Black Dawn Page 20

  She’d never thought much about her parents, they had never been there for any part of her life, and although she occasionally wondered who they might be, it had never been a large part of her time growing up. She knew that some of the other orphans thought about it a lot. It had been a huge missing part of their lives like they were an unfinished jigsaw puzzle that would never be complete until they found out what they needed to know.

  Amanda had never felt that. She’d just accepted her situation and never questioned it. The nuns at the orphanage were her parents, the other children her siblings and nothing much more had been said.

  Even as an adult, she just had not thought about them, especially not since becoming a Magus, she had way too many other things going on for her to be worrying about something she might never know about.

  But today, something had changed. Meeting Mr Black and the tantalising glimpse he had given her of her parentage, and her origins had ignited something inside of her. Suddenly she had discovered that she did have a part of her puzzle unfinished, she wasn’t as complete as she thought she might have been, and now she had a chance to learn more about who she was, who her parents were and why they had left her at the Orphanage. Whoever this Mr Black was, he seemed to be involved in the supernatural somehow, with at least two or three Magi working for him. Had her mother been involved in it as well? Might she have been a Magus? She found she suddenly needed to know these things, she needed to know where she came from.

  Mr Black had wanted that Artefact for himself, the Lazarus Scroll. She had nothing else to go on, but that name had connotations if you knew the Bible. Lazarus had been the man that Jesus had raised from the dead. So did that mean that the Scroll could do that too?

  Why would Mr Black want such an Artefact? Who did he want to raise from the dead?

  Could it be her mother? Was she dead? Her stomach ached and her head pounded from the stress of these thoughts.

  She suddenly remembered the knowing look that Angel gave her as she had walked out of the Reactor Core. What had she been doing there? Angel was a powerful Magi, as Amanda knew all too well, so she must have masked her Magical signature to present a much weaker Magi profile to infiltrate and deceive. She couldn’t fool Amanda though, she knew how strong Angel was, which meant it must be for Mr Black.

  Did she want the Scroll or could there be a bigger plan at work here?

  One thing was for sure, she didn’t have all the facts or all the pieces, so she would need to dig deeper.

  But that wasn’t all was it, now she knew that Horlack, the monster who wanted to kill her for some reason, had apparently returned from the dead and was alive and kicking. Every time she thought she got a handle on things, they got flipped upside down and she had to start all over again.

  Amanda heard movement and saw Maria step out onto the rooftop. She stopped when she saw that Amanda had noticed her.

  ‘Hey, are you okay? Everything all right?’

  Amanda sniffed and suddenly felt quite emotional as tears welled up in her eyes. She blinked and they fell down her cheeks.

  A moment later and Maria was crouched down beside her and took Amanda’s hands in hers. ‘Hey, it’s okay. It’s alright. What’s happened?’

  ‘I went with Maya on a mission to find an Artefact, but we weren’t the first there,’ she said and explained the confrontation they witnessed, Horlacks appearance and the group of Magi that had confronted the Nomad before she finally spoke about what Mr Black had told her.

  ‘But he said he was my father, and knew how old I was, said he recognised my mother in me and that we looked very much alike so he did.’

  ‘Anyone could say that Amanda, anyone, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess your age,’ Maria said.

  ‘But he knew I didn’t know my father, he knew that. He was speaking the truth, I just… I know it, I just know it,’ she said.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘As sure as I can be, I need to find him. I need to know who he is.’

  ‘Then that’s what we’ll do. We can get Shaun on it, get him to see what he can find out about this “Mr Black”.’

  Amanda smiled, ‘Thank you, Maria. Thank you for understanding.’

  ‘If it’s important to you, it’s important to me,’ Maria said, smiling up at her.

  Maria rose up and kissed her then, before pulling her in for a hug.

  ‘Hey, girls?’ Vanessa said from the doorway to the roof, ‘Royston’s here, they’re looking at the man you brought in, you might wanna…’

  ‘We’ll be right down,’ Amanda said, separating from Maria and wiping her eyes, sniffing back any more tears.

