Relics and Runes Anthology

by Heather Marie Adkins

  Shit. They were shooting at me? What happened to wanting me alive?

  Seething, I sighted and threw the stone with all my strength. A pained cry; followed by satisfactory thrashing as a body rolled, through the underbrush and crashed against a tree trunk.

  Logan chuckled. Nice throw. Now run. Look forward, not down. Trust your feet. They’ll find the right way for you.

  I lifted my face and ran. He was right. Running without looking worked better. I stopped thinking about twisted ankles and focussed on him. Christ, he was fast. For the first time in my life, I had to push to keep up. He flew over the leaf-strewn, rocky ground like it was a straight, flat running track.

  Another shot exploded near my leg, sending chips of stone in all directions. A sharp sting to my calf said I’d been hit by the shrapnel. Logan sped up. Another explosion of bark showered splinters over me. The leg could wait until later. These guys were serious.

  The creek bed levelled out, the water pooling in a small, idyllic dam. Grassy slopes and eucalypts surrounded it on either side. The scene was pretty, but distressingly short on cover for fugitives. Incurious black and white cows eyed us from beyond a dilapidated wire fence.

  Logan paused at the edge of the forest. An arm out stopped me passing him. The noonday sun baked the verdant hills, water almost-visibly evaporating from the dam. The scent of warm cow-dung mingled with the earthy aroma of leaves and dirt from the forest floor as I bent over, hands on knees, panting as quietly as possible.

  ‘There,’ he said.

  I squinted up, following his line of sight.

  A small shed squatted not far away, its grey timber walls far from vertical, its single window grimed with years of dust. I couldn’t see a door on this side. We had to cross at least twenty metres of exposed ground to get to the building. If there was someone inside, or further up the road, we’d be seen.

  I caught the sound of distant crashing and swearing. ‘They’re coming.’

  Logan nodded. ‘I can’t tell if there’s anyone waiting. We’ll have to chance it. My bike’s inside.’

  ‘You went back for your bike last night?’

  ‘Sleep’s overrated. If something happens to me, do you know how to ride?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘No arguments.’ He scowled at me. ‘Just get on it and go. The key’s tucked under the seat. Here’s the safehouse.’ He flashed an address to me, mind to mind, so it seared fluorescent red across the inside of my eyeballs. ‘Maeve knows what to do.’

  ‘Well, shit,’ I said feelingly, ‘I’m glad someone does. Stop being so damned melodramatic. Let’s go.’ I dashed from cover, crouching low.

  He swore but his light steps followed.

  No shots. No alarmed voices.

  We edged along the eastern end of the shed, furthest from the road, until we could see around the corner. The door stood partly open. Logan withdrew and closed his eyes for a moment.

  I didn’t leave it like that. There’s someone in there. Just one I think. Ideas?

  I concentrated. A frontal attack would be mad. He’d just pick us off. Here. What’s behind this? I pointed to a broken board, low by my leg. The gap was big enough for someone my size to squeeze through.

  He inspected it. I think there’s an old wrought iron fence leaning up against that wall. There should be enough space to get in, but what the hell do you do then?

  I smirked at him. I’m just the distraction. You’re the main event.

  Without waiting, I shed my pack, dropped to the ground and squirmed in through the gap. A nail tore the skin over my hip. I stopped and unpicked the spike with deliberate care, releasing the pain on a slow breath.

  At last I was inside. I crouched behind the jail-bars of three or four fence panels. Too many to move at once. My eyes adjusted to the gloom and I peered over a stack of timber. A burly, bearded man sat astride Logan’s bike, playing with the controls, a stupid grin on his face.

  I flashed the image to Logan, who responded with a curt acknowledgement.

  Spotting a way out from behind the bars, I eased into open space. My next options were limited. I could take off my shirt and play the sex-kitten distraction card, but any henchman with half a brain would be ready. That was a slippery path to damnation again, anyway.

  So I picked up a solid piece of timber, tiptoed closer and whacked him upside the head. He toppled like a felled tree and lay still. The bike landed on his leg. Leaning over the bike I checked. He was still breathing. Good.

