Bound (14 page)

The Subcontractor sat back down, his hatred of Hood barely concealed. ‘Peacock specialised in arcane texts. Perhaps a disagreement over one of those. The human shields himself, but he’s not practised at it. He can’t cover the fact that he’s carrying a couple of pretty powerful items. No idea what they are, but he’s sweating ’sign from every pore.’

Hood leaned back, a lascivious expression sliding across his face. ‘Ah! Well then. Perhaps you’re onto something.’

‘And?’

‘And? My dear Subcontractor, as if you need to ask. I want whatever it is this human has.’

‘You want me to
retrieve
things now?’ His tone dripped with distaste.

‘Yes. Kill them both and bring me whatever they’re carrying.’

‘Right. Pay me for the tracking first.’

Hood opened a drawer and pulled out a thick wad of notes. He slid them across the desk with one thin, pasty hand. ‘Here you are, my good man. Worth every penny, as always. Usual rates for this next part of the job.’

Shaking his head, the Subcontractor took the money and slipped it into a deep pocket in his long, dark coat. ‘One of them is Kin remember.’

Hood wearily inclined his head. ‘Naturally. But remember, I do not pay for failure.’

The Subcontractor nodded and left.

Hood sucked a long, deep breath in through his nose. ‘Ms Sparks, get Jackson to put a bird on him. Just to keep an eye on things.’

Sparks hopped off the desk and walked around next to Hood. She bent over, reaching for the phone on the far side of the enormous desktop, smiling over her shoulder at him. ‘Of course, Mr Hood.’ She pressed a button and listened at the receiver for a moment as Hood stared at her arse through the tight fabric of her skirt. ‘Jackson?’ she said after a moment. ‘A bird on the Subcontractor, if you will. Have it report back to us every hour.’

She hung up and turned back to Hood. He sat, leaning his chair back, his cock hard in his hand. ‘Excellent work, Ms Sparks.’

With a smile Sparks dropped to her knees.

On the roof of the Black Diamond tower, Jackson limped towards a wood and chicken-wire coop. His beauties chittered and squawked, became animated as he approached. He pulled open the door and stepped inside, instantly mobbed by his leathery charges, like ravens without feathers. Their drawn heads, shining eyes and clacking beaks shivered all around him as he stroked them, cajoled them, cooed to them like they were children. Their black, bat-like wings flapped and scuffed. ‘Ah, pretties,’ Jackson said, his voice like gravel in a tin can. ‘Who’s it gonna be then, eh? Who wants to fly for Daddy?’

The activity redoubled, a frantic cloud of skin, beaks and claws. Jackson held up a fist and several of the nightmare creatures battled to alight. Finally one caught a grip, black claws digging through the skin of the old man’s knuckles. He hissed in pleasured pain.

Outside the coop Jackson whispered to the bird, gave it names and descriptions, pressed an old, wrinkled forehead to the bird’s tiny skull stretched with taut dark skin, and thought images into its frantic brain. He threw his hand up into the air and the bird swooped and dipped once and disappeared over the edge of the roof, barrelling towards the busy streets.

Far below, the Subcontractor paused, sniffing the air as he stood on the pavement outside Hood’s building. He caught the dusty, parchment scent of one of Jackson’s planesbirds and rolled his eyes. Hood and his paranoia. No matter. Let the thing follow and report, it bothered him not a jot. He flagged a passing cab and climbed in. The planesbird would earn its meat tonight. He gave the driver the address of the hotel. ‘Drive fast,’ he said, smirking up at the cab roof, smelling the bird circling high above.

Alex rolled over, pinning the sweating Silhouette beneath him, gasping as he moved with her. Her eyes darkened as she slammed two hands against his chest, nails digging deep into his skin. His blood roared in his ears, his pulse pounding against his forebrain like a punch against a jaw. Silhouette arched up on the bed, breathless, heading for climax. Alex went with her, driving down against her, stroke after stroke, the shudder of orgasm rippling through every nerve in his body. He let out a primal cry as he came and felt sharp heat across his cheek as claws raked his face. Snarling, he looked down at his hands wrapped around Silhouette’s throat, her face half animal, a canine snout, bared teeth, her eyes furious yellow slits. He felt his pulse surge and squeezed tighter and she bucked up, growling deep in her chest. She sent one leg out from under them, using the mattress to bounce them both off centre.

