Bound (12 page)

The fight is not over until you are no longer standing. If you have time to think, ‘I’m beaten’, then you have wasted an opportunity to win. Only the instant exists.

Alex spun as he landed, no longer trying to get away from the marauding creature. He gathered his energy as he turned, whipping one foot up and out in a blur. He let all the power of the Darak shard flow through his body, let it harden his leg like steel.

Ataro ran directly onto Alex’s spinning kick, Alex’s heel connecting with the side of Ataro’s head with a sickening crack. The crowd howled as Ataro staggered sideways, his form morphing insanely between wolf and human.

Alex drove off from his grounded leg, sticking with Ataro as if glued there. He drew the magic up through his arms and hammered a flurry of punches into Ataro’s face.

The monumental man whipped one elbow across even as Alex’s blows knocked his head stupidly to one side. The elbow caught Alex across the cheekbone; a numb whine of injury sang through his mind, sent him stumbling to the side.

Ataro fell to one knee, hands waving drunkenly. Alex sucked breath in as deep as he could, staying conscious by force of will alone. His vision crossed as he tried to focus on his opponent. He had to move first, had to finish this. The shades around Ataro altered again as the man drew energy from somewhere. Alex drove himself forward with one pumping leg, gathering every last bit of strength he had, and drove his other knee up and out.

As Ataro shifted his feet, trying to stand, Alex slammed his knee up under the man’s chin. Ataro’s head flipped up, his teeth snapping shut like a bear trap, and he keeled over backwards. Alex went with him, blackness circling in at the edges of his mind like hungry vultures. As Ataro collapsed onto his back, Alex landed over him, drawing his elbow back, fist clenched, visualising his knuckles like iron bolts crashing through Ataro’s head. The bloodlust overwhelmed him, the urge to kill surged like an orgasm. He felt the book, wrapped up with his clothes, calling out for murder.

‘Stop!’ Joseph’s voice lashed into the room like a whip crack, clear over the roaring crowd and the surging through Alex’s head.

Alex ignored him, drove his fist down. His knuckles pounded into Ataro’s face and clear through, crushing the big man’s head to mince. A shock ran up to Alex’s shoulder as his hand cracked into the stone beneath. The behemoth bucked once beneath him and lay still. The crowd fell silent.

The Clan Lord strode in as Alex struggled for breath, shadows chasing each other at the peripheries of his vision. ‘It’s over!’ Joseph yelled. He looked at the corpse running red across the flagstones. ‘You should have stopped when I called it,’ he said, quietly so only Alex could hear.

‘You said to the death,’ Alex whispered. He felt exhilaration from the kill, but shame overwhelmed it. The influence of the book had driven him on when he had heard Joseph call a stop to it. No true warrior acted that way.

Joseph made a strange sound, part amusement, part annoyance. He turned slowly, addressing the room. ‘Alex Caine, the human with balls of iron, has won,’ he said. A susurration of muttering and chatter swelled in the high chamber.

Alex staggered up, backing away from Ataro’s supine form. Joseph had one eyebrow raised. Isiah nodded softly, though his face appeared troubled. Silhouette clapped excitedly, grinning. He let blackness take him.

Sounds stretched and folded over each other in thick darkness. One resolved into a female voice. It sang to him, a song of triumph. Noise melted and folded again and the voice became clearer. ‘Drink this, you fuckwit.’

Alex’s eyelids flickered. He felt pressure at the back of his head and something cold pressed against his lips. He gave in to the reflex to swallow and tasted a familiar tingling sweet bitterness. Silhouette’s healing potion. He tried to open his eyes again.

‘Give it a minute, Iron Balls.’

He collapsed back, taking deep breaths, and let the bittersweet tingle travel into his chest. Almost immediately some strength and sensation returned. His heart hammered a couple of extra beats and settled.

‘I only gave you a tiny amount this time, considering you’re such a lightweight for the stuff.’

Alex opened his eyes. Silhouette’s face floated over him, her hair hanging down, almost touching him. A wash of relief and ecstasy poured through him. He’d won the fight. He reached a hand up and pulled Silhouette’s head down, pushing her lips against his, taking a long, passionate kiss. She kissed him back for a couple of seconds before moving back angrily. ‘I’ve killed men for
far
less than that!’

