by Alan Baxter
Jean Chang was vaguely aware of Darvill’s frantic breathing and disjointed murmurs beside her. Her entire body shook with shock, horror, disbelief. How could she possibly be seeing what eyes told her was there?
Within moments, Robert Hood, CEO of Black Diamond Incorporated, stood naked and hairless as ever, thin and wan in the arc lights, unblemished flesh steaming in the cold. He tipped his head back and a high, manic laugh rippled up from his chest, to burst out towards the heavens.
8
Silhouette walked along the footpath above Gordon’s Bay, trepidatious both for her awaited contact and the possibility that Armour might have tracked her down. A part of her wondered if Armour were perhaps leaving her to her own devices. She didn’t doubt for a minute that if they really wanted to, they had the means to find her, be those methods arcane or technological. Or both. Maybe the Commander had decided she was less trouble out of the way and at least now he didn’t have to commit any assistance to her cause.
She wished Jarrod was here to help. Other than Alex, Silhouette had no friends or family she could rely on. At least, she hadn’t until she met Jarrod and realised they had a connection in their Fey blood. She would have appreciated the big man’s hulking presence and reassuring calm. His mother was Maori, from New Zealand, and Jarrod was fiercely proud of his heritage and cultural tradition. She wanted more time to learn about him, his history. And about the possibilities of their kinship. She toyed with the idea of calling him, asking him to come with her, help recover Alex, but she tossed the idea aside. He would almost certainly say yes and she was under no illusions about this endeavour. It was quite possibly a suicide mission. Besides, for all she knew Jarrod was locked up in an Armour cell for helping her. She hoped not.
Alex might already be dead, she might never find him. She would probably be caught and killed, or worse. But she had to try. After centuries of never fitting in, always treated with suspicion by the Kin-born for her first generation blood, always so removed from her humanity by the needs of being Kin, in Alex she had found love and purpose and direction. She didn’t want to be alone any more.
She stopped walking, heart hammering with the realisation. She stared out to sea, looking over the rocky shore of Gordon’s Bay, a small inlet between two larger beaches. She was being thoroughly honest with herself. After so many years of living a loner life, she had had enough. Alex — and only Alex — offered salvation. She laughed quietly, shook her head. ‘Damn you, Caine,’ she whispered to the gathering gloom of twilight. ‘I’m fucking coming for you.’
A man strolled casually towards her and she froze. He stared with an intensity that fixed her to the spot and she knew without a doubt that it was Kreek. He appeared as a fit-looking man in his forties, shoulder-length hair loose about his head. He was tall, but not as tall as in his Fey form, and moved with an agile grace, nothing like the stutter movements of the Fey in their natural state. Silhouette wondered briefly if that was a condition of being in this realm. The shapechanging certainly seemed to remove it somehow. Another Fey mystery. Kin shapechanging was a benefit of their Fey blood. She wondered what else they inherited from their evil progenitors and realised, not for the first time, how little she knew of her true heritage. How little any Kin knew.
‘Silhouette,’ Kreek said with a nod as he approached. ‘Looks like it will be a lovely evening.’
She returned the nod, lips pressed into a tight line.
Kreek laughed. ‘Relax, please. I’m not going to eat you.’
‘Why did you want to meet here?’
‘Isn’t it nice, by the ocean?’ Kreek pointed out over the gently undulating seas. ‘Can you imagine, if you go that way and, assuming you miss the northern tip of New Zealand, keep going, you won’t find land again until you reach Chile? Such a massive expanse of water. Inconceivably vast.’
Silhouette frowned, wondered where he was going with this. ‘There’s a fucktonne of islands scattered throughout the Pacific Ocean. You’d probably hit one of those first.’
Kreek smiled, slowly lowered his hand. ‘Indeed. You’re right, of course. But those islands are so scattered, it’s quite possible you’d miss them all. Quite possible too that you would be blown off course, end up circling away from Chile. Spend an eternity adrift on an expanse of ocean hard to actually imagine. Oh, you can look on a map and work out distances and consider the nature of the planet. But imagine, for a moment, yourself, tiny and insignificant, adrift out there. Thousands of miles away from this or any other shore.’ He turned sharply, pinned Silhouette with his gaze. ‘Can you even imagine that, tiny Kin?’
