The tall man staggered backwards. Weird eyes settled on Mark. It appears that the magic that sustains you is not yours to cede. No matter – I have other means. If you cannot give it to me, then I shall take it.
Once again, cold fingers clamped around Mark’s chin. Inexorably, his head was pushed back until he was looking at the dank brick ceiling. He tried to thrash his way loose, but he was caught fast in the monster’s iron grip. Something small and sharp dug into his neck, and he flinched. Then pain set in as the thing began to gnaw through the flesh and gristle at his collarbone. Mark felt his blood spurt, and the creature began to guzzle greedily at the wound.
Suddenly it stopped. There was a pause, and Mark felt his flesh healing. A trickle of blood continued to run down his chest, tickling him. The tall man tried again, burrowing sharp little teeth into his throat.
This time Mark shouted, more in rage and disgust than fear. Again, the Miracle Child stopped. Mark felt it step back. The thing spat, and Mark knew it was his blood being hawked onto the floor. He smelled its coppery taint in the air.
There was a moment of silence. Even your blood is unpalatable. You are an unknown element, Marcus Aquila Romila. I do not like things that are out of my control. As curious as I am, and as much as I might enjoy solving your puzzle, my position is delicate. With regret, I think it is best that you and your strange magic simply end here.
‘Good luck with that,’ Mark said.
I don’t need luck. Leach, hand me the sword. The slimy man gave it to the Miracle Child subserviently. The giant tossed his lank, black hair back and smiled at Mark with razor-sharp, bloodstained teeth. His eyes were pale crystals, suspended in a void. He held up the sword.
It glowed with a silver light, shot with rainbows. Its hilt was leather-wrapped, and its blade was scored with dozens of alien sigils, which gave the blade its multi-coloured hue.
‘Very pretty,’ Mark said.
This is Camulus. It, in conjunction with the one creature capable of wielding it properly, was designed to kill me. One bearing the correct charms, you understand. If you, or anyone other than the tattooed zealot tried to use it against me, you would discover it is little more than an attractive bauble. And I take terminal exception to being poked with pieces of metal. But it has its uses. It will kill my progeny and others who might otherwise avoid mortal injury. Such as yourself. Stepping forwards, the giant rammed the sword through Mark’s chest, piercing his heart. It hurt going in. Mark groaned. It hurt even more coming out.
Still alive. Remarkable. He stabbed Mark again, this time through the stomach, severing the spinal column. Mark fouled himself. Urine and faeces splashed to the damp stone floor, and the effluence stained the backs of his legs. The sword came out again and Mark’s thighs twitched as he healed. Remarkable indeed. What are you? His tormentor stepped back and surveyed him thoughtfully. Perhaps if harm was to come to the girl which you are linked to…
‘You leave her alone, you son of a bitch!’ Mark shouted.
The Miracle Child smiled. She is the key. Perhaps I will minister to her as I have done the other women in this hovel. Perhaps if she were a mother …
‘Fuck you!’ Mark bellowed. ‘Fuck you! I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!’
Quite. The giant passed the sword to Leach. You may return here when our business this evening is concluded, he said to the smaller creature. Keep at him. Enjoy yourself. Try not to eat him until he’s dead – he might give you a belly-ache. The giant left, and Leach advanced on Mark.
There was no pity or sanity in his pale eyes. They were empty and dead. He pushed Camulus into Mark’s stomach and stepped back, leaving the sword embedded there. Mark yelled in agony. Leach watched for a moment and then turned to follow his Master, leaving Mark alone with his pain.
Manannán Ó Gríobhtha had explored most of the world, acquired several fortunes, and seen cultures rise and fall. He had fought, loved, hated, and killed across continents, and as far as his son knew, he only had one regret. In five and a half centuries, Manannán had only sired one heir: Cam. Cam knew he was a bitter disappointment to his father.
As he stared at the buzzer to the flats at No. 1 Deansgate, in Manchester City Centre, Cam felt familiar coils of trepidation writhe across his shoulder blades.
‘Which one is it?’ Rowan demanded impatiently.
‘It’s one of the penthouses at the top,’ he muttered.
‘What number?’
