No wait - one sec - forgot to mention, the title is very much a working title, and has more to do with the ongoing saga of my two character's lives, and pretty much nothing to do with this current story. I'm yet hoping to be struck by a wonderful epiphany where I come up with a more appropriate title, but for now, here it is!
A Skeleton Duet
Chapter 1
“Have you ever heard of the Authorities?” Hades asked, tracing his finger around the dirty rim of his pint glass.
“Authorities?” Cain frowned. “Aren’t they an urban legend?”
Hades leant back in the rigid bar stool, still maintaining his casual composure. “You tell me,” he drawled. “What’ve you heard?”
Cain flashed a nervous look Hades’ way and then stared at his own pint glass, as if it were the focal point of the universe.
“Well…” he started slowly. “I heard they take magic wielders in the dead of night, pack ‘em off to some detention facility and no one ever sees ‘em again. People say all sorts of nasty things happen there. Never happened to anyone I know, mind you. I keep my head down on that sort of thing.”
Hades gave a half nod and pensively sipped his beer. As he rested it back on the table, there was an audible thunk that seemed obtrusively loud in the near empty bar.
“D’you know why they get taken?” he asked, his tone quite unreadable.
“Musta shown themselves up to a human I guess. No one really cares if we break a law that don’t have a human involved.” Cain shrugged.
“Guess so. You know what I heard?” Hades said, waiting to make sure he had Cain’s attention. “ I heard they take someone away for using magic in front of a human, even if it’s by accident, even if they didn’t see the human. Stupid really, if they wanna be left in peace they should just not use magic full stop.”
Cain shifted uncomfortably, and stared at his pint glass. “Can’t really change who we are though, can we? If an angel’s got wings can’t they fly with ‘em? If a faery’s got pointed ears they can’t exactly cut ‘em off can they?”
“Well… they could,” Hades mused.
Cain shot him an alarmed look. “But that would be like destroying who we are!”
“Well, who they are would get them carted off to some detention facility. Makes plastic surgery look quite good really,” Hades said, casually.
“How would you know? You practically are a human, you’ve got nothing to hide,” Cain said, pulling uneasily at the woollen hat that covered his pointed ears. “’Sides, I’d never let go of my ears, they make me who I am. And no Authorities would ever take that from me.”
“No, you’re right,” Hades said quietly. “But still, it would be really careless to let a human see them.”
Cain’s eyes flickered up to meet Hades’ and he was paralyzed by the cold hard stare he received in return. Hades waited patiently for the gears to click into place in Cain’s head. It didn’t take long before the wielder’s face merged into an expression of pure fear.
“You… You… How could you know?” he stuttered, his bottom lip wobbling.
The raven-haired man just raised his eyebrows, not relenting in his icy, impassive stare. Cain swallowed hard. “I didn’t see her you know, not at all!”
“Doesn’t matter,” Hades said.
Cain’s eyes darted to where he knew the bar’s exit was. The action wasn’t entirely subtle.
“Cain.” Hades sighed. “How long have I known you? A couple of months now? And in that time, you’re right, you’ve been nothing but conscientious, just keeping your head down, helping me out and asking no questions. You’re a good - elf…” He was going to say ‘man’; it was a common mistake. “But not quite good enough.”
“You’re an agent?” Cain whispered fretfully.
“Yes. And you’ve crossed the line; I’ve got to take you in,” Hades said flatly.
“But it was one girl! One little girl! How could she matter? No one would even believe her.”
“I’m afraid it’s the law.”
Cain looked lost, like his entire world was shattering around him. There wasn’t anything to clutch onto - after all, the girl had gotten a good look at him before he’d realised and shoved his hat back on. But he couldn’t believe it had come to this; the first slip up in his entire life and he was going away for it? It was impossible, ridiculous.
“Look, you could just be relocated; this is only the first offense after all.” Hades sighed. Perhaps some part of him took pity on Cain, but wherever that part was, it was buried deep beneath his calm exterior.
“Relocated?” Cain exclaimed, distraught despite Hades’ attempt to comfort him.
“I could put in a good word for you, if you come in quietly.”
“You really think I would do that?” Cain asked .He flared with anger when the agent didn’t respond.
“Well then looks like you hardly know me at all!” he snapped, jumping to his feet and thrusting his hand out in front of him. The two pint glasses in between them shattered in an explosion of shards and beer.
Hades cried out and brought his arm up to protect his eyes. When he looked up, Cain was fast on track to the exit.
