The Awakening (32 page)

The room was filled with a slow clap, which sounded like a cacophony of sound to my oversensitive ears. After a few seconds they readjusted so the sound was acceptable.

“Not bad Alex, not bad at all. You can open your eyes now.”

My regular vision seemed odd after the Farsight. The first thing I did was look at my hands. I noticed with surprise that not only were they not bleeding, but there was barely a mark on them. I scanned the rest of the room. A broken Golem lay at my feet. It was face down, hand still clutched around the now V shaped crosier. Fragments of its demolished face were dotted around it, reminding me of a broken china doll. A shard near my foot was marked with XI.

I noticed the other Golem. It was propped upside down against the far wall. Its neck was twisted at an unnatural angle, left cheek crushed against the floor. Both eyes were shattered and red liquid pooled out of them like a smashed egg. Its right hand twitched, still searching for the staff which lay a few feet away from its mangled body. It had been given one task and it was still trying to carry it out. Its stony hand gave a final jerk and then fell lifeless to the mat.

Strangely even though I knew they were just clay effigies created by Faru, I felt guilty. Rachel seemed to sense my unease. “Don’t worry Alexander, they have no feelings. They may have some of Faru’s life-force, but it doesn’t mean they are alive.” She slipped from the beam and floated over to the fallen Golems. Putting her fingers to the backs of their mouths, she pulled out what looked like small flat stones.

A few seconds later they dissolved into dust. Rachel moved over to one of the weapon racks and slid out a samurai sword. She tossed it through the air. Without thinking, I caught it by the hilt and let the tip rest against floor. With a click of her fingers, the other two Golems came to life.

“Next part, weapons training. Close your eyes.”

*

We practiced for the next few hours. With the aid of Farsight I learned how to enter my instinctual combat state with barely a split second of thought. Rachel taught me how to handle the various weapons, using my new abilities. It unnerved me at how natural I felt wielding deadly blades and Bo staffs.

I dispatched the last Golem with a rising sword strike that removed its head. It rolled towards Rachel, who stopped it with her foot.

There was a series of clapping. I opened my eyes and turned to see Faru, Gabriella and the rest of Orion by the entrance. I blushed at the sight of the unexpected audience.

Faru clicked his fingers. The remains of the defeated Golems disappeared into dust, leaving only the flat stones behind, which Rachel picked up. He walked over to me - his footsteps making no sound on the Tatami flooring - and placed a hand on my shoulder. A tickling sensation swept through my brain and I knew that the Farsight had gone.

“Congratulations Alexander, you have reached the end of your initiation training. I have been kept appraised of your progress. I must say I’m impressed. Despite the circumstances, you have managed to keep control and are progressing nicely. You will make an excellent addition to Orion.”

“In order to fully awaken the potential within us, we must first defeat the fear which keeps it prisoner.” He called over his shoulder. “Bring him in.”

Midnight disappeared into the elevator. When he re-entered, he was not alone. Agent Noble and two others agents emerged, tugging breathlessly at ropes. As they got further into the room, I saw that the ropes were attached to a large metallic cage on wheels. Inside stood a hulking man wearing a tattered pair of shorts. His thick wrists were shackled in thick chains which linked to a bolted loop on the cage floor. Long, knotted twists of hair hung around his shoulders like jungle vines. His body was a living canvass. Countless tattoos filled most of the free space from his chest downwards. There were black flames which licked up the sides of his arms, a fearful girl being consumed by a large dog over his stomach, and an eerie moon shining behind a gothic castle on his right leg. A set of teeth marks on the side of his waist. But the tattoo which caught my attention was the crudely drawn eye placed over his heart. It seemed to stare at everything all at once - judging.

The man was a Soldier of Sorrow.

His real eyes looked dark and uncaring. He stared with little emotion around the room as Agent Noble leaned into the cage, using a large key to unshackle his hands. No sooner had this been done, that with the speed of a viper, he grabbed the agent’s arm and snapped his wrist. The sound of bone breaking echoed around the room. I gasped in horror. Agent Noble let out a scream and fell to the floor. The other two scrambled to drag him away. Gabriella swore loudly and pulled out a gun attached to her belt. The caged man shrank away from it.

