by Alan Baxter
‘What the bloody hell was that?’
Alex smiled, looked away from her haughty expression. ‘That, Emma, was really, really good. Thank you.’
She shook her head. ‘I’d rather you kept that to …’
Her words were lost in a blaring alarm and flashing red lights. A brash voice burst from hidden speakers. ‘Breach! Breach! Breach!’
Alex stumbled to his feet, pulled on the black combats, T-shirt and boots he had been given. ‘What the hell is happening?’
Emma ran to a desk on one side of the room and talked urgently into an intercom. Sounds of screaming and gunfire erupted from the other end of the complex. ‘We seem to be under attack! No one is answering. This way.’
She dragged Alex across the room and jumped back as the door burst open. Silhouette appeared, Jarrod a hulking presence behind her and beside him a small Asian woman with an expression of terror. ‘It’s Hood,’ Silhouette said, eyes wide.
Alex’s mind tumbled over in neutral. ‘The fuck? How did he find us?’
‘How did he find this base, let alone you?’ Emma demanded. Her face changed, a decision made. ‘Irrelevant. They’re here and getting closer. We need to get you out.’ She gestured to the other operatives in the room. ‘You lot, that way and intercept. Alex, you and your friends, this way.’ She pushed past Silhouette and moved along the corridor away from the sounds of mayhem.
Alex paused in the doorway, torn. ‘I have to finish him!’
Silhouette shook her head. ‘Not here. Not now. You haven’t had a chance to recover.’
‘Emma undid the magic, I have my power back.’
‘You remember Iceland?’ Silhouette said. ‘What it took to take him down? And what he is now? Fuck, Alex, we don’t know what he is now. This is not the time or place for a battle.’
Alex started and stopped several replies, frustration grinding his mind to a halt. He knew Silhouette was right, but he wanted Hood finished so badly. And how many more were dying right now?
Emma Parker strode back to them and slapped Alex hard across the cheek. His skin sang with pain as she winced and shook her hand. ‘I did not just spend three hours unbinding you so you could waltz to your bloody death! This way!’
Alex nodded. He couldn’t really argue with that.
They ran, Jean Chang following Emma Parker, Alex and Silhouette behind her, with Jarrod bringing up the rear.
‘Good to see you again,’ Jarrod said with a wide grin. ‘You are nothing if not exciting company.’
Alex cast a rueful look back over his shoulder. ‘Life and soul of the fucking party, that’s me.’
A stutter of quick explosions rocked the complex, resounding in their ears with concussion. The corridors rang with shouts, screams, gunfire and bursts of arcane energy. Alex grimaced — more lives taken at his expense. How much more blood on his hands?
Parker led the way into a room at the end of the corridor and shut the door behind them, locked it. She shifted a desk to reveal a trapdoor in the floor. She turned a sweet smile to Jarrod. ‘Be a dear, would you? Bloody heavy, that is.’
With a nod, Jarrod stepped up and hauled the trapdoor open with a grunt. Old stone steps led down into darkness. Emma pulled a mini Maglite torch from her pocket and started down.
‘Close it behind us.’
Alex let the others go ahead of him while Jarrod held the way open. He paused.
‘Go on, bro,’ Jarrod said.
Alex looked back towards the corridor, tried to see through the walls awash with flashing red, tried to hear over the wailing klaxons. ‘They destroyed Sydney,’ he said, bereft. ‘Now they’re here. How many are dying?’
Jarrod put one large hand on his shoulder. ‘As many as it takes for us to get away.’
Alex winced. ‘Why am I worth that?’
‘Can you imagine anyone else able to stop them? But you have to prepare. Now isn’t the time. They’re right.’ He nodded down the steps towards Emma and Silhouette. ‘Trust them. Trust me. We will avenge every death, my friend.’
With a shout of impotent rage Alex turned and hurried down into the cool depths under the base. Jarrod followed him, slammed the heavy door behind him and plunged everything into a stygian black. They ran to catch up to Emma’s dancing flashlight beam ahead.