“Now!” he cried, whipping a handgun out of his jacket.
The two men who’d been having a quiet drink in the corner jumped to their feet. Both drawing guns, they lunged to the exit to head Cain off. Startled, the elf froze.
“Cain,” Hades called, stepping cautiously towards the wielder.
Cain hissed, and struck the air with his hand. The other agents’ pint glasses rocketed from the corner and shattered on the side of their heads. The smaller, skinnier one slumped to the ground.
“Cain!” Hades roared, as one would at a petulant child.
The wielder turned to face him, his eyes were lit with a feral ferocity that caught Hades by surprise. Cain thrust out his arm and flicked his wrist. A couple of stools shot up in the air towards the agent. But the attack was misguided. The stools just hit another table and clattered at his feet.
“Don’t do this,” Hades ordered.
Cain ignored him, and spun around. Desperately he charged for the door, but the remaining agent tackled him and knocked him to the ground. Hades sprinted forward. Before Cain could get up, Hades had his heel stamped firmly on his back and his gun pointed at wielder’s head. The other agent roughly twisted Cain’s arms behind his back and snapped them in handcuffs.
Cain looked up at Hades. His eyes were desperate and fearful. He searched anxiously for something, for some compassion, some suggestion that he would let him go, but it was like looking at a statue and expecting it to come alive.
“You’ve made this a whole lot worse than it could have been, Cain,” Hades said with a resigned sigh. He aimed his handgun carefully. Without warning, he squeezed the trigger.
There was no explosion of gunpowder, no crack to pierce the silence; just the quiet whiz of something streamlined and slender slicing through the air. Cain slumped almost immediately as the dart hit his neck.
Then there was silence.
Hades stuffed his gun back into his jacket and surveyed the destruction. Fortunately, thanks to Cain’s poor escape attempt, the damage wasn’t too bad. There were only a couple of shattered glasses and the stools were still intact. Of course the barman and the other handful of people in the bar were staring at him in horror, but it wasn’t too much to worry about; they were only wielders after all. They were far too scared to defend Cain and none of them cared anyway. It wasn’t that type of bar.
Behind him, the unconscious agent shifted, and groaned as glass chinked all around him.
“Alright, Dom?” Hades asked casually.
The agent groaned and pushed himself up to lean against the wall. “Fuckin’ marvelous,” he growled.
“Good, next time try not to get hit,” Hades said.
He turned to face Cain’s motionless body. “We should probably get him out of here before someone decides to grow a backbone,” he muttered.
“Agreed,” Dom sniffed, sliding up the wall to his feet.
“Clancy, you got this one?” Hades asked, turning to the other agent.
Clancy was the taller and broader of the three. In fact, you could probably fit two of Dom into Clancy. It made some sense as to why Dom was knocked out and Clancy kept on going; his skull was probably twice as thick. However, that didn’t mean to say Clancy was less intelligent; you had to be sharp to be an agent. It took years of training and all three of them were still new recruits. Hades had been on the field only five months more than the other two, but it showed. Long gone were the jaded truths Hades had learnt in the Academy. Every case was different, as different as the wielder itself. The other two didn’t really know that yet.
“Course boss, wouldn’t want you to put your back out,” Clancy replied sarcastically. He grabbed the back of Cain’s jacket and heaved the limp body up over his shoulder.
“Thank your parents for those wonderful genes of yours,” Hades quipped. “Alright, we good to go? Dom, think you can walk?”
“No probs,” Dom said, lifting away from the wall.
“Then let’s get the fuck out of here,” Hades said, leading the way to the door. They left the bar without even a backwards glance.
Outside, orange lamplight glittered on the frosty cobbled ground, and their breath turned to crystal clouds. Hades huddled his jacket in against the cold as they trudged down the empty backstreet.
The winters in Ithon city had a reputation for being exceptionally bitter. Being a portside city, it was subject to harsh northern winds and Hades was very thankful he didn’t live there. The housing didn’t have too great a reputation either. It was practically a breeding ground for crime and wherever there was crime, there was bound to be wielders.
They rounded the corner onto the next backstreet, this one even narrower than the last. A little way down was a parked white transit van. It only left a narrow gap on the other side, but it hardly mattered - it was a dead end.
Hades rapped three times on the side of the van and almost immediately a door whooshed open. A disgruntled man in his late twenties with cropped brown hair was still holding the handle.
