‘It is simple, Brun, Silas,’ the Magister said, rising again, the two men rushing to help her. ‘Is it important? I don’t know. I doubt it, in all honesty. Nothing has been communicated to me by the other Families, so I’m assuming it is simply a reconnaissance mission gone wrong.
‘What I do know is that this is an excellent opportunity for us to gain some much needed favour with the Families. If Sarah had something of value, and now she has passed it to young Seb. It is fortuitous, but we shouldn’t let that change our path. We must find out what she’d uncovered, and hence to do that we must train him. Only with mastery of the Weave will the lock on the boy’s mind be removed.’
‘So he is trained? Here?’ Brun said, an eyebrow raised.
‘Well, obviously he must not be integrated. He is not of the blood. He cannot mix with the other acolytes. No, we will appoint him a trainer more appropriate to his status. ‘And when he is at the required level, we will extract the information we need.’
‘What about protection? The sheol seem to be drawn to him. Marek’s forces seem drawn to him. Is it wise to allow him to be so far from our core?’
‘I would not worry about that,’ Silas said, suddenly joining the conversation. ‘The sheol attention was simply the aura the boy was projecting. We all could see it. The sheol were drawn to him, there is nothing more to it than that.’
‘Are you saying he needs no protection at all, Silas?’ The Magister said, her tone dripping in disbelief.
Silas raised both hands. ‘Of course not. I am merely stating that we should not get carried away here. I will assign some of my forces to keep an eye on him, and his trainer, assuming it is whom I think you will be using for this task.’
The Magister nodded slowly. ‘Agreed.’
‘And the boy, when this is done, will he remain? Without a Family to take him in?’ Lore Keeper Brun said.
‘He should not. There is no position for him.’
‘No,’ Brun said. ‘But an exception has been made before.’
‘Caleb made himself useful. It made sense to keep him.’
‘Caleb won’t be around forever.’
The Magister waved a hand. ‘I won’t make a decision now. If he learns well, makes himself useful, then perhaps we may find a way. But if not, if the only purpose he serves is to be the carrier of a message from one of our dead kin, then he will be purged. The Magistry has no need for any further controversies and I will not waste a moment mourning his passing.’
Chapter 10
Just over a week after she’d emerged from the mortuary to a scene of carnage, Sylph found herself trudging through a dense wood. Her head hung low and she clutched one arm with the other as she walked, one foot in front of the other, the mud sucking and pulling on her feet, her muscles burning with every step.
Luchar and the team had left a blood bath behind them. Eight casualties had lain strewn across the car park. More of the authorities had turned up as she’d studied the massacre, arriving in a blaze of sirens and blue lights. She had fled the scene, vanishing into the shadows before she was detected.
For days she’d remained, hiding in the day, hunting at night. She should’ve gone back straight away, to deliver the memories to Marek, but something was different in the air. A disturbance in the Weave had occurred, drawing feral sheol from miles around. Against her better instincts, she had remained.
Drawn by the same disturbance that lured the sheol she’d found herself staring at the enemy, a warrior of the Brotherhood trying to fight his way back to sanctuary. She’d been careless and attacked without thought, and now she carried the result of that recklessness with the fractured arm she now cradled against her chest.
From the park she had fled, only stopping when her lungs burned and her muscles screamed. Darkness was her guardian, and under its watchful gaze she had travelled many miles on foot, keeping to the shadows, a speedy phantom that blurred past those denizens of the town that called that time of night their home.
Now free from town she marched across an open field towards an isolated house she’d spotted on the horizon. The comforting cloak of night was receding now, and already a veil of pink was creeping across the sky. Birds tweeted as she walked, sensing the arrival of a new day.
No doubt Luchar and the rest of them were back at Haven by now. They hadn’t waited for her, not that she had expected them to. The longer they were above ground the greater the risk, the greater the chances of detection by the Brotherhood. This didn’t bother her. What did increase her unease was that with the birth of a new day, as the sun began its rise into the sky, she could feel her own strength, her connection with the Weave weakening. By night, when darkness came and imaginations were prone to random wandering, was when Observers were most susceptible. Things could be explained away as something in the shadows or a trick of the mind. At night, her strength was great. By day, it waned.
