by Alan Baxter
Silhouette and Alex laughed together. ‘Seriously, don’t worry about that,’ Alex said. ‘But why fucking hell?’
‘This is intricate stuff.’
Alex nodded ruefully. ‘Thanks to the Lady herself.’
Emma pursed her lips, held out one hand. ‘May I?’
‘Sure.’
She stood, moved around the table and put her palms flat on Alex’s chest. Her hands were hot, sent a thrill through him, but it was her arcane power that really buzzed. Emma closed her eyes and pushed and pulled against the magic that was wound through him like hundreds of metres of filament-thin wire. Eventually she stood back with a sigh. ‘I can undo this, but it’ll take time and I need help. Enjoy your tea. I’ll set up a lab and come back for you when the others get here.’
‘Others?’
‘The Commander has ordered in all the Fey experts. No one has quite the experience I do, but there are some skilled people in Britain and we’ll have to all muck in to unwrap that particular present. Chin up, we’ll fix you.’
Darvill watched his father with narrow eyes. Hood dug around in his penthouse suite desk. Behind him, the view from the top of Black Diamond Tower was impressive, across the Docklands of London. Claude had rarely been in the building, always kept at a remove from the business side of Hood’s operations. He wondered if he would ever get to be a field agent again. Or if Black Diamond would ever be the same with this new, changed Robert Hood.
‘Did you see their faces?’ Hood said with a chuckle as he rummaged.
‘I guess they never expected to see you again. I told them to invoke Lazarus, after all.’
‘Yes, well they know I’m back now.’
‘Well done not killing anyone, Dad. But I think you bloody terrified them.’
Hood laughed. ‘My staff are used to being terrified of me one way or another. But yes, I did very well not killing them. There’s hope for me yet, eh?’ He stiffened, head tipped back. Strange words slipped between clenched teeth and he slapped himself hard across one cheek. His body relaxed and he grinned. ‘Well, getting there, anyway.’
Darvill watched as his father continued to hunt. The man had been a painful absence in Claude’s childhood, then a hero of sorts once he took the grown Darvill under his wing. As if that wasn’t a conflicted enough state, now he was some kind of insane monster. Claude frowned. Just how much of the old Robert Hood was still in there? He shifted, felt the reassuring weight of the sword across his back. Then he remembered using that sword, against the Fey in Faerie, against that freaky bastard in Newtown, and smiled. He hoped there was enough of Robert Hood left, because if Claude Darvill was anything, he was his father’s son.
‘Ah, here it is.’ Hood shut the drawer and grabbed a small leather wallet from the desktop. ‘Right in bloody front of me. Come on then.’
Hood led the way back to the lift and an electronic pass from the wallet allowed him to select the lowest button on the lift’s panel, marked only with a combined Greek symbol.
‘The Alpha and Omega?’ Darvill asked.
‘The beginning and the end. It’s just private rooms, but it’s where any arcane activities outside the labs take place. Very private, very secure.’
The lift carried them down through the building, past all the office floors, beyond the car park levels, underground labs and warehouses, to the very deepest basement.
‘Just how arcane are you really?’ Darvill asked. ‘I remember growing up with Mum, on the few occasions you visited, you teaching me about business but encouraging my esoteric studies. You groomed me to be your man in the field all along. But are you really lacking in magic of your own?’
Hood smiled darkly. ‘I’ve dabbled, son, nothing more. It’s the power of the almighty currency I’ve always lusted after, you know that. And now …’ He drifted into silence.
‘And now?’ Claude prompted.
‘And now I have an even greater ability to get everything I want.’ He looked up, laughed. ‘You know, it’s slightly sad that I feel as though I’ll have to move away from running the business. Oh, don’t look so dismayed. The board can run this bloody place and it’ll always supply our financial needs. You can go back to what you love, finding me all those lovely things to trade. But I think I might move into a more active role in the outside world. I have a hankering to get my hands dirty more often. And perhaps we can do more of that together now, eh?’
