Blood & Magic (29 page)

Henry turned his attention back to the mirror, continuing his tour of their group. He looked towards Jonny. How old was he? Eighteen, nineteen? He may have been built for American football, but that probably didn’t stop him getting ID’d in every club he ever entered. Lastly, Henry turned to Nick, although, that wasn’t quite true. Henry attempted to look at Nick, but something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Nick had no reflection, there was just a gap in the room where he was standing between Jonny and the first R'hard. Henry looked back to the real Nick, who returned his glance, confused. Nick’s reflection wasn’t there, which if what he had been told was correct, meant only one thing.

Nick was Grendal.

Henry turned to look at Tristan who, reading his face, also clocked that particular fact. Then of course, all hell broke loose.

Alex looked at the screen in cold disbelief. The name listed as deleting the files was ‘Nicholas Stroud’ - her father. It had to be a mistake. Alex checked the next record, and the next one, but it was exactly what she feared: Nick was listed against every one. Clicking through to his own record, a red box at the top of the screen drew Alex’s attention.

Subject alias, Grendal

Responsible for 32 homicides, MET references 7239214G, 8120654A, 8027823E…

Immunity deal Z76PO

Case Handler, Charles Harper

32 homicides. 32 lives her father had taken, the man she had admired and strived to be like all her life, the man she thought she knew and could trust.

Her father, a murderer.
Her
murderer, the man she had been chasing. The image of the latest victim, laying awkwardly on the floor of the flat, filled Alex's mind. All she could picture was her Dad, standing over the body, a knife in his hand. He had been brazen enough to return there, obviously not concerned by some chance a resident would recognise him. Nick had revisited his own crime scene, stood there and analysed it with her, when all the time he knew she was on a wild goose chase.

Thirty two deaths. The number was unfathomable, far greater than the nine the police were aware of. How long had he been doing this for to have killed so many? Had he been killing people while she grew up? Wishing Alex good night, tucking her into bed before stalking the streets? The man she knew couldn’t do this.

And why? What could drive him to do such things?
The deleted records.
The victims were suspects in murder cases, the ones that ‘got away’, escaped justice. But they hadn't escaped her father. He had taken the law, which he had sworn to uphold, into his own hands and made them pay for their crimes.

She had two options: expose him or live with the guilt of his crimes. The blood of any new deaths would be on her hands if she did nothing about it, but what could she do? Expose her own father and solve the case? She couldn't betray him, sentence him to a life in prison. Alex knew what awaited a policeman behind bars, locked up with the very people he helped put there. She
wouldn’t
do that to him. But to have killed to many? The force driving Nick must be more than a warped sense of self righteousness, it was an obsession. He couldn’t stop even if he wanted to, his vengeance had consumed him like an addiction, the charade of investigating his own crimes part of the thrill. Alex felt sick thinking about him, but there was another name on the screen that tore the last ounce of trust from her. Charlie had known what her father had done, what he was, and had helped cover it up. Why? For her? Was he trying to protect Nick for her sake, to spare her from the shame, the anguish?

Alex’s thoughts were interrupted by gunfire. Short burst shots streamed down the corridor like fireworks, lighting up in blurs along the translucent glass. An explosion shook the office, sending papers scattering everywhere and stationary flying across the floor. Alex rushed over to the door, pushing her weight against it, but it did not budge. She was trapped. Outside, the sounds of people shouting or running along the metal walkways were all Alex could hear. That was until a high pitch scream made her stop. Blood curdling, a woman’s voice contorted in agony, writhing in pain before suddenly, she went silent.

Alex hit the glass door as hard as she could, shouting for someone to let her out, but the glass just creaked, mocking her attempt to escape. Crumpling to the ground, Alex leant back against the door. It was pointless.

Minutes passed, how many she could not tell, as thoughts of how blind she had been engulfed her. It felt like a nightmare, that any second she would wake from it, but there was no escaping reality. Everything she held true was a lie.

The door opened with a click. Alex looked up to see Charlie, his jacket torn and blood splattered down his sleeve. Grabbing her arms firmly, he hoisted Alex up.

“How could you not tell me?” Alex said, punching out at him.

Charlie held her at arms length, his gaze turning from the computer screen to her’s. Some deep sadness filled his dark blue eyes, his lips resisting the emotion he was processing.

