by Alan Baxter
‘Dad, get a grip. I just pulled you from magma. You’re hardly in a position to be making demands of me now! Show some gratitude.’
‘Oh really?’ Hood stood up, flinched, and backhanded Darvill across the cheek before his son could react. ‘You always were a difficult child.’
Darvill’s eyes flashed fury. ‘What the fuck would you know? It’s hardly like you were ever around.’
‘We really going to bicker about this now?’ Hood roared. ‘Or shall I just kill her?’
Claude cast Jean an apologetic look. ‘Let’s all try to stay calm. We’ll do what we can for you, but leave her alone.’
‘For now, I will. Let’s go.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? We’re going to find Alex fucking Caine. You tell me where that is.’ Hood doubled over again, stood abruptly and shouted broken words. He turned away and slammed punches repeatedly into the wall of the cave. Every strike chipped out chunks and flakes of rock, but Hood’s hands were unblemished. Tipping his head back with a roar, he dragged hooked fingers like claws through the rock wall, leaving channels an inch deep in the stone.
Darvill turned to Chang. ‘You’d better see what you can do about tracking Alex Caine. Start with the file on my laptop called “Caine”. Quickly.’
Jean nodded and hurried away, stomach churning. What the hell was happening here? She wondered how she might extricate herself from this situation. She thought of her maternal aunt in the countryside north of Guangzhou and decided that might be just far enough away to serve as a place to hide.
9
Silhouette reached the end of her story and night had settled deep and black around them. A streetlamp glowed a sick orange on the bend of the coast path some fifty metres away, seeming a world unto itself. She felt dirty, a betrayer. Kreek’s attention had been rapt as she explained the Darak stone Alex bore and their suspicions of how the Fey used it. He made her backtrack and explain what happened in Obsidian. If anything, one thing she felt slightly better about was her previous concern that she was being played. Kreek’s joy at hearing the tale seemed truly open, uncontrived. She wondered again just what his story was, but he seemed genuinely thrilled at the strife Alex had caused Faerie. He seemed to at least partly share her disdain for the Other Folk, his own kind. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, she thought wryly, and questioned the dangerous illogic of that old chestnut.
‘And that’s all I can tell you,’ she finished. ‘I’m convinced they’ve abducted Alex and they’re going to try to separate him from the stone. I need to get to him before they do, because if the process doesn’t kill him, they will as soon as they have what they want.’
Kreek chuckled. ‘I doubt it. I’m sure they’ll do all they can to split Alex from the Darak and keep him alive for many years of suffering and torture. No one does things against the Fey like your Alex has and gets away with it. Especially against the Lady.’
Silhouette flinched at the thought. ‘I have to get to him. Save him.’
Kreek nodded, rested his chin on the points of his fingers as he looked out over the dark ocean. Silhouette’s sharp Kin night vision plainly revealed the lascivious smile he wore in the darkness. A gentle sugary aroma seemed to hang around them, reminiscent of the cloying thickness of the air in Crabapple’s office. Where it had been overwhelming while Kreek wore his natural form, now it was subtle, almost pleasant. Almost. She wondered if all Fey smelled this way, even in their human disguises, the scent reduced, but not gone. But it would only take a bit of cologne to mask it.
‘I will help you,’ the Fey said eventually. ‘I actually hope you succeed, as I’ve never seen anyone do anything before that would upset the Lady like the things you’ve described.’
‘You keep mentioning this Lady,’ Silhouette said. ‘Who is she?’
‘Faerie is a chaotic land, mostly untamed madness. But, in as much as any kind of order exists, a large part of it is ruled by the Lord and Lady of the Fey. The Lord sleeps, has done for countless centuries for the benefit of all Folk, but the Lady still commands there. At least, she commands those among the Fey who have decided to be her faithful. Nothing is absolute in Faerie and there are regions where the Lady is not known, I’m sure. It’s a lawless place for the most part, but many Fey defer to the Lady and her unnatural magical ability. No one has ever commanded the kind of arcane strength she wields. Except the Lord, who is more powerful still by all accounts.’ Kreek chuckled softly. ‘I don’t miss her rule, that much I can tell you. She is a capricious and twisted monarch. Regardless, suffice to say the Lady will be the one who has been orchestrating the events you’ve described, and she will be the one most aggrieved by Alex’s actions.’
