Message Bearer (The Auran Chronicles Book 1) (8 page)

They stood a foot apart.
The Magister raised her hands and placed them on either side of his face. Her
skin was almost scorching to the touch. She closed her eyes, her lips making
tiny, almost imperceptible movements.

The room vanished. Around
him was a darkened street. The sporadic light from a series of decrepit lamp
posts illuminated the road at random intervals. Houses lined the far side,
their forms shrouded in gloom. He glanced above, knowing what he would see
already, his gut churning.

The church.

The sound of running.
Panicked breaths. A cheery whistle that chilled him to the core.

No, not again!

‘What are you doing?’ he
said, his voice echoing round the street.

‘Don’t worry Seb, this
isn’t real. I am accessing your memories. You can come to no harm here.’ The
Magister’s voice came from all around, resonating as if from a loud speaker.

The image changed. They
were running up the hill, him and Sarah together. The fiend loomed close
behind. A door exploded inwards. They were in the church now, Seb dragging
Sarah to the altar. A scream. He looked down, Sarah lying in his arms, her blue
eyes fixed on him. Someone moved behind them. She opened her mouth. Light
exploded, searing his mind.

The image vanished and
Seb fell backwards, landing in the armchair. Lingering memories faded away. The
Magister loomed over him.

‘Are you okay, child?’ she
said. She reached down and took his arm. She pulled him upright, her strength
belying her size.

‘I think so,’ he said.
His legs felt hollow and his arms shook. ‘What did you see?’

‘It’s not clear,’ the
Magister said after a pause. ‘The thing that attacked you was a daemon known as
Clementine, a particular loathsome creature. As for Sarah, I need to consult
with my colleagues here. She passed something to you, a memory of her own, but
it is locked somehow, sealed from my sight.’

‘So what does it mean?’

‘It means, young man that
this meeting is over. We will consult again, in time. For now, Don here will
escort you back to your lodgings.’

The Magister indicated a
heavy-set man who had appeared, unannounced by the door. For a moment Seb was
torn between learning more and getting some much needed rest. Physical needs
won out almost instantly. He gave the Magister a brief nod before filing out of
the lounge.

***

The group sat in silence for several minutes
after Seb had left. Both men focused on the Magister, concern etched on their
faces for the woman who now seemed to be feeling her eight hundred years.

Eventually, the Magister
opened her eyes.

‘It is Runic Script of
some kind, locked in a pattern I’m not familiar with. It’s powered by the boy’s
own ignorance of the Weave.’

‘What, you mean, if he
was connected to the Weave more, then you’d be able to read it?’ Silas said,
his yellow eyes wide. ‘Until then it’s completely locked away?’

‘His own ignorance is the
lock that seals it. It is beyond my power to simply remove.’

Brun frowned. ‘That’s a
complex pattern, how would Sarah even know of it?’

‘She was a resourceful
girl, trained to adapt at will, who knows what skills she’d picked up over there.’
Silas said.

‘Regardless of that, the
question remains. Is it important, and what do we do?’ Brun said.

‘It is simple, Brun,
Silas,’ the Magister said, rising again, the two men rushing to help her. ‘Is
it important? I don’t know. I doubt it, in all honesty. Nothing has been
communicated to me by the other Families, so I’m assuming it is simply a reconnaissance
mission gone wrong.

‘What I do know is that
this is an excellent opportunity for us to gain some much needed favour with
the Families. If Sarah had something of value, and now she has passed it to
young Seb. It is fortuitous, but we shouldn’t let that change our path. We must
find out what she’d uncovered, and hence to do that we must train him. Only
with mastery of the Weave will the lock on the boy’s mind be removed.’

‘So he is trained? Here?’
Brun said, an eyebrow raised.

‘Well, obviously he must
not be integrated. He is not of the blood. He cannot mix with the other
acolytes. No, we will appoint him a trainer more appropriate to his status.
‘And when he is at the required level, we will extract the information we need.’

‘What about protection?
The sheol seem to be drawn to him.
Marek’s
forces seem drawn to him. Is
it wise to allow him to be so far from our core?’