Alex grinned, closed his eyes again. A dark shadow of shame flitted through his mind with the image of Ataro’s mangled head. What had he become? Never before would he have let a bloodlust overwhelm him like that. He had been fighting for his life, Ataro had been trying to kill him, but he had the big Kin beaten and Joseph called a stop. Alex considered himself a true warrior, an exponent not only of fighting, but of the essence of the martial arts. That included honour. There had been no honour in what he’d done.

He let his body soak up its renewed energy and slowly raised himself to a sitting position. He was on a sofa in Joseph’s quarters. Silhouette stood beside him, arms folded tightly across her chest, face set in a furious scowl. Joseph, Isiah and his companion sat across the room in armchairs, all looking quite amused.

Joseph leaned forward. ‘So. You really are quite the fighter.’

Alex gave Silhouette an apologetic smile. She huffed and turned away. ‘Thanks,’ he said to Joseph. ‘I’m very sorry, I should have stopped.’

‘I told you to fight to the death. I understand the nature of bloodlust and the heat of battle.’ Joseph nodded to his side. ‘Isiah and Petra here are both very accomplished fighters. They’re also rather impressed with you.’

Petra smiled, nodding. Isiah’s expression was unreadable. ‘You’re pretty undisciplined,’ he said softly. ‘But you have remarkable potential.’

Alex frowned. ‘Undisciplined?’

‘Yes.’

It seemed Isiah’s opinion was not open for discussion. Something about the man made Alex’s teeth itch. He had a presence, a barely contained authority. There was no doubt the man was every inch the warrior, every atom of his being attuned to battle. The shades around both him and Petra were excellently constructed masks, impenetrable. ‘Perhaps you can teach me some discipline sometime?’ Alex said.

Isiah smiled. ‘Good. Perhaps I can.’

‘If we’ve finished the love-in,’ Joseph said, ‘perhaps we can conclude any outstanding business.’

Silhouette sat on the arm of Alex’s sofa, clearly still annoyed, though her eyes had softened. ‘You feeling okay?’ she asked.

Alex felt as if he’d been hit by a train. Twice. But he was alive and fundamentally unbroken. That made him pretty okay. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ He turned to Joseph. ‘So you think you can give me some answers?’

Joseph shrugged. ‘You’ve earned respect here, which means a civil tongue and none of this Clan will hunt you. I agreed to talk some more, but that’s all.’

Alex’s clothes were piled by his feet. He retrieved the Darak Uthentia from his jacket, held it up. ‘I’m stuck with this. I can’t get rid of it or destroy it and it … affects me in ways I don’t like. I want to be rid of it.’ The book’s presence swelled out. Alex was shocked, realising it had been concealing itself from the others all along.

Joseph’s eyebrows shot up as he scooted back in his seat. ‘Kid, you’re fucked. If I’d known you had that, I wouldn’t have let you fight here.’

Alex sat dismayed, shocked by the fear he saw in Joseph’s eyes. ‘What?’

‘Where did you get that?’

‘A man had it and another man asked me to read it. When I did it seemed to lock onto me. What is it?’

‘What were you told?’

‘Some kind of history of a Fey king and a stone of power. It’s called the Darak Uthentia. Apparently Uthent—’

‘I know who Uthentia is, child.’ Joseph seemed both angered and amused. ‘Put it away. You have no idea what you’re into.’

Alex slumped back on the sofa, dropped the book into his lap. ‘I know. That’s why I need your help.’

‘Put it away,’ Joseph said again. ‘I can’t help you. I don’t think anyone can.’

Silhouette put a hand on Alex’s shoulder. ‘Can you at least tell us what all this is, maybe help him find a way out?’

‘Why do you insist on getting wrapped up in the mundane affairs of humans, Silhouette?’ Joseph asked with a pained expression. He looked quickly at Isiah and Petra. ‘No offence!’

Isiah inclined his head. ‘None taken.’

