

  Words have power.

  I still remember Tom saying that, and the look in his eyes. I'd apologized and backtracked immediately, because somehow Tom, a ragged homeless man, carried more authority than any cop or judge I'd ever encountered.

  The last time I'd seen him was at Willow's funeral. He'd been standing on the gravel path in the graveyard, feeding breadcrumbs to a pigeon. He'd offered me some grim booze from a paper bag and we found a bench, sat down and stared off into the long grass, each in our own world. It had been stiflingly hot and Tom had removed his raincoat. He'd looked so strange to me, I'd never seen him without it on.

  That was when I'd noticed the symbol on his arm. I asked about it and he'd said something I hadn't understood. Then I'd just sort of forgotten about it.

  As if the question had never crossed my mind in the first place.

  A smash and a tinkle of glass brought me back to the present. The scrap of land below the overpass had become a growing camp for the homeless. A place for the specters the city had tried to hide, to meet and trade information or insults, to scrap and confer. Fires blazed in old rusted metal barrels, and painfully thin people gathered around for warmth.

  Someone stumbled along the sidewalk, their eyes wide below wild wiry hair. It took me a moment to realize it was a woman and for the moonlight to reveal the large purple bruise below her eye. She gave me a skittish, panicked glance and edged towards the street.

  "I'm looking for someone." I glanced at her coat, spotted with stains, and did my best to appear benign. "You might know him, his name's Tom and-"

  She pointed towards the end of the street. "He's in the alley with the bad men." Her hand strayed to the bruise below her eye. "Really bad men."

  "Did they do this to you?"

  She nodded. "They said they were going to set fire to me but Tom came...he told me to go. So I did."

  My shoes pounded the road as I ran, the moonlit world jolting around me, all hard black edges and red and silver shadows. Nausea flooded through me as I thought of the victim from Haskins' photograph.

  Throat slashed, eyes removed.

  I ran past figures huddled against the wall in sleeping bags, my shoes crunching slivers of broken glass. Braying laughter echoed from the alley as I turned the corner, followed by a savage, excited shout.

  Five men surrounded a doorway. I could just make out Tom behind them, his back to the door, facing them head on. His long grey white hair was swept back in a pony tail, and he had one hand out before him, as if to push them away, the other inside his battered old raincoat.

  I pulled a shard of quartz crystal from my pocket and let the magic flow through me. The charge swept from my hands to the center of my skull. It felt like tiny fireworks were igniting in my mind. I reached out and tapped the air for more power, but there was scant magic in this forlorn place.

  Tom glanced at me as I approached the group and shook his head, then the thugs turned my way.

  They were just your garden variety pricks. Fresh from a late night bar and an evening of rejections from women wise enough to see the savagery below their smart clothes and expensive aftershave.

  "What the fuck are you looking at?" The closest asked. He was short and ripped, but I could still see the weak, fat little kid he'd once been. I scanned the rest of the group. They were a good ten years younger than me, and by the way they positioned themselves, used to fighting in a pack.

  The only one that worried me was the one near the dumpsters. There was a snide, low cunning look in his eyes as he stooped down, spilled a bag of clothes and tore off a strip of fabric.

  And then I saw the bottle of Everclear at his feet and I knew with sickening inevitably what was about to follow.

  7

  The rest of the pack of drunken thugs looked from Tom to me, uncertain where to strike first. I used their moment of indecision to my advantage and leapt into the fray. Mr. 'What the fuck are you looking at?' pulled back his fist. I jammed the heel of my hand into his solar plexus and as he buckled over, drove my knee into his face.

  Two more ran at me. I sidestepped them and grabbed the closest and threw him into the other. They went down in a tangle of limbs and slurred curses.

  My attention turned to the one lighting the molotov cocktail. It flared up with a burst of blue and orange light that cast a hellish glow across his face. His eyes danced with a hunger for suffering, and easy casual violence.

  Time seemed to slow as he pulled back the bottle.

  "Tom!" I yelled.

  Tom was busy fighting off the other assailant, but he managed to turn away from the full impact of the bottle as it shattered on the door behind him and sent spatters of molten fire across his coat.

  The thrower's eyes grew wide as he watched, hypnotized by the flames.

  I was on him in a stride and punched him hard in the face.

  His expression contorted to agony, and then fury. I grabbed his head with both hands and stared into his eyes. "Look at me," I growled. "Look at me."

  Rage, hatred and spite flitted through his hateful, devious gaze. And then his eyes grew wider as he saw my other side. The dark, shadow-self I've spent the best part of my life running from.

  He tried to squirm away but I held him firm.

  "You see it," I said. "Don't you?"

  He whined as I pulled him closer, the magic flowing through me revealing flashes from his life. Of the kid he'd led into the woods when he was a child himself, and the relentless beating that had followed. Of the sick pulse of adrenaline that had surged through him as he'd thrashed the boy within an inch of his life. He'd gotten away with it, and that victory had only served to encourage the spree of cowardly bullying violence that had followed.