She risked a sense as she approached the farmhouse from the field at the back. She kept it gentle, eager not to attract the attention of any Aware, even though the risk was slight. The echoes came back instantly. Three. Two adults and one child. She cursed when she turned her attention to the barn that stood near the main house. She couldn’t see it, but she felt the keen senses of an animal, some kind of dog.
She crept up to the barn. The progress was slow, almost painful. She never made a sound, measuring each footstep, placing the front of her foot down first, feeling the earth, before pushing on with the rest of her weight. The wind was in her favour, blowing towards her, keeping her scent away from the animal. She made her way round the exterior of the barn, casting quick glances through the plentiful cracks and gaps in the corrugated iron, trying to spot her target.
Peering round the barn door, where hay was piled high in massive bales all the way to the roof, she saw it, an elderly German Shepherd, fast asleep. The opportunity was too good to miss. She didn’t relish taking the life of the animal, it was an innocent, unknowing of the cause, but by its existence it was a threat to her, and hence a threat to the mission. She crept up to the sleeping animal, knife held in a killing position.
A sound from inside the barn made her pause. She peered into the gloom, her enhanced vision seeing nothing but the hay bales retreating back into the dark. She became aware then of the sound of her own heart, thudding against her ribs. Her stomach felt light, almost airy, and her palms had grown moist with sweat. It was a peculiar emotion. She didn’t know fear, Marek’s teachings had hammered that from her, but the by-product, the sensation of prey or predator, still remained.
The dog snorted and she leapt back, nearly dropping the blade. Her injured arm flared with the sudden movement. A noise came again. Nearer this time. She heard the patter of paw on stone. She glanced down; the other dog was still sleeping.
What had she missed?
They emerged from the gloom, walking out from between two hay bales. Two dogs. German Shepherds like the old one, but younger, fitter. They stopped when they saw her.
She thought of running then, but already the collective oppression of the observers in the area was dampening her abilities. Her sense, her keenest skill, had faded away to almost nothing. Her strength, imbued with all the energy she could muster, did not feel any different, no more enhanced than anyone else in this world. Light was coming, and with it any advantage she had was lost.
The dogs’ demeanour changed in an instant. They dropped low, teeth bared and ears flat. In unison they uttered a guttural growl as they edged closer towards her.
Something growled next to her. She stumbled and spun round. The other dog was awake now, a primal instinct uniting the three. She edged backwards, one good arm held forward, holding her knife.
The two younger dogs leapt at her. They were just yards from her, and would cover the distance in seconds, but first she took care of the threat closest to hand. She plunged the knife down, deep into the older dog’s skull, just as it made to lunge at her leg. The beast fell silent, but the knife wouldn’t bud
ge.
They were on her in an instant, barking and growling as they launched themselves at her arms and face. She half fell, half rolled backwards, allowing one of the dogs to fly right over her. The other one, quicker, more intelligent than its sibling, skidded to a halt and snapped at her, teeth piercing the flesh in her wrist as she pulled away. The dog lunged again, but this time she was prepared. She took the hit, wincing as teeth sank through the thin tunic she wore and into her flesh, tearing muscle. She twisted inwards, using her own body weight to push the dog towards the ground. Ignoring the fire in her arm and the dog’s manic snapping of jaw, she tightened her grip, then, with her free hand, smashed the dog in the side of the head with all she had.
The dog fell away with a whimper and her arm was free. She barely had time to readjust when the other one pounced, jaw wide, aiming straight for her throat. She twisted, rolled, bringing her arms up and round the dog from behind as it flew past her. They crashed to the floor, the dog biting at thin air.
