Abduction Read online

  ‘Hello, Jean. Claude Darvill.’

  ‘Yes, I recognised the number. I’m glad you rang. You okay?’

  Claude smiled. She genuinely cared, this one. ‘Yes, I’m fine. I need your expertise again.’

  ‘No problem. What can I do for you?

  ‘I’m giving you a promotion. A big one. Pay will reflect that.’

  ‘Yes.’ Chang dragged the word out, voice betraying her suspicion of what her sudden raise might entail.

  Darvill laughed softly. ‘I like you, Chang. You’re smart, bloody good at your job and you care about the details. I need you in the field with me.’

  There was a moment’s silence at the other end, then, ‘Okay. That will require that I make some significant changes if you want me away from London and the Black Diamond office for any length of time.’

  ‘Consider it a permanent reassignment. Whatever your salary is now, double it. Fix up any loose ends in London and get the board to arrange your replacement there. I want you out here with me in twenty-four hours.’

  ‘And where are you, sir?’

  ‘Iceland.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She didn’t even flinch. Not a moment’s pause. Claude liked that. ‘I’ll email you details and I’ll email the board to back up what I’m telling you now. And before you leave, I need a serious earthmoving company who can cover very rough terrain out here and excavate through solid rock.’

  There was rapid tapping at the other end as Chang’s fingers flew across a keyboard. ‘Right. Anything else?’

  Claude smiled. No questions, no hesitation. ‘Not for now. Hop to it.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll text details as they become available and I’ll see you before this time tomorrow.’

  ‘Attagirl.’

  Claude hung up and strolled over to the four wheel drive.

  Sigmund leaned out of the driver’s side window. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘It will be. Get me back to town.’ He couldn’t wait to be rid of this ridiculous and useless assistant and looked forward to the arrival of the willowy and darkly attractive Chang.

  Gwen stood, lips pursed. She ran a hand over her loose afro, smoothed it back to replace her black cap. ‘Weird,’ she muttered.

  Silhouette swallowed her nerves. ‘What’s weird?’

  ‘Come and look at this.’ Gwen shifted a small monitor so Silhouette could see more easily. The screen was hooked up to strange equipment with glass tubes and copper wiring. An antenna like a small satellite dish oscillated gently on the edge of the bed. Gwen pointed at the screen. ‘Watch here. It’s hard to interpret, so don’t expect to see much, but I’ll try to explain. Anything with a strong presence, beings with heavy magesign, leave a kind of echo behind, right?’

  Silhouette nodded. ‘That’s why we mask all the time.’

  ‘Right. But Fey don’t mask. They don’t care, too arrogant. So if they’ve been around, they leave pretty obvious traces. Imagine this sensor is a bit like an ultrasound. It doesn’t see an image, just bounces back against information. Except what it bounces from are traces of magesign.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Now watch.’

  Gwen triggered the machine, adjusted a couple of dials. Images shifted across the screen, like static shadows on a television poorly tuned. Sudden bursts of clearer interference flared. ‘Here they come,’ Gwen said. She pointed to a patch of snowy reception. ‘That’s one Fey. There’s another. Then there are suddenly lots.’ A burst of brightness flared off to one side. ‘But what the hell is that?’ Gwen asked. ‘There was nothing there, it didn’t enter the room, just appeared out of nowhere. No realmshift, just there.’

  ‘Alex,’ Silhouette whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe how good Alex is at masking. That’s him giving up his cover.’

  Gwen’s eyes widened. ‘Wow. Okay, that makes sense.’

  The confusing images were converging on each other and massive bursts flared and died. ‘That’s the fight,’ Silhouette said, a hollow hunger clawing at her gut.

  Gwen frowned. ‘Yeah. It’s a big fight.’ The confusion of magesign and activity died and faded, smears of interference moved off the screen. ‘And that’s Alex being defeated and them moving away. They have Alex with them. If he died then, it would show in his ’sign. So they took him alive.’

  Silhouette was partly relieved, but her concern no less intense. ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll have to see if we can track where they went.’

  ‘You can do that?’

