by Ian Somers
‘I have you by the throat and I can send a small electrical current into your brain and send you into a coma. I think I have you figured out quite well enough, Bentley.’
Thanks to my precognitive gift, I had sensed his initial attack before he even turned, and by the time he’d thrown me up against the wall I had reached out with my psychokinesis and lifted a knife from the pile of cutlery in the sink. It had been hovering behind his head up until now. I eased the sharp point forward and it prodded at his scalp.
‘I’ll sense your move before you even decide on it,’ I said. ‘And if you do I’ll push this knife right through your brain. You haven’t gotten me completely figured out just yet, Hunter.’
Hunter held his stare for a moment then released his grip on my neck. He walked across the room and dragged his coat off the rack and stormed out into the hallway. When I heard his 4x4 rumbling off into the distance I sent the knife back into the sink and pushed myself from the wall with my elbows.
What on earth had convinced Peter Williams to send me away with this madman? Hunter was a complete and utter lunatic, I was convinced of it. Worse still, he was a violent lunatic! I wasn’t afraid of him – I reckoned I could beat him in a fight – but I didn’t feel comfortable being cooped up with him in the middle of nowhere. And now it seemed I had another eight months of this impossible situation to endure.
There was no way I was going to last that long. We’d surely kill each other if this went on any longer. Someone would come knocking at the cottage next summer and find us both dead, our decaying hands still wrapped around each other’s skeletal necks.
I sat on the table and rubbed my throat. The big brute was seriously strong and had almost choked me half to death. He was faster than he looked too. Not quite fast enough to get the jump on a precog like me, but fast nonetheless. He was also very gifted. At least I now knew exactly what his gifts were. He was, on his own admission, a light-tuner, and a very powerful one at that, judging by the prison of mirrors he’d created in the forest the night before. He was also an electropsych because he’d threatened to kill me with that gift just moments earlier, and he had psychokinetic skills, although it wasn’t clear how strong this gift was; he’d created a wave when we sparred the previous evening, but it wasn’t strong, at least nothing compared to what I could do.
Hunter had three gifts, though, and that made him just about as dangerous as any person could be. I also had three gifts, but one of them, my time-scanning power, was of no use in combat. I still believed I could beat him in a straight fight. Although that wasn’t a terribly attractive proposition.
It was foolish to leave two people, who both had three of the true gifts and obviously hated one another, alone in a rural cottage together … for the best part of a year! People die when the gifted fight. I had to avoid another confrontation, if I could, until I created a plan of escape. I wasn’t spending eight more months with him. I wasn’t even going to spend the winter with him. No way was I staying in the drafty cottage during the coldest months of the year in the Scottish wilderness. How the hell was I going to convince him to bring me back to England? Or even to allow me to return to my dad in Ireland?
I walked outside and looked out over the lonely landscape. I had a very boring day ahead. There was quite literally nothing to occupy my time with, unless I wanted to take a leisurely stroll around the woods, and there was no a chance I was ever doing that again.
I stood there feeling sorry for myself until the rain came lashing down from the deep grey sky that churned above the cottage. I went inside and locked the door then wandered from room to room as my boredom grew. I ended up sitting in Hunter’s chair by the fireplace and looking at the half full bottle of whiskey on a shelf nearby. Now I understood why he drank each night; the isolation drove him to it. To his credit he didn’t overdo it. He never had more than two measures in a single night.
I watched the clock above the mantelpiece as the hour struck seven. He’d probably be gone all day, which should have been a relief, but being alone was a worse prospect. That meant I had to deal with the dark memories that were haunting me relentlessly.
‘Damn it!’ I shouted. I forced myself out of the wooden chair and stomped around the room. ‘There has to be something to do in this bloody hellhole!’
Suddenly a thought came to me – Hunter’s room! I wondered what secrets he was keeping in there. I knew he wouldn’t return until late afternoon, which meant I had hours to battle the temptation to go snooping through his stuff. I’d eventually give in to my curiosity and decided not to bother fighting it.
I walked through the hall and used my psychokinesis to create a small vortex of energy that turned the doorknob anti-clockwise. The door swung open with a creak.
What I saw was hardly surprising. Hunter’s room was a carbon copy of my own. The walls were plain white, there was one single bed, a clock on the wall and a small chest of drawers in the corner. How could anyone live like this? Monks had a more extravagant lifestyle than Hunter.
I walked to the chest and pulled open the drawers but there were only clothes inside. Each of the drawers slammed shut when I sent out a small burst of energy from my hand. I could have continued rummaging around the room, but I was beginning to feel guilty for going through his stuff.
I shut the door and went back to the sitting room and sat looking at the rain running across the window in little streams. This really was an empty house. No entertainment. No happiness. No possessions. Well, apart from the pink raincoat that was allegedly stored in the attic …
‘Hello,’ I said, looking up at the ceiling.
