Dark City (The Order of Shadows Book 1) (15 page)

T
he tunnels were
quiet as I walked back. I felt low and empty but that void soon filled with dark melancholy. The opposite of how I'd expected to feel after having bested Hellwyn's beast.

I glanced over the footprints in the dust, mine were easy enough to spot among the other strange markings, especially with the heavy tread on the soles of my boots. I followed my tracks and kept an eye on Hellwyn's necklace. Soon it brightened and I began to recognize some of the turns I'd taken, as well as some of the oddly shaped formations of fungus pulsing on the walls. Then I found the headless zombie. I retched as I looked away from the undeniable waypoint.

Fighting zombies should have been all in a night's work for me, but I'd known this one. Or at least I was aware of her tragic past. And her children's. They were probably little more than charred bone by now and I struggled to shake that image out of my head as I staggered on.

I was on full alert as I slowly climbed the stairs that led up out of the deeps and emerged in the corridor where Hellwyn's refuge was hidden. The necklace blazed with light and I found the chalk-like runes that marked the entrance. I stood before the wall, took a deep breath and stepped through, into the light and safety of the room beyond.

"So the deed is done?" Hellwyn sat upon her pirate chest sharpening a knife with a whetstone. "You've slain the beast?"

I slumped down on the edge of the bed and stared at the ground for a moment, before telling her what had happened.

"It's a sad story," Hellwyn said. "But you'd hear countless more if you spent any significant time in the Hinterlands. Are you sure the sickness he spoke of is contained?" She asked the question casually but I heard the undercurrent of concern.

"Yes. They're all dead."

"You're wounded. Were you bitten?"

I shook my head.

"Good." Hellwyn continued to stare at me. "You seem different, changed. Did you run across anything else in the tunnels?"

"No." But my thoughts had jumped straight to that overwhelming cloud of dark magic that had reached into my core and found its match inside me.

"Right." Hellwyn stood, slipped the knife into a hidden sheath inside her shirt and dropped the whetstone into the chest. "So, you survived all on your own, without your bag of tricks and magic crystals?"

"Not exactly. I found magic down there. And I used it."

She smiled. "Hmm. It seems strange that someone as unskilled...as non magical as you claim to be, could have gotten command over it. And yet you've used it and it barely seems to have left a mark upon you. Has it ever occurred to you that whoever convinced you that you couldn't use magic properly was lying?"

"No, I-"

"How were you recruited into the Organization?"

"Underwood. My boss, he found me. Kind of." I rubbed my hands over my knees. "I left home when I was eighteen, I was living on the streets until I met this guy Darrow. He helped me out, gave me a place to crash, he actually bothered to listen to me and teach me things I needed to know. Up until that point I didn't have a clue about magic."

"Really?" Hellwyn sounded doubtful.

"No. I mean I kind of knew I was different."

"How so?"

"Sometimes I'd get pissed off, especially at school and things would happen. Weird things. Stupid things. Once, I remember wishing the teacher would just vanish and she did. It was only for a few seconds but it caused total havoc. My foster dad went berserk and grounded me for months. It wasn't my fault, I wasn't in control but after that I just tried like hell to be as normal as possible. At least until I left."

"Why did you leave?"

"My foster father had a girlfriend. A total bitch. She got weird with me one night, tried it on. I told her to go fuck herself. She didn't like the rejection so she set me up, made out that I'd stolen her engagement ring."

"And did you?"

"No. Like I said, she set me up. My dad went crazy and kicked me out, so I ended up in the city. That's when I met Darrow. He was kind of shifty. Actually..." I laughed and couldn't help but smile, thinking about the crazy shit we'd gotten up to over that seemingly endless summer of mayhem. "he was an out and out criminal, but that's another story. Darrow. Darrow showed me the city's magical quarters, and taught me some pretty underhanded tricks. Once I realized magic was real and that most people knew nothing about it, I felt like I was shooting fish in a barrel. We ran wild across the city and set up all kinds of scams."

"Until you were caught."

"Yeah. We got busted by the Organization. That's when I met Underwood. He gave me a choice, take his job offer or go to StarDim. He'd even offered a wage, of sorts...it seemed great, like a real no brainer but that's just how it goes, when you're eighteen and clueless."

"And the Organization trained you?" Hellwyn watched me intently now.

"Yeah. They taught me how to fight, mixed arts, mainly defensive. Then they assigned a mage. That's when I found out how little I knew about magic, it was a frustrating experience, painful really. For both of us. Eventually he changed tack, showed me how to be covert and how to get by with their various amulets and gadgets." I ran a hand over my shoulder bag, glad to have it back. I stopped as Hellwyn smiled. "They taught me what I needed to know, enough to round up criminals and scumbags. Enough to be their
odd job man.
Which was fine by me, I needed something to do and the work was interesting. To say the least."

