Dark City (The Order of Shadows Book 1) (16 page)

I
deleted
Haskins' message as Hellwyn drew alongside me. "What is it?" she asked.

"There's been another murder. I'm sorry."

"And then there were two..." Hellwyn sighed. "Me, and...whoever else is left. I feel like I'm living on borrowed time. Do you who it was?"

"Give me a minute, I'll call my contact." The shop door was bolted but Hellwyn unlocked it with a wave of her hand and I slipped out onto the street.

Dawn crept over the city and a cool chill laced the air. Haskins picked up on the third ring. "I take it you want details."

I tried to ignore the oily greed in his voice. "I need everything you've got on the victim, including location."

"Early sixties. Her body was found in a house on the north side of town. I'll send you the address from my burner. As far as suspects are concerned, we've got sweet FA, asides from-"

"Okay, anything else on the victim." I looked up and down the empty street.

"Cracked the case have you?" Haskins' voice was thick with mockery, but also curiosity. "What have you got?"

"Nothing that'll help your investigation...this isn't something the department is going to be able to...deal with."

"Just tell me-"

"If you want the kickback, I need the address. Pronto."

Hellwyn emerged as I hung up. She quietly closed the shop door and ran a hand over the lock until it clicked. She looked cowed and sad, but as she turned to face me she straightened up and her face resumed its usual stony composure.

I told her what I knew.

"Clara." She shook her head. "I never dreamed I'd outlive her." She stared into the gutter, her finger playing over the pommel of her sword. "That leaves Prentice."

"Prentice?"

"He was the last to join the Order and the first to leave it."

"Where is he?"

Hellwyn shrugged. "Who knows? He left us almost as soon as we arrived in this world. Clearly he saw the potential for wealth here. Gold's always been a color to catch his eye." Hellwyn glanced at the sky, her face unreadable. "I'll summon him. Come on."

The city was quiet and still as we walked through the streets, as if we were the last living souls in this world. Then a cab came into view and Hellwyn hailed it down.

If the driver noticed our strange clothes or the swords under our coats, he showed no sign. We rode in silence, staring pensively through the windows until we arrived at the square.

By day the graveyard seemed larger, like a great desolate jungle of brambles and grass. Hellwyn paid the cab driver. He gazed from her to me, then the graveyard. He touched a golden crucifix hanging from his mirror, made the sign of the cross and then sped away.

"Come on." Hellwyn opened the gate and led me down a path through the tall weeds that had sprung up among the chipped and broken gravestones. The place was eerily silent, especially for a place in the city: no birds in the trees, no scurrying rats and mice.

Hellwyn stopped before the angel, placed her hand gently on its stone arm and lit the candle. The flame danced and burned in a bright shade of bottle-green that threw an unearthly light over the angel's cupped hands.

"What now?" I asked.

Hellwyn sat on a weatherbeaten bench and nodded for me to join her. "Now we wait."

* * *

W
e sat
and spoke for what seemed like hours, then I heard footsteps crunching on gravel. A crow cawed, as if heralding the new arrival, a man with slicked back hair and a smart black suit. He walked towards us slowly, cautiously, his dark eyes narrowing as they roved over Hellwyn and growing distinctly colder as they found me.

I hated him at first sight.

"And you are?" Hellwyn asked, her voice friendly even as her hand slipped casually beneath her coat, no doubt clutching her sword.

I scoured the brush to see if there were others, but he appeared to be alone.

"My name is Ashcombe, I work for Prentice Sykes." His voice held a trace of an accent, but from where I had no idea. He smiled disarmingly at Hellwyn, before gesturing to me. "And your friend?"

"Irrelevant," Hellwyn said.

"Very well." The sunlight caught his silver monogrammed cufflinks as he extended his hand to Hellwyn. They spelled out 'Shhh'.

Hellwyn remained stock still, ignoring his gesture.

"Well, pleased to finally meet you Hellwyn. Mr. Sykes has been attempting to contact you for some time now. He wishes to speak with you regarding a most urgent matter and," his eyes strayed to me, "a most private one. Now, if you'll come with me." He gestured to the path he'd appeared from.

I didn't like this at all, but Hellwyn seemed unfazed. She turned to me. "Go to my house, wait for me. There's a spare key on the lintel over the door. Not that you'll need it. I shouldn't be long."

"I don't trust him." I didn't even bother to lower my voice. Ashcombe could go to hell for all I cared. Puffed up little prick.