‘I would not worry about
that,’ Silas said, suddenly joining the conversation. ‘The sheol attention was
simply the aura the boy was projecting. We all could see it. The sheol were
drawn to him, there is nothing more to it than that.’

‘Are you saying he needs
no protection at all, Silas?’ The Magister said, her tone dripping in
disbelief.

Silas raised both hands. ‘Of
course not. I am merely stating that we should not get carried away here. I
will assign some of my forces to keep an eye on him,
and
his trainer,
assuming it is whom I think you will be using for this task.’

The Magister nodded
slowly. ‘Agreed.’

‘And the boy, when this
is done, will he remain? Without a Family to take him in?’ Lore Keeper Brun
said.

‘He should not. There is
no position for him.’

‘No,’ Brun said. ‘But an
exception has been made before.’

‘Caleb made himself
useful. It made sense to keep him.’

‘Caleb won’t be around
forever.’

The Magister waved a
hand. ‘I won’t make a decision now. If he learns well, makes himself useful,
then perhaps we may find a way. But if not, if the only purpose he serves is to
be the carrier of a message from one of our dead kin, then he will be purged.
The Magistry has no need for any further controversies and I will not waste a
moment mourning his passing.’

Just over a week after she’d emerged from
the mortuary to a scene of carnage, Sylph found herself trudging through a
dense wood. Her head hung low and she clutched one arm with the other as she
walked, one foot in front of the other, the mud sucking and pulling on her
feet, her muscles burning with every step.

Luchar and the team had
left a blood bath behind them. Eight casualties had lain strewn across the car
park. More of the authorities had turned up as she’d studied the massacre,
arriving in a blaze of sirens and blue lights. She had fled the scene,
vanishing into the shadows before she was detected.

For days she’d remained,
hiding in the day, hunting at night. She should’ve gone back straight away, to
deliver the memories to Marek, but something was different in the air. A disturbance
in the Weave had occurred, drawing feral sheol from miles around. Against her
better instincts, she had remained.

Drawn by the same
disturbance that lured the sheol she’d found herself staring at the enemy, a
warrior of the Brotherhood trying to fight his way back to sanctuary. She’d
been careless and attacked without thought, and now she carried the result of that
recklessness with the fractured arm she now cradled against her chest.

From the park she had fled,
only stopping when her lungs burned and her muscles screamed. Darkness was her
guardian, and under its watchful gaze she had travelled many miles on foot,
keeping to the shadows, a speedy phantom that blurred past those denizens of
the town that called that time of night their home.

Now free from town she marched
across an open field towards an isolated house she’d spotted on the horizon.
The comforting cloak of night was receding now, and already a veil of pink was
creeping across the sky. Birds tweeted as she walked, sensing the arrival of a
new day.

No doubt Luchar and the
rest of them were back at Haven by now. They hadn’t waited for her, not that
she had expected them to. The longer they were above ground the greater the
risk, the greater the chances of detection by the Brotherhood. This didn’t
bother her. What did increase her unease was that with the birth of a new day,
as the sun began its rise into the sky, she could feel her own strength, her
connection with the Weave weakening. By night, when darkness came and
imaginations were prone to random wandering, was when Observers were most
susceptible. Things could be explained away as something in the shadows or a
trick of the mind. At night, her strength was great. By day, it waned.

She risked a
sense
as she approached the farmhouse from the field at the back. She kept it gentle,
eager not to attract the attention of any Aware, even though the risk was
slight. The echoes came back instantly. Three. Two adults and one child. She
cursed when she turned her attention to the barn that stood near the main
house. She couldn’t see it, but she felt the keen senses of an animal, some
kind of dog.

She crept up to the barn.
The progress was slow, almost painful. She never made a sound, measuring each
footstep, placing the front of her foot down first, feeling the earth, before
pushing on with the rest of her weight. The wind was in her favour, blowing towards
her, keeping her scent away from the animal. She made her way round the
exterior of the barn, casting quick glances through the plentiful cracks and
gaps in the corrugated iron, trying to spot her target.