Claude Darvill leaned against a flame-scorched wall, panting for breath. His right hand gripped his left shoulder where a bullet had scored a deep furrow through the flesh. Blood oozed between his fingers. Something burned on his back, an eldritch heat, and his right ear rang with a sound that blanked out anything else on that side. His sword hung in his left hand, covered with the blood of Armour operatives. Bodies lay hacked and torn to pieces all around him. He wondered how many had died since he had released his father. The thought was both empowering and frightening. How long could he survive these incursions against trained and dangerous professionals? It was only by using his father as a shield that he had avoided more damage and now he simply waited while the indestructible Hood rampaged. His father might be unstoppable, but Darvill himself was fragile flesh.
He wondered again where all this would lead. What would happen once Caine was eliminated? That driving urge clearly usurped any other thought in his father’s mind, but there had to be something after Caine. Perhaps he should go it alone once more, liaise with Black Diamond and get on with his own life while his dad got on with his. Whatever that might mean.
There was certainly a thrill and a sense of power to their current activity. Given that Hood was literally untouchable, there seemed to be nothing he couldn’t do. Some had managed to slow Hood with magical attacks, but even those were watered down against the man’s abilities. Thanks to his passenger, apparently. And that terrified Claude.
He tensed, flicked the sword back into his right hand and crouched as movement caught his eye through the swirling smoke and dust. A middle-aged man in a suit walked into view, but he moved strangely. Hood appeared behind, his hand locked about the back of the man’s neck.
‘Tell him what you told me,’ Hood barked.
The man tried to look around, winced as Hood crunched his neck in vice-like fingers. ‘I don’t know where he is!’
Darvill raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t know where Alex Caine is?’
‘No idea.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘No, seriously, I need something to call you.’
The man shook his head, his eyes showing he had already accepted defeat. ‘For what it’s worth, my name is Crookshank. But I’d rather not hear that pass your lips.’
Darvill laughed, genuinely amused by the fellow. He imagined him on a country estate, shooting grouse and guffawing at jokes about the plebs. ‘I know for a fact Caine was here.’
The man sneered. ‘Bully for you, you fucking psychopath!’
He howled, arms curling up, fingers clawing at the air as Hood wrenched his neck again.
‘Keep him alive a moment longer, Dad.’ Darvill drew the preternaturally sharp edge of his sword across Crookshank’s collarbone. The blade sank through skin and deep into the bone, blood welling out to soak the man’s shirt. He howled again. ‘Mr Crookshank, I need to know where Alex Caine is.’
Crookshank’s face was suddenly furious, his eyes alive with passion. ‘I know who you are, Darvill. You will be stopped!’
Before Claude could say or do anything in response, Crookshank grabbed his wrist and twisted the sword around. He lunged forward, planted the point into the side of his chest and threw himself into it. He gasped and gargled blood as the blade punched through and out the other side.
Hood jumped, dropped Crookshank as he looked with strange curiosity at his arm. The sword point had caught him just below the elbow and there was a tiny puncture in the skin. No blood, simply a gap. It closed over almost instantly.
Crookshank collapsed to the floor, shivering and spasming, clawing at his ribs where the sword hilt was lodged. His eyes were wide, his breat
h wet and short. He struggled a few moments more and fell still.
Claude leaned down, retrieved his weapon. ‘Well, that’s bloody annoying. Gotta say, that’s some impressive strength of will, doing that.’
Hood nodded absently, still looking at his arm. ‘That bloody thing cut me.’
Darvill deliberately avoided his father’s eye. ‘Yeah. It made a small mark in your neck that first time too. You didn’t notice that?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
Darvill shrugged. ‘Both times it’s healed up immediately. This thing rends people in half with barely any effort at all. You saw how easily it went through him. Hardly a surprise it can nick you.’
Hood’s face darkened. ‘Nick me? Nothing should be able to damage me. I burned for months in fucking magma and nothing happened.’
Darvill wiped the blade on Crookshank’s suit, slipped it back into the scabbard across his back. ‘This is no normal weapon, Dad.’
‘We need to destroy it. Anything that can hurt me needs to be destroyed.’