He glared at me, then turned back to Hellwyn. "My employer will only see you if you come on your own. Is that a problem? Because if you feel you need a bodyguard to accompany you, I'll have to contact Mr. Sykes before we can proceed."

"I don't need a bodyguard," Hellwyn said, her voice laced with anger. Her eyes softened as she glanced back at me. "I have to see Prentice; if these are his terms then so be it."

"Follow me." Ashcombe slipped on a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses and strode away.

"See you soon." Hellwyn gave me a brief, tight smile before turning to follow Ashcombe through the graveyard.

I stood and watched them vanish amid the foliage, my instincts screaming at me to follow.

"Screw it," I mumbled, and took off after them.

I
followed
from a distance and watched from the graveyard as they opened the gate and stood beside a silver Jaguar E-type convertible. The sight of the car jarred me, and it was only once Hellwyn had climbed inside, that I realized why.

I'd seen it before, parked in that shadowy alley on the night that Tom had been attacked by those thugs.

As I ran towards the gate, Ashcombe started the engine and the car purred to life. Then his sunglasses flashed as he glanced in the mirror and drove away.

"Shit."

By the time I got to the street they were long gone.

As I leaned over to catch my breath, I caught the flash of Hellwyn's pendant glowing beneath my shirt. I pulled it out and scoured the square, desperate for a means to follow them.

A man stood outside his house. A kid waved to him from the upstairs window but he paid no attention while he fished through his pockets with one hand and balanced a motorbike helmet on the handlebars with his other.

Perfect.

"Morning," I said, giving the man a wide, disarming smile.

He looked me up and down with dull suspicious eyes as he finally found his keys. "What do you want?"

"I'd like to borrow your bike."

"Go fuc-"

"Listen." I placed a hand on his shoulder and gazed into his piggy eyes. "I really want to borrow your bike, and you
really
want to lend me it."

"I...I'm not sure." He looked doubtful. It was enough.

"Don't worry." I reached into my bag, pulled out a pouch and dropped it into his hand. "I understand. Trust's a two-way street. Here's a bag of gold. Enough to buy you a whole garage full of expensive toys. You look after it while I'm gone and if I don't come back, you get to keep it. Right?"

His face lit up as he opened the pouch and a golden light spilled out. "Wow!"

Wow indeed. For now at least. Less so later.

The man continued to gaze into the pouch as I took the keys and slipped the helmet over my head. It was a perfect fit.

I straddled the bike, put it in neutral, squeezed the clutch and started it up. The engine roared into life, thrumming below me as a blue cloud of exhaust billowed up.

The bike was fast. It jolted around the square and out into the street beyond. But there was no sign of Hellwyn or Ashcombe.

I pulled over, grabbed a crystal and closed my eyes. "Show me the car". I conjured the image of the silver Jaguar into my mind, before opening my eyes.

A trace of the car hung in the air, a faint blurred silver line like a time-lapse image, and it pointed me in the direction they'd gone. I opened up the throttle, swept out into the road, and sped towards the distant intersection, the bike roaring like a metallic beast.

Despite the early hour, traffic was already getting bad. I wove in and out of the lanes trying to get around the slower cars and trucks. The bike was sleek but heavier than I expected, but soon riding it became second nature. I gunned it and searched for lingering traces of the silver Jag, and for a moment I got lost in the pursuit.

The horn of a semi-truck blared. I looked up to see its grille thundering towards me. I swerved round it, narrowly avoiding a school bus.

"Moron!" someone shouted.

I couldn't argue with that. And then I spotted the Jag up ahead. I slowed, pulled in behind an SUV and left a few cars in between me and my quarry.

The traffic crawled, but eventually it began to thin as we neared the outskirts of the city and drove along the coast. I held back as the Jaguar sped down the highway. It seemed to be heading back inland towards the rolling, forested hills in the distance.

I hadn't been out this way in a long time and as I looked at the trees, a low, cold feeling passed through me.

It was a bad omen.

S
omewhere
, on the summit of one of those hills, was a dark rambling place. The place I'd been born, aged ten.

I felt sick.

The Jaguar sped through the early autumn leaves and they curled up and flew around its sleek silver body. I slowed, let a few cars pass and hoped to the Gods that Ashcombe hadn't noticed me. He turned at a crossroads, taking a heavily forested road. I fell back and followed slowly.

When I reached the turn, the road stretching before me was empty. I sped up, taking the tight bends with caution, expecting to see his car. But I didn't.

