Obsidian

by Alan Baxter

  Alex lowered the unconscious hippy to the floor as the Commander turned to face him, his face split in a broad grin. ‘That was rather bracing, no?’ he said. ‘Never a dull moment here.’

  ‘Bracing?’

  ‘Well done spotting that,’ the Commander said, pointing to the small man slumped at Alex’s feet. ‘Got himself rather entangled there, didn’t he.’

  ‘You could say that,’ Alex said. ‘Bloody liability, a bloke like this.’

  The Commander smiled as the hippy came to, groaning and rubbing his jaw. ‘You’re not wrong, Mr Caine. A bloody liability indeed.’

  Alex frowned. ‘Why are you so amused?’

  The Commander walked over, pulled the unfortunate man to his feet. He staggered, unable to completely support his own weight, hanging against his clothes in the Commander’s grip. He looked at Alex and winced, shying away. ‘Alex Caine,’ the Commander said. ‘This is Rowan. The seer you’ll be working with.’

  Claude Darvill landed at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith airport and strolled refreshed from First Class, slightly tipsy on champagne. A twenty-four-hour flight was a breeze in the kind of comfort his money could buy. Or, more accurately, his father’s money. He needed to reinforce the cash flow and get back out to his work. One meeting with the board had been enough to convince him he wanted nothing to do with running the company. But if Hood could not be found he would have little choice.

  He lined up in immigration control, selected a fake passport from his collection. Today he would be Charles Kennedy, philanthropist, visiting Sydney on a well-earned holiday. He pulled his phone from his pocket while he queued, stabbed the button for Black Diamond.

  ‘Jean Chang speaking.’

  The best of a bad bunch, he had decided to keep direct contact with her only, much to the chagrin of the rest. ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘What have we got?’

  ‘Not much, I’m afraid. Seems Alex Caine is a bit of a non-entity. I’ve got a varied schooling history; he was orphaned young, grew up in care, caused a lot of trouble. Found martial arts and cross-trained in a few styles, but mostly with an old Chinese master who’s long dead now. Caine became a champion in short order. Around his late teens he started disappearing. Some digging seems to indicate that he fought in underground matches and made good money at it. That seems to be pretty much all he does. We have an address for him and really nothing else. He’s about two hours south of Sydney.’

  ‘Any idea what my father wanted from him? Any reason they crossed paths?’

  The sounds of papers shuffling came over the line. ‘No, not really. According to the few notes on Sparks’s laptop, Caine had something, or some things, that Hood wanted. We can only assume they were arcane items of some power for your father to pursue them so relentlessly. Sparks kept most of her notes on her netbook, and that disappeared with her and your father, and was never synced back here.’

  Darvill nodded, frustrated. ‘Text me through the address you have.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  It didn’t take long for Claude to get through passport control. He had no checked luggage, everything he needed in his weathered canvas satchel. He rented a small car and followed signs out of the airport onto the freeway heading south, the calm English accent of the GPS guiding him slowly through heavy early morning traffic.

  A little over two hours later Darvill pulled off a country lane along an unsealed driveway, gravel and rain ruts grinding against the tyres. A neat low house stood among gum trees and bushes, surrounded by a simple lawn and beds of unkempt flowers and shrubs. A vegetable garden off to one side of the house was overgrown and rambling, several things gone to seed. Claude killed the engine and sat quietly, sensing the place. It felt empty.

  He climbed from the car and strolled up to the front door, knocked loudly. Nothing. He scowled. Why can things never be easy?

  A lap of the house proved the place to be locked up tight, but a table on the back deck had two coffee mugs on it, the dregs still damp in the bottom. They couldn’t have been there more than a few hours. He wondered if this Alex Caine character was simply out and about, due to return any time, or further afield. He had methods to find out.

  Lifting the table out of the way, Darvill sat cross-legged on the dark decking in its place. He dumped his satchel on his lap and rummaged inside, pulled out a small plastic tub of capsules. Vitamins, according to the label and as far as any authorities were concerned. In reality they were intensely strong psychotropic drugs, bought at considerable expense from a Peruvian shaman and worth every penny.

