by Alan Baxter
A wave of burning energy slammed into them from behind, knocked them flying. They slid facedown across the icy floor and fetched up with a jarring impact against a wall. The Fey were on them in an instant. Through stunned eyes, Silhouette saw another door opposite the one she had emerged from earlier, more steps leading down. She dragged against Alex’s arm, used her considerable strength to fling him towards the stairs.
‘Run!’
She met the assault of the Fey. Her vision swam as one mighty blow cracked across her jaw even as she delivered a similar blow to another. Alex refused to run, turned to face the fray. He drove a kick hard into the back of one assailant, sent the tall, dark Fey stumbling away. Even without his powers, he was a formidable fighter and a new fire burned in his eyes. A massive concussion shook the citadel, the ground cracked beneath their feet, sent them all staggering.
‘They’re tearing the place apart!’ one of the Fey yelled.
Alex grabbed Silhouette, dragged her away.
‘We can’t hope to beat them!’
Silhouette’s magic was nothing compared to the Fey, or even Alex for that matter, and his skills were clearly shackled. Prisons in this realm could only work against the shackled or the mundane. Desperately, she gathered enough energy to put up a ward between them and the Fey and they ran for the stairs. Her shield lasted less than a second, but it bought them a few paces’ head start. As they rounded the wall and hurtled down the steps, the ice behind them exploded in shards of glittering white. Blue Fey fire crackled through it.
The palace shook again, stairs crumbled out beneath them. They slipped and fell, barely controlling their descent as the stairway became a slide of broken ice. Fey magic scorched down from above, barely missed them as more walls cracked and fell. The wall to their left shattered with another rattling boom from below and the multi-blue of Faerie night painted the white space.
Vertigo twisted in Silhouette as she looked out and down, the palatial fortress merging with the mountain in a sheer drop, hundreds of metres to the shadowed green valley below. Dozens of Fey rushed along the winding path from the town, stutter-stepping through folded space, like time-lapse photography, to help their Lady. Halfway along the path, they met the carnage of Hood and Darvill still fighting their way up. More Fey, entangled with dog-beasts, battled in the courtyard and somewhere inside the Lady and the Erlking had to be still engaged, the entire structure suffering with the might of their combat.
Silhouette looked down. Some twenty metres directly beneath them, a huge dirigible drifted, heading for the courtyard. Without thinking, as the stairs under their feet cracked again and more blue fire arced down from above, she grabbed Alex and hauled him out through the gap, leaping with all her strength away from the walls.
All other sound was torn away by an incessant rush of wind. Silhouette registered Alex’s stunned, wide-eyed face beside her even as tears whipped across her cheeks. Their clothing slapped at their limbs. But his jaw was firm, his focus entirely on the dirigible below. Time seemed to slow and speed up at the same time and the rushing air suddenly ceased with a whump as they hit the stiff, leathery balloon.
For a terrifying second Silhouette thought they might bounce off, but it sagged under them and they sank into its depths. The dirigible shuddered and shifted in the air, its flight interrupted by their unexpected impact. Alex and Silhouette clawed their way across the leather, towards the icy wall sliding by not three metres from them.
‘Drop and slide!’ Alex yelled and slipped out of sight.
Silhouette was an instant behind him. For a second she was falling again, then the icy side of the mountain hit her with a breath-stealing impact and she was sliding, a random, hectic course down a steep crevasse. The ice was rough and hard, burning and grazing with friction as she slid. Alex hurtled ahead of her, wearing nothing but light training pants. She couldn’t see his face and was thankful she couldn’t see his pain.
The crevasse narrowed and steepened and for a moment they were in free-fall, before striking hard ice again. They bounced and shifted, bones jarring, teeth rattling. Alex gestured frantically to his left, dug his heels and elbows into the ice to shift his course. Silhouette matched him, trusting whatever he had seen. They surfed over a frozen ridge and skittered out onto a natural ledge on the mountainside. Alex flipped over, dragged with his hands to slow his momentum. There was no way he would stop in time. Wide open space yawned beyond his feet.