‘Look, me and my dad have a bit of a strained relationship … maybe we should come …’
‘Which one?’ This time it was the Tattooist’s dangerous growl. Cam gave up. He gave Rowan the number and he punched it in. A few seconds passed as the tinny buzzer trilled through the intercom.
There was a click. ‘Can I help?’ a soft, pleasant voice asked.
‘Er, Dad? It’s Cam. Camhlaidh. Can I come up?’
A pause. ‘Are you alone?’
‘No. I’ve got some … friends … with me.’
‘Really, Camhlaidh, it’s rather late. Maybe you should come back tomorrow.’
‘Listen, Sir,’ Rowan interrupted, ‘a bunch of shape-shifting freaks have got my sister, and I’m told you’re the only one who can help. Can we at least come up and talk to you?’
They waited for a long moment. ‘Come up.’ Manannán gave directions and the door clicked open. The small party made their way upstairs. Cam could feel a pool of cold sweat forming in his underwear.
Rowan watched his five companions as they made their way up in the lift. It was cramped, and Rowan could smell sweat from the Elf and a subtle sulphurous odour from the Ifrit. Jason was staring at the Ifrit, Sergei was staring at Cam, and Jason’s spotter had his face pointed up towards the ceiling with his eyes closed.
The Elf fidgeted. His lips twitched noiselessly, turning his beautiful face into something slightly disturbing. He still had the shotgun; his fingers clenched and unclenched nervously around its barrel. Rowan watched him pensively. When he turned an assault rifle on the creature, it had flopped to the ground as if it was on a beach holiday, but now that they were going to see its father, it seemed to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Rowan began to feel slightly apprehensive.
In stark contrast, the Ifrit appeared relaxed, its huge form filling a quarter of the lift. Then again, who knew what it was thinking – how could you tell when the thing didn’t have eyes? As if on cue, two loops of smoking flame spurted out and singed Sergei’s cheek.
Sergei flinched and opened his mouth to say something. He changed his mind and looked away from the gigantic being, rubbing his face and muttering under his breath in Russian. Rowan looked back at Cam. His eyes were closed and his lips were still. Where he clutched the shotgun, the Elf’s knuckles were white with stress.
Cam wasn’t scared. It was just that whenever he had to see his father, he felt like he was going into an exam that he knew he couldn’t pass. Earlier, he had met his father simply to hand over Grímnir to the Court. Now he was here asking for help, and he was nervous.
Why was he here? He was out of The Tower. It wouldn’t have taken much to lose the Ifrit in the city, and a Glamour would have beguiled the humans long enough to slip away. What could possibly have possessed him to voluntarily come up here to speak with his father? He would have to bear the looks of disappointment and withering comments, and for what?
In fact, his behaviour over the last few days had been increasingly strange; ever since he met Grímnir, he had been doing sillier and sillier things. Going into The Tower, fighting the Twisted, sneaking into the lair of the Svartálfar, fighting the vampire bitch, facing down the Prince of Rattlesnakes, holding Creachmhaoil hostage … it was all very out of character.
It was Grímnir’s fault. Dow’s too. He hated to admit it, but he liked the big man, and Dow had proved to be decent enough – he had saved Cam’s life, and Cam liked to think that he had saved Dow’s on the narrow bridge in front of the Tattooist’s home. A bond had formed between the three of th
em in the dark, narrow confines of The Tower at Dawn, and Cam was surprised to find that he really did want to help his friends.
His epiphany was punctuated by the gentle chime of the lift’s doors opening.
Rowan followed Cam along the corridor. He still seemed nervous, but there was slightly more purpose in his step. The others were straight-faced and serious. A door ahead of them opened, and a man who Rowan recognised as a professional football player stepped out. The newcomer scanned the group until his gaze fell on the Ifrit. Molten orbs bore down on the human, and his mouth fell open.
Before he could shout or scream, Cam turned his violet eyes on the athlete, and Rowan watched, amazed, as the man’s features slackened and a beatific glow filled his face. The man nodded at them as he walked off towards the lift as if nothing had happened. Rowan’s hackles rose at the demonstration of power from the Elf. Cam kept walking as if nothing had happened, and he took them to another door farther along the corridor.
‘Creepy, huh?’ Jason asked Rowan in a whisper. Rowan could only nod. Cam stopped in front of a wide, imposing door and knocked. It was opened a moment later by a tall man who looked to be about the same age as Cam.