‘It’s my weakness,’ Silhouette said icily. ‘Indulge us?’

Joseph sighed. ‘Silhouette, you know exactly what Uthentia is.’

‘I know, but I can’t explain this. My Kin history is a little patchy. I don’t really know what Alex is caught up in.’

Joseph rubbed his palms together. ‘All right. I’ll tell you, and then you’ll leave. Both of you. I don’t want that kind of chaos in this Den.’

‘That’s fine. Thank you,’ Alex said, grateful for anything he could learn. Knowledge was power. Whatever Joseph could tell him must help in some way.

Joseph pursed his lips, gathering his thoughts for several moments. Eventually, ‘Firstly, Uthentia is not a Fey king. That’s a poor translation. It’s more like a Fey god, but even that isn’t a very accurate description.’

‘It’s no god I’ve ever heard of,’ Isiah said. ‘And gods are my business.’

Joseph nodded. ‘Exactly. Uthentia is
like
a god, but it doesn’t need any faithful or any worship. It just is. It’s an eternal creature of pure chaos, utter anarchy. It’s older than the
idea
of gods. Millennia ago it strode the realms and the Fey Folk rejoiced in its mayhem and played along with it. Between them, Uthentia and the Fey were destroying this realm. For sport.

‘Every thin day, the Fey can cross from The Other Lands into this world. Every time they do, they bring a little chaos and death with them. Forget your fairy stories, Alex, the Fey are evil in the purest sense. We’re Kin, we have Fey blood in our veins. That’s what makes us what we are, but we have human blood too. The tiniest drop of humanity in our bodies ties us to this realm. We’re stuck here, we have power, we feed on people, we’re the monsters, but we’re nothing compared to true Fey. And the Fey are disgusted by us as much as they are by humans, even though they made us. So we’re every bit as vulnerable to their whims as you are, even if we are more able to defend ourselves.’

Joseph sat back. ‘The point is, the Fey and Uthentia were taking too much of a liking to the idea of shattering this world and we were as threatened as the humans and everything else here. So a long time ago, before anything you’d call history, a group of powerful Kin, known as the Eld, came up with a plan, and found a way to weaken Uthentia enough to banish him from here, trap him
between
realms where his power was irrelevant.

‘The trap worked
almost
perfectly, but it destroyed the Eld and a tiny thread of Uthentia’s consciousness slipped back through. The whole episode was considered a success and that tiny piece of chaos was thought a small price to pay. To anchor itself in this world it bound itself to things and those things became indestructible and dangerous. For a long time now, hundreds of years, it’s been a book.’ He pointed at Alex’s jacket. ‘That book. It occasionally ensnares a human or a Kin, plays with them until they die and moves on. This time, young Alex Caine, that’s you.’

Alex sat and stared. ‘So this book …? It’s a piece of this god?’

‘Not a god,’ Joseph said. ‘
Like
a god, powerful like a god, but pure chaos. Pure evil. Only so diluted now it’s no real threat to the world any more. Of course, that doesn’t make it any less deadly to you. And perhaps you could become a threat to the world. Many dangerous and destructive people through history have actually been driven by that book or a previous incarnation of it.’

‘So how do I get rid of it?’

‘You can’t. Eventually it’ll kill you, after it’s caused as much damage as it can, and then move on to someone else. The Eld did an amazing job really, reducing the power of Uthentia to that.’

‘Oh, well that’s good then!’ Alex rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. ‘I thought the book was special, that it could only be read by someone with a powerful vision. Welby told me …’

‘Welby?’ Joseph laughed. ‘Is that where this all leads back to? That whelp?’

‘Welby is the one who roped Alex in,’ Silhouette said. ‘He was aware of the grimoire, but couldn’t read it. He discovered that Alex could, but by then I think it was already too late.’

Joseph gestured dismissively, his face resigned. ‘Of course it was. The book always tacks itself onto someone with power, someone who can wreak as much havoc as possible before they’re overwhelmed. Welby, for all his studies, certainly isn’t powerful enough. But there are plenty of people who are. Welby really has no idea of the world he dabbles in.’