Silhouette let herself fly free a moment longer, drew alongside Alex and grabbed his arm in one hand. She shifted the other to a panther paw, large, black claws extended. She gouged into the ice, crying out as she felt her claws start to tear free, her shoulder stretch open in its socket. But they slowed and, legs hanging over a sheer drop, finally stopped moving.
Both flat on their bellies, gasping for breath, racked with pain, they hauled themselves onto the ledge and took a moment in silence.
‘That was fucking invigorating,’ Alex said eventually.
Silhouette couldn’t suppress a laugh as she looked over at him. The despair, at least for now, had left his face. They kissed, hard and urgent.
Silhouette pulled away. ‘We have to keep moving.’
A deafening crack ripped through the air as one massive wall exploded out into space. Huge chunks of ice flew free and came tumbling through the sky. They scrambled close to the mountainside as the deadly rain fell by.
‘Who’s doing that?’ Alex asked.
‘The Lady and an Erlking are having a bit of a disagreement. And Hood is yet to get there. With any luck they’ll all kill each other.’
Alex raised one eyebrow.
Silhouette shook her head, tipped him a wry smile. ‘I’ll try to explain later. Here.’ She pulled her pouch of healing powder from her belt, dipped one finger in. She rubbed it into her gums, offered some to Alex. He copied her action, eyes fluttering as the healing effect through his body was almost instant. ‘Not perfect, raw like that, but it’ll help for now,’ Silhouette said. ‘Come on.’
They turned back to the descent and began traversing the treacherous mountainside, heading for the green valley floor below. Silhouette knew she could move easily, fold her way down, but Alex didn’t have the Fey blood she did. He had to go the long way. And he had said they’d taken his powers. What did that mean? Taking care, using the edges of crevasses and the natural features of the rock beneath, they slowly worked their way down. The incline levelled out considerably as they moved, the way becoming less daunting by the step.
Silhouette took the ring from its chain around her neck and slipped it back onto her finger. It swelled its oily presence through her as she concentrated, let her desire for a Fey gate sit at the forefront of her mind. Her gaze was drawn to a forest of shifting trees not far from the mountain’s base on the opposite side to the village. The movement of trunks and canopy confounded her eye, as if the trees all occupied two or three different, but close by, places all at the same time. ‘We have to go there.’
Alex looked, grimaced. ‘Great. I have no power, Sil. They bound me up better than the Autarch ever did.’
Silhouette pointed to the Darak, smeared with Alex’s blood. ‘All we need is that and I can do the rest. We’ll deal with everything else at home.’
‘It’s Fey magic, Sil.’
She nodded. ‘I know a Fey now.’
Alex clearly chose not to question that and they concentrated on climbing down. Eventually they hurried across the level grassland, heading for the shifting trees.
The battle above quietened, but they were too far away to see any detail. There was frantic movement up there, but who moved and who might be dead was a mystery.
‘We have to assume Hood survived,’ Silhouette said. ‘It’s a question of who else lived.’
‘I doubt the Lady would fall,’ Alex said. ‘Could this Erlking have beaten her?’
Silhouette shrugged. ‘I have no idea. We have to assume not, I suppose.’
‘She would run rather
than lose a fight.’ Alex tapped his chest. ‘There’s too much at stake.’
Silhouette ducked into the trees. ‘Come on.’
The wood was sickening to the eyes, like a television not properly tuned in, the picture dancing and flickering in and out of phase. Except it was three-dimensional and all around them. The trees reached out, wavering branches snatched at their hair and clothes. Alex grunted as he snapped and wrenched at the clamouring limbs. Silhouette concentrated on the pull of the ring. It led them to a pile of almost spherical rocks, piled into a high cairn. At the base was a dark opening.
Silhouette pointed. ‘This is it, but I have no idea where we’ll find ourselves on the other side. Somewhere in the mortal realm, but it could be anywhere.’
Alex pressed his hand to his chest. ‘Anywhere is better than this. That thing hurts me, whatever it is. Let’s just go through.’
Silhouette wondered if releasing her Fey nature would prevent her access to the gate, but she knew the Darak would open it for them. It was independent of Alex’s own powers in that respect. And she had Kreek’s strange ring. Hoping it would let her through, she gripped Alex’s hand tightly and they stepped forward. A vortex of colour whirled into the darkness in front of them. Silhouette felt her Fey self repelled by it. Nausea dragged at her.
