by Edward Cox
‘Shut up,’ Aga snapped. ‘Who are you working for?’
‘Don’t know his name. I ain’t allowed to talk to him, see? Charlie Hemlock got me the job.’ He seemed surprised by the fact his finger was still in the air, and then used it to scratch his head. ‘Has Charlie got my money?’
Again, Aga seemed utterly perplexed. ‘Where have you been, Dumb Boy? No one’s seen Hemlock for days, and he’s not the only one who’s disappeared.’
‘Oh … who’s got it then?’
‘I don’t care about your bloody money,’ Aga hissed.
She pushed past Dumb Boy and peered over the walkway, down into the river. She saw the golems hefting their pickaxes and took a step back.
In a cold and flat tone, she said, ‘What are they?’
Dumb Boy looked over the edge too. ‘Not sure. Funny looking, ain’t they?’
Laying their pickaxes aside, the golems began shifting more loose stone.
Aga looked back down the walkway. ‘Nim, you really have to see this.’
Nim replied with another sharp wave of her hand, and her sister’s gaze returned to the river.
One golem waited while the other remained kneeling in the filth. It submerged itself, clearly reaching down into the hole dug into the river floor.
Samuel’s magic remained warm.
‘When’s the boss coming back?’ Dumb Boy asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Aga replied, her voice distant. ‘What are they doing, Dumb Boy?’
‘Don’t know. They don’t talk.’
The golem stood up, dripping waste water, and passed an object to its companion. By the time Samuel realised what the object was, it was already too late.
While one golem held the terracotta jar in its misshapen hands, the other scratched away the wax seal. In their ignorance, Aga and Dumb Boy bent forwards for a closer look as the lid came loose and splashed down into the river.
The smallest of moments passed, giving Samuel just enough time to wonder why his prescient awareness hadn’t gone berserk, and then a scream echoed through the sewers. A hot sandstorm blasted from the terracotta jar.
Like a cloud of locusts the storm rose, whirling angrily. Aga jumped back, but Dumb Boy’s reflexes were not so quick. The storm engulfed him and whipped so fast and fiery, he did not even get the chance to shout in surprise or pain. His clothes were shredded in a second; his skin disappeared in even less time. The storm blossomed to an angry shade of red as it drank Dumb Boy’s blood and devoured his flesh.
In her surprise, Aga fell into a sitting position. Her rifle clattered along the walkway and joined the golems down in the river of waste. As she tried to scurry away from the storm like a crab, a tentacle of burning crimson lashed out and coiled around her legs, flipping her over. As she was dragged towards the body of the storm, Aga clawed at the walkway, calling desperately for her sister.
‘Nim! Help me!’
Nim broke cover, marching forwards with a handgun raised and aimed. Her weapon spat two quick shots into the storm, but the bullets did nothing to disturb its hunger.
Aga reached out a hand. ‘Please …’ she whimpered.
Nim fired again, but could not prevent her sister being swallowed by the storm, stripped of flesh, drained of blood, devoured by its rage.
Nim screamed murderously as she unloaded her gun at the swirling mass. Unaffected, the storm tapered and began to coalesce into a humanoid shape. Hurriedly, Nim reloaded her weapon.
Samuel’s revolver was heavy in his hand. He looked at the violet glow of its power stone. Frozen to inaction, he felt lost without his magic’s guidance.
By the time Nim readied her weapon once more, the storm had gained the solid form of a man, obese and naked. His head was bald; his shoulders and arms were powerfully built. Two skeletons lay at his bare feet. Nim fired at him again, and continued to release bursts of thaumaturgy until the power stone was flashing on an empty chamber. The man recoiled as each bullet struck him, but he seemed more surprised than hurt, and not one wound appeared on his flabby, pale skin.
Nim’s glowing gun dropped to her side. She flinched and skipped back as the man faced upward and bellowed at the sewer ceiling with all the fury of the storm that had birthed him. Nim turned and ran away down the tunnel she had emerged from.
Samuel swallowed as the reanimated Genii finished his bestial cry. He grinned and pointed a finger directly at him.
