by Alan Baxter
‘Well, he actually saved me,’ Silhouette said with a wince.
‘Interesting. So now what?’
‘We’re off to see if we can track down the third part.’
‘Do you think he’ll find it?’
Silhouette frowned, unsure what to say. ‘It’s hard to tell, really. We’ve nothing to go on so far.’
‘I want that stone, Silhouette.’
‘I know you do.’
‘Have you seen anything that might help us separate the stone from the book?’
Silhouette stood in deep shadow under a large pine. Two cars, a sedan and a pick-up, were parked in front of a ramshackle house. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Only his death will release them. But how to get one and not the other is still beyond me.’
‘Think of a way, Silhouette. Only my protection saves you from the Kin. You’re too much human and too much Fey. But if you do this for me, prove you are true Kin … Get me this stone, little one. I want to hear more news soon.’
The line went dead. Silhouette stood in the darkness for several moments, phone gripped tightly, teeth worrying her lower lip. With a growl of annoyance she turned her attention to the vehicles.
Over the roar of the flames Alex heard another sound, an engine revving. Silhouette skidded a big black pick-up truck to a halt beside him. ‘Nice work,’ she said with a smile. ‘Get in.’
Alex jumped into the passenger seat. He trembled, buzzing with the magic he’d channelled.
‘You okay?’ Silhouette asked as she gunned the engine and powered out onto the main road again.
‘Yeah. Just a bit shaken.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘You didn’t siphon petrol, did you?’
‘No.’
‘Then how?’
‘Fire’s an element.’
‘Yeah. And you’re pretty scary. You’re developing skills at a furious rate, Iron Balls. You need to be careful.’
‘Do I?’ he asked, confused.
‘You’re running before you can walk. Fuck, you’re sprinting before you can crawl. A person can screw themselves up using magic like you’re doing.’
‘You’re the one who told me to embrace the stone’s power. Own it.’
‘Sure. But go easy, a bit at a time. You immolated that car!’
‘Well, I did the job.’
‘You did. But remember, power is nothing without control. You have to learn to protect yourself from … well, from yourself.’
They drove in silence for a while. Silhouette had it right. The power that surged through him back there had felt like it might burst him open, shatter him into atoms. He thought about his fight training, his Sifu’s lessons. First and most important is technique, Alex. Excellent technique will always lead to maximum speed and power. If you’re all speed and power with no technique, you’ll only ever be a brute, never reaching your full potential. You’ll have lost to yourself before you ever face an opponent.
The same thing applied here. Slow practice would lead to mastery. Massive bursts would inevitably lead to disaster. Power is nothing without control. His Sifu had said that more times than he could remember, and now Silhouette echoed his dead master’s words. She embodied control for him, taking the hit every time the book tried to overcome him. Without her he’d have run rampant by now, slaughtering who knew how many. If a human tried to calm him down like Silhouette did, that human would be destroyed in an instant. As much as she seemed to genuinely enjoy it, Silhouette was saving his life every time, at enormous risk to herself. He owed it to her as much as himself to regain command over his situation. He wished he could trust her, but regardless, he needed control.
He pulled the book from his pocket, watching the ’sign swim around it like a smoky octopus, reaching for his face. He opened it and read, A universal song of power glides above you, through you, with you. Together and immortal, energies to shatter worlds. Three parts, two stolen, one lost, beyond you. Become the universal power without, give in, let fly, worlds collide.
He slammed the book shut with a gasp.
‘What did it say?’ Silhouette asked, not taking her eyes from the road.
‘I think it’s telling me to give up. That I won’t be able to find the last piece.’
‘Sounds to me like it fears what might happen if you do.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ Alex conceded. ‘It’s so desperate for chaos. It desires nothing more than absolute bedlam.’
‘You think it’s worried you might get the better of it with the complete stone?’
‘I don’t know. I think it’s pissed off that every time it tries to drive me to violence you take the fury away.’