Silhouette swallowed. ‘Your point?’
Kreek smiled again, his face softening. He turned back to stare across the water. ‘Do you have any perception of the size of Faerie?’
‘Not really.’
‘Hmm. Nor does anyone else.’
‘What?’
Kreek strolled to a bench beside the path, sat to continue his perusal of the sea. The sky on the horizon was darkening through indigo towards night. The sky above still shone a pale blue as the sun slowly set far behind to the west. He patted the seat beside him and Silhouette reluctantly sat, leaving a large gap between them.
‘The Other Lands are soaked in magic,’ Kreek said. ‘It shapes and reshapes them constantly. A kind of chaos rules there. They are a place of contradiction and change. Constant change. Nothing like you would be able to understand here. In this realm, there is order, and that is what the Fey so enjoy dismantling.’
Silhouette was growing impatient. ‘Again, your point?’
Kreek looked at her, his mouth twisted in a crooked smile. He was quite beautiful in this form and that bothered Silhouette more than his true form she had seen at Crabapple’s.
‘You truly hate me, don’t you?’ he said.
‘I hate all Fey.’
‘You are a full half-Fey yourself.’
‘I hate that too.’
Kreek nodded, looked back out into the darkening sky. ‘You’re very much in love, clearly. That or absolutely batshit insane.’
‘Quite possibly both,’ Silhouette said with a reluctant smile.
‘Hmm. My point, as you so annoyingly keep requesting, is that navigating the Other Lands is next to impossible for non-Fey. You, as a first gen, might have an easier time, but you will have to indulge the Fey half of yourself. Let it out.’
‘I don’t even know what you mean by that.’
‘You will when you get there. If you go.’
‘I am definitely going.’
‘Fair enough.’ Kreek took a packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket. ‘You know, it’s most likely the Lady herself who has your lover. Want one?’
Silhouette’s heart jumped. She waved away the offered smoke. ‘What? How do you know? I didn’t tell you …’
Kreek held up one hand. ‘Please, don’t insult me.’ He lit the cigarette, drew deeply. ‘Echoes and portents, they ring through this realm like bells. I’m Fey. I know what goes on with my kind in this place.’
‘You’re not really an exile, are you?’
‘I am one very unpopular fellow in my home. But word has a way of travelling to interested parties and I have a network which keeps me very well informed. Not much happens on thin days around here that I don’t know about. And I know some of the Lady’s people came for a human the day after the thin and took him back straight away. That interests me enormously and you know why.’
Silhouette was disturbed by his knowledge, but it made a kind of sense. ‘I don’t know what I can tell you, give you, but I really need your help.’
‘I know you do. And I will give it to you. But you will return the favour by telling me everything you know. Now and later. I want all the information you have, always.’
Nerves rilled through Silhouette’s chest. ‘I’m not tying myself to you forever.’
‘You will if you want what I can give you.’
‘Why?’
‘Information is power. Y
ou know that.’
They sat in silence. Kreek smoked his cigarette, blue-grey smoke curling gently around his head in the soft, warm summer breeze. Silhouette’s mind raced. What would it mean to give this Fey her allegiance forever more? And after this, assuming she survived, let alone succeeded, she planned to have nothing to do with Faerie ever again. So what would she have to tell him? What information could he want? She wondered if he would be interested in Armour secrets and how he might trade those. If she could really betray them.
A darker thought occurred to her. If she could save Alex, she would have his assistance again. If this fucker pushed her too hard, Alex would help her end him. Between them they certainly had the skills to take out one exiled Fey. Didn’t they? And if they did, Faerie wouldn’t care, as he was hated there anyway. They might even earn some favour that way. As if. Any success would only put them more in the sights of Faerie anger and Kreek was Fey and therefore almost certainly lying. He could be working for this Lady right now for all she knew.
Paranoia sank over her like a fog. She had found him so easily. Surely this was a trap, set up by the same people who had abducted Alex. This was just more of their plan. A trembling passed through her hands as she panicked at the thought. Was she being played?