The lift pinged, the doors slid open. They stepped out into a large open space, completely dark. Hood flicked a switch and soft lighting swelled from lights concealed in gaps where the walls met the ceiling. Everything was black, walls, floor and ceiling alike, no furniture of any kind. Hood’s phone beeped. ‘Yes.’ Pause. ‘Good, send them down. Yes, all the way to the bottom, it’s unlocked.’
‘You sure you can trust this team?’ Darvill asked.
Hood shrugged. ‘Who knows who you can trust these days? But they definitely know their business. Like I said, my best people are here. And we have no idea where in the world Caine will have emerged, so we may as well start where I’m most familiar with things.’
The lift opened and five people walked out, two women, three men, dressed in long black coats. They all wore sunglasses.
Darvill laughed. ‘What is this, the fucking Matrix?’
One of the men turned towards Hood with an angry expression. ‘If you don’t want our assistance …’
Hood waved a hand, laughed. ‘Settle down, everybody. We’re here to do a job. Claude, these people have considerable power. They’re here to help and they’re being paid very well for it. Set up your scrying. They’re your signal boost.’
Darvill shrugged. He moved to the middle of the room and sat on the floor, put his satchel on his lap. He removed the items he needed: crystal wand, chalk for marking sigils, the psychotropic drug that aided his work so well, concealed in capsules marked ‘vitamins’. His hand brushed against something sharp. ‘What’s this?’
He turned his satchel into the light, tipped open one edge for a closer look. His heart rate increased as he recognised the small electronic tracking device clipped under the satchel’s stitching. ‘Fucking Jean Chang!’ He held the chip up for his father to see.
Hood rumbled laughter in his chest. ‘Clever little bitch. What good will it do her?’
‘She could be moving against us somehow.’
‘It would be a bonus if she came to us, no?’
Claude shook his head, stared at the chip in disbelief. Chang had been so good, such a great assistant. He felt utterly betrayed. ‘No, not really, because she might come with trouble.’ He held up a hand. ‘I know, I know, you’re prepared to face anything. But I think we should keep every advantage we have.’ He put the chip onto the hard floor and ground a knuckle into it, crushing it beyond repair. ‘Enough spying on me, Chang!’ He was going to enjoy exacting his revenge on her. What a cheek, really, to be spying on him. On him! What did she think she could do? Maybe she had found some allies. Armour perhaps. No doubt whoever it was had been following their movements, but it would do her no good. He marked his sigils on the black floor, set up his divining circle.
When everything was ready, he turned to the five people standing impatiently behind him. ‘Sit around me and do your thing then. This is going to take considerable effort. And time.’
They moved into position, sat cross-legged on the floor. Darvill moved between them, drew lines from each in chalk, across and back. Eventually he had a pentacle marked out, each of the five sitting at a point and his own circle contained in the pentagon in the centre of the five-pointed star. He moved slowly around the group, drawing a final circle around the whole thing, containing them all within its boundary. He moved back to his central position and sat down.
‘Keep focused.’ He put a capsule in his mouth, bit down on it. Bitter powder scattered across his tongue. He sucked at it, swallowed repeatedly. He focused his attention on the psychic signatures of Alex and Silhouette, cast his mind out into the worl
d like a fisherman slinging a net. Only his net was incalculably massive. The world was more massive still, however, and he baulked at the thought of just how long this exercise might take. Cold momentum flooded his consciousness, wild and uncontrolled. As waves of psychedelic colour swam through his mind, rushes of ecstasy through his veins, he focused his magic. The power of the five people around him, their combined attention, amplified by his sigils and circles and his own skills, lifted him and rushed through. His mind expanded, became the world. He gasped, hung on to the sensation, forced his desire over the drug, the magic, the personalities of those helping. He leaned forward, placed his hands on the drawn symbols and searched the aether for Caine and Silhouette.
Within moments he cried out, surprise and confusion, gathered himself quickly so he didn’t lose his grip. He breathed deeply, controlled the energies, and tightened his focus. He had barely started searching. Was this really possible? He started to laugh, soft at first, rising to a deep, booming sound in the basement room.
Hood moved impatiently, his face furious. ‘What the fuck is going on?’
