The Hidden Gift

by Ian Somers

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘You haven’t changed your mind, have you?’

  ‘No. If anything this episode has made me more determined to get away. Ross, will you join me when this is all over? After they catch that maniac?’

  ‘Everything will change once Zalech is in the ground.’ I stood and reached out to her, pulling her to me by using my gift. I held her tight and told her she was more important to me than the Guild could ever be. I meant it too.

  Ballentine arrived a couple of hours later. He didn’t say much at first, but if looks could kill, Hunter would have been stone dead at first glance. After having a conversation with Mr Williams in private he came to us and said he needed to speak to us all about what was to come. Mr Williams, Hunter, Canavan and I joined him in the study. Cathy said she didn’t want to get involved and sat out in the garden with Sarah. This raised a few eyebrows from the others, but I knew all too well how she was feeling.

  I was half expecting Ballentine to read the riot act on Hunter, instead he remained calm and asked us both to give a very detailed account of the events of the previous night and that morning. Hunter went first and Ballentine never once interrupted him. He simply took notes. Then it was my turn. I described Sarah’s vision then the journey to the south coast before retelling the moment I saw Zalech on the main street. Ballentine asked me to describe his appearance in as much detail as possible, but his real interest was in how the wave had been summoned. Ballentine left the room after I finished telling my story, and I heard him on the phone in another part of the house, obviously relaying the events to the Council. When he returned his mood was almost indifferent to what had happened, almost like he’d taken our side all of a sudden. I got the feeling that he was very much like Hunter and I: impulsive, living on his instincts, a man with a taste for excitement, adventure and a fight. He also seemed to understand my desire for vengeance, although he didn’t condone it.

  ‘As you would probably expect,’ he said after returning from his phone call, ‘you are both officially off the Zalech case. And that does not mean you can remain on it unofficially.’

  ‘Come on, Dominic!’ Hunter moaned. ‘We’ve invested a lot in tracking him down. None more so than young Bentley here. If anything, he deserves to land the killer blow against Zalech.’

  ‘I understand that,’ he said to Hunter before turning to me. ‘I certainly understand your desire to kill him, Ross. But your actions have forced the hand of the Council, and we’re seeking justice instead of revenge. You can’t be part of the team in charge of tracking him down. There’s too much emotion involved and that normally gets in the way of an efficient investigation.’

  ‘Who will be tracking him down?’

  ‘A hit squad has been called in. They’re being briefed at the Palatium as we speak. That does not, however, mean you cannot be involved at some level.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Hunter wondered. He had a suspicious frown on his forehead. ‘At what level exactly?’

  ‘I have a lot of influence in these matters and that means I can conduct my own investigations as long as they don’t directly impair those being run by the Council. It does not mean I have carte blanche but I won’t have to even report directly to the Council.’

  ‘Since when do you have privileges like this?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘Since I became a senior agent and the Guild are stretched too thin. There’s lots of trouble around the world at present and some of us have been granted the freedom to operate autonomously.’

  ‘I’m just as senior as you,’ Hunter said, growing increasingly insulted. ‘Why wasn’t I notified?’

  ‘You weren’t given this freedom because you’ve spent the last twenty years rubbing the Council up the wrong way.’

  ‘You want to start a parallel investigation, don’t you?’ Mr Williams interrupted, intrigued by Ballentine’s admission.

  ‘Perhaps. Zalech represents a great threat – to the Guild and to the public in general – but I am fascinated by how he recovered so soon after what were, allegedly, life threatening injuries. What interests me is who repaired him. Whoever repaired him is backing him. Whoever is backing him is directing him. Whoever is directing him will know where he is.’

  ‘So, we squeeze his secret benefactor for information?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘In a way. I am hoping we might be able to force the mysterious benefactor into handing Zalech over to us.’

  ‘We have to find out who it is first.’ Hunter replied. ‘That might not be too easy.’