She winked, blew him a kiss. ‘Glad to be of service.’
Alex looked at the closed book in his hands. ‘But I’m scared, Sil. I’m getting more dangerous all the time. What if I get too powerful for you?’
‘Don’t get ahead of yourself, Iron Balls. I’ve got plenty of fight left in me yet.’
‘I’ll try to learn to control it.’
‘Yeah, you do that. Will you contact Meera?’
He closed his eyes, picturing the Shadow Mage. Unsure how to actually make contact, he simply willed her to hear him. ‘Meera?’ he said aloud while he concentrated. ‘Are you there?’
I’m here. He jumped, her voice in his mind, like she whispered from inside his ear.
‘I need to see you.’
You’re moving. When you’re next still I’ll come to you.
‘Okay.’
Silhouette looked over, one eyebrow cocked.
‘She’ll come to us when we stop.’
‘Clever bitch, ain’t she.’
20
The hotel room in St John was simple, little more than a bed and side tables. On a rickety table under the window stood an old TV and a kettle and tea bags. Silhouette hung up the phone. ‘We’re on a flight back to Halifax at 8 a.m. tomorrow.’
‘And then what?’
‘I don’t know. I guess we have to wait for Meera. She coming?’
‘She’s supposed to. If she doesn’t show up soon, I’ll try to reach her again.’
Silhouette turned on the kettle. ‘Cuppa while we wait then?’
Alex slumped onto the bed. ‘Sure. I’ve been thinking.’
‘Sounds dangerous. What about?’
‘You lot.’
‘Yeah?’
Silhouette sounded suspicious, but he had to know more. He had to try to figure out where her motivations might lie. Perhaps by learning more about the Kin he could learn more about Silhouette. ‘You say those people back at your Den weren’t actually vampires, right? They just choose to live that way?’
‘Right.’
‘So are there really vampires too?’
Silhouette gave him a withering look. ‘No, Alex. There’s just us. Vampires, werewolves, whatever — it’s all us.’
‘So some Kin have decided to live that way and that gave birth to the legends among humans, or the other way around?’
‘No idea. Chicken and egg.’
Alex pursed his lips, thoughtful for a while. Then he said, ‘So if there are no actual vampires, just you lot choosing a lifestyle, then humans have got the whole vampire thing pretty wrong.’
Silhouette poured boiling water over the tea bags. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You walk around in the sunshine, for example.’
‘Yeah. And I don’t even sparkle.’
‘So the whole thing about vampires being burned up by the sun is bullshit?’
She handed him a cup of tea, sat on the bed beside him. ‘Yes. Vampires are Kin and sunlight doesn’t bother us at all. Neither does holy water or crucifixes or anything else.’
‘What about silver bullets?’
‘Well, bullets in general are pretty savage. We’re a lot tougher and can take a fair pounding, but riddle us with enough bullets and we’ll go down, silver or otherwise. But there’s nothing special about the silver.’
‘So it’s all wrong.’
‘So all the monsters are actually Kin and none of the supposed secret weapons work?’
Silhouette stared into her teacup. ‘No, Alex. Not all the monsters are Kin. That thing we fought back in Bonavista was no Kin. The world is full of dangers, for all of us.’
The thing in Bonavista had me beat, he thought. ‘And what about the Fey?’ he asked, to take his mind off thoughts of defeat.
‘That’s another story again. They’re an entirely different race from an entirely different realm. Evil fuckers. On the thin days they come through and cause havoc, maybe make more Kin like me.’
‘You’ve used that term before. What are thin days?’
‘Days when the realms are closer. Midsummer, equinoxes, stuff like that. On those days the Fey can slip between briefly and cause a bit of chaos here. It’s when the Wild Hunt rides, for example.’
Alex watched steam rising from his tea. ‘All that stuff is real?’
‘Depends what you mean by all of it. The Fey are. The Wild Hunt exists. There are lots of Wild Hunts actually.’