‘And she has Alex now?’ Silhouette asked.
‘Almost certainly. And she’s the one from under whose nose you will have to try to steal him. Can you imagine how hard that will be?’
Silhouette felt despair rising and refused to give in to it. ‘Are there others like you in Faerie? Who might help me?’
‘Possibly. Who knows? I can get you there, and I can give you a couple of tips on how to survive and navigate. But as for what you’ll find along the way? That’s your journey.’
A woman strolled along the coast path, her demeanour confident. She was good looking in a dark way, face angular, framed by long black hair. She wore tight jeans and jacket, also black. Silhouette eyed her sideways, suspicious of everyone. Was this Armour come to drag her back?
‘Hello, Magdalena,’ Kreek said. ‘Just in time.’
Magdalena tipped her head in greeting. ‘How are you?’
‘Perfectly well, thank you.’
‘And this is the foolish girl in question?’ Magdalena eyed Silhouette up and down. Her gaze was like that of an adult surveying an unruly child.
Silhouette tried to feel the woman’s nature. She certainly emanated age and power, but it was hard to place. ‘Who the fuck are you calling a foolish girl?’
Magdalena smiled. ‘You want to go to the Other Lands, therefore you are foolish. You are female and young, therefore you are a girl.’
Silhouette snorted. ‘I might look young, but I’ve been around a while.’ Who the fuck was this woman?
Magdalena sneered, shook her head. ‘Don’t patronise me, you fool. I know exactly what you are. Do you have any clue of what I am?’ She leaned forward and hissed, long canines extending from her upper jaw as her face hardened, eyes elongating into slits. She stood back, her face normal again.
Silhouette was confused. ‘You’re not Kin, but only Kin act like that.’
The woman tipped her head back and laughed. ‘You think Kin playing at being vampires are the only ones? Those try-hards should get a life.’ She grinned at her own joke.
‘There are no actual vampires,’ Silhouette said. ‘It’s just a Kin affectation.’
Kreek laughed softly. ‘Well, yes, a lot of Kin live as affected vampires. It’s a fashion choice. But the educated Kin knows there is such a thing as the real undead too — true vampires who stalk the night. Magdalena here is walking proof of that.’
‘Seems you don’t know half as much as you think you do,’ Magdalena said.
Silhouette scowled. The dig about educated Kin had not escaped her notice. She was well aware of the shortcomings in her knowledge of her own kind, but every Kin she had ever known in her long life had thought vampirism only a Kin lifestyle. She wondered what Kreek considered an educated Kin. She wondered too just how much had been kept from her, or how much knowledge she had arrogantly assumed without much evidence to back it up. She hated the way this bastard and Magdalena made her feel like a child. She had hundreds of years under her belt, for fuck’s sake. It was a reminder that no matter how long someone lived, there was always something more to learn. ‘I’ve been a pariah most of my life, so yes, I’m sure there’s a lot I don’t know, much I haven’t been told.’ Refusing to be shown up in her embarrassment she went on the attack.
‘What the fuck is this blood drinker doing here anyway?’
Magdalena hissed again and Kreek held up a hand. ‘Please, ladies, enough. You need to get to the Other Lands and that can only be achieved in certain places. Magdalena is here to take you to one of those places, as they repel Fey on anything but thin days. Don’t ask me to explain why, it’s one of the many mysteries surrounding the strange relationship between this realm and Faerie. Maybe you can ask the Lady when you see her. It will ward off the Fey aspect of you too, so you’ll have to fight to get in.’
Silhouette let out an expansive breath. She nodded towards Magdalena. ‘Fine, thank you.’
The vampire smiled thinly, her eyes narrow. ‘We don’t have to be friends. I’ll show you where to go, but I don’t plan to stick around.’
‘Fine.’ Silhouette turned back to Kreek. ‘So what do I need to know?’
