by Adam Carter
“You’re the same as Baronaire aren’t you?”
Jeremiah had heard the voice but did not answer immediately. He had been freaked out at the way Ilium had seemed to know he was standing before him, and now this man, Marius, was doing the same thing.
Jeremiah moved around the chair, strolling to the fireplace, noting Marius had not moved at all. The man was slumped in his chair, and he looked older than his years. There was a weight on Marius’s shoulders Jeremiah could not understand, almost did not want to. But a question had been asked and needed to be addressed.
“And what is Baronaire?” Jeremiah asked.
Marius stared into the rolling flames. “I don’t know what you’d call him, but I met a creature like him once. A creature older than any human has a right to be. He owned the night, brought out the monsters and made them dance to his tune just as these flames dance to mine. He was a man clever with words, sharp with actions, and slick with charisma.” He looked directly to Jeremiah. “He was also a monster.”
“And what became of this monster?”
“I don’t know. It settled, I think, in a town. Took it for its own, exterminated the population and replaced it with other monsters. Mindless servants to do its bidding.”
“And does this monster have a name?”
Marius stared at him for long moments and finally said, “What are you?”
The man looked tired, and Jeremiah knew there was more to things than he had been told. More to Marius, more to Ilium, and more to their little secret society. But telling Marius just what he was would not solve anything. “What do you people do?” he asked. “Your little club.”
“Club?” Marius seemed confused at first, although then he understood. “It’s not a club, my friend. It’s a power trip. A power trip for stupid rich people with nothing better to do with their time. Have you ever dreamed of living in the good old days, when peasants were stupid and landowners could do no wrong? Where the law protected the rich and the average man feared the gods too much to ever say anything against his lot in life?”
“It was ... hardly like that, Marius. It could be good, warm. Friendly even. Families were wary of travellers, but people were good back then. More welcoming than they are today at any rate.”
“You’re older than you look.”
“Are you?”
“No. I just ... Tell me something. If you had everything you could possibly want, everything your money could buy, what would there be left for you to have? To what does a man who has everything aspire?”
“It would depend whether he was religious.”
“Are you?”
“I was, once. Then God let me down.” He thought back to his wife years earlier, the death of their daughter which split them apart. And he thought of Marius’s room upstairs and asked, “Who was she?”
Marius understood without the need for him to say anything more. “My wife. Laura.” He smiled as he spoke her name, and by his eyes Jeremiah could see he was elsewhere, elsewhen. “We’d known one another our whole lives, our families always knew we would marry. I proposed when I was sixteen, it seemed the done thing. She accepted, of course she accepted. Our families were happy, and we waited until we were eighteen before we were wed. Are you married, my friend?”
Jeremiah realised then Marius did not even know his name. “Jeremiah. And no, I’m not married.” He felt strangely comfortable in telling this man his name: he figured they both had secrets which if revealed could cause irreparable harm.
“But you have been. I can see it in your eyes.”
“What happened to her?”
Marius continued to stare into the fire. “She got sick. It was very sudden. Cancer. One moment she was with me, the next the doctors were telling us she had less than a year to live. Two weeks after that she was dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
It could not have been that long ago, Jeremiah reflected, considering Marius was only in his mid-twenties. “So you joined this society of yours?”
“It’s an expression of power. Bored rich people, like I said. I just figured if I joined them I could help people. I could use my influence, my power, my money, to help people worse off than me. I can’t cure diseases, Jeremiah, but I can make lives better.”
“Lording over a land of peasants.”
Marius smiled tightly. “You must think me mad, rattling on about insane scenarios. Of course I don’t lord over peasants, what a ridiculous notion.”
Jeremiah laughed with him, although both men knew Marius was lying. He did not know where or even how, but somewhere Marius was a powerful figure, helping anyone he could. It was a strange notion, even charming in its own regard, but Jeremiah could never do what Marius was doing. He had lost his own family and he had thrown himself into his work. Marius did not have that luxury, his wealth gathered through birth and gambling. He had no work, and so had thrust himself into this little fantasy of his secret society. He had fled reality rather than face it, and now he was even believing he was on this odd power trip.
That there were so many rich fools riding with him meant there was likely some truth to the matter, although Jeremiah did not believe the man’s words in their entirety. Raymond Marius was a pathetic man who had lost everything, and Jeremiah pitied him.
“What would happen were Ilium to die?” Jeremiah asked, finding he could be frank with this man. Marius was clever enough to have realised they were not conventional police, and likely even understood what they did.
“I don’t much care for Ilium,” Marius admitted. “I wanted to deal with him myself so that he couldn’t reveal anything about us, but that doesn’t matter with you people. You’re unconventional yourselves, especially you and Baronaire. I think our secrets are safe with one another.”
I think you need to be in a loony bin, Jeremiah thought, but instead said, “Then if he vanishes, that’s the end of the matter so far as you’re concerned?”
“Donald committed a crime and he did it on your territory, Jeremiah. That means he has to face your laws, just as you would have to face his were you to commit a similar crime on his territory. I don’t care what you do with him, and I don’t want to know either. Just leave me in peace with my memories.”