‘Help me through,’ she said. ‘Alex, drag me through!’
Without asking why, he dug his feet into the ground and pulled her along. The swirling vortex sucked them away. As they went, a blood-curdling scream rang through the air and was whipped away like a leaf in a storm wind.
Robert Hood held the decapitated head of the Erlking by one blood-soaked antler, the creature’s neck a ragged, bloody stump where it had been torn free of the body. ‘Where is he?’ he yelled.
Fey and dog-beast bodies in various stages of dismemberment littered the courtyard. The palace stood behind them, broken and tumbling. Chunks of it lay scattered everywhere, more littering the pathway and the valley below. What little remained of the structure spiked into the sky like a shattered tooth.
Claude Darvill held his sword across the neck of one Fey, who shook her head side to side widely, fear and denial. ‘What are you?’ she wailed.
‘Answer the fucking question!’ Hood screamed.
‘He escaped, didn’t you hear? You felt the gate open and heard the Lady’s distress, no? She ran for him after you started fighting the Erlking, but must have been too late. Why did you attack the Erlking anyway?’
Hood looked momentarily confused, stared at the blood-soaked, antlered head. ‘Just fucking felt like it, I guess. Though it was a strange compulsion.’ His eyes narrowed and he snapped his attention back to the Fey. ‘Caine escaped?’
‘He must have. A gate triggered. And I can’t think what else would have made our Lady scream like that.’
Hood tipped his face to the triple-mooned sky and roared in raw fury. Darvill whipped his sword aside, the Fey’s head spinning away as its body crumpled to the ground.
Hood lowered his face, stared levelly at his son. ‘That was quite a scrap!’ He grinned broadly.
Darvill nodded, his own grin matching his father’s. ‘It really was, huh!’ He looked at his new weapon. ‘This thing is fantastic.’ He slipped it back into the sheath across his back.
‘You and I, son, we can rule the world. But first, Alex Caine must die. How can he possibly have escaped that?’ He gestured angrily at the collapsed edifice.
Darvill shook his head, chewed his lip. ‘No idea. But it seems he did. And this Fey Lady had him prisoner for a reason.’
‘So fucking what?’
‘So she’s likely to be after him again. We need to move or she may get him first.’
Hood tapped one index finger against his temple. ‘I’ve got lots of Fey knowledge in here thanks to my new passenger. And you know what it tells me? It says that bitch is stuck here until the next thin day. We can go back when we like because we’re not Fey, and I know how to trigger the gates. But she can’t.’
Darvill smiled, pleased with the news even while he remained very concerned about what exactly his father’s passenger was. ‘Well, let’s you and I get back home. This place freaks me the fuck out.’
16
Jean Chang quietly sipped tea as Jarrod talked urgently on his phone and his friends worked. They tapped at laptops and tablets, distilling what they knew. The safehouse in the Sydney suburb of Rockdale, to the south of the city, lived up to its name. She felt secure. For how long, she didn’t know, but at least for the moment she could rest.
Jarrod’s voice was tense, his knuckles paling as he gripped his mobile tight. ‘No, Sydney is devastated. Everyone is dead and most of the equipment ruined. I’ve sealed it and set the pump-out into operation. You’ll have to send a team in to recover what they can and deal with the dead.’ Pause. ‘No, it’s a fucking mess. No one died clean down there.’
Chang looked away, shamed as she observed his obvious distress. She had caused this. Not alone and certainly not through her own desire, but she bore responsibility.
‘Alex and Silhouette, yes.’ Jarrod listened again. ‘No, I was trying to find her because she went after him. We lost her. We have to find them and figure out what’s happening.’ Another pause, longer this time. Jarrod’s jaw tightened as he listened. ‘No, sir. I’m sorry, but my priority is my sister. There are three more operatives here who can meet with your contingent when they arrive.’ Pause. ‘Yes, sir. I’ll tell them.’
He disconnected the call, slipped the phone into his pocket. He turned to his companions. ‘London is on the case. They’ve mobilised a team from Melbourne and experts from Auckland to fix up the Sydney situation. And someone from London is on the way here too. You guys wait for a call, then team up with them. See if you can start any kind of rebuild in Sydney.’
