Chapter 12: Battle on the Docklands (part 3 of 3)

  When Aoife Griffin saw the giant body of Mr Rockford collapse onto the edge of the river bank under the weight of... a churning cloud of darkness, her only thought was that she needed to summon her heat. What she would do with it or how she would engage with the shapeless Malady that had once been Aunt Cara's Samson—her mind hadn't extended that far. All she knew was that she was at her most powerful and capable when the heat burned and filled her body, so she Reducted, though she didn't have the name for it.

  Then a column of water rose behind her, and her first instinct was to cower away, wary that it had been some fresh threat. But she soon realized that she could sense the water—its shape, its moving parts, the constant and myriad joining and breaking apart of its components. The realization was accompanied by the conviction that she held mastery, that just as she could direct the flow of heat through her bloodstreams, she could also tell this column of water where to go... and how fast.

  Focusing everything she could muster on the singular desire to get the cloud of darkness as far away from Mr Rockford as possible, Aoife willed her water to drive itself toward the Samson-thing with as much force as she could imagine. The result was much more effective—and spectacular—than she could have dreamed of.

  The shock of this unfamiliar manoeuvre broke her concentration and she felt the heat die down inside her. With it the water too shrank back and washed over Mr Rockford's supine body before splashing down the sharp slope of the river bank. What had just happened? Was this a new addition to her repertoire of blood tricks or something else entirely that was also beyond her comprehension?

  Before she had a chance to appraise the situation, the thing that was Samson jumped up to its feet, its fur drenched and dripping. It unleashed another scream, even more fearsome and ear-splitting than the first, and what passed for its tail fanned itself into a radial shape like the spokes of a wheel. The tail began to gyrate rapidly and, instantly, its fur stood on end again as water droplets exploded off its body.

  Aoife felt the air before her rise in temperature, and watched in horror as the black cloud flared anew, shooting out from the base of the tail and quickly enveloping the rest of the Samson-thing's body. Its red eyes were now fixed on Aoife, and she knew it would come for her at any moment. She braced herself, trying to recall her heat, but found a strange numbness within her, as though her blood had stopped flowing in their tracks.

  The Malady's eyes shifted. Something else had caught its attention, something or someone else coming in from the side. A shock of bouncing auburn hair, a lithe figure crouched into a low tackle. Clodagh dashed in from nowhere and clattered into the beast, knocking it off its feet and sending it tumbling toward a gaggle of Carmichael's men who scurried out of the way.

  Clodagh did not stop there, instead continuing her dash toward the beast. As shocked as Aoife was by the turn of events, she was also mystified by her sister's strange appearance. A luminescent sheen seemed to coat Clodagh's hair and exposed skin, one that seemed to reflect moonlight, and it made her face and arms stand out against her clothes.

  For several terrifying seconds, Clodagh wrestled and scrapped with the snarling Malady, parrying its swipes with surprising strength and agility. She also managed to pummel the beast with her own fists wherever she could find purchase—the face, the neck, the shoulders. Then the Samson-thing let out a frustrated snarl and... burst into flames. The Malady was covered in a dark cloud again but instead of smoke, this was fire—tongues of black mixed with white and blue—and it set Clodagh aflame where she stood.

  "NOOOOO!"

  Aoife screamed and snapped into action. Suddenly, her Magic was back with a vengeance. Pain erupted within her chest as her heart pulsed with the force of a rumbling mountain. Miniscule yet powerful explosions of heat cascaded through her bloodstreams. As if in answer, twisting streams of water rose from the Thames and wrapped themselves around her legs, arms, and torso. Not just the river... invisible and insensible droplets of water were pulled into being from the atmosphere and joined their brethren to clothe Aoife in rain, in flood, and in squall.

  Tempest incarnate, Aoife Griffin raced toward the dark flames that held her sister. She reached in blindly, ignoring the searing sensation as her liquid armour turned the fire back into black smoke. Her hands found and grabbed hold of Clodagh's waist and she pulled, twisting away from the Malady and tackling her sister onto the ground. Then with one more mighty surge of heat within her, she pressed all of her water into a foaming ball of concentrated rainstorm and drove it into the smoking beast.

  There came a heavy crunch as the Malady crashed into one of the containers at speed. It slid to the ground, fur once again soaked and its smoke dissipating.

  Aoife quickly turned toward her sister, fearing the worst. Clodagh lay on her side, not having moved from where Aoife had pushed her down. Parts of her clothes had been singed off and the strange luminescent sheen had become more prominent. Incredibly, much of the exposed skin looked unscathed. Aoife's eyes fell on her sister's cheek where a patch of skin did look to be angry red and blistering. Then she watched with equal parts amazement and alarm as the skin appeared to fold in on itself, the damaged layers falling away harmlessly to be replaced by healthy shining skin. Soon, even the strange glow faded, and before Aoife lay the unlit and unmoving body of her sister.