"And so you became the Organization's pawn."

"What have you got against them?"

"They're dishonest," Hellwyn said.

"And mercenaries are honorable?"

"It's not about honor, it's about truth. I don't pretend to answer a higher calling. Not anymore. Like I said, the Organization's the hand of the Council, and the Council's intentions are as murky as shit."

"I wouldn't know."

"You seem to enjoy being kept in the dark."

I said nothing. She wasn't entirely wrong. Ignorance felt...easier, or at least it had, up until this point.

"You can only bury your head in the sand for so long. I was the same," Hellwyn said. "I did my work, took the money, didn't ask questions. But then the killings started and the city changed..."

"Everything's been so extreme lately."

She nodded. "Things are coming to a head."

"Maybe you should put some faith in the Organization. They're trying to stop the murders."

"Are they?" Hellwyn's eyes were as hard as stone now.

So I've been told.
I thought back to the bounty hunters waiting in the office on the morning Tom had been killed. The truth was, I had no idea what was going on. Up until then, it had suited me to live day to day, my only concern hunting down Elsbeth Wyght and putting a bullet in her skull. Now it seemed like all these unspoken truths were coming out and my world was turning upside down, whether I wanted it to or not. "The man...the one I killed in the tunnels said he smelled many worlds on me. Do you know what he meant?"

"Do you know where you were born?" Hellwyn asked.

I shrugged. "Anything prior to the age of ten is a black hole."

"You said Tom was around for you as long as you can remember."

"He was."
And maybe even before that.
I thought of the dream I'd had, of the otherworld, of the cave, and of Tom. I held my tongue.

"Curious..." She looked like she was about to say more when a tiny frown creased her brow.

"What?"

Hellwyn shook her head and fastened the belt by her side. "We can talk later. Right now, we need to take action. You've proven yourself to be of use, so let's put you to it."

"I'm flattered."

"Just do as I say and maybe we'll both survive. Then, once we've stopped the assassin, we can look deeper into the mystery of Morgan Rook. Right?"

"Sure." I pulled my gun and holster from my bag and strapped it over my shoulder. "So where are we going?"

"Back to your world."

"And then?"

"We need to have a talk with some people who are about as keen to be out in the open as I am. But the more of us the better."

"Who are they?"

"They're all that's left of the Order."

"What's the Order?"

"We were a circle of fighters. Knights. That's about all you need to know."

"Listen," I tried to keep my irritation from my voice, "If we're going to work together..."

Hellwyn sighed. "There were nine of us, we worked as a unit. This was a long time ago, longer than I care to remember. We were an Order, a secret society if you will. Our purpose was simple; to protect our king, queen and country. We rid the capital of crime and disorder, not unlike how the Organization purports to work."

"Where was this?"

"A city far from here. But that doesn't matter, you asked about the Order and I'm trying to tell you what you want to know." She let out an ambivalent sigh. "We were united, indomitable until everything changed. It happened when the king and queen lost their firstborn. They'd have done anything to get their princess back, and they summoned a death cult to the palace. Its leader was successful, he brought their daughter back from the dead." Hellwyn's smile turned to a grimace. "We knew it was wrong, and time proved us right. First servants began to disappear, then children. We searched high and low for them, and one day we found them in the cellars, their bodies rotting, mauled, chunks of flesh missing." She shook her head.

"What happened?"

"The king's daughter. I followed her. She was wily, fast. She slayed a serving boy and dragged him down into her lair to feed. I found what was left of his remains and told the queen. At first it seemed she'd refused to accept it, but later I realized she'd believed my every word. Soon after, her daughter vanished, and then the king summoned the Order. He commanded us to round up the cult and make them answer for what they'd done, but they'd fled in the night. It took us three long years to track them down, and when we did...we slaughtered them. Every single last one of them..." her voice faltered. "We struck like assassins in the night and killed them where they slept."

I thought back, as the assassin had slain Tom, a voice whispered in its mind.
Sleep, old man. Sleep like those you slaughtered.
"Was that the end of it?"

"No, if only. Once we'd eliminated the cult, the queen decided our heads must roll, lest any of us tell the tale of her undead daughter. Of course we would have kept our word, but the queen was utterly unbalanced by that time. So we disbanded and scattered to the wind. Tom fled to your world and eventually we joined him and reunited." Hellwyn's smile was bittersweet. "Things were okay at first, but after awhile we all began to drift apart. I kept in contact with Tom but eventually he discovered booze and took to it with aplomb, mostly I'm sure to silence the guilt."

"Guilt for what?"

