The Last Hours: Chain Of Thorns

Chapter 04

Chapter 04:

Speakings At The Dead Of Night

The air outside felt thick to James, who strolled along a cobblestone sidewalk. The moon shun brightly in the night sky and almost nobody was outside at this time; a few drunk men and prostitutes roamed the streets.

Matthew strode beside James, his hands in his pockets. Before leaving, he had forced James into a black jacket that made his golden eyes pop even more than they usually did, given his black hair and pale skin.

"So why did you want to go for a walk?" Matthew asked, looking at his parabatai, his lips forming a telltale smile.

"Can a young man like myself not wish to get some fresh air these days?" James countered with another question.

"Well, you're not usually one to walk along the streets of London at night. Or in the morning, at that."

James shook his head and smiled at the ground. "I can't change?"

"No, that will throw my entire world into chaos!" Matthew threw up his hands sarcastically, making James chuckle quietly and continue smiling as they turned a corner and saw two people standing in the way of their path.

The two people wore dark suits and wide brimmed hats, hiding their facial features. James and Matthew passed the two people just in time to hear one of them, about a head shorter than the other, say, "Why can't Tatiana just request another group of people to do this?"

James blood ran cold at the name Tatiana. He knew that there was probably many people in London with the name Tatiana, but the first person who came to mind at the sound of the name was Tatiana Blackthorn.

But why would two mysterious men be talking about her? James wondered in his mind. He glanced over at his parabatai and saw that his face had gone pale too. He caught James' eye and made a motion with his eyes towards James' left.

James understood and hung a left into an alleyway with Matthew behind him.

"Do you think they were talking about-" Matthew started to ask.

"Tatiana Blackthorn?" James finished. "It's quite possible they were."

"Do you think we should follow them?" Matthew's voice was a whisper, and so was James' when he answered.

"Yes."

James could see Matthew sigh before grinning at James. "So, how are we going to follow them, exactly?"

"You know how." James snapped, already not enjoying what he was going to have to do.

James reached out and grabbed Matthew's hand. The boy's grip was tight on his own as he took a deep breath, close his eyes, focused deeply and backed up literally into the wall.

It was as if they had just disappeared but, really, they had become a shadow and now clung to the wall. A cold feeling wrapped around James' stomach, but he quickly pushed it away and focused energy into the shadow he was disguising his parabatai and himself with.

James didn't know why he could exactly do this. His parents had always said he was more gifted than other children, but he had his doubts.

Matthew's hand was still in James' as they started shimmying along the wall as the conjoined shadow. As they began to round the corner they had turned into to hide from the people, the people themselves walked straight by them.

Oblivious to the shadows of people on the wall when there weren't any people in front of them.

James exhaled a silent breath and moved across the sidewalk so Matthew and him could get to another building.

The shadow was forced to dip down onto the ground, giving James a nice sight of a rat urinating on one of the cobblestones, but they stuck to a building again as fast as they had gone down.

The two boys pursued the people by Shadow Traveling for quite some time, maybe almost a half an hour, before the people came to a stop abruptly.

The parabatai ducked into a new alleyway and James' pulled them out of their shadow. Each of them fell to the ground, panting. "I've never done it for that long." James muttered through gasps.

"Sorry." Matthew whispered, patting James on the back and getting to his feet. He placed himself at the edge of the alley's wall and peered around it's corner, so he could watch what the people were doing.

James followed Matthew over to the wall, though it took him a little longer to get into the stealthy position his parabatai was in, given how weak his body felt. But he was able to stand and look over Matthew's shoulder.

The two men who they had followed now stood in front of a new one.

This third person also wore a dark suit but no hat, revealing his sharp looking face, golden locks and cold gray eyes.

"Hello," the golden man said, inclining his head towards the other suited men, who did the same. "What might you wish to speak to me about?"

"Why come to you with a question from Tatiana Blackthorn," one of the men with a hat said, and both James and Matthew had a sharp intake of breath at the name.

"And what might that be?" Golden man raised an equally golden eyebrow.

"She was curious," the other hatted man said, "as to when you might acquire the materials needed for her 'project.'"

The golden man laughed, something that didn't seem right at the time. He threw his head back and shot the sound into the sky. The two hatted men watched him do so, their bodies still.

When the golden man finished laughing, he looked back at the hatted men before answering. "I distinctly remember already telling Lady Blackthorn when I would get the materials to her."

The golden man suddenly shot forward with an incredible speed too fast to be human. He's not a mundane, James thought, just as the golden man appeared at one of the hatted men's side and tore out his throat.