by Alan Baxter
Alex nodded, accepting the truth of Meera’s words about knowledge being power. Thank you, Meera. I really appreciate it. Where is he?
By the time Alex had relayed Meera’s message and they had looked up the location on a road atlas from the glove box, Emma had returned. Alex went over it again for her, pointing to the map.
‘That’s the Lake District,’ Emma said. ‘Lovely part of the country and not all that far from here.’ She tapped the map with a forefinger to point out where they were.
Alex frowned. ‘It’s on completely the opposite side of the country!’
Emma laughed. ‘This is England, dear boy, the original terrier nation. We may have a big attitude and a big reputation, but we’re a small bastard. That’s only three hours’ drive or so. Easy!’
‘Fair enough.’ Alex closed the map. ‘And what about you? What have you learned?’
Emma pulled a phone from her pocket. ‘Couple of things. Armour is working on securing a location for our big fight. If we can have a place ready, the Lady will come and find you there and we can lure Hood in as well. We’ll have masses of personnel and the advantage of picking the battleground. But it needs to be a long way from people and civilisation, of course. Current thinking is somewhere in Snowdonia National Park in Wales. Which fits bloody well with that.’ She tapped the atlas held loosely in Alex’s hand. ‘This contact your Meera lass has found is probably a bit nearer to Snowdonia than we are now. We can keep moving and continue in roughly the right direction. Handy, what?’
Alex nodded. ‘Sure, I guess. But what are we going to do when we all get to the battleground? I mean, I love a good fight, but this is one where the combatants are a bit much to handle.’
‘The boys and girls at HQ are working on that too. Trying to find out as much as they can about ways to control the Fey and maybe contain Hood. They’re working on a kind of trap for him. He’s incredibly strong and very hard to harm. A lot of magic seems to bounce off him, so they’re erring towards entrapment first and dealing with him later. But they’re amassing mundane and arcane firepower too. With any luck they’ll get him after he’s taken out the Lady for us. Details, though. Lots of stuff still to figure out.’
Alex held up a finger. ‘Wait a minute. Hard to harm? He’s fucking indestructible. He survived trapped under rock in a pool of molten magma for months!’
Emma grinned, held up her phone. ‘Well spotted, that man! Look.’ She tapped up a video and set it to play.
Alex felt the others crowd around behind him to watch. The soundless footage was grainy and occasionally interrupted with bursts of static. It showed a double rank of operatives in Armour black, one row crouched in front of another row standing. The crouching row fired assault rifles while those standing worked together to cast some form of combined magic. The ripples of their spell caused interference in the film, affecting the security camera above them from where the footage came. What they fought against could not be seen from the camera angle, but it seemed obvious.
‘This is Sydney,’ Emma said. ‘Watch closely.’
Robert Hood slowly emerged into frame, leaning against the magic, straining to reach the operatives. The bullets seemed not to bother him at all, his clothes dancing and flinching in the barrage. He stretched fingers hooked into claws towards them.
Suddenly those standing bucked and pirouetted, gunfire tearing them apart.
Jean Chang gasped and stepped away, hand over her mouth.
‘Oh, sorry,’ Emma said quietly. ‘Should have warned you. Gonna get worse. But keep watching.’
As Jean moved back to see, the tiny black and white CCTV Hood rushed forward and tore into the Armour operatives, ripped them to pieces with his bare hands.
Jarrod whistled softly through his teeth. ‘Fuck me.’
Jean sobbed through her fingers, but kept watching. Silhouette squeezed Alex’s hand. He ground his teeth and stared. Lives lost for him, blood on his hands. And lost so violently, in such terror and distress. He had to end this.
‘Watch closely!’ Emma said.
A woman came running into shot with a sword held high. She sliced it down across Hood’s neck and shoulder. He spun to face her as shots shredded her and she fell back, dead before she hit the ground.
Emma tapped the video to pause it. ‘Watch. It’s not clear on this small screen, but look.’ A small cut could be seen across Hood’s shoulder. Emma played the video again and the wound closed over, leaving no trace it was ever there.
