Bound

by Alan Baxter

  Soon after seven o’clock the sound of several tyres crunching on the gravel outside roused them. Hood sat up in his chair but didn’t rise. Sparks, unable to help herself, looked out a leadlight window. The three Land Rovers, close to the front door. Hood’s men got out, dragging others with them. Seven young boys in Cub Scout uniforms, eyes wide and stained with tears, were hustled inside. Last out of the vehicles was Curly, dragging a short, fat, middle-aged man. The man wore a Scout Leader’s livery, his face twisted in abject terror.

  Hood remained seated as the captives were presented to him. ‘We got lucky, after a fashion,’ Curly said. ‘A Cubs group down near Ullapool. Seven members. We weren’t sure what to do about this bloke though.’ He shoved the short man forward. ‘Or the extra kid.’

  The Leader shook like he had a severe palsy. He clenched his hands together, beseeching Hood. ‘Please, whatever’s going on here, please let the children go. Do anything you want to me, but let them go.’

  ‘Such a noble sentiment,’ Hood said. ‘But it’s the children I need. You, not so much.’

  The boys sniffed and sobbed, watching their leader with a horrified lack of understanding. ‘Please,’ the man begged. ‘What do you want? Please let us go.’

  Hood addressed Curly over the distraught man. ‘Take him outside. Sparks, go with them.’

  Sparks jumped, not expecting to be addressed. ‘Go with them?’

  ‘Remember Bashir, who tried to stiff me over that Djinn situation?’

  Sparks immediately remembered the Arab on his knees, begging for his life, apologising for his foolishness, Hood stepping up behind him, placing the barrel of a semi-automatic pistol against the base of his skull. Pulling the trigger. ‘I remember.’

  ‘Do that to him. Curly will help you afterwards.’ Hood’s expression showed deep disinterest. He was testing her. Perhaps all her questions had shaken his faith in her.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘No problem.’

  Curly dragged the blubbering man through the pub. Sparks followed. She heard Hood order Curly’s men to take the children upstairs, put them with the others.

  Outside in the dark, the wind whistled, icy cold and wet. Sparks squinted against it, pointed to the far corner of the parking lot, deep in inky shadow. Curly pushed the man forward. ‘You gonna need this?’ he asked, pulling a pistol from his pocket. It gleamed with a dark menace in the night.

  Sparks took the weapon. The Scout Leader craned his neck, trying to see what they were doing behind him. Sparks indicated a clump of gorse bush, its dark green spikes and sparse yellow flowers black and white in the darkness. ‘Look at that,’ she said.

  The man turned his head and Sparks raised the gun, pressed it to his skull and fired. He jerked, his legs flailing out from under him as his face exploded. Curly stumbled under the sudden weight, raising his free hand against the spray of blood and brains. ‘Fucking hell, woman!’

  Sparks handed him the gun, turned back to the pub. ‘Get rid of him.’ She walked away.

  ‘That was quick,’ Hood said.

  ‘No point in fucking around.’ She went to the bar, poured more whisky. Her hands shook harder than ever. She tried to ignore the fine red spray drying on her wrist. ‘What about the seventh kid?’

  ‘We can hardly let him go. I’ll offer him to the Sisters, I suppose. Nothing else to do with him.’

  ‘What are they going to do with them?’

  ‘I have no idea. I have to admit, I’m rather intrigued to find out.’

  Sparks swallowed, poured again. ‘So what now?’

  ‘We wait till midnight.’

  She sculled the next drink. ‘Well, in the meantime, Mr Hood, how about you take me somewhere in this place of yours and fuck me?’

  ‘My dear woman, you’re a mind-reader.’