‘I see you, little magicker,’ he shouted. ‘I am hungry!’ and he came stamping forward.
Some part of Samuel’s body remembered his hunting instincts. Holstering his revolver, he reached over his shoulder and drew his rifle. He primed the power stone and fired one single shot.
The fire-bullet struck the Genii’s chest with a soft whump, and he staggered back. Red flame bloomed, hissing and intense. It caused the air to crackle and spark, finally igniting the sewer gas to a rich golden fire that engulfed the Genii.
Only when the fireball began spilling liquidly down the walkway did Samuel’s prescient awareness activate. And it told him to most definitely run.
Followed by a blistering roar, Samuel fled down the tunnel. Searing light chased after him, heat upon heat caught up with him, fast. Flames burned at his back, licked about his shoulders, crackling his hair, singeing the flesh of his ears. And in that moment, Samuel knew he was too slow; he could not outrun the fireball, could not prevent the blaze overtaking him, roasting him to death. But his prescient awareness was urging his body to keep his ageing legs pumping as fast as they could go, onward – always onward – until they finally brought him to salvation.
His coat and hair smoking, Samuel reached the end of the tunnel and dived headfirst into the murky filth of a deep flood pool.
Cool waste dampened the heat and filled his mouth, bitter and foul. Somehow, Samuel resisted the urge to swallow or gag as he sank. He opened his eyes, fighting the sudden sharp stinging that wanted to close them again, and he looked up. Through the cloudy, thick water, he saw golden light illuminate the flood chamber. Fire roiled in a blistering storm that seemed without end.
Samuel was already fighting for breath. Clenching his teeth against the foul matter in his mouth, gripping his rifle hard, he obeyed the prescient awareness that forbade him to kick and rise and fill his desperate lungs with air. Fire continued to blossom above the pool, roll after roll of burning clouds, almost fluid and graceful to Samuel’s stinging eyes. And then, thankfully, the golden glare diminished, the blaze receded, and Samuel was able to break for the surface.
He spat filth from his mouth and filled his lungs with gasping breaths.
The air tasted of soot and ash. Smoke hung like thick fog.
A voice bellowed.
‘Little magicker!’
It came from somewhere not too distant.
Gagging and spluttering, Samuel looked around the flood chamber frantically. On the wall opposite the mouth of the tunnel, a rusty metal ladder led up to a drain opening, easily wide enough for him to squeeze into. It was his only chance of escape.
But as Samuel holstered his rifle and made to swim towards the ladder, he felt his body gripped by something. It was as though the stagnant water was pressing in on him, becoming solid. He yelled in surprise as the waters lifted him, as though he were caught in a sudden wave. It rushed him across the pool, and threw him back out into the tunnel.
Samuel skidded to halt on his rump and raised a protective arm. But the wave didn’t follow and crash down onto him. Instead, it hung in the entrance to the flood chamber, hovering across its width and height like a veil of filth. With a sudden snapping sound, it froze to a wall of dirty ice.
Samuel jumped to his feet and kicked at the barrier. But it was too thick and hard to break through.
A low chuckle came from behind him. He turned slowly.
Directly in front of him, the Genii mate
rialised in the tunnel. This close, Samuel could see his true, imposing size. The Genii’s pallid obesity made his nakedness seem all the more grotesque. The flab of his stomach hung over his genitals. His left eye was missing, and the socket was covered with smooth skin as pale as the rest of him. He had not a single wound or scorch mark.
Samuel’s prescient awareness had deserted him yet again. But that was a small matter now. With cold resignation, with filth and water dripping from him, the old bounty hunter clenched his jaw and drew his rifle.
The Genii chuckled again at the small man aiming his insignificant weapon at him.
‘Pray to your Timewatcher if you must, little magicker.’ His voice was deep; his teeth were white and long. ‘But your soul won’t reach Her now.’
Hamir was on the move again. Of course, the moment he stepped from his laboratory Hagi Tabet had detected him, and the new Resident was quick to send her servants after the necromancer. But Hamir was not unprotected as he made his way through the never-ending corridors of the Nightshade. The time he had spent experimenting in his laboratory over the years easily amounted to the lifespan of several denizens, and he did so enjoy creating his little toys. The seriousness of the situation now demanded he travel with a bodyguard.