Kreek took a small box from his pocket and opened the lid. Inside, nestled in dark silks, was a small ring, silver with tiny runes exquisitely carved all around it. ‘This is an amulet that will help you pass through Fey portals. It will also help to enhance your Fey nature. The spell is bound into the ring. Once you wear it, the enchantment will become part of you. Don’t lose this. It will help you find portals back again, should you survive long enough to seek one.’
Silhouette took the ring, slipped it onto her index finger. It was a snug fit; she certainly wouldn’t lose it. A buzz of magic, sweet and oily and unmistakably Fey, gusted through her hand and up her arm. She fought a powerful urge to rip the thing from her hand. ‘I don’t like how this feels,’ she said.
Kreek smiled at her viciously. ‘Good. That means it’s working. I encourage you to accept that, if you hope to survive over there. The only other advice I have for you is this: seek the ice mountain and the palace atop it. That’s where the Lady lives and is almost certainly where Alex is being held. I doubt I’ll ever see you again, but if you do make it back, remember our agreement. You can find me through Crabapple. I’ll know too, so don’t try to hide from me should you return.’ Without waiting for an answer, Kreek stood and walked away to the south.
Silhouette sat on the bench, somewhat stunned. Something dark and malevolent swelled in her, like the feeding urge, only deeper. She swallowed, steeled herself. I am a powerful motherfucking Kin and I do not take shit from anyone, she reminded herself. ‘All right, then.’ She turned to Magdalena. ‘Shall we? Is it far?’
Magdalena smiled, gestured northwards along the coast path. ‘This way.’
They walked in silence. Silhouette wanted to engage the vampire in conversation, prove she wasn’t in fear of the nightwalker, but the truth was that she did harbour serious concerns. Magdalena was an unknown quantity, an untested power. It was hard enough getting her head around the idea that there were actual vampires in the world. She decided a stony silence was equally effective. Let this creature show her what she needed, then forget her.
‘You’re quite brave, you know,’ Magdalena said.
So much for a stony silence. ‘That right?’
‘Yes. You’re an idiot, but you’re brave. I respect that.’
Well, bully for this bitch. ‘I’m glad you do.’ Silhouette really had no idea how to respond.
‘You must really love him,’ Magdalena said.
They rounded the headland, headed down towards Bronte township, the small beach deep in shadow below the pathway. ‘Yes,’ Silhouette said. ‘I really do.’
Magdalena sighed wistfully. ‘I’d like a love like that some day.’
Silhouette barely managed to contain a derisive laugh and realised the vampire was being absolutely serious. The weight of her love for Alex hit her like an out of control truck. ‘Is it far?’ she asked, to cover her sudden rush of emotion.
Magdalena pointed across the park behind the beach. ‘Up there, through the bush reserve. Only a few hundred metres. Probably why Kreek chose to meet you here.’
‘And to give me his little ocean lecture.’
‘What was that?’
Silhouette did laugh this time. ‘Nothing that bears repeating.’
Magdalena chuckled and Silhouette glanced across at her. Were they suddenly friends now, united by an understanding of deep love? Fuck that. They walked on in silence and strolled into the dark of the trees behind Bronte park. A small gully with a creek through the middle ran back, narrowing as it rose towards the densely populated urban centre, where the truly wealthy could afford coastal Sydney property and daring renters hung on to tatty Art Deco apartments in crumbling blocks.
Before they reached the steps leading up out of the valley, Magdalena turned up the south slope and led the way to a natural clearing, raised a few metres above the gully floor. A huge Port Jackson fig tree filled one end of the clearing, its massive buttress roots like wooden waves.
Silhouette felt a nauseating shift in her gut and chest. The ring on her finger grew warm and pulsed something greasy through her. Her vision sharpened and she felt both emboldened and scared, but another sensation rose — a malevolence, a desire to fuck things up, to kill and confound. She realised this was the enhancement of her Fey nature Kreek had warned her about. What bothered her most was how much she liked the feeling. Her eye was drawn to the deep buttress roots of the fig tree. She moved towards it.