I’d never been in the attic and my body began to tingle with excitement at the prospect of nosing around up there. This was how bored I had become; I was excited about looking around a dusty old attic. It was about the most intriguing prospect that I had for that day so I practically jumped out of the seat and went to the hallway. I looked at the hatch then nudged some energy upward. The hatch door swung slowly open then I sent energy downward which propelled me into the air, just high enough to grab the sides of the gap.
I pulled myself up and was consumed by the shadows. As soon as I stood upright there was a cord tickling my face and I yanked it down. The attic was filled with light that sparkled across the maze of cobwebs hanging from the rafters. The attic was a polar opposite of the ground floor and was stuffed full of old junk. There was the usual crap like a tool box that was rusted shut, an old mountain bike missing its front wheel, mounds of old books that stank of mould, and there were an inordinate amount of old boots lying around. I even spotted Linda Farrier’s raincoat, covered with fine layer of dust. It looked grey at first, but when I swiped my hand over its glossy surface I saw it was indeed pink.
At the other end of the attic was a large wooden box with a canvas sheet covering it. It hadn’t been touched in a long time judging by the thick layer of dust on the cover. Much thicker than that on Farrier’s raincoat. If her coat had been there since last winter I guessed the canvas cover hadn’t been touched in five years or more.
I focused on my powers for a moment then lifted the sheet into the stale air of the attic, gathered more energy around it and rolled it up tightly, then took it in hand and placed on the floor next to the large box. I cautiously lifted the lid, half expecting a colony of rats to be disturbed. Instead I found items that seemed oddly out of place in Hunter’s home.
There were some child’s clothes neatly folded into a bundle, strangely they all had burn marks on them. Who on earth would keep charred clothes in their attic? Not even Hunter was that strange. Was he? He obviously was. There were a few picture frames too. There was a very fine layer of soot covering them, but I could make out some faces behind the darkened glass. They were family portraits mostly and were quite old. I spotted Hunter in one; at least I thought it was him. He looked no older than ten or eleven and was standing next to a haggard looking woman. There was another photograph showing a slightly older Hunter, this time he w
as sitting bedside a different woman who was smiling and had a pleasant face. I guessed it was his mum. It was hard to imagine Hunter having a mother. I didn’t really think of him as a normal human being, more like a cyborg that had been grown in a test tube someplace.
I came across another picture that was not as pleasant. It was Hunter, a little older than in the other pictures, and he was standing between two police officers. It had been cut from a newspaper and there was no headline or writing of any kind on it. I was starting to feel uncomfortable snooping around his stuff and pulled the lid of the box back down.
A piece of metal caught the light just before I closed the lid. I opened the box again and took a closer look. It was a metal rendering of an emblem that was very familiar to me. It was the wolf head logo that Romand had used in some of his writings – it was the symbol of the Guild of the True.
At first I thought it was just a medallion, but on closer inspection I saw it was actually attached to the front of a book. I freed it from the dust at the bottom of the box and found it to be a journal, rather than a book. It had a leather cover and was about three hundred pages long. I opened it and read the inscription on the inside of the cover: ‘The Journal of Jonathan Atkinson 1988-1992’.
Jonathan Atkinson was Cathy’s father! What on earth was his journal doing in Hunter’s attic? Surely its proper place was with the author’s wife and daughter.
There was a more pressing question to be answered: should I read it?
I was starting to get nervous all of a sudden, thinking Hunter could arrive back at any moment and there would be ugly scenes if he caught me reading this journal. I’d wanted to know more about the Guild for some time, though, and this journal would most likely supply me with a lot of the knowledge I craved. Could I not read it?
I decided to flick through the pages and saw they were organised into long entries, each about five pages in length and all had headings along with specific dates. I paused about halfway through and read one of the headings: ‘Changing the leadership of the Guild, 1988’. This sparked my curiosity. I simply had to read through the entry.
It has become clear to me, and to many of my colleagues, that a change in leadership is required. The Guild has grown complacent and almost redundant over the course of the last decade. Much of this stems from our well-respected, but aged, leader Theresa Monroe. The blame for our failings is not hers alone. We all had a hand in allowing the Guild to fall into decline.
The death of a gifted child in Spain last month has roused many of us and there are heated discussions in the hallways of the Palatium. The jostling for power has begun.
The common consensus is that Monroe must be forced to relinquish her control immediately and that a more proactive member must take up her position. Herein lies our problem. There are three contenders and all have strong support throughout the Guild.
Clarissa Yenver would be the natural replacement because she has been second-in-command for many years, but she is getting on in years and the feeling is that she lacks the vitality required to bring about significant change. She will have the support of many of the senior members and could possibly gather enough votes to be successful.
I also have much support in the ranks of the senior members and I will put myself forward for the role. I have a vision for the Guild, one that could restore it to the greatness of bygone times. We must build for the future, but learn from the past. I believe we should be more active in the search for gifted youngsters and that they should be taught to use their powers by those with a lifetime of experience. We must not engage in open warfare, as some would advocate. My belief is that we must remain a clandestine group. Our greatest strength throughout the centuries has been to trick the world into believing we don’t actually exist.
