The Last Raven: An Urban Fantasy Noir (Riftborn Book 1), page 5
Getting ready, I realised there was another emotion inside that I’d tried not to think about. I was excited. I was looking forward to getting back to my old life and doing something I was good at.
Within an hour, there was a buzz on the intercom, the video screen showing me a man of about forty with military-styled hair, wearing a black suit that could probably use being let out a bit.
“Lucas Rurik?” the man asked, his accent placing him from somewhere in the South. “Isaac Gordon called in a favour to take you to the airport.”
I grabbed my bag, made sure I had a jacket, hat, scarf, and my phone. In my haste, I’d almost forgotten about the cane, and when I picked it up, it felt heavier than usual. Gabriel was the one who had given me the idea of needing a cane, of always having a weapon with me, disguised as an innocuous walking aid. He’d also been the one to suggest keeping my beard and long hair. Isaac and Gabriel had worked with me to remove me from a life that was quickly taking me down a path of darkness. A life I’d managed to stay away from for four years and was about to burst back into. I rested the cane up against the sideboard. I wasn’t going to need to pretend to be something I wasn’t anymore.
The black BMW SUV was parked on the street in front of my apartment building. The driver’s door opened and the large man from the video screen got out, opening the rear passenger door.
“Thanks,” I said getting into the SUV and buckling up. “Did Isaac tell you what’s going on?”
“Sorry,” the man said. “All I know is I’m meant to drive you to the airport.”
Upon arriving, I was directed to a Gulfstream G550. The interior of the plane was pretty luxurious. The eight seats were all made of cream-coloured leather, and there were two long couches at the rear of the jet, just in front of where the cabin staff would normally sit, next to a small—even by airplane standards—bathroom.
The flight took about an hour and we landed in Rochester, where a black Chevrolet Suburban was waiting for me. Its driver—a young man who looked like he’d only recently graduated from college—stood outside of the car, waiting for me.
“The Rochester office said you needed to go to Hamble,” the driver said to me as I settled into the rear of the SUV.
“That’s what I was told,” I said. “Any update about what happened?”
“Above my pay grade,” the driver said as we set off.
As before, I dozed off to sleep, only waking up when the driver called my name.
“We’re at the hospital,” he said.
“Thanks,” I told him, opening the car door and stepping outside into the hospital drop-off bay.
“Bloody hell,” I said, wrapping my coat around me as I fumbled with my leather gloves and tried to remove a wool hat from my pocket at the same time.
I looked up at the ten-storey hospital and felt real fear for the first time in years. Fear for my friends. Fear about how I was going to explain my sudden reappearance.
“Lucas,” a familiar voice shouted.
I looked over at the hospital entrance where Gabriel Santiago waved at me. He looked almost identical to how I’d last seen him, except his hair was shorter and he no longer had a beard. He wore a long black coat, and a blue-and-gold clerical band around his bicep. Church of Tempered Souls was the only religion that dealt with the rift-fused. Most of its members were revenants, although there were more and more humans joining as well. Despite having been established centuries before, it had only grown exponentially over the last few decades as the rift-fused had become more and more integrated into society.
The religion didn’t worship any particular deity but, instead, dealt with spirituality and generating acceptance for those who became rift-fused, for themselves and those they lived amongst. They discussed the rift itself and the people who lived there, and theorised about what happened after the rift-fused died, too. It was all very supportive and peaceful, a bit like a club for like-minded people who wanted answers and had nowhere else to get them.
“Lucas,” Gabriel said, embracing me.
“You’re a cleric now?” I asked him.
“A lot has happened in the last few years,” Gabriel said.
“How’s Dan?” I asked him, picking up my bag and following him into the hospital.
“He’s out of surgery,” Gabriel said. “They think he’ll be okay.”
The relief was palpable, and I remained quiet as we walked along the main hallway, past reception where half a dozen people were working, and into the lift taking us to the eighth floor.
