Mr Styx was tall, very tall, with long pipe cleaner limbs that should not have been able to support him. He wore the most immaculately tailored dark pin stripe suit, patent leather shoes with spats, a deep wine coloured cravat, and held a silver tipped cane in his long thin white fingers. His face was white and almost as smooth and featureless as an opera mask, his mouth a strange animated little hole that flashed red inside as he talked. On his head he wore an elegant vintage grey silk riding topper with mourning band.
He still wasn’t moving as Usher took a measure of him. In fact it was more than not moving, it was utter stillness, something rarely seen in a living being.
Then his hair began to writhe.
His hair began to drift up against gravity, billowing in some unfelt breeze or current. At first glance Usher had thought that the strange creature had his ebony hair styled into many thick, black dreadlocks, a stark contrast to his elegant demeanour.
Now Usher saw the horrible truth. Instead of hair Mr Styx had sprouting from his head a nest of long black snakes that writhed around him, their emerald green eyes regarding him with cold hunger. Now Usher understood how the being was watching him, not with two eyes, but with hundreds. A serpentine Bob Marley.
Sarkhov stubbed his cigarette butt out on the ground. The green eyed snakes fixed upon the glowing ember with cold fascination. Sarkhov spat.
“Are we ready to do business Mr Styx?”
The tall creature nodded and his leech mouth moved into an odd semi-circular smile.
“Of course Dmitri, follow me our meeting room is set up in the back.”
Mr Styx then glided off down an alleyway with surprising grace and speed, nodding and tipping his hat to various passers-by, who all seemed to know and respect him.
Sarkhov tapped Usher on the elbow as he passed.
“Keep your eyes out and watch my back until the deal is done. One thing I have learned over the years, if Unseelie can fuck you and eat you, they will.”
Usher adopted his close protection position two paces behind and one to the left of Sarkhov, scanning the crowd for threats, as they followed the tall creature through the old marketplace. Sarkhov’s two other hulking bodyguards followed close behind Usher.
“I thought you knew and trusted this Mr Styx?”
Sarkhov sneered. “I grew up in a gulag boy, among men who would rape and kill you for a single cigarette. Guarded by corrupt men with no honour, who would stand by and watch. Yet still, I trusted the worst of them more than I trust these bastards. No matter how cordial they appear, their goal is always the same. The world dead, the world theirs. But in the meantime money is money”
They turned down an alleyway into what felt like an older part of the ‘town’, the masonry old and moss covered like the ruins of a medieval castle. Mr Styx turned into an arched doorway where warm orange light spilled out. Through small frosted windows shone flickering candles. A sign above the door read The Veiled Threat.
Usher heard music from within.
“A pub? Here?”
Sarkhov grinned. “All the best deals done in the pub, Tom Fool. Go inside.”
Inside, the room was dark and hung with smoke. A central brazier burned in the middle of the room, casting a sunset glow that ran like treacle into the dark corners. It felt old, like some ancient pig-smelling roundhouse.
Mr Styx stood by a table and ushered them to sit with his long thin arm.
Beside him were two Coldbloods, once humans who had exchanged life for perpetual animation, a current of sorcery keeping their lifeless limbs moving. Usher had encountered them a couple of times before. Both times he had barely escaped alive.
They sat at the table. Sarkhov grunted as a drink was poured for him then spoke.
“So, Mr Styx, are we able to deal today?”
“That depends Mr Sarkhov. Do you have anything to trade with, other than your soul obviously?”
Sarkhov smiled. “My soul is too tarnished to fetch a price. I think it would crumble if I handed it over.”
Mr Styx seemed to inhale through his coin sized mouth.
“Ooh I don’t know Dmitri, I can taste it a little from here. It’s like a rich fruit cake of badness, every raisin a sin.”
Behind Mr Styx, Usher could see the two pale Coldbloods staring with their pupil-less white bloodshot eyes, sizing up Sarkhov’s two bodyguards, who stared back with equal vigour. Usher felt the tension in the room like static electricity.