Silhouette made a noise of understanding. ‘Welby’s dead,’ she said. ‘So’s the man who originally had the book, although it was Alex who killed him.’

Joseph laughed. ‘You see! This is what it does. It led you here indirectly and if you’d died in the arena one of us would have got stuck with it. Look on the bright side, Alex. You’re one in a long, long line of poor suckers paying the debt incurred by the Eld to save the world.’

Alex dragged a hand over his short, dark hair. ‘What about the stone? The Darak?’

‘There are many items of power.’ Joseph pulled a leather cord from around his neck, exposing a smoky gem that writhed in magesign. ‘This is one. There are many others. Most Clan Lords have something like this.’

‘A dragon’s tooth, for example,’ Petra said quietly.

Joseph grunted. ‘Absolutely, but good luck finding one of those.’ Petra smiled. Joseph narrowed his eyes for a moment before turning back to Alex. ‘The Darak amplifies a person’s natural abilities. Items like that tend to bind with people, become a part of them. No one could take this without killing me.’ He dropped his gem back into his shirt. ‘When the Eld were trying to find a way to banish Uthentia they fashioned the Darak, reputedly the most powerful arcane item ever made. The story goes that when the Eld sprang their trap the magic that caught Uthentia and killed the Eld also shattered the Darak.’

The stone burned in its locket against Alex’s waist. ‘So what happened to it?’

Joseph shrugged. ‘The Kin leaders were left to clean up the mess and decided the Darak, even broken, was too dangerous a thing to be ignored. The item which had given the Eld power to banish Uthentia could potentially free him too. Three guardians were selected, one for each shard. They hid their piece then committed suicide, so the hiding places would never be known.’

Alex felt a thread of hope and dread. If he could find the other parts of the Darak, he could have incredible power. Maybe enough to rid himself of the book. But if it could free Uthentia … Was destroying the world the only way to be free? And what kind of freedom was that?

The book cajoled him. It had fuelled his violent and remorseless slaying of Peacock, his bloodlust against Ataro. What could it make him do if he had the strength of the full Darak?

He pulled the locket from his waistband, held it up. ‘This is one shard.’

Joseph’s eyes widened as he, Isiah and Petra all sat forward in their seats, entranced. ‘What?’

Alex popped open the locket. Magesign burst into the room, snaked through the air, feeling its way around the people gathered. Joseph, Isiah and Petra released magesign of their own as they looked, feeling around it, inside it with their magic. Alex pulled his protections down and closed the locket, threatened and overwhelmed by the energy of these three. ‘Hey! Back the fuck off!’

They pulled their power away. Isiah and Petra both made apologetic eyes at him. Joseph whistled through his teeth. ‘No wonder you smashed Ataro like you did. That thing makes my gem look like a sideshow trinket. Where did you get it?’

‘Welby. I took it from his corpse.’

‘Well, that explains Welby’s strangely unbalanced abilities and knowledge. And even with that the book didn’t want him. It obviously waited for someone with more potential.’

Alex shook his head. ‘How can that be me?’

‘You’re more than you think,’ Joseph said. ‘No one has ever beaten Ataro before. No Clan member here would ever have dreamed of trying. That a human slew him is causing quite a stir. Now I understand how you did it. Your natural ability and that stone? A serious combination.’

Alex hung the locket back around his neck. ‘So this is part of the Darak?’

Joseph raised his hands. ‘I don’t know. But it’s about the most powerful single thing I’ve ever seen. So yeah, I reckon it might be. You’re going to be dangerous until that book kills you.’

‘I’m not going to let it. I’m going to beat it.’

‘What an admirable position to take. You should commune more closely with that little rock, meditate with it, let it in to become a true part of you. You’ve barely tapped into it yet. But regardless, the book will kill you.’

‘If I find the other two parts,’ Alex said, ‘will the stone be whole again? Or just three powerful pieces?’

‘The legends suggest that if the three were physically put back together they would rebind into one. If you did somehow manage to find and repair it, you would have remarkable power. But you would still be a slave to the shred of Uthentia bound into that volume. And Uthentia might cause untold damage with you before you’re dead.’