‘Hello, Father,’ Cam said.
‘That’s his dad?’ Sergei muttered. ‘Looks more like his brother.’
Manannán’s eyes settled on the Ifrit. ‘What is that doing here?’ he asked. His voice was pleasant enough, but it held a strained element that he couldn’t quite hide.
‘He is a friend of Grímnir’s, Father. He’s with us.’ There was steel in Cam’s voice. Manannán turned his eyes back to his son and raised an eyebrow inquisitively.
After a second of cold scrutiny, Manannán looked back to the Ifrit. ‘If my son vouches for you, Ifrit, then that is good enough for me. Come in. All of you, come in.’ He stepped back to allow the group access. Cam looked slightly nonplussed by his father’s words, but he rallied quickly.
The apartment was huge and spacious, and tastefully decorated in pastel greens and whites. It had a definite forest theme, and Rowan instinctively understood how much it must cost a creature like Manannán to live in the city.
A large, expensive-looking stereo system and a powerful-looking computer sat in one corner. Otherwise, the interior design consisted of landscapes and natural fibres. It was very peaceful.
‘Sit down, all of you,’ Manannán said, directing the group to a large bank of cream coloured sofas set around a low, glass coffee table. Books and newspapers were stacked on it neatly. ‘Would you like anything to drink? Tea, coffee, something stronger perhaps?’
‘I’ll have a beer,’ Cam said immediately.
‘Maybe you should have a coffee,’ Manannán said, slightly condescendingly. Cam seemed to shrink. Rowan felt sorry for him.
‘I’ll have a beer if Cam’s having one,’ he said, earning a reproachful look from the Elf’s father.
‘I could go for a beer,’ Jason said wearily. Sergei and the spotter echoed the calls.
‘Five beers it is, then,’ Manannán said with a smile, the tension suddenly vanishing. ‘And you, my friend? What can I get for you?’ he asked the Ifrit.
‘A cup of tea would be most pleasant,’ he growled.
‘Milk? Sugar?’
‘Yes, please … two sugars.’
The drinks were prepared, and Cam gulped half his beer down in one go. He sighed ecstatically and raised the bottle back to his lips to finish it. Rowan saw his eyes meet his father’s; he turned the gulp into an embarrassed sip and proceeded to nurse the bottle protectively.
‘Now the niceties are complete, perhaps we could get to the business behind this evening’s confab?’
Rowan listened incredulously as Cam told of the zombie Elves, and how he had found the Tattooist, as he called him, and lost his two companions, one of whom was the tattooed man that Jason believed to be so important. Manannán listened, poker faced, until Cam began to talk about his trip through The Tower at Dusk.
At this point, Manannán blanched, and he turned on the Tattooist angrily. ‘You took him into the Unseelie Court? Are you mad?’
‘Just listen, Manannán Ó Gríobhtha,’ the Tattooist said. ‘Your son is a credit to you; you should hear his story.’
After a second, Cam went on with his tale. He told it in a quiet, matter-of-fact way that added weight to his words. Rowan listened with mounting incredulity as he told of his brush with the vampire woman, and how he had defeated her with a sword, of all things. Then the climb around The Tower and how he was knocked off a balcony before taking something called a Creachmhaoil hostage.
Rowan felt a stab of admiration for the man – he was beginning to think of the Elf as human, he realised – when he heard how they came back through a mob of Ifrit to escape around a Fairy-Ring. No wonder having a machine gun pointed at him had seemed like small potatoes.
Manannán stared at his son with a fierce pride. When he finished, his father said two words, but they obviously meant a lot to Cam because he flushed. ‘Well done.’ He turned to the group of humans. ‘And where do you come into all of this?’
Slowly at first, then quicker until it was spilling out in a rush, Rowan told the Elf what had happened to him since he came home on leave. He explained that after his sister’s husband was bitten, Sam had changed. So much so, that when Mark decapitated him, his body had grown back.
Sergei explained about the massacre in the hotel room, and Jason filled in some background about the mysterious Mark Jones. Rowan then went on to tell them what he had seen in the old Mayfield Station, and how his sister had been kidnapped again, this time with Mark.
