Book Excerpt for Pariah 2: The Hunt

Part One: The Gathering Storm

While there were some places in Azure that were continuously bathed in never ending noise, such as the city centre or the Feldyne industrial estate, there were many other places that fell silent as a crypt come the dead of night. In the neglected district of Gallowgate silence was a given at most times of day and the locals knew to be wary of any noise that broke through the gloomy quiet. Noise always heralds something, and that something was often trouble.

Tonight was no different.

Gun shots shattered the ambient silence of the Azure night, followed by garbled screams and cries for help. Then silence descended once more, like the return of darkness once a candle has been snuffed out. The pall of dead sound lasted a few moments before there was another eruption of distressed shouts and gunshots, this time longer than the last. Then, inevitably, silence resumed. Another candle snuffed out.

Unmistakably trouble, though tonight it was an unusual kind of trouble. The screams and cries were from the lips of men not used to being the ones in trouble - like a pack of hyenas encountering a lion for the first time. The alarm came to them in new and surprising ways as they gave voice to an emotion that they had never needed before.

Fear.

More shouts, more shots fired, more calls for aid - more silence, more candles turned out.

Fabien Garcia was not having a good night. Not anymore. The old warehouse that had always been a haven where he could play god with the lives of the women they brought back there was now more like a crumbling tomb that he was desperate to escape. Something had cut the power to the warehouse, killing the lights and turning off the aria that they had been using to keep the girls quiescent in C block. Now that same something was stalking Garcia and his men through the warehouse, picking them off. He had seen it as he mustered some of his people to fend it off in B block. Now his people were gone and he was running.

It wasn't human. It couldn't be.

As he burst through the doors into C block he heard one final outpouring of noise from behind him as the last of the men in B block was discovered and then put down. Garcia didn't bother looking back, he had given up on the guys back there the moment that the thing hunting them revealed that it was bullet proof, sweeping the tail of its cloak around its body to impossibly deflect the incoming shots. He had been too scared to try and run past it, and instead ran away from it, further into the warehouse. If he could get through C block then he could still make it out the back door on the other end - he just needed to hustle.

Ahead of him he could just make out the forms of Roland and his two people as they stood guard over the girls that were strewn about the floor on dirty blankets. He was relieved to see that he wasn't alone; glad that he had asked Roland to stay behind and make sure the girls didn't move now that the aria had ceased.

Roland saw him coming and called out to him, his own near-panic clear in his voice, 'Garcia! What the hell, man? What's...'

'We're under attack - everyone's gone,' Garcia shouted back hastily as he kept running towards them, 'We need to get out of here, we need...'

One of the big speakers they had used for the aria back in B block came flying past Garcia's shoulder. It struck the man on Roland's left square in the chest and sent the man crashing to the floor in a crumpled heap. Small ball bearings fired by Garcia's other shoulder and impacted on the floor between him and Roland, exploding into balls of dense smoke.

'Oh shit!' Roland called out in alarm, and Garcia heard the distinct clicks of a man readying his weapon.

Realising what his colleague was about to do, Garcia threw himself to the ground, hugging as low to it as he could. The moment he reached the floor he heard shots as both Roland and the man with him opened up on whatever they thought they had seen behind Garcia. Through the smoke that now obscured their vision, Garcia realised they were simply firing blindly.

'You dicks!' he shouted as they stopped firing, 'You could have fucking killed me!'

'Shut up,' hissed Roland through the smoke, 'Listen... I think there's...'

Garcia heard thuds in the smoke ahead of him followed by muffled gargles and then heavier thuds. A hint of blue light broke through the smoke before he saw the distinct shape of a person hurtle out of the smoke and into one of the heavy shelving stacks.

As the smoke cleared, Garcia could see no sign of Roland or his people.

Wide eyed, he climbed back to his feet and nervously glanced about him, 'Roland? You still there, buddy? Anyone?'

He wasn't going to make it to the doors, he knew that now. It didn't matter if he made a dash for the back doors or doubled back to run for the main entrance - he wasn't going to get away. He needed a new play.