As they rolled, she hit him again, her face morphing back into the beauty he recognised. ‘That’s enough, Alex!’ She twisted, struck out against his chest, sent him flying into the wall six feet away. He hit the ground, rolling instantly into a low crouch, thinking only of finishing the act, killing what he’d fucked.

‘Alex, snap out of it!’ She rolled onto all fours, her whole body shifting into something feline, half lovely, half terrifying. She roared in his face.

Alex staggered back from her beast ferocity and sat down hard against the wall, sucking in breath. He put his hands against her broad, deeply furred chest as she slipped back into human form. ‘What the fuck?’ he gasped. ‘Silhouette, I’m sorry.’

She sat back, naked and gorgeous, and laughed. ‘Well, I like it rough sometimes, Alex, but that’s mental.’

He shook his head, staring at the carpet. ‘What the hell?’

‘The book, you idiot. You have to learn to resist the influence. It wants you to kill and maim and desecrate. You have to resist it.’

Alex felt his control spiralling away again. Cold-blooded murder, slaying in a controlled bout, violent sex. These things were not in his nature. ‘I don’t think I can.’

‘Of course you can. You just did. With my help.’ She leaned forward, that half-smile again. ‘Come on, be honest. That was pretty hot!’

He was ready to shout and rant, but her eyes mesmerised him. Against his better judgment he laughed. ‘Just as well you’re as strong as you are,’ he said.

‘Exactly. I can handle you, Iron Balls. In fact, I think I’m going to enjoy handling you. You’re more like Kin than you realise.’

‘I don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult.’

‘Take it any way you like. I reckon we should do a lot more of that,’ she nodded towards the bed, ‘to see if we can’t help you learn to command those urges.’

‘You are one messed-up chick.’

‘I know.’

A knock at the door made them both jump. Alex raised an eyebrow at Silhouette, who shrugged. ‘Who is it?’ he called out.

‘Petra sent me.’ A female voice, heavy accent of some kind.

‘Oh, right. Just a minute.’

They dressed quickly and straightened the bed, doing their best to conceal the shredded linen. Silhouette wet a towel and dabbed the thin lines of blood her claws had left on his cheek. Alex went to the door. Through the peephole he saw a small, completely bald woman, young and vibrant looking, her skin so black it shone with an almost blue sheen. She smiled, wriggling her fingers at the peephole in a friendly wave. He opened the door. ‘How did you find me?’

‘Your mind-print. Petra passed it on to me. You’re surprisingly easy to track down, especially when you …’ She stopped, smiling slightly.

‘When I what?’

She seemed embarrassed. ‘When you let your guard down, you know. When you’re lost in … something else.’

Alex felt his cheeks burning. ‘Oh, shit. Right. Er … sorry about that.’

‘No need to apologise. I’m Meera.’

Alex shook the offered hand. ‘Alex. This is Silhouette.’

Meera and Sil nodded to each other.

‘Please, come in.’ Alex stepped away from the door.

Meera came into the room, shut the door behind her. She handed Alex a piece of folded paper. ‘I’m afraid our records don’t have much information readily available, but there are a couple of snippets. I’ve jotted down the key points. I’ll keep looking and our archive keepers are still searching. There is one location you should investigate. It’s off the coast of Canada, a very remote island, supposedly uninhabited. We don’t know any more at this stage.’

‘How did you get this information?’ Silhouette asked.

‘We’re specialists,’ Meera replied, with no small amount of pride. ‘If it’s written, we’ll find it. There’s a fragment of a tale, an enduring piece of folklore, about a dark Kin tracking another, trying to prevent him from completing an important task. The dark Kin was killed and the other, if he’s who we think he was, killed himself after completing his mission. How did the story survive? We don’t really know, but it did. It’s written, it’s recorded, it’s ours.’