Peering round the barn
door, where hay was piled high in massive bales all the way to the roof, she
saw it, an elderly German Shepherd, fast asleep. The opportunity was too good
to miss. She didn’t relish taking the life of the animal, it was an innocent,
unknowing of the cause, but by its existence it was a threat to her, and hence
a threat to the mission. She crept up to the sleeping animal, knife held in a
killing position.

A sound from inside the
barn made her pause. She peered into the gloom, her enhanced vision seeing
nothing but the hay bales retreating back into the dark. She became aware then
of the sound of her own heart, thudding against her ribs. Her stomach felt
light, almost airy, and her palms had grown moist with sweat. It was a peculiar
emotion. She didn’t know fear, Marek’s teachings had hammered that from her,
but the by-product, the sensation of prey or predator, still remained.

The dog snorted and she
leapt back, nearly dropping the blade. Her injured arm flared with the sudden
movement. A noise came again. Nearer this time. She heard the patter of paw on
stone. She glanced down; the other dog was still sleeping.

What had she missed?

They emerged from the
gloom, walking out from between two hay bales. Two dogs. German Shepherds like
the old one, but younger, fitter. They stopped when they saw her.

She thought of running
then, but already the collective oppression of the observers in the area was
dampening her abilities. Her
sense
, her keenest skill, had faded away to
almost nothing. Her strength, imbued with all the energy she could muster, did
not feel any different, no more enhanced than anyone else in this world. Light
was coming, and with it any advantage she had was lost.

The dogs’ demeanour
changed in an instant. They dropped low, teeth bared and ears flat. In unison
they uttered a guttural growl as they edged closer towards her.

Something growled next to
her. She stumbled and spun round. The other dog was awake now, a primal instinct
uniting the three. She edged backwards, one good arm held forward, holding her
knife.

The two younger dogs
leapt at her. They were just yards from her, and would cover the distance in
seconds, but first she took care of the threat closest to hand. She plunged the
knife down, deep into the older dog’s skull, just as it made to lunge at her
leg. The beast fell silent, but the knife wouldn’t budge.

They were on her in an
instant, barking and growling as they launched themselves at her arms and face.
She half fell, half rolled backwards, allowing one of the dogs to fly right
over her. The other one, quicker, more intelligent than its sibling, skidded to
a halt and snapped at her, teeth piercing the flesh in her wrist as she pulled
away. The dog lunged again, but this time she was prepared. She took the hit,
wincing as teeth sank through the thin tunic she wore and into her flesh,
tearing muscle. She twisted inwards, using her own body weight to push the dog
towards the ground. Ignoring the fire in her arm and the dog’s manic snapping
of jaw, she tightened her grip, then, with her free hand, smashed the dog in
the side of the head with all she had.

The dog fell away with a
whimper and her arm was free. She barely had time to readjust when the other
one pounced, jaw wide, aiming straight for her throat. She twisted, rolled,
bringing her arms up and round the dog from behind as it flew past her. They
crashed to the floor, the dog biting at thin air.

The advantage was with
her now, and she kept her body weight on the dog from behind. She tensed her
biceps, locking the animal in one position, keeping the lethal teeth at bay.
Then, with the immediate danger averted, she squeezed.

‘Steve? Steve?’ Janice Green elbowed her
husband.

‘What? Oh sorry,’ he
mumbled, before turning onto his other side, away from her.

No! You’re not snoring
you daft sod. I heard something. Outside.’

Steve sat upright in an
instant, the fugue of sleep evaporating with a surge of adrenalin. The Green
family had been victim to a handful of burglaries over the last year, most of
them trying, and failing, to steal some of the equipment he had on the farm.
The last time though they’d succeeded, and several grands worth of gear was
stolen. The insurance hadn’t paid up, saying that the barn was insufficiently
protected from thieves, and the Green’s had nearly gone bankrupt. The day after
Steve had bought two more dogs and a Perazzi over and under shotgun with enough
shells to survive a zombie apocalypse.

‘The dogs aren’t barking,’
he said, struggling to put his jeans on from their position on the floor.

‘They were for a time.
Then they made some horrible noises. Steve, I think someone’s done something...’
Janice’s voice trailed off into a sob. To Steve, the dogs were tools, cheap
security, but his wife and daughter had taken a shine to the animals,
especially Glenda, the eldest of the three.

