Chapter 3

Read from the start here: Chapter One


It was approaching the end of the millennium, and the people were rejoicing. The streets were filled with raucous singing and cheering, the citizens of Natalo’s major cities were all celebrating and not a single shop save for an Inn or two were open for business. Nothing seemed to fall astray of the friendly atmosphere, it was remaining controlled and enjoyable even with all the alcohol flowing.


Away from the large crowds, in a quieter side road, a couple of young siblings, who were standing away from their distracted parents, were playing with a makeshift paper ball. They took it in turns throwing it to each other. This went on, back and forth, with the two of them being completely oblivious to the grandness of tonight’s occasion, both of them having a great time regardless.


After a particularly jaunty turn in their conversation, the boy then gave the ball a rather reckless lob, which sailed over the girls head and into the alleyway behind her. With the parents taking little notice of their kids, feeling they would be safe in their home street, the girl who showed no signs of fear quickly checked they were busy looking the other way before sneaking into the dimly lit passage.


Feeling unbothered by the location, she caught sight of something that was partially hidden behind a pile of rubbish, blowing around gently, and immediately ran towards it with glee. Her innocence of the world around her caused her to miss the moving shadows further down the street. The object she had now found was indeed her missing ball, and ignoring her surroundings, she scooped it up delightedly.


The way back was clear enough, but a few steps ahead of her now, at the entrance to the alley, was her brother, gaping at her with a face so frightened that it stopped her in her tracks. It took a short while for her to notice that he wasn’t staring at her, but something behind her.


Quickly, but carefully, she turned around, and what she saw took her by surprise; an intense turquoise ring of an ethereal substance shone from the end of the alleyway, with streaks of purple rippling inside it like veins of pure magical energy. At the centre of it, a darkness that seemed to absorb all of the light around it stood bold, the height of two tall people and the width of four.


In front of the bright portal, three cumbersome creatures emerged. At first hunched over, they soon all stood tall, showing off their enormous frames and revealing through their silhouetted body shapes that they were neither habitants of this planet nor the whole universe. The creatures were clad in armour that seemed grafted on to the their skin, and while they stood there, the girl couldn’t move. She was too petrified. She couldn’t even open her mouth to scream.


Something grabbed her around the neck, and she panicked. It felt quite strong and was beginning to drag her away, but not towards the creatures as she suspected, but away from them. It was her brother, who had come to rescue her.


Within seconds they reached the street again, and nobody had seemed to notice anything weird or unusual, even with the glow of the portal now casting a suspicious and obvious light into the celebrations. People had simply assumed it was another firework show or extra set of decorative lights.


The boy made a straight line for his parents, holding his sisters hand and pulling her quite forcefully behind him. As they made it through the revellers, the girl began to cry.


The mother and father were sat drinking mulled wine out on the steps of their home, looking up at the sky which was now flush with coloured explosions and shapes. It was the father who first saw his children rushing towards them with tears in their eyes, and he instantly stood up to comfort them. The youngster was pointing frantically behind him, at the alleyway, distraught and trying to pull his mum and dad with him away from the source of the glow.


It had already begun. The creatures were now in the street, and had started striking down people in the most brutal ways. They had no wands or magical weapons, instead they held large clubs and hammers, and brought them crashing down onto their victims. Screams now replaced cheers, and the whole family stood agape at the horror now taking place.


Some citizens had now started fighting back, bringing out their own weapons and casting spells in a constant stream. They seemed to have little effect, only slowing them down instead of hurting them, and the creatures continued to attack. They spread out, one of them coming right down the street towards the family, with more of the monsters emerging out of the alleyway.


The father opened the front door of the house and tried to usher everybody in, but the boy refused. He wanted to run away, knowing that a mere wall wouldn’t stop such creatures. The father grabbed the boy’s hand, but his grip was too loose, as the boy wriggled free and stood back and out of reach. Taking one look at the approaching monsters, and then back at his father who stood in the doorway looking extremely distraught, he knew he would have to make the ultimate choice.


A stream of tears now ran down both of his cheeks, his throat was swollen with regret and his mind drowned in sadness as he waved one final goodbye to his family and started running, without turning back. The father hung out of the doorway, shouting to his son once more, before retreating back into his home and shutting the door.


