The night had rarely seemed so threatening, and I kept my head down as I passed the trendy bars which dotted the quayside. Light spilling out from opening doors, briefly casting illumination over me. Blasts of music sounded as drunk mortals staggered onto the footpath, and I did my best to stay away from anyone who might recognise me. As soon as possible, I crossed into the shadows, merging with them as I made my way to the Millennium Bridge.
Unfortunately, crossing the bridge left me exposed. It meant stepping on to a well lit walkway, exposed strip above the water which provided nowhere to hide and no escape routes other than back the way I’d come. Walking across the bridge left me poignantly aware that Osier was probably watching me.
Scanning the opposite bank, I tried to locate his whereabouts but was somewhat distracted by the sheer number of people walking to and from the Baltic Centre of Modern Art and Sage Opera House. Clearly some art festival or function had been arranged, and the resulting gathering of humans left a pit in my stomach. I could hardly torch Osier in front of so many mortals. I'd come across as either a monster or a god of the wrathful variety.
Was that Osier's plan; to get me somewhere I'd be reluctant to act, but where he would have fewer qualms about laying waste to everything...? Did it matter?
Backing out would be a wasted opportunity. All I could do was try to manage the situation to the best of my ability. Feeling tense, I walked the rest of the way over the bridge, keeping my head down so my hair veiled my face even though the sword at my hip would draw attention if anyone noticed me creep by. It could cause all out panic unless someone remembered I was Sire and sentry, and therefore law enforcement entitled to bear a weapon. That was a bridge I'd cross if I came to it.
I hoped most in the crowd would remain distracted, oblivious as they chatted to friends and made their way between venues. Some of those loitering in front of the gallery were typical art-school types in eccentric, mismatched clothing; blazers, corduroy trousers, ripped jeans, boho dresses, and victoriana jackets were in no short supply. The arty types held bamboo fibre re-usable coffee cups, environmentally conscious and intending to stay perky enough to enjoy the art.
Next to them were suit and cocktail dress wearing couples carrying disposable champagne glasses and clearly there more for the booze and chance to socialise than because of the art. They ranged from socialites in designer gowns so business men taking in the culture with their clients.
Maybe such assessments were terribly judgemental of me, but those same people probably all had opinions of me, be those opinions good or bad.
In a way the sight of the crowd was refreshing. A group of students in ragged jeans and hoodies stood next to a group of art school lecturer types who each looked like they could be the next time lord. They rubbed shoulders with the business men and the social elite, all mingling peacefully on the banks of the Tyne. All there to take something away from a visit to an art gallery or opera house. Gatherings were rarely so inclusive, and part of me wished to see a wolf morph in the crowd, without fear and without intent to cause harm, or to see a vampire flash a fang, or see eyes silvering in amusement or wonder. If all people could come together in such a way then we'd all be far better off.
“You came. And alone as requested,” a voice said behind me, feigning appreciation. “I wasn't sure you would.”
“I said I would and so I did,” I answered, turning towards the warlock who'd stepped out of the crowd behind me. “Do you have what I need?”
He chuckled, murmuring, “You’ll get what you requested, a way to stop pesky affection destroying your potential. It's not on me, though. I needed to know you'd come alone, and I thought it best to ensure you wouldn't want to make a scene by sending armed sentries amongst the crowd. This isn't the sort of place we can share power though, not without raising eyebrows, and I do so want a taste of what resides in you, Frigg. Such a rare treat it is. You know, at the shipyard it was only a charm that made use of your energy through our tie. I didn’t get to feel the raw current of it, and I so want that.”
“So you want me to come with you?” I asked, my heart sinking and a feeling of denial flooding me as Conn overheard that suggestion in my thoughts.
“If you want this potion, then yes, you'll come with you. I'll even let you keep the sword,” Osier replied, his lips tipping up in a conniving grin.
It took me a moment to make my decision, but I nodded. “We'll be alone, yes?”
“We'll be alone,” he promised, not that I necessarily believed him. “You really are desperate, aren't you?”
“Then let’s get a move on,” I retorted, not answering his question.
My impatience was due, in no small part, to Conn's increasing anxiety; I was sure he'd be mobilising our sentries in an attempt to stop me, but if Osier believed I was impatient for the potion, so be it. I started heading for the stairs up to the car park, assuming Osier had a vehicle somewhere. I just hoped I wasn’t about to walk into an army.
If I get out of this unscathed, it'll be a miracle.
“The van is over there,” Osier pointed to a red transit, a different van to when he'd last collected me... but then the Cohort had many vehicles and there was nothing to say the Bloodied Hand weren't similarly equipped.
Once he'd unlocked the van, I climbed into the passenger seat, feeling vulnerable as Osier climbed in next to me and started the engine. I sat, tense, as he pulled out of the bay and turned the van away from the Millennium Bridge and Milbank House, away from Conn and my sentries. I briefly closed my eyes, taking a deep breath, resenting that I felt so nervous. I shifted, nervous energy making it impossible to sit still.