Jeremiah did not stay much longer. He had gone to talk with Marius, hoping he would be able to find out something useful connecting Ilium to this odd society, and instead had been all but given permission to do away with Ilium. He would alert Baronaire to this news, and Baronaire could kill Ilium tonight and be done with it. There was every indication that Ilium would not be missed, so they would not have to fabricate a cover story for his disappearance or demise.
He returned to the bunker on the night winds and walked back into the office to find Stockwell just turning off his computer. He had visions again of the young man not heading home, but just plugging himself into a wall socket until morning, and smiled. Jeremiah was not in good humour, had thought he would have been, but Marius’s simple story had affected him, had made him remember too much about his own past. Even though the past should never be forgotten, it was not something to be dredged up too often.
Jeremiah opened the door to the room they were using as a cell. They only had three such rooms, and Jeremiah wondered what they would do should they ever need to detain a prisoner for any substantial length of time. He knew however the DCI would have thought of that long ago and made provisions for it. Likely there was some deep storage vault somewhere on the premises, perhaps even on the mythical lower level.
He frowned as he reached the cell, for it was empty. Deciding he must have checked the wrong one, Jeremiah went to all three and found them all vacant.
Running back into the offices, he was just in time to catch Stockwell before he could leave. “The prisoner’s out!”
Stockwell pushed his glasses farther up his nose. “Ilium?”
“Yes! He’s gone.”
“Sure he’s gone.”
�
�What?”
“Baronaire let him go.”
Jeremiah blinked, certain he had heard incorrectly. “He did what? Why?”
“I don’t know. We’re not supposed to discuss other people’s cases around here. G’night, J. See ya tomorrow.”
Jeremiah was too stunned to berate Stockwell for calling him J and pushed past him to get back outside. Why Baronaire would release Ilium was beyond him. Was it possible Ilium had strange powers as well? Could he have hypnotised Baronaire just as Baronaire had failed to hypnotise Milton earlier? Or had something far more sinister occurred?
There was only one way to find out. It was still night, and that meant Jeremiah would be able to track Baronaire’s scent. He could have tracked Ilium’s as well, had he met the man flesh to flesh, and not simply behind a glass case. Jeremiah left the bunker swiftly, heading out after Baronaire. His old friend was in danger and with the unusual abilities of his enemies, Jeremiah was likely the only one who could save him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The meadows stretched out ahead of him, the clean crisp air warming his skin. He breathed deeply of the fresh poppies blowing steadily in their fields, caught the waft of a grazing herd, possibly of cattle, but he did not care to turn his head to see. The sun beat down upon him, the wind whipping about as though a thousand faeries were dancing around his body. It had been a long time since Charles Baronaire had truly felt at peace with himself, with the world at large, although here, standing in this meadow, he remembered at last what it meant to be human.
His mind drifted back to a time when he was four years old. His father had taken him to the beach, they had eaten too much ice cream and too many doughnuts and young Charles Baronaire had fallen asleep, safe in his father’s arms. Now his father was dead, taken from him by the one man Baronaire had then sworn to kill. Instead Baronaire had done much as everyone else in the country had done; he had become complacent and fallen into the rigours of an office job. He was conforming to a society in which he no longer belonged, and only now was he beginning to see how stupid that was. Whatever he had at one time been, Baronaire was no longer human. He could dress as one, act as one, lie to himself as much as he wished, but he was not human.
He opened his eyes. The tall grasses stretched ahead of him to infinity, and he could indeed see the animals upwind of him were cows. Baronaire seldom visited the countryside, but this was not like any countryside he had ever known. In many respects it was just as he had seen before, but there were differences, albeit subtle ones. There were no harvesters here, no tractors, no markings upon the narrow roads. These meadows did not know technology; the only machine herding the cattle was a scruffy black and white dog.
Baronaire looked farther than the fields then, seeing the farmhouse for the first time. It was a fairly large building, with a stream running by its side. It was idyllic, heavenly, but he was not of heaven and he did not belong in this field.
His feet lifted clumsily, unused to such movements, uncertain whether they would be able to fall again. He pressed on, ignoring their protests, and trudged his way through to the house. It was a warm, safe place, and Baronaire stood before it for some minutes, watching the gentle rising of the wheel which cupped water and turned with its efforts, operating some form of antique process within the building. It was some help with harvesting grain, or baking bread, he did not know. He only knew it was here and it operated well enough.
Slowly he approached the farmhouse and pushed at the door, his hand pausing ere it touched the ancient wood. There were wards upon the door, rose thorns and wild flowers. The simple fools who lived here likely believed in demons and muttered oaths before laying down to sleep. Baronaire almost pitied them their idiocy, but he had known simple folk before and could not possibly pity them all. The ignorant often chose their lot in lives and he had no compassion for an entire species.
And he was not human.
Had not been since he was four years old.
The farmhouse inside was just as Baronaire expected. Cluttered, poor and with light spilling in through the tall windows. It was midday, although Baronaire’s senses were not impaired by the daylight. There was a scent to the air, a fresh, rosy texture which brought a smile to his lips as he slowly breathed it in. He knew that scent, had known it all his life. He had spent a long time denying it, but when he allowed himself to partake of it such were the most joyous moments of his life.