  "Clodagh?" she bent down and shook the body, and felt immense relief as her sister frowned and let out a weak moan. Her relief was short-lived, as in the next moment, a man's voice rang out.

  "Watch out!"

  This was followed by a vicious snarl that had become far too familiar tonight. Aoife turned labouriously, knowing that she didn't have much left to give in this struggle—if she had anything left at all.

  The Malady—black smoke once again billowing from its body—bore down on the sisters, fangs glistening. It looked no worse for wear even after Aoife had thrown at it everything she had. Its steps were just as swift and robust as when the fight had begun, its red eyes just as tormented and intent on murder.

  Aoife searched for kindling within herself, and found she could barely move any part of her body let alone summon Magic. There was nothing left to do other than kneel as she did, keeping herself between the Malady and her sister. If nothing else, it would buy some time as the beast went through her first...

  A lanky towheaded figure leapt into the frame, putting himself in the path of the charging Malady. Seth Marlowe now stood in front of Aoife, arms held up in the boxer's stance, shielding her from the attack. She realized dully that he had been the one to yell the warning. The Malady did not slow or change course as it leapt.

  Marlowe sagged as the beast crashed into him but he remained standing. For one brief and confused moment, it looked from Aoife's position that the two of them were grappling, jostling for purchase on each other. But when she saw the Malady twist away from Marlowe with a savage motion, when she heard the nauseating crunch of flesh and bone, and when she felt a spray of warm liquid splatter onto her face, she understood with abject terror what had actually happened.

  The Malady landed, holding in its jaw what used to be Marlowe's forearm and hand. Simultaneously, Marlowe dropped to his knees, staring at his right arm that had been torn off at the elbow. Then and only then did he scream—a fearful forlorn sound that died off almost as soon as it filled the night air. He sank into the ground, now pressing the bleeding stump toward himself and moaning pitifully.

  Aoife wanted to reach over and help but she wasn't even sure she could stand. The Malady wasn't done yet. It spat out Marlowe's disembodied arm without ceremony, satisfied that this threat had been taken care of. It turned its red and still hungering eyes back on Aoife.

  Mr Rockford, Clodagh, and now Seth Marlowe. They had all fallen before the Malady and Aoife herself now knelt, unable to summon the energy to keep fighting. After all this, she was about to lose—herself and those she cared about soon to fall prey to the relentless monster before her.

  Lying awake in a pitch-black room. Wood creaking. Coughs and sniffles, most of them distant, some uncomfortably close. The smell of mold and dried vomit, inescapable. Then she hears it. A gentle rush of air, rising and falling. Rhythmic. Hypnotic. Her mother is asleep beside her. The sound joins those of her sisters and brothers around them. The chorus of her sleeping family. On a ship full of strangers, headed to a strange land. Yet in this moment, all is well. All is calm.

  But there's a new sound. Heavy footsteps, getting louder until it stops near her head. She opens her eyes and all she sees is darkness. No. There's something else. A shadow—cast without light and overimposed on the darkness—stands over the girl and her family. She follows the shadow to its origin and looks into its gaunt pale face. A mirthless smile. Eyes darker than night itself. This is the monster that will tear her family apart.

  The girl is calm. For she knows, and feels the knowledge flowing through every conduit within her body. She was put here to protect her family. If not her, then who? Driven by a serene conviction, Aoife Griffin retrieves the knife placed under the bedroll...

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  She saw the change before she felt it. The world in front of her momentarily dissolved, then was submerged in translucent mist. The mist seemed to retain its own light, and gave shape to the cloud of darkness that faced her down. The black smog vanished in an instant, unveiling the bristling beast underneath. But unlike earlier when it had been pelted by Aoife's ball of rainstorm, the Malady's fur had dried completely, rendering its appearance to that of an overlarge black dog. Even its countenance, once twisted in pain and fury, had now softened to one of hesitant bewilderment.

  Then Aoife became aware of fire and water. The two distinct essences of her being that had at once been drawn from and projected into the surrounding air, they now concurrently combined and repelled in an ouroboric dance. The fire agitated the droplets in the air and in turn, the water cooled the steam into mist. It was a state of boundless energy and uncanny balance born of the clarity of her mind and sustained by the certitude in her heart.

  She soon sensed also the reaches of her new power. Clodagh moved behind her, and Aoife could feel the consciousness returning to her sister. The mist extended to the edge of the river bank where Mr Rockford lay, and he too stirred with rising strength. And Seth Marlowe—the miserable fool—still knelt clutching at his stump. The bleeding seemed to slow, yet Aoife understood that there were injuries and loss even her mist couldn't repair.