‘Alex fucking Caine caused this,’ one of them said, eyes dark. Her mouth was set in an angry line.
Jarrod nodded. ‘Yes, he did. But none of it is his fault. He’s trapped in this, has been from the start.’
The woman stood, jabbed an angry finger towards Jarrod. ‘I don’t want to hear your excuses! How many died in Scotland? My partner died there! Now Caine’s brought his special brand of fucking havoc here. He needs to be stopped.’
Jarrod strode over to the woman. ‘He needs our help, Suzi, to stop all the things conspiring against him! You don’t have to be a part of it, but the threat is not Alex. Far bigger dangers are out there. Go back to Sydney HQ and help clean up.’
Suzi shoved Jarrod, who obligingly stepped out of her way. ‘I will clean up Sydney and I will keep doing my job. But whatever other dangers exist, Alex fucking Caine is a threat to all of us. To everyone! I’ll be front and centre of the team tasked with finishing him.’
Jarrod’s eyes narrowed, but he bit back a retort. ‘You do that,’ he said instead. Chang wondered what he had been going to say first. She jumped when he turned to her. ‘You’re with me.’
‘With you?’ Jean asked.
‘You have the tech to track down Hood and Darvill.’
Jean pulled the tablet from her bag, shaking her head. ‘But they disappeared … Oh. They’re back.’ She looked up, tried to ignore the trembling in her hands. ‘Not too far away.’
‘Good. Keep an eye on them while we travel.’
‘Where are we going?’
Jarrod laughed. ‘Wherever they are! We need to know if they’ve brought Alex and Silhouette back from wherever they went.’
‘And if they haven’t?’
‘We go to Melbourne. We need the services of an Armour HQ to help us figure out how to find Sil and Alex.’
Jean swallowed, reluctant to ask the next question. ‘And if Hood and Darvill do have them?’
Jarrod’s face darkened. He ignored the hiss of hatred from Suzi. ‘We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.’
Alex and Silhouette staggered through a wooden door in a garden wall, moonlight limning everything in silver. They stepp
ed over a dormant flowerbed onto a well-manicured lawn. An old red brick house, leadlight windows and a thatched roof, squatted at one end. The other end of the garden led to a pond and a small wood beyond.
‘Gotta be England,’ Alex said, rubbing himself against the cold as his breath misted the air. He wished they had emerged somewhere in Australia, though he wondered how safe his home country was. In truth, he wondered if anywhere was safe. ‘Come on.’ He set off at a trot for the woods.
Silhouette tugged his sleeve. ‘Wait.’
A small shed stood beside the pond. She slipped inside, emerged with a glass jar. She dipped the jar in the pond and held it up to the moonlight to squint at it. ‘Looks pretty clean. Won’t kill us anyway.’ She took healing powder from her pouch and put a pinch in the water. It fizzed and turned dark purple-brown. She swallowed half with a wince, handed it to Alex.
He took it, gulped it down. The familiar bittersweet buzz spread through him almost instantly. His aches, pains and cuts immediately reduced, the sliced flesh of his chest sealed up. ‘That stuff is a winner, seriously.’
Silhouette looked him up and down. ‘Wait there.’
She went back into the shed and returned with a blue all-in-one overall like mechanics wore. ‘Try this on.’
Alex pulled it over his training pants, zipped it up. ‘Bit short in the arms and legs, but not bad. How do I look?’
Silhouette couldn’t suppress a laugh. ‘Like a fucking hillbilly. We need to find you some shoes.’
They stared at each other for a moment, Silhouette’s laughter fading. Alex stepped forward, dragged her into an embrace and kissed her. She was hot against his lips. He couldn’t remember anything feeling so good.
‘You came to Faerie for me.’ It was a hard concept to process.
‘And I got you out. We’re a fucking team, Iron Balls. Unstoppable.’
Alex shook his head, despair flickering at all his edges. ‘I don’t know about that. All the time I’m alive, this is alive.’ He tapped his chest. ‘They won’t give up.’ In the night shadow of a garden shed he told her everything he had learned.