Sarkhov was handed a briefcase by one of his men, and slid it across the wooden table. “Just a taster of what we have to offer, to sweeten the deal.”
One of the Coldbloods leaned forward and flicked open the case. Usher could not see what was inside but took a guess that it was some technological knowledge that the Unseelie court craved and found mysterious.
Mr Styx nodded, satisfied.
“The deal is simple Dmitri. We have provided you with enough of the Feral formula to make your fight shows the talk of the town. Not just here, but a famous secret the world over. After all, people love a good show. I know I do. In return, once you have made your money from them, you provide us with a handful of the best fighters, ones who have used the Feral for some time, and ones who take orders, and who devote themselves entirely to causes with every fibre of their souls.”
Dmitri lit a cigarette. The Coldbloods seemed to find this offensive and took a step closer. Sarkhov’s bodyguards did the same. Mr Styx raised a long hand and the Coldbloods reluctantly stopped. Sarkhov blew out a thin stream of smoke towards one of the bodyguards.
“Why? Why do you want humans when you have so many capable enforcers of your will already?”
Mr Styx gave a little laugh and swept a hand over his own face.
“We can’t ingest the formula ourselves, it’s poison to us. And sometimes a human, even one as distorted as those on the Feral, can get where we cannot.”
Sarkhov smiled, and turned towards Usher. He gestured to one of his bodyguards, who took out a syringe and the vial of the strange glowing liquid.
Then Sarkhov nodded to Usher.
“Your fight’s in ten minutes. Roll up your sleeve.”
Usher felt the panic in his chest. He didn’t trust Sarkhov, and he certainly didn’t trust Mr Styx. He had seen what the concoctions of the Unseelie could do to a mortal man, and here he was, about to inject what to all intents and purposes was a magic potion into his bloodstream.
“Well, I hope you boys don’t screen your fighters, cos I may not pass a urine test.”
Then Usher slowly rolled up his shirtsleeve and presented his arm to Sarkhov, who held up the gleaming needle before him.
17
Ariel moved along the corridor of the Proteus, flashing his pass to various security staff along the way. He had the clearance to be in this area of the ship, one of the few researchers who did, yet his palms were damp with nervous sweat.
He knew he was suppressing a panic attack, the steel walls of the giant ship seemed to close in around him, hemming him in.
He knew that the information he needed was in the lab, a place that both fascinated and repulsed him. As he tucked his pass chain back into the collar of his white lab coat, he felt that his heart was reverberating the walls of the Proteus.
As he came up to the heavily guarded security door, with its yellow flashing hazard light rotating outside, he paused.
Ariel you’re supposed to be here. Your cover is intact and you are a highly respected scientist working for the Chromium Project. Just flash your pass and walk in.
“Morning gentlemen, how are you? I have some tests to carry out on the subject today.”
The hulking security guard eyed Ariel up and down as if he was a child. Then he nodded and activated a switch on the wall, opening the steel door of the lab.
Ariel walked inside and down the short red lit corridor towards the ward.
He could hear the monitoring equipment and ventilators wheezing and pinging as he approached, and above that the deep sonorous
breathing of the experiment. In the background he heard the clipped tones of a BBC newsreader bidding Britain a good morning.
He rounded the corner and stood staring at it. The Experiment. It was strapped down to a huge metal slab, like a prisoner awaiting lethal injection.
At least nine feet tall, the creature was horrifying to look upon. Existing in the midst of a state of flux, it was work in progress of savagery. It was Ursine but hairless except for a thick mane of bleached fur across one shoulder and down one massive black-clawed arm. One eye was as empty and black as death, the other the palest blue, both staring up to the ceiling as if in a trance. One half of its jaw was twisted in a fang filled half grin, the other half as serene as a monk.
