The Last Raven: An Urban Fantasy Noir (Riftborn Book 1), page 13
“The FBI weren’t sharing intel about them,” Dan said. “That’s pretty much all I know about it. It had been an FBI investigation before their deaths, and we were just there to help. You still think it was a setup, and you’re still going to keep kicking over rocks until you find something.”
“That’s about the size of it,” I said.
Dan’s arm appeared from under the blanket, a phone attached. “You mind if I take this?” He asked. “It’s a . . . lady friend of mine.”
“A lady friend?” I asked with a chuckle. “I’ll see you back at your room.”
I left the roof and walked down the stairs to the floor where Dan’s room was. I pushed open the doors and stepped into the carnage inside. The three nurses in the station were all dead; two slumped in their chairs and one on the station itself; it looked like she’d tried to get away. All three had been stabbed; the two seated had their throats cut from behind, the third repeatedly stabbed in the back.
I dropped to a crouch and moved around the room, pushing each door open to check for hidden attackers, or survivors. I made it all the way around to Annie’s room, opened the door and stepped inside. She was dead. Shot twice in the head, once in the heart.
I left the room as Dan walked through the door.
“Dan,” I whispered, waving him over.
“What the hell happened here?” He asked.
“No idea,” I said. “No guards, and Annie is dead.” I turned back to the room as pain laced my back.
“I got them to let you live,” Dan whispered in my ear as he stabbed me again and pushed me down to the floor.
Two men and a woman walked into the room, all of whom I’d thought were RCU agents.
“What?” I asked.
“When the Ravens died,” Dan said pleadingly, “I asked them to keep you alive. And you wasted it by coming here and involving yourself in something that you had no business in. Four years, Lucas; four years you were away, and you could have just stayed away.”
“You got them to let me live?” I asked, the pain in my body almost unbearable, my words barely above a whisper.
“You should have stayed away,” Dan said, this time a little sadder. “You always wanted to be the hero, Lucas. Well, heroes die and are forgotten. Just ask the Ravens.”
One of the guards gave Dan a gun. “Unfortunately, the gun lost its rift-tempered charge after it shot Annie,” he said. “But seeing how you’re human, I guess it doesn’t really matter.”
Dan shot me twice in the chest, and the world around me went dark.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Five Years Ago
Day seven in the stay at Netley Asylum had started the same as every other day. A guard had arrived at my cell. He’d woken me, told me to get ready to see Dr Mitchell. I’d done as I’d been told. But today was different. Today was meant to be the day I got out of this piece-of-crap prison where torturing and experimentation on innocent people appeared to be all they did.
The guard had informed me that Dr Mitchell was waiting in the garden to see me. That was new.
He shoved me into the hallway and marched me down it, continuing on to a set of double doors beneath flickering lights.
He unlocked the door with a swipe of his ID against the black card reader, and pushed one of them open, motioning for me to go through.
We walked down the stone staircase to the gravel path below. The rear of the building was divided into two, with one half being for patients and the other for staff. A fifty-foot fence separated them both, a thick line of fir trees on either side, presumably to hide the fence. I once wondered if anyone had ever climbed the trees to try and get over, but the barbed wire top of the fence made a successful climb all but impossible.
A gazebo sat at the far end of the path, beside several flower patches, the colourful petals standing out against the gravel and vast amount of green grass.
“You will behave yourself,” the guard whispered into my ear, although the wind that whipped across the island made him only just audible.
When I reached the edge of the gazebo, the guard grabbed my shoulder, digging his fingers into the flesh, making me wince as he held me in place.
When my task was complete, I was going to burn this place to the goddamned ground.
“Mr Rurik,” Dr Mitchell said casually, looking up from her cushion-strewn seat inside the gazebo. She placed the book she’d been reading on the seat beside her.
“Doctor,” I said as respectfully as the bile in my body would allow. I’d spent seven days in her company and knew she honestly believed that she was going to usher in a new age of mankind, but in reality, she was just a psychopath with a fancy degree.
“You can leave us,” Dr Mitchell said to the guard dismissively.
I leaned up against the gazebo entrance and crossed my arms over my chest.
Dr Mitchell smiled at me, although it wasn’t one of humour. She turned around and reached under the seat, retrieving the Raven Guild medallion that I’d seen when I’d first arrived.
“Do you know what this is?” She asked me.
“It belonged to a Guild of murdered men and women,” I said.
Dr Mitchell turned the medallion around in her hands and stared at it. “Is it yours?”
“No,” I said.
“You are not just a reporter,” Dr Mitchell said. “I’ve read the online accounts of your work but, Mr Rurik, there’s something else you’re hiding. You’re human, we have chained revenants who work for us so would have known if you were anything else, but there’s something about you . . .”
When faced with no good options to say, I remained silent.
“Do you find that odd?” She asked.
“That there’s ‘something about me’?” I asked. “No, I get that a lot.”
Dr Mitchell chuckled with genuine humour for the first time. “I’m so pleased you get to document how we’re going to change the world with my control over these creatures.”