Alex unfolded the paper. Co-ordinates, sketched maps, some place names. And a dense account of the story Meera had told, with a few extra names and details. He looked up from the page. ‘Who are you people?’

‘We are the Umbra Magi, the Shadow Mages.’

‘And why are you helping me?’

‘We seek knowledge. By helping others, we learn more. The more we learn, the more knowledge is preserved.’

Alex held up the paper. ‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am.’

‘Just promise you’ll share with us anything you find. We’ll keep digging.’ She stepped forward, placed her palm on his forehead. He felt a surge of energy, something sank into place in his mind and gut. ‘Can you feel me now?’ Meera asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Then you can call on me when you need me. And I can find you more easily.’ She looked past him to Silhouette. ‘He has much to learn.’

Silhouette smirked. ‘You’re not wrong. But he’s doing okay so far.’

‘Perhaps, but you must teach him how to conceal himself more thoroughly. You will draw attention. Unwanted attention.’

‘Fair enough.’

Meera and Silhouette both stiffened, Meera dropping to a crouch as she turned to face the door, Silhouette hissing through her teeth. A moment later Alex sensed a presence nearby and the door exploded in a shower of splinters. ‘Go!’ Meera shouted. ‘I’ll hold it, whatever it is. Get away!’

Silhouette shot to Alex, dragged him to one side of the door. As a wiry, dark figure burst through the shattered wood, Meera ran and clashed with it head on. Silhouette pushed Alex out the door before the assailant had a chance to realise they were behind him. Alex turned, his bloodlust rising, and drove a kick into the attacker’s back. It stumbled, directly into Meera’s savage and skilful assault. He had a moment to marvel at her prowess before Silhouette dragged at him again, pulling him across the corridor, into the fire escape stairwell. He wanted to stay and fight, but Silhouette wouldn’t let him, towing him along. They ran, barrelling down the stairs and out into the street.

‘Run!’ Silhouette barked, and sprinted off.

Tearing himself away from re-entering the hotel, getting back into the action, Alex pounded after her. They bolted for block after block, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the mysterious assailant. Silhouette skidded to a halt at a junction, a line of vehicles standing idle, their drivers staring disconsolately at the traffic light, waiting for green permission to move on. She pulled open the door of the front car and yanked a startled woman from the seat. The woman screamed, tumbling into the road. Other drivers began opening doors, people on the pavement stopped to look, point phone cameras at the sudden excitement.

‘Get in!’ Silhouette yelled, dropping in behind the wheel. Alex jumped into the passenger side and Silhouette tore away, swerving between screeching cars coming from either side.

Now he had stopped running Alex could feel Meera, her desperation and her spirit to stay alive. She defended, doing nothing to end the fight, just trying to hold up whatever it was and not get killed in the process. But whatever the thing attacking her was, she couldn’t hold it for long. Alex got the impression of something that looked human, almost insignificantly human, but felt stronger and more predatory than anything he’d ever imagined. A thought from Meera flashed in his mind.
I’m sorry, I can’t hold on any longer.
A surge of magesign ran through their connection and she flashed out, simply disappeared. He heard the roar of rage of whatever she fought as she vanished.

‘What the fuck!’ Alex shouted. ‘What are we running from?’

Silhouette stared hard at the road, swerving between cars that skidded and blasted brash horns. ‘I have no fucking idea, but I am not waiting to find out.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Heathrow.’

‘The airport? To go to Canada?’

‘Yep. That’s what Meera there said and it’s a good distance from here, so I’m all for it.’

Alex and Silhouette stood at the Air Canada counter. ‘That was a piece of luck,’ Silhouette said with a smile.

Alex stared at the wallet in his hand and felt the weight of his phone in his hip pocket and the book in his jacket. The sum total of his possessions, along with the clothes he stood in and the shard of the Darak. So little, yet the one thing he desperately wanted to be rid of he was stuck with. The rep returned with his credit card and printed tickets. ‘There you go,’ she said cheerily. ‘You’d better hurry and check in before it’s too late.’