“How long have you been a cleric?” I asked.
“Three years,” Gabriel said.
“And how is that working out?” I asked him. “You being a cleric, I mean?”
“It has its highs and lows,” Gabriel said. “Isaac said you were coming to help out. I’m glad.”
“You sound like you believe that this is more than just an unlucky ambush on an RCU team,” I said.
“You think Isaac would call you for help for something like that?” Gabriel asked me. “A highly trained RCU unit was all but wiped out by greater fiends. How likely do you think that scenario is?”
“I think that’s exceptionally unlikely,” I pointed out.
“Something is going on,” Gabriel said. “No way Dan’s team got ambushed and slaughtered that easily by anything regular.”
Gabriel’s anger flashed hot and vanished.
“If you’d been there, you might be dead too,” I told him.
Gabriel smiled, although it wasn’t one of humour. “Four years away and you can still read me that easily.”
“I would hope so,” I told him. “You always were one to wear your heart on your sleeve.”
Gabriel grasped my shoulder. “It’s really good to see you again, old friend.”
“You too,” I told him.
“Let’s go see Dan,” Gabriel said.
The lift stopped and the metal doors opened, revealing a horseshoe-shaped floor. In the centre of the horseshoe was a large area where doctors, nurses, and the various members of staff were situated. A lot of them were talking to one another or looking at computers. Around the outside of the horseshoe were eight identical doors. There were large windows beside each door, allowing staff to look in at the patients.
Several armed guards stood outside two of the rooms, and as I walked around the outside of the room, close to the doors, I spotted that one of the rooms was a large waiting area with several people wearing FBI jackets.
“That’s a lot of feds,” I whispered to Gabriel.
“Yes, it is,” Gabriel said without further comment.
Gabriel stopped by a door, nodded at the two guards as he opened it and stepped inside, motioning for me to join him.
I paused. The blinds to the window were closed, leaving the room shadowed. Gabriel closed the door behind me as I stared at Dan, who lay unconscious in a hospital bed, hooked up to various machines measuring his vitals.
Dan Parker was a touch over six and a half feet tall, he weighed nearly twenty stone. He was a big man. He was tanned with short dark hair, and was clean-shaven. The memory of him was fixed in my mind. A large imposing presence, a man who talked about honour and doing his duty, about helping people.
He was an arcane revenant. A species of revenant that could open small tears to use the power of the rift to change animals and vegetation around him. He could also cut off the power of another rift-fused within a set distance from him. Only one at a time, but I’d seen him use it to good effect. He was a hell of a warrior.
Despite having never been an agent of the RCU myself, I’d worked with the team on more than one occasion and had grown close to several members. Dan was a good man, a hard worker, and someone who I’d trusted with my life more than once.
“If you get out of bed right now, I’ll buy you the best bottle of bourbon you’ve ever had,” I told Dan, to zero movement on his part.
“It’s difficult seeing him like this,” Gabriel said, taking my thoughts and vocalizing them.
I stood motionless, transfixed on Dan, the beeping of the machines a soundtrack to the bombardment of memories that attacked me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as I reopened my eyes.
“How did a group of experienced agents get ambushed and slaughtered by two mere fiends?” I asked.
“That’s something we’d like to know too,” a female voice said from behind me.
I turned to see a young blonde woman in a charcoal suit with a white blouse. She had several piercings in each ear, and her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She offered me her hand, which I shook.
“Special Agent Emily West,” she said.
“FBI?” I asked her.
Special Agent West nodded. “Yes.” She looked over at Gabriel. “Father, you know you can go home.”
“It’s Cleric, not Father, but Gabriel is fine,” Gabriel said. “Dan’s my friend, and I’m still classified as a member of the RCU; I just have other duties.”
“And you are?” Emily asked me.
“Lucas,” I said.
“Do you have a surname?”
“Rurik,” I told her. “I’m just here to see my friend.”
