by Alan Baxter
‘You are the most magical mundane I have ever known, Mr Hood,’ Doschenko was saying. ‘How do you recognise this stuff as genuine without abilities like mine?’
‘I have my methods, Mr Doschenko. And many, many years of experience.’
Sparks thought of the subcontracted agents Hood regularly employed. And wondered for the millionth time how mundane Hood really was. She suspected he was rather more magical than he ever let on.
‘This item is genuine, but it is not worth a quarter of a million pounds.’ Doschenko’s voice was strong, persuasive. Sparks recognised a kind of enchantment that many clients tried to use. Most, in fact. She and Hood both wore pendants that protected them from such charms.
Hood made a rueful face. ‘No, you’re right.’ Doschenko smiled, clearly pleased with himself. ‘It’s priceless,’ Hood continued. ‘You simply can’t put a price on a unique, one-of-a-kind item like that.’
Doschenko’s eyebrows and smile sank like stones through honey. He stared again at the shining black wind demon.
‘But,’ Hood said, his voice jolly, ‘you want it. So I’m prepared to let it go for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’
Doschenko put the statuette back in the cabinet. ‘I’ll take it.’ His voice sounded tired, resigned.
Hood clapped his hands together, flicked a wink at Sparks. ‘Good man!’
Sparks keyed in the relevant information. Funds would be exchanged, secure delivery would be arranged. Hood had got his man. Again.
‘So,’ Hood said, striding down the aisle, drawing Doschenko’s attention away from the demonic icon while his desire still burned. ‘You were actually here to see the Scroll of Attenuatea. A powerful spell.’ He cast a serious glance at Sparks.
‘This way, gentlemen, please.’
Hood cried out, dropping to one knee. Sparks spun around, frowning at the pain evident on his face. ‘Mr Hood?’
Doschenko stepped back, eyes wide. ‘Where are they?’ He looked frantically about the large space.
Hood pressed one hand to his temple, grimacing. ‘Not … here. They’re just … communicating.’
Doschenko took further steps back. ‘I should leave. Maybe return another day.’
Hood drove himself to his feet, pure force of will. ‘No, please. Just give me … one moment.’ He grunted, pressing the other hand to the side of his head, like he was trying to crush his own face. ‘Yes,’ he hissed. ‘Yes, good. Okay.’ He paused, listening. ‘Are you sure that’s where they’re going?’ Listening again. ‘Right. I’ve changed my mind. I want to be there, to see this. Yes. Keep me informed.’ He staggered back, as if a pressure against him had been unexpectedly removed. His eyes swam for a moment as he gasped, pulling himself together. He smiled, trembling slightly. ‘My apologies. Shall we?’
‘What was that?’ Doschenko asked. ‘Something grave was here.’
‘Just some … employees, doing a little work for me, that’s all.’
Doschenko followed them along the aisle once more. ‘Not your average employee,’ he said. ‘Something truly wicked. You take enormous risks, Mr Hood.’
Sparks agreed with the Russian. The risks Hood took were not only enormous, but seemingly unnecessary. He would tell her it’s how his empire was built, how he attained his fortune. And she couldn’t argue with that. But when did the empire outgrow the man? When did the risks overtake him? When was the fortune big enough? He had long since gone beyond the pursuit of money; he already had more than he could spend. The sport of it drove him now. She wondered how far it would drive him this time.
The Dark Sisters stood in a tiny hotel lobby, a dark, desiccated skeleton at their feet. ‘So now the Hood wants to be there,’ Blonde said.
‘He probably won’t make it in time,’ said Red.
‘I wonder why he wants to be there,’ Brunette said.
‘You felt his mind.’ Blonde turned to the door, strolling out into the sunshine. ‘To see this creature he has tasked us to kill. He wants to be a part of the hunt. His obsession is delicious.’
‘So what if we catch up to them before Hood arrives?’ Red asked.
‘We’ll see. We’ve been given a task by the man who gave us ten.’
The Sisters laughed, a low, broken sound, and strolled through the autumn sunshine.