  ‘I thought you were the distraction,’ Logan whispered. He slid in through the door. ‘Did you have to drop the bike?’

  ‘I lied. I do that. Besides, I’m not a distraction kinda girl.’

  He sent me a look full of ironic disbelief.

  I shrugged. ‘If you don’t like how I do things, next time you can be the distraction.’

  ‘Get on.’ He heaved the bike upright. ‘We’ll have to go out full steam so keep your head down.’

  Flipping the kickstand he turned the bike awkwardly in the small space and aimed it at the door. Next he strapped the backpacks to a rack, swung a leg over and gestured to me. He tried to give me his helmet, but I refused. There was no point protecting my head when he was the one driving. Besides, I’d need full vision for the next few minutes.

  I climbed on behind, tucked two small plastic bags under one thigh and wrapped an arm around his waist. Three short, iron timber-spikes went under my butt. A forth lay in my hand. A fifth I shoved into my bra, where the iron grated against my skin and smelled unpleasantly of rust. Uncomfortable but they wouldn’t be there long.

  ‘Go then,’ I said. ‘I know how to ride pillion.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ He growled and the engine echoed him.

  There was a shout from outside, somewhere behind the shed.

  With roar and a jerk, the bike leapt forward. The front wheel slammed open the wooden door. A short scream and a flying pair of feet showed someone no longer stood behind it.

  I hefted the spike, trying to get a feel for how it would spin. My shoulders twitched in anticipation of a shot in the back. I felt exposed and out of control. I hated feeling that way. Another shout. The zip of a silenced bullet. Too bloody close.

  The wind lashed my eyes. I caught a glimpse of three men, running at an angle, aiming at the road. They would get there before the bike. Logan swore.

  ‘Keep going!’ I shouted.

  The bike wavered, probably reflecting his indecision. I poked the spike into his ribs and waggled it at him.

  ‘Keep. Going!’

  He gunned it. I took a bead on the leader, a large man who waved a nine millimetre pistol as he jogged heavily in our direction. He was never going to hit anything. I switched focus to the second gunman. He stopped and lined us up rather more professionally. I swore aloud. It was my dart-gun wielding attacker from last night; his angular features perfectly calm and focussed.

  This time he held a more lethal weapon.

  I threw the spike. I knew it would hit as soon as it left my fingers. Whether it would hit with the point or the solid end was hard to tell. The gunman threw himself to one side, yelling as the spike smashed into his shoulder. I snatched out the second and flung it. That one missed and so did the third. The fourth and fifth followed in swift, accurate succession. Three men down. All with what looked like non-fatal wounds.

  From the ground, my would-be captor got off a couple of shots. I ducked instinctively as the first zipped past my shoulder. Too close. Another shot buzzed. The bike jerked to the left. Logan swore again. His jeans showed a long, ragged tear. Blood oozed from a thigh wound. It looked shallow, but I couldn’t tell if the bullet had exited.

  I concentrated on my new mental connection with him. Bad?

  His reply came back with overtones of gritted teeth. Hurts like you wouldn’t believe but superficial. Shit.

  What?

  There.

  We swept around the bend leading away from the house and shed. Three black four-by
fours roared down the hill. Behind them, black smoke smudged the hot blue sky.

  Another bullet whistled past our heads. Several smacked into the dirt on either side of the bike.

  I pulled out the two plastic bags. The plastic tore under my teeth. Metal pieces dropped onto my legs. They bit into my skin through the thin board shorts and pinged off the exhaust pipe. Logan scowled at me. His brow cleared to approval when he saw what I had.

  Risking a slide-out, he floored the bike into the corner of the dirt road. We screamed towards the highway, using every bit of power in the twelvehundred engine. The cars roared, close, but falling behind.

  I sprayed one bag of flatheaded nails onto the road behind us.

  The first fourby blew a tyre and slewed to a halt, one wheel in a ditch. I scattered the second bag of nails. Another tyre blew on a second car. The vehicle careened across the road, dust billowing from its tracks. The front jerked sideways and the car flipped, rolled and slid to a halt on its side, blocking the road. The third car slammed to a stop nearby. Three people leapt out, weapons pointed at us.