  I saw it all.

  The people he'd preyed on for money, the arson and cruel petty vandalism.

  The rape of the teenage neighbor he was contemplating.

  The bottomless pit of sadism and hatred in his soul.

  But it paled to nothing as he looked into my eyes. He began to spasm and shake.

  "Do you want it to stop?" I asked.

  Tears sprung in his eyes. He nodded.

  "Then end it all tonight," I said. "Kill yourself. Do you understand?"

  He nodded again.

  I turned as footsteps pounded behind me. A ringed fist thudded into the side of my face. Black stars jittered across my eyes and a low, flat whine filled my ears. I let go of the arsonist and spun round as one of the other thugs bore down on me. I watched as he pulled his fist back, I spread my fingers wide, grabbed it and twisted his hand until something snapped in his wrist.

  His howl broke as I kneed him hard in the balls and watched him drop to the ground.
<
br />   Fighting drunks is almost like having superhuman powers. It's almost too easy.

  Tom had the last one in a stranglehold. He squeezed until the man's eyes glazed over and he lost consciousness, then Tom glanced up at me. "You shouldn't have done that."

  "There's gratitude," I said.

  "I meant the hex." He gave me a stark, accusing look.

  I glanced at the sadistic thug. He was shaking uncontrollably as he stared at the ground. "The world's better off without him-"

  "It's not for you to judge," Tom said. "Or to pass sentence. Believe me, that kind of condemnation can destroy your life." His eyes blazed at me. "Undo it."

  As much as it pained me, I knew he was right. I removed the hex, but left a nasty little something behind. A failsafe, a nightmare beyond any nightmares that pig had ever known. It would appear the very moment he attempted to harm anyone and it wouldn't relent until he was reduced to a gibbering wreck fit for the nuthouse.

  I joined Tom as he stepped over the sprawl of groaning bodies. His coat sleeve rode up as he pulled a flask from his pocket, and I caught a glimpse of the symbol that had been carved into his flesh long ago. It was still livid red. I pointed to it. "What does it mean?"

  Tom took a swig from his flask, swallowed, and shook his head. "Nothing to you. I appreciate your help, Morgan, but I could have dealt with them on my own. It happens all the time."

  As we walked, the lights from the street covered the alley's entrance in a sodium glow. Tom's eyes were clouded, haunted. Something had its claws in his back and it wasn't just the booze.

  "What are you doing here, Morgan?"

  "Looking for you. A man was killed tonight, he had the same tattoo." I saw the glimmer in his eye. He already knew. "What's it all about?"

  "It's just a mark between friends."

  "It's more than that. I need to know, it's my job-"

  "And how is the Organization these days? They treating you well?" There was irritation in his voice but then his scowl softened. He took another drink and passed the flask to me. I savored the soft spread of numbness as it countered the fire that raged through my frayed nerves.

  "Tom?" I asked.

  He took the flask back and slipped it into his coat. "I lost a good friend tonight and now I'm going to drink enough to forget the world. Go, Morgan. Get out of the city, stay away for as long as you can. Or better still, don't come back."

  "I can't leave. It's home."

  "Is it?" There was a strange edge to his voice.

  "I'm concerned about you." I was determined to take back control of the conversation. To show him I was no longer the little kid with the scraped knees and the chaotic life. "I need to know what it means."

  "Like I said, it's a symbol of fellowship. And it's private."

  I could see he wasn't going to be drawn any further. "Fine. I'll stop asking. Please tell me you've got somewhere safe to sleep until this blows over."

  "Sleep's the last thing I need." His laugh was short and bitter. "Sleep gets you killed." He led me to the end of the alley. "I can look after myself, Morgan, but life will be a lot easier if I don't have you to worry about. Think about what I said. You've seen the changes and it's going to get a lot worse. Dark times are coming, and with them an evil I thought I'd left in a place so far from here. But then we never actually escape our past, do we? Not really."

  "Quit the cryptic mumbo-jumbo, Tom. I'm trying to help you."

  Tom flared his nostrils as he took a deep breath. "You can almost smell the darkness it's so close...."

  All I could smell was stale urine, exhaust fumes and rotting garbage wafting from the alley. Tom stopped as a police car drove past and the cop inside glanced our way. I matched her gaze as if I had nothing to hide and absolutely nothing to do with the groaning men sprawled out in the alley behind us. She drove on.

  "Go, Morgan. We'll talk later, when it all blows over."

  There was a horrible finality in his voice and a steeliness in his eyes that wouldn't break. He glanced to the alley across the street. It was dark, almost impossibly black, but I could make out the hood of a silver sports car, long like a Jaguar. The engine hummed but the lights remained off as it rolled back into the gloom.

  I was about to start towards it, when Tom gripped my arm. "Let go of the past, Morgan. Make a new future. You've a foot in two worlds. Ground yourself in the here and now. Live, enjoy life. Whoever said ignorance was bliss was right. Now, promise me you'll leave."