The advantage was with her now, and she kept her body weight on the dog from behind. She tensed her biceps, locking the animal in one position, keeping the lethal teeth at bay. Then, with the immediate danger averted, she squeezed.
‘Steve? Steve?’ Janice Green elbowed her husband.
‘What? Oh sorry,’ he mumbled, before turning onto his other side, away from her.
No! You’re not snoring you daft sod. I heard something. Outside.’
Steve sat upright in an instant, the fugue of sleep evaporating with a surge of adrenalin. The Green family had been victim to a handful of burglaries over the last year, most of them trying, and failing, to steal some of the equipment he had on the farm. The last time though they’d succeeded, and several grands worth of gear was stolen. The insurance hadn’t paid up, saying that the barn was insufficiently protected from thieves, and the Green’s had nearly gone bankrupt. The day after Steve had bought two more dogs and a Perazzi over and under shotgun with enough shells to survive a zombie apocalypse.
‘The dogs aren’t barking,’ he said, struggling to put his jeans on from their position on the floor.
‘They were for a time. Then they made some horrible noises. Steve, I think someone’s done something...’ Janice’s voice trailed off into a sob. To Steve, the dogs were tools, cheap security, but his wife and daughter had taken a shine to the animals, especially Glenda, the eldest of the three.
‘Get Annabelle, stay in here and lock the door.’
He unlocked the cabinet that stood at the foot of the bed and took out the Perazzi. He cracked it open, verifying that there were two rounds already in the barrel. He swiped a handful of shells from the box in the cabinet before moving to the door. He looked back at his wife, the door half open in his hand.
‘If I’m not back in ten minutes. Call the police.’
Janice nodded through tear-filled eyes.
Steve left and closed the door behind him.
Steve Green didn’t consider himself a cowardly man, and in fact in his younger days he’d been the first to charge into a ruck, his mates always backing him up if required. They were the Spartans of their generation, always seeking the bigger group, the harder blokes. Sure they got their share of kickings and loose teeth, but boy didn’t they have fun times.
Today’s Steve wasn’t the Steve of twenty years ago though. He was heavier, slower. He knew how short life could be, how precarious we sit on the precipice, where one wrong move could spell nothing but the void for us and heartache for those who love us. He had a wife. A child. He didn’t want to die. Yet as he left the house, approaching the barn where the dogs had gone ominously silent, he couldn’t shake off the dread that the void was near, and he was about to fall.
He circled round the yard, keeping to the comforting glare of the security lamp as he rounded on the open barn. It took him a moment to realise what he was looking at when he took in the sight at Glenda’s kennel, and as his brain processed what his eyes had seen, he dropped to his knees, acid vomit shooting up his gullet.
‘Glenda, no,’ he moaned. He tried to shut his mind to the image he’d seen, the blood pooling from Glenda’s motionless body, her eyes empty, far away. He scrunched his eyes shut, trying to force away the memory, of Timon and Pumba, still on the ground, near their mother.
His eyes widened. The barrel of the gun rose.
She was squatted on the ground, a picture of horror. Blood poured down the side of her face. One arm hung limply by her side, the material of her tunic torn and matted with something dark.
Good girls, he thought, to whoever had inflicted the damage.
The woman stared at him. She was small, almost elfin. A far away part of his mind thought she’d be attractive if she wasn’t covered in gore. Yet another part of him, the part of him that was connected to the Weave but without his conscious knowledge, told him that this woman was not of this world. She was an alien, an abnormality, and utterly lethal.
He raised the gun, sighting down the barrel. The woman brought up something in her free arm, an item half-covered in dark liquid that glinted in the light from the security lamp.
His brain sent a signal to his nerves. The electrical impulse travelled to his muscles, terminating at his fingertips, telling the muscle there to contract, pulling the trigger. The signal was halfway down his arm when the blade, hurled with inhuman accuracy, sliced through his shoulder, cutting through muscle, sinew and nerve endings as if there was nothing even there. Fire exploded in his side as he dropped to his rump on the ground, the shotgun clattering to the floor, out of reach. His arm hung, lifeless by his side, blood pumping out of the open wound.