‘Difficult, isn’t it?’ Kreek said quietly, smoke drifting from his mouth.
‘What is?’
‘Deciding what’s real and what’s not. Who to trust. Which way to jump. Imagine an entire realm like this, and you are part way to imagining Faerie.’
‘How do I know you’ll help me?’ Silhouette asked.
Kreek laughed. ‘You don’t.’
‘Then why should I trust you?’
‘You shouldn’t. By all the arms of chaos, girl, you should never trust a Fey.’
Silhouette shook her head, sank her face into her hands. She had to jump one way or another and without this infuriating creature she had nothing. Consequences would have to be dealt with later. All she wanted was a way to save Alex. And she almost certainly wouldn’t survive anyway, and that made everything academic. ‘How do I get to Faerie?’
Kreek smiled, ground his cigarette out under a boot heel. ‘After you tell me everything you know.’
Silhouette took a deep breath, wondering how much she could get away with leaving out. She would do her best to tell this bastard as little as possible and claim ignorance on all the details. ‘Alex is bonded with a power stone,’ she began.
Jean Chang and Claude Darvill stood atop the mound of moved earth, staring down at the naked form of Hood. Engines revved and voices yelled as the site workers ran for vehicles and fled the area. Men screamed and cried for help, some answered, some abandoned. Darvill was plainly happy to let them go, their purpose achieved.
Chang tried to still the violent shaking of her hands, tried to breathe down the furious beating of her heart. Hood swept his gaze back and forth, took in the enormous machinery and tall arc lights. He looked back towards Darvill and nodded once.
Darvill nodded back. ‘Hey, Dad.’
The site sank into eerie quiet as the last of the vehicles sped away. The hiss and sizzle of the open ground and the occasional moans of dying men were the only sounds. Darvill tapped Chang on the backside, spurring her into motion. They descended the mound to stand before Hood.
‘Are you … okay?’ Claude asked.
Hood rumbled with laughter. ‘Fuck no, son, not even close. How long have I been down there?’
‘Several months. I’m not sure exactly.’
Jean tried to survey the Black Diamond CEO without being seen to stare. Surely this wasn’t the same man.
Hood turned, pinned her with his gaze. ‘Who’s this? I recognise you …’
Chang jumped, sucked in a quick gasp. ‘Jean Chang, sir. I was on your board. Mr Darvill seconded me to his personal assistant recently.’
‘She’s been enormously helpful,’ Darvill said. ‘Let’s find you some clothes and I’ll tell you all about it.’
Hood began to nod, but the movement flexed into a writhe of agony, his face twisted in a grimace. His fingers rose up, hooked like claws, and he barked an inhuman sound. He shook himself, his face dropping calm once more. ‘Yes, some clothes,’ he said, as if nothing had happened.
‘Are you okay?’ Darvill put a hand on his father’s shoulder, whipped it away with a hiss. ‘You’re so hot!’
Hood laughed. ‘No shit, Sherlock.’ He gestured back at the bubbling hole in the ground.
Darvill nodded, his face concerned. ‘You’re okay, then?’
‘Will you stop asking me that. For now I’m as well as can be expected.’ Hood’s face twisted again, his lips suddenly animated as he muttered something fast and guttural, the words completely unfamiliar to Chang’s ear.
‘Sir, can I get you anything,’ she asked, desperately hoping she might be sent away on an errand. Far away, with any luck.
Hood looked at her, laughed, shook his head. ‘Just some clothes.’
Darvill pointed towards their rocky camp. ‘This way.’
It took several minutes more for Hood to cool down enough to put on clothes. One scorched shirt enough to convince them to wait. Chang busied herself making tea and pouring Hood glass after glass of cold water while the two men talked.
‘I know it was Alex Caine,’ Darvill said.
Hood grimaced, nodded while he guzzled water and held the cup out for more. ‘That fucker. I mean to see him dead. Tell me you haven’t killed him already. I want that pleasure.’
‘No. I was strangely trapped with him … It’s a long story. Anyway, he told me he’d killed you and I came here, tracked down the site, just to be sure. Imagine my surprise when I felt you alive down there.’
