Ancient Evil (The First Genocide Book 1) (15 page)

He tilted his head back and closed his
eyes.

He must have fallen asleep again, as he
woke to the sound of the fireworks. During the Festival there was a Tattoo at
the Castle each night. The Tattoo was a display of outmoded military prowess
involving the few Calvary left in the armed forces. The end of the Tattoo was
marked by fireworks.

The light from the fireworks shone through
the stained glass and lit up the statue of Christ suspended in agony over the
altar. The figure looked alternately a sickly green or bathed in blood from the
wounds from his thorny crown depending on the color of the particular firework
that illuminated the scene.

He jerked upright.

A crown of thorns.

That was the answer. He needed a crown of
thorns.

Gone.
All gone.

Finn could feel tears of frustration
welling in his eyes. He took a deep breath, he would not cry. He had been so
close.

When he got up that morning, he had not
been able to find his bag. This was not particularly unusual. It could have
been buried under some clothes, or in the kitchen or living room, or in the
hallway. After half an hour of searching, he had decided to check the Union to
see if he had left it there.

As he stepped out of the flat he could
smell some smoke in the air and recalled the sound of sirens earlier that
morning. He ignored the smoke and hurried across the street to the Union
building. There was more activity than normal just inside the entrance for that
time of day.

A longhair, wearing a blue jumper with
“Security” written on it in yellow letters, was sitting behind a counter just
inside the door. Most of the Union Security were longhairs or ex-longhairs, the
latter forced to shear their locks to increase their chances of scoring a
pre-graduation job offer. Jonni sometimes called them Aslans, as they seemed to
lose more than hair when they sold out and got a haircut. It was as if some
inner dignity had been shorn from them with their tresses.

The longhair was checking student IDs,
making sure no Townies managed to sneak in. When Finn’s turn came he asked the
longhair, “Do you have a lost and found?”

“Upstairs in the office,” the longhair
replied.

Finn quickly walked through the double
doors and made his way up to the office. He could hear people talking about a
fire, but he was too focused on finding his bag to stop and ask.

He needed his bag it had the discs
containing his actual analysis, not the garbage he stored on the University
servers. If he could not get it back, he could try to retrieve a copy of his
research from temp storage on the last computer he has been working on in the
IT lab in the Bute Building. It would be difficult and not a sure thing, but he
was up to the challenge.

He entered the office and asked the woman
behind the counter for the lost and found. She passed him a small plastic bin
and he rummaged through it. Nothing, there were just a couple of hats, a pair
of broken sunglasses, a glove, a single sock and a blue and white striped
scarf.

As he passed the bin back he said to the
woman, “I heard something about a fire. Was anyone hurt?”

“Ock, did ya nae you hear. The Bute
Building caught fire. They think it was arson. Isnae that terrible?” She
trailed off, as Finn had already run out the door. She could hear his footsteps
pound down the hallway to the stairs.

The Bute Building was a charred shell.
Yellow police tape kept back a small group of curious onlookers made up of
students with a few pensioners sprinkled into the mix.

Finn noticed Diana amongst the crowd. She
looked upset.

“Diana, what happened? Was anyone hurt?”

“Oh, Finn, you haven’t heard? Proctor and
Dawson …” she trailed off.

“What about them, are they okay?”

She sniffled. She did not look at him as
she responded, “No, no they aren’t. It seems that they were both there early
this morning when the fire broke out –”

“Diana. Focus. What happened to them?”

“Dawson’s dead and Proctor, they say that
he’s burnt, badly.”

Finn was stunned. His mind went blank.
“I’ll go see him.”

“They took him to the hospital.”

“Thanks, Diana.” He looked around. “I hate
asking, but did you hear anything about the IT lab? Did it survive?”

She turned to look at him and narrowed her
eyes. “You’re a heartless bastard, Finn Alexander. People were hurt.” She
looked away from him then relented. “Everything in the building is gone,
nothing survived. Even the servers were destroyed.”

He would need to start over.

The aroma of smoke accompanied Leader as
she entered the lair with a bag slung over one shoulder.

The coven had been waiting in the cavern
for most of a week. With only one victim to feed on in that time they were
getting antsy. Leader had forbidden them to hunt. Too many victims would draw
unwanted attention to their presence. Actually, they were more than antsy, they
were pissed off.

