Rise of the Alphas

by Alexis Davie

  Soon, the East End lay like a map beneath him. The moon winked at him from the canals. The city looked peaceful, which was always a lie. It was, like it had been for as long as it had existed, an ants’ nest of humanity and immortals alike. There were births, deaths, fights, breakups, affairs, thefts, happening below him with every great breath he took into his lungs. Every sideways blink of his huge eyes meant someone falling asleep or waking up. Someone falling in or out of love.

  Garrick loved this city. Both of him did. The dragon wasn’t supposed to be urban, maybe, but had grown to be. He couldn’t shift without taking this high view, without soaring as close to the moon as he sensibly could to look down on the place he had seen grow from the first seed of a good water source and high terrain to survey the surrounding area.

  And that—that was why he, why they as immortals, cared about humanity. Look at what they had built, humans, with their tiny chances at living. It pushed them, that time constraint, to create great cities. To build and master technology that Garrick, with all the time in the world comparatively, couldn’t be bothered to master. Why? Because he would rather be drinking and smoking ancient, preserved cigarettes? Because he’d rather be trying to kill himself on his bike?

  Was this the dragon telling Garrick the man off? Was the dragon capable of such a thing? The dragon wanted to look at the moon and then dive through the air for a few seconds. The air was cool up here. No, it was Garrick the man. And he needed them both to dive further, to head for the street of tall Victorian townhouses he had just about located, a mile or so from the warehouse flat.

  It was hard for a dragon to hover. Outside the window, Garrick was bobbing up and down. And he was very aware that his wings were pushing huge streams of air down to the street, that anyone passing would look up… His dragon eyes were good in the dark. If he could just focus, he would be able to see in. If he could just…

  There was a flash inside the room. He was sure there was. A burst of bright green light. On his next upshift, he was sure he saw two people in the room. He was sure he saw Brinley, still in the clothes she had been in at his, struggling against something. Then he was looking at bricks, and then—there was definitely someone else there. A man. Thin, bad posture… a small man in a dark outfit with… something in his hand.

  On the next updraft, nothing. An empty room, a smashed mirror. There was a bathroom, he could just see the door, and the whole rest of the tall townhouse.

  Garrick landed with a thump louder than he had intended and a skittering of his claws against the street. He was shifting even as he almost toppled forwards, and he was almost entirely human as he skidded along the ground. Luckily, his skin was still thick, and his grazes minimal. An elbow, his chest. Both would heal in moments with the energy of the shift still coursing through him. He picked himself up and, after some thought, scanned the street for onlookers. He didn’t know what he would have done had there been any, but he was in luck. Then he proceeded to dress as quickly as possible from the canvas bag that had (luckily) survived the adventure.

  There had been a man in there with Brinley, and he hadn’t exactly looked friendly. Dressed and tying his shoelaces, Garrick berated himself for letting her leave his place. Letting personal tensions get in the way of keeping the whole damn world safe, of keeping her safe.

  He pushed the gate open, kicking it when he felt resistance, and ran up the front path and steps. The door was locked. He smashed a fist against the wood, not bothering to look for the doorbell he knew was there somewhere. When there was no answer, Garrick shouted through the door into the conspicuous silence of a boarding house he knew was always full.

  “Mollie, let me the hell in!” A few seconds later, there was a creak, then shuffling, then the door opened, and Mollie was yawning theatrically in the hall. He pushed past her.

  “I was fast a—” He wheeled around to face her again.

  “Cut the bullshit, where is she?” Mollie opened her eyes wide, tried to arrange her soft pink face into ‘confused.’ He raised a hand and managed to arrange it into an accusatory finger point rather than anything more threatening. “I’m going to the attic, Mollie, and I swear, if she isn’t there…”

  “Who, Alice?” Mollie asked, hand to her bosom, sugary sweet.

  “Oh, come on… Yeah, sure, Alice. Look, I know this place is full of halfwits and thieves, but I also know there isn’t a thing that goes on here without your say, so—” He turned to the stairs. “I’ll deal with you in a minute,” he said over his shoulder, taking them two at a time.

  This place never changed. He rarely had cause to visit, but over the years, it had happened occasionally. Immortals of all sorts washed up here when they arrived at any place vaguely close to this part of town. Mollie took them all in and didn’t really look after them, but she also kept her rents low.

  As he began on the second set of stairs, Garrick could hear Mollie mounting the first.

  “Hang about, Garrick,” she called after him. “An explanation before you invade my property, please.”

  They both knew he needed no such thing, and that he and the council could make her life a living hell if they so wished. Not that they would. But there had been a tacit agreement for a long time that Mollie Meitner could keep doing her slumlord thing, and as long as it was no more than that, the council would ignore it. At least it was somewhere for the runaways and the felons just released from the vaults to wash up. And it was safe enough. At least, he’d thought so.

  Please let her just be in a part of the room he couldn’t see, maybe taking that sludgy shower she had feared. Please let him be overreacting because of his heightened emotional state.