“You’re not a member of the RCU?” she asked me, removing her phone from her pocket, and tapping on the screen.
“No,” I said softly. “I worked with Dan a long time ago. Isaac called me and asked me to come see him.”
“Are you a Guild member?” Special Agent West asked.
I shook my head.
“Then you don’t have security clearance to be here,” Emily said, her tone now hard.
“He’s fine,” Gabriel said. “I’ll vouch for him.”
“That’s great, Gabriel, but it’s not about vouching for him,” Emily said. “It’s about the legalities of the matter. The RCU and FBI were attacked, a whole team nearly decimated. You are not a member of the RCU, you are definitely not FBI, so you have no reason to be here. It’s not a visiting hospital, Mr Rurik.”
“Emily,” Gabriel said, more forcefully.
“It’s okay,” I told him. “She’s right, Gabriel. Can you tell me one thing before I leave?”
Special Agent West considered this for a moment before nodding.
“What actually happened to Dan’s team?” I asked. “I don’t mean divulging anything that’s sensitive, I know that fiends were involved. But what injuries did they sustain?”
“The fiends tore four highly trained revenants to pieces,” she told me. “The fifth member, Annie, is currently in surgery having her arm reattached. Dan was the least injured and has three six-inch-long claw marks that raked around his left side, below his ribs, and stopped just above his groin. There was venom in the wound too, although thankfully his body is fighting that. Until he wakes up, we won’t know what actually went down.”
I looked back at Dan for a second and then turned to Special Agent West. “Thank you,” I said. “I need to find Isaac. Any idea where he is?”
Before anyone could say anything, the door behind Special Agent West opened, and Isaac stepped in. He looked almost identical to when I’d last seen him four years before.
“Lucas,” Isaac said, engulfing me in a hug. “It’s damn good to see you again.”
“You too,” I told him, feeling a little emotional about the circumstances and seeing old friends after so long.
“Your friend was just going,” Special Agent Emily West said to Isaac pointedly.
“That I was,” I said.
“I’ll walk you out,” Isaac told me.
We walked together to the lift, and I felt the eyes of Emily and her team on me. Once we were in the lift, I felt free to talk again. “You want to tell me what the fuck happened?”
“The bodies of two lesser fiends were found close by the attack site,” Isaac said. “Both were killed with a rift-tempered blade. General consensus is that maybe Dan or Annie managed to finish them off, but something feels crooked . . . because none of my team were actually armed with a rift-tempered blade.”
The best way to kill a rift-fused is with a rift-tempered weapon. It stops revenants from going through to the rift after they die, and it makes sure that anything else killed stays dead. Several revenants have powers that have similar effects—the chains of a chained revenant for one—but rift-tempered weaponry was always the way to go if given the option.
“Exactly why did you ask me to come here to help?” I asked him.
Isaac remained quiet until the lift stopped, and the doors began to open. “I wanted your help because two fiends apparently arranged and executed an ambush on a group of highly trained RCU agents and then were killed by a weapon none of my agents were carrying. Does that sound like a problem to you?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said wondering just how awful things were going to get.
CHAPTER FIVE
Isaac and I didn’t speak as we left the hospital and made our way across the car park, stopping beside a red BMW M5.
“Fiends don’t work together; they’re not pack animals,” I said when I was sure that no one was around to hear us. “Even greater fiends are hardwired to hunt solo.”
“What if they were elder fiends? They have the intellect and will to work together.” Isaac asked.
“There hasn’t been an elder fiend in North America in three hundred years,” I said. “Two working together . . . that would be bad.”
Fiends came in three types: lesser, greater, and elder. The former were both dangerous if you didn’t know what you were up against, but it was rare that anyone with the training that the RCU had would come away from a fight against them with anything more than a few cuts and scrapes.
Isaac removed a set of car keys from his pocket and tossed them to me. “I arranged this for you,” he said. “I figured you might be around for a few days and would need something to drive.”