25
Alex sat in a hard plastic departure lounge chair, watching flight numbers and times flicker across a giant screen. He had insisted on Silhouette doing the mind trick things to get them through passport control even though she maintained he would be able to do it himself. The thing that scared him wasn’t that he might mess it up, but that he believed her. He had watched her sweet talk the customs official, read the shades of magic about her while she did, sensed the official’s complete obliviousness to the manipulation. Alex had the power in him now. He could do exactly what she did. Even without the Darak he felt he would have the knowledge and ability still. The stone acted as an incredible amplifier, but the skill had become his own. That’s what scared him about it. How much of his old self made room for this new Alex? This magical Alex.
He turned to Silhouette, slumped beside him. ‘We only just made it in time,’ he said, casual conversation to take his mind off things. ‘That taxi driver was a bit of a lunatic.’
‘I think the guy in the hotel gave him a bonus to make sure we made the flight.’
‘Funny, given it was the hotelier’s own money that I’d just snatched from his till.’
Silhouette grinned. ‘Your disappearing talents are proving all kinds of useful.’
Alex smiled half-heartedly. He didn’t like stealing. ‘Lucky that hotelier has such a good travel agent contact.’
‘They all work like that. Backhanders for referrals. The whole world turns on bribes and favours.’
‘Feeling a bit cynical?’ Alex asked.
‘No, not at all. Just being a realist. That hotelier will get a cut of the airfare that we paid to the travel agent. He’ll get cheap taxi rides from the driver he called to bring us here. They give him the bonuses because he gives them the work and they get jobs that might have gone to other people. That’s the nature of the human social animal.’
The human animal. ‘As opposed to us?’ Alex wondered.
Silhouette gave him a smile. ‘Starting to accept your ascension to more than human?’ She kissed him as he winced. ‘Don’t worry, Iron Balls. If it’s any consolation, the same social system plays out in my world too. In every world, I expect. It’s all about who you know.’
Alex sighed. ‘I think that’s one of the things I enjoyed most about fighting for a living. You train hard, you learn, you practise. When you step into the ring it’s just you and him. No one to buy you out. It’s all you.’
‘There’s something beautiful about that.’
‘Of course there is,’ Alex said wistfully. ‘There’s nothing more pure. It removes the social from the animal, but not the emotional. There’s no hate in the ring, not usually. Two warriors who respect each other’s ability, each other’s efforts and sacrifices. You’re just there to test yourself, body, heart and soul, against someone else. If you lose, you congratulate the other person, you learn, you grow.’
‘I don’t think you lost much, somehow.’
Alex remembered broken bones, swollen eyes, jaws that couldn’t manage anything but soup. ‘Oh, I did, early on. I got my arse handed to me on many occasions until I put the bravado aside and shut the fuck up long enough to listen and actually hear what I was being taught. Then I trained properly, trained hard, did everything the proper way, not the quick way.’
‘But your vision always gave you an edge, right?’
‘Not at first. My vision grew with me, I had to learn to use it. The better a fighter I became, the more I relaxed into the flow of battle, the clearer I could see.’
Silhouette stroked his cheek. ‘You were a master of your chosen field, weren’t you?’
What made a master? Usually it was something someone else ca
lled you. He couldn’t imagine ever calling himself that. His Sifu was a master. The man was beyond anyone Alex had ever met, not only in skill but in wisdom, awareness. Perhaps Alex had grown to become something like him. But he had always been a student, never a teacher. ‘Maybe,’ he said softly, reluctantly. ‘I don’t know if I could ever really be called a master until I’d passed my knowledge on to someone else. I think that’s the real definition.’
‘You could. Teach someone else, I mean.’
‘Not every great fighter is a great teacher. And I just loved to fight.’
‘You miss it, don’t you?’
‘Fuck yeah! My life was so simple. It was exactly what I wanted it to be. I fought and had everything I needed. It’s not like I was striving for something from life. I was living it.’