Leader ran her hand over her bristly blonde
crew cut and looked around.

Leader:
I have had a vision; we need to
remain here for a few more days. Charlie, dump the body up the coast.

She could feel their antagonism radiate
from them like heat from a bonfire.

She reached into her bag and pulled out a handful
of prescription bottles and threw them into the center of the cave.

Leader:
These should keep you occupied
for a few days.

She turned her bag over and shook out more
meds, and a few floppy discs tumbled out of the bag as well. One of the
advantages of breaking into a University medical building was the opportunity
to stock up on some essentials.

Their antagonism, banked by the offering of
drugs, retreated into a coal-like glow.

Leader:
I will allow you to feed when we
leave and not before.

The antagonism faded completely and they
started to paw through the green and orange plastic cylinders.

“Did you go to see Proctor?” asked Bex.
Bex, Finn and Aye were playing pool in the Union. It was midweek and
mid-afternoon so the Union was fairly empty.

“Yeah, I went into the hospital yesterday.
I don’t think I will be able to go again … it was horrible.”

“So, he was burned badly?” Bex did not want
to ask but she couldn’t help herself.

“Very badly. They say he had second and
third degree burns over ninety percent of his body. And his face.” He stopped
he looked at the Street Fighter game in the corner of the room as he composed
himself. He swallowed. “His, ah, face was unrecognizable, the left side anyway.
They tell me that he lost his left eye to the fire and they had to amputate his
left hand and leg. They said that if he survives, and that is a big if, he may
never walk again.” He looked back to the table. “Is it my turn?”

“Aye,” said Aye.

He walked around the table assessing the
shots available to him.

“I thought it must have been rough, you
look like shite.”

“Cheers.” He took a shot and missed an easy
pot.

“You know I don’t mean it like that. I’m
worried about you.” She walked over and put her hand on his shoulder.

“I know, sorry. I feel like shi.. feces
too. After seeing Proctor I came home and decided to have an early night. I
wanted to be fresh before I started trying to rebuild my research. I feel that
I need to finish it, as a kind of tribute to Proctor, you know what I mean?”

“Aye,” said Aye.

“Anyway, I fell asleep right away, but then
kept waking up from these terrible nightmares.”

Bex lined up a shot and sank a ball in the
middle pocket; she was four balls ahead of him. She straightened. “Nightmares
are understandable. You’ve been under a lot or stress. Losing your mentor, your
research.”

“Yeah, I guess. It seems more than that.
Seeing Proctor like that, it triggered memories that I didn’t think I had.” He
watched Bex circle the table, hunting for her next shot. “You see, in my
nightmares I am in the hospital and it is my father that I see, not Proctor.”

She stopped and looked at him. “Your father?
Oh God, he died in a car crash, right?”

“Yeah, I was in the car, but I don’t
remember anything about it because I was only about four years old at the time.
But from what my grandma told me, the rescue workers got me out of the car just
before it burst into flames. Both my mother and father were caught in the fire.
My mother died there on the roadside, but my father survived for a couple of
days. I’m sure I never visited him in the hospital, but in my nightmares I’m
there. Maybe I did visit him, I don’t know.”

“Oh Finn, that’s horrible. I didn’t know.
You should have never gone to see Proctor.”

“I felt I had to. I did have to, I owed him
that much, but I don’t think I can go back.”

“No, of course not.” She walked over and
gave him a hug.

“I probably shouldn’t say this, but if it
was me lying there like that, I would probably prefer not to survive.”

“You’re right, you shouldn’t say that.” She
made her signature jump shot and potted another of her balls. “You need a
break, and Raisin Sunday is this weekend. Let’s get some academic children and
have some fun.”

“Um, what?”

“Academic children? You know, Raisin
Sunday?” she looked at him quizzically.

“I, uh, never really paid any attention to
the Raisin Sunday thing. What is it again?”

“Oh, Finn you’re hopeless. It’s fun and it
will distract you, that’s all you need to know for now. I need you to talk to
some likely freshers and ask them to be your academic children. Let’s get two
boys and two girls.”

“What? Talk to people I don’t already
know?”

“Yes, Finn, that is how you make friends.”

“I have friends,” he said. She just looked
at him, then Aye and then back to him. “Okay, I will give it a try, but I’ll
need a few more Guinness first.”

“Fair enough.”

“So what is an academic child, anyway?”