‘But all the vampire legends are wrong,’ he said, exasperated. ‘It’s hard to know what’s real, what’s dangerous, what’s made up.’ The same could be said of Silhouette.
‘You can say that about the most mundane aspects of life too,’ she said with a smile.
They looked up at a soft knocking. Alex put his cup down, crept to look out the peephole. Meera stood outside. He opened the door. ‘Hi there. Come in.’
Meera stepped in and closed the door behind her. She looked Alex up and down. ‘You’ve had some success?’
‘You could say that. We’ve had a hell of a time, but your tip was right. I got the second piece.’
‘Excellent. Well done. Tell me all about it.’
Alex recounted the gory details while Silhouette made more tea.
Meera listened intently, asking searching questions here and there. At the end of the tale she said, ‘I’ll pass it on. This knowledge is invaluable, thank you. We might go to visit this place and see what’s left.’
‘You might have trouble finding it,’ Silhouette said. ‘I couldn’t see it until Alex stood me right on it.’
‘So what now?’ Alex asked. ‘We’re a bit stuck for what to do next. Any more leads?’
‘I’m sorry. You got lucky the first time, but we’ve searched extensively and turned up virtually nothing.’
Alex grunted. ‘Fuck it.’
‘Virtually?’ Silhouette said.
Meera took out another piece of paper, faintly lined, dense with neat handwriting. ‘There are various mentions of things that could be related, but it’s very hard to tell. I can find no record of the third piece. However, the Norse legend of the second piece also tells of Kin from a Den in Rome. If that’s true, then perhaps all the Kin tasked with hiding the shards were from the same Den.’
Alex frowned. ‘All that time ago they might have come from Rome? How does that help us now?’
‘Do the Kin keep good records?’ Meera asked.
‘Nothing like you Umbra Magi, I’m sure,’ Silhouette said. ‘But every Den keeps an account of its history, members and genealogy. I don’t see how that can help.’
‘It’s the only lead you’ve got. If the Den in Rome has enough detailed records, you might be able to track down any tasks its members were given. If you can find mention of three Kin given a very serious job to do, you might get a clue where they went.’
Alex let out a sigh. ‘Tenuous fucking link, that is.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Meera said. ‘It’s the best I can do. I’m afraid that’s it from me.’ She stood to leave.
‘What, no more help?’
Meera took Alex’s hand. ‘I’m sorry. We were prepared to offer you any information we had and we’ve done that. We try to observe and not interfere as much as possible. We have no more information and can therefore offer you no more help. If you would like to share anything you learn with us, we’d be very grateful, but otherwise yes, that’s it.’
Alex looked crestfallen. ‘We’re on our own then. I don’t suppose you could teach us how you turn up all over the place? We could certainly use that skill, it’s far cheaper than airfares. I’m close to broke.’
‘That takes an awfully long time to learn and I wouldn’t know how to begin to teach you.’
‘Why do you always knock on the door when you can zap in and out so easily?’ Silhouette asked.
Meera smiled. ‘Just to be polite. It’s rude to turn up in someone’s room when you can arrive outside the door. Good luck, Alex. Silhouette.’
Silhouette nodded once, saying nothing. Meera let herself out.
Alex fell back onto the bed. ‘Well, shit. What now?’
‘I guess we go to Rome,’ Silhouette said. ‘There’s no other lead to follow and I’m fresh out of ideas.’
‘And what do we do there?’
‘We try to work out what really happened back when the Eld cast out Uthentia. If we can figure out who was involved and where things were taken, we might be able to find the third piece.’
‘Is there much chance of that?’
‘Rome is one of the oldest Dens there is. There are Kin there older than the Bible.’
Alex’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah. Some Kin count their age in millennia. Let’s go and see what we can learn.’
‘And then what? If I do find the third piece of the Darak, what do I do then?’
Silhouette kissed him. ‘That, Iron Balls, is something you need to think about. Power is one thing, but you badly need a plan too.’