  He wasn’t, though. He knew it. You didn’t get to be five thousand (yes, even if there were only a couple of ways you could die) without having decent instincts about this kind of thing. If you weren’t born with them, you developed them, particularly in positions of power. There’d been times when Garrick had slept in what could only be described as a metal coffin in order to avoid being beheaded by an enemy, a long time ago.

  One more set of stairs. His thighs were burning. He could barely hear Mollie below him now, though his senses were still dragon heightened. Then, the top landing. The attic.

  “Brinley?!” he screamed, hoping for but not expecting an answer. There was nothing. The silence felt loud, as if there had just been an awful lot of noise going on and the air had only recently stopped vibrating from it.

  The one door, her door, was half open. He pushed it further and stepped just inside the doorway. The wallpaper was scorched in several places around the room, and the broken mirror was spread from the top of the dresser into the carpet and around the room. It had exploded violently, and in several places, the glass was ground into the carpet where feet had repeatedly put pressure.

  Well, there was no blood. That was good, he supposed, though witches and warlocks were rarely so crude. Just in case, he crunched over the fallen glass and pushed open the bathroom door. It smelled like an animal enclosure in there. Like there must be reptiles living somewhere in the small, damp, yellow-tiled room. No Brinley.

  Leaving the room, Garrick went down one floor. He had his hand on the first door handle and was about to push the door open, kick it if he had to, when Mollie finally made it up.

  “Don’t disturb my guests!” she said, sounding aghast.

  “Oh, come on, Mollie. I’d think it was a silencing charm, but you’re not that bloody powerful. What, did you offer them a free week if they ignored all the noise tonight?”

  Mollie looked a little taken aback, and he knew he was right. She really was a money-grubbing…

  “The girl ran away from home,” Mollie said. “I was concerned for her safety, and Maurice assured me that her father is an upstanding man! A high warlock, no less.”

  Garrick was furious, his breath heaving in and out of him and his fists balling so his fingers were about to bruise his own palms. “That was who was in there with her? One of your long-
term tragic cases? What did he do to her, Mollie?! You and I are both aware she’s not a child, I imagine there’s a lot in this for you and this Maurice bloke.”

  Mollie held up her hands and stepped back as though scared of him. Which, he realized, she might well actually be. He took a couple of steps back himself and tried to loosen his posture. A deep breath.

  “Mollie, where did Maurice take her?”

  Mollie shrugged. “Back home safe to her daddy, of course. She had the family spell book on her, too, I believe? Youngsters, always—”

  The book… Had she? She had said she’d floated while putting it away, and that room wasn’t big enough, not nearly. She’d certainly not left with anything extra from his place that evening. He had the book. He knew it, with a certainty that astounded him. He knew it. He was holding all the cards.

  Mollie furrowed her brow at him, crossed her arms. Her cheery landlady facade was slipping. “What’s got you so excited?”

  “What money is he offering?” Garrick asked. He tried to stop smiling, not wanting to seem like he was pleased Brinley was once again being traded for cash. “What’s her father’s number?”

  Mollie had caught her falling mask and readjusted her expression to one of sympathy and worry. “Well,” the witch said, “I wouldn’t know about that. There may be a monetary reward, but it wasn’t my—”

  “He won’t pay without the book, Mollie. Your game is up, okay? If you give me the address, I won’t have you arrested when this is all over.” Mollie kept smiling at him, trying a few innocent blinks that looked, now, more like the start of a seizure or a migraine. “You’ve been down in the vaults, Mollie. There’s a lot of you for rats to nibble at while you try to read by candlelight for a century or two. Is that what you want?”

  Mollie sighed. She wiped her palms on her skirt. “Fine, Garrick, you win this one. But that’s your bond, hmm? I’m not getting in hot water for this?”

  Garrick ran his hand through his hair. He briefly closed his eyes, relief washing over him before he remembered this was far, far from over. His eyes snapped open once again and gazed hard at Mollie.

  “If she’s safe, Mollie, if I get her home safe and you haven’t messed things up for not only her but our entire damn community, then yes, I will keep you out of the boiling pot. If not, you’re going to be dinner for every damn one of us on the council.”

  Mollie returned his stare. A smile spread across her face, though this was no time at all for one. “Sweet on this little witch, aren’t you, Garrick?”

  18

  Brinley

  Brinley wasn’t surprised to see her father’s office when the world stopped doing loops and they were deposited on solid ground. Her legs, interestingly, had almost healed. The snake was gone and there was a pain that had her yelping as her feet thumped on the rug in front of the fire, but all her bones were more or less in one piece. She had been buckled, broken, in agony just moments ago.

  The warlock looked at her in shock as she corrected her posture and sucked in a further wince.

  “Feeling much better,” she managed, swallowing what might have been vomit. “Before we carry on,” she continued, perhaps actually emboldened by knowing her surroundings, “can I get a name? Or shall I just refer to you as my kidnapper?”

  The man had the snake around his shoulders. God, she wanted the thing to tighten around his thin, yellowish neck. As she thought about it, the snake raised its face to her, turned its head to the side. Did the snake even like its master? She looked it in the eye it had turned closest to her. Did a snake want to share the soul of—

  “His name,” came her father’s voice, “is Maurice, and that’s enough of this ‘kidnapper’ nonsense. Maurice has kindly returned you to your family.” He had been lurking in the shadows at the edge of his room. He’d been pouring himself a drink, yes, but she wondered how long he’d been there waiting to do so.