‘That sword cut him,’ Alex said, stating the obvious. ‘Not badly, but it left a mark. A fucking sword?’
‘No ordinary sword, obviously,’ Emma said. ‘Sydney is a bloody mess, of course, but we’re trying to search records and find out what that weapon is. We’ll have the info soon. I don’t suppose you know about it, Jarrod?’
The big man shook his head. ‘I’ve seen it before, in the weapons archive there. But not my department.’
‘Hmm. Fair enough. We’re also checking all the other Armour magic item archives to see if there might be more things that could hurt him, but we’re short on time and personnel right now. Anyway, watch.’
Hood strode away and the camera showed nothing but the desecrated bodies of the dead. Then Claude Darvill appeared. He took the sword’s scabbard from the dead woman’s back, picked up the blade and slipped it in before following his father out of frame.
The weapon reminded Alex of a heavier, slightly straighter version of a Japanese katana. ‘We need that,’ he said quietly. ‘I need that.’
‘And Claude has it,’ Silhouette said. ‘You think maybe he saw what happened and figured it might be useful against his dad at some point?’
Alex nodded, rubbing his chin. ‘Claude is a smart fucker. I bet that’s exactly why he picked it up. Plus, it’s clearly an incredibly powerful artefact and probably priceless.’
‘Hood will never let him hold on to that,’ Jean said. ‘If he realises it can damage him, he’ll want to have it or destroy it.’
Alex pursed his lips. ‘Sure. But if anyone can talk Hood around, it’s Darvill. Regardless, if it’s not destroyed already, it’s in their possession, yes?’
‘Exactly,’ Emma said. ‘Hood can be hurt, albeit not badly. That weapon should have cleaved him in two, but still … And Darvill or Hood have the weapon. We draw them into our battleground, they’ll bring that thing with them. It could end up working to our advantage.’
Alex sat down on the narrow bed recently vacated by Jean and Jarrod. For the first time he felt a sliver of hope, saw a tiny ray of light through the darkness of despair. Could Hood really be hurt? The blow the Armour operative had struck would indeed have sliced a normal man in two, even with a regular katana. A powerfully magical one had barely scratched the bastard. But it had scratched him. Dare he believe there was a chance? ‘What’s the plan now then?’ he asked.
Emma slipped her phone back into a pocket. ‘I suggest we move on, go and see this contact Meera gave us. While we collect whatever knowledge he has, hopefully Armour will finalise the battleground and learn more about the sword. Some of the files from Sydney were corrupted, so they’re having trouble accessing the data.’
‘And then?’ Silhouette asked.
‘Then we have as much information as we can get and one day to prepare the arena before the thin.’
Jarrod moved to the front of the camper, slipped his bulk into the driver’s seat. ‘My turn,’ he said. ‘Let’s hope whatever we gather over the next twenty-four hours is enough.’
Emma slapped his shoulder. ‘Chin up, big fella. We’ll get it done one way or another.’ Her eye caught Alex’s as Jarrod started the engine and they shared a subtle, conspiratorial nod.
22
The man Meera had put Alex onto was called Halliday. No first name, no more detail, just a surname and an address. The drive there was relatively peaceful and the undulating farmland, hills and woods of the Lake District opened up before them as they left the A66 and headed south towards Am
bleside. Narrow roads led them past lakes and rolling green, all monochromed in the moonlit dark. Eventually they came to the pale grey and brown dry-stone walls and dark slate roofs of the small town. Many houses were whitewashed, gleaming in the night.
‘What a beautiful place,’ Silhouette said.
‘Never been before?’ Emma asked.
‘No, not in all my years in Britain. Of course, everyone’s heard of it. People always talk about a holiday in the Lake District. I can see why.’
Alex sighed, watched the quaint old town slide by. ‘I wouldn’t have minded a holiday here.’
Silhouette turned from the window, brow furrowed. ‘Enough of the past tense, Iron Balls. We can still holiday here.’
He smiled, but knew it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Sure.’