  He put one capsule in his mouth, gripped it between his front teeth. He put the tub back and pulled out a small, wand-like object carved from a single piece of quartz crystal. It gleamed in the hot midday sun as he scratched symbols into the wood of Alex’s decking — an eight-pointed star, runes learned in Scandinavia, an amplifying sigil. Muttering an incantation, muffled as he held the capsule in place, he laid the wand across the star and closed his eyes. When his chant ended he bit the capsule, acrid powder scattering across his tongue, and swallowed.

  For a few seconds nothing happened, then ice-cold momentum flooded across his brain. He gasped, hanging on as though a runaway rollercoaster threatened his life. Forcing his own intentions over the power of the drug, he guided the rushing energy. He leaned forward, placed his hands over the carved runes either side of the eight-pointed star. ‘Show me,’ he hissed.

  Spinning, frozen colours tumbled over each other in his mind, snatches of imagery danced through like mayflies tapping the surface tension of water. He grabbed for them mentally, tried to snag a moment, control it. After several attempts he got one, a young man, maybe late twenties, placing two steaming mugs on the table that had occupied the space where he sat. Alex Caine, is that you?

  He let the images slip past, holding on, the ride less chaotic. Snatches of conversation came through, Coffee before all else … a woman laughing … a tender kiss … winter in London? … cold by Aussie standards … a sensation of concern … a man in black … Morning … I’ll listen to your proposal … Go where? … Armour HQ in Sydney … A helicopter, locking the house, three people boarding, flying away.

  Darvill gasped, pulled his hands from the runes. The maelstrom of images disappeared as he opened his eyes and cursed. He had just come from Sydney. And there had been the distinct impression Caine wouldn’t be back any time soon. Armour HQ in Sydney. What the hell was that?

  The drug coursed through his veins, caused spikes of euphoric adrenaline. Unempowered by magic it felt like high-quality cocaine, and Darvill had no problem with that. He couldn’t prevent a grin pulling his cheeks tight even as he ground his teeth against the rush, frustrated.

  This was his world. He found stuff. He sourced intel, tracked things, got what he wanted. His life was his favourite game and this should be treated no differently. If he let the frustration take over, he would lose focus and miss his goal. He knew what Caine looked like. He knew Caine hung out with a very tasty blonde, with a cracking body. And he knew they’d taken a chopper that morning to Armour HQ in Sydney.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket, stretching his jaw against the tightness the drug drove into his muscles, dialled.

  ‘Jean Chang.’

  ‘I need to know what Armour is.’

  There was silence for a moment, then, ‘Well, protective clothing. Is that what you mean?’

  Darvill closed his eyes, then quickly popped them open again as the drug swam through his mind, a psychedelic shark looking for thoughts to consume. ‘No, you idiot. It’s a … I don’t know, a group or a society or something. Caine’s gone to Armour HQ in Sydney. I’m going to drive directly back up there. It’ll take about two hours. I expect a call from you before I arrive telling me all I need to know about this Armour. Got it?’

  He hung up, not waiting to hear if she got it or not. She was a smart one, she would figure it out. He went to the garden and picked up a rough-edged rock from a border, scrubbed away the carvings on Ca
ine’s deck. It made a mess of the wood but masked his work. He took a mug from the table, put it with his pills and crystal wand in his bag, and walked on spongy legs back to the hire car. He headed down country lanes, making his way to the freeway, feeling like he was playing a video game as the drug soared through his veins in pulsing waves.

  4

  The self-proclaimed Accord gathered at Haydon’s house and loaded suitcases into the old Toyota.

  ‘So, we’re seeing this through,’ Haydon said from the driver’s seat.

  Armand in the passenger seat and Grabowski in the back nodded their agreement. ‘If it gets too dangerous, we walk,’ Armand said. ‘But I hope we don’t have to.’

  ‘You’re sure about the next step?’ Grabowski asked.