“Enough!” commanded Faru. “Gabriella, holster your weapon. Agent Jones, take Agent Noble to the infirmary. Call Selene to assist. I will be along after Alexander has dealt with our unruly guest here.” He stepped forward to the cage, wrapping his wrinkled hands around the steel poles without fear. The prisoner copied the movement, but made no attempt to attack our leader.

“He was rude to me on the journey over,” the man said in a matter of fact tone. His voice sounded both thick and gruff.

“You are a despicable creature, Bargheist. I would like nothing better than to strike you down where you stand. A mangy beast put out of its misery. However, we honour our agreements. You have not forgotten the rules I trust?”

Bargheist nodded. A sure slow movement which caused more of his thick black hair to tumble around his shoulders.

“I fight the boy.” He shifted his dark eyes towards me and I recoiled. “It’s a knockout battle only. If I kill him, you kill me. Otherwise, regardless of the outcome you will ensure my safeguarded deportation back to Pandemonia.”

His words seemed to hang in the air as if they were real creatures capable of inflicting real damage. My legs went weak and I had to fight a strong urge to throw up.
Faru wants me to fight that? He’s insane!

Faru made an agreeing noise and stepped away from the cage. At the same time, the sword fell from my hand, the hilt smacking my foot. I jumped in shock, tripping and landing on my backside. Bargheist threw back his head and laughed. It was a sound that could have turned milk sour.

Faru put up an appeasing hand. “I do not deny that he is a vile creature. One who made the choice to follow darkness.” The Seelian paused. “He is also the one who tried to kill you.”

My jaw unhinged. I looked at the caged madman. “T-that’s the Skinshifter? The one who chased me?”

“The very same.”

I remembered back to the other night. The way those blood-filled eyes had glared at me from the woods as their owner pursued me unrelentingly. The evil flowing from them had made my skin crawl so much it’d been a miracle it stayed attached to my body. And now here he was, standing right in front of me – and I was supposed to fight him. My heart smashed against my ribcage.

Faru moved close to me. “You have a choice. You can choose to go back to being the perpetual victim who was terrified to stand up for himself. The boy who hid in the shadows of his own frailty, afraid to stand up or speak out for fear of being crushed. Or you can choose to step out of the shadows, to believe in the potential you hold inside. The man who stands tall against his opponents...and wins.” He placed his hand on the back of my neck, a fleeting movement, but one that had a profound effect.

Thousands of images of my life flashed through my mind. They contained no moments of success or comfort. They were of times where I’d been doubled over, whilst bullies kicked and punched me; of when I’d stalked home, bruised and alone. Times when I’d cried myself to sleep in desperation. Or when I’d watched John hug Mikey and I’d stood in the doorway, wishing I’d had a father who hadn’t gone and died on me. All of the moments when I’d felt worthless, like a stagehand standing in the shadows, watching the lead actors bow on stage as roses land at their feet. The images ceased, but the impact of them remained. I coiled my hand tight around the sword hilt.

“I’ll fight.”

19

E
xcellent,” smiled Faru, clasping his hands together.

The team spread themselves around the edges of the dojo. Faru made his way to the head of the room. As Gabriella passed me she leaned in, so close that her breath played on my neck. “We’ll have guns on Bargheist the whole time. If it looks for a second like he’s going to do some permanent damage, I’m putting the mongrel down, okay?” She squeezed my arm, sending a few sparks flying through it.

True to her word, everyone pulled a gun from their belts - all except Faru. He remained hunched over on his cane, white eyes staring at Bargheist. I stood at the centre of a star of protection, justice ready to fire in from every point.

“Is the sword your weapon of choice Alexander?” asked Faru. I looked down at the ornate blade wrapped in my white knuckled hands.

“Yes.”

“Alright. Agent Green, if you would.”

