The City Unseen, page 2
part #2 of The Unseen Series
The bridge was small and dark, perfect for a secret meeting. I had to duck under the concrete edges, as it was a footbridge, and was very low at this end. Underneath, the shadows were deep as midnight.
A car horn echoed out across the park from the overpass closer to the city. From here, skyscrapers towered above the trees, lights glaring from windows like eyes against the dark sky. I missed the stars. Back in Ettney, the sky was filled with them, but here only the brightest few remained, drowned out by the light pollution from street lamps and skyscrapers. The clouds covered the stars tonight, regardless, and reflected a dull orange from the city lights below.
In the distance, a man in a dark jacket scurried through the park, darting between the fig trunks and the shadows, a package cradled in his arms. There was something odd about his movements, but then Noah appeared and I turned my attention to him.
Noah looked older, even though it had only been six months since we’d first met. His hair was still cut short, but he’d let it go longer on the top and it was soaked. He wiped it out of his face. The wounds above his left eyebrow and on his cheek had healed, but the scars were still there, a testament to everything we’d been through. He smiled for a moment, then his brow creased.
“Were you followed?” he asked.
“Yeah, totally. I’m just standing here waiting for them to kill me,” I snarked.
“Alright, silly question. Why the emergency meeting, though?”
I told him about the girl who had attacked me.
He frowned. “Strange she had no backup. Operating alone isn’t Kindred style. It’s not Unseen style, either. There’s something else in play. I can put a description out to the intelligence network, but the chances of picking her up are pretty slim. We don’t have the same reach as the Kindred.”
“She’s probably eleven or twelve, darker skin,” I described. “She looked Indonesian, maybe? She wore black hoodie both times she attacked me, so I didn’t get a good look at her. Her clothes were dirty, though, so she might live on the street or in one of the poorer areas.”
Noah peered out into the rain. “Not much to go on, but I’ll pass it on.”
I paced around the tiny underpass, kicking up dust with my shoes.
“Speaking of the streets,” he said. “There’s been reports of children going missing. Not that anyone with power in this city really cares. That’s why I’m here - most of the missing persons reports are from Downtown. I’ve been here the last two nights, watching for anything strange.”
The idea of kidnapping made me shudder. Ever since Skye was taken, that sort of thing struck a deep chord in me.
Noah stepped forward a little. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask how you are. I’d be a bit twitchy after two murder attempts.”
I shrugged. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking, though.”
“I never meant to bring you in to all this,” he said, taking my hand in his. It was warm.
“I know.”
He paused for a moment. “Have you talked to Josh yet?”
I shook my head. “Not about that. I’m not ready. Sorry.”
“It’s okay, really. It’s just that—”
“Jamie?” someone called, and we both turned to see a woman stagger from one of the tents. “Has anyone seen my baby girl?” she cried, this time with more urgency.
More people came out of their tents, glancing around, shaking their heads.
Then the woman screamed her daughter’s name into the night, and suddenly I realised what the man had in his arms as he ran across the park. It hadn’t been a package. He was holding a baby.
TWO
“I saw the man who took her,” I blurted to Noah. “When I first got here.”
“Which way?” he asked, urgency in his voice.
I pointed the direction the man had run, towards the tree-line, and we set off across the park.
The rain, although light, had muddied up the ground, so our feet sloshed in the wet grass and leaves. Fortunately, it also meant the man had left footprints behind.
I crossed through the wrought iron gate that marked the entrance to Century Park. An imposing statue glared at me from the front of an old stone bank building across the street. The windows were boarded shut, like many in this part of the city.
I looked left, and then right, up to the ends of each street, to traffic lights that changed from red to green despite the deserted road. In the distance, a walk signal beeped, inviting the empty night to cross.
There was no sign of the man in either direction.
“We need to split up,” I told Noah.
“Great idea. That’s always such a safe move in horror films,” Noah smirked.
“We’re not exactly defenceless, though, are we?” I said, staring him down.
Noah nodded, and went right towards the harbour. I ran left, trying to keep my feet from making too much noise. If the man was Kindred, it was best I stayed to the shadows.
Graffiti covered each side of the street, coating boarded windows with obscene messages, mostly suggesting the government have an intimate relationship with itself. For all its small-town boredom, Ettney wasn’t like this.
Dead ahead, across the road from me, was a huge wrought-iron fence protecting an imposing brick and sandstone building. The Australian flag fluttered out front. Government House. A uniformed guard eyed me from a box behind the gate. The lights were on inside, so the State Parliament was still in session. Maybe the guard had seen something.
I approached casually, waving like a lost tourist.
The guard frowned.
“Hi,” I said, “Uh, I don’t know if you saw anyone come past here, but I’m looking for my friend. He’s tall-ish, holding a package. Any chance you’ve seen him?”
The guard shook his head and waved me on.
“Great, thanks for your help,” I muttered.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket. It was wet from the rain, but thankfully the Unseen made sure we had waterproof phones. The text was from Noah.
Found him. Sent you a pin. Approach quietly.