“What was all that bullcrap about ‘do you know the Authorities’?” he snapped. “Do you know how much time you wasted with that? You could have just darted the guy under the table!”
Hades rolled his eyes. “Cain was a valuable source, I wanted him to be able to trust us again if he got relocated.”
“Well, relocation is off the cards now! That crazy bastard assaulted an agent.” The dark haired man grunted. “It’s gonna take forever to write this bullshit up!”
“Relax Dirk, we’ll all do our bit,” a calming female voice said from inside the van.
Dirk growled irritably, but relented and disappeared back into the van, allowing Clancy to enter and throw Cain’s body down in the empty space. Hades climbed into the van after him with a sigh.
Inside, Dirk was crouched at the end by a monitor screen built into the side of the van. Sat at a second monitor was Laura, the woman who had spoken out against Dirk, their team leader. She was fairly plain looking, but her earnest and cheerful demeanour was what defined her. Hades had met her at the Academy and, despite his unsociable disposition, had actually become quite good friends with her. Like Hades she had very strong opinions on doing the right thing.
Also sat at the end, with her back up against the rear doors was Melissa, a woman with long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing a headset. She had been an agent for as long as Dirk – several months longer than Hades or Laura. She was calm and placid nearly all the time. Hades had never seen her lose her cool, not even with Dirk as their team leader, and that was saying something.
“And Agent MacKenzie, you addressed the other agents with their first names. Have you really forgotten your training so quickly?” Dirk said testily.
Hades rolled his eyes and sighed. Out of everyone in the group, Dirk took issue with him the most. It had something to do with their differing views on how strictly they should follow protocol. “Using their agent names would have caused stigma in the bar, we could have risked an attack, which we weren’t prepared for,” Hades explained.
“Bullshit. As your commanding officer, I order you to use agent names to address your teammates,” Dirk snapped.
“It’s just a formality!”
“It’s protocol! And with that attitude you’ll never rise in the ranks,” Dirk said. “Now let’s get out of here, it’s a long trip back to HQ.”
Hades didn’t move for a while, he just felt everyone move around him, felt the sliding door slam shut and the engine roar into life. He felt the van move off, but in his head he was already miles away.
If anyone had asked Hades three weeks ago if he cared about becoming a high-ranking agent, he probably would have scoffed at them and sent them on their way, but just recently, Hades had discovered the advantages of rising in the ranks. As a low-level agent, he was assigned simple missions, with low-risk wielders; he just brought them in and wrote reports.
Cain had been a special case. They’d been using him to find out information about the wielder underground. Thanks to his tip-offs, they’d been able to prevent numerous black market trades between wielders and humans.
But if Hades wanted to take on more dangerous cases, if he wanted to make a greater difference, he had to be promoted. And the only way to do that was to get noticed.
Agents like Dirk would do it by following protocol, garnering as many successful missions as possible, and making a lot of noise about themselves. Agents like Hades knew actions spoke louder than words and he’d spent the last fortnight staying after hours at HQ to find a wielder dangerous enough to get him attention, if he could bring them in. Two days ago he’d found the perfect candidate.
“You alright, Hades?” Laura asked, sounding concerned.
Hades snapped from his train of thought with a guilty twang in his gut. There was no way he could let anyone know what he was planning, not even Laura. He just had to go ahead with it, and hope it resulted in a promotion, not a dismissal. After all, it wasn’t exactly protocol.
“Don’t let Dirk get to you, you’re a brilliant agent. He’s just jealous,” Laura whispered, smiling cheekily.
Hades looked her in the eyes, and pulled a half-sincere smile. “Thanks,” he said quietly.
“I heard they were starting reviews next week, I expect you’ll get promoted sooner rather than later,” Laura continued chattily.
Reviews?
It was like a spark of electricity shot through Hades’ head. He leant in closer, trying hard not to look too interested, and said, “Who told you that?”
“Oh, no one told me,” Laura smirked. “I overhead two big dogs talking about it. They were complaining about all the mediocre rookies. Nice they have confidence in us, right?”
Hades grunted in agreement.
“But you’re different, I mean you passed the Academy in half the time anyone else did. This time next week you’ll be a team leader, I guarantee it,” Laura said, appraisingly.
Hades smiled at her, but he wasn’t really paying attention anymore. His brain was firing plans and strategies at lightning speed. He remained silent for the rest of the journey. There was far too much to think about. By the time they finally reached HQ, he’d decided he had to carry out his plan and he had to do it tonight.
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