The thing that had once been called Fat Jacob stamped alongside Hamir. A perverse mannequin with a body of metal and a head of flesh, Jacob carried in one wire-frame hand a long and sharp surgical knife; in the other he held a cleaver. The first wave of servants came at them when they reached a crossroads in the corridors.
Stooped and leading with spherical heads on the ends of long necks, the aspects of Hagi Tabet glared at Hamir with protruding eyes, pink and watery. One headed down each of the corridors to the left, right and straight ahead. Looking over his shoulder Hamir saw that a fourth had materialised in the corridor behind him. Reaching out with meaty hands connected to stick-thin arms, the aspects sought to pen in the necromancer and his bodyguard.
‘Kill them, Jacob.’
Hamir remained statue still as the mannequin danced around him. With a blur of razor-keen silver, Jacob set about the servants, slicing through folds of pink blubber, hacking at necks and heads, like a seasoned killer. In utter silence, the fight lasted seconds, and as each servant fell it slipped from existence. In the aftermath of the quick slaughter, Jacob awaited further orders.
Hamir allowed himself a tinge of satisfied pride. ‘Come along,’ he said, and his bodyguard followed him to a set of stairs that descended to the next level of the Nightshade.
Seeing the avatar in his laboratory had not surprised Hamir as much as what it had said to him. The secrets of the Nightshade were many, and the blue spectre seemed to know them all. It had told Hamir many things that he was inclined neither to believe nor disbelieve. However, being in the uncustomary position of having no choice, he had been forced to follow the avatar’s instructions. The first of those instructions was to continue travelling down until he reached the deepest region of the Nightshade, and a room known as the Last and Lowest Chamber.
Curiously, the whispery voice of Hagi Tabet had ceased goading the necromancer as he journeyed downward. Undoubtedly, she must be watching him, but her silence endured even when he paused to allow Jacob to rid the way of three more of her servants. With everything considered, Hamir regarded the new Resident’s silence with suspicion. She obviously knew something he did not.
The answer to his suspicions came just after he stepped through a narrow archway to the next set of descending stairs. There was a fizzing sound from behind him, followed by a wet slurp. Hamir turned and saw that Jacob had ceased following him. The flesh of his head had been melted and now dripped through his wire-frame body in greasy lumps. An instant later, Jacob’s skull was reduced to dust, and the surgical implements fell from his grasp. As the mannequin toppled to the ground, a woman dressed in a priest’s cassock was revealed standing behind it. Hamir recognised her long hair, dark and straight, and her small, porcelain face that would have been flawless if not for the patch of scarring on her forehead. All in all, her presence was unsurprising.
She walked towards him, stepping over Jacob’s remains. Hamir raised a hand, whispered a word, and cast a barrier of wavering acid, transparent and sickly grey, to cover the archway. The woman smiled thinly.
‘Hello, Hamir,’ she said with only the barrier separating them. ‘It has been such a long time. How are you faring?’
Hamir considered, and then rocked his head from side to side. ‘Fair to middling. Yourself?’
‘Never better.’ Her smile grew thinner. ‘Why are you running from us?’
He pursed his lips. ‘From my perspective, that question sounds a little rhetorical, Lady Asajad.’
‘Oh, Hamir.’ She studied the barrier of acid magic. ‘You are the Resident’s aide. Hagi Tabet needs your help. Fabian and I need your help. And soon, Viktor Gadreel will need your help.’
‘Doubtful.’
Asajad chuckled. ‘Must you always be so mistrusting? The Relic Guild is no more. Your masters have gone. Service to the Nightshade is all that remains for you, and the Nightshade belongs to the Genii now.’ Her attempt at a sympathetic expression could not hide the grim amusement lurking beneath. ‘Time to choose a side, Hamir.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.’
She took a step closer to the barrier. ‘We can give you what you want, you know,’ she whispered. ‘All the time and freedom to conduct your … experiments, without question or restriction. You can go as far as you wish, and no one will stop you. What possible reason could you have not to share your secrets with us?’