“Well, freshers need someone older and more
responsible to look out for them, so this tradition has developed. Third,
fourth year students and postgrads of course, agree to take a couple of first
years under their wing and show them the ropes, how to cope with University
life.”

“So the first years become…”

“Academic children and we,” she struck a
heroic pose, chin up and her fists on her hips, “are the academic parents.”

“And how exactly do we take them under our
wing?”

“Why, we get them drunk on Raisin Sunday,
of course.”

“Of course.”

“Then on Raisin Monday we wake them up,
dress them in costumes and send them to the Quad to get covered in flour and
shaving foam.”

“Uh huh. Got it. I think.”

“Look, it’s just a way to get people to
mix. Remember? Making friends?” She looked at him expectantly. He nodded
uncertainly. She sighed. “And, for God’s sake, don’t tell Jonni. If you do he
will turn it into a bacchanalian nightmare.”

“My lips are sealed.” They both looked up
at Aye, who mimed a key turning on his lips. He then put said imaginary key in
an imaginary top pocket of his T-shirt and patted it twice. They both turned
back to the table.

“Your shot,” said Bex.

“I’m shooting red, right, not yellow?” he
said as he looked at all the red balls and one yellow on the pool table.

“Aye,” said Aye.

“You?”

Aye looked confused for a second, then
shook his head.

Almost, thought Finn, and took his shot.

Life goes on.

It
was only two hours after dawn and already the day was stifling. The heat
radiated from the cobble streets in shimmering waves, making Hael long for the
cool marble halls of the Academy.

He was not in the best mood. Bral had
pulled him aside after the evening meal last night to talk to him. He had
seemed upset, so Hael had pulled him into the Quad to talk. The Quad was off
limits to students after dark, but the need for privacy was worth the small
risk of getting caught.

It appeared that Samael would not talk to
Bral anymore. He had transferred his affections to a boy who was Ten in the
year above them and now Samael wanted nothing to do with Bral.

Although Hael had advised his sensitive
younger brother that he was better off without the influence of Samael, Bral
would hear none of it. Eventually he had stormed off, vowing to win back the
affections of Samael.

Hael did not hold out much hope that the
situation would be resolved amicably, but he hoped that Bral did not make a
fool of himself before he came to his senses. This type of distraction would
not enhance his ranking.

Which brought Hael back to today’s chore —
he was supervising an outing for some boys in their second year in the academy.

As Hael was a Fifth Year, he spent about
half of his time training the younger boys. Today’s excursion was to
familiarize the boys with the Enemy, the Feral. Of course the boys had all seen
the Feral before; they were the main source of manual labor in the City.
However, all of the Feral in the city had been cursed with Obedience. They were
very different from Feral who had just been shipped in from the Campaigns. The
boys needed to realize that they would be fighting cunning, strong adversaries,
not timid, cringing slaves. The only place to see uncursed Feral within a ten-day
forced march of the City’s Peace Gate was the Market.

The Market sold everything that Host or
Guest could buy; fruits and nuts from the orchards surrounding the City, meat
from the farms and brought in by hunting parties, salt from the mines and
spices from, well, no one really knew where the spices came from. There was
wine and beer produced by the City’s vintners and brewers, pots and pans
produced by the Ministry of Havoc, who jealously guarded the secret of metal
working and, the reason for their outing, slaves.

Slaves taken from the tribute and wild
tribes were the cheapest, as they were plentiful, but most of the Host avoided
them because they had limited ability to understand mindspeak. Tribesmen were
usually used in the farms and mines, where they needed little direction. The
Feral slaves were more expensive, but not as costly as Guest slaves. Ferals
were adept at mindspeech; they had no verbal language of their own, but their
mental strength meant only the most basic of Curses would take hold with them,
usually a general Curse of Obedience. Guest slaves cost the most, as they were
relatively rare and so the wealthy prized them — as they did all rare things.
Guest slaves were made up of the criminal element of the City that managed to
get themselves caught by the City Guard.

Hael looked over his shoulder and saw Ilba.
He lifted his chin slightly and raised his eyebrows, asking if all was well. Ilba
nodded. It would have been easier if he and Ilba used mindspeech, but that was
forbidden to Academics. Ferals were very sensitive and powerful mind talkers,
and on the field of battle Ferals could dampen the ability of Host and Guest
from communicating mentally. The strong verbal skills of the Guest circumvented
this advantage. This was one of the many reasons that the Army was made up
almost entirely of Guest, except for a few senior Host officers and the
Healers. Part of the training at the Academy was to break Guest reliance on
mindspeech, forcing them to speak.