He ran to where Roland had been, seeing his guy crumpled on the floor but seeing no sign of Roland himself, and made his way to the girls on the blankets.

He drew his pistol and pointed it at the first of them, dragging the insensible girl to her knees, 'Hey! Hey, I know you're out there! I can't get you but I can sure as hell kill this girl here, do you understand me? I'll do it! I got plenty of girls here that I can do in.'

Silence greeted his voice. He darted his eyes around the room, trying to spot his attacker through the darkness.

'Show yourself! You got three seconds to let me know where you are before I end this slut's life... One... Two...'

A hooded figure stepped from the darkness a couple of meters to his right, specks of blue light shining out at him from under the hood. 'Here I am,' it said, its voice icy cold.

Garcia reoriented himself to face the figure, still pressing the barrel of his gun against the back of the girl's head. Getting a clearer look at his attacker he could see it was a beautiful woman. The sleek curves of her body were clearly visible through the form-fitting black and jade bodysuit she wore, obscured only by the dark cloak fluttering around her body. The sight of her made him wish it was possible to turn the aria back on.

It had been a gamble that his attacker would have any interest in the girl's life but it was the last option he had seen open to him. Garcia felt elation run through his veins as he realised that it had actually worked.

'Alright then,' he said cautiously, watching her for the slightest sign of threat, 'You don't want me to hurt the girl, right? So I'm gonna need you to be nice and compliant, yeah? How about you start by taking off that cloak.'

She gave a wry smile, the light intensifying in her eyes, 'I think you've misjudged this a little bit.'

Garcia was about to issue another command, to put her in her place and start to assert some control over the situation now that he had leverage, but before he got a chance the woman was already moving, coming at him like a bolt of lightning. He pulled the trigger on his pistol but found it wouldn't budge, as if the safety had been switched on. He glanced down at it to see blue light emanating from around the trigger, giving evidence to the telekinetic force she was using to prevent him from firing.

His confusion at why he couldn't fire did not last long. She reached him in a second and he was rocked by blows from her long legs before she followed up with a jumping haymaker to his face. He felt his nose break followed by the warm rush of blood cascading down his face as he collapsed to the floor beside his former hostage.

He looked up at the dark figure of the woman as she bent down to him, the blue light fading from her eyes until her face was lost in shadow under the hood. As darkness closed in on his vision he felt her hands go to his pockets and she pulled out his mobile phone.

'This will be a big help, thanks,' she said as she stood back up over him, 'I'd hoped this was what that bulge was in your pants... Now, while I have your attention I'd like to ask you a few questions about Vincent Malone and Club Surrender.'

Garcia felt somehow disconnected from his body as it refused to move when he told it to, rendering his fear and adrenaline entirely impotent. He stared up at the figure looming over him, 'Pfft, I'm telling you nothing, bitch. You've messed with Malone and he's gonna get you back for this; he's not going to let you destroy his kingdom in the 'Gate,' he spat blood, 'You think you can make an enemy of Underhaven and just walk away? They got folk way scarier than you are, and they're gonna be coming for you, chica. There's a fuckin' storm coming and you're gonna be right in the eye of it. You...'

Her foot came down hard on his throat and cut him off mid-speech, 'Good,' she said emphatically. 'You're already wrong about not telling me anything, but you're going to go quite a bit further. Now then, I'm going to break a bone every time you lie to me or refuse to answer me, and they aren't going to be my bones... But don't let that worry you too much; a coward like you is probably going to get out of this ordeal with no broken bones at all - other than your nose, of course.'

Garcia widened his eyes up at her in fear. She spoke with such calm assurance; he believed every word she said. 'You... You would do that? But you're like a heroine or something... That's not what you guys do.'

The woman chuckled darkly before pressing her foot harder into his throat. 'I'm a girl that puts on a mask and goes off into the night to beat up the most dangerous men in Azure with her bare hands. I'm a vigilante enforcing my, quite likely warped, sense of justice on others. Do you really want to test what I won't do?'

He shook his head, 'No...'

'Good,' she said, lifting her foot off his throat, 'Then let's talk about your boss.'