“Perhaps,” I added.
“The creature – what you call Hunger – said he would come after you, Matthew Swift,” she pointed out, without any sign of concern.
“You had to remind me,” I groaned.
“What creature is this?” asked the biker casually.
“Just a shadow.”
“It knew the sorcerer,” she corrected. “Called him by his name.”
“I’ll handle it,” I said.
“You sure of that?”
“It’s what I’m here for.”
“Fair enough,” muttered the biker, as the kettle started to spout hot steam. “So – what do you want to do about this shit?”
“I am here to destroy Bakker,” said Oda flatly, folding her arms. “This changes nothing.”
“You’ll get no complaints from me on that one. Question is – how do you want to do this? We’re not doing a great job right now.”
Oda produced the bundle of blood-smeared documents and spread them across the rough metal floor of the shed. “We have what we need, here,” she said.
I rolled over on the couch to see more clearly.
“Everything we need to destroy the Tower, to stop Bakker from whatever he plans, to rein in his power, to destroy his evil,” she added, and the way she said it was more frightening than any shadow, it made my nerves itch, “is here. I am not without my friends, or my resources.”
“Me neither,” murmured the biker, passing a mug of coffee in my direction, though his eyes were fixed on the documents.
I picked up a picture from the pile of papers on the floor and studied it. The pale, fine features were familiar to me – indeed, I could give them a name. San Khay, Bakker’s right-hand man.
I took the picture, folded it and, very carefully, slipped it into my bag.
Part 1: The Hunting of San Khay
At dawn, we parted company. Oda went – where, she would not say – and the biker’s only contribution was that he was going to “hit the road” for a while. We agreed a time and a place to meet again, and I, with the sum effect of Sinclair’s research on the Tower in my bag, went to find a safe place to sleep, and read, and think.
When the first shops opened at 8.30 a.m., I bought myself a heavy-duty box of plasters to cover the cut on my left hand, a new shirt to replace the bloody remnants of my current one, and a packet of aspirin, just in case. At 9.30 a.m. I checked myself into a small but friendly enough hotel off the Cromwell Road, in that strange, transient part of town where the mansions of the rich compete with the squalor of endless bed-and-breakfasts and their constantly migrating population. In the tiny, windowless space next to my room, I had a bath. The experience was bliss, a sudden sinking into warmth and contentment that we had not imagined possible, a moment when our fears and senses began to relax, letting go of the night’s tension which, we realised, had clenched every muscle to the edge of rupture. We lowered our head underwater and stayed there until we thought we would burst, lungs burning, and emerged again with a sense of being more alive and powerful than ever before, risking death and coming away unharmed, clean, safe. Blood and dirt turned the water pinkish-grey as it floated off our skin like mist rising in the morning sun. We then wrapped ourself in towels and stood behind the net curtain in the window to watch the bright morning light cast the shadows of the trees across the street below, and felt, at last, content.
Clean and dry, I bandaged my cut hand, brushed my hair with my fingers, having forgotten to buy a comb, and examined myself in the cracked mirror above the sink. In my new shirt and stolen trousers, I looked almost dignified. An almost perfect resurrection, then, just like we’d thought, just like we’d hoped – at least physically.
My eyes were still too blue. I leant in close to the bathroom mirror and saw that the iris was tinted, as human eyes should be, with flecks of other colour, a hint of brown, a suggestion of green, a darker rim. But the overall prevalence was the colour of a summer sky. It didn’t particularly suit me, and gave a disconcerting albino appearance; but I supposed, like a new haircut or a shave after a week of neglect, I would grow used to my current appearance, and forget the old. I considered being frightened, curling up at the base of my bed and whimpering in fear at what consequence this change in my appearance might bring. The mood wasn’t on us, so I didn’t.
I felt less than confident about painting a ward onto the door of the hotel room, so settled for a compromise and, with a biro, drew a swift protective symbol onto five pieces of hotel-headed notepad paper and left each sheet around the bed in a vague semicircle as the closest I could come to a magical defence without causing criminal damage. Then I lay down and slept. This time, we did not try to resist, and could not remember our dreams.
I woke in the mid-afternoon. Sitting on the floor at the foot of my bed, I spread out the bloodstained remnants of Sinclair’s documents in front of me.
I did not care why Sinclair really wanted Bakker dead. I did not care particularly why the rest of them were involved, although I suspected Oda’s reasons went beyond mere personal motives and into a more dangerous realm. We chose not to be concerned with this now, however, until we knew if it threatened our own interests.
What did I want?
I wanted… I wanted…
…
… to find and…
…
… stop…
…
…
… stop…
…
… stop NOW.
…
Done?
…
Good.
I wanted to kill Hunger.
If that meant ploughing through more mortal creatures on the way, then so be it.
I wanted to kill the shadow.
We found it ugly, and dangerous.
I picked up Bakker’s photo and studied the face. There was a bloody fingerprint, probably Sinclair’s, in the top corner. If you aged the face, gave it a tropical disease, starved it of food and drink, took the fire out of its eyes and the smile away from its lips, if you looked at it with all that in mind, just out of the corner of your vision, then Bakker’s face could just, perhaps, be fitted onto another creature’s shoulders. For that alone, I suspected Bakker might have to die.
However, these things were easier said than done. And revenge, we decided, should be more than about dying.
I turned my attention to San Khay.