  Moments later they appeared in the Basement, having Ported down to save time. Shaun, Liz, Vanessa and Maya stood with Royston close to the table, Maya telling him what had happened in the Power Plant. Amanda listened and waited for Maya to finish her side of the story. She spoke rather vaguely about her encounter with Horlack, saying only that he got away.

  ‘Horlack, wasn’t that the one who attacked you and..?’ said Liz.

  ‘The same,’ Amanda replied. She’d have to ask Maya more about that later. Royston turned to her then.

  ‘So this guy appeared out of nowhere?’ he said.

  ‘Using the same Spirit Magic that I saw Shaitan using,’ Amanda said.

  ‘Meaning he came through from the Abyss,’ he finished, frowning and clearly in deep thought about something. He turned then and looked at the motionless figure and removed the glove from the man’s right hand. ‘As I thought,’ he said as he turned the man’s hand over, so his palm faced up.

  Amanda stepped forward, ‘What, what did you think?’ she said. Amanda looked down and saw tattooed on the man’s hand, a black brand of a single dot, surrounded by seven tiny flames arrayed in a circle around the central dot. ‘What’s that mark mean?’

  ‘It means he’s a Sentinel.’

  ‘A Sentinel? What the bleedin’ hell is a Sentinel?’ Amanda asked. It sounded like it would be just one more enemy to add to the ever growing list and it just made Amanda feel slightly more deflated than she already did.

  ‘Honestly, we’re not really sure. They’re a group of Magi that seem unrelated to the Arcadians or Nomads or Inquisition, they’re outside our little war and take no part in it. What we do know is that they occasionally show up when things get a little too public and do their best to protect humanity. They’re on the right side of things, but they take a very hard line and have frequently killed Arcadians as well as Nomads,’ Royston said.

  ‘So we’re on the same side then?’ Amanda said.

  ‘Technically, but they would insist otherwise I believe.’

  ‘So how’s he passing through Acheron into the Abyss?’ Maria asked.

  ‘I’m not exactly sure, but you can see that his tattoo seems to have a Spirit Magic aspect to it,’ Royston said.

  Amanda shifted her vision into the Magical spectrum and looked closer at the mark. Royston appeared to be right as she noted the faint and very subtle Astral Magic that seemed to emanate from that mark.

  Suddenly the man leapt up and off the table, making Amanda and those closest to him jump in shock. Aegises flared into life around the room as the man came to his feet behind the table and looked about him, saving a special scowl for Amanda, no doubt due to the fight they had been in at the Power Plant.

  Astral Magic flared out from him and from his Tattoo as he tried to slip into the Abyss, but Amanda had added an Astral Magic element to the buildings Aegis and it stopped the Sentinel from porting away.

  ‘Hey, hey,’ Amanda called out, ‘no need to panic, we don’t want to hurt you.’

  The man took no notice of her and looked around the room, he seemed like he might be considering fighting his way out for a moment.

  ‘No, no, no, don’t do that, we don’t want to hurt you, please,’ she said.

  He didn’t seem to be listening to her, though, and after a moment of indecision, he appeared to bite somethin
g, although Amanda felt at a loss as to what it might be. The moment he did this, a small shockwave of Magical energy flooded his body, passing over him as she suddenly dropped to the floor. With her Magical sight still on, she could clearly see that he’d literally just dropped dead. His life force had been ripped from his body as his physical form became abruptly inert. His heart stopped, his synapses and nerves stopped firing, everything just died and he hit for floor hard.

  ‘Brutal,’ Amanda said in shock and awe.

  Liz gasped while a few others offered their own expletives on seeing the man take his life so suddenly.

  Royston walked over to him and crouched down, checking his vitals and looking once more at his palm. ‘His tattoo’s gone,’ he remarked.

  Amanda walked over and looked for herself. Royston was right, the black brand on the palm of his right hand had disappeared as if it had never been there.