  ‘Maybe. Depends on the strength of the signal. Given Fey are so blatant and care little for secrecy, we might be lucky. We have the signature now.’ She detached the oscillating dish and clipped it to a hand-held paddle, like a metal detector used by airport security at check-in gates. A cable ran from the end of the device which she plugged into a wrist-mounted screen she wore. She pointed the tool with one hand, watched the screen on the other. ‘This way.’

  Silhouette shook her head. ‘You have some cool toys.’

  Gwen grinned. ‘Armour money and an unrivalled R&D team. Magic and tech can be powerfully combined. Come on.’

  They moved slowly through the house, down the hallway towards the front door. Gwen paused, back-tracked, moved on again. She walked into the kitchen and stopped, turned in a slow circle. Her face slowly creased into a frown. ‘That’s …’

  Nerves rippled through Silhouette’s gut. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Not possible.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Gwen shook her head, tapped buttons on her wrist monitor. ‘Wait a minute.’ She went back to the bedroom, returned with another device. She plugged it into the first. ‘Signal booster,’ she explained as she studied the readouts on her arm. ‘What the hell …?’

  Silhouette was losing patience. ‘Please, Gwen, what the fuck is going on?’

  Gwen shook herself, switched off the gear and turned to face Silhouette. ‘Sorry, I’m distracted. These results are unusual, but I can’t interpret them any other way. The attackers dragged Alex through this far — I don’t know why, I’ll have to study more. Once they got here, the trail ends.’

  ‘Ends?’

  ‘They went somewhere else. There’s a massive burst of realmshift here — you know when beings travel between realms?’

  Silhouette’s heart began pounding. ‘Where did they go?’

  Gwen made an apologetic face. ‘That’s the thing. I can’t tell for sure yet, but all the frequencies seem to match the Other Lands.’

  ‘Faerie? They can’t travel between here and there except on thin days.’

  ‘Supposedly.’

  ‘They’re a day late for that.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So what the fuck, Gwen?’ Silhouette heard the anger in her voice and put a hand to Gwen’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, it’s not your fault. But seriously, what the fuck?’

  Gwen covered Silhouette’s hand with her own, squeezed. ‘I’m not sure. Let’s try to find out more.’

  She put her equipment down and pulled a small radio from her belt. ‘Dan, Jack, check in.’

  The radio crackled, then, ‘Jack here. Dan’s with me. We’ve run a full perimeter. No activity and no signs of struggle or magical activity. We’re about to spiral in, see if we can pick up anything.’

  ‘Don’t bother. Far as I can tell, it all happened here in the house. Bring your gear and we’ll see if we can fine tune what I’ve found.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  The radio went still and Gwen hooked it back onto her wide canvas belt. She thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her Armour-issued black combat pants. ‘We’ll find out what happened.’

  Silhouette nodded, sadness welling up from somewhere deep inside. ‘They took him back with them, didn’t they?’

  Gwen shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know how, but they did,’ Silhouette said, voice betraying the depth of her fear.

  ‘Looks that way.�
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  ‘Will you be able to figure out how?’

  ‘Possibly. It’ll take a lot of time. We have the gear to search out the kind of magic used, we can track certain aspects of it. But it’s like unravelling a huge ball of knotted twine. It’s time-consuming, fiddly work. But we will find out all we can. Why don’t you go make a pot of coffee or something, try to rest and gather yourself.’

  Silhouette smiled crookedly. ‘Do you want coffee? ’Cause, you know,’ she gestured at herself, ‘Kin.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Of course.’

  ‘And I just fed.’

  Gwen nodded, her black skin paling slightly. Silhouette took a dark pleasure in the woman’s discomfort and felt immediately guilty about it. But when emotions built up in Silhouette she had long since got used to letting her monstrous nature to the fore, a shield against her human frailties.

  ‘I’ll go and leave you to your work,’ Silhouette said. ‘Tell me if you need anything.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘How long do you think it’ll take?’

  ‘Give us a couple of hours.’