“So, you’re bribing me to stay with a nice car?” I asked with a smirk.
Isaac removed a hotel key card from his pocket and passed it to me. “The Grand in Hamble. Room 718, I had your stuff sent there. Get in; there’s something I want to show you.”
I took the key card and placed it in my jacket pocket before getting into the car, starting the engine, and syncing my phone with the onboard computer.
“How are the rest of your team?” I asked.
“About as good as you can imagine they’d be,” Isaac said. “This was originally the FBI’s investigation; we were brought in to provide back-up and support.”
“Why was the FBI leading the investigation? Surely, if it was a fiend attack, that’s RCU jurisdiction,” I asked.
“The two people killed out here the other day were human hikers,” Isaac said. “Apparently, they were working with the FBI on something. After the fiend attack, we got involved, but jurisdiction was still FBI, as they had point on the investigation.”
“That why you had Dan and company out here?” I asked.
Isaac nodded. “The fiends hadn’t been found; people were jumpy. Dan put together a team to help the FBI’s investigation. They came out in the morning because they’d had sightings of the fiends. The RCU were running point here; FBI were backup only. They weren’t meant to be out here, but higher-ups insisted they take part. Dan was pretty angry he had to babysit humans, but the FBI said they could handle themselves.”
“Are the FBI used to killing fiends?” I asked.
“Doubt it,” Isaac said. “Something is happening here, something bad. And I’m not entirely sure who I trust. To add to the party, the Ancients got involved.”
Ah, shit. The Ancients were the oldest, although not necessarily the most powerful, members of the rift-fused. All of them had been Guild members at one time or another, and their job was to ensure that equilibrium among the rift-fused and humans was maintained. They ensured that the Guilds keeping the rift-fused in check were balanced, that the RCU was given time, space, and money to do their job. They had a few other roles, but most importantly, they mediated between humans and rift-fused to ensure a smooth relationship between the two races.
“And exactly what do the Ancients want you to do?” I asked.
“Work with the FBI however we see fit but find out what happened, and find out quickly,” Isaac said. “I’m quoting the exact line I was given.”
“You think they want it covered up?”
“I think they don’t want humans to think we can’t stop fiends from hunting them for snacks.”
Isaac made a valid point. “I’ll be here as long as you need me,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”
Isaac removed his phone from his pocket. “These are photos of the two fiends,” he told me, clicking a few screens before handing the phone over.
“These were taken in a morgue,” I said, noticing the metal table, the sterile-looking environment, and, more important, the fact that I could clearly see the word morgue in the background.
“The fiends were found in a state of decay, but oddly enough, they hadn’t dissolved,” Isaac said. “They were found under twenty minutes after the attack.”
“Who found them?” I asked.
“A man was out walking his dog, found them near a cabin by the lake, about half a klick away from the crime scene,” he said.
“How long after they were found were these taken?” I asked.
“About an hour,” Isaac said. “The attendants know to get work done quickly when it comes to fiends.”
“And there’s no decay at all?” I asked. When fiends die, they dissolve to ash. Lesser fiends do it almost instantly all at once, but greater fiends take a while, piece by piece. Elder fiends take hours to fully dissolve, which is why their corpses are sought after by scientists, academics, and trophy hunters. The idea that the two greater fiends hadn’t shown any decay at all was not a good one.
“Nope,” Isaac said.
I put that thought aside and flicked through the dozen photos. Two greater fiends, both apparently dogs of some kind. They’d been large ones, too, even before the rift had merged with the body and changed them. When part of the rift attaches itself to a dead animal to create a lesser fiend, it makes the animal stronger, faster, and larger, but usually they don’t look too different to the animal it was beforehand. Greater fiends are a little different; they’re what happens when a tear opens and the rift energy fuses with a living animal. It makes the fiend considerably larger, faster, and usually with a few other unpleasant additions such as armoured skin or the ability to absorb elements.
