by Alan Baxter
Many more mercenaries gathered around the edges of the site, more than a dozen guns trained on him. If they decided to shoot, he was done for. No magic he had could withstand a barrage of automatic weapons fire. Besides, if they did gun him down now they would be doing him a favour. Ending the Fey threat, ending his fucked-up life and he would die standing up to a fight, the way he had always lived. He had nothing left to lose. But he had counted on Hood’s determination to face him personally and he had been right.
Hood’s voice rang out. ‘Leave him! He’s mine alone! Anyone shoots him and that gunman will suffer horribly at my hands for years.’
Hood emerged from a foreman’s hut and strolled to the centre of the open muddy space. He wore a dark suit and shiny shoes, his pale bald head almost glowing in the overhead lights. He spread his palms to either side, parody of the iconic Christ. ‘You came!’
Alex let his magic build up inside like flood waters against a dam, but held it in check. ‘Let’s do this, you fucker.’
Hood laughed. ‘Oh, no time for a chat? You’re not glad to see me?’ His voice rose into a furious shout. ‘After what you fucking did to me? Do you have any idea of the extent of my agony? I cannot be harmed, but I still feel. Can you imagine what it’s like to burn constantly?’
‘It’s a better fate than you deserve.’
‘Do you really think so?’
Alex felt his body swelling with arcane energy. ‘You wanted what I had for no other reason than personal greed and you sacrificed children to get it. You think you deserve anything less than some kind of hell?’
Hood flapped one hand. ‘Heaven, hell, fuck all that. Children’s stories. We may write great works of literature and paint chapel ceilings as we try to convince ourselves we’re some higher form of life, Alex Caine, but we are animals, pure and simple.’ He gestured expansively around himself. ‘This? This is still the jungle, you know. We’ve manipulated it and we convince ourselves we’re civilised, but we’ve just changed the savannah for fields of brick and glass. Look past the surface and all the old rules still apply. We feed on each other, prey on each other, and the strongest predator rules the land. And that’s me, Caine. The strongest predator.’
Alex could contain his power no longer. ‘No, you’re not!’ he yelled, and sprinted forward. He shot his hands out in front of him, let his magic out in a searing blast of wind and fire, a column of incandescent heat like the exhaust of a jet engine. It engulfed Hood and blackened him instantly, burned his clothes away and lifted him, pounded him back into a cement footing of the new building’s foundation. A mercenary crouched in the way was collected by Hood and smashed, blood bursting out to sizzle and vaporise around Hood’s burning form. Alex powered on, met Hood a fraction of a second after Hood met the footing and the mercenary. Alex hammered blows into Hood’s stunned face, used his power to harden his fists into steel.
The flames around Hood seared Alex as they died away and Hood’s skull shifted and cracked with Alex’s blows. But his head popped back into shape after every strike and Hood spread his mouth wide in a laugh of insane joy. He grabbed Alex below the arms, lifted and threw him like a doll across the site.
Alex tumbled through the air, hit the muddy ground and rolled, grunting as breath escaped. He moved with the momentum, came up onto his feet and dug his heels in, sprinting back to meet the pale and naked Hood head on. He ducked under Hood’s sweeping punch and whipped a leg around, hard and low. Hood’s feet flew out from beneath him and he hit the deck with a cry of surprise. Alex fell upon him, raining blows, letting the focused energy of his magic gather in the Darak shards. He recalled what he had learned from the Eld grimoire, the incomplete lessons in their huge magic of separating, and barked out the eldritch words.
His will slammed into Hood and Alex used the spell like a thousand tiny sharpened crowbars to pry into the very essence of his enemy, open miniature realmshifts in every part of the bastard. Hood screamed as his body bucked and flaked. Scales of flesh lifted from his face, neck, chest, his torso twisting and undulating under Alex’s ministrations.
But the magic was too strong, too uncontained, like trying to hold together a flock of tiny birds that only wanted to fly in a thousand different directions. As Alex struggled to manage the focus, Hood hooked one arm up from the ground and cracked Alex in the side of the head.