Silhouette put a palm against his cheek. ‘When this is all over …’ He opened his mouth to speak and she slapped him gently. ‘When this is all over, you and I will come here and have a fucking holiday, Alex. If anyone deserves one, it’s us.’
He looked into her icy blue eyes, intense under her blonde fringe. She was so beautiful, it made him ache sometimes. And so strong, so smart, so brave. He loved her so much. He nodded. ‘Yeah.’ He took a deep breath, forced himself to remember that he was a warrior, a fighter who never gave up. ‘Yeah. We will.’
She smiled, kissed him.
‘This is the address,’ Jarrod said from the front.
The road was too narrow to park their big vehicle, barely enough room between the walls of houses for two cars to pass, so Jarrod drove on and found a pub with a car park. He pulled in and killed the engine.
‘We’d probably get on his wrong side if we disturbed him in the middle of the night,’ Emma said. ‘Let’s rest again. It’s only a couple of hours till morning.’
They settled into a tense and restless wait. Alex dozed on and off, too hyped up to sleep properly, and still spooked by his nightmares. In these quietest moments, in the dark, the Void dragged at his core. He felt the weight of every life, of every person who had died because of him, hauling at his soul. Everything in which he was embroiled seemed insurmountable, massive against his tiny insignificance.
The others tried to sleep, each with varying success, except Jarrod, whose snores rolled through the vehicle almost immediately. But otherwise they were all quiet, meditating on their own little corners of darkness.
Morning came around and Alex managed to wait until a little after eight before his impatience got the better of him.
‘Probably best if we don’t all go in,’ he said. ‘Don’t want to scare the guy with a crowd.’
‘Mind if I come with?’ Emma asked. ‘I’d rather like to meet this Fey expert, given my own area of interest.’
Alex looked over to Jarrod and Jean. ‘You two mind waiting? Me, Silhouette and Emma can go see this guy.’
Jarrod shrugged, nodded. ‘But what about the shields?’
‘I can fix up two ward domes,’ Emma said. ‘If you guys stay in the van here, I can keep you covered.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘I think Hood is quite distracted anyway.’ Jean’s voice was quiet.
She was still so nervous. Alex wondered what he could do to help her feel a part of the team. He understood the crushing weight of guilt, but hers was unnecessary. ‘Why’s that?’
She held up her tablet, the screen scrolling slowly with text. ‘I’ve been checking the Black Diamond servers. I wondered if I could learn anything. I mean, I’ve lost my tracker, but I figured Hood and Darvill might be drawing on Black Diamond funds and contacts.’
Alex smiled, impressed with her initiative. ‘Bloody good thinking. You still have access?’
‘Yeah. I don’t think it’s occurred to them to cut me off. I guess they’re too busy with other things. Anyway, all my passwords are still active and I’ve been collating information while we drove and, well, I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know if Darvill is still trying to scry for us or not, but there’s been lots of activity under Hood’s personal access codes.’
‘Activity like what?’
‘He’s been communicating with a mercenary team he’s used a lot. In fact, he used them when he was originally trying to hunt you down back before …’
‘Yep. Go on.’ Alex didn’t need reminding of the events that led to him creating a monster in Hood. Or more of a monster, as Hood’s past was a long way from angelic.
‘And he’s been moving massive amounts of funds, paying contracts to engineering and shipping companies, and lots of money going into offshore accounts.’ She smiled awkwardly at the last comment.
‘I’m guessing the offshore accounts are untraceable,’ Silhouette said.
‘Yes. In my experience, they’re usually used to pay off illegal goods or activity. He’s busy getting up to no good.’
Alex ran one hand back over his close-cropped hair. ‘I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Too much to hope he’s given up on me and been distracted by something else.’
‘Definitely too much to hope,’ Emma said. ‘But he’s up to something. Jean, how much detail do you really have there?’
‘Not a huge amount, but I can keep trying to decipher his activity all the time I have access.’
‘And can you share your findings with the Armour HQ in York?’
‘Sure, if you give me contact details.’