  Dan and Jack came into the house and Silhouette nodded to them, ignoring their scowls of disapproval. Fuck ’em. They didn’t have to like her or Alex as long as they did their job. She wandered outside, drawing deeply of the fresh, grassy air. Impotence swelled in her, made her flex her fists until the bones creaked. She wanted to fight, to rend with tooth and claw. She needed an enemy to engage and pour her hate into, but there was nothing on which to focus her rage.

  Flashes of the grainy, monochrome screen came back to her. The flare of Alex giving up his cover, the huge bursts of magic as the battle was met. The sudden deflation of all activity. They had overwhelmed Alex quickly and thoroughly and that bothered her more than anything else. Alex was a fighter to his marrow, an absolute warrior. The fact he had been beaten so easily had two possible causes. One was there were simply so many Fey with so much power that he couldn’t stand against them. Frightening though the concept was, it was infinitely preferable to the other possibility nagging at her mind. Had he just given up?

  His demeanour since Obsidian, his struggle to come to terms with all that had happened, kept him bedridden some days when at its worst. Had he faced down a mortal enemy earlier today and simply given in to his despair?

  Silhouette hissed in frustration. She refused to believe that until it was proven. Alex, her Alex, was a warrior and he fought. She had seen that happen on Gwen’s screen. He had pumped masses of energy into the battle even though it was so short. He had been surprised and overwhelmed by numbers, nothing more. And she would find him, even the odds and get him back. Or they would both die, side by side, fighting.

  5

  Jean Chang took a deep breath as she disembarked from the Black Diamond jet in Reykjavik and headed through customs. Her life was on a new trajectory quite suddenly and she had mixed feelings about it. Claude Darvill had appeared in her life, in the day-to-day running of Black Diamond, in a very unexpected way. First Hood and Sparks disappeared, then, as they desperately looked for the leaders of the global corporate entity, Darvill arrived. Hood’s son, with magical and charismatic power none of them had experienced before. John Turner still hadn’t forgiven Darvill for his sand trick in the boardroom that first day. None of them knew Hood even had a son until then.

  And just as quickly Darvill disappeared too, leaving the board to run Black Diamond again. There was little out of the ordinary on the surface. Hood regularly disappeared for extended periods, and the board was used to operating without him. But recent events were clearly out of the norm and Chang had sensed a fundamental shift in operations. She wondered if Hood or Sparks would ever return. She wondered how things would be under Darvill. His disappearance had greatly perturbed her. Then he briefly returned only to go quiet again. Now he was back and asking for her personally.

  She remembered the first boardroom meeting, Claude identifying himself by that gorgeous dragon tattoo across his chest and stomach, the act of magic. He was a rugged man and handsome in a rough way. He was smart as hell, too. Jean had always known she outsmarted the vast majority of the board, but Hood had never given her credit for it. Darvill recognised it immediately, used her as his only liaison. Now she saw the opportunity to move from an office into something more interesting, more tangible. Her rise through Black Diamond had been fuelled by a desire to know more about the arcane goods Hood bought and sold. They all knew the everyday activities of Black Diamond — investments, corporate takeover, mineral wealth — were a by-product of Hood’s primary business, and a cover. Many of the board chose to ignore it, but not Jean Chang. She wanted to know. She wanted a part of Hood’s esoteric world. And he had barely given her a second glance, the sexist fuckwit.

  Then Darvill came along and homed straight in on her and made her feel truly worthwhile for the first time in her career. But the trip to Iceland after organising all he had asked of her gave her pause. Hood and Sparks were gone, no one knew where. Or if they would ever be back. Had she let herself in for more than she could handle? Would she be the next to disappear? With Darvill or without?

  A four wheel drive carried her away from the city, the driver babbling on about something she could not be bothered to follow. As she stared at the snow-covered landscape, the cold light of realisation began to dawn on her. What was she walking into? She gripped trembling hands together in her lap. She would not baulk. Frightening it might be, but she was strong enough to face it.

  The journey was long and fairly boring, though the view kept Jean’s attention and helped her ignore the nagging worries. The driver, whose name was apparently Sigmund, eventually gave up on his attempts at small talk. The view became slowly more bleak and Sigmund finally pulled off the road onto an unsealed track. Before long he turned away from that and bounced and slipped across country for several miles.