The woman limped over towards him. He watched her through blurred vision, already his consciousness circling the drain of awareness. The woman kicked the gun away and plucked the knife out of his shoulder, sending a fresh wave of agony through his body.
‘I could kill you, you know that don’t you?’ she said.
Steve didn’t answer. Something resembling fear bubbled somewhere at the back of his mind, but it was suppressed, instincts to protect his family overriding everything else.
‘If I don’t kill you, you’ll probably bleed to death anyway. I don’t think you’d like that, would you?’
‘What do you want?’ he whispered, every breath more laboured than the last one.
‘Home. I need to get home. And I need you to get me there.’
‘What?’
‘I need your vehicle. And I need you to show me how to drive it.’
‘What, what the hell are you taking about?’
‘Do not toy with me, human, I can make your exit from this world quick, or I can let you live, decaying at the rate you do right now, day after day.
Ten minutes. Then call the police.
The thought came to his mind unbidden. How long had he been out there? Five, seven minutes? Janice would phone soon. The police would come. Just be cool, be calm.
The woman seemed to sense a shift in him. Her face contorted into a scowl.
‘I must praise your kind. You never give up, even when the end is certain, you still cling on to some vague sense of optimism. It is a credit to you, it really is.’
Before Steve could protest, the woman pinned him against the wall with one hand. Her face came close to his, her breath misting in the cold.
‘The keys to your vehicle. Where are they?’
Steve didn’t answer. He stared at her, unblinking. Hold on, it can’t be too long now.
The woman sighed and shook her head.
‘Tell me where they are, or I will take your pretty little wife and I will make her watch as I gut your daughter from sternum to throat.’
A numbness fell upon him as all hope died. There were no sirens, no blue lights. He was going to perish, cold and alone. He could only hope that his last action would at least spare the life of his wife and daughter.
‘In the hall, by the phone.’
The woman’s scowl lessened. ‘Good. Now, I just nee
d to know how to drive it.’
Without warning, she gripped his face in both hands, pinning his head back against the wall. Her eyes met his, and then his mind was ripped from his body.
***
Sylph stood and leaned against the wall. She wheezed in breath after breath, gritting her teeth against the agony that burned in her mind, the effects of challenging the Consensus draining the last ounces of energy she had left.
In a situation that had been less time-constrained she would’ve applied the procedure more delicately, probing to find the embedded patterns and muscle memory required over several hours. This was not one of those situations, and she’d ripped the knowledge out of his mind with brute force. It would come back, in time, the body and mind anchored together by the Weave. The poor bastard would have a hell of a headache, but he would live.
She pushed open the door with a gentle nudge. The hinges creaked as it swung inwards. She caught the edge before it collided with a washing machine that was positioned just behind it.
‘Steve? Are you okay?’
The woman came rushing down the stairs. She stumbled at the last step, slumping against the banister as she saw Sylph, silhouetted in the door frame.
‘Who are you? Where’s Steve?’ the woman’s voice cracked as Sylph staggered forwards, exposing the caked-on blood on her arms and face, and the curved blade she clutched in her good hand.
‘You stupid bitch, why did you have to come down?’ Sylph said, moving further into the house.
‘I’ve called the police, they’re on their way.’ The woman said, her voice shrill.
Sylph paused and scrutinised further. The woman’s pupils were small. Her neck pulsed as her heart raced. She could’ve been lying, but Sylph’s instincts told her that she wasn’t. She shook her head and approached.
Why did they always have to be so stupid?
Sylph dumped the car after driving for a couple hours north. It had been a bumpy ride at first, and she’d hopped and juddered the vehicle along as she edged it out of the farmyard, but eventually she’d reached an uneasy compromise with the vehicle. Sticking to the B roads she made her way towards home without any further mishaps.
Message Bearer (The Auran Chronicles Book 1) Page 7