Darvill laughed, desperate to head off his father’s attention to the only thing that gave him any comfort. ‘Sure. But let’s be done with Caine first, yeah? I feel like I need something up to the job of dealing with him and his Kin bitch. Let’s make sure that situation is dealt with and then you can have the sword. Do what you like with it.’
Hood’s eyes narrowed. ‘You wouldn’t be thinking of using it against your old dad, would you, Claude?’
‘As if I’d have a chance! You saw how little damage it did to you. That would have gone right through a normal arm. It sinks through bone like butter. You’d tear me to pieces long before I’d caused you any grief. And besides, you just heal up instantly.’ He laughed, realising the truth of his words as he said them. This sword was useless against his father. He laughed again. ‘Anyway, you’re my dad! We’re on the same team here. I don’t want to hurt you. We’re un-fucking-stoppable, right?’
Hood twitched, slapped at his face again, an action that was becoming something of a habit. He muttered, looked around wildly, muttered again. He turned back to Darvill as if nothing had happened. ‘We really are quite the team. But if I ever ask for that sword, you’ll give it to me.’
‘Sure. But I’d really rather hang on to it. It’s a powerful weapon and I need something like it to defend myself, given what we’re up against.’ He gestured around at the fallen Armour operatives. ‘You know, it can deflect magical attacks?’
‘Can it?’
‘Yeah, just discovered that aspect now. You know how the Jedi in Star Wars deflect blaster shots with their light sabres? It’s like that. It’s amazing.’
Hood tipped his head to one side. ‘I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.’ He turned away, their conversation seemingly forgotten. ‘So, he’s not here.’
Darvill nodded, lips pursed. ‘He most definitely was here, but once we moved I couldn’t keep him in mind as easily. The wards here are strong, I have to stop and concentrate to see through them. So either they left before we got here, or somehow escaped while we fought our way in.’
Hood punched a wall. It was solid brick, but his fist went right through, showers of stone and clouds of dust bursting around it. ‘Fucking hell! Well, we’ll have to find him again. We know he’s in London at least, yes?’
‘He is right now. They haven’t had time to get far.’
‘So you can use your divination stuff to find him again, without the need for extra help.’
Darvill smiled. ‘Yep. Just as well, considering you decimated the help.’
Hood laughed, flapped a hand dismissively. ‘I’m sure we could find more if we wanted.’
19
Alex picked up the cool pint glass and took a long draft of beer. He had never been a big drinker. Staying in shape, in control, being a fighter, had always been his driving passion. But a few drinks right about now seemed like a good idea. The others around the table nervously drank their own brews. Jarrod and Jean Chang huddled over a tablet, tapping and frowning. Alex and Silhouette kept their eyes on Emma Parker. She spoke softly and quickly into her phone, nodded regularly.
Eventually she hung up, took a deep breath and downed her double gin and tonic in one gulp. ‘Bloody lovely,’ she muttered. ‘Just a minute.’ She went back to the bar.
‘Not going to tell us what she learned?’ Silhouette mused.
Alex smiled, despite the recent trauma. This Emma was a good person to have along, a grounding influence.
Jarrod and Jean Chang looked up from the fingerprint-smudged tablet, clearly frustrated.
‘Well?’ Alex asked.
‘Definitely lost touch,’ Chang said, frowning. She seemed on the verge of tears.
Jarrod put a protective arm around her, massive across her too thin shoulders. ‘We knew we’d lost them in Australia, but they obviously made quick work of getting here. The tech is certainly top notch, but not good enough to track over that kind of distance. It can definitely track within a few hundred kilometres, though, and we know they’re not that far away. So we’ve lost them.’
‘Tech failure?’ Alex asked.
Jean shrugged. ‘Maybe. But I doubt it. It’s robust stuff. I suspect Claude finally found the bug and destroyed it. I’m surprised I got away with it this long really. Which means he knows I betrayed him.’
Silhouette reached across, patted Chang’s hand. ‘You’d already run out on him. Betrayal enough, I’m sure. You did the right thing.’