  Over the Atlantic Ocean Alex fought against the desire to murder. Silhouette gripped his hand, whispering to him, trying to talk him down. The entity bound into the book cajoled and infuriated him, fired his nerves with an untouchable itch. His entire body sang with a tension that could only be released through blood and havoc. Visions of himself, powered by the Darak, ripping through the passengers on board swam in his mind. He imagined tearing flesh from bones, crushing skulls under his flying fists, biting chunks from screaming people, blood spraying in arterial beauty throughout the tight, clinical cabin. He panted, sweat poured down his face. He imagined kicking out a window, watching people sucked out the tiny hole, skinned and filleted on the way through.

  ‘Use the stone to resist the book, Alex!’ Silhouette tried to hold his eyes. Her concern was clear, deep in her pupils, her fear that he would slip away, run berserk.

  He ground his teeth, clenched his fists. He pictured his foot smashing the cockpit door down, his knuckles mangling the flight crew, taking the controls and pointing the aircraft straight down at the churning waves. He could hear the whine of the engines along with the laughter of Uthentia, singing out from somewhere in his pocket and realms away simultaneously.

  He turned to the tiny portal beside him as Silhouette tried to shield them with her body from the unfortunate man in the aisle seat. She hissed as he crushed her hand in his grip, his other hand rising. The book urged him on, its desire to feel him drive his fist through into the screaming cold air rushing past outside terrible to resist.

  The man beside them leaned forward, a mixture of disgust and concern on his face. ‘Is he all right?’

  Silhouette didn’t look around. ‘He’s fine.’

  ‘You sure? He looks like he’s having a heart attack. I’m gonna call a steward.’

  ‘No need.’ She leaned close to Alex’s ear. ‘Use the Darak,’ she whispered. ‘Resist this!’

  He felt as though his muscles would burst, desperate as he was to start laying into every stupid face around them. Fucking sheep, stupid mortal, mundane losers, running on a wheel every day, good for nothing, achieving nothing, fucking useless bags of meat. He gasped, gripping Silhouette’s hands almost hard enough to shatter them.

  She let out a small cry and it twisted a knife in Alex’s heart. He concentrated only on the sensation of magic from the Darak, drew it through every part of his body, threw it like a cold, wet blanket over the fire in his mind. Uthentia’s cajoling became howls of rage as Alex used the stone to quell the urges burning through his veins.

  ‘You’re doing it!’ Silhouette said.

  He concentrated only on the Darak and his breathing techniques, years of practice lending assistance to the magic. His body pulsated with destructive urges, but he forced a command over them. It was like trying to hold on to a hurricane, but he refused to let go.

  ‘I think I need a deeper … dialogue with this book,’ he said through clenched teeth.

  ‘You think you can communicate with it?’

  ‘I have no idea. It’s something way beyond my understanding. I never really know what to make of it. I just get vague impressions of what it means. But maybe I can try. It’s alive in there, I can feel its anger. It’s like a living, sentient disease inside me.’

  Silhouette looked around. The man in the aisle seat studiously ignored them. Other passengers slept or stared at tiny screens. ‘I can’t see anyone obviously magical around, but they’d be masking like us. You’ll need to be careful.’

  ‘I can extend my own shields around the book. I can feel how to do that. I’m getting better control all the time.’ He grinned, even while shaking with the effort.

  ‘Good. Use the stone for yourself, use it against the book. Don’t let the book use it against you.’

  Alex collected himself together. He gathered the stone’s power, his power, and built an impenetrable bubble around himself, locking down any emanations beyond the light bouncing off him. A thought occurred to him and he blocked the very concept of light as well.

  ‘Alex!’ Silhouette’s voice hissed urgently. ‘Alex, what the fuck? You’ve vanished!’

  He let the light back in. ‘Did that work?’

&nbs
p; Her eyes were wide. ‘You just disappeared completely. All I could see was an empty seat.’

  He laughed. ‘Cool. Neat trick, eh?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Dunno. I just sort of figured something out, a bit like the wards we use to cover our auras and colours. Sight is just another shade, I guess.’

  A half-smile tugged at her lips. ‘You scare me a little bit, Caine.’