  Then she returned her focus to the Malady, only to find that somehow—incredibly—it was no longer a threat. It stood rooted to the spot where it had spat out Marlowe's arm, its haunches lowered and shoulders relaxed. The red eyes still pointed to Aoife but they had lost their vicious glint. They were the attentive eyes of a dog searching for a fresh curiosity or awaiting a command. They were... Samson's eyes.

  Aoife stood, her legs shaking with the effort of maintaining the mist—the cyclic dance of fire and water. Doubt started to creep back in. She had no way of knowing how exactly she had effected this change in the air, let alone for how long she could keep it up. What would happen to those docile red eyes once the mist dispersed? Had she done enough to quell the beast for good? Then another thought occurred to her. Maybe if I could touch it, I could feel what's going on inside, like when I share my warmth with Ma. Anxious to reach a resolution before she lost hold of her mist, she took a tentative step toward the almost-Samson.

  A fiendish screech pierced the air and drilled into Aoife's amplified senses. She shut her eyes and staggered, her hands shooting to her ears. The mist dissipated instantaneously, the particles of fire and water fading back to inertia. Then the screech resolved into laughter—cackling, maniacal, inhumanly shrill. Aoife knew what she'd witness even before she opened her eyes.

  Art Carmichael—face blazing with delirium and bones shaking with laughter—straddled the Malady. He had dug a knee into the beast's neck, pinning it to the ground, and he held the top of its head with one hand. His other hand, reaching back with a freakishly long arm, grasped the multitudinous tendrils of the Maladous tail at its base. The hateful torment had returned to the Malady's snarling face, as it wrestled against Carmichael's stranglehold.

  Laughter unremitting, the monster in human skin crouched lower toward the black beast before straightening with a sudden jerking motion. The Malady howled, a wail of agony that was accompanied by a final violent eruption of black smoke. The smoke cleared quickly, and when it did, Carmichael stood over the twitching beast. From his hands, which still shook with laughter, hung the severed tail. The tail bobbed in the air as though tethered by weight, and Aoife caught a glimpse of a glistening fleshy sphere at its base.

  Then the beast's howl faded to a whimper, and Aoife realized with a start that the sound no longer belonged to a Malady. Before her eyes, the black bristling fur turned back to light grey, the goat horns withered into obscurity, and the eyes' red glare dulled before they hid once again within a sheepdog's shaggy mops. The thing that eventually pounced to his feet and ran back to Aoife's side was Samson himself, sporting a bloodied stub where his bobtail used to be. He resumed his nervous growling aimed at Carmichael, now of his own volition. Samson stood by the Griffin sisters, clearly still willing to put up a fight.

  "Aoife!"

  Clodagh too had recovered the strength to stand, and now sidled up to Aoife. Her mysterious glow was well and truly gone now, and though she still looked somewhat dazed, she showed no visible injuries. Whatever the cost had had been, Samson and now Clodagh were on their feet and back by Aoife's side—but for how long? The trio closed in tighter on one another, and each of them turned wary eyes toward Carmichael.

  The racketeer was doubled over and heaving as his laughter trailed off, his arms bent at strange angles as he clutched at his knees. Aoife had never seen him like this—agitated, unrestrained, vulnerable. Somehow, this display of unmanufactured emotion made him even more repulsive. Then his head shot up abruptly and Aoife found herself staring into madness—slick hair fallen out of place, black eyes bulging against the pallor, and the corners of his mouth upturned in savage triumph. When he spoke, his usual tenor had taken on a raspy quality.

  "Aoife Griffin!" his opening exclamation was a continuation of the screeching laughter, harsh and piercing. "I knew you wouldn't let me down! My oh my, what a show that was. And your sister too! That was something else. I congratulate you both, and offer my utmost gratitude for letting me bear witness to your rare gifts."

  Even in his frenzied state, he didn't abandon the circuitous doublespeak that meant nothing to anyone but him. Aoife felt her unease grow, especially at the mention of her sister.

  "You got what you wanted then?" she spat, hoping to cut through the self-serving ramblings and steer the conversation to its end. She should have been angry. Angry at being toyed with in Carmichael's sick games. She, her sister, and Mr Rockford had all nearly killed themselves, and for what? In the end, Carmichael was willing and able to end the fight himself, as easily as he had started it. And Marlowe... poor miserable Marlowe. Aoife wanted to be angry but instead, she felt only weariness. All she wanted to do was to get as far away from this man as possible. "Our deal's done? We can go?"

  Carmichael's face transformed again in an instant, and the effect was something Aoife would never have expected. His lips flattened, his brow turned up, and his now sombre eyes were cast in the vaguely bluish hue of moonlight—the word that came to Aoife's mind was... melancholy. And for the first time since she met this man—or whatever he was in truth—she felt a kind of morbid kinship, and the beginnings of a sympathetic sorrow bubbled in the depth of her being.