“They’re not creatures. You torture and murder people,” I said. “You turn animals into fiends to do your bidding. You are, and I can’t stress the use of this word enough, nuts.”
Before she could answer, there was a crash from behind me. I turned as pieces of brick, plaster, and concrete rained down over the lawn. A horned revenant burst out of the wall of the asylum, its dark grey skin cracked with red like the power inside was trying to escape. Each of the revenant’s hands were the size of my head, and it tore into the soft earth where it landed. A horn jutted out of each temple; I knew from previous experience that they were razor sharp and would make short work of anything they hit. The revenant stared at us for several seconds before it screamed in incandescent rage.
“Looks like you don’t have as much control as you think you do,” I said.
Dr Mitchell didn’t even move. She showed no sign of being concerned that the creature had escaped. The horned revenant charged toward us, with hoof-like feet ripping apart the earth as it built up speed. It didn’t get halfway before a bullet slammed into the back of its head, removing a portion of the revenant’s skull and depositing it, along with part of its brain, on the lawn.
One of the guards on the ramparts above lowered their rifle as the revenant crashed to the ground.
“What a waste,” Callie said with a sharp tut. “Now we have to get a new rift-tempered gun. Can’t risk it failing.”
I didn’t trust myself to say anything, so looked away, noticing a dot in the far distance of my vision. A tiny blip in an otherwise-spotless horizon. Good.
Dr Mitchell turned the medallion over. “They’re not inscribed with a name,” she said, as if we hadn’t just witnessed the murder of one of her patients. “Is that unusual?”
“That revenant wanted to kill you,” I said. “Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Bother me?” Dr Mitchell asked. “It happens. Rift-fused need control. And I aim to give them the control they need.”
“Or give it to someone else to control them,” I said.
“Or both,” Dr Mitchell countered. “If we can harness their power, the power of the rift, we could stop sickness, could heal. It could stop death.” There was definite zealotry in her voice.
“And all it takes is a little torture and murder,” I snapped. “You’re just like every other Frankenstein with a God complex.”
“God? God is nothing. His vision was flawed,” she hissed. “It was broken from the start. I aim to do better than God.”
The dot on the horizon was now visibly a helicopter, and it was coming in fast. I wondered if the guards on the island had seen it.
I looked over to the side of the land where the gazebo sat, to a set of steps that led down to the dock I’d initially arrived at. I contemplated snatching the medallion and whether I’d make it there before the sniper on the roof saw me. Turning my head, I looked over at the closest guard tower. It seemed empty.
“Are you thinking about escaping?” Dr Mitchell asked with an amused smirk.
I looked back at her. “My options are to write this ridiculous piece you want from me to tell you how amazing you are and prove how good I am, so I can be forced to stay by your side and essentially write the biography of a psychopath. Or die.”
Dr Mitchell laughed again. “I have enjoyed our little chats, but it’s nice to see that after seven days of being here, you have finally decided to show your true character. You’re feistier than I expected.”
“Happy to exceed expectations,” I said with a sigh.
“You could jump off the back of this compound if you really wanted to run,” she told me casually. “There are jagged rocks, and near-freezing water, so you might live a few moments before dying there. Have you written the piece I asked?”
“Not yet,” I told her. I’d been given an old typewriter to do the work on, but even though Dr Mitchell wanted me to write the facts as I saw them, I wasn’t sure she’d have been thrilled about the fact that I’d seen nothing but horror since the moment I’d arrived.
“I’ll give you a few more days,” Dr Mitchell said. “Then I will judge your work.”
“I’ll try not to disappoint,” I told her.
“You haven’t yet,” Dr Mitchell said. “I will figure out exactly what you are, Lucas. You can’t hide it forever. Take some time out here; maybe you’ll get some inspiration.”
I watched her walk down the gravel path, the door to the building opening when she was nearly there, and the guard exited. They had a brief chat and she disappeared inside the building, while the guard continued on toward me.
There was a slight muffled sound somewhere in the distance, and the guard’s face exploded as he fell to the ground before he was halfway to me.
Half a dozen soldiers in black ran up the stairs, five of them heading toward the main building as the helicopter hovered directly above me.
It flew over the building and vanished from view. Chinook HC6.
One of the soldiers came over to me, his suppressed MP5 moving from side to side, tracking for anyone who might be a threat.
“Took your time,” I told Isaac.
“Hey, you said seven days,” he said with a grin. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Thanks for coming, Isaac. I need to get the hell out of here. Gonna go to the doctor’s office first; I want her in restraints.”
Isaac stared at me, his expression hidden by his mask. He just nodded once in reply as gunfire erupted across the compound.
I ran toward the hospital, the sounds of gunfire ricocheting all around the hallway as I sprinted through the set of doors leading inside. The noise of the fighting only increased as I barged into Dr Mitchell’s office and found it to be empty. One of the windows was open, but no Dr Mitchell.
I screamed in frustration and threw the computer monitor through one of the closed windows, shattering it, before tipping over the desk a moment later.