“Alex. I'm sorry, I did what I thought was best... Look, there isn't time. We need to move before they get here, the building is being evacuated,” Charlie said.

Grabbing Alex by the hand, Charlie dragged her out the room and bolted along the corridor. She stumbled, struggling to keep up with him, but Charlie didn’t slow. Around them, the office that had once seemed so controlled and measured was now in disarray, flames licking at the walls, the large glass partitions cracked into spider web patterns around gun shot holes. At the end of the corridor, Charlie stopped suddenly. A woman lay on the ground in front of them, her once pristine grey business suit burnt away, her flesh peeled and raw across the right side of her body.

“It’s all my fault,” Charlie said, tears falling down his blackened cheek as he squeezed Alex’s hand tightly. “I did this.”

“What do you mean? Charlie, what’s going on? You aren’t responsible for this, how could you be?”

Another explosion stirred him from his torment and, wiping his tears away with his sleeve, Charlie continued on. More bodies lay inanimate along the corridor, some riddled with bullets, the horrific injuries of explosions marking others. How could this happen, in Whitehall of all places?

The corridor opened to a large square staircase that went deep into the building. The lights throughout the building had failed, the moonlight cascading through the skylight their only guide. A doorway to the side of the stairwell was flanked by men in military uniforms. A mix of what looked like lab workers and men and women in business suits were hurrying past them to safety.

With Charlie taking the lead, they ran the perimeter of the room and were about three meters from the door when a flash of a bullet froze them in place. It had been fired from the floor above, hitting the first soldier stood by the door, blood erupting from his chest. The soldier beside him raised his weapon, ready to return fire, but he wasn’t quick enough. A bullet ripped through his head, splattering the wall with blood, before his body slid to the floor devoid of any life.

Charlie reacted as if making a last minute run in a rugby match, more out of instinct than thought or decision. He shouldered Alex towards the lower flight of stairs and, hitting them hard, the pair tumbled down them. They finally came to a stop on the landing below, Alex's face hitting the metal floor hard.

“Are you ok?” Charlie said, bullets peppering the top of the stairs.

A sharp pain stabbed at Alex’s jaw and putting her finger to her tooth, she found it loose.

“I’m fine,” she said, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

From a side door, soldiers poured out onto the walkway, taking what feeble cover they could behind the railing of the stairwell. They fired back, their guns recoiling into the air as pulses of blue light flew across the black void of the staircase. Shots hailed down in return for a few minutes before the giant room took on an eerie stillness, smoke from the weapons hanging in the air. Alex hadn’t seen how many there had been, but perhaps that was it. Had they won?

The skylight above the staircase exploded, sending glass streaming past like hailstones. Shards of the metal frame crashed against the stairs, a deep clang resonating around them that send vibrations rippling through the floor. Alex looked up in time to see the bodies fall, corpses of soldiers from the roof tumbling past them into the darkness. Alex stood slowly, trying to take in what was happening, moving behind the guards as everyone squinted up toward the night sky. At first it was just one, and then another, huge shadows cast across the stairwell, like looming giants, as figures lined the perimeter of the roof.

“Get back,” Charlie said.

Without warning, the silhouettes jumped down from the roof in unison, free falling to their inevitable deaths. Alex's attention was drawn by one as he fell with ever increasing speed until suddenly, he was slowing. His descent somehow became controlled, without abseil or parachute, coming to a rest on the walkway across from them. He had jumped twenty-five feet with the grace of a dragonfly coming into land, when by all rights, he should have been dead. Soon, he was surrounded by the other people, regular ordinary people. Not all of them made the leap so elegantly, colliding with the railings in a series of thuds, but every single one appeared completely unharmed by the fall.

Before the soldiers could react, a fireball shot towards them. Charlie rugby tackled Alex again, getting her out of the line of fire as it hit. It exploded against the railing, metal and bodies sent flying outwards.

“Stay with me,” Charlie said.

Gripping Alex’s wrist so tight she felt it might bruise, Charlie ran to the adjacent staircase as behind them, the soldiers scrabbled to shoot back. Another fireball hit and with the grind of sheering metal and a wave of heat, the stairway gave way. Bodies tumbled into the void, the distant glow of fire a haunting reminder of a fate Alex had narrowly avoided.