Silhouette led him away. ‘Let me do the talking at check-in.’

‘You know I have no passport, right?’ His voice sounded slurred to his ears. Tiredness dragged on him like a wet blanket and he didn’t know if he could pull off Welby’s mind tricks.

‘Only mundanes use passports.’

They lined up in the human cattle farm of fabric tape and chrome stands, shuffled forward a few paces at a time. When they reached check-in Silhouette handed the smiling attendant their tickets. Alex felt a surge of magesign and knew she was pulling the same trick Welby had a few days before. Then he had been fascinated, now he was resigned. Sydney airport seemed like a lifetime ago, certainly part of a life he’d never know again. Silhouette took their boarding passes, shaking her head politely when the attendant asked if they had any baggage to check in. They moved on, Alex plodding disconsolately, his mind a blank slate. He was spent, used up. He’d never experienced an exhaustion like it. Used to training his body and focusing to the point of collapse in pursuit of martial excellence he might be, but this was different. Total emotional, psychological fatigue. He could only follow like an old dog.

He walked through the metal detector without sparing the officials a glance and trudged behind Silhouette. The plane would be boarding in less than thirty minutes. Sil led them into a couple of shops, bought a backpack and a few clothing items. She didn’t bother to talk to him, just occasionally held a T-shirt against his chest or looked appraisingly at his legs and waist. If he did catch her eye, she offered a soft smile and nothing more. She bought toothbrushes and other bits and pieces in a pharmacy store that reeked of artificial pheromones and expensive perfume. Everything they did had an uncomfortable déjà vu about it.

Before he knew it Alex found himself shuffling along the aisle of a plane. Silhouette guided him gently into a seat and clipped his seatbelt for him. ‘You can rest now.’

Blackness wrapped him up in soft, dark eternity.

A pressure on his shoulder and Silhouette whispering in his ear. ‘Wake up. You need to eat.’

He opened his eyes, eyelids popping apart like clam shells. An airline meal sat on the tray table in front of him. ‘How long have I been out?’

‘Quite a few hours. I let you sleep through most of the flight, but they’re feeding us again now and we’ll be landing before long.’

He felt immeasurably better, though still battered, his exertions hung like an anchor around his neck. ‘I was so tired.’

‘I know. I think everything’s catching up with you.’

‘No shit.’ He started eating and found himself almost inhaling the food, suddenly ravenous. When had he last had a feed?

Silhouette smiled at him ruefully. ‘You’re going to have to remember to eat. It’s not the sort of thing I’m going to think about. And you won’t want to eat with me.’

He nodded, mouth stuffed with reconstituted mashed potato and suspiciously sweet bread. Within a couple of minutes the plastic dish was clean. ‘I need to eat more.’

Silhouette slid her meal onto his tray, taking his empty containers. He attacked it. ‘We’ll get you something else when we land if you still need it,’ she said. ‘You got that paper Meera gave you?’

He handed it to her. ‘What attacked us back there?’ he asked.

‘I hope Meera’s okay,’ Silhouette said as she unfolded the note.

‘She’s fine. She kinda zapped out of there. Why do you think it’s after us? Not your people, is it?’

Silhouette shook her head, her face serious. ‘No. Joseph promised you’d be safe with our Kin. None in our Den would hunt you or bother you. Besides, there’s no reason to. I’ve been thinking about it and the only thing I can come up with is maybe some friend of Peacock.’

‘Really? How the fuck did they find us?’

‘I don’t know. But maybe we left some kind of trail. I can’t think of anything else. You hadn’t been in the country long enough.’

She had a point. Unless Scarlet was a more serious threat than he’d ever imagined, though he trusted Amir to take care of that. ‘You think we’ve shaken them off?’

Silhouette made a disgusted face. ‘I doubt it. That thing seemed pretty tenacious. We should stay on our guard. With any luck it’ll take a while to catch up again.’