Darvill stood, the magic breaking, shattering away like glass behind a bullet. ‘They’re here. Right here in London!’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I think we just got very lucky, Dad. They’re in a complex of some sort, probably an Armour base. I could see right through the shields, the same style as Sydney. There’s an entry point beside the river, at Embankment. Not far from the London fucking Eye.’ He grinned broadly, rushing equally on the good news, the magic and the drug.
Hood’s concern spread into a grin of his own. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Without a doubt.’
‘Ha! Excellent! Well, we’ll be off in just a moment then.’ He turned to the five mages seated around Darvill’s markings, all looking up at the pair with confused expressions. They had certainly expected a much longer job. Hood walked to the nearest one and crouched, hooked one elbow below the man’s chin. Before he could protest, Hood wrapped his other arm around the man’s chest and wrenched his elbow up, tearing the man’s head off. Fountains of blood arced across the room.
The remaining four leapt up in a panic, frantically uttering the words of spells. One drew a revolver and pumped bullets uselessly into Hood’s chest, her eyes wide in shock. Darvill ducked, moved to block the lift, the only way out. As one mage bolted from the group towards the elevator, Darvill whipped the sword free over his shoulder and separated the man in two above the hips. The mage’s face was a mask of utter bewilderment as he died. Darvill shook his head, half smiling. ‘This is why you insisted we do this here,’ he muttered and crouched to avoid another burst of gunfire and blasts of arcane fire while his father had his fun.
18
Alex felt like a lab rat, stretched out on a cold metal table. He grimaced at the discomforting sensation of threads of magic being drawn from his body, like worms coaxed from the earth. But he watched intently, studied the shades and magesign to learn the complexities. He would never be a victim to this entrapment again. And he began to learn the flavour of the Lady’s sorcery from watching its deconstruction. That would potentially be useful against further enchantments and spells she threw at him. But it was such an unpleasant sensation.
‘Stop wriggling!’ Emma’s voice was sharp, but her face remained calm, eyes closed. ‘You make it harder. Just lie still.’
Alex calmed his breathing, tried to sink into a meditative state despite Emma’s intimate ministrations. ‘Sorry.’
Three other operatives around the room concentrated, lent Emma their power and focus, amplified her ability, juggling the arcane threads between them like a complex, etheric dance. Silhouette paced impatiently near the door, refusing to leave, but told in no uncertain terms by Emma to keep out of the way.
‘This is just the most amazing enchantment,’ Emma muttered, almost to herself. She was clearly impressed. ‘It’s intricate and really quite beautiful.’
‘But you can clear it all?’ Alex asked.
‘Yes, yes, of course. Just takes time. It’s like unpicking a series of knots in fishing line, but the line is finer than hair and the knots are buried throughout your body. I wish I had more time to study this before I removed it.’
‘Don’t you dare! Please. Just free me.’ Alex winced at the desperation in his voice. Magic was something relatively new in his life, but it was a part of him and he wanted to be himself again, back in control. The weakness, the vulnerability, was more than he could bear.
‘Hush, I’m working as fast as I can. I know there’s more at stake here.’
Alex gasped as something burst free, the shards of the Darak suddenly warming and pulsing. Emma made a noise of satisfaction.
‘Feel better?’ she asked.
‘Definitely.’ He tested the boundaries of the enchantment, felt his arcane energies move more freely. But they were still trapped.
‘Easy, tiger,’ Emma said. ‘Don’t push against me. That’s only one part of many. But I’m getting the measure of it now. Patience.’
She worked on, the other operatives concentrating hard to balance and steady her efforts. They all had sweat standing out on their brows, all began to frown with the exertion as time passed. More and more ganglions of the Lady’s binding sprang free. Every time, Alex felt his strength returning, his abilities re-establishing themselves. He saw how the thing worked and marvelled at its intricacy. His body ached. The removal of each strand of shackling left behind a deep, bruised sensation in his very nerves as well as his flesh. He wanted to stretch and move, use his muscles to physically shift the inertia building through his limbs.
‘Keep still, damn you!’ Emma Parker’s frown was deep, her concentration total.