  ‘How many realistic suspects are there?’ I asked. ‘Not many would have the means to do this, would they?’

  ‘And to teach Zalech new tricks,’ Hunter added.

  ‘It has to be an organisation that has a long involvement with the true gifts,’ Ballentine said thoughtfully. ‘Only three spring to mind: The Jin Assassins – JNCOR – The Eastern Shadow, and Golding Scientific.’

  ‘You can rule out JNCOR,’ Mr Williams said flatly, sweeping his hand over his desk. ‘Their ethical code wouldn’t allow them to involve themselves with someone as deranged as Zalech.’

  ‘You could have said the same about the Guild,’ I replied.

  ‘Edward wasn’t deranged when we took him under our wing.’

  ‘I would have my doubts about the Eastern Shadow.’ Ballentine leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over his chest. ‘Not because they lack the means, but simply because they don’t care enough about their operatives to invest so much time and money in them.’

  ‘True,’ Mr Williams nodded. ‘They’ve always been a heartless crew.’

  ‘Come on, why are we even debating this?’ I asked. ‘We all know Golding is behind it.’

  ‘He is the most likely suspect,’ Hunter nodded. ‘Golding Scientific has the perfect set up to take Zalech in and to operate on him. They have an extensive library on the true gifts; somewhere in that library must be a lot of writing on mageletonia. Maybe they even have a copy of Penelope Gordon’s study on the unlimited nature of that particular gift.’

  ‘I wish it wasn’t Golding,’ Ballentine said. ‘His organisation is impenetrable. We’ve been trying to place a mole in that company for years and have got nowhere. And only the high-ranking employees are privy to any useful information.’

  ‘There are always alternative methods of attaining information,’ Hunter smiled deviously.

  ‘Such as?’ Ballentine asked.

  ‘Kidnapping one of the high-ranking employees you mentioned.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Torture the hell out of ’em.’

  ‘You are so obvious, Hunter.’ Ballentine sighed. ‘Far too obvious.’

  ‘I’m direct. There’s a difference.’

  ‘How about getting Golding to give up Zalech,’ I suggested.

  ‘You mean Golding himself?’ Ballentine asked, almost laughing.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘There has to be something that he values,’ I replied. ‘There has to be something that will make him play ball.’

  ‘Even if there was something he valued,’ Ballentine said to me, ‘there’s no way we could communicate with him.’

  ‘Not true,’ Mr Williams said. The room went quiet and everyone turned to him, waiting for him to elaborate.

  ‘Don’t sit there in silence, Peter,’ Hunter said loudly from across the room. ‘Out with it!’

  ‘There is a way,’ the old man said. ‘We have a direct line to his personal assistant. It’s only ever been used once before. I have a device here that allows me to make calls from a mobile phone without any chance of the call being traced. That’s how we can communicate with Paul Golding.’

  ‘But we need to make him want to talk first,’ Ballentine said. ‘That’s the tricky bit.’

  ‘We need to have a direct approach if he’s to talk,’ Hunter added.

  ‘Oh, I think I’m a little too long in the tooth for field work such as this,’ Mr Williams admitted. ‘All I
’m good for at my age is paper work.’

  ‘I know, Peter,’ Ballentine said sympathetically, but he was looking at Canavan when he said it.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that,’ she said. ‘I’m still fit as a fiddle and I’ve no problem doing the legwork.’

  ‘What does Golding value more than anything else?’ I wondered aloud. ‘There has to be something that he loves.’

  ‘Money,’ Hunter snorted.

  ‘I’m not one for economics,’ Ballentine said. ‘I don’t know how we could hurt him financially.’

  ‘I do,’ I said. ‘He’s very proud of that big, fancy hotel of his. It has his name on it and it would be a very public way to stick it to him if we destroyed it.’

  ‘The Golding Plaza?’

  ‘Yeah. How about we demolish it … the five of us here have the power among us to bring any building to the ground.’