I gunned the engine and swept up the hill but it soon became clear that I'd lost them.

"Shit," my voice echoed inside the helmet. I pulled over. "Shit, shit shit."

I scanned the road for a sign of Ashcombe's car, but there was nothing. I rubbed the back of my aching neck and my finger connected with a chain. Hellwyn's pendant. I pulled it out from my shirt. It was dim but at least there was something.

I turned and sped back down the hill glancing from road to pendant. It began to glow brighter and then flickered as I passed a narrow turn I'd somehow missed.

Somehow? No, it was deliberate and now, as I looked, I could see a tinge of the glamour that had kept it hidden.

The hard dirt lane rose up a slight incline and in the distance I saw the reflection of light on glass. A house?

The roar of the bike's engine would give me away so I wheeled it off the path and stashed it in the brush.

The air was cool on my face as I slipped off the helmet, hid it near the roots of a tree and set off up the hill. I stayed off the road in case Ashcombe or anyone else came back down.

The rocky hillside was thick with trees and I could hear small animals foraging through the thick vegetation.

I glanced at the necklace. It was definitely brighter. I hoped Hellwyn was alright as I plunged through the undergrowth, glad for the sword by my side and the gun in my holster. She could look after herself, that much was apparent, but who knew what she'd walked into.

There was definitely something wrong with the place, something deeply troubling. I didn't feel like the hunter, I felt like the prey. It was a strange thought, but it was a strange time.

A loud howl stopped me in my tracks. I listened, but all I could hear was the fall of crisp curled leaves as they drifted down through the woodland.

Light flickered amid the branches as they waved in the breeze and it took me a moment to distinguish the true dishwater grey sky from its reflection in the windows. The house was nestled among the trees, a modernist structure made from cedar and lots and lots of glass. It was a private, expansive upscale woodland retreat. Cut off from the world.

Perfect...for who knew what.

Ashcombe's car was parked out front. I walked among the trees, using them as cover to get closer, but as I climbed over a rotten log it slid away and crumbled apart. I felt an odd shift around me. I stopped.

There was no sound. Nothing. No birdsong, no whispering breeze, no crunch of brittle fallen leaves.

Nothing.

Something was...

I shivered, like an icy-cold finger was trailing down my spine. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled.

I ripped my sword from its sheath and whirled round.

There was no time to see the assailant, just their claws.

They slashed the air, I stumbled back and fell into a mound of leaves. Without a sound. Nothing. Like someone had muted the whole world.

The creature hobbled towards me.

I'd never seen anything so grotesque. It was hunched and humanoid with watery brown orbs for eyes and a long goat-like head. Its twisted lips quivered and made a chattering gesture, like a cat that's seen a bird. Something crawled inside its huge, bloated stomach, its bare pale grey flesh taut like a drum skin. It rubbed at it with a bony hand, its long cruel talons pricking its skin.

"What the hell?" My voice was as silent as the world around me. I backed away, striking a tree and sending a fresh fall of silent leaves raining down.

Whatever this hideous creature was, at least it was slow.

I grabbed a charged crystal from my bag and absorbed its magic, then I reached out, trying to get an understanding for what this thing was.

Right.

It was a familiar. Ashcombe's familiar. Or had been. He'd cut it loose for some reason, rejected it. And now it was insane with anger and fear. I recalled the silver cufflinks gleaming on his shirt sleeve.
Shhh.

I held my sword between us as it shambled closer, its huge eyes blinking rapidly. An insect crawled from its lips, some tiny black many-legged creature.

It was almost upon me. I swung the sword, my intent set on cleaving the misshapen head from that cursed body. It jumped back with surprising speed and my sword bit into a tree.

I fought to pull the blade free as the monster lurched at me, I let go of the hilt and fell back to avoid the swipe of its talons.

I struggled to free my gun, which was caught in its holster. I fired two quick rounds. The grip juddered in my slick gritty palm. I didn't hear the shots. Nor their impact. Or the screams escaping its lips as it clapped its hands over its ears. But both shots found their mark. One in its chest, one in its shoulder. They oozed and leaked piss-colored blood.

My feet skidded across the leaves as I scrambled to my feet and backed away, bringing the gun up as it threw back its head and spat.

I closed my eyes, my howl of agony silent as the venom seared my eyelids.

It stank of bile and decay, it was viscous and glue-like leaving me both blind and deaf.