Fifteen second-year Academics were
sandwiched between Hael and Ilba. Hael cleared the way through the crowds and
Ilba made sure that none of their charges strayed.

Ilba had made it into the Ten when Caleb
had been cursed. With Caleb gone the friction between Hael and Ilba had eased.
Ilba had changed during his five years in the Academy, they all had. Gone was
the insecure bully boy who had tried to stone Clea and Caleb; he had been
replaced by a more thoughtful, cautious young man. Hael and he were not
friends, but they were friendly towards each other. It also helped that Ilba
looked up to Hael, as most of the boys in the Academy did. He also felt that he
owed Hael something for being indirectly responsible for him becoming one of
the Ten.

As they walked through the City, Hael
lectured the second year.

“Who can tell me about the Rebellion?” Hael
shouted over his shoulder.

“You, Ala, tell us what you know,” said
Ilba. Hael and Ilba had done this before. Hael would ask the questions and
evaluate the answers while Ilba would select who would speak, as he could see
who was raising their hand.

“The uprising happened about seven thousand
years ago,” Ala started.

“About? Come on, Ala, this is history we
are talking about, be precise.”

“Sorry, One, the uprising happened six
thousand eight hundred and forty-seven years ago, when the Ferals decided to
overthrow the Emperor.” As Hael was currently ranked as “One” in his year, they
referred to him by his rank.

“Why did they decide to do such a thing?”

“The Ferals were given too much leeway;
they are savage by nature and they perceived the benevolence of Emperor Enki II
as weakness and tried to take the City for themselves.”

“Okay, good, Ala. Now, someone else, how
were they thwarted?”

Ilba said, “Ori, your turn.”

“Umm.”

“Wrong answer, Ori. Come on, think.”

“Sorry, One. The Feral had the Palace
surrounded and all looked lost when our Glorious Emperor Enki II and the One
Hundred Companions opened the Palace gates and drove the Ferals from the City.”

“How did one hundred and one Host manage to
drive thousands of Feral from the City?”

“Well, each of the One Hundred is a full
Adept and they and the Emperor were wearing their Dread aspects, causing all
but the strongest of Ferals to doubt their chances of success. Additionally,
the Emperor’s first blow incapacitated the Feral Chieftain, Uruk. Uruk had been
the focal point of the Feral resistance to the Dread presence of the Emperor,
so when he was knocked senseless, the Feral shamans linked to him collapsed as
well, leaving the Feral rabble completely exposed to the Emperor’s influence.
The Feral broke and ran for the countryside.”

Hael held up his hand to stop his
procession. Ori trailed off; he would continue if Hael asked him to.

The way ahead was blocked by two ornate
palanquins carried by Ferals that were at loggerheads at a constricted part of
the street. Part of the roadway was taken up by a food stall, making it
necessary for one of the palanquins to hold back and let the other pass. The
one going in the same direction as Hael and his charges was blue and gold with
the symbol of a roof tile on the door. It was more blue than gold. The blue
indicated that the occupant was aligned the with one of the Orthodox branches
of the civil service, while the roof tile symbol further specified that he
worked for the Ministry of Hospitality. The lack of gilt indicated that its
owner was of middling rank, possibly an undersecretary or assistant to a junior
minister.

The other palanquin, apparently trying to
move towards Hael and his crew, was red and gold; red indicated military
affiliation with the Enlightened Party. The amount of gilt indicated that the
owner was a lower-ranking officer, possibly a Captain. The door was blank,
indicating that its occupant did not want to disclose his specific alignment.

The two palanquins had a similar amount of
gilt, hence the holdup. 

The rank of a palanquin owner determined
right of way, lesser rank giving way to the superior. The City’s citizens were
skilled at determining relative rakings based on the amount of gold paint,
number and type of gems barnacled to the exterior of the vehicle, the type and
number of bearers and other, more subtle, cues. In this case it was a tossup on
which palanquin contained the more important passenger. If they were of similar
factions, one would have undoubtedly waved the other through as a matter of
goodwill. But red and blue were a different story. A common saying in the city
was when red and blue mixed you got a bruise.