“You weren't so fidgety the last time we did this,” Osier noted.
“Last time I thought I was saving lives and you hadn't yet sent your wife to get into my head, to let a monster torture me, and with the aim of passing me on to Tiw.”
Osier chortled at my statement. “You were warned what would follow if you refused to surrender. I'm just pleased Tiw failed to keep a hold of you. Now it's my turn to get what I need from you.”
“But tonight, I'm getting what I need from you. Right?”
Osier smiled, but didn't answer. Part of me suspected he simply liked making me squirm. Part of me had a really bad feeling about my course of action.
Instead of panicking and leaping from the van, I focussed on my surroundings, hoping to give Conn as much information as he needed for a retrieval mission. I tried to remind myself that Osier had let me in and out of his lair once. He wanted me to see the people I loved killed in front of me, and his need for sadistic cruelty might overpower his desire to possess me. He believed he'd take me out in the end, and that overconfidence might give him reason enough to take me somewhere private, away from other Bloodied Hand acolytes...Or so I hoped.
We headed south, heading far enough from Milbank for Osier to feel safe. When he pulled off the main road and down into a valley, I figured we were following the course of the Tyne or one of its tributaries, but it was only when I saw the signs for Hamsterly Mill and Hamsterly Colliery that I realised we were in the Derwent valley. Osier took a right onto Forge Lane, and I hoped Conn heard that name repeated in my thoughts as we drove past a couple of house, then pulled off the road onto a rough trail.
The track led into a patch of secluded woodland, with an abandoned building stood in a clearing. The building seemed to be a historic remnant of the North East’s industrial past, a suspicion which Osier confirmed as he said, “Derwentcote Steel Furnace. It was a historic landmark but in the current economy upkeep has been difficult. We purchased it and we've had some success chasing off visitors. It's secluded.”
“And vacant?” I asked as I relayed that information to Conn.
“And vacant,” Osier answered. “It's a back-up hideout, nothing more. Not a main facility.”
With that, he slid from behind the wheel, leaving me with nothing to do but follow him. I climbed down and took a deep breath of night air, which tasted cleaner out in the valley than in the city centre. It also tasted of too many people. I could smell them, whichever sorcerers Osier had hidden in the odd building with its terracotta tiled roof, a feature broken up by the huge conical chimney which was as wide at its base as the building itself. Those who lay in wait were silent, remarkably so for humans, but my nose didn’t lie.
It's a trap...
I felt Conn's anxiety ramp up another notch, and the feeling offered a little relief to my own increasing discomfort.
All I needed to do was survive long enough for him to find me. Stay conscious. Fight to stay where he could find me. And preferably take out Osier. It was a simple series of tasks. Right?
“If you want to spring a trap you should have your followers take a shower,” I commented, my tone dripping with sarcasm. “I could smell them even if I pinched my nose and stopped breathing. You really must try harder. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
Osier let out a bellow of laughter. “You can’t blame a man for trying; it was too much of an opportunity to miss.”
Therein lay the problem and the solution; Osier was an opportunistic bastard, constantly searching for the next lucky break with back-up plans already prepared for each chance that slipped through his fingers, but he could also be tempted into making a mistake by offering an opportunity too good to refuse. That was still the case, even though the Bloodied Hand – or some of them, at least - lay inside the steel furnace.
“Don't worry, they won't lay a finger on you,” Osier promised, as if I found him trustworthy. “I promised you'd get out of here alive and you will.”
I glared at him as I strode past, saying, “Oh, I know I will.”
I pushed open the steel furnaces door and let a burst of magic pour out of me and into every one of the sorcerers inside. “Slæp,” I said, more for emphasis than because I needed to. Around me, acolytes collapsed where they stood, some falling forward into the circle which they'd painted in blood on the floor, and then falling through the concrete slabs as if they didn't exist. A shower of sparks fluttering up from the rippling floor, accompanied by thin wisps of yellow smoke that smelled vaguely of sulphur.
“Dammit, do you know what a pain in my ass it is to have to buy back good warlocks from hell? Worse the witches, they're too popular with the various princess of hell. Of course Asmodeus isn't averse to a man or two,” Osier ranted as he followed me into the building.
“Please tell me you haven't opened a portal to hell in an abandoned steel furnace?” I asked, feeling increasingly wearied by the weirdness that was my life.
“Where else would I open a hell-mouth?” he demanded. “A high school library?”
The fact he could reference Buffy irritated me more that I could vocalise, and my arched brow quickly became a scowl.
“You're no Rupert Giles,” I stated coolly.
“Your mother loved that show,” Osier answered.
“She wasn't my mother.”