  Haydon pulled the ley map from his pocket, spread it out on the steering wheel. ‘The ritual at Castlerigg pointed us in this direction.’ He drew his finger across the map, north-east towards the Scottish border. ‘I’m fairly convinced it was this line, directing us to this circle here.’ His finger stopped just south-east of Glasgow. ‘It’s an obscure stone circle, known as the Covenanter’s Stones, but I’m sure it’s right.’

  ‘And if it’s wrong?’

  Haydon grinned, enjoying the mystery of it all. ‘That’s the beauty of it. If we mess up and go to the wrong place, I think the ritual will redirect us to the correct path. I can’t imagine a better use of my long-service leave.’

  Alex sat across the table from Rowan while the small man rubbed his jaw, looking forlorn.

  ‘Can’t I just ring him now and then for updates?’ Alex asked.

  The Commander rumbled a deep laugh. ‘No, he’s going with you. Get used to it.’

  ‘I can’t believe you punched me out,’ Rowan whined, his voice high.

  ‘You were helping a demon manifest!’

  ‘But you could have, I don’t know, just distracted me or something.’

  Alex wanted nothing to do with this fool, but knew he had to make some kind of peace. He was playing an entirely new game and needed to establish some equilibrium. ‘Look, I’m sorry, okay? I could see the link you had to the thing and it needed severing. There wasn’t time to come up with a better plan.’

  Rowan looked down at the table, still rubbing his jaw. He mumbled something Alex couldn’t hear.

  ‘You did us a huge favour there, Alex,’ the Commander said. ‘Thank you again.’

  ‘It’s nothing. I tend to see this stuff clearer than most. Does that happen often?’

  ‘Incursions?’

  ‘Yeah. Demons just turning up in your secure base.’

  The Commander laughed again, gestured at Rowan. ‘We often get attacks on our bases, as we tend to make a lot of enemies. But perhaps you should enlighten us on this one, seer.’

  Rowan stretched his jaw. ‘I could sense something pushing at the edges of the realm. Sensors in the control centre picked it up too. I went into the board room to see if I could sniff out more about it. I was trying to help.’

  ‘You’re a fucking liability,’ Jarrod growled.

  The Commander lifted a hand. ‘Jarrod, please.’

  ‘No, screw him. With respect, Commander, he causes more problems than he solves.’

  ‘That may seem so, but Rowan has proven invaluable on several cases. We can’t all pick and choose our best moments. And in this instance, the four of you are going to have to get along.’

  ‘Why is that?’ Silhouette spoke for the first time and all eyes turned to her. ‘Why this team?’

  ‘Rowan is the one with the information about this disturbance. Alex is the one with the skills to track it. You’re with Alex.’

  Alex watched Silhouette’s face closely, saw her eyes narrow when the Commander stopped without mentioning Jarrod. Something existed between them and it made them both uncomfortable. He hoped it wouldn’t be a problem, but there was so much he didn’t know. Silhouette had been around for centuries and he had yet to turn thirty. He felt so totally lost sometimes he wanted to turn his back on everything and walk away. But knew he couldn’t. The things revealed to him, more all the time, were ever more addictive. And he had fallen for Silhouette completely. He hoped she really did feel as strongly for him as she claimed she did. Whatever it was between her and Jarrod, maybe they could all sort it out together.

  An uncomfortable moment stretched before the Commander spoke again. ‘Rowan actually asked for you.’

  ‘For me?’ Alex said. ‘Why?’

  The Commander turned to Rowan, one eyebrow raised.

  The small man pulled himself up in his chair. ‘I was one of the ones shuddering with your activity before. I didn’t ask for you, as such. I just suggested you’d be good for the job.’

  ‘Shuddering again. What does it mean exactly?’

  ‘I’m a seer, right? I pick up things. When we get a wave of something we call it shuddering because … well, it makes us shudder. We’re overly sensitive to disturbances in the realms, in the aether, and when we learn to focus we can figure out what those things are. Sometimes. Anyway, we turn the shudders into information.’

  ‘And you felt me before?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Yeah. Carrack, the head seer of this branch, reckons people like us pick up different psychic frequencies. It’s a personal tuning, we can’t do anything about it. We can sometimes look beyond our wavelengths, but we naturally sit in one band and that’s why some of us shudder with things others don’t get. Your activity had me going violently a few weeks ago.’