The boy ran and ran, not daring to think about anything in particular except where he was going, and taking one last look back down the street, he saw one of the creatures bringing down his hammer into the doorway of his own house.


Though nobody knew it at the time, the world had just seen the start of the biggest war it had ever encountered thus far, and it would certainly be the bloodiest too.




*****


Moving ahead many centuries, the tragedies that beset the world that day had become simply guesses and imaginative recollections, with the true brutality having been softened over time to what now remained; a story from the past.


Dane had taken only two minutes to repack the weapon and wipe all evidence of his presence. He was now making his way back down the stairs that had led him to the rooftop, knowing full well that right now the Owsla would be setting up a lockdown in the vicinity of the murder. Due to the abundance of magical energy, it was easy enough for them to set up a sophisticated barrier that prevented people from getting too far from the crime scene.


Under normal circumstances, they would eventually find Dane, and that would be extremely risky to his and Cam’s group except for one special circumstance; he had a way out that the Owsla knew nothing about.


His swiftness came in handy as he leapt down flights of stairs in only a couple of strides. He was deft too, not having to think too much about where his next step was going to be, and this also improved his ability in certain situations to escape and outrun most others. If an incident was to occur and he was faced with an Owsla, it would be his biggest advantage against them.


The cold, dense marble of the lavishly decorated building connected with both his feet on the ground floor, and from here it was only a matter of seconds until he would be able to retreat to safety. He turned left and headed through a defunct fire escape door, into another corridor that led straight to another one, which unlike the last was alarmed and led outside. That, however, was not where Dane was headed. Instead, he stopped next to one of the walls and placed the case down.


Having no time to waste, he used his claws on the wall, carefully dragging them in a circular motion on a specific part. Repeating this several times, eventually he found what he was looking for, a very tiny and very shallow outline. He traced it so that his arms were stretching outwards, and he found the top two corners of a doorway.


Very carefully, he pulled on both sides, and out popped a door. It was narrower than most, but Dane still fit through with no worries, so he picked up the gun and walked straight through, while the door simply shut itself after him and returned to its stealthy form.


Dane now stood at the top of a flight of stairs in a dingy room. A light bulb stood naked atop a wooden crate below, struggling to bathe the room in its glow. The steps he treaded carefully down, led around the tall space, circling it, clinging to all four walls before reaching the bottom.


Naturally, this room didn’t appear on any plans of the building, which happened to be owned very indirectly by Dane’s group, so only a thorough inspection or knocking the whole thing down would uncover it. Of course, showing it to somebody would achieve the same result, and the penalty of death awaited anyone in the group who shared the secret. Thirty years into its existence, and it still remained undiscovered.


Approaching the bottom, a part of the room that was obscured from the high entrance was now visible. A very unkempt and flimsy looking tunnel, through earth and dirt and only a few feet long, led to a rather large circular metal doorway. It held a strong resemblance to a vault door, and seemed to sit inside the wall rather than be attached to it. It was secure from the outside, meaning that if it was closed, it was nigh impossible to break into. Dane strolled towards it, still gripping the gun tightly in his paw.


In an instant, he recognised that something was wrong. A large panel on the immaculate, steel surface of the door had been tampered with, and was beyond recognisable with charred, twisted remains. It was a malicious act that had removed the only method of opening the door.


“Cam!” He roared, knowing full well that the scrawny mutt was the one responsible. Before he had time to figure out his next move, the familiar hissing sound that represented the doorway being opened came from the other side. Someone was coming through.


“You were quicker than I thought.” The voice, undeniably that of the culprit, seeped through the narrow crack in the doorway that had been created.


“This is it Cam, you’ve crossed the line! Even I thought you…” He started the last few metres toward the narrow gap in which he could see the toothy grin of his enemy, but was rudely interrupted before he’d made any distance at all.


“You take one more step and I will push this button!” Cam shouted, his eyes looking off to the side for a brief moment. Dane knew exactly what button he meant. It was an emergency procedure that would forcefully shut the door so that if one of the group was being followed, a quick press of the button would slam the door shut behind them. It had enough power in its engineering to crush anybody who got caught between the two metal surfaces, and as quick as Dane could be, even he was no match for something his own group had built.