  ‘He killed himself?’ Amanda said, ‘Why did he do that?’

  ‘From the few encounters I have read about, the group seem highly ritualised and very strict and secretive. We assume that they have been instructed to kill themselves rather than risk capture, and I think what we have seen here today pretty much confirms that theory.’

  The sound of footsteps from the back of the room caught Amanda’s attention suddenly, making her and a few of the others turn and look.

  Gentle Water stood halfway down the stairs looking over the scene before him.

  ‘Did I interrupt something?’ he said.

  There have been reports of the Sentinels throughout the recorded history of the Magi. They always appear out of nowhere using Astral Magic, possibly meaning they can pass into the Abyss. They’re highly trained and often very powerful Magi. They appear to have no loyalty to the Arcadians or the Nomads or anyone else, fighting and killing any Magi or Scion regardless of affiliation. The one motivating factor we can gather from their actions is that they wish to protect Humanity from anything Magical.

  They clash more often with the Nomads than with us, as we’re essentially on the same side. But when the actions of Arcadians get too public or involve too many Riven, they have no issues with killing us too.

  Within this book, we will examine some of the most well-known and most infamous encounters with the Sentinels to see what light can be shed on this mysterious and secretive organisation.

  - The Sentinels, a discussion. By Louisa Hunt.

  Cold Trail

  New York

  Dec 1st

  ‘Sounds like you have been busy, shame we did not discover more about this Sentinel. We must be more careful next time,’ Gentle Water said.

  ‘It was stupid of me, I’d heard the stories of them killing themselves, I should have checked more thoroughly,’ Royston said.

  ‘Knowing of stories or rumours or not, it’s a very different thing when they’re laid out right there in front of you though so it is,’ Amanda said.

  They’d all retreated across the garage and into Shaun’s Ops room where a large conference table had been set up recently so they could meet there to discuss these things. Amanda felt tired from the mission to the desert, but she wanted to hear what Gentle Water had to say about his mission to the South Pole, also, she wanted to speak to him anyway about the revelation from Trevelyan about the Prophecy, find out what he knew exactly.

  She eyed him from across the table, wondering what he knew, was he being truthful to her? Had he kept this from her? She looked back down to her lap where she’d been absentmindedly playing with the threads on the edge of one of the holes in her boot-cut skinny jeans. What was she thinking? Gentle Water had been the most loyal and kindest person she had known in her entire life, why was she now thinking horrible things about him?

  This life as a Magi and the constant struggle against those who would do her harm would no doubt take its toll, in a similar way to the service men in the Riven world out there fighting wars in hostile environments around the world. The only difference being that her hostile environment just so happened to be everywhere and hidden from plain view. It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to kill you she supposed.

  ‘So don’t keep us in suspense any longer Gentle Water, did you find anything in the Antarctic?’ Royston asked.

  ‘Yes. The leads you gave me led to camp hidden well away from any Riven base, with what must have been very tight security,’ he said.

  ‘Must have been?’ Royston asked.

  ‘Yes. The base was still there, but they were starting to dismantle it,’ Gentle Water replied.

  ‘Okay, go on,’ Royston said.

  ‘I observed before infiltrating the base and asking questions of security man. The base is part of dig, they hunt for Magic artefact in ice.’ Amanda enjoyed listening to Gentle Waters soft Chinese accent and the way he missed out the occasional joining word. Her Mentor had always been laconic at the best of times, only speaking when he needed to and what he said always mattered. He went on to explain the site and its location before what looked like a temple entrance and the strange Magic that lay scattered about the site.

  ‘So did the Guard you interrogated give you any further information? Like who was this dig for and what they found there?’ Royston asked.