There was something raw and foetal about it, the veins too close to the surface, the flesh raw and still forming. The strangest quality about it was that it kept changing as Ariel moved around the room, like a shimmering hologram. The paranormal investigator in Ariel had to admit he was utterly fascinated.
Ariel stood by the bedside, staring the creature.
It was not Unseelie, he could see that, it did not share their quality of decay and rot. Quite the opposite, this beast was pure screaming birth, the violence of new life teeming in its every cell. Ariel watched the massive chest rise and fall. He wondered what reverie or dream state this creature was lost in.
Whatever this thing was, it was clearly the source of the Viking’s power for hundreds of years. The myths of the berserkers, invincible warriors with the strength and ferocity of ten men. Something in its blood, or Ariel suspected more accurately, something in its soul that was carried by the blood, had given the berserkers their savage abilities.
Ariel watched the series of tubes attached to the creature, the dark ruby blood being drawn out and filtered through a complex network of equipment. Yet Argent had told him something was wrong with the process, they had not been able to make more than a few litres of the Feral formula. This backed up Ariel’s theory that the power of the feral was not physical, not the blood itself, but some spiritual power contained within it. Something this creature was now becoming aware of its surroundings enough to deny them.
Ariel glanced up at the flat screen television mounted on the wall opposite the bed. BBC news twenty four, History channel and National geographic had been playing in the background for weeks. Argent had told Ariel his theory that they could acclimatize the creature to the modern age by some form of osmosis. Although the subject was kept in a kind of coma state, its brain patterns clearly showed an acute awareness of its surroundings, and the trickle effect of constant information provided by the BBC filtering in was intended to entice it to consciousness.
Then what? Make it breakfast?
Ariel turned from the comatose creature and sat down at the Chromium project computer in the corner of the lab. He entered his password and scanned his eyes across the desktop shortcuts.
They covered numerous tables of data, various video clips of experiments, and one which was titled STG solution protocol.
Special Threats Group.
Ariel swallowed. Isaiah Argent had a file on them. It made sense, Ariel had compiled hundreds of files on the Unseelie Court over the years, it was to be expected that they would do their research in turn. The Unseelie really were getting to grips with technology, or at least hiring those who could.
Ariel glanced over his shoulder at the corridor; made sure no one was approaching, and then clicked the icon.
Thumbnails started to appear on the screen, thirty or forty of them, all photographs, all familiar. He clicked on one he recognized, one of the women who had conducted his pre deployment training back in Hereford.
Christi Polson.
Her entire file came up, military background, previous deployments and aliases, email addresses, photographs. Everything. A complex surveillance operation.
He clicked another, then another, his heart racing, waiting for the one that signalled his death warrant.
Despite his growing horror Ariel breathed a sigh of relief.
His file was not amongst them. As far as he could tell, the Unseelie still did not know he was STG. Not yet.
What he saw still terrified him. Somehow, the Unseelie court, who knew so little of technology, had managed to expose nearly every STG operational agent he knew. He could see aboard the Proteus that their tactics were changing. More and more the Unseelie were integrating themselves into complex organizations, employing human experts in science and technology, mostly unwittingly, to do what they could not.
It then dawned on Ariel what their intention was.
The mobile thin spot aboard the Proteus was intended to facilitate an invasion. The Unseelie were finally audacious enough to attempt all-out war, using the ship to send troops where they were needed.
Before they could do that, they needed to eliminate the only group in the world dedicated to stopping them and knowledgeable enough to achieve it.
Ariel had been looking so hard for the target of the terrorist attack that the obvious never occurred to him.
They were the target. The STG.
Ariel nervously glanced over his shoulder at the experiment, a God strapped to a table in a medically induced coma. He watched its massive chest rise and fall, saw the eyes move feverishly beneath the lids, lost in some ancient dream. The television blared at the foot of its bed, washing the modern age over its sleeping form in endless sound bites and news stories.
Ariel half expected the eyes to snap open and stare at him, but the beast was lost in a world of dark dreams, unaware that its soul was being slowly drained by the Unseelie to make an army of monsters.