She read Meera’s note. ‘Well,’ she said eventually, ‘we’re heading into Halifax now. This says Meera’s legend came from Beothuk natives who heard it from Icelandic Norsemen. The important part is that there’s a magically protected island off the coast of Newfoundland that we need to find.’ She paused, thinking. ‘So we’ll need to charter a flight to Bonavista then convince someone with a boat to take us out to sea.’

Alex stole a long look at Silhouette’s profile, part of him drinking in her lines, another part wondering what was going on. ‘Magically protected?’ he asked in a tired voice.

‘What?’

‘The island?’

‘Oh, right. Yeah. Probably means it’s warded, cloaked. People could sail and fish all around there for decades and never see it. Occasionally someone might accidentally crash into it and wreck and they’d be considered lost at sea.’

Alex laughed sharply. ‘That sort of thing happen a lot, does it?’

Silhouette turned to him, put one hand against his cheek. ‘Not a lot, but it’s not unheard of. You’re living a new paradigm, Iron Balls. You have to adjust.’

He sighed. ‘So how are we going to find this island?’

‘It’s protected, but we can probably find it, if we take our time. Especially with your talents. In fact, we should probably charter someone to fly us around out there until we do find it, then log the co-ordinates.’

Alex rubbed his eyes, nodding into his palms. ‘How are we going to afford all this?’

‘You don’t have money?’

‘I have some savings, but flights like this, chartering aircraft and whatever the fuck else. I’m not a millionaire. My money will run out. Then what?’

‘Then we get some more. Don’t worry, we’ll manage.’

Alex stood back while Silhouette negotiated with a private charter pilot. So much for the control he had intended to regain. Silhouette’s willingness to help him still made him nervous. If he took her at face value, believed her when she said she found him fascinating, that led to problems of its own. It meant she was capricious. She could just as easily decide he had become boring and disappear. She was part Fey. It bothered him how easily he accepted that, but it was an undeniable truth. That’s what made her Kin. Beauty and the beast. And he knew leaning on her carried dangers, but he had paddled way out of his depth and needed time to re-centre.

In the meantime he would let her ease his burden, and brace himself for the possibility of that help suddenly vanishing. Or worse. Deep down he knew he also braced himself for losing more than her assistance. Whatever else she might be, he grew increasingly attached to her and that scared him most of all. He wondered if she had anything like a similar attachment. Or was he just the current plaything, a momentary whim in her deviant longevity?

She turned back to him with a smile, winking as she strolled across the tiled floor. ‘He’ll fly us out over the area in question and then land us at an airstrip about twenty miles from Bonavista township. He took some convincing because I wouldn’t tell him why I was asking for such a strange charter, but enough money usually answers the difficult questions.’ She tapped her temple with one finger. ‘And a little gentle coercing, of course.’

Alex nodded. ‘Cool. Let’s go then.’

‘You’ve perked up a bit.’

‘I feel better for the rest and the feed. Besides, I can’t let you take all the weight.’ He paused, looking deep into her eyes, ready to gauge a reaction. ‘I really appreciate all you’re doing.’

She smiled, all the way up to her eyes. ‘It’s no problem. I know you’re suffering, but I’m having fun. It’s difficult to find new things to do when you’ve been around as long as I have.’

‘Happy to give you something to do.’

She laughed. ‘Happy to do you.’

The pilot emerged from his office. ‘Come on then, we’d better get going. It’s getting dark early now, we should use what daylight we have left.’ He reached for Alex’s hand. ‘Jim Daley.’

Alex shook. ‘Alex.’ That was as much information as this guy needed.

Daley led them onto the tarmac. Alex went last, enjoying the movement of Silhouette’s butt in her jeans as she walked ahead of him. She did seem to be taking this situation seriously. Maybe it
was
so hard to be entertained at her age that she would take his misfortune as an opportunity. Maybe there was even the chance that she was growing to like him as much as he liked her. But that thought needed to be tempered with the knowledge that he must seem like a child to her. They approached a small twin prop plane.

‘This here is a Piper PA-44-180 Seminole,’ said Daley proudly. ‘It’s old as hell, but in better condition than most things a fraction of its age.’