We glared at each other as we stood in amidst the scattered bodies of peacefully sleeping acolytes with a shimmering portal between us. Beside Osier’s fallen followers, the dead looked on, their screams dying away in bemusement as their murderers failed to get back up. It would've been comical if I'd been in a laughing mood.
“Where's my potion?” I prompted.
Osier continued glaring for a moment then another loud guffaw escaped him and my frown deepened further. The man was demented. Totally off his rocker. A fact which made him more dangerous than Tiw, in many ways. At least Tiw was predictably evil. Osier always kept me suspecting he'd change course at any given moment, and I couldn't guess where his change of direction would take us.
“You'll get your potion, but you promised me a taste of what lies within you first.”
I paused at his reminder, pretending to hesitate. “I think I said I might agree...”
“Might?” he repeated, shaking his head. “You know that wasn't the deal. No taste, no potion. Do you really want to spend forever grieving for your pet dog? Especially once Tiw has him performing in public?
My temper flared at the word ‘dog', fire leaping around my hands, drawing Osier's covetous attention to them. I kept my tone placid, controlled even though it took a force of will to seem calm as I asked, “Before we do this, close the damn portal. It's making me twitchy.”
“Heaven forbid, a twitchy goddess,” Osier mocked, his scorn clear, but he blew out a large black candle which stood next to the most prominent symbol in the pattern that demarcated the circles edge. Next he kicked over an incense cone and ground it beneath his boot, and just like that the ripples faded away and the floor was still and solid once more.
“That's it?” I asked. “No fireworks? No bright lights?”
“Deities, always so showy,” he reprimanded me, “and so painfully ignorant. Not everything requires performance art. This enchantment is all in the preparation. That candle had to be made from the puppy fat of toddlers murdered at a new moon mixed, with beeswax harvested under a blue moon, and then all mixed with the menstrual blood of a virgin. The incense is a special and precise mix of herbs bound with the blood of an infant boy child conceived at the veil’s thinning. Believe me, a lot of effort went into this and now I'll have to start from scratch.”
I wanted him to be joking but I had a feeling he wasn't. That reality left me with a pressing desire to end him.
“Right, then, how do we do this?” I queried.
Osier strode towards me, walking over the floor which had moments ago sucked several of his people into the grim beyond. He reach for me, taking my hand in his. The urge to pull away took hold and I almost did just that as my fangs descended and a warning growl escaped me, but Osier only chuckled.
“Now would be when you let your energy flow into me, Darcy, or I will reach into you and pull it out by the root.”
“You couldn't pull it out by the root even if you tried,” I retorted as I forced my magic to flare again, flowing from my heart and down my arm, then out through my fingertips to coil around Osier's hand before seeping into him.
But by all means, try. I'm counting on it, I thought to myself.
Osier inhaled sharply at the first touch of my magic, his breath catching as his pupils dilated, the red dot at their centre expanding too. His grip on my hand tightened painfully as his own malevolent magic latched onto the flow of my power, tangling with it, pulling, harder and faster with each second until the burn of it leaving me because a constant blaze of pain.
A gleeful smile broke over Osier's face and he flung his head back as he let out a manic laugh. Around us, a tornado came alive, spiralling ever faster with us at the epicentre, two inhuman beings with our hair tugged by the maelstrom. The fire in our veins caused them to glow brightly, visible through our skin. A static charge built in the air, tainting each breath with a metallic ozone taste. And still Osier kept drawing from me.
An unintentional gasp of pain escaped me as my skin boiled and bubbled, blisters bursting over my hands and arms, creeping ever higher. The sound only made Osier pull harder, his hunger seemingly insatiable. With every second he seemed to swell, not physically, but his power. He soul became engorged with divine energy, yet still he wanted more. And I had to give it to him, or my risk would all be for nothing.
When my own body became exhausted, sucked dry, I fell to my knees. The impact would’ve hurt if the burns - which were spreading over every inch of my body - hadn't already set fire to my nerve endings, searing them so I could feel nothing else. Yet Osier still kept taking, because the power granted to me through prayers attempted to fill the void he’d left, giving him access to so much more than any mere sorcerer should wield.
Against my chest, the Grian Amulet grew hot, hotter than I’d ever felt it, glowing red and then white, beginning to lose its shape. True fear finally gripped me then, as I tried to cobble together an enchantment to hold the amulet’s form in place.
Maybe Gabriel had been wrong. Maybe this wasn't the way.
“What are you doing?” a ghost beside me yelled. “Why are you helping him?”
Still Osier laughed. Still he stole what wasn't his to take. I needed to end our connection and I needed to do it soon, but I had no idea how to extricate myself from his grip. In fact, I suspected that trying to do so would only make him cling tighter. Instead, I stuck to my original planning, pushing energy into him urgently. I gave him everything and then I gave some more, not stopping, even when burns appeared on his cheeks and his brows pinched into a frown.