The phone buzzed again, and a screenshot of a map came up with a pin marking a spot three streets over. Eighteen Tymedale Street. I broke into a run now, rain whipping my face and trickling down my neck. After everything that happened with Skye, there was no way I was letting some random psycho take a lady’s kid.
A siren wailed somewhere in the distance. Normal people would call the cops in a situation like this, but not me. No chance, not after Hackman’s betrayal. The Kindred had wormed their way into positions of power across the world. Cops included. For all I knew, there were probably a bunch of them walking the halls of Government House behind me.
Tymedale Street was run down like all the others, although a few late-night sleaze shops still blared neon lights across the pavement. I followed Noah’s pin, slowing down as I neared number eighteen. The sign over the top read “Elements Gallery of Fine Arts.” Its windows were dark, in contrast to the glaring screens of the Channel Three television studio next door.
“Hey.” Noah‘s voice came from behind a large stone pillar in front of what might once have been a hotel, but was now a defunct wine bar. I joined him in the alcove. It stank of urine.
“He went in there,” Noah pointed to the gallery. “He had a key, so he owns it, or works there.”
I clenched my jaw and moved to cross the street, but Noah grabbed my arm. “How about we make a plan first?”
“Fine. But none of our options should involve leaving him alive.”
“Hey,” Noah frowned, and then his face softened. He sighed. “I know this gets to you. I get it, really. How do you think I feel every time I see someone out having coffee with their dad?”
I looked away, focusing on a cockroach on the pavement that was trying to tackle a scrap of bread.
Noah took my hand. “Don’t feel guilty about that. It was the only way.”
I shrugged and shook his hand away.
“I’m just saying we need to think this through. We can’t go in all guns blazing and get ourselves killed. Besides, he might not even have done anything wrong. He might not even have the kid. He could just be some random guy.”
“But—”
“Listen to me,” Noah snapped. “You really want to play mistaken identity again? That didn’t end so well last time.”
I clenched my fists and shut my eyes tight. My face went hot.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That wasn’t fair.”
Another siren wailed in the night. Maybe they were checking out the car fire I’d started.
“No, you’re right,” I said to Noah. “They’re all dead because of me. You’re right to be angry.”
Noah shook his head. “No, it’s not—”
“Skye, Josh, Rachel and everything that happened to her. Mum…” My stomach turned.
Taking my hand again, Noah looked into my eyes. “It’s not your fault. Let’s not focus on that right now. We’ve got to check out this gallery.”
I nodded.
“Also, it’s still really weird seeing you with green eyes,” he smiled, admiring my contacts.
I returned it, weakly. “They match yours.”
“They match each other,” he teased. “But I like your real eyes better.”
My chest felt lighter for a moment, then I turned my attention back to the dark gallery across the street. “Let’s do this.”
THREE
At the end of the road was a cross-street that linked to an access alley. On the way, I walked past the Channel Three building. The windows were filled with televisions broadcasting the same image; the Channel Three station feed. Right now it was a late-night rant from a bearded guy, who was shouting about something; probably immigrants judging by what I’d seen of him when I channel-flicked late at night. At least the televisions were on mute so I couldn’t hear him screaming at the world.
I crossed into the alley, which was a service road that ran behind the gallery. The alley was covered in huge, almost beautiful graffiti. Words and cartoon characters and tags formed an artwork that spoke to years of neglect. It was haunting, though, in its own way. A tribute to angry youth and street life formed over generations. Even the back of the Channel Three studio was covered in paint, sprayed with messages aimed mostly at their news division, a strange contrast to the shiny television screens and polished signage out front.
It only took us a few minutes of research on our phones to pull up photos of the area and piece together a map and a plan. Noah would vaporise the glass in the front gallery window and enter through the foyer. The security alarm shouldn’t be a problem, as it would be switched off if the man was inside.
The loading dock was at the back, and that was my way in. I’d picked up a few skills from the Unseen during induction; an intense three months of training that had covered espionage skills, things like hand-to-hand combat, tracking, and—fortunately for us—lock picking. I could have vaporized the lock but melting metal could be noisy, and we wanted to avoid alerting this guy that we were coming. So, I’d break in the old-fashioned way, using the multi-tool I kept in my pocket. I’d stolen my personal motto from the Scouts - ‘be prepared’. Except, of course, mine was less about surviving the wilderness and more about surviving a clandestine super-powered organisation with a doomsday fetish.
I’d had to grow up a lot in the past six months. I sighed. Had it really been that long? It was coming up on Mum’s birthday. Or what would have been her birthday.
I crouched down and wriggled the lockpick, carefully selecting each tumbler until the lock clicked. Then, I cracked open the dock access door. There was no-one inside. Stepping quietly through, I let the door click shut behind me.
The loading dock had a huge truck in it, a big white one with Blackwood Logistics written on the side in bold red lettering. My footfalls echoed in the space no matter how softly I stepped, so I took off my shoes and walked in my socks. The floor was cold. There were two doors on each side at the back. The dock was close to the Channel Three studios on the right, so maybe it was a shared space. I took the left door, which was unlocked.