  I hunched my shoulders and closed my eyes.

  12

  We’re clear and heading for the Edge Hill house. You?>

  Yes.

 

  She’s with me. She’s…been helpful.

 

  I know exactly what she is. She trusts me enough now and she’s still our best shot. I just need your help with the blocks in her mind.

 

  You cleared the house of trace?

 

  ‘Anna?’ I spoke quietly, cupping my hand around the phone and turning my back to the staff in the shop.

  ‘Meg!’ She sounded surprised and pleased, not frightened. ‘Are you home? Are you alright? Paul said he dropped you off last night. How did you end up with that Fynn boy and his aunt? I’ve been so worried.’

  ‘It’s a long story.’ My heart slowed and I let out a shuddering breath. She was alright. ‘You’re at work? How’s the weather where you are?’ Our code question. One she knew meant I was serious.

  There was a pause and the background noise quietened, as though she’d found somewhere private to speak.

  ‘Yes. Special staff meeting. It’s lovely and sunny here. You?’

  I hesitated. If I said it was stormy our protocol meant we had to leave straight away. Was I ready to do that? Logan hadn’t yet told me everything I needed to get to whoever was chasing me.

  ‘It’s a little overcast. I think maybe Spain would be nice this time of year.’ That meant I wanted her to leave town. There was a long silence. I chewed my lip and glanced over my shoulder. The plump lady making our sandwiches waved cheerfully at me and held up two paper-wrapped parcels. I gave her a thumbs-up.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ Anna said, reluctance in her tone, ‘if it’s just a little overcast, maybe I can make do with an umbrella. I have a good one, right here.’

  Which meant she thought she was safe and didn’t want to leave me. Dammit. I expected she’d be stubborn. We’d never been separated before.

  I sighed. ‘Just keep it close, then. Don’t go home. You’ll get wet. I’ll call you at six.’

  ‘We’re having drinks with a specialist IT guy after this. I can’t leave because he’s here to see me. I will make sure I’m free at six. Then we can talk. But call me if something urgent comes up.’ Which meant she couldn’t say more because there were people close by.

  ‘Love you.’

  ‘You too, sweetheart. Please be safe. And if you need to get out of the weather, just go. Please?’

  I hung up before her and stared at the phone. Call time less than a minute. Good. I pulled the battery and threw it and the phone into separate bins.

  ‘Black coffee and a ham sandwich.’ I passed them to Logan and eased myself onto the splinter-ridden grey-timber bench next to him. I didn’t even question how I knew his preferences.

  After a long time winding along narrow country lanes that sliced through the red dirt, rainforest patches, and grassy hills, we’d reached more populated areas and stopped at a little suburban set of shops. Logan waited by the bike while I bought food and first aid supplies with cash he gave me. The park next door offered a resting spot.

  I used my pocket knife to cut away a chunk of his jeans to expose the wound, cleaned and bound it as best I could, then did the same for the various small nicks and scratches I’d sustained. The nail-scrape into my hip stung. At least I’d had a tetanus shot a few years before. Pulling the sliver of stone out of my calf tried my fortitude, though. It was deeper than I thought and bled freely.

  Logan watched me dress the wound, mild amusement in his grey eyes.

  ‘What?’ I raised eyebrows at him as I tucked the medical scraps and supplies away in my backpack.

  He waved the question aside. ‘Just something I’ll have to show you later, when we get to the safe house. Now’s not the time.’

  I opened my mouth to object then decided not to. If he wanted to play stupid games I just wouldn’t participate. Quite frankly, I’d had a trying last eighteen hours and wanted answers, not more mysteries. Right now, I was hungry enough even answers could wait a few minutes.

  We ate and drank in silence, watching traffic stream past and children play on the distant playground. A black, turkey-like bird strutted by, pausing to eye us warily and scratch at the leaves and red dirt. The bird’s life was the faint flicker of yellow; a single glimmer amongst the fireworks of unseen light emanating from the surrounding trees.

