Hope & Fury (Heroes & Demons Book 2)

The shutters were crap, which was the first thing Rick realised that morning as he swam back up into consciousness. The other was that he was alone in the bed he’d shared the night before. The sheets tussled, they were wrapped around him still – but space which had been occupied by his companion for the night was now empty. A passage of air where once there was form. The mattress where he had been was cool – he’d been gone a while.

Or, Rick wondered with only a half-joking mind, perhaps he’d never been there at all and the night – maybe even the past few days – were nothing but an insubstantial dream he’d had. Perhaps this was his room in southern Spain, the fervour of fulfilling his non-promise to a dead man causing the fevered dreams of the nearly insane.

Then again waking up naked with tussled sheets and a vague afterglow didn’t usually happen when a person was alone. Ben had been there and now was not, that was simple.

In fact, it was decidedly not that unusual. Throughout the tumultuous times of their nights together Ben had rarely stayed through until the morning, preferring to slip away before dawn broke. On the rare occasions when they had remained until daytime, there was a clear demarcation between his sleeping form held close and the almost uncomfortable way he would shift away when consciousness began to assert itself. As if pushing away the physical could change the emotion and the thought.

Was that the final instinct? To flee?

He hated having heavy thoughts at that time in the morning, so pushed them and his building paranoia away quickly. He sat, surveyed the room and listened out for the sounds of anyone in the bathroom. As he suspected there was nothing, Ben had been gone a while. He slipped on enough clothes to be decent and checked the communal area.

A bowl in the sink, likely Sandy – but she was not around. The honkerous snores coming from her room were likely Louise given their tonal frequency. Through the French windows, he saw a fully clothed and still fully sleeping Angel and Andrew spooning on a sun lounger. The wind softly rustled the feathers of Angel’s wings. If he could find his phone he would have to take a picture for mocking purposes later.

The only open door was the back door, leading down around past the bins and into the gate to the farmer’s field. It was then the disquiet began to set in further. The door led to the field, the field where a very certain object was placed. The only reason someone would have to open that door would be to take the rubbish out or to take a walk in the field.

Praying it was Ben or Sandy just taking a stroll he rushed over. The worry continued to steal over him, so much so he forgot to put on shoes which he instantly regretted on the stony unplanted field. He could see no one but by the time he’d reached the spot he was dreading the discomfort immediately began to fade – because it was replaced by stone cold fear. The place where he had buried the orb, in that very spot now there was only a round, shallow and ragged hole of disturbed earth. Hastily dug, with hands – the small mound next to it evidence of what had happened.

Like blooms within a kaleidoscope as soon as he began to realise that the orb was gone, it sparked the knowledge of who had taken it, which touched the glimmer of why he had and set off the firework of possibilities that he had been played all along. The fear soon turned to anger and a dark familiar feeling stole over him with a furiousness that couldn’t be denied.

He heard sounds coming from the house, a shouting – an accent he recognised. He turned and walked back, this time feeling nothing but the cold blunt fury.

Tomas’ shouting had roused the remainder of them. At another time and place the comical way Angel and Andrew were awkwardly trying to get off the sun lounger would have been commented on – that morning he had no time for that shit. Louise stumbled out of the bedroom, folding her arms across her chest as though it would keep her from vomiting.

Tomas, meanwhile, had thrown his arse onto the couch and was now rubbing at his feet.

“If I’m going to be around you guys more often, I should invest in trainers,” he commented, throwing one half-destroyed flip flop over towards the bin.

“What is all the shouting about?” Louise groaned. By this time Angel and Andrew had made their