Hamir raised an eyebrow. ‘Another rhetorical question, or a genuine invitation to join the Genii?’ He shook his head. ‘You always were a difficult one to read, Lady Asajad.’
Her dark eyes glinted. ‘You are either with us or against us, Hamir.’ She peered through the barrier again ‘But – come now – let us not be separated. Let us continue this conversation in a more personal manner.’
Asajad reached out and placed a hand against the acid barrier. She gritted her teeth as the skin of her palm hissed and smoked for but an instant, and then her thin smile returned as she began absorbing the deathly grey magic.
Hamir took a step back. The barrier was an improvisation, and he had known the instant he cast it that it would, at best, only serve to slow a Genii. However, the magic was strong enough to buy him the moments that might make the difference between success and failure. But success depended on the avatar being trustworthy.
‘As considerate as your invitation is,’ he told Asajad as she continued to absorb the barrier, ‘I’m rather afraid I’ve had a better offer. Goodbye, my Lady.’
He turned and jogged down the stairs, Mo Asajad’s screams of fury following him.
Without bodyguard or weapon, Hamir travelled down and down, twisting and turning through the maze of the Nightshade, mildly surprised and thankful that no more of Tabet’s servants appeared to hinder his way. Still dogged by the shouts and screams of Lady Asajad, he quickened his pace along a lengthy corridor that led to an antechamber. Here two more corridors splintered off, one to the left and one directly ahead. Hamir continued on straight, and descended the final flight of stairs that would bring him to his destination.
Mo Asajad was not far behind.
As he exited into another small antechamber, he paused to cast an acid barrier over the stairwell entrance. Turning, he stepped up to the far wall and pressed a hand to its maze pattern. The outline of a door appeared instantly. But even as he made to push the door open, a voice spoke from behind him.
‘You’re a fool, Hamir.’
Lady Asajad had reached the bottom of the stairs. Her face was cold and calm as she pressed a hand to the barrier of acid. Already, the magic was diminishing.
‘You could have had all that you crave,’ she hissed. ‘But now the side you have
chosen is quite obvious, and –’ she grinned with long white teeth – ‘I suspect the blood of a necromancer will taste sweeter than any other.’
‘Hmm.’ Hamir pushed open the door, and the Genii could only snarl after him as he slipped into the Last and Lowest Chamber of the Nightshade.
Clara had never realised that such a grand but miserable place existed beneath the streets of her home. She supposed she should have felt astonished and repulsed in equal measures as she traipsed through this dank and slimy world. But the truth was, she felt nothing for her environment. Her mind could focus only on her simmering anger, which her every thought seemed to fuel. Not even her medicine could abate the heat inside her.
She stared at the two skeletons lying on the walkway beside the river. Stripped of flesh, the white bones were charred and blackened.
‘Do you think one of them is Samuel?’ she asked; her voice was neutral.
‘Perhaps,’ Van Bam replied.
The ex-Resident crouched at the edge of the walkway, facing down into the river. The ruins of two golems lay in the shallow water, raw sewage flowing around them. Atop one pile of grey and broken stone sat an empty terracotta jar.
‘That’s three of them,’ Clara said. ‘Well – three that we know of. How many more friends do you think Fabian Moor has?’
Van Bam didn’t reply and continued to gaze at the golems as though lost in contemplation. But Clara knew that he was feeling lost; that he had run out of ideas and hopelessness had entered his soul. She could smell it on him, and the scent disgusted her more than that of the sewers.
It had been the sound of Samuel’s fire-bullet that brought them to this area. The soft thunder of the impact had been quickly followed by a low roar that seemed to rock the stiff atmosphere and suck the moisture from the air. Van Bam said it was the sound of a fireball. Had Samuel died in the blast he had created? Did one of the blackened skeletons belong to the old bounty hunter? But a fireball wouldn’t strip flesh from bone so completely. These skeletons must have been the food source the new Genii had devoured to reanimate itself once released from the terracotta jar.