  ‘They found Magic artefact, the guard not sure what it was, just heard rumours. But the Dig was funded by man called Mr Black…’

  ‘What?’ Amanda said, her head snapping up and suddenly feeling very interested in what Gentle Water had been talking about. ‘Did you say Mr Black?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  Amanda let out a laboured breath and looked into the middle distance. This couldn’t be a coincidence, meeting Mr Black maybe an hour or two ago in Arizona and then this report from Gentle Water. She’d neglected to mention who it was she’d met at the power plant and also the finer details of what Mr Black had discussed with her. But now, with this revelation from Gentle Water, maybe things could change in her favour, but she’d need to explain things for everyone here.

  She looked up at Maria sat next to her, who with a small movement of her head and eyebrows, indicated that maybe Amanda should let everyone know what was going on.

  She looked up at the expectant faces around the table and took a breath before speaking again. ‘The group of people at the Power Plant, who were after the Lazarus Scroll and who confronted the Nomad Dust and Horlack, they were led by a man called Mr Black,’ she said. This set her friends around the table muttering and looking at each other.

  ‘Mr Black, you’re sure,’ Royston said to her.

  ‘And…’ Maria said to Amanda, urging her to say more. Maria’s single word silenced everyone and they looked back to Amanda.

  ‘And… And he said he was my father.’

  ‘Your father? Your real father?’ Liz asked looking slightly shocked.

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘And you believed him?’ Liz replied.

  ‘I did, I mean, I do. I believe he was telling the truth.’

  ‘You’re an Orphan though right?’ Vanessa asked.

  ‘That’s right, abandoned at an Irish Orphanage as a baby, I never knew my parents,’ Amanda answered.

  ‘This is concerning. So, you say he has apparently acquired a Magical Item from the dig in the Antarctic,’ Royston said to Gentle Water, who nodded. ‘And he also got hold of the Lazarus Scroll in Arizona?’ he said to Amanda and Maya.

  Amanda glanced at Maya and they both nodded.

  ‘Tell me more of what you saw Amanda,’ Royston asked.

  ‘A group of maybe fifteen or twenty well trained and well-armed men, along with at least three Magi accompanied Mr Black.’

  ‘And Mr Black himself was not a Magus?’ Royston asked.

  ‘From what I could tell, no, but he did seem to carry plenty of Magical Items on him.’

  ‘The three Magi, what about them?’ Royston asked.

  ‘Oh yes, I forgot to mention. I knew one of the Magi with Mr Black so I did. It was Angel, yeh blonde one who attacke
d me on the train in France.’ She could see that this clearly interested Gentle Water and Liz who had been there with her. ‘I didn’t recognise the other two, they were bleedin’ powerful, though.’

  ‘Rank?’ Royston asked.

  ‘Sage maybe, give or take.’

  ‘Angel? She’s working for Mr Black?’ Liz said in mild confusion.

  ‘That’s the strange thing, she must have been hiding her Magical signature because she appeared much weaker to my Magical sight,’ Amanda said.

  ‘She’s infiltrating them,’ Royston said. ‘So she wants the item for herself then.’

  ‘Who knows, she’s a sneaky one,’ Amanda said.

  ‘Agreed, we can’t make assumptions about Angel’s motives, but she’s clearly working her own angle on this, so it’s something to bear in mind. Suffice to say, I don’t like this at all. This Initiated Mortal, who we know nothing about but who seems to know a hell of a lot about us, and about Magic, is collecting up Magical items from around the world very quickly. I don’t know about all of you, but I have a bad feeling about this.’

  Amanda had to agree. This all sounded very, very bad, and her link to this made things just that little bit more personal to her. Was this really her parent doing this, and what did he want with these items, other than more power? He’d successfully kept himself hidden away from the collective power and insight of the Magi world, gathered loyal Magi and who knows what else to his banner and hunted down some of the most powerful Magical items in the world. He clearly wanted something, but what was it?

  One thing was for sure, she wanted to know and she wanted to find him as quickly as she could.

  ‘Did you go down into the dig? Did you see anything in there of interest?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘I did not go into the tunnels, no.’

  ‘Then I want to go back there, I want to see for myself what ye man dug up from that poxy ice.’