Dark Harbour: The Tale of the Soul Searcher (15 page)

‘Well, there is one more thing, Vladimir. One more thing that I ought to warn you about.’

‘Lay it on me.’

‘I don’t think we’re the only ones looking for him. In fact, it’s almost a certainty that we’re not. Please be careful.’

Vladimir stood up. He knew where Tyler was right now and already he was itching to meet up with Jake and Clint so they could get on with it. They got that task done, they could get onto some proper work.

‘Like I say. There’s nothing to worry about, Henry. We’re Halo of Fires. Nothing gets in our way.’ He stepped aside from his chair. ‘I’ll be back later with one slack-jawed reprobate.’

Part 4: New Dimensions

Chapter 4.1

Dangers forever lurked for those that hovered within the ranks of Halo of Fires. Although Henry Maristow took good care of his workforce, there was still a price they all had to pay for dwelling in the flames.

The organisation had so many enemies. Some they were aware of, but others were not so conspicuous. They also faced the constant risk of becoming victims of retaliatory attacks themselves after all the revenge they dealt out. They had to be incredibly careful which people they targeted, something that had been instilled into them by the Seraph Alan Hammond. ‘You never go and hit anyone who’s bigger than you,’ he would always say. Although Henry had eventually agreed with Alan on this matter, his opinion was more ‘whomever you go and hit, just make sure you get away with it’.

But in this current period in the history of Halo of Fires, it felt like there wasn’t anyone bigger out there. With Vladimir’s powerful determination and the brawn of Jake and Clint, they all trod wherever they wanted to. What they did have to be careful about, however, was what they got up to outside work. For someone like the Throne Vladimir, this was not a problem as he generally didn’t bother to socialise with anyone, at least no one outside the Fires. His perch on the fringe of society perfectly suited his job.

As for the Power Jake, the only friends that he had were with short term girlfriends. They lasted for maybe a month at the most, and were quickly replaced by the next one. Jake didn’t go to Sunday afternoon barbecues. He didn’t invite friends round to watch the football and sip on beers. He didn’t have children (at least none that he was aware of) and so didn’t go to parents’ evenings and sports days. He didn’t offer to mow his neighbours’ lawns or fetch their wheelie bins in on bin day.

Although it sometimes became a lonely existence, especially when there was a delay between the replacement of girlfriends, if he wanted someone to talk to he always had his colleagues. They were the only people he could properly relate to anyway.

Having worked within the shady underworld of Dark Harbour all his life and gaining his reputation of indomitability, there was still one enemy that Jake could not overcome, and that was his own self. For reasons that had been buried deep within, Jake’s hand forever seemed to be hovering over the self-destruct button.

Nobody was able to help him. Even if they had suggested that he tried a little meditation or some yoga, or maybe cut back on the cigarettes, Jake wasn’t really the type that wanted to help himself. Things had changed slightly after he’d joined the Fires though. It was fortunate that Henry had found him when he had, for Jake was at the lowest point of his entire life on the day that Henry gave him the job offer.

‘Ideally, I’d like our organisation to be peerless. The toughest band of bruisers in the whole of this town. As close to superhuman as is humanly possible,’ Alan had said to Henry one day, back in the early days.

Henry had listened closely to Alan’s vision. It was a time when he could still be inspired by his words. It was a time when he
needed
to be inspired by someone. So, taking them on board, Henry had set out to bring this vision into reality.

His first and most obvious person to headhunt was Jake. Having occasionally worked with him under the cloud of a powerful criminal network, Henry had seen first-hand what he was capable of, how he would do whatever was asked of him, and that he was a born champion. Henry knew that he was the best that they could hope to have, once they’d properly shaped him.

Searching him out had proven to be a little tricky. After Henry had left the Network and joined the Fires, he soon became out of touch with people. What Henry did know was that the Network was crumbling and it was a good time to become a circling vulture.