  ‘Do we really want to start bringing down buildings in the centre of London?’ Mr Williams asked. He turned and looked directly at Ballentine. ‘And will such drastic measures be within our remit?’

  ‘I think the Guild can stomach almost anything after what transpired in Portsmouth,’ Ballentine said confidently. ‘The Guild is determined to avoid anything like that happening again. Too many people are dead because of Zalech. If destroying some concrete monstrosity gets us what we want then the Guild will accept it.’

  ‘There are a lot of people staying at the hotel,’ Mr Williams replied. ‘Not to mention the staff.’

  ‘Getting them out of harm’s way is the easy part,’ Hunter shrugged. ‘We can call in a bomb scare – the entire hotel and all the surrounding buildings will be cleared in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘But there would be an army of police at the scene within no time at all,’ Canavan argued. ‘I don’t want to get into a quarrel with the authorities.’

  ‘We have to be on our way into the hotel as the staff and guests are on their way out,’ Hunter said to her. ‘We take down the building before the cops even lay out their plan to search the place.’

  ‘This will be very dangerous,’ Mr Williams said, as he contemplated the destruction of the building. ‘Very dangerous indeed.’

  ‘And probably very complicated,’ Canavan added. ‘It is a very big building.’

  ‘It’s not all that difficult,’ Ballentine said. ‘Ross and I could do it. We’d have to be inside the building – side by side. He could use his power to crack the supporting pillars while I create a shield around us both to protect us when the floors begin to topple down on one another. Canavan, you can create a maze of mirrors on the surrounding streets to buy us more time and Hunter can keep watch if any seriously unwanted attention comes along. Peter you will have to be the getaway driver.’

  ‘A getaway driver!’ Hunter roared with laughter. ‘Maybe if we’re being chased by Miss Daisy!’

  ‘I don’t enjoy driving fast,’ the old man said proudly. ‘It might be wiser to have Cathy as your getaway driver. Or perhaps we can call in the Portmans.’

  ‘Not them,’ Hunter moaned. ‘Please not them.’

  ‘I’ll speak with Cathy,’ Mr Williams said. ‘The only decision left is when to do it.’

  ‘I’d rather we didn’t waste any time,’ Ballentine replied. ‘We should get it done as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Bloody right!’ Hunter cheered. ‘You’re started to sound like your old self, Dominic!’

  ‘I’ve spent too much time in your company of late. You’re a bad influence on me.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  To Have a Heart

  I went into an emotional meltdown after creating the tsunami. As the wave swept over me I simply created a kinetic shield which, unlike Bentley’s, held firm despite the immense pressure bearing down on it. I simply waited until the initial wave had flowed inland before releasing my shield and rising to the surface of the water. I searched for Bentley, but he was either dead or had escaped. I was confident the former to be the case. My nemesis had been dealt with – quite easily – and now it was time to lie low for a day or two. The Guild would be out in force after my dramatic display of power. Many people had died, along with one of their most promising protégés, and they wouldn’t be taking it lying down. Every agent and foot soldier that they had available would be scouring the land for me.

  I had mounted the Kinetibike and was at my temporary abode in a little over an hour. Then, in the silence of the country house, the Hyper-furens kicked in. I had been using it that morning to build up my power, but had been able to hold back the insatiable fury that went hand-in-hand with it. I had been almost calm when I faced Bentley, but now that I was alone and all was quiet, the narcotic overwhelmed me. But not in a way I expected. The anger the drug induced seemed to have been eaten up when I created the monstrous wave, and now other emotions were coming to the fore. There were no distractions now. No searing hatred of Bentley to occupy my thoughts.

  There had first been joy. As I rode along the motorways from Portsmouth on the GSK7 I could not contain my relief and subsequent elation at having killed Bentley, and at having created a wave of such magnitude. But as I fell into the single chair in the front room the happiness drained away. It left all the negative emotions behind. I raised the palm of my right hand and stared at the ink rendition of Ania. Tears ran down my scarred cheeks and dripped from my chin, some worked their way onto my lips and into my mouth, the unusual salty taste deflecting my thoughts for a few seconds.