Pain whined through Alex’s skull, his vision darkened and crossed and he staggered up and away, thinking only to remove himself from that hurt, that sensation like a car had driven into his temple. Hood’s strength was unbelievable, even against Alex’s enhanced state.
The two men stumbled apart, both gasped for breath. Alex shook his head, sucked air deep into his lungs to push aside the ringing in his ears, bring his blurred focus back to clarity.
Hood looked at his hands as his flesh resealed, closed over, leaving no trace of the splits Alex had forced into it. There had been no blood.
‘What the fuck was that?’ Hood asked, eyes wide, manic grin still splitting his face. ‘Fuck me, Caine, did you manage to actually injure me?’
Alex sneered. ‘I have weapons you couldn’t possibly imagine.’ He sucked another breath, his vision clearing. He drew on his power again, re-found the enchantments he had absorbed and launched another blast of separating magic at Hood. The thin, pale man threw his hands up, howling again as his flesh ruptured and writhed. He thrashed around, as though trying to beat away a swarm of invisible locusts.
Alex strained, mind threatening to crack as he tried to hold on to the spell, pulsing and random, bursting out in all directions. He felt his own skin begin to blister and tear. Unable to properly direct the magic, it exploded out all around him in a supernova of destruction. Hood staggered back and Alex drove on, tried to keep the pressure of the attack forced forward. As Hood moved near two wide-eyed mercenaries crouched by a foundation wall, the sorcery engulfed them and they ruptured in a spraying cloud of blood and fragments of flesh, bone and clothing.
Hood straightened, tipped his face to the night sky and howled. He flexed his whole being, like a naked, scrawny, pale parody of a bodybuilder posing for the win. His flesh fought back against Alex’s ministrations, splits narrowing, flaps of skin lying back down.
Alex yelled incoherent denials, tried to increase the strength of his attack and felt it tearing him apart even as Hood hollered again, desperately resisting. Alex staggered forward, swung one arm back low and swept a mighty uppercut under Hood’s chin.
With a sickening snap and crack, Hood’s head whipped back and he shot up and away. Alex’s Darak-enhanced strength lifted Hood and threw him high and far. He flew back out of sight, tumbling over the concrete blocks of the new building’s base. Alex gathered his strength into his legs to spring up after and a voice cut through his concentration.
‘Fuck you, Caine!’
Alex turned and narrowly ducked a sweeping slice from Darvill’s arcane sword. Sudden, aching desire swept through Alex. He didn’t think for a second he had finished Hood and this blade was the weapon he needed. His new magic was too strong, too wild to control. He needed to wield it like a scalpel but was only able to swing it like a club. But this sword, in conjunction with the blunt instrument of his new power, could maybe do it.
Darvill snarled, a spitting rage, and swung again. Alex ducked, rolled and came up beside Claude, shot a punch out for the man’s jaw. Darvill tried to move, partially successful, the blow glancing obliquely. Darvill staggered, his legs jelly, but he didn’t go down. Alex grinned, the rush of victory washing through him, and he dived forward to snatch the sword from Darvill’s grasp.
As his fingers reached for the hilt, a freight train hammered into his ribs, slammed the breath from his lungs and drove him barrelling away from Darvill and that valuable prize. Wheezing a breathless cry of frustration, he twisted and rained blows into Hood’s grinning face.
‘I’m not that easily beaten, Caine!’ Hood returned the strikes and the two of them fell to the floor, tumbling a
nd sliding in the mud, swinging wild blows that failed to connect.
Alex rolled to his feet, ground one into the earth and swung the other to kick Hood hard as the man tried to stand. Alex’s attack slammed into the side of Hood’s neck and sent him spinning over and away to sprawl again in the mud.
Hood jumped up and faced Alex. The two of them crouched, facing off some five metres apart.
‘Claude, fuck off!’ Hood snarled. ‘This is my fight, none of you get involved.’
Alex drew his power again, desperate to refine his ability enough to truly rupture Hood’s presence.
Without taking his eyes from Alex, Hood gestured towards the crane. ‘Go, drop the fucking bus! I want Caine to see those children die before I kill him.’
Darvill’s eyes widened and he grinned. ‘Will do!’