The tears breached. ‘I helped him release Hood!’ The strain in Chang’s voice was heartbreaking.
Alex moved around the table to sit beside her. ‘You may have helped, but he would have done it without you. Can you tell me everything that’s happened, so we’re all up to speed?’
Chang sniffed, nodded, told them the whole story. While she spoke, Emma Parker returned with a tray of drinks. Once the drinks were delivered, Parker began incanting something. Alex tried to ignore the magesign buzzing around the table while he listened to Jean’s story. Emma built protective wards around them all.
When Jean’s tale was finished, Alex nodded. ‘Can you imagine what it’s like for Hood to have that influence inside him? It was bad enough when it affected me from that infernal book. But I’ve trapped it in him and it can’t get out. It can’t move from one inanimate item to another like it used to. It’s stuck in him and he’s indestructible.’ He sank his head into his hands. ‘What the fuck have I done?’
‘You did the right thing,’ Jean said. ‘It was Darvill and me who let him out!’
Alex looked up, stared hard at Jean Chang. ‘Darvill let him out. You were ignorant to what was happening. It’s his fault. Not yours. You’re trying to make it right now. That’s all that matters.’
‘I always knew I worked for a company that was less than altruistic. But this …’
Emma Parker downed another G & T and slapped a palm on the table. ‘Shut up, all of you. There’s no time for this bloody melancholy. We’re all up to speed on where we stand and that’s where we stand. Lamenting how the bloody hell we got here and whose fault it might be is fucking silly.’ She blinked, clearly more affected by the alcohol than she was prepared to admit. ‘We’ve all had some serious shocks recently, not the least of which is the utter destruction of the oldest fucking Armour base in history. London is decimated, we know that. I’ve just spoken to Edinburgh and York, the other major bases in Britain. They’re on the case, trying to track Hood, formulate plans and what have you. They’re also thinking about the Fey threat, which is something we need to be aware of too.’
Alex winced. ‘When’s the next thin day?’
‘Comet transition. Friday.’
Alex blanched, eyes going wide. ‘Friday? That’s less than a week!’
‘What’s a comet transition?’ Jean asked. ‘And why is it a thin day?’
‘Any day of cosmic significance is a thin day, as well as the recognised eight pagan dates.’ Parker made air quotes with
her fingers as she said pagan. ‘A wet moon, blue moon, conjunction, eclipse, all that stuff, they’re all thins. Our bad luck. There’s a major comet passing between the sun and Earth. It’s rare and significant, therefore a thin day. We still have no idea why events like that qualify, but they do. I rather hoped we’d have an astronomically peaceful time of it, and several weeks until the next thin, but no such luck. So we have to prepare.’
‘Can we hide out at Edinburgh or York?’ Jarrod asked.
‘No, they won’t have us. Hood and Darvill have destroyed two Armour bases already, so they won’t take the risk. I’ve built a shield around us that will hide us from prying eyes, but only for short periods of time. We have to keep on the move. Darvill has proven he can find you two very easily, even through Armour wards. All bases are rebuilding their protections, so it won’t be as easy for him again, but they’re still not prepared to chance it. They’ll give us field support, but we have to keep moving. It’s the only way we can be safe.’ She picked up her glass, frowned at the lack of contents, put it down again. ‘Well, relatively safe.’
‘You’re staying with us then?’ Alex asked.
Emma smiled. ‘Yep, you’re stuck with me. I’m your local liaison.’
‘I’m glad to have you along.’ He meant it and hoped she recognised his sincerity. ‘Thank you. And I’m so sorry about …’ He gestured back over his shoulder in the rough direction of the Thames.
Emma nodded, face hardening. ‘Thank you. We lost a lot of good people there. Not sure how many got out, but certainly not many have checked in so far. We’re waiting on back-up which is on its way from York and some of the nearer sub-bases.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ Alex dragged his hands over his hair. So many deaths. So many friends and lovers, family and colleagues. All those souls lost to the Void after Obsidian, all the Sydney operatives, now London. He felt every one of them like a weight sharply hooked into his conscience.