‘But now you have so much more. You can see that, right? The life you were living, it was all you ever wanted only because you didn’t know how much more you could have.’
Maybe she had a point. If he stopped to imagine what he knew now without the burden of this book, it made his previous life seem incredibly small. There existed more in the big wide world than he’d ever imagined and could he really picture himself not being a part of it now that he knew? ‘I suppose so.’
‘You stood up against things unlike any opponent you’ve ever had, Alex.’
‘That thing in Bonavista had me beat, though.’
‘And how long has it been since you were beaten?’ she asked. ‘You went through three Kin like they were paper. You’re improving all the time. More than you’d ever have improved otherwise. If testing yourself against other well-trained humans was the pinnacle of life before, you’ve just levelled up big time.’
She made a certain kind of sense. His life now was a lot like his life in the ring. But the ring had changed. Instead of a fenced-in octagon, the entire planet had become his arena of combat. Instead of trained fighters, literally anything might step up. He hadn’t lost a fight against a human for a long time. At least these recent encounters were seriously challenging him. He kissed Silhouette. ‘Levelled up,’ he said, with a shake of the head.
A happy voice sounded over the tannoy telling them it was time to board. Alex shouldered his backpack and held Silhouette’s hand as they walked along the tunnel to the plane.
Sparks returned to Hood’s office after seeing Doschenko safely from the building. A sense of trepidation hung heavy on her, following Hood’s strange behaviour in the warehouse. The longer this obsession with the human and Kin pair had gone on, the more it consumed him. And the less she liked it.
Hood was tidying his desk when she entered. ‘Well done, Sparks. A most profitable meeting, no?’
‘Definitely. The impulse purchase was worth a lot more than what he came for.’
Hood pointed one long index finger at her. ‘Showrooms lead to temptation, my dear!’
‘You know your business, Mr Hood.’
‘That I do, Ms Sparks. That I most certainly do. Now, let’s pack our bags.’
‘Another trip?’
‘Yes. To Iceland.’
Sparks frowned. ‘Iceland? Why?’
‘Because that’s where the Sisters say our elusive pair is heading and that’s where they’ll catch up to them.’
‘So why do we have to be there?’
Hood stopped tidying. His gaze was hard, a sheen of anger making her stomach tight. ‘We don’t have to. I have to. I’d rather like it if you came along but you’ve become quite garrulous lately, not to mention argumentative.’
Sparks chewed her lower lip, thinking. ‘I don’t mean to annoy you,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s just that I’ve never seen you this …’
‘This what?’ His voice was dangerously low.
Sparks had a fear inside she couldn’t shake off. She needed to give voice to her concerns, even if it cost her Hood’s wrath. ‘This obsessed,’ she said, tensing at Hood’s narrowing eyes. ‘Please, you’ve barely thought about anything else since you learned of this human and what he’s carrying.’
‘And why should that bother you?’
‘We don’t even know what it is!’
‘Are you serious?’ He moved towards her, almost tenderly. ‘Sparks, this man bested the Subcontractor. No mere human could do that. Whatever he has, it’s powerful beyond even my imagining. What price might I put on that piece of merchandise? Is that so hard to understand?’
Sparks looked at the expensive rug underfoot, a despair deep inside. ‘No, I can understand your desire for something so clearly powerful. But do we have to go to Iceland? Can’t we rely on the Dark Sisters to get it for us, like you asked them to?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ Hood said. ‘Maybe, maybe not. I’ve never used them before, and they seem … capricious. I want to be there. I want to see what this human and Kin are capable of.’
‘It might get you killed!’
‘Ms Sparks, so sentimental. I’ll be sure to keep the Sisters between myself and the prey. And when the human and his Kin bitch are dead, I’ll get what I’ve paid for and sell it to the highest bidder. But I want to be there, Sparks. I want to see the battle.’
‘Why?’
He was suddenly angry again. ‘Because life is becoming increasingly fucking dull, that’s why.’ Spit flew from Hood’s lips. ‘Nothing has moved me like this in years.’