Jake was in that desperate period on the day that Henry had found him again. Haunted by a paranoiac fear that, it turned out, couldn’t quite be eradicated by alcohol, Jake realised that he had to use whisky as a one way ticket to ultimate oblivion. He’d spent the last of his money on Famous Grouse and had drunk all day and night. If anyone was to bring Jake down, it was going to be Jake himself.

It was on the seventh day of his drinking spree when Henry had found him. Jake was passed out on the park bench, reeking of stale booze, cigarettes, and dried vomit, his stubble beginning to form a beard. He awoke that morning to find Henry in a smart grey suit tugging at his arm. He looked like he was an accountant, an angel, or an assassin.

As Jake focussed on the figure before him, he recognised him correctly as Henry Maristow, but incorrectly as an existing member of the Network. Thinking that they’d finally come for him and swiftly shaking his drunken haze from his mind, Jake shot up off the bench and before Henry knew it, Jake had him in a headlock.

‘Why are you here? Why are you here?’ Jake demanded from him.

‘Damn it, Jake,’ Henry forced out, ‘I can’t answer if you’re going to choke me!’

After a few moments, and with a nagging thought at the back of his mind that Henry Maristow was actually a
fallen
member of the Network, Jake released his grip.

‘You don’t work for
him
anymore, do you?’

‘Not for a while now,’ Henry wheezed as he undid the top button of his shirt. ‘I’m working with someone else now. We got our own thing going. That’s why I came looking for you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Something a little different,’ Henry told him as an intriguing smile had formed on his face.

That day had been Jake’s baptism by Halo of Fires and its spirit of vengeance. Once he’d made his accession, and days after he’d bought himself some new clothes and had a shave, he then helped Henry in bringing others to the ranks.

Of the names he put forward, the one that would go on to have the brightest of careers with them was the Power Clint. He and Jake were already friends before they’d joined the Fires. They had similar interests: drinking heavily, playing with fast women, and spilling blood.

With bulging muscles packed around his tall ebony frame, Clint held the unofficial record amongst the gym crowd of being the best arm wrestler. He usually got the better of Jake when they competed.

With an optimism that was as low as his droning voice that constantly brought out his somewhat bleak outlook on the tasks that came to their hands, Clint actually appeared to be immune from pain. Jake remembered one incident in the gym when Clint was rowing on one of the machines and a poorly installed television had fallen from the wall and crashed onto his head. Although it had bounced off him and then smashed to pieces on the floor, Clint had never winced at all.

Acquiring the two gargantuan gladiators of Jake and Clint, Henry was well on his way to fulfilling Alan’s vision. Later on there had been Quade too, a nephew of Alan Hammond. Henry had accepted him into the organisation after the passing of his uncle, yet recently he was to befall the same tragedy, misfortune seemingly repeated within the bloodline. Quade had been out in town on his own one night, and so they had only a vague idea as to who’d killed him, and even vaguer was the reason why. The universe often had a funny way or repeating itself, so perhaps this was just a coincidence.

Of the other members that Henry brought to the organisation, most of them performed non-violent operations as Virtues, or acted as sleepers or informants in the rank of Dominion. But the other person who would come to complete the trio of main Halo of Fires operatives, and chief over the Powers, was not found by Henry at all. He was one of Alan’s, a youngster brought from out of town.

Vladimir’s involvement with the Halo of Fires organisation had begun a long time ago, with an important job that had been bequeathed to him, and which was still outstanding. While Henry had searched out the men with the muscle, Alan had stumbled upon someone unusually unique in Vladimir.

Alan never lived to see exactly what had become of his creation. He’d overseen him for a number of years though, as Vladimir absorbed Alan’s ideas and intentions. He’d seen something within him right from the start, and Vladimir had been raised on a diet of vengeance to become the Angel of Karma that he was today. Alan had hoped to create the nearest he could to a superhero and in Vladimir he’d achieved that.

Henry initially raised his eyebrows when Alan announced that Vladimir was to become a member. Vladimir did not appear to have the requisite weight to his physique. He was about as far away from a thug as you could get. There was a distinguishable
gentleness
to the youngster’s features. He was a willowy wonderer, dancing on the flames of delirium. Would this really translate into a viable X factor?