He moved slowly through the house, disturbing nothing, touching nothing. Bread lay upon the table, freshly baked, the knife still half inside the loaf as though it had been abandoned in haste. He began to notice other things also, such as the seat drawn at an odd angle and the bucket whose water sloshed from side to side as though someone had only a minute earlier been drawing from it. Someone had fled this room very recently indeed. Could they have known he was coming? Could they have known what he was, what he was after? Did he even himself know what he was after?
Yes. Yes, he did.
Baronaire continued, following the delicious scent. He passed through a doorless entryway and found himself at the bottom of a staircase. There was no obvious indication that anyone had taken the stairs recently, but Baronaire’s senses did not lie and he knew someone had fled in fear. He could taste that fear now, he was so close to its source, and he felt an itch upon his gums at the thought that someone could be so afraid of him. Fear was a strange thing. It was what drove men to protect their loved ones; it was the very thing men attempted foolish things in order to conquer. Baronaire felt no fear, for he knew there was no need for such. There was no one here who could possibly hurt him.
He took the stairs slowly, making certain of every step, but did not drift upwards. His booted feet fell harshly onto each wooden step, thunking, thunking, thunking. He reached the landing at the rise of the staircase and cast his eyes about. But he did not need his vision to know which way he needed to head.
Approaching the door, he pushed the ancient wood very slowly and it creaked open on poorly made hinges. The room was dark; there were covers to the window which had been drawn. But Baronaire did not need light in order to see. There was a cot in the room – a simple straw and wood design – and very little else. There had been some attempt made to decorate the chamber; a splash of paint and a handful of fresh flowers resting atop a badly designed table. In the corner of the room there huddled a terrified figure, and Baronaire’s eyes slowly turned upon her.
She was around eighteen years of age and wore simple utilitarian attire. She had been working in the kitchen when she had heard or more likely seen him approach. Her hair was tied back so it would not fall into the bread and her face was a mask of flour and tears. Her young body trembled as she hugged her knees, attempting to tuck herself into the smallest possible shape that he might not chance to see her. But Baronaire did not leave anything to chance.
“Rise,” he told her, his eyes fixed upon her cruelly. “Come to me, child.” He spoke gently, soothingly, but his smile was without humour and was entirely selfish. The young woman obeyed, through fear if nothing else, terror lacerating her body to the degree that she stumbled against the table and knocked the flowers to spill over the ground. Baronaire ignored the flowers and kept his eyes locked with those of the girl. She did not look away, could not even had she tried, and slowly she drifted across to him. He smiled, reaching out a soothing hand to work the tie from behind her. The girl’s long dark hair spilled across her shoulders and Baronaire smiled tightly. “Now isn’t that better?”
The woman swallowed nervously and Baronaire took a moment to breathe in the nectar of her fear before leaning in to kiss her. Her lips were almost frozen, but they were warm even though they did not respond. He held her body tightly to his own, her warmth spreading through him, and Baronaire at once felt more alive than ever. He did not know who she was, whether this was her farm or that of her parents. He did not know why she had been left alone at the farmhouse, but nor did he care. She was here and she was his and he thought of nothing el
se.
At last she began to respond. At first she reciprocated, his gaze at last working, her mind hazing over so she did not understand what she was doing. He held her in a tight embrace as his lips caressed hers, before they stroked down to her neck. His gums were itching madly by then and he felt his eye-teeth shudder as they were released. The girl’s body tightened as he pressed his mouth to her throat, and slowly she began to relax. Her eyes were closed, her mind deteriorating, just as Baronaire’s was beginning to open. He could see so many wondrous things, he experienced so many bizarre thoughts as their essences became one. And he saw something else in her mind now they were connected. He saw in his mind’s eye that the girl held something in her hand.
Baronaire released her just as the girl brought the knife around in a sharp stabbing motion. His hand snapped out, catching her wrist, and he snarled at her, his sharpened teeth bloody from the wound at her throat; the wound coated with an anticoagulant saliva which stood every chance of seeing her bleed to death.
Shock flitted across her face, replaced with genuine horror that he had prevented her final chance at defeating him. He squeezed with his hand, crushing her wrist, and the knife went tumbling uselessly from her fingers. Baronaire was through being nice about things, and even as she struggled he no longer cared for her state of mind. He had been content to allow her to drift off slowly, peacefully, but his primal mind did not like being attacked, and he relished in her screams, her cries of anguish as he overpowered her.
Baronaire had the strength of twenty men. There was nothing she could possibly have done to stop him.
*
Donald Ilium was there when Baronaire returned. Baronaire did not quite know where he had gone, was not even certain it was anywhere physical. He simply opened his eyes and he was no longer in the farmhouse, but back within an office in central London. The same office in which Ilium had committed his own horrific crime. But Baronaire could still smell the fresh flowers, could still feel the chill of the wind against his skin, could still hear the low of the cows grazing. He had no idea whether it had been brought about by hallucinogenic drugs, hypnosis or something he would never understand; a highly disturbing part of his mind told him that what he had just experienced had not been a lie at all.