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Hood broke away and Sparks staggered as he released her. A look of drunkenness cleared from her face as he moved on. ‘Yes. The Dark Sisters,’ he muttered. ‘But how to reach them?’ He sat at his desk, started thumbing through the large book.

Sparks pulled herself together. ‘The Dark Sisters? I’ve never heard of them. Who are they?’

‘Death, that’s who. Evil. Relentless. Their fee is usually too high to ever consider, but in this case I’m prepared to compromise.’

‘Are they mercenaries? Humans?’

Hood grinned. ‘Mercenaries? Of a sort. Humans? Good God, Sparks, no. They’re about as far from human as I imagine anything gets.’

Silhouette carefully drove the car she’d hotwired, staying under the speed limit, avoiding attention. The roads weren’t particularly busy. A kind of dread lurked deep in Alex’s soul, but it was a seductive feeling. Every moment that passed with this woman the more he wanted to stay with her. He was becoming addicted. And becoming more like her. Falling in love with a monster. Was he becoming a monster too?

He had a malevolent force dragging at his life, a force that would surely kill him eventually, causing untold mayhem along the way. He had to shake himself free of it. Did he have to free himself of Silhouette too, before it was too late? How many would he kill saving himself? Those freaks on the island were messed up, but did he really have any right to wipe them out? If he’d died there and Silhouette had died with him, that would have been an end to it, the book stuck, never to darken the real world again. Perhaps that would have been the best outcome. The book pushed its presence into his mind, revelling in the deaths. It urged him to kill again, to cause chaos, never to abandon it on some remote island. Alex knew, beyond a doubt, that these thoughts came from Uthentia. Its evil tendrils sank deeper into his consciousness all the time. Anger roiled in his gut. The urge to slaughter rose up, filling his chest with a fire.

Silhouette looked at him sharply. ‘What’s going on, Alex?’

He ground his teeth, trying to suppress the surge of fury.

‘Alex, chill the fuck out. You need to control this.’

The book pulsed like his heart, racing with him. He remembered the fight with the Subcontractor and the animal joy of it. Even the defeat gave him a rush, under no illusion that luck had saved him. Luck in the form of a shotgun-toting, obese clerk. He wanted more havoc, more adrenaline, more death. He tipped his head back, yelling frustration at the heavens.

Silhouette hit the brakes, pulled the car off the road into a long, darkened driveway lined with trees. She stopped in the deepest shadows and killed the engine. Alex clenched his fists on his lap, resisting the urge to strike out at her. ‘I feel like an explosion!’

She grinned at him. ‘Good. I’ll give you one.’

In one quick movement she was on his lap, knees astride his legs, grinding into him. She leaned in, biting at his neck, kissing his lips.

His desire for her flamed. He wanted to take her and then rip the life from her while he came. The real Alex, disappearing in a sea of rage, hated himself. He gasped. ‘I don’t know if I can control …’

She slapped him. ‘Shut the fuck up.’ She put his hands around to her butt, pressed down on him harder, kissed him more urgently. She sat back, pulling her shirt off, pressing his head into her breasts. He reached beside the seat, pulled a lever. The seat fell back with his weight. Silhouette fell with it then sat up again, hands on his chest. She looked magnificent in the darkness. She struggled to pull down his jeans and her own, her body twisting in the confined space. He helped her, occupying his hands, trying to focus on her body, blot out the fury. Her features morphed as she growled, her own passion feral and powerful. ‘Come on! Fuck me!’

The car rocked, their heat steaming the cold windows.

Hood sat back with the old tome from his private bookcase, the leather seat of his private jet creaking as he moved. Sparks watched him. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked. Clouds built swollen sculptures far below the plane, golden with sunlight.

He spoke without looking up. ‘Scotland, Sparks. The middle of bloody nowhere.’

‘That’s where these Sisters live?’

‘It’s one place to reach them.’

Sparks couldn’t hide her concern. ‘I understand how badly you want whatever this boy has, but I can’t help wondering how high the cost might be.’

Hood lowered the book, his expression bored. ‘Why don’t you let me worry about that? I seek sport as much as money. This whole thing has me entertained. I haven’t had something like this to get my teeth into for a while. You could always find … something else to do.’

Sparks shook her head vigorously. ‘No, no. I’m with you all the way. You know that. So what are these Dark Sisters? How do we deal with them?’