Sparks still stared at the complicated weave, wondering why she felt so scared by Hood’s condition. What made her fear for him so? She voiced a concern she’d held in check until now. ‘You haven’t fucked me in a long time.’
A slow smile spread across Hood’s pasty face. ‘Is that what this is all about? Have I been neglecting you, flower?’ Heavy sarcasm.
‘You used to share your excitement with me,’ Sparks said, not able to bear his mocking eyes. ‘The more you’ve focused on this, the less time you’ve given me.’
‘Really?’
‘You haven’t touched me since Scotland.’
‘Sparks, that was only a day or two ago!’ His voice seemed softer.
‘It seems longer.’
Hood walked around his desk, approached her with mischief pulling at his lips. ‘Let’s go and pack, Ms Sparks. And while we’re in our suite, with the bed right there, let’s make you feel a little less left out.’
She couldn’t help a smile slipping onto her face. It really wasn’t the point she’d been trying to make. What she really meant was, You haven’t loved me in a long time, but that admission could not be allowed out.
Hood did business, he told people how it was going to be and that’s how it was. When things got tough, he got people in to do the dirty work. Always in control. It hadn’t been a long time since he’d touched her. It seemed a long time since he’d been truly in control. That’s what scared her. But he was certainly taking command now. He reached for her, took her in a strong, passionate kiss, squeezing her arse so hard she cried out, pleasure and pain.
‘It’s touching that you’re scared for me,’ he said, squeezing again. ‘And it’s quite funny that you feel neglected.’
She pouted. ‘Don’t mock me.’
He turned her towards the lift. ‘I’m not going to mock you, Sparks. I’m going to fuck you. Then we’re going to Iceland and we’ll watch the Sisters do exactly what I want done. That’s how the world works for me and you, is it not?’
Sparks pushed away the nagging doubt. ‘Yes, it is.’
They entered the lift and she pulled open her blouse, pressed Hood’s face into her cleavage.
26
Alex and Sil joined the sea of people disembarking. As the crowd veered off for luggage, they went directly to Reykjavik customs. Alex felt a sense of finality descending. Everything that had happened since Welby darkened his dressing room door back in Sydney came to a head here. He knew, one way or another, things would end in this place. Maybe he would end here too. As they stood in a queue, half a dozen people lined up before them, Alex said, ‘Sil, if I die, you need to stay aw
ay from me.’
She frowned at him. ‘What?’
‘If I die here, I don’t want you saddled with this fucking book.’ He hefted one side of his jacket for emphasis.
‘One, you’re not dying. Two, I know better than to touch that.’
‘You’re so sure I’m not going to die?’
‘Someone has to be! Where’s your fighting spirit gone?’
‘I’m going to fight,’ Alex said. ‘I just don’t know if I can win.’
‘You have a plan?’
‘I’m not sure “plan” is the right word. Everyone seems so convinced it’s impossible to be rid of this curse. Even with the power of the full Darak, the Eld were only able to exile most of Uthentia. If they considered the last part of him, lurking around like this, acceptable collateral, then how can I hope to change anything?’
‘You’re different to the Eld, Alex. This is a different time, a whole new situation. You have skills they didn’t.’
‘Really? The greatest mages of their time and you think I have something they didn’t?’
‘The way you’ve learned to cope with this is already more than most people manage, by all accounts.’
‘With your help.’
‘I’m not planning on going anywhere.’
He stroked her cheek with the back of one finger. That did genuinely make him feel better; he certainly wouldn’t have got this far without her. But he couldn’t rely on her always being around. Life wasn’t like that. What if something happened and she walked out on him and left him to his own devices? What if she did plan on taking the Darak for herself somehow? Or if Joseph came back with an army of Kin? ‘Even if I re-form the stone and I’m able to suppress the urges of this curse, I don’t want a lifetime of violent sex and a constant compulsion to kill and maim. Right now I’m actively resisting the urge to start laying into the people ahead of us in this queue! At some point it’ll get too much and I’ll snap. I’m already becoming a monster. I don’t want to tip over.’