The third candidate is Brian Blake. It is my opinion that under no circumstance must he be allowed to take control of the Guild. Blake has long lobbied for a more militant approach to our work. This has gained him support from the younger agents within the Guild, but his leadership could transform us into that which we seek to destroy.
I refer to the four organisations that actively search and use gifted people for the pursuit of wealth or military strength or political gain. These organisations have grown in power in recent years, and much of it is our fault for taking a passive stance in the struggles of the gifted.
Our immediate and most deadly opponent is Armamenti Tal-Future (Malta). They are currently our most active opponent and have been seeking to destroy us for a number of years. They have snatched many gifted youngsters from their homes throughout this decade and they are training them for use in warfare. Essentially, they have been building an army of gifted mercenaries and have been hired by governments and big business to win wars and to conduct coups in the developing world. They have committed numerous atrocities in recent years, and have tipped the balance of power in trouble spots around the globe in favour of their employers. Their wealth is increasing at an alarming rate and they must be stopped at all costs.
JNCOR is a modern cover front for the old Jin Assassins (Hong Kong). The Jin Assassins were founded in thirteenth-century China to help protect the empire from the invading Mongol forces. Some time in the fifteenth century they broke their ties with the empire and began recruiting other gifted people from around Asia. JNCOR are not as openly malicious or aggressive as Armamenti-Tal-Future, but they are just as dangerous because of their ultimate goal. Their plan is to control the primary governments in East Asia who can then enforce their extreme right-wing views. They almost achieved this in the early twentieth century, but were significantly weakened during and after the Second World War. They have now rebuilt much of their strength and will pose a serious threat to stability in Asia in the coming decades.
The S.P.D. (Soviet Union) has been our most persistent enemy over the last decade. Their role is to help impose communist ideals around the world and to eliminate anyone who seeks to destroy the Soviet Union. They are active in recruiting gifted youngsters who they use as assassins and spies. Any gifted person who refuses to work for them is murdered.
The S.P.D. is a repulsive organisation and we have worked tirelessly to ensure that they do not recruit outside of the Soviet Union. Our struggle with them has cost us dearly in the past, but it is possible that they will not continue to be a thorn in our side. Our sources based in Moscow seem to believe that communism in Russia may collapse in the coming years, and this would remove almost all of their financial support. I can only pray that this information is accurate.
Golding Scientific (USA) is the latest threat to emerge. Most in the Guild do not see them being able to compete with us, or the other organisations, and have ignored them for the most part. I disagree and having conducted a private investigation into its founders, Paul and Sarah Golding, I think they must be dealt with sooner rather than later. Their influence is growing steadily and they should be dealt with before they are strong enough to compete with us properly.
The big four represent a threat to all humanity if they continue to go unchallenged. The Guild has become too passive under the leadership of Theresa Monroe and has allowed them to recruit and use gifted people to murder political figures, to commit mass killings under the guise of terrorist attacks, to influence wars, and to attain massive wealth for unscrupulous corporations. The Guild must be more proactive. We must strike back.
The most pragmatic way to hurt these organisations is to cut off their supply of gifted youngsters, by recruiting them into our own organisation before the others can snatch them. This will be a difficult task as our current resources are limited. But with the help of other, benign groups such as Der Orden der Befähigten (Germany) and Os Especiais (Brazil) I believe we can eliminate the threats that face us.
I was about to turn the page, instead I snapped the journal shut. I held my breath and listened. I’d heard something from downstairs. Had Hunter arrived home early? If he caught me up here I’d be a dead man.
I threw the journ
al back into the box and flung the canvas sheet over it. I yanked the light cord and sent the attic into darkness and prepared to dive through the open hatch to the hallway below.
I paused. There was a sharp tapping coming from below. It sounded like someone frantically knocking on one of the windows. It wasn’t Hunter; he never forgot his keys and besides, he could easily use his gifts to unlock a door.
The tapping got faster and louder. Someone wanted into the cottage and wasn’t going away.
CHAPTER THREE
The Messenger
I channelled a low intensity cushion of energy beneath me and then practically floated down into the hallway without making a sound. I looked up and used my power to draw the hatch down softly. All the while the intense tapping continued at the back of the cottage. Terrible scenarios ran through my mind as I tip-toed along the hallway to the kitchen door. Was it the police? Golding’s assassins? Had Marianne Dolloway somehow returned? I regretted reading the page from the journal now because my imagination was running wild with all sorts of horrible possibilities.
I forced a weak wave of energy ahead of me and the kitchen door swung lazily open. I’d half been expecting the door to be blown apart as soon as it moved, but the cottage had fallen silent and I became very aware of how fast my heart was beating.
I took a wary step inside and looked to the back window, there was no one there. I took a few steps forward and leaned on the sill and looked out onto the porch. It was empty. Was my mind playing tricks on me? Was Hunter playing tricks on me again? I’d kill him if he was.
I paced to the sitting room and hid behind the curtains as I gazed out at the front garden. No one there either. This wasn’t Hunter’s style and no Guild member would be foolish enough to visit us. A sense of foreboding took me and I felt my powers rising from the intense emotions that were running wild inside me.