‘Sorry, sorry.’
Movement at the door deepened Parker’s frown. Alex didn’t dare move, but heard a whispered conversation and Silhouette’s constrained noise of joy.
‘I’ll be right back,’ Sil said. ‘Jarrod’s here!’
The door clicked closed before Alex could reply. He was pleased for her, and, if he was honest, pleased for himself too. The big Maori had been invaluable in Obsidian. He was glad to have the man around again.
Pain lanced through his chest, made him arch involuntarily off the metal surface. He cried out, drowning Emma’s shout of surprise. She barked orders at the operatives around her and Alex felt incomprehensible magic wrap around him.
‘Contain that shit!’ Emma screamed, her demure English demeanour shattered with her frenzy. ‘If you let that out, it’ll tear him apart.’
Alex’s veins swelled and bulged, his joints popped and shifted. Fire burned through every fibre of his muscles. He bucked and squirmed on the table, ground his teeth, sounds of agony escaping his throat. ‘The fuck is happening?’ he managed, but no one answered.
‘Hold him still!’
More people burst into the room and heavy hands slammed Alex down, held him fast. Emma Parker leapt up, straddled his legs, hands on top of each other over the Darak like she was about to start CPR. Her face was a mask of furious concentration and her magic fell over him like a blanket. She probed and pushed, her mind chasing something unseen and unknown but excruciatingly painful through his body.
‘Help me!’ Parker said through clenched teeth.
The arcane energies of her assistants intensified. Alex felt their strain, knew they were all close to breaking point, like a wire stretched so taut it might snap with a metallic twang any second and whip and curl away.
Through the pain he tried to feel what they were chasing, tried to get a grip on whatever ran rampant in his body. Something like a spark rushing along the length of a dynamite fuse arced through his chest, burned into the shards of the Darak. He howled in pain, the incinerating heat of it almost stripping his consciousness away. He refused to pass out, pressed back against the darkness closing in from the edges of his vision and mentally clamped down on the rogue enchantment.
‘That’s it!’ Emma cried
triumphantly. ‘Hold that fucker still!’
Her eyes were wide now, but she looked well beyond his body, deep into some eldritch realm. Her magic was powerful, the pressure of her will soaking over his own in a tidal wave of intent. She reared up, knees astride his hips, arms raised high like she was about to slam down onto him, but she froze there, her concentration acute, diamond hard and focused. The fire in Alex’s chest pulsed left and right, strained for an exit like a cat trying to bolt a closed room. Emma’s mind refused to let it go. She slowly brought her hands together, like she was crushing a giant ball between her palms, and the magic screeched and thrashed against her. But her will was stronger. She compressed it away to an incandescent point and tore it from him.
She staggered back off the bed and Alex rolled onto his side, curled up in a foetal ball, gasping for breath. Slowly, the burning subsided. The other operatives around the room fell to their knees or collapsed back against the wall, sweat-streaked and fighting to breathe.
Emma moved around to look Alex in the eye. Her short brown hair was plastered to her forehead, but her eyes were alive as she smiled. ‘That was bloody amazing. You okay?’
Alex nodded, slowly unfurled his body. He sat up, pressed a hand to his chest. His body surged with his own power and he realised all the Lady’s magic was gone. ‘You did it!’ He grabbed Emma and pulled her into a rough hug.
‘Steady on, sunshine.’ Emma pushed him off, but her grin was forgiving. ‘In truth, we did it. I couldn’t have held on to that without you. That was some bloody strong juju.’
‘I’m so glad to be free of it.’
‘You’re all back to normal?’
Alex shrugged. ‘I think so. Hang on.’ He gathered his power, drew against his elemental expertise and sought all the heat in the room, the air dropping to a chill. He agitated it into a single point in his palm and threw a fireball against the wall. Flames burst and curled back on themselves, heat pulsing forth like an explosion. With a laugh, he changed tack, drew air away from the fire and it popped out, deprived of fuel. The room was suddenly very warm and dry. Everyone backed away, eyes wary. Except Emma, who stayed right beside him, one eyebrow raised.