Alex let a burst of gathered magic out. He pulled together fire and air with it, engulfed Hood again in jetting flames and disrupting Eld incantations. Hood lifted and flew once more, screaming and writhing, to land blistered several metres away. Alex ran him down. He caught sight of Darvill racing for the crane. He could not let those children die. He was no fool, he saw what Hood was doing. Hood knew Alex would try to save the children, be distracted in his efforts and that would give Hood the chance to finish him off.
So be it.
Alex felt his strength begin to waver from wielding such massive volumes of magic. He dropped the devastating Eld spell, grabbed Hood by one naked ankle and let one more wave of power strengthen his muscles to wrench Hood from the ground and swing him like an Olympic hammer. He let go and Hood sailed, howling in rage, far across the site, to crash into a stack of steel reinforcing frames. With a deafening clanging, they collapsed and Hood tumbled to become entangled in a clattering trap beneath tonnes of metal.
Alex turned and ran to chase down Darvill. Darvill leapt up to the crane base and began clambering up the ladder, heading for the high control booth. Alex skidded to a halt. The element of air had been his friend all this long day. He could use it again. He concentrated to gather a wind to sweep Claude clear off the ladder when Hood’s voice rang out from far across the site as he struggled to extricate himself from the twisted steel.
‘Oh, fuck this! Men, finish him!’
Panic pulsed in Alex and he ducked and rolled as gunfire barked out from every direction. Rerouting his gathering of elemental air, he switched it to elemental earth and forced apart the ground beneath him, dropped with a grunt into a sudden hole as bullets tore the air above him. Trapped in a bunker of his own making, he realised it was over. Pinned down by gunfire, unable to stop Darvill, unable to save the kids, unable to use the new magic to truly finish Hood. He had failed on every count.
A man screamed in agony, gargling to a sudden, wet silence. Alex imagined squads of Hood’s mercenaries would pound across the site and fill his hole with searing lead, but that sound gave him hope. He peered over the edge and saw a large smoky grey cat leap from one savaged mercenary to rend the throat of another even as that man tried to draw a bead on her. Silhouette! Exultation and fear washed together in his gut. She had come to save him, again. But now she would probably get herself killed.
Gunfire exploded chunks from the cement right above where Silhouette fought and Alex spun to see the mercenary trying to shoot her torn asunder by a huge black wolf. Jarrod.
Alex scrambled from his hole, ducked and weaved as he bolted across the site. Mercenaries appeared from shadowed corners, tried to draw beads on the ferocious beasts suddenly tearing their numbers to pieces. Alex dog-legged close to one wall and slammed the heads of two soldiers together with a sickening crunch. He crouched, concentrated, gathered heat and immolated another pair as they tried to flank Silhouette’s position. She leapt from one corpse and raced, low and lithe, from one shadowed enclave to the next, aiming to take out another small group of attackers. Jarrod was nowhere to be seen, but screams due to his efforts rang out.
Alex grinned. They were buying him a chance. He turned to the crane and was dismayed to see Claude clambering into the control booth, his face a mask of fury. Alex ran his hands back over his head, despairing. But maybe …
He ducked back into shadow, closed his eyes and drew every bit of energy he had left, focused on nothing but the movement of air around him. He drew it all together, gathered every breeze and zephyr. Over gunfire and screams of pain he became aware of the high-pitched wails of terror from high above. Then a metallic clank and those cries magnified in pitch and volume.
Alex stood and opened his eyes to see the bus plummeting. The Darak burning like molten iron right through his chest, he raised his arms, palms open as if he aimed to catch the bus in his bare hands, and pushed all his gathered air upwards. Like a spiralling tower of cyclonic wind, he forced the air towards the falling vehicle. Several tonnes of metal and people hit his magic as though it had hit his body and he buckled, fell to his knees. His muscles and tendons creaked and split, burning lines of pain through every limb. His body shook. But he kept his hands steady, kept the magic up, and the bus bounced and rocked in mid-air, its descent not arrested, but considerably slowed. Teeth grinding together, a roar of pain and effort streaming between them, Alex squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated only on keeping as much upwardly moving air between the ground and the bus as he could, ignoring the agony of tearing muscles.