When Osier tried to pull away, it was my turn to hold on. My charred hands remained vice-like around his as my magic dove into him, bright, divine, so much more than anything he possessed. The burns spread and the warlock roared in pain, struggling, but like a balloon which had been stretched too thin, he was easy to break. Just a little more and a column of white flame engulfed his body. The energy he'd stolen exploded in a rush, consuming him, pulling his mortal flesh apart while at the same time setting fire to his soul, burning so fiercely that even that disintegrated, like ashes on the wind, irretrievable.
No demon would return him to life. No one would ever return him to life. After so many years chasing immortality at any cost, and after so much murder and pain, Dorian Osier was finally gone.
I let go of his skeletal hands just as the door of the building flew open. Conn burst in as Osier’s mangled and scorched corpse fell backwards, and my own hands dropped to the floor to steady me as a wave of dizziness washed over me. Pain obliterated any joy I might have felt at seeing my husband, yet I remained aware enough to see it when one of the sorcerers I'd sent to sleep woke up. The warlock sat slowly upright, confusion playing over his expression for a mere second. Then he lurched to his feet, his gaze locked on Conn's back.
Not this time.
“Dead! I command you to kill the Bloodied Hand’s sorcerers! Become corporeal!”
The acolyte's eyes widened in alarm at my command, and for a moment he stared at me in horror, then the dead descended on him. Those he and Osier’s other followers had killed tore into the man, ripping him limb from limb so that his tortured screams deafened me to anything else. The sound would haunt me, I was sure, and it didn't end with his death. As other witches and warlocks awoke, they met a similar fate. They screamed too, although some never regained consciousness before being destroyed, their blood splattering over the floor and walls as the ghosts dismembered them.
“Enough,” I breathed as the last of our would-be assailants died. “Leave this place.”
As one, the dead popped out of existence, going somewhere else. At that moment in time I didn't care where they went. Nor did I care that I'd demanded the do my bidding Instead, I looked up at Conn and murmured wearily, “It's done.”
He crouched beside me, running his hands over me as if to check I was really alive and slowly healing. His magic eased into me, helping mend some of the damage and also surreptitiously checking on the little life growing in my womb. I didn’t mind as I lowered my head to his shoulder, smearing soot over his shirt as exhaustion crept through me.
“I need blood,” I said at last, my parched lips cracking. “I need to sleep. Everything hurts.”
“I know, Little Warrior. Soon,” Conn promised. “As soon as we get home we’ll arrange blood, get you showered, and then you can sleep.”
I nodded but didn't make any attempt to stand. My muscles ached as if I'd run a hundred back to back marathons.
“You have to stop doing this,” Lex said behind Conn. “Your curves are goddess worthy, I know, but why are you always naked?”
A few others tittered and it was only then that I noticed what I hadn't earlier. My clothing had burned away in the firestorm I'd created. For some reason that brought tears to my eyes in a rush of regret.
“Well, fuck! I liked that jacket!”
Conn laughed, pressing a kiss to my forehead.
“I'm sure Katie can track down another equally expensive piece. At least the enchantments I placed on your sword work. It's unmarked,” he added as he picked my sheathed blade from the floor where it must have fallen when my belt burned away. “Lex, can you see if any of the Range Rovers have blankets in them? Something to wrap her in? The rest of you, get out. My wife is naked and I'm a jealous Master vampire.”
The congregated sentries chuckled again and escaped. Only Gunner paused, his gaze focussed on the pool of gore and body parts rather than on me. He shook his head and I wondered what he'd seen. How had the massacre appeared to someone who'd never died and who therefore couldn't see the dead? Hard to believe, I would imagine.
“I'll arrange clean up. We don't need mortal press getting wind of this,” he said at last, then he too slipped out of the building.
Once Lex returned with a blanket, Leof wrapped me in it and lifted me into his arms. The feminist in me might have rebelled on another night, but right then I was content to let him put in the leg work. I'd done my part.
“You did well,” he whispered as he carried me out into the night. “You awe me, as always, my Little Warrior.”
“I love you, Leof,” I told him.
“I love you too,” he answered.
“One down, how many more to go?” I asked as I forced my still healing body to relax against him, ignoring the pain of scratchy wool against raw skin.
Conn chuckled. “If we can dispatch Tiw and Berith, I should think we'll be good for a while. Haltwhistle won't be a huge threat without the real power behind him.”
“And what about Loki and Viđarr?” I lamented, frowning, my heart feeling heavy again.
“All problems for another night. Tonight we celebrate... With blood. Because Champagne is for commoners.”
I laughed at that, which had undoubtedly been his intention. Closing my eyes, I let exhaustion claim me fully, and I fell asleep before Conn could lower me onto the back seat of one of the cohort vehicles. I didn't wake again until he carried me into the Sire's suite, and I admitted I felt relieved to be home.