‘Wait!’ Magdalena’s voice was urgent, tinged with fear. ‘Don’t open that thing while I’m here.’
Silhouette paused, looked back over her shoulder. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘Yes, you do. You’ll feel it as you approach. But push on. The Fey part of you is what gives you knowledge of it, but it will also be repelled because this is not a thin day. The human part of you would not be able to find this place, but it won’t be pushed away. Do you understand?’
‘Not really.’
Magdalena laughed. ‘You’ll figure it out. Think of it like a recipe, where you have to get the proportions of ingredients just right. Good luck.’
Without waiting for an answer, Magdalena turned and seemed to fold in on herself in shadow. She moved preternaturally fast and Silhouette sensed more than saw her run out of the gully to the east.
Silhouette turned back to the tree. So, she needed to juggle the human and Fey aspects of herself. She walked forward, let her Fey nature rise, simultaneously repulsed and excited by it. A pressure built against her as she moved, pushed her away. She forced down the rising Fey nature, concentrated on her humanity, on her love for Alex, her need to get through. The pressure eased and she moved forward again. It took several attempts, back and forth, but she slowly made her way between the roots. As she began to wonder what would happen next, the tree split from the ground up with a deafening rip. A deep blackness welled from within. The ring seemed to grip her finger, burning hot. She pushed against the repulsion of her darker nature, tried to hold down the fear rising through her and pushed forward.
‘Fuck you all!’ she yelled, stepped into the darkness and fell.
Jean Chang barely held back tears as Darvill made phone calls to organise disposal of the body. Hood sat on the edge of the hotel bed, glistening red, grinning maniacally.
‘Did you not enjoy that?’ he asked.
Chang gripped her teeth together to avoid screaming.
The young man who had wheeled in the room service trolley lay outlined by a quickly spreading pool of his own blood, almost black against the dark carpet. Hood had simply reached up and torn the man’s throat out with his bare hand. He had tipped his head back in laughter as arterial spray painted the bed, the floor and Hood himself.
Hood’s bloodstained visage was demonic in the low light. ‘I asked you a question, bitch!’
‘No, sir,’ Jean said quickly. ‘I did not enjoy that.’
Hood laughed again before twitching and curling in on himself. He fell back onto the bed in a foetal ball and muttered under his breath.
Darvill hung up the phone and turned to Chang. ‘Someone is coming. Thankfully we have contacts everywhere.�
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‘I can’t do this,’ Jean said, swallowing against a rising urge to vomit. Her heart hammered in her chest. ‘I did not sign up for this.’
Darvill nodded, looked down at the dead man. ‘I have to be honest, it’s not what I expected either. My father is certainly … changed.’ He snapped his head back up, his gaze intense. ‘But you’ve seen everything.’
Jean shook her head, eyes wide.
Darvill reached out, pressed his index finger against her lips. ‘It’s not an option to go anywhere, Ms Chang. You’re in or you’re out. And by out …’
Hood was suddenly beside her. She hadn’t seen him move. The man’s blood-spattered face was perfectly calm. ‘By out, he means dead. By my hand. You would not believe how strong the urge is to kill. Even now, right this very second, I’m desperately resisting the strong desire to snap your pretty neck!’
Chang knew a no-win situation when she saw one. She had survived many a corporate meeting by remaining cool when things appeared to be falling down around her. This was no different. She willed herself to believe this was no different. ‘Okay, fine, no problem. Then I’m in.’
Hood hissed and spun away, moved jerkily around the room like a marionette with a speed-freak operating his strings.
Claude smiled. ‘Good girl. I’m glad, because I need you. You really on board?’ His eyes were hard.
Jean nodded, for the moment not trusting her voice.
‘Good. Now we obviously have something to deal with here.’
Chang glanced at the man on the floor, his ruined throat, his dull, staring eyes.
Darvill flapped a hand. ‘Not that fucker, that’s dealt with. Which, incidentally, should have been your job. I don’t intend to do your work again.’
She nodded, far too much, far too fast. ‘No, fine, okay. Sorry, it was all a bit sudden. I won’t let you down again.’