Hood gestured with the grimoire. ‘If you shut up and let me read, I’ll figure it out.’

Sparks’s eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘You don’t know? Have you ever dealt with them before?’

Hood sighed, closed the book on his lap. ‘No. I met a man many years ago. He and I did a lot of trade together. He unearthed this for me, and it tells the tale of the Dark Sisters, how they can be bargained with and so forth. I’ve never used them before, as their price is very high. This is a special case.’

‘Sounds dangerous.’

‘Of course it’s dangerous, Sparks. Everything we do is touched with danger. That’s where the sport lies. But I have the power and the ability to pay what they ask, so I’ll employ them and task them with getting me what I want. I’m a businessman, and this is business.’

‘You made a lot of calls before we left.’

‘There was a lot to arrange.’

Sparks wasn’t really mollified. She didn’t like it when Hood conducted activities without including her. She had proved time and again how valuable an asset to him she could be, yet so often he left her on the outer. He seemed to revel in it sometimes, often claiming it was for her own protection while a self-satisfied smirk played across his lips. ‘I hope the book tells you all you need to know,’ she said.

‘It will. It cost me enough. Now shut up, and let me read.’

Alex lay back, gasping for breath. Cold air came in where the passenger door used to be, chilling his sweat-soaked body. Silhouette crawled back into the car through the ruined doorway, pressing the back of one hand to her rapidly swelling lower lip. ‘Fucking hell,’ she said between pants, dropping heavily into the driver’s seat.

‘I’m sorry,’ Alex said. ‘Are you okay?’ His shame threatened to drown him. The rage had been diluted again, the pressure valve of frustration and anger released once more with their union, but every time he came closer to killing her.

She pulled her clothes back on. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. That was a good one!’

‘I’m glad you like it.’

‘I’m glad it works. You feeling better?’

He pulled the seat up, dragged his jeans back on. ‘Yeah, it certainly calms the anger.’ He wanted to tell her that he had no idea how long he could resist the desire to kill her, but how could he possibly approach that truth?

Silhouette pursed her lips, looking at the shattered windscreen, the glass like a giant confused spiderweb. The dashboard sat cracked and crooked, the passenger door lying in the darkness a few feet away. ‘Well, this is all pretty fucked up.’

Alex nodded, flexing knuckles that still throbbed with the impact of repeatedly punching a car. He managed to direct a lot of the fury away from Silhouette while she helped relieve it, but not all. He hated what he had become. ‘What now?’

‘I guess we have to get another one.’ She opened her door, looked down the dark driveway. ‘They’ll probably have a car down there somewhere. I’ll go and check. Can you do anything with this one?’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, burning it would be the best way to make sure we don’t leave prints or anything. Maybe you can find something to siphon some petrol out and douse it?’

‘I’ll try.’

Silhouette disappeared into the shadows. Alex stared after her for a moment then climbed out. He thought about Welby’s element grimoire, the powerful stone. He remembered the giant wave standing up over the island. Water, air, earth and fire. Those were the things he’d read about. Things he understood now with such clarity. He pictured the car on fire, visualised a roaring incandescence consuming the carpets and vinyl seats, flaking the paint off in a furious inferno. The Darak spread its own warmth through his body. He drew on it, saw twisted and blackened metal in his mind’s eye. He tried to draw raw heat from the air the same way he’d drawn up a giant wave from a choppy ocean. He let his guards down, let his magesign swell out. Within seconds his arcane energies flashed into manifest flames, the entire car an inferno of blistering heat. He threw one arm up in front of his face, staggering away from the furnace. The metal frame of the car glowed a piercing red, the bodywork and chassis twisting and curling, melting like wax on a bonfire.

Silhouette jogged along, one hand pressed to her aching ribs. Alex got more violent every time, his fury harder to control. Fun it might be, and she did enjoy herself every time, but it was starting to scare her. The passion and animal intensity thrilled her. Alex’s humanity, deep inside him, made for so much more than callous Kin couplings. But when would the influence against Alex push that humanity away? She pulled her phone from her pocket as she went, the screen informing her of numerous missed calls and messages. She sighed and dialled Joseph’s number.

It rang once, then, ‘How dare you ignore me, Silhouette? Who do you think you are?’

‘I’m with him all the time, my Lord,’ she said, careful to keep her voice level. ‘I can’t talk with you unless I’m alone.’