  "I've come to learn that you wear many faces," Carmichael rasped, though more softly. Aoife understood implicitly that this 'you' was a collective, the subject of his musings on every other soul on the planet. "Hunters. Healers. Painters. Generals. Murderers. Most iterations of you bore me, if I'm being frank. Can't fathom how any of it is worth the blood and tears you seem so eager to shed. But you do have one face that has a special place in my heart. One that I've found to be your purest and most... inspiring self. It's the one you wear when you yearn for, fight for freedom. Alas, if only that beautifully indomitable spirit hadn't been at the very heart of our carnage...

  "I haven't got what I wanted, Aoife Griffin. Not yet. But tonight, you and your sister have helped to shed more light. More and more, I can see clearly what must be done. And you're going to help me achieve it."

  These words woke Aoife from her fleeting madness. She watched in alarm as Carmichael beckoned to his men. Shadowy figures began to close in, albeit with hesitant steps.

  But Souness was at their forefront and the Dragoon's steps, though unhurried, were absent doubt or caution. Aoife felt Clodagh tense beside her, and she herself braced for a last stand. Whatever heat she had left in her, whatever help the droplets in the air could offer, she must expend and beseech all of it. But would her everything even be enough? Beyond the advancing figure of Souness, Aoife's nemesis fixed her with a triumphant grin.

  Suddenly, the night sky lit up with an orange glow. This was followed by deafening bangs, seemingly from all directions at once, then walls of flames shot up in a ring, surrounding their entire group. The stacks of containers let out loud creaking sounds as they exploded and collapsed. Unlike the fire that had covered the Samson-thing earlier, these flames were of the familiar bright red. Then a mighty gust of wind blew in from nowhere and enveloped everything in front of Aoife in thick grey smoke. Souness and the rest of the men disappeared behind the cloud.

  Aoife looked around in confusion and found that she could still see Clodagh and Samson clearly. She also noticed that she wasn't breathing in fumes. Then another familiar figure emerged from the fire. Lucy Tao limped toward them, the smoke and flames in her path clearing out to give her a wide berth.

  "Come on!" her great-aunt yelled, waving at them frantically. "I can't keep this up for long. Let's move!"

  The two sisters wordlessly ran toward Lucy. Aoife looked back once to check that Samson bounded obediently behind them. They followed Lucy through a chaotic pile of burning debris, but the fire parted for them as they fell in behind their great-aunt.

  Soon they emerged on the other side of the burning ring. Lucy grimaced and kept her eyes pointed forward as she ran as fast as her leg would allow her.

  "Quickly now," she panted without looking back. "We need to put as much distance behind us as we can, before they figure a way out."

  But even as Lucy said this, Aoife saw a man emerge atop the burning rubble beside them. The slight and bare-chested figure of Souness, having now doffed his cloak, jumped off the wall of fire and landed lightly in front of them, trailing sparks of flame as he did. He looked up, his sunken eyes finding Aoife. She instinctively pushed Clodagh away from her, willing the Dragoon to focus on her alone and hoping against hope that her sister would run on without her.

  Then a part of the fiery wall broke apart with a roaring crash, and out came the mass of inflated muscles that was Mr Rockford. Much of his clothes had burnt away. Fresh scorch marks peppered his skin, including the angry pink that covered his baton hand. His left arm hung limply by his side, the lower half of it now covered with a grotesque coal-like texture. When his deranged eyes found Souness, he roared and charged, brandishing his baton in quick tight arcs. The Dragoon had no choice but to dance away from the attacks, and the blacksmith closed in, pushing his adversary away from the family and back toward the wall of fire.

  "Go!" he bellowed without slowing his barrage. Aoife hesitated for just a second before Clodagh tugged forcefully at her arm, pulling her back onto their escape route.

  "Come on!" Clodagh shouted, and Aoife heard the distinct quiver in her sister's voice. "We can't let this chance go to waste!"

  So they ran. Away from the fire, away from Souness, and away from Carmichael.

  The farther they got from the rubble, the faster and smoother Lucy's movement appeared to become, and Aoife herself started to feel slightly stronger, seeming to draw energy from some unseen source around her. The four of them covered ground more quickly, and turned toward the dark shapes and buildings that littered the docks.

  They were now far enough away that the only sounds Aoife could hear were their own footsteps and heavy breathing. She turned as she ran, looking back toward the nightmare one last time.

  In the distance, the flames raged as a bonfire, its orange glow reflected on the surface of the river. She could no longer make out Souness or Mr Rockford, but one figure stood outside the ring, his thin skeletal frame forming an eerie shadow against the fire. There was no doubt in her mind that he was watching her go. Then for one fleeting moment, Aoife saw, as clearly as if he were in front of her face—a mirthless smile, and eyes that were darker than night itself.