The lead slaves of each palanquin were
explaining to their counterpart the reason why their master had precedence,
each mentally projecting their deeds and responsibilities.

Hael thought that there was a little more
gilt on the blue palanquin going in the same direction as he was, but it was
subtle and so could be argued. He knew that he was in for a wait while
precedence was established.

He was considering backtracking and looking
for another route forward when a heavily jeweled hand reached through the red
palanquin’s side curtains and waved someone forward.

Hael looked back at Ilba and raised his
eyebrows. This was quite unusual. The hand had been virtually dripping with
gold and jewels, which suggested that the occupant of the red palanquin was
much more senior than his vehicle would indicate. It looked like the rider in
the red palanquin was slumming.

As Hael turned back to view the spectacle,
he saw a shadow-sheathed figure detach itself from an alleyway behind the red
palanquin and glide towards the two debating lead slaves. As the figure entered
the full glare of the sunlight, the shadow burned off like morning fog and a
figure wearing the voluminous black cloak and cowl of a Nightfeeder was
revealed. This confrontation had tipped over the precipice of interesting and
into fascinating. Only the most elite of the Host had a Nightfeeder at their
beck and call.

Nightfeeders were usually only attached to
legions on active battle duty in the field. In very rare instances they were
granted to one of the Emperor’s favorites, as they were almost perfect
assassins and bodyguards. In the politics of the City, assassination was a
legitimate form of advancement, as long as it was subtle. This meant that only
one who was truly untouchable was ever provided a Nightfeeder for their
personal use. The Nightfeeder removed the risk of assassination and also
provided a valuable tool for dealing with ambitious underlings.

Providing a Nightfeeder to a more junior
member of the government or military would accelerate their rate of advancement,
as their competitors and superiors would undoubtedly meet with fatal accidents,
clearing their way to the top.

Hael grinned back at Ilba; it would be
amusing to see the blue palanquin scramble out of the way.

Frost formed on the cobbles in the
Nightfeeder’s wake. Hael felt a cool breeze. The Nightfeeder pulled in the
ambient heat, as the cloaked figure glided up to the head slave of the blue
palanquin, who had not noticed the approaching figure. The loose folds of the
robe filled out, and the figure was gaining bulk and height as it used the heat
to fuel its transformation.

Two large brilliant white hands tipped with
smoking black talons shot out of the sleeves of the robe and grasped the arms
of the blue slave’s upper arms a second and then heaved. The slave’s arms
ripped off his torso with a slurp and a crackle. He fell to the ground as blood
jetted from his empty shoulder sockets. The guttural scream of the Feral slave
rang out and waves of agony emanated from him. Both sound and broadcast quickly
faded as he bled out on the street. The cloaked figure stood over the body,
drinking in the pain, two arms dangling from its clawed hands. 

The creature briefly looked in Hael’s
direction, revealing the pale oval of the thing’s face and a flash of golden
hair inside the dark cowl. It turned away, its bone white hands disappearing
back into the folds of the cloak. The frost ring centered on the Nightfeeder
quickly melted as it started to dump its excess mass as heat. It was a process
that would take several hours; if it dumped the energy too quickly, it risked
creating a mini firestorm from the heat, which could be dangerous to it and any
others near it.

The remaining slaves standing with the blue
palanquin hurriedly lifted the chair, so quickly, in fact, that they tipped it
to one side so the chair’s occupant, a young member of the Host, fell out. He
scrambled to his feet and ran down the road away from the Nightfeeder, his
slaves and palanquin trailing. At another time this would have elicited
laughter and jeers from the crowd in the street, but today there was just
shocked silence.

The Nightfeeder walked forward. Although
the street had seemed crowded earlier, everyone seemed to find space to move
into to get out of its way, leaving an open pathway through the crowd for the
Nightfeeder and its master to follow.

Hael felt like vomiting. Not due to the
blood or the violence; he had been trained in blood and violence.

It was the Nightfeeder’s hands.

The Nightfeeder’s hands were white.

Its skin was white.

Hael had seen Nightfeeders before, and they
were all pale as they stayed in the shadows, but not that pale. Their skin
became a pale greyish-brown color over time, not bone white. Host and the Feral
were never made into Nightfeeders; that curse was reserved for the Guest and
the Guest were all brown of skin and hair. All except one.