Alex smiled. That sounded like a good description of Silhouette. On board was all cramped leather seats and a sloping roof that barely cleared his head. They strapped in, put on the offered headphones and waited while Daley cleared them with the tower. The headphones were cold and heavy, crackling with static. Alex leaned over to Silhouette, shouting as Daley fired up the props. ‘Does this seem as surreal to you as it does to me?’

Silhouette shook her head, smiled. ‘Actually, for me this is incredibly mundane.’

Before long the old plane laboured up into an overcast sky. Daley’s voice came distorted over the intercom, tinny. ‘It’ll take us a while to get where you want. I’ll tell you when we clear the far coast near Bonavista, then you’re gonna have to direct me around.’ He sounded like he was humouring children.

‘No problem,’ Silhouette said.

Alex sank down into his seat, let the incessant white noise of the engines lull his senses. He closed his eyes. At some point he slept. He dreamed of insectile creatures stalking him through darkened rooms. Every time one got near it tried to touch him. He cried out, yelling at it to leave him alone as he ran away, mystified that he didn’t stand his ground.
I always fight!
He would duck around a corner and run, watching for the inevitable return of those clawing, scrabbling, chitinous hands. Every time something reached for him, he changed direction, his mind soaked in fear, some primal, certain knowledge that if those hands touched him they would kill him. His frustration grew; no exits to be found, no light to guide him. He wanted to battle, to stand tall and meet these things head on, whatever they were, but fear kept him sprinting. He whimpered as he went, his terror irrational.
Why don’t I just stop and smash them?
He forced his feet to stop pounding, spun around, sweat pouring down his face, eyes searching the darkness. Long, clawed fingers shot out of the shadows all around.

Something pulled at his mind, sucking on his thoughts like a drain drawing water into a spiral. A sharp slap stung his cheek and he jerked upright in his seat.

Silhouette stared hard into his eyes, her magesign washed over him, her expression furious. Her magic probed and prodded at his shields.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked, scared by her intensity.

‘Were you just dreaming?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What about?’

‘I don’t remember exactly. I was being chased, hunted. Something tried to … I dunno, kinda yank the thoughts out of my head.’

Silhouette growled, deep in her chest. ‘Pay attention to me. Do exactly as I do. Use your vision.’

Shaking off the gossamer veils of sleep, trying to hear clearly over the loud drone of the twin props, Alex sat up straighter. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Something is hunting. I can feel it.’

‘Hunting? Me?’

‘It was incredibly weak, but there. Shut up and watch me.’

He watched the shades around her. She opened herself up, let more of herself be revealed to him. He watched, mesmerised, hypnotised by every aspect of her. Everything snapped shut, like a colour television suddenly switching to black and white. He started.

‘Did you see what I did?’ she asked, her voice as intense as her expression.

‘I’m not sure. I dunno …’

‘Damn it, Alex, concentrate!’ She opened her shields again.

Alex watched nothing but the mechanics of her magic, studied the way she manipulated her own ’sign and controlled it. He resisted the urge to enjoy the show, remained clinical in his observation. She slammed everything shut once more, like the way he had learned to conceal his true self, the trick he’d learned from Welby. Only Welby’s method was a cardboard box to Silhouette’s cast-iron safe.

‘Can you see it?’ she asked.

He nodded, trying to apply her methods. He used his mind as a cloak, wrapping himself up in the security of ordinary nothingness.

‘That’s it,’ Silhouette’s voice hissed, muffled by the tinny headphones. ‘Tighter. Lock everything up.’

He did as she asked, closing off from outside of himself. Every time he learned something he had barely got used to it before he discovered it could be deeper, stronger, better. It felt good. Safe. Silhouette nodded, her face finally relaxing. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That needs to be your natural state.’

The pilot looked over his shoulder, his expression confused and a little concerned. Silhouette raised one eyebrow, challenging. He shrugged, flicked them a quick apologetic smile and turned back to face the horizon.

Alex let the feeling settle into his bones, set it to default. He shifted the headset, leaning close to talk directly to Silhouette. ‘What just happened?’ he asked, not sure he really wanted to know.