The gallery was bigger than I’d expected, white walls stretching out in front of me. Garish artwork hung on the walls, huge monstrosities of colour and shape and texture. The one immediately to my left was titled The Death of the Martyr and featured a line-drawn image of an overweight naked man riding a panther out of a television.
Art was weird.
I stepped forward and froze. Straight ahead, there was someone staring at me. She didn’t move, so I stepped forward again, and she copied. I shook my head. Idiot. I was looking at a mirror. In big, hand painted letters around the gold edge of the mirror, the artwork said Which One of You is Real?
It was a good question, to be honest, even if the artwork was a little obvious. I stared at myself for a moment, despite the urgency of my situation. These eyes were strange on me, which was funny considering they looked normal to everyone else. Everything about me was different. I’d cropped my hair shorter, because it kept getting in the way during training and I’d finish a martial arts session looking like a ball of fur with legs. Something else was different, too; not just the eyes and hair. I looked darker, even darker than after the accident. Which one of me was real? The one before the Unseen, or after? The Ari from the vision — the one turning into Shadow in a city of blood, or the Ari who had once tried to burp the alphabet at preschool and instead threw up on her shoes?
There was something weird about the me in the mirror. I raised my hand, and the mirror me copied. Only, it was slightly slower. The mirror was a video screen, perhaps, operating on a time delay. I put my hand down, and the mirror me followed a fraction of a second later. It was weird, as if there were really two of us, split apart by the surface of the screen. It made me feel uncomfortable.
In the door behind the mirror me, something moved—a dark shadow sweeping across the wall. I turned to see if it was really behind me, but there was nothing. When I looked back at the mirror, the mirror me was back in sync with my movements. No delay anymore.
Weird.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and walked towards the mirror, despite the growing rock in my stomach. The question written on the mirror frame was threatening now.
Which One of You is Real?
Six months ago, I would have chalked my anxiety up to a bad cheeseburger, but not anymore. Now, I knew anything was possible, and this mirror was freaky as hell. I half expected the Ari in the mirror to change again, to stop following my movements, to reach through the glass and grab my throat, but she didn’t. Stepping around to the back of the mirror revealed nothing. For all appearances, it was an ordinary mirror.
A figure moved behind me, and I whipped around ready to fight.
“You all right?” asked Noah. “You don’t look so good.”
I relaxed, and nodded. “Yeah, fine.”
He grinned. “Well, if you’re done checking yourself out, we’ve got a weird art guy to hunt. Seriously, though, some of this art is freaky. There’s a painting at the front of a guy biting the head off a chicken.”
“Gross.” I should have told Noah about what I’d seen, but I couldn’t. Not after I’d had the vision of him lying on the street, bleeding to death from whatever I’d done. I couldn’t shake the fear in his eyes when I’d changed. Never, ever did I want to see that look again.
Noah pointed to the front of the gallery. “There’s a door behind the front desk, in the admin cupboard. I don’t know where it goes, but it feels like it’s meant to be private.”
“Great. Creepy secret room of a deranged art dealer. That’s not going to be disturbing at all.”
Noah grimaced. “You know, we haven’t entertained the possibility that this is actually just a normal, weird dude, and not a child stealing psychopath. If he catches us in here, I don’t want to hurt him.”
“You haven’t seen The Death of the Martyr yet.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” I thought back to the weird mirror. “But this guy isn’t normal, trust me.”
Noah led the way to the front of the building. We passed ever darker artwork on the way, which I tried to avoid looking at entirely. Not just because of the freaky mirror, either. Some of it was really explicit, and all of it was violent.
The admin room was basically empty, except for a big steel door that had a passcode.
“You or me?” Noah asked.
“You do it. I’m tired.”
I closed my eyes while Noah melted the door off its hinges, and then we dragged it to the side. Cold air wafted up from the basement, and snatches of laughter made their way up from below.
We descended the staircase. I still wasn’t wearing shoes, so I could walk silently. Noah’s feet were louder, but it didn’t matter. Whoever was in the basement, they were cheering noisily, and there were a lot of them.
Someone yelled “Welcome!” and I froze. They weren’t talking to me, surely. I stepped to the bottom of the stairs, standing just below the end of the stairwell. If I peeked my head around the corner, I would be able to see what was happening. Of course, they might see me, too. The noise died down, and a gravelly voice spoke.
“We have a new family member tonight, my children. This little one” —a baby whimpered— “has been saved from a life of poverty and crime. Her future is renewed. She has a loving family, now. She has a true home. And I know you will all welcome her with open arms.”
I peeked my head around the corner. The basement was huge and dingy, but liveable. In fact, it looked like a lot of people lived here. Beds and couches lay scattered around the floor. Nobody was facing me, but the gallery man stood at the front of a large group. He was in his mid-thirties, with a thin face and blonde, wispy hair. His eyes were a piercing blue, and he oozed charisma. He was still wearing the dark jacket I’d seen at the park. It was definitely the same guy.