Hood and Sparks pulled the collars of their heavy coats tight against an icy wind and ran from the plane to a waiting Land Rover. Inside, the heater worked overtime to push back the Scottish autumn, already worse than the deepest winter of London. Two burly men in fatigues, ex-military, sat in the front. ‘Long time, Mr Hood,’ said the driver.
Hood slapped his shoulder from the back seat. ‘It is, Curly. Good to see you again.’
‘You too, sir. This is Higgs. New boy.’
‘Good to meet you, sir,’ said Higgs.
Hood acknowledged the other man then turned back to Curly. ‘So there might be a fair bit of work to be done, and done quickly.’
‘Fair enough, sir.’
‘You got what I asked?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good lad. It might get unpleasant.’
‘Righto, sir.’
‘Haven’t grown a conscience or anything recently, have you, Curly?’
‘Not one that can’t be paid off, sir. And you pay so very well.’
Hood sat back. ‘Excellent. You got the directions I sent through?’
‘I did.’
‘Let’s go then.’
The engine revved, reverberating through the vehicle, and they headed out of the tiny airfield onto a single track road. The North Western Highlands loomed all around them, mountainous folds of dark green and grey, whitecapped with early snow. A sleety rain pushed sideways across the landscape, turning everything sparse and inhospitable. The road they followed led deeper inland, passing-spaces cut into the roadside periodically to let oncoming traffic through. They saw very little on the journey, most of the land barren and lifeless as a moon. Occasionally, low, scrubby heather hung on in desperation, stunted trees fought the weather in gullies and glens. Striated grey rock drove up from the brown and dark green earth, moss-covered and heavy with geological age.
After more than an hour Curly pulled off the single track tarmac onto single track gravel, little more than a path. The Land Rover boun
ced and rocked, Hood and Sparks hanging on to straps riveted to the roof. The way became progressively less maintained as the miles passed, the vehicle eventually crossing open terrain, slipping and shifting on tussocks of yellowing grass and brittle heather. Curly checked regularly with a compass and military GPS unit on the dash, roughly following a line of glens deep into a huge valley. It took another hour before he braked to a stop. Sloping green and brown led to ancient grey up to their right. The grey rose undulating, its sharp edges rounded by aeons, to a top lost several thousand feet up in the clouds.
Curly consulted a map then pointed to a rough trail, vaguely visible up one shoulder of the mount. ‘That’s the track that leads to the caves,’ he said.
Hood squinted past Curly’s finger, studying the hills. ‘Come on, Sparks. Got your walking boots on?’
Sparks considered the hillside ahead of them through the driving sleet. ‘I’m glad I have. You told me to prepare for rough conditions, but I didn’t anticipate this.’
‘Who could ever anticipate this?’ Hood said.
He opened the door, the wind instantly sucking all the warmth from the car. Curly and Higgs climbed out with him. Sparks pulled thick socks up over the cuffs of her heavy combat trousers and zipped her jacket up. Tightening the hood around her face, she followed the men. The things she did for this man sometimes made her wonder at her life choices. But no one had ever been better to her than Hood and, despite his occasional moods, no one treated her so well or did the things she liked quite like he did. This situation had definitely got the better of him and she couldn’t help thinking it would cost him dearly. But long ago she had decided to follow him wherever it led and nothing would change that decision. Wincing against the weather, she trotted to catch up.
The track was little more than a goat or sheep trail that meandered with the rock, always creeping slowly higher. Loose shale made a shallow wave downwards to their left as they climbed, cracked and tumbled rock building the mountain to their right. Deep puddles and saturated bog made the going slow, arduous. Curly and Higgs stayed in front, setting a gruelling pace, regularly checking back on Hood. Every time they looked he flapped one hand at them to carry on. Sparks dropped further and further behind. There was nowhere to go but along the rugged track, so she kept her head down. She’d catch up eventually.