  I blinked and the silvery-green non-light faded.

  I turned to inspect Logan. ‘Right, if I’m going to be seeing weird shit, shot at, and throwing pointy things at people, I need to know why. Who are those people and what’s going on? If they don’t just want the ocair, what do they want? Give. Now.’

  Logan rose, seeming unimpressed by my demands. ‘Now’s not the time. We need to get moving and get to the safe house. I know you’re afraid, but you’ll have to trust me a little.’

  ‘I’m not afraid. I’m frigging-well angry.’ I stayed where I was, arms folded. ‘We need to talk. You haven’t answered my question, Logan. In fact, there are several you haven’t answered. Who’s after me? And why? What’s so all-fired important about me that you risked your neck to save me?’

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. ‘Look, as far as I know, there’s nothing particularly unique about you.’

  ‘Huh, thanks.’

  The look he gave me was distilled sarcasm. ‘There are people who hunt the sidhe just because of who we are. Over time, stories sprang up about sidhe abilities – you’ve heard them. Some people believe. Enough to be a threat. The most organised aren’t dreamy new age types that dance around Stonehenge on Midsummers Day. They’re serious. They call themselves the Mors Ferrum. Run by a cold-blooded bastard named Alexander Dyson.’

  ‘Seriously?’ I eyed him with scorn. ‘Are you really expecting me to believe in some mysterious, ancient organisation of badguys out to get me?’

  ‘Whether you believe or not is irrelevant,’ he said. ‘They exist. They’re the ones after you. Do you want to hear the rest, or not?’

  ‘How do you know they’re the ones after me?’

  ‘Remember this guy?’

  An image appeared in my mind: my angular-faced attacker from Christchurch, last night and this morning. I flinched and threw up a hand in automatic self-defence.

  Logan took that as assent. ‘His name is Connor Blake. We know he’s with the Mors Ferrum. It’s them, alright.’

  ‘Mors Ferrum.’ I scowled at the brightly-painted steel bars of the play gym equipment nearby. ‘Iron Death, in the Latin. Do they call themselves that because iron is supposed to be fatal to elves?’

  Logan’s smile turned wry. ‘Ironically those legends grew because of their name, not the other way around. Real iron has no more effect on
us than it does on anyone. Its threat to us is more symbolic of civilisation and the destruction of our forests. The Ferrum is far more dangerous, though.’ He ran restless fingers through his hair.

  I sat up straight, regarding the cerulean sky. Thunderheads gathered on the eastern horizon, piles of grey and white. A flock of brilliant, green-and-red lorikeets scrawked as they flew overhead and settled, squabbling, in a nearby flowering tree.

  ‘So they’re hunting all the sidhe, not just me?’

  Logan stilled, gripping the bench so hard the timber creaked. His jaw worked and the muscles in his forearms twisted beneath the thin skin.

  ‘Yes. My father died at their hands.’

  He brushed aside my uncomfortable “sorry” and straightened, rolling his shoulders back and lifting his chin. ‘It was a long time ago. The point is, we’re now hunting them. That’s why we’re here. At least three of our kind have disappeared in Cairns. One was my cousin, Jonathan, a half-brother of Jen’s. We need find out who’s targeting us here, and how much they know.’

  I raised an eyebrow at him, sceptical. ‘Who would be after the sidhe, though? And why?’

  ‘Think about it. The commercial applications of understanding our genome: telepathy, telekinesis, greater speed and strength. The potential for exploitation is staggering.’ He turned his level gaze on me. ‘If they want you alive, it’s mostly likely for medical research purposes. That scares the bejeezus out of me.’

  I swallowed and lifted my chin. ‘But what if it’s not that? What if it’s something to do with this block in my head? Maybe if I get rid of that, I’ll know who put it there and what it’s hiding. Maybe it’s hiding information I know about the ocair! How do I get it removed?’ I leaned forward, inspecting his face, searching for truth in his reactions.

  ‘I don’t have the skill to remove it. My aunt does.’ He took a drink and put the coffee cup down slowly.