On the adjacent walkway stood a man, a sadistic grin adorning his cadaverous face. He raised his hands and began to chant. At his words, the floor beneath Alex’s feet shook violently, bolts popping from their concrete braces as the staircase jerked forward. Alex collided with the railing, clenching it tightly as the walkway pivoted, the floor becoming vertical. The thin metal bars were the only thing standing between her and a fifteen foot drop to her death.

Looking up, Alex saw Charlie balancing nervously on the rail, his gun raised carefully in front of him as he tried to keep his footing. He fired twice, streams of blue shots flying towards the man, but he simply held up his hand and, as if by magic, the bullets hit some invisible shield. Charlie fired again, but his shots had no effect. Suddenly, a glow of red light bathed Charlie’s face and, twisting to see behind her, Alex saw that the fireball man had found them again.

“Charlie!” Alex said.

Charlie span around and instinctively fired. With no defences, his shots hit the man in the chest, his body twisting around. He let go of the fireball, which flew across the gap, colliding with the gaunt man, except this time he had no defence against the unexpected attack. He ignited into flame, screaming as his body was engulfed. His limbs flailing, he toppled over the railings, his burning corpse writhing and contorting as he shrieked in agony.

Carefully, Charlie and Alex gently moved from one rail to the next until they were back on firm ground. As soon as Alex inhaled, taking the moment’s rest to try to comprehend what was happening, she regretted it. The smell of burnt flesh stuck to her nostrils and, unable to resist, Alex threw up.

On the ground floor, they ran to what looked like a safe-room door, dug in from the wall about five feet or so. Finally letting go of her hand, Charlie turned his attention to the small blue-lit access panel at the side.

Just being near him made Alex feel sick, the thought of how he had lied her all this time. Yet, as hate grew inside her, so did guilt. Yes, he had betrayed her, but that was no different to what she had done to him. She had made a decision without thinking of the consequences. Byron had been clear about what he wanted, but Alex had been blind, it was Charlie he really needed. How many deaths was she responsible for? Tens, hundreds even?

The seal on the safe room released with a burst of compressed air, the large round stainless steel door slowly opening.

Alex screamed as a bullet tore though her thigh, the impact sending her tumbling to the ground. Moving quickly to get them out of her line of fire, Charlie lifted her up and dragged her through the doorway.

He hit a keypad and the door closed, sealing them in as Alex cried out in pain. They were inside a large round room, a cross between a trading floor, monitors arranged in rings towards the centre, and a mad scientist’s lab, with random bits of electronic equipment strewn across workbenches.

Charlie bent down to look at Alex’s leg. “Alex, you need to-” Charlie began to say, but Alex cut him off, striking him across the cheek.

“My father.”

“Your wound, we need to-”

Alex hit him again. The pain in her leg was making her dizzy, but it was nothing compared to the fury she felt.

“Alex, I had no choice.”

“There is always a choice, you should have told me.”

“And what would you have done? I would have put you in an impossible situation and besides, I was under orders to keep knowledge of your father’s involvement in the crimes a secret.”

“Involvement! He is a murderer, he’s killed 32 people.”

“I know it’s hard to understand, but-”

Alex felt a little faint as her vision glossed over. Stumbling, she took a seat on a nearby stool. Charlie ran to a nearby cupboard, producing a first aid kit and rushed back to Alex’s side.

“Hold still, I need to do this or you will bleed out. This will secure the wound until I can get you to a hospital,” Charlie said.

Charlie took a round device from the kit and, tearing the material around the gun shot wound, placed it onto Alex’s flesh. Intense heat and pressure swelled around the wound, Alex clawing at Charlie’s hand for him to stop. Charlie removed the device, as white foam dripped from the bottom of it.

“I am sorry if I hurt you.”

“What on earth is happening out there?”

“I will try to explain, but Alex, it’s going to sound mad. When we were on the stairs before, do you remember the man with the fireball? Or the men who jumped from the skylights or the one who brought down the walkway? I would say you won’t believe me, but you’ve seen it for yourself. There is more in the world than you know. Some people have...
mutations
that mean-”

“Mutations allow you to do stuff like that?”

“Yes, it’s complicated. People with these abnormalities are what we call
alternates
and Alex, your father is one of them.”

“What? Don’t be mad, you’re lying.”