Manannán was particularly interested in the descriptions of the shape-shifting things and the monsters in the station. He then questioned Cam about the conversation he had overheard between Creachmhaoil and the vampire. Cam insisted that it had been gibberish, but Manannán kept pressing him.
‘I don’t know … something about experiments on somebody: something about shape-shifters and reproducing a spell. They need Grímnir and Cú Roí for this spell. And they’ve got a captive that the Satyr wouldn’t be happy about in … Kel … Kal … Colminhey? Something like that – Colminhey’s House?’
‘Kilmanoi’s Hall.’
‘Yeah, that’s it. He’s got somebody …’ Cam’s eyes suddenly widened as he remembered something. ‘The Maiden. He said he controlled the Maiden.’
‘In Kilmanoi’s Hall,’ Manannán said grimly.
‘Where’s that?’ Rowan asked. ‘In this Tower at Dusk?’
‘No – it exists in both Towers, in the very lowest explored level. There is a room there. It is a bad place.’
‘They said something about the Blind Room.’
‘It is as I feared. The Blind Room is different in each Tower. The Maiden will be there, in The Tower at Dawn. It is the only place that she could be imprisoned.’
‘Where the zombies are?’ Cam asked wearily.
‘Yes,’ Manannán said. He had been standing throughout the conversation, but now he perched on the arm of the sofa near to Cam. He leant forwards and picked up a newspaper from the coffee table. ‘I doubt any of you have been following the news over the last few days, but there has been a series of murders. Some of the humans who have died might have been magical. A fortune teller, a magician … Cú Roí is feeding.’
‘His strength will grow quickly,’ the Tattooist said. ‘He must be stopped now.’
‘That’s easier said than done,’ Cam said. ‘Can you explain to me how humans have magic? The magic is dying.’
‘Our magic is dying,’ Manannán said. ‘The humans have their own power.’
‘Cú Roí is a freak of nature,’ the Tattooist interrupted, his powerful voice filling the room. ‘He held such potential …’ For a moment the Tattooist sounded almost wistful.
‘It soon became apparent that he and those he spawned could bridge the magic of the land and the magic of the humans. At the time, it did not seem important, for the magic of
the land was so much stronger than that of man. It was a curiosity, little more.
‘In later years, when we realised that our magic was being slowly destroyed, the legend of Cú Roí became a rallying point for many, the most prominent of whom is your Creachmhaoil. He saw in the legend a solution: a means of tapping into the human magic. A means of survival. He called it “evolution”.’ The Tattooist snorted derisively. ‘It was all academic – the Miracle Child was long gone. Destroyed, it was believed, by Grímnir five hundred years earlier.’
‘Why?’ Rowan asked. ‘Why was he killed?’
The Tattooist turned baleful, flaming eyes on the human. After a second he answered. ‘Cú Roí was insane. His lust for power was all-consuming. He spawned an army of monsters – hellhounds, dragons, and shape-shifters: a new race he called the Therians. They were expelled from The Tower and swept the world in blood and death.
‘Entire races of humans were sacrificed to Cú Roí, to feed him power. Many of your legends of demons and devils and werewolves have their origins in that time. While he restricted himself to the human world, we saw fit to leave him be. His power grew though, and when he again threatened The Towers, the Courts united to exterminate him and his kind. A sword was forged, a warrior was trained …’
‘The monster was cast out,’ Manannán continued when the Tattooist trailed off. ‘It was only later, with the rise of Rome, that the Courts realised exactly how vulnerable they were. There had been many civilisations in the past – the Egyptians, the Aztecs – but they had been more attuned with nature. The Romans were the first to start covering the land in earnest. As the roads were laid down and the cities rose up, our magic began to die.’
The Tattooist rejoined the conversation. ‘The Maiden was aware of two things. Firstly, that Cú Roí had not perished. She had seen his last moments: not killed, but banished through a portal. She was unwilling to create panic by informing the Courts that their adversary had only been temporarily … mislaid. I, too, knew that Cú Roí was not dead. Just absent. But as long as he wasn’t threatening us, I thought it good enough. The Maiden theorised that Cú Roí would return and we would be too weak to defend ourselves. She shared her theory with me. I ignored her.
Immortals' Requiem Page 31