  He kept the rest of the shields tight and slipped the book from his pocket. It writhed and shivered in ’sign, tendrils grasping at his hands and arms, crawling towards his face. He mentally wrapped them up and tucked them back around the grimoire, the energies of the Darak flowing with his will. He was learning to channel it more by the second and it felt good. He shivered with a pulse of fear and excitement, quick visions of sorcerers from stories flashing across his mind.

  The book’s malevolence and anger throbbed in his hands. He cast his mind into it, deliberately trying to address the shred of whatever entity lay trapped within. Let’s have a chat, you and me.

  He opened the cover and the personality thrashed out like a heatwave, the pages flickering. They came to a sudden halt, script twisting and swirling. Alex let his eyes sink through it, let the meaning out. Tiny, ragged, senseless thing a million million times insignificant. The universe alive with powers outside, the denial of all and the trappings of all.

  Alex slammed a thought through, trying not to read for a moment. You can’t finish me! I can resist you and I will destroy you.

  The script writhed again. Insignificant. The power of stone and book and world, all combined, all through me.

  Alex smiled. It had never referred to itself before. So there you are. You’re just a trapped scrap of nothing. I will destroy you.

  It seemed to swell and burn in Alex’s hands, pure, shining rage. Silhouette looked at him, worried. ‘Are you pissing it off?’

  ‘Yeah, I think I am.’

  ‘I don’t know how wise that is, Alex.’

  ‘I can’t actually stop it right now, but I can tell it I’m going to be no victim.’

  He turned his attention back to it. You hear that, fucker? I’m not going to be your victim. I’m forming ideas, Uthentia. I’m going to get stronger and I’m going to finish you.

  He let his eyes relax again, looking into the text, allowing Uthentia to speak. Tiny, mortal mundane faeces. Nothing, you like others. Generational lives, destroyed in flames, in essence uncontained, so many more before and after now and then and always eternal.

  Alex could feel more, understand more. He got how it worked, building up in him until the fury became overwhelming, unignorable. The power was almost cyclic, suppressed every time Silhouette helped him to vent that rage in another direction, like a pressure cooker valve releasing boiling steam. Only this time he’d done it with the Darak. It still churned, not nearly as quelled as when Sil gave him release, but denied enough for now. It would be back sooner, stronger, but he’d bought himself some time. I will survive you, he thought at the book and slammed the covers closed.

  Its wrath swelled through him as he slipped it away, out of sight. He locked his wards back down into the normal, familiar pattern he was used to, concealing his fast-growing magic as easily as nudity concealed by a long coat. There was no question this trapped entity was awesome. No question it could destroy him, consume him. But with Silhouette’s help, with his own growing ability, perhaps he could make good on his words. He would certainly need the entire Darak. With two thirds of it, he could barely hold off the inevitable. To beat it he needed more. If they came up empty in Rome, he had no idea what to do.

  Silhouette reached over, squeezed his hand. ‘We’ll find it,’ she whispered, reading his mind. Maybe just reading his face.

  ‘I hope so. I really hope so.’

  22

  Ten kids huddled in the corner of the small room, seven Cub Scouts, two little girls and one boy no older than four. They hugged their knees, rocking. Tears flowed from many, all faces pale, haunted. Hood and Sparks stood with their backs to the door as Curly and Higgs kept guard outside. An icy breeze pushed in through the open window, a square of blackness in the far wall. Sparks huddled closer to Hood, trying not to catch the eyes of any whimpering child.

  ‘What time is it?’ she whispered.

  ‘Two minutes to midnight, by my watch.’

  Hood stared at the window, expression blank. Sparks knew there was a level of terror somewhere deep inside him and that scared her more than anything else. Regardless of all the crazy stuff Hood had done over the years, he’d always been in absolute control. Or at least he’d seemed to be. That was good enough for her. But talking to those horrible things in the cave she’d seen his fear. Pressed against him now, she could feel it. If Hood was scared, perhaps he had gone too far.

