Was she really a bundle of cliches all of a sudden? Was this what actually happened when you fell for someone? Get a grip!
Lan shook herself into a more focused state. She was a Villjamur Knight and she had a job to do.
She closed her eyes to listen to the sounds from the street for any signs of trouble. Much of the job distilled down to this simple act: an inspection of the city, waiting until she could offer help. And despite her new-found happiness, despite her tendency today to err on the side of optimism, something seemed wrong. She didn’t for a moment believe she had some kind of extrasensory perception, but Villjamur itself seemed primed for something.
From the east of the city, a woman’s scream came to her ears. Lan pushed herself to the crenellated edge of the roof and jumped across to the opposite building, a gap of ten feet, and then up onto the rim of a cultist-treated bridge. People looked up startled as she sprinted past them, following the echo of the scream.
She crossed over several streets, actively enjoying the rush of speed. She was utterly comfortable with her powers by now — completely attuned to their nuances, harnessing the forces inside that altered her sense of balance and maintained her position in the air.
She settled down to the ground on the second level of the city, the furthest point from the caves, and paused to filter the sounds of the city. Villjamur’s endless passageways provided a huge frustration: they played havoc with sound, and had completely wrong-footed her on several occasions. Becoming a little out of breath, Lan’s sprint became more of a jog.
It wasn’t long before she located the crime. In the shadow of tall buildings, at the back of a narrow brick alley, two men had pressed a blonde woman up against a wall.
‘Hey!’ Lan called over as she approached.
The two men were shaven-headed, looking like brothers. Both stood over six foot tall and were wearing long wax coats. One thrust an iron bar against the woman’s throat; her thick coat lay discarded on the cobbles, exposing a heavy brown dress and hefty leather boots. Underneath the grubbiness she was pretty, and the tears streaking down her face left little to the imagination as to what had been going on.
‘Leave her alone,’ Lan ordered, confidently entering the dark alley. Her voice reverberated between the stone walls.
One of the men turned towards her and spat at her feet. His voice sounded raw, as if he’d been drinking all night long. ‘Piss off, bitch. This needn’t worry you, unless you want to join us.’
Lan pushed her left leg against the wall to lever herself upwards, then she leapt to close the gap between them before they could do any more harm to the woman. She landed a few feet from them and, curiously, both men backed away to the dark dead end behind. Are these thugs scared of me? Lan immediately checked that the woman was OK, whilst she kept an eye on the men.
The victim hid her face in her hands, shaking, and Lan looked towards the two men who had paused In an instant, the girl reached up and grabbed Lan’s hair. She pulled it, and slammed her head against the wall.
Lan shambled backwards in a daze.
A whistle came from somewhere. At the open end of the alleyway, several figures quickly closed in, silhouetted against the light, each carrying a weapon. Though her vision was hazy, she noted that the men at the dead end were smiling. The woman she was meant to have saved laughed as she kicked at the back of Lan’s knees, sending her sprawling forwards onto the ice-cold stone.
Lan’s hands and face stung from the impact. She wiped grit and blood from her chin.
‘Wait,’ Lan held out a hand as she climbed to her feet, ‘I was only trying to help.’
One of the skinheads spoke. ‘We don’t need no fucking help, bitch. We’re sick of you fuckers ruining things. You represent authority and power — you’re of no use to us. Can’t you see it’s best for the people if you just stay out of our business?’
‘You work for Shalev?’ Lan spluttered.
‘We don’t work for her. We work together.’
A blow to Lan’s stomach, an iron bar across her back, and she collapsed to the ground as a useless ball of agony.
A squat man with bird-like features poked a wooden club into her ribs and asked, ‘Is this the he-she one?’
‘Apparently. Fancy taking a look to see?’
Crude laughter.
‘See what? S’all changed by cultists, innit?’
‘Fair point.’
Distantly, Lan wondered, How could they possibly know? She tried to come to her senses and her feet, but only managed to rock herself to her knees. She needed to tune into that quality within, to tap that force which she had been given, but the kicks and punches had knocked any concentration out of her system. Clawing at the force within, she pushed her arms aside, the blows knocking back two of her attackers, and they stumbled against the wall. That effort in itself weakened her and she allowed her judgement to drop.
Distances seemed artificial. Suddenly her head felt incredibly heavy. The gang crowded her.
Weapons rained down upon her skin, and she felt them as light taps. One to her stomach: she hunched again. One to her forehead: she flipped gently backwards. One to her hip: she sprawled forwards on the ground.
Gentle strikes to her back and skull, like brutal raindrops…
*
The corpse lay stretched out for them all to see.
Measuring almost seven feet in length, its feet drooped over the edge of the polished granite table in one of the old quarantine sectors of the Inquisition headquarters. Formerly a cellar, the room featured a domed brick ceiling with several open arches for doorways, meaning the place could receive an unusually large amount of traffic, if it wasn’t for the fact that people knew dead bodies were often observed down here. Cressets burned along the wall, as did a huge log fire at the far end of the room, and within these simple confines, Fulcrom, Ulryk, Vuldon and Tane were attempting to make sense of the alien body.
The specimen reeked. What clothing it once possessed now lay in a heap in a metal container by the wall. Sinewy dark skin was taught across jagged bones, which, at the joints, were formidable-looking structures that seemed set to burst through.
It was hominid, as much as they could tell, possessing two pairs of tightly muscled arms and legs, and where its skin had been torn by Tane’s claws, black blood had bubbled upwards to seal the wound. Much of its head had been reduced to mush, as Vuldon proudly pointed out, but what remained now were barely more than fragments of a malodorous skull. Fulcrom had never seen anything quite like this, and he had seen some strange things bred by cultists in his time. No, this was entirely an alien entity, and one he was glad he hadn’t encountered personally.
‘It is called a nephilim.’ Ulryk muttered the word as if it left an acidic taste in his mouth. ‘It is a demon of the church.’
Tane whistled, leaning over to take a closer look. ‘Ugly chap, isn’t he? Vuldon, do you swear this isn’t one of your girlfriends?’
Vuldon ignored Tane and prodded the priest for further information. ‘Why was it after you specifically?’ he asked. ‘From a distance, we saw it went after you alone.’
Ulryk peered imploringly at Fulcrom, and he knew just how difficult it was for Ulryk to explain his past once again.
‘You can trust them, Ulryk,’ he encouraged him. ‘They’re here to help.’
To his credit, the priest encapsulated his story as much as possible, avoiding the questions of altered histories, of politics within the church. He mentioned that the church merely considered him a heretic for his views, and had placed a bounty on his head. His mission in Villjamur was one of great urgency, and the nephilim was sent to prevent him from succeeding. Fulcrom wondered just how much the church knew of the priest’s intentions.