  “Father,” she said, forcing herself to smile at him. “Is ‘family’ not a bit of a stretch for one man who barely bothered to raise me?”

  Her dad smiled, his aristocratic face not warming up even a little as his face split with the gesture. He had always known how to make the right moves and very little more. This was something she had only just begun to see.

  “Your fiancé will be along shortly, darling,” he said. “For now, how about we all sit down and—”

  She took a breath. She wished Garrick was here. He’d do a good job taking down daddy dearest, sure, but also, she just wanted him in the room. She wanted to be able to look at him for strength, for warmth, before she said things like…

  “Don’t you need to write Maurice a check or something, Daddy?”

  Her dad’s smile became closed. He had been showing teeth, but they seemed to melt back into his face. “Brinley, the man has done us a favor.”

  “Yeah,” Brin said, “sort of. But it’s not really me you were missing, is it?”

  He walked forwards. Maurice, she noticed, was twisting his fingers together, looking unnerved, his beetle eyes darting from her face to her dad’s.

  “If you mean the family heirloom you stole, Brinley, then of course it needs to get back into safekeeping. You are fully aware how old and how precious, how delicate it is. Frankly, I’m surprised you would risk taking it.”

  “It’s mine.” She had said it before she had even thought it. Her father, who had still been walking slowly across the thick Turkish rug towards her, stopped in his tracks.

  “It has been in the family for generations, Brinley. You are hardly of an age or level of discipline that would allow you to take one such—”

  Brin could feel Garrick. She could feel him looking for her. His anger. She wasn’t going to be stuck here alone. It was enough.

  “My mother’s family. That makes the book mine,” she said. Her fists were clenched, her hands hot for reasons she couldn’t fathom.

  Her father was looking at her, shock registering on his face.

  “Brin, sweetheart, give it to me?” His voice was soft now. Intentionally so, but it sounded to her as though he was aping some idea of a father that he had never fulfilled.

  “I don’t have it,” she said, speaking in a voice even quieter than his had been. Her father’s eyes turned to Maurice, and he spoke in a tone worthy of the snake now.

  “You had a job, fool!”

  The skinny warlock stepped back. “Half the money,” he said. “For the girl, half the money, and the other half when I bring the book…”

  Her father wasn’t looking at her now. He was just staring down Maurice, who was wilting. Even his moustache looked afraid, and the snake had wrapped itself in a second loop around its master’s shoulders, as if to protect him.

  “When you get the book,” her father said, “you will get your fee. And nothing until such a moment. Do you understand?”

  Maurice tried to back away but met the wall beside the fireplace. He was pressed up against it. His hat fell off, revealing dark and greasy locks beneath. He nodded.

  Brinley was sure Garrick would find her, or she would find Garrick, if she ran. This thought floated up, unbidden. She could feel him so strongly she would be able to move towards him. Pinpoint him, maybe. Her hands really were hot. If she ran, where would she go? The door was always locked, the key in her father’s pocket. The window was blocked by the two warlocks…

  And then it happened. Another surge of magic Brin had not intended. Her hot hands almost raised themselves, and the stream of light from them sped just past her father’s head, until suddenly, she could see the trees outside clearly. She could feel the wind on her face. Brin laughed. Her father spun around to look at the wall, or lack thereof, and then to his daughter.

  “How did you…”

  Brin shook her head. She knew she should run, but she was lost in laughter. This time, it hadn’t even been destructive, not in the traditional sense. There had been no explosion. The wall had simply… gone. Where had it gone, she wondered?

  Her fat
her was walking towards her. She threw herself sideways and landed on an arm on the rug. Her legs were fine now—a ridiculous healing time, even for an immortal. As she was clambering to her feet and readying to run for the empty space where the wall had been, it occurred to Brin that they were on the second floor. Well, what was that? Broken legs again, at worst? Maybe she would do that flying thing again.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Sir, young Xander and Mr Chaffinch are here…”

  Everyone looked around, including Brin. This, of course, should have been her moment. But she froze. Maurice grabbed her sleeve and yanked her towards him. His stupid snake hissed.

  19

  Garrick

  Garrick found the book in a few minutes, looking everywhere that was high up. He had tried the tops of all the kitchen cupboards before moving onto the bedroom. The wardrobe, and sure enough, a hefty wrapped-up thing shoved at the back of its top.

  The book, even wrapped, was warm to his touch. Brin was right, he thought, to talk about it like it was alive.

  Garrick got down off the chair he was standing on and couldn’t help but pull the sheet from the book. Underneath, the leather was worn and soft. There were two strips at the page-edge of the cover meant, he supposed, to tie it with. He laid a hand on its front, palm flat. He could almost hear it talking to him, telling him he was doing the right thing, to take it to Brinley.

  The address he had finally managed to extract from Mollie was close to where he had been that morning. Once again, he couldn’t believe how little time had passed. His whole world had changed shape in forty-eight hours. Now, Brinley was at the center of it. And she needed him.