No one would ever now deny how great a choice Alan had made in bringing him into the organisation. Although the Seraph had passed away many years ago, his spirit lived on in Vladimir, a spirit of vengeance and retribution burning away so powerfully and so determinedly that, without Vladimir, Halo of Fires would not be the force that it was today. Alan had indeed taught him well.

Vladimir’s birth place wasn’t as far away as Krypton. He’d never hung out in a chemistry lab in his entire life, and he’d never been bitten by any genetically modified arachnids. He didn’t even know anyone who could make any kick-ass weapons. Vladimir was just a young man, of flesh and blood, like everyone else.

The young man relied on something unique in scrapping his way through the underground of Dark Harbour. Jake and Clint could take the punches and the kicks that came their way. But Vladimir had a much different coping mechanism, as was to be evidenced on this night, when Halo of Fires was sent by Henry to obtain a thief called David Tyler.

It was on this night that something bewildering happened with Vladimir, something that would demonstrate how Alan Hammond’s vision was more fulfilled than anyone could have ever imagined.

Chapter 4.2

‘Where’s Clint?’ Vladimir asked as soon as Jake sat down at the table.

‘Making a quick stop. He’ll be here soon.’

Vladimir checked his watch, a little irritated. His Powers often did this to him, but he would rarely complain.

Jake surveyed the lounge of
The Apex
, a jazz bar in town that Vladimir had arranged as tonight’s meeting point. Across from them was a stage area, empty tonight. Maybe the band that was booked had been listening to their own depressing music so long that they couldn’t even be bothered to get out of bed this morning.

The room was lit by small neutral blue lights that fought the cloying darkness. Contemplative looking individuals were dotted around the room like souls in a purgatorial waiting room, reviewing the trials of their lives inside their minds as they listened to the slow and melancholic jazz number that played over the speakers.

No one was in earshot of the vigilantes, which was exactly why Vladimir had chosen this table at the back of the lounge, not that any of these people present could be bothered to pay them any interest. One of the blue lights shone from the ceiling directly onto the table, making Vladimir’s drink look like it was some sort of magical fuel.

‘Do you come here to drown your sorrows or something?’ Jake asked him.

‘Never stray from the Coke…’

‘Always got to keep your focus,’ Jake finished the stock answer for him. ‘And you think caffeine is good for you?’

Vladimir looked at him blankly.

Jake gazed towards the bar. ‘I haven’t been here in ages.’

‘I like the atmosphere.’

He searched Jake’s troublesome eyes, the expression on his face appearing to show that he was trying to make sense of the random and spontaneous jazz music that slithered away in the background.

The music was a little beyond Jake, but he was at least intrigued by it. Jake
tried
to understand things and at this moment he was curious to understand why this crawling beat and these bouncing notes resonated with Vladimir yet did not with himself.

‘Can’t tune into this music, huh?’ Vladimir asked him.

‘Your thing, I guess.’

Vladimir nodded, sensing Jake was uncomfortable with his introspection. His thick eyebrows were beginning to arch into a pensive frown. They always seemed so heavy, a weight on his tired eyes. Jake had his usual two-day growth of stubble on his face. How did he
always
appear to have two days of growth? It suited him well though, added to his action-hero appearance. With his square jaw and tightly packed muscles, Vladimir could almost imagine Jake to be the inspiration behind the Action Man toy figure. There was a precision to his body, a perfection to his chiselled handsomeness. If any artist wanted a model to represent maleness or heroism or strength, then Jake would be perfect for them.

Vladimir sometimes wondered whether the gods had created Jake as a physical masterpiece of creation, but that his inner defections had angered them and they’d discarded him into this lowly world as punishment. On Earth he could battle it out with himself and really come to understand the flaws in his character.

Jake broke his attention away from the jazz music, and caught Vladimir’s gaze. ‘Anyway, so what’s with the change of plan tonight? I thought we had a job at the rec.’