His breathing sounded calm over the line. That disturbed her more than if he’d been furious. ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘What news?’

‘Alex has the second piece.’

‘Really?’ Joseph was clearly impressed. ‘This human is proving to be quite resourceful. How much of your help did he need to get it?’

‘Well, he actually saved me,’ Silhouette said with a wince.

‘Interesting. So now what?’

‘We’re off to see if we can track down the third part.’

‘Do you think he’ll find it?’

Silhouette frowned, unsure what to say. ‘It’s hard to tell, really. We’ve nothing to go on so far.’

‘I want that stone, Silhouette.’

‘I know you do.’

‘Have you seen anything that might help us separate the stone from the book?’

Silhouette stood in deep shadow under a large pine. Two cars, a sedan and a pick-up, were parked in front of a ramshackle house. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Only his death will release them. But how to get one and not the other is still beyond me.’

‘Think of a way, Silhouette. Only my protection saves you from the Kin. You’re too much human
and
too much Fey. But if you do this for me,
prove
you are true Kin … Get me this stone, little one. I want to hear more news soon.’

The line went dead. Silhouette stood in the darkness for several moments, phone gripped tightly, teeth worrying her lower lip. With a growl of annoyance she turned her attention to the vehicles.

Over the roar of the flames Alex heard another sound, an engine revving. Silhouette skidded a big black pick-up truck to a halt beside him. ‘Nice work,’ she said with a smile. ‘Get in.’

Alex jumped into the passenger seat. He trembled, buzzing with the magic he’d channelled.

‘You okay?’ Silhouette asked as she gunned the engine and powered out onto the main road again.

‘Yeah. Just a bit shaken.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘You didn’t siphon petrol, did you?’

‘No.’

‘Then how?’

‘Fire’s an element.’

‘Yeah. And you’re pretty scary. You’re developing skills at a furious rate, Iron Balls. You need to be careful.’

‘Do I?’ he asked, confused.

‘You’re running before you can walk. Fuck, you’re sprinting before you can crawl. A person can screw themselves up using magic like you’re doing.’

‘You’re the one who told me to embrace the stone’s power. Own it.’

‘Sure. But go easy, a bit at a time. You immolated that car!’

‘Well, I did the job.’

‘You did. But remember, power is nothing without control. You have to learn to protect yourself from … well, from yourself.’

They drove in silence for a while. Silhouette had it right. The power that surged through him back there had felt like it might burst him open, shatter him into atoms. He thought about his fight training, his Sifu’s lessons.
First and most important is technique, Alex. Excellent technique will always lead to maximum speed and power. If you’re all speed and power with no technique, you’ll only ever be a brute, never reaching your full potential. You’ll have lost to yourself before you ever face an opponent.

The same thing applied here. Slow practice would lead to mastery. Massive bursts would inevitably lead to disaster.
Power is nothing without control
. His Sifu had said that more times than he could remember, and now Silhouette echoed his dead master’s words. She embodied control for him, taking the hit every time the book tried to overcome him. Without her he’d have run rampant by now, slaughtering who knew how many. If a human tried to calm him down like Silhouette did, that human would be destroyed in an instant. As much as she seemed to genuinely enjoy it, Silhouette was saving his life every time, at enormous risk to herself. He owed it to her as much as himself to regain command over his situation. He wished he could trust her, but regardless, he needed control.

He pulled the book from his pocket, watching the ’sign swim around it like a smoky octopus, reaching for his face. He opened it and read,
A universal song of power glides above you, through you, with you. Together and immortal, energies to shatter worlds. Three parts, two stolen, one lost, beyond you. Become the universal power without, give in, let fly, worlds collide.

He slammed the book shut with a gasp.

‘What did it say?’ Silhouette asked, not taking her eyes from the road.

‘I think it’s telling me to give up. That I won’t be able to find the last piece.’

‘Sounds to me like it fears what might happen if you do.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ Alex conceded. ‘It’s so desperate for chaos. It desires nothing more than absolute bedlam.’

‘You think it’s worried you might get the better of it with the complete stone?’

‘I don’t know. I think it’s pissed off that every time it tries to drive me to violence you take the fury away.’

She winked, blew him a kiss. ‘Glad to be of service.’

Alex looked at the closed book in his hands. ‘But I’m scared, Sil. I’m getting more dangerous all the time. What if I get too powerful for you?’