Swiftly, but not dangerously so, the bus dropped to the ground. The howls and screams from inside intensified as the vehicle hit the mud and bottomed out, bounced and sprang on its suspension, steel and hydraulic twanging and snapping as it broke under the weight.
Alex dared to look and saw a sea of wide young eyes staring back at him from the bus windows. The vehicle sat crooked and low on its broken wheels. There was no more gunfire. Silhouette and Jarrod must have finished Hood’s mercenaries in their savagery. He started to smile, stunned, when Hood hit him again.
The football tackle lifted Alex from his knees and they tumbled over each other through the mud.
‘You are so fucking annoying!’ Hood roared and slammed his fist down into Alex’s face as they came to rest, Hood astride Alex’s chest.
Alex twisted, dragged what last vestiges of magic he had left to try to harden himself against the blow, but he was spent. Hood’s punch glanced off his cheek, crossed his vision as pain arced through his skull. Darkness swam at the edges of his mind.
Hood raised his fist to strike again and Alex began to laugh. Weak, breathless laughter in the face of such absurdity. Hood paused. ‘You laugh now?’
Through his continuing laughter, Alex said, ‘You have no idea, do you?’
‘Of what?’
Alex knew he had nothing left. ‘Of anything, you fuckwit. Kill me. I’m done.’
Hood tipped his head to one side, a shift through his hairless brow as a half-smile twitched his lips. ‘It’s almost less fun to know you want to die, Caine. But I’m more than happy to oblige.’ He drew his fist back again and a grey blur slammed into him and tore him away.
Alex’s laughter stopped and he wailed, ‘No!’ Silhouette. He couldn’t let her die, not now.
He scrambled to his feet, staggered left and right under the weight of his exhaustion, damaged muscles protesting, to see Hood and Silhouette roll to a stop. She was smart enough not to stay and fight. The moment they came to rest, she sprang up and away, running back for Alex as he collapsed again. She morphed as she ran, cat form standing into human shape as she reached him. She grabbed him as he fell and pulled him away even as Hood regained his footing. Jarrod ran to them, he and Silhouette both coated in blood and gore.
‘Let him finish me!’ Alex yelled and Silhouette ignored him, tried to drag him away.
Hood rose, grimacing in rage. He ducked his head and made to run Alex and his friends down. Shouts and shots rang out along with the boom of a concussive explosion. Soldiers poured into the site, British Army. The good guys finally deciding it was time to move in, presumably now the bus was safe. Hood spun up an
d away from a grenade explosion. Dozens of heavily armed men and women poured in, some headed for the bus, others for Hood, fanning out through the curling smoke of several more grenade blasts that quickly filled the air all around. One group turned towards Alex.
Silhouette dragged him along. ‘Come on, we have to go!’
‘But Hood.’ Alex shook his head, vision blurred with fatigue. His clothes were ragged, his over-exerted body mud-covered and steaming in the cold air as he poured with sweat.
‘Fuck him, not our problem right now. Alex, the original plan still stands. You saved the children! You did it! Now let’s get away and get Hood to face the Lady if he survives this.’
‘He’ll survive,’ Jarrod said, pointing.
From their angle they could see past the smoke of grenades. Darvill and Hood, supporting each other as they ran, disappeared under a concrete overhang beside a demountable hut even as the army spread across the site in search of them. Hood glared back over one shoulder as he went.
‘Like fucking rats, they’ll have a bolt hole somewhere,’ Jarrod said.
Other soldiers swiftly herded a stream of terrified children from the bus, weapons out to meet any incoming threat.
‘That fucking bitch!’
Alex looked up to see who Silhouette was talking about and spotted Emma Parker in the gateway nearest to them, gesturing frantically.
‘She’ll get us away from here,’ Alex said, shocked at how much his words slurred together.
Silhouette spat something in frustration, but Alex chose not to work out what it was. He slumped in their arms as Silhouette and Jarrod dragged him along.
27
Alex spluttered as water dribbled over his lips. A voice drifted to his ears, as if from another planet.