  A hissing cold swept the room, sharper than the autumn air already blowing in. The children fell silent, their eyes, like hers, turning to the window. A dull bluish glow edged the wooden frame and dark tendrils of something scrabbled around the edges. Young voices cried out as the tendrils became fingers, then hands and arms, followed by lank, black hair and long, leering faces. The Sisters crawled through the aperture like four-legged spiders, one over the sill, one around the edge, one from above, slipping around the top of the frame as easily as a lizard scales a wall. They swarmed around the inside wall briefly, seeming to number more than three, before dropping to the ground in swaying, insectile crouches, hissing, licking the air. The children screamed, tears flooding from all eyes. Hood stiffened.

  ‘So, you …’

  ‘… have delivered …’

  ‘… as we asked!’

  Hood sucked a quick breath, clearly steeling himself. ‘I have, as I said I would. There’s even a bonus child.’

  The Sisters stretched, craning thin, ragged necks, bobbing up and down as they counted. Long fingers marked out the offerings one by one and they turned to face each other in a tight circle and cackled. Fast, guttural words flashed between them. A wave of unease passed over Sparks, a sense of dread beyond the terror she already felt. Her loins trembled icily, her stomach fluttered.

  ‘I trust all is as you require,’ Hood said, his voice betraying his own concerns.

  ‘Oh yes …’

  ‘… this is …’

  ‘… more than perfect.’

  ‘Good, good. What should I do now?’

  The Sisters skittered across the room to duck and weave before the terrified children. The kids shrank back, wailing, hugging each other, trying to compress themselves away to nothing in the corner of the room.

  ‘Nothing …’

  ‘… until we take …’

  ‘… your tribute.’

  Hood and Sparks stepped back, checking up hard against the door, as the Sisters fell upon the young like dogs on trapped rabbits. They each stood, grasping a child by the shoulders, pulling them up from the floor. They hung terrified like rag dolls, urine staining their clothes, tears and sobs pouring from them. The Sisters stared hard at the eyes of the victim they held, long black tongues flickering. Their yellow eyes turned black and emanated a dark blue light slowly, like oil across the space between them. As the light hit, connecting their eyes, the small form arched in their grip, legs kicking feebly, their cries becoming weak, muffled.

  Each child began to blacken and crease, their very substance disappearing as the darkening skin sucked tight against bones. Their faces shrank, stretching like leather across bared teeth, eye sockets and cheekbones rising like rocks from a draining lake. Their cries cut quiet as the screams of those remaining intensified. The Sisters seemed less grey and drawn, less skeletal and lank.

  The others broke and ran, scurrying around the room. Hood dove for the window, screaming at Sparks. ‘Cover the door, let none leave!’

  He reached the window at the same time as two kids, caught one as he threw himself out. He dragged the thrashing child back into the room with a grunt of effort, pushing the second to the ground wit
h a kick.

  Sparks pressed herself against the door, covering the handle as children pulled and tore at her, pleading with her to release them.

  A banging against her back, Curly’s voice. ‘What’s going on in there?’

  ‘It’s okay. Just make sure this door stays shut!’

  She heard a bump as Curly clamped a grip on the doorhandle from the other side, presumably pulling against it to keep it closed. There were more screams, cut short, as those near her were plucked away. Her mind raged at her, What the fuck have I done?

  Unable to bear it, yet unable to ignore it, she turned to look. Six tiny, black, desiccated corpses littered the floor. The Dark Sisters held three more aloft, rapidly draining. One last little girl sat frozen in the corner, eyes and mouth wide in horror, a thin, high scream piercing the air. The six blackened corpses had become nine and the Sisters had become young, beautiful, graceful, with flowing, lustrous hair, one blonde, one brunette, one redhead. They were glory incarnate, basking in the glow of their transformation. They turned to face the last child.