I’d lied to Isaac. I was not okay.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Now
I sat up in a longhouse with a mist-covered floor. The large wooden tables were laden with food, although there was no one around eating it. No animals, either. It was sometimes like this, and sometimes there were people there, laughing and joking about dying and all the horrific things they’d done when they were alive.
This wasn’t Heaven—or Hell. I was in my embers. So, thankfully, I wasn’t dead.
The embers took pieces of your memories and jumbled them all up before twisting them into some kind of abomination of your memory. The village I found myself in was a combination of places I’d grown up in, a mismatch of architectural styles throughout the years before I’d become riftborn.
Anything that had been alive when the memory was made were now shadows, going about their lives as if nothing was wrong but basically ignoring me unless I interacted with them. Until night, anyway. Night was when everything changed, and you had a whole lot to worry about.
A stag walked into the longhouse, its impressive antlers matching those of several animals whose heads hung on the walls of the building.
I sighed. “You know it would be much quicker if the exit was right here.”
“Tough shit,” the deer said, its small fluffy tail flicking from side to side.
“Maria?” I asked.
The stag nodded.
Despite there being flowers, fruit, food, and a host of other things that you’d smell during a normal day, there were no smells in the embers. It often surprised me how strange that was. You don’t realise just how many background scents there are in your life until there’s nothing at all.
“It has been a long time,” Maria said.
Maria was an eidolon. Every embers had two—mine were Casimir and Maria. Both were separate—but they shared memories and knowledge. They were, in reality, neither male nor female, despite the names given to them. Essentially, I’d had to name them when I’d first arrived over two thousand years ago, and the names were permanent, but beyond that I had no control over them. Eidolons were, for want of a better term, the groundskeepers of the embers. They made sure that nothing harmful arrived—nothing that wasn’t already there, anyway—and when something occasionally did arrive, they either dealt with it or notified me of the problem. Apart from that, eidolons generally lived their existence in whatever way eidolons did. It had been five years since I’d last come back to the embers, of my own free will, and nearly twenty since I’d been forced to return due to serious injury. I tried not to make a habit of the latter.
Time moved differently in the embers. The more injured I was when entering, the more time passed on Earth and the rift before I could leave healed. It didn’t feel like much time at all, but it meant staying the night, which was dangerous. It also meant I had no way of knowing just how much time would have gone by when I returned; could be a few days, or a few months, or in one particular unpleasant episode where almost my entire body was broken, and I’d lost so much blood I wasn’t sure I’d had any left, a whole year. Getting shot and stabbed was probably not going to be a quick visit.
“It’s good to see you,” I told Maria, who transformed into an eagle and flew onto the head of a nearby chair, stretching out their massive wingspan.
“You were missed,” Maria told me.
“Thank you,” I said. “How are you and Casimir doing?”
“We have tended to your embers,” Maria said, turning into a huge black wolf and following me out of the longhouse.
The sky above was a mass of swirling colour as dark grey mixed with streaks of brilliant blue and yellow. It reminded me of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. It was simultaneously beautiful and foreboding, as if the tempest from the rift was trying to break though.
The street beyond the longhouse had the same swirling mist over the ground, and the houses that I’d once seen stand proud and colourful were now falling apart, their roofs collapsed, their walls in disarray.
“You cut yourself off,” Maria said.
“It wasn’t deliberate.” I said. “This happened because I didn’t come here?”
“The power that flowed from here into you had nowhere to go,” Maria explained. “So, it started to feed on itself.”
Maria and I walked through the village. The only way out of the embers was to either breach the perimeter of it or to find the door that would let you either into the rift or back into normality.
“Why would you hobble yourself in such a manner?” Maria asked eventually.
I looked over at where a blacksmith had once lived, the inferno of the furnace something I’d remembered long after the village had gone. Now the furnace pumped out more mist, and the blacksmith’s shadow worked methodically on a sword that would never be finished.
“I didn’t mean to make it permanent,” I told Maria, turning away. “Something went wrong. I think having to wear that damn second-skin suit short-circuited my ability to access the embers.”
“And now you need your power back,” Maria said.
I nodded. “I need to get out of here, into the rift. I need to figure out how to restart my power.”
“And you know someone who can help you do that, I assume?”
I nodded.
“Fucking hell, Lucas,” Maria said after a moment’s silence between us. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking. She’s . . . not exactly what you might call . . .”
“Neb is not insane,” I said. “Neb is . . . unique.”
“That depends on what day of the week it is. Neb spent too long in her own embers,” Maria said. “Her mind is fractured because of it.”
“And she’s still the smartest person I know,” I said.
“Might need to change first, then,” Maria said, nudging me in the side with their nose.
I looked down at the ruined T-shirt and removed it, showing the two bullet holes in my chest. The bullets would have been pushed out of me while I arrived there, leaving both entrance and exit wounds that would close over time. I couldn’t die there, but I could be forced to stay longer because I was too weak to leave.