“Whatever you’re doing, just stop it right now.” His manner was calm, trying to appeal to a more reasonable side of Cam that he hoped he still had. “You’re part of a group who has everything to lose by leaving behind the one piece of evidence that ties you to all the recent murders.”


“Please, you wouldn’t confess, you have too much ‘honour’ for that.” The way in which he mocked his loyalty aggravated Dane immensely. “I’ve thought about this carefully.”


“What?”


“I’m taking over. I’m going to be in charge of this group from now on, and all you’re doing is standing in my way.”


“All this for a power play? You’re pathetic.”


“Not at all, there’s more to it. I could stand here all day and explain it all to you but why waste time? You’ll be caught any minute now!”


Cam laughed to himself, his eye line never breaking from Dane’s. Dane’s very limits were being tested, he now sensed a torrent of rage bearing down on him. He could hear himself growling.


“Do you seriously believe the others will bow down to you and accept you? Everyone in there hates you! The only reason they tolerate you is because I trust the word of the Teacher over my own feelings!”


“You still think this is all about you don’t you?” He sighed. “As much as I have wanted you out of there since the day you arrived, you are now only an obstacle in getting what I’ve wanted for so long. So please get over your ego trip and accept that for all you thought you were, you didn’t manage to best me. It makes me so blissful to think I’ll never have to see you again. My life truly is about to change for the better!”


Whilst he listened, Dane thought of using his gun case to stop the door closing, but he was too far away to aim well and even if successful, it would crush under the pressure of the door being closed. There was nothing he could do now to stop Cam getting away with it.


“Tell me one thing then Cam,” He began, in a last ditch attempt to gain some time. “Why didn’t you just kill me on the roof?”


Cam paused, which gave Dane all the answer he needed.


“You couldn’t. You put across this image of a man who isn’t afraid to do anything and yet you couldn’t overcome your fears of executing me. And that’s exactly why the second you set foot into the Den and they hear what happened, they’ll tear you apart. Give it up, you’ll never be their leader.”


For a few moments, the two of them stood still, staring at the other in silence. Only when the alarm sounded in the distance, an indication that the Owsla had begun to lock down the area, did one of them speak up.


“This is such a bittersweet way to end this little confrontation of ours.” Cam grinned. “You don’t know me at all. I could have killed you up there, but I needed you alive.”


The mood in the air changed. While Dane was sure that what he had just said was absolute fact, it seems he had indeed misjudged his adversary somewhat. It was as if a furtive, confident side to Cam had just been revealed, and Dane felt a wave of unease crash around him


“You’ve simply underestimated me, as you’ve always done. Can you honestly fool yourself into thinking I would have let that opportunity slide if it would have solved everything?


“I’ve wondered what would be the best way to get rid of you for a long time now and all I came up with was a bunch of unsatisfying ideas. You made my life so needlessly difficult, there had to be some way to make you feel what I’ve been suffering all these years, but a whole lot worse.


“To kill you with the gun, that would be too tacky. Pushing you off the building; not satisfying enough. Hell, I even considered having you framed for something that would result in your demise. Well, I couldn’t resist that last one as you’ll soon find out,”


He cupped his paw to his ear with a contented expression and let the screeching alarms fill the gap in the conversation for a little bit.


“But eventually it dawned on me, killing you wasn’t the answer, for the pain it created would be over after a few days, weeks, months depending on what I chose. Only something that would haunt you until the day you died would be good enough. So, to do that, I decided to destroy you in a place where the wound would never heal, your heart. “


All of a sudden things started to slot into place for Dane, and he now had a horrible idea of what was coming.


“That’s right, and I really wish I could stay here and wait for your inevitable outburst but you know, things to do and people to piss off. However, I just can't leave without making sure you've understood this properly, so let's not leave any misconceptions about just what happened here today. Are you ready? That girl you just murdered," He took one last deep breath and bared his teeth a final time. "She was your daughter."


Cam hit the emergency button almost straight away and the door snapped shut leaving Dane alone once more, with only his thoughts and an impending lock down for company.


NEXT CHAPTER: Chapter Four