  ‘Nearly there,’ he said, pointing ahead.

  A grouping of rocks and low hills, dark against the frozen land, stood among the shale and pale tussocks of hardy grasses. The edge of a bright blue tarpaulin poked out from among the edges of the stones, another four wheel drive vehicle parked nearby. Jean smiled as she saw Claude emerge from the shadows, using one hand to shield his eyes as he watched their approach. He disappeared for a moment then reappeared, cramming his wide-brimmed leather hat onto his head. He wore his signature khaki pants and heavy linen shirt, a scuffed brown leather jacket pulled tight over the top. Indiana Jones cosplay was never so accurate — he even had the leather satchel. All that was missing was the whip. But the Indy comparison must not be made in his presence. How could he not be freezing in that getup?

  As the car pulled up, Jean hopped out, straightened her jeans and zipped her padded Gore-tex jacket against the chill breeze. She was glad for the hiking boots she wore, tipped off by Darvill’s request for heavy earth-moving contractors on site. She shouldered her backpack, crammed only with essentials, and held out her hand. ‘Hello, sir.’

  Darvill’s smile was warm. ‘Ms Chang.’ He shook her hand, his own rough but warm. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ He leaned past her. ‘All right, Siggy, you can fuck off now.’

  The small man was surprised. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Fuck off. Send your timesheet in to head office once you’re back. Make sure you claim for today’s driving hours.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. That’s it?’

  Darvill rolled his eyes. ‘Fuck me.’ He looked back to Jean. ‘You see why I so desperately needed some real help?’ Without another look at the dismissed man, he led Jean away, heading for the tarp stretched between rocks.

  Jean avoided the burning temptation to look back. She could imagine Sigmund’s puppy-dog eyes as he watched them leave. She felt sorry for him, but he had failed where she would succeed. Darvill was the sort of person who never wanted to have to ask for anything twice. She’d realised that early on and made it work for her. She had no time to offer failures any sympathy. As they ducked under the tarp, the c
ar started up again and the engine faded as Sigmund drove away.

  The tarp shielded an open area between rocks where Darvill had stashed all kinds of gear, warmed by free-standing, gas-powered space heaters. Big plastic tubs were stocked with food, multi-packs of bottled of water sat piled on top. Ground surveying equipment and other tools were stacked opposite. The end of the tarp, shivering in the icy breeze, covered the entrance to a cave. The sunlight was filtered blue by the material, made the place feel like an undersea grotto. Darvill led her into the cave and a sudden close warmth. An oil burner sat in one corner, camping gas burners for cooking beside it. A small dishevelled cot was opposite.

  Darvill pointed. ‘I’ve got a camp bed and sleeping bag for you. We’ll set it up here in the warm later. Sorry about the poor accommodation and lack of privacy.’

  Jean shrugged. ‘I’m sure I’ll cope.’

  ‘That your only bag?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Never been a girly girl, I don’t need much. I only packed for a few days and figured I could always buy whatever else I needed.’

  Darvill grinned, clapped her on the shoulder. ‘Good girl. Smart. Hopefully we won’t be here too long, but you never know. You saw how far it is to the nearest town.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I noted that on the way in.’

  ‘Good. If you need anything, take the car out there. I’ll have errands for you anyway. You set yourself up an expense account?’

  ‘Well, I still have my board accounts.’

  ‘Excellent. Use them. Put your stuff down there and follow me.’

  He strode from the cave. Jean threw her bag down and hurried after him. What the hell was he doing out here? She had heard Hood often refer to his main man in the field and had a strong suspicion it was this man — the son none of them knew Hood had. He must be the one who sniffed out the rare artefacts, negotiated with strange mages, hunted down the people Hood needed for deals. She smiled at the thought. Darvill was more like Indiana Jones than she had ever realised if her assumptions were correct. So what had he found out here that needed to be retrieved with rock-cutting equipment?

  Darvill stood in the middle of an unremarkable patch of shale. He turned as she caught up. ‘You ready for anything, Chang?’