The remaining agent removed a set of keys from his blazer pocket with a shaking hand. He unlocked the front of the cage then darted behind it. Bargheist stepped down from the raised floor, taking a deep breath of relative freedom, like a prisoner in the exercise yard. The agent disappeared into the elevator, trailing the empty cage behind him at tremendous speed. The doors slid together. Midnight tapped on a Biomote and there was a loud beep as the doors locked.

Silence reigned.

“Show your true form Bargheist!” shouted Gabriella, smashing the stillness.

The man looked down at himself and sighed. “And I was just getting used to this new body. Oh well,
C’est la vie
.” Glaring at me, he crouched down onto his haunches. “You better know how to use that needle boy,” he growled. Then I witnessed an event that no amounts of forewarning could ever prepare a person for.

The transition from man into a giant hellhound.

Bargheist’s jaw unhinged like a snake’s. The skin surrounding his mouth became loose elastic which slackened and dangled in rolls around his neck. His whole body shuddered. Then slowly his skin began to slide downwards like a sock being peeled from a foot. A pair of blood red eyes appeared in the cavernous hole that had once been Bargheist’s mouth. A stomach lurching series of cracks and crunches emanated from inside. The skin continued to slither down the frame of the former man, gathering in a fleshy pile on the floor. A black muzzle pushed out of the yawning hole. The area around the skull had stretched taught to the point it looked ready to rip. The empty eye sockets were oval pits you could fit a fist through, the nose a bump of cartilage, between the shoulders. Then like a demonic birth, the head of a giant dog creature popped free from the slackened maw of the deflated man. Two black furred legs followed, topped by huge paws with scythe claws the size of a man’s thumb. A third, back leg escaped the skin hole. The creature used his sharp grip on the mat flooring to drag himself from the husk. Finally, with a growl he burst free, leaving the shed carcass in a heap behind him like a discarded outfit.

Staring back at me was a hulking beast known as Bargheist. He was the size of a Great Dane.

How in the hell am I supposed to defeat this?!

Then I realised with a surge of dread that he was
still growing
. He jerked in weird directions, like he was being tugged by dozens of invisible strings. With each movement his form expanded. Bargheist yelped with every alteration. There was a final sweeping crunch as each vertebra in his spinal column popped into place.

I stepped back instinctively as I took in the Skinshifter’s final form. Tangled fur hung from his muscular body in matted clumps. His head was long and narrow like a wolf’s... but far larger. Bargheist rose up onto its back legs – casting a shadow over the entire dojo, and howled. The inhuman sound rushed through me, freezing my bones. The hellhound came crashing back down and the floor shuddered under the weight. I lost my footing and had to dig the sword into the matting to keep me upright. He pushed back onto its hind legs and stretched its front out; a coil ready to spring.

“Begin,” shouted Faru.

Bargheist pounced.

I jumped to the right, dodging the attack. The Skinshifter flew past, his jaws making a deafening chomp as it bit nothing but air.

The second time I wasn’t so lucky. He jumped at me and a set of razor teeth sank into the soft flesh above my wrist. I screamed as white-hot pain seared up my arm. I tried to pull away, but Bargheist edged backwards, dragging me along the floor. Blood bloomed from the multiple punctures, pooling around its half buried teeth. From my awkward angle, I couldn’t get enough of a swing, so I rotated the sword and brought the base down between Bargheist’s eyes - hard.

The Skinshifter yelped, releasing my wounded arm. Bright spots of nausea bloomed behind my eyes as I took in the multiple puncture wounds on either side. The beast was dazed. It staggered about, shaking its head from side to side. I ignored the pulsing throb in my arm and used my temporary advantage to attack. I ran forward and slashed wildly with the sword. Bargheist recovered just in time, darting away from the blow. I stumbled from the momentum, and the tip of the sword tore a large hole in the Tatami mat - exposing hardwood flooring underneath.

The attack left my back defenceless.

“Look out!” Gabriella shouted, but there wasn’t enough time to do anything. Bargheist head-butted me in the lower back, causing the sword to helicopter out of my grip and sending me flying face first into the padded wall next to Delagio.