  I was thinking like a normal person for the first time since the evening the Eastern Shadow broke into my home all those years ago. I experienced an intense fear and despair when one of the thugs had put a gun to my infant sister’s temple. I had been a special, but relatively normal, boy up until that evening. From then on I had been nothing more than a murderous puppet, incapable of relating to the people that crossed my path. Incapable of understanding the fear in the eyes of my victims before I ended their lives.

  ‘You cannot beat the devil at his own game.’

  What was I now that I too could feel sorrow and fear like my victims? Can the devil be sad? Can he be remorseful and afraid? The devil had been chased out – albeit temporarily – by a side effect of the drug that stubbornly remained in my body. What does a person who has been possessed by the devil for most of their life do when that dark force has been exorcised? What is the first thing they do? What could they do if they were aware that the demon would reclaim their body again soon?

  Sitting alone in a dark room and staring out the window at black trees dancing lazily in the autumn bluster was not the answer. No, there was a different answer: to be with someone who cared for me. That was the only answer. In this fleeting moment, when the tin man had a heart, I could indulge those same feelings that I had taken for granted when I was a child. I could simply be next to another human being and talk. I wanted to tell someone that beneath the madness, the rage, the power, and the clandestine existence was a real person and I was free for the moment from all the walls that had imprisoned my original and natural self.

  I left the house and took to the Kinetibike, then shot across the countryside like a silent missile. It took over two hours to reach the river where I had practised my wave techniques, the one that the Golding Scientific experimental clinic overlooked. I parked the bike in an alleyway and strolled along the waterway then stood on one of its many bridges and watched the main door to the clinic. She appeared twenty minutes later, shuffling awkwardly in the wind trying to keep the dozens of files under her arms from flying away like great white bats.

  ‘Allow me to carry those for you, doctor.’ My voice could not be mistaken for any other. Its deep buzzing almost seemed to give Walters an electric shock, and she froze on the pathway of the bridge and was visibly shaking. ‘Do not be alarmed,’ I continued. ‘I have not come here to harm you. What happened before I left was a moment of rage, not my own, but of a synthetic kind that I could not control. It was not me – not the real me. Bu
t right now, the person I am, the person who I truly am, has broken through the narcotic fog. I wanted to see you while I could think straight and feel what all normal people feel.’

  ‘I know what you did this morning,’ she replied, the shock still identifiable in her voice. ‘Do you know how many people lost their lives, Edward?’

  ‘No. I felt compelled to create it. The wave was a weapon, you see. It was created to destroy the person who murdered my sister. The rage I have been experiencing left me with no choice but to kill him.’

  ‘Could this not have been done without killing so many innocent people?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ A shudder ran through me as I thought of the people I had killed before Bentley arrived. I had murdered them just to attract Bentley and the agents of the Guild. I did not share this with the doctor. Stopping a car in the middle of the main street and crushing it with the driver and passengers inside, waiting for the police to arrive then systematically executing each and every one of them. No, I could not share that information with the doctor. It would be too much for her to accept.

  I used psychokinesis to make the files under Walters’ arms spin out of her control. They swept up over her head and floated lazily into my steady grasp.

  ‘At least allow me to carry these to your car for you. It is the least I can do. After all, you were the one …’ my sentence trailed off as a young couple sauntered past, each hugging the other tightly. They were people who knew nothing of the true horrors of the world and would not have reacted well to my unusual voice – not to mention my appearance.

  ‘My apologies,’ I said when they were a good distance away. ‘This voice you and your colleagues have given me draws unwanted attention.’

  ‘It was the best we could do,’ Walters replied distantly.

  ‘I know you did your best.’

  She started walking and asked me to walk with her. She did not look at me directly, but I felt no insult at this, not after what I had done to her in the clinic before I left for Ireland.