  I don't tend to back down, yet I found it impossible to match the hard glint in his eye. So I nodded, and lied. "Sure, I'll take a vacation."

  Tom smiled and clenched my shoulder before walking back into the shadows. I watched until he was gone, then I made my way through the knot of back streets until I reached civilization.

  I flagged down a cab, sat in the backseat and gazed out at the drunks and clubbers as they shuffled through the streets like zombies. The moon above them shone bright and hard, turning the city to red and black.

  8

  A dull, familiar whine woke me as Mrs. Fitz blended something in her kitchen. It felt like I'd had an hour's sleep at best, but the clock told me I'd had just over three. I sat up on the sofa and gazed at the whiskey glass on the armrest beside me. Its partner in crime, the empty bottle on the table, seemed to glint almost accusingly in the early morning light.

  Not the smartest way to get to sleep, but it masked the aches and pains for a few hours. Until I made the mistake of standing and they returned in full righteous vengeance.

  The events of the previous night swam through my mind along with all the questions that needed answering. I picked up the phone and rang Underwood. It went straight to voicemail.

  "It's Morgan." My voice was cracked and hoarse. "We need to talk." My scrambled brain ran out of words so I hung up and decided to go see him, rather than wait for a reply that probably wasn't coming.

  I stooped down and gathered up the cats that had curled up on the sofa around me in the wee hours, carried them to the dormer window and gently deposited them on the roof below. They arched their backs and slunk off toward the street in search of breakfast.

  It was a balmy day but the breeze held a chill. Autumn was coming, and hard on its heels another long winter. The dark months were always my busiest time and with the way things were going with the Nightkind, it was shaping up to be a hard season.

  A dangerous one too. So the sooner I found this murderer, and put him out of action, the better. That way Tom would be safe and I could give my full attention to my pet project, Elsbeth Wyght, before things started to really heat up.

  I glanced at the photograph of Willow and gave her a smile, just as I did every morning. "I'll get the bitch. I swear it."

  I showered and made toast, grabbing a couple of bites as I hurried down the stairs, doing my damnedest not to chew as I crept past Mrs. Fitz's apartment.

  The last thing I needed right now was any more talk of global feline conspiracies.

  Especially when I'd just rushed out the door with my sweater and coat covered in multiple shades of fur.

  The Organization's offices were downtown above a Chinese market, and there was a blink and you'll miss it doorway right beside their service entrance. As you'd expect in most cities, the majority of the shoppers and pedestrians just hurried past, but there was an enchantment that cloaked the building in case we got any snoops or looky-loos. It was a clever little spell that would snatch the thoughts right out of their heads. It was funny to see the knitted brows and eyes turned heavenwards as they tried to work out that really important thing they'd just forgotten.

  The small brass plaque beside the door reads, "Messrs. Humble, Glass and Underwood Investigative Services" and the font made it look like it was created in the nineteen twenties. Hell, it probably was.

  I pushed the door open and the smell of the market wafted over the narrow flight of steps, aniseed, dried fish and durian. Cigar ash spotted the worn maroon carpet and a fresh fall indicated Underwood wa
s already inside.

  The frosted glass door at the top of the stairs was branded with the company's logo, a triangle with an eye at each point and a flaming eye in the center. An additional deterrent for any uninvited guests who might make it past the enchantment downstairs. Eyes and triangles already had a tendency to unsettle people but this emblem was a warning that was even more primal. Ignore those gut feelings and the hex on the threshold would produce a debilitating migraine that'd bring an unauthorized intruder to their knees. It was apt, as I often found dealing with the the Organization to be one long headache.

  I shoved the door and stepped into the sparse office. The place was almost padded with silence. No phones, no secretaries tapping and clacking on keyboards, no 'witty' signs proclaiming you don't have to be mad to work here but it helps. No monochrome pictures of beaches and inspirational quotes. Just a waiting room and three offices enclosed with partitions of dark paneled wood and frosty pebbled glass, one for each of the partners.

  The waiting room was a dismal square of grey with a worn leather sofa and two chairs, all of them occupied. I recognized three of the agents. Two were colleagues, one a bounty hunter. But the fourth...I didn't know anything about the fourth, and instincts told me I didn't want to get anywhere near him.

  Raspink sat in the closest seat, towering over the others. His long lean face was pale and lined, his gaze thankfully lost in the woven pattern of the threadbare carpet. I'd give almost anything not to have to meet that cold dead stare.

  Beside him sat Ebomee, a black woman in her mid twenties. Today she wore an elegant slate-grey suit and the smile she gave me didn't quite reach her quick, searching eyes. I smiled back. It always seems the best policy to promptly return any courtesies when dealing with highly trained assassins.

  Two men sat on the sofa. The nearest, Osbert, looked like an obese teenager with floppy red hair and wide, gimlet eyes. His mouth was a thin line defined solely by the brass ring piercing his top lip. Beneath this man suit, Osbert was an ogre and he had a particular fondness for ripping out the hearts of his foes. He glanced at me and grunted before delving back into his bag of chips.