  Alex wondered how much Rowan knew of his quest to find the Darak, his battle with Hood and Uthentia, his binding with the stone. ‘Kept track of me, did you?’

  Rowan shrugged uncomfortably. ‘It’s my job. But, to be honest, it was all so blurry and messed up. You’re a difficult person to see clearly.’

  ‘Good.’

  Another moment of silence, heavy with a variety of unspoken anxieties, hung over the room. Alex let it increase. He’d be damned if he would make anyone feel more comfortable. He thought the biggest problem he faced would be working with this Rowan character and he wanted to establish from the outset who was boss. They had to get along, but he would not be a pushover for anyone.

  Eventually the Commander broke the tension. ‘So, you’d better tell us where things stand on this one, Rowan.’

  The seer nodded, fidgeting his hands together nervously. ‘Okay, sure. Well, something is happening and I really have very few details. But the sense of catastrophe I’m getting if it’s not stopped is overwhelming. I feel a massive shift happening and it’s centred around a small group of people, maybe three or four, and some weird ritual they’re performing.

  ‘I keep feeling something open and close, something bad. Every time it opens it feels stronger, but it’s heavily fettered right now. If we don’t do something, it’ll get too big to deal with.’

  ‘All sounds very fucking vague,’ Alex said.

  The Commander laughed. ‘Welcome to the world of Armour. Please, go with Rowan, see what you find. Earn some money. Let’s just start with that.’

  ‘Where?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Northern England,’ Rowan said. ‘Somewhere on the west coast, or nearby. We’re so far away it’s difficult to tell, but when we get there I’ll have a much better idea.’

  Alex looked from Rowan to the Commander, to Jarrod and finally to Silhouette. She shrugged and smiled at him. It was his choice even though he felt pressured. Perhaps he could find some purpose with this. ‘So much for never going back to London,’ he said, grinning back at Sil.

  She shook her head, looked rueful. ‘Famous last words, just like you said. And we’re going well north of London. It’ll be bloody freezing.’

  ‘Come with me,’ Jarrod said. ‘I’ll get us kitted out.’

  Rowan sat quietly while Alex and Silhouette followed Jarrod from the room and waited for the Commander to reprimand him.

  ‘You’d better get your act together,’ the Commander said, standing and heading for
the door. ‘You need to prove your worth.’

  Rowan nodded, not sure what to say. The Commander scowled at him a moment longer, turned and left.

  A soon as the door closed, leaving Rowan alone, a shudder passed through him. He winced, the hissing voice creeping across his ear. ‘Well done, well done, well done …’ faded into silence.

  Rowan squeezed his eyes shut. He’d never shuddered like this before, it almost hurt, like it was slowly cracking his bones. His mind was never silent, had not been since he was a child, but this was different, wrong somehow. And he couldn’t ignore it. He wished as much as this Alex fellow that he didn’t have to go along. What the hell was the Commander playing at, sending a seer into the field? He should never have admitted the shudders were indistinct with distance. And yet, something faint and insistent in the far reaches of his mind cajoled him. He wasn’t alone in his head, it was more than simple shuddering, and it terrified him. But he couldn’t tell anyone that, they would think him insane. Perhaps he could lobby to be restationed at the London Armour HQ, or perhaps Edinburgh would be nearer to the source. Either way, safe in a base, not out in the world. Alex would surely vouch for that and Jarrod most certainly would. But the Commander seemed insistent that he stay out and about with the team and he couldn’t help feeling as though it was because the Commander wanted to be rid of him. He dropped his head into his hands. Between the shudders, the dark voice, the Commander and his life-long run of bad luck, he wondered if he would be around much longer to be plagued by these doubts.

  Claude Darvill drove into the Sydney business district from the south, crawling with the traffic past Central Station. Tall buildings, glass, concrete and brick, towered everywhere. Summer sun reflected off a thousand corporate windows. He dialled Black Diamond.

  ‘Jean Chang.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Armour is an old organisation. I mean really old, like hundreds of years. They’re essentially an agency for intercepting magical and supernatural threats.’