Emma pulled a business card from her wallet, handed it to Jean. ‘Email address on there. Send a message asking to liaise and share information. Include the phrase “Taking the Hood off”, capital H, in your email. That’s the code we’re using. They’ll know you’re legit then. You can encrypt messages from your device there?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good-o. That all right with you, Alex?’
Alex laughed, nodded. He really liked this small English woman. She was a formidable force. As was Chang, if she would only shake off the guilt. ‘Sure thing.’
They left Jarrod and Jean deciphering what she could and walked the couple of hundred metres up the road to Halliday’s home. Most of the houses they passed had whitewashed walls, but the dark grey slate roofs, spattered with the moss of ages, persisted. Halliday’s address seemed to be one of the oldest dwellings, small and squat, the walls bellying out under the weight of years. The windows were leadlight squares of thick, warped glass. A heavy front door of dark oak stood before them, the knocker an old brass plate and ring. Alex knocked.
Nothing happened and he began to worry. They didn’t have more time to wait. He reached up, about to knock again, when a voice came through the door, deep and gravelly. ‘Wait a fucking minute, impatient cunt.’
Alex stepped back, cast an amused glance at Silhouette and Emma. They both smiled, quickly suppressing the grins as the door opened.
‘I’m an old bastard, don’t expect me to move fast. Especially this bloody early in the morning.’ Halliday was a short, wizened man with an explosion of grey hair standing off his head in every direction. His skin was pale, stretched over bent bones, his fingers crooked, knuckles swollen with arthritis. His fingernails were freakishly long and thick, yellowed like the talons of some ancient beast. A ripe, tangy odour washed out of the house, deeply unpleasant.
Alex opened his vision, surreptitiously scanned Halliday’s shades. They reeked of age, counted in centuries. His magesign was masked, but too loosely, too casually to really matter, like an elderly man who combats the annoying social demand of clothing with open flies and suspicious stains. Which was also an accurate description of Halliday’s actual clothes. But the man’s power was evident, albeit hard to define. Alex swallowed, braced himself. ‘My apologies. I didn’t mean to rush you.’
‘You didn’t. I don’t fucking rush for anyone. Satan himself could demand my presence and I’d take my own sweet fucking time walking to hell. Come in, come in.’ He turned and shuffled away, into the shadows of the house.
The three of them stepped inside, paused to let their eyes adjust to the gloom.
Silhouette wrinkled her nose, turned to whisper something to Alex. He quickly raised a finger to his lips, sure the old man would hear a rat fart though completely unsure why he thought so. Already Halliday had known he was about to knock again, so he could presumably see through a solid door. Silhouette smiled, winked.
They followed the old man into a lounge room, Alex having to bend slightly to avoid cracking his head on low, dark wooden ceiling beams. The room was buried in books, stacked and scattered everywhere. Barely any carpet showed. They picked their way through, tiptoeing from one patch of barely clear floor to the next before all standing awkwardly. Halliday slumped into a battered leather armchair, scuffed and bleached. He farted loudly.
‘Just kick aside some space and sit on the fucking floor. I’m not used to having company.’ He flapped a hand as he spoke, then dug out a tin from the side of his chair and busied himself rolling a cigarette.
Alex, Silhouette and Emma carefully restacked various tumbles of books and managed to clear enough room to sit cross-legged, knees pressed against each other. By the time they were settled, Halliday was staring at them, puffing fragrant blue smoke into the room. Alex realised the old man was smoking a joint, the aroma of marijuana strong. It was a blessing over the far less pleasant smells of the house and Halliday himself. Alex smiled. Halliday scowled.
The silence grew slightly uncomfortable, so Alex broke it. ‘Meera said that perhaps …’
‘I know what fucking Meera said. I was there when she bloody said it.’
‘Right. So, you’re an expert on the history of the Eld, is that right?’
‘I would be fucking surprised if anyone alive or dead knew more about them bastards than me. Question is, why should I tell you anything? What do you want to know exactly?’
Alex frowned. That was a good question. ‘The truth is, sir, I need to know just about anything I can about them.’