Was that why it hid itself in the ice all those years ago? To escape this fate?
Ariel turned back to the computer, noticed another file in the Special Threats Group folder. One that said Fury Initiative. He clicked.
A list of faces appeared, military men. Six in all, with military background and medical records attached. These were ordinary soldiers, a far cry from the brutal and twisted ogres whose blood red eyes had glared at him as if he were little more than food.
Did you really know what you were volunteering for? What you would become?
As Ariel studied the photographs, a realization awakened in him. He thought he had simply recognized the residual features of these men in the monsters he had met, but now he realized that wasn’t it at all.
I know these men.
Then Ariel noticed the sub-heading on the file, wondered how he hadn’t seen it before.
Empire Two.
Of course. That would fit into the Unseelie twisted sense of humour perfectly.
That was why they had such military prowess. The soldiers of Fury One were whatever was left of the missing Empire team.
18
Usher lay at the edge of the arena.
Sand coated his feverish sweating lips.
He was caught in a fever dream, had some vague recollection that he was a soldier, here to gather information, find out what the Unseelie were planning.
They had given him something, he remembered rolling up his shirtsleeve.
20mg they said. Don’t give him any more than that or he won’t be able to wake from the Blood-dream.
Usher was shivering and coated in sheen of sweat, curled up in a foetal position, his veins mapping out across his skin.
If this is the Feral, they can keep it.
Usher felt awful, like he had been afflicted with malaria, Spanish Flu and e-coli all at once.
It was not just turmoil in his body that bothered him. Usher felt a tempest in his mind and soul.
He was curled up at the edge of the Secret Arena, the ultimate venue for illegal boxing matches, known to only the most depraved connoisseurs.
Gathered around the edges above him was a mixture of Unseelie denizens of all descriptions, various representatives of Britain’s organized crime syndicates, and glamorous and formally dressed citizens who had no doubt paid an exorbitant fee to see
the kind of fights that only existed in drunken death match conversations.
He looked up and saw the tall slender figure of Mr Styx, the Unseelie consigliore, stride gracefully into the centre of the arena, as an old fashioned microphone lowered from the rafters on a cable.
Mr Styx was as elegant as ever, but had swapped his pinstripe morning suit for a long red riding coat, lending him the air of a circus ringmaster. The black snakes writhed around his pale head.
In his melodious tones he spoke.
“Ladies and gentlemen, members of high society, crossover traders, tourists of Unseelie and the Seen, welcome, to the Secret Arena.”
A cheer and round of applause rose up from the gathered spectators. Usher curled up, convulsed, and then vomited violently onto the sand. A faux oooh of sympathy escaped the crowd.
Mr Styx passed him a silken handkerchief in his long slim fingers then resumed his address.
“Men and women have gathered for thousands of years to watch honourable pugilists test their mettle for glory, for riches, for freedom. The lust for blood and violence, the shiver of another’s pain, the delicious rise of voyeuristic cruelty in our bellies is as pure a nourishment as bread. This arena is a place of honesty. Today we have a newcomer to our club, Tom Fool, a man who has earned his reputation in the prison system, who fights for survival and reputation. Today he shall have his initiation, but to warm you up, we have our first fight of the evening. Ladies and gentlemen, a veteran of the underground boxing circuit and winner of twenty three professional bouts in the vanilla world of pugilism, Mr Steven Cronin!”
A man leapt nimbly down into the ring. Mid forties, wiry grey moustache, prison tattoos, an old scar rising up from one corner of his mouth giving him a permanent sneer.
A smattering of grudging applause from the assembled.
“His dancing partner today will be a man from the other side, from my side, a fighter who has proven himself in this arena many times over the years, a pugilist who has reinvented himself time and time again, the living ship of Theseus, ladies and gentlemen, give a warm welcome home to Owen Sibelius, the Patchwork Man.”
The Last Line Series One Page 14