‘Get Annabelle, stay in
here and lock the door.’

He unlocked the cabinet
that stood at the foot of the bed and took out the Perazzi. He cracked it open,
verifying that there were two rounds already in the barrel. He swiped a handful
of shells from the box in the cabinet before moving to the door. He looked back
at his wife, the door half open in his hand.

‘If I’m not back in ten
minutes. Call the police.’

Janice nodded through
tear-filled eyes.

Steve left and closed the
door behind him.

Steve Green didn’t consider himself a
cowardly man, and in fact in his younger days he’d been the first to charge
into a ruck, his mates always backing him up if required. They were the
Spartans of their generation, always seeking the bigger group, the harder
blokes. Sure they got their share of kickings and loose teeth, but boy didn’t
they have fun times.

Today’s Steve wasn’t the
Steve of twenty years ago though. He was heavier, slower. He knew how short
life could be, how precarious we sit on the precipice, where one wrong move
could spell nothing but the void for us and heartache for those who love us. He
had a wife. A child. He didn’t want to die. Yet as he left the house, approaching
the barn where the dogs had gone ominously silent, he couldn’t shake off the
dread that the void was near, and he was about to fall.

He circled round the
yard, keeping to the comforting glare of the security lamp as he rounded on the
open barn. It took him a moment to realise what he was looking at when he took
in the sight at Glenda’s kennel, and as his brain processed what his eyes had
seen, he dropped to his knees, acid vomit shooting up his gullet.

‘Glenda, no,’ he moaned.
He tried to shut his mind to the image he’d seen, the blood pooling from Glenda’s
motionless body, her eyes empty, far away. He scrunched his eyes shut, trying
to force away the memory, of Timon and Pumba, still on the ground, near their
mother.

His eyes widened. The
barrel of the gun rose.

She was squatted on the
ground, a picture of horror. Blood poured down the side of her face. One arm
hung limply by her side, the material of her tunic torn and matted with
something dark.

Good girls
,
he thought, to whoever had inflicted the damage.

The woman stared at him.
She was small, almost elfin. A far away part of his mind thought she’d be
attractive if she wasn’t covered in gore. Yet another part of him, the part of
him that was connected to the Weave but without his conscious knowledge, told
him that this woman was not of this world. She was an alien, an abnormality,
and utterly lethal.

He raised the gun,
sighting down the barrel. The woman brought up something in her free arm, an
item half-covered in dark liquid that glinted in the light from the security
lamp.

His brain sent a signal
to his nerves. The electrical impulse travelled to his muscles, terminating at
his fingertips, telling the muscle there to contract, pulling the trigger. The
signal was halfway down his arm when the blade, hurled with inhuman accuracy,
sliced through his shoulder, cutting through muscle, sinew and nerve endings as
if there was nothing even there. Fire exploded in his side as he dropped to his
rump on the ground, the shotgun clattering to the floor, out of reach. His arm
hung, lifeless by his side, blood pumping out of the open wound.

The woman limped over
towards him. He watched her through blurred vision, already his consciousness
circling the drain of awareness. The woman kicked the gun away and plucked the
knife out of his shoulder, sending a fresh wave of agony through his body.

‘I could kill you, you
know that don’t you?’ she said.

Steve didn’t answer.
Something resembling fear bubbled somewhere at the back of his mind, but it was
suppressed, instincts to protect his family overriding everything else.

‘If I don’t kill you, you’ll
probably bleed to death anyway. I don’t think you’d like that, would you?’

‘What do you want?’ he whispered,
every breath more laboured than the last one.

‘Home. I need to get home.
And I need you to get me there.’

‘What?’

‘I need your vehicle. And
I need you to show me how to drive it.’

‘What, what the hell are
you taking about?’

‘Do not toy with me,
human, I can make your exit from this world quick, or I can let you live, decaying
at the rate you do right now, day after day.

Ten minutes. Then call
the police.

The thought came to his
mind unbidden. How long had he been out there? Five, seven minutes? Janice
would phone soon. The police would come. Just be cool, be calm.

The woman seemed to sense
a shift in him. Her face contorted into a scowl.