"Didn't you hear what I said? We murdered people, killed them in their sleep. Loathsome people, but people none the less." Tears pricked her eyes. She wiped them away and her cheeks blazed with anger. "We had to do it. There was no other choice. The cult was playing with things that should have been left well alone, summoning all sorts of dark forces. I tried to tell Tom this over and over but he couldn't accept it."

"I saw it. What happened to him." I said. "He barely fought back. It was almost as if he'd given in to the assassin."

"He thought he deserved to die. Maybe he did. Maybe we all do."

"Could anyone from the cult have survived?"

"No. They were eliminated, all of them. I'm certain of it."

"Someone wants revenge, and the way this assassin leaves the bodies...like they're-"

"Sleeping." Hellwyn's voice was low. "I know, but it doesn't make sense. No one could have followed us to your world. No one knew where we went. It can't be related."

"What about someone from the Order? Would any of them have mentioned where you'd gone?"

"No one would have said a..." She gave me a hard look and folded her arms.

Clearly she wasn't going to say another word. I decided to try another tack. "Right. Well, let's find the remaining members and see what they know."

"One of them has been trying to contact me. Prentice. Up to now I've ignored his calls. I had no wish to see him, but I'll contact him now."

"I'm assuming it won't be through anything as simple as a telephone?"

Hellwyn smiled. "You're getting the gist of this, aren't you?" She held up her hand and pointed to a ring with a large oval of quartz set in the center. "If anyone lights the candle in the graveyard, the flame's reflected here, inside the stone. Green for the Order, amber for strangers. If we light our own candle, the others will receive our signal. I'll go and see if I can summon Prentice. Providing he's still alive."

Hellwyn blew out the oil lamps and lantern, plunging the room into darkness. And then she grabbed my wrist. "Come. Let's find the survivors of my poor dying Order, while there's still time."

W
e stepped
through the wall and emerged in the tunnel.

This time it wasn't empty.

Two figures strode towards us. The first raised a hand, palm out. Hellwyn did the same. It was hard to see much below the figure's hood, but I could just about make out a young man with tired eyes and a wolfish grin. Behind him, a woman with a pale face and deep black eyes. My heart beat hard as she smiled, and whispered, "Be safe." Her words were warm but there was an underlying hint of something below them. A faint perfume surrounded her, making me think of cherries and wintry mornings. Then she and her companion passed us by and vanished into the gloom.

"Who were they?" I asked.

"Fellow travelers."

"Do you know them?" I still felt intoxicated by the woman's perfume and the memory of her smile.

"I've seen them around. Best not to pay too much attention to those you meet in the Hinterlands. Everyone has their purpose for being here, some benign, some not. Come on."

We continued along the tunnel and Hellwyn checked her compass. She marched on a little further, stopped, and shone her light upon a long narrow band of glass set into the black rock wall. Hellwyn rapped her fingers upon it.

I glanced through the strange window, to see what lay between this eerie half world and the ones beyond it. It looked like a soup of stars and distant comets. Then a face reared into view.

A Gloaming Ghast. His dark, empty eyes found mine and he thumped a finger upon the glass, producing the sound of depth charges.

I backed off and looked away, anywhere to escape its eyes.

"This way." Hellwyn strode on. She checked her compass again and finally stopped. Her light shone upon the wall, revealing a large, oval glass that twinkled within the stone. She rapped upon it and listened.

Silence.

"It's clean. Free of Gloaming Ghasts. You go first. Be quick."

"What do I do?"

"Walk into the glass and think of home."

"That's it? Should I click my shoes as well?"

"Just do as I said. Quickly!" Hellwyn shoved me in the back and I fell forward.

The glass enveloped me and I began to fall, white stars and comets bursting around me. I did my best to ignore my rising panic, concentrating on an image of my apartment and the army of hungry cats waiting to be fed. Sound roared in my ears and the whole world seemed to turn on its head as I tumbled through the juddering space around me.

The temperature rose from icy cold to warm and I found myself falling out of the liquid-like glass and into a room.

I froze.

Seven figures stood before me. They stared, stunned. Most were naked, their tan bodies bent into bizarre, unnatural configurations. The others wore a hodgepodge of strange, unmatched clothes.

Mannequins.

I looked around to find myself in a thrift store, a tall dusty mirror behind me.

The glass rippled like water and a loud crackle followed as Hellwyn stepped through the mirror. She glanced around and smiled "We're not too far from my house." She led me through the shadowy store. The shelves teemed with people's unwanted junk, steeped in dust and memories from a jumbled grab-bag of different eras. My phone rumbled in my pocket. The screen was blinding in the depths of the dark store. The message must have been sent while I was roaming through the Hinterlands.

- D.H. -
THERE'S BEEN ANOTHER MURDER.