Hood tipped his head, offered a crooked smile. ‘Imagine.’ He clenched, his body folding almost in half as he gasped and hissed guttural words again. Within seconds he sat up, his face calm. ‘Tell me everything about how you met that bastard.’
Darvill gestured vaguely. ‘That … thing that keeps happening to you. You need something? Maybe we can …’ He petered off, lost for words.
‘What, exactly?’ Hood demanded sarcastically. ‘Get me a doctor? Take me to emergency. “Hello, there, sorry to bother you, my father has just been fished from burning magma where he’s been trapped for months and he’s not feeling too chipper.” Think they have a pill for that or something?’
Darvill began to offer an apologetic reply, but stopped as Hood was racked with spasms again. He muttered and spat, looked heavenward and barked out staccato words. Seeming to pull himself together he stared into the mid-distance and said, ‘What would you have me do, exactly? We want the same thing, no? Leave me be.’ He snapped his eyes back to Darvill. ‘Caine. Tell me how you know him.’
‘Who were you talking to?’
‘That, son, is a longer story than I’m prepared to go into right now. Suffice to say that Alex Caine is the reason for all this.’ He gestured at himself, face twisting briefly into a grimace of pain. ‘Tell me your story.’
Darvill nodded and explained about Obsidian, from his initial efforts to track down his missing father, to his entrapment in the city with Alex Caine, to their subsequent escape. By the time he had finished, Hood had finally stopped drinking water and had managed to dress in some of Darvill’s clothes, khaki pants, white shirt, heavy leather boots. Father and son looked identical in clothing but so different in every other respect.
Jean Chang eyed them both, wondering who Darvill’s mother had been. She must have had strong genes. Both men were thin, but where Hood was scrawny and wan, Darvill was wiry and tanned. Hood was completely bald, had been even before his sojourn underground, while Darvill had shaggy sandy hair. But in the features they were most different. Hood’s small, dark eyes and upturned nose gave him a reptilian cast, mean and repellent. Darvill had stronger, more rugged features, a heavy brow, Roman nose.
Throughout Claude’s story, Hood had repeatedly fought off attacks like small se
izures, time and again muttering and arguing with himself in a language hard to hear, impossible to understand. The words were difficult to even conceive let alone decipher. Darvill would pause each time, back up to repeat the story, until eventually it was all out.
Hood nodded, his expression thoughtful. ‘You have some sympathy for Caine now?’ he asked. ‘Given that he saved you from this Obsidian place?’
Claude laughed. ‘You know, I did a little bit. He was a stand-up guy in there, did the best he could by everyone. And, let’s be honest, your methods of acquisition are often, shall we say, unsubtle.’
Hood nodded, flinched, smiled. ‘Granted.’
‘Yeah. So I thought maybe he had only been defending himself and had to kill you. I wasn’t happy about it, but if you were dead I would have to deal with that and do the best I could by the company. But now, after seeing what he actually did to you? Fuck him and the bitch he rode in on. I have no sympathy for that.’
‘Good. Because he did worse than kill me. He cursed me, in the most painful way possible. These months, which could have been years or minutes — in that kind of agony, time has no meaning — have been more than anyone should have to bear. I wished he had killed me. Every second down there, I wished he had killed me.’ Hood blanched and cramped up again. Muttered, swore. ‘But fuck him, you got me out.’
‘And do you think you’ll be okay?’
‘No, son, I will never be okay. But I will be a lot better when Caine is dead.’
Darvill nodded. ‘Then we can make that happen. I’ve kept vague tabs on him since the incident. With Jean’s help, we can track him down no problem, I’m sure.’
‘Good. We really need this one?’ Hood gestured to Jean and her stomach tightened.
Darvill looked from his father to Chang and back again. ‘We do. I rather like her.’
Hood made a face of disgust. ‘Hmm. Well, for now we’ll keep her. But I have a powerful killing urge and it won’t wait until we find Caine. I need to rend and destroy, Claude, so you two had better make that happen for me one way or another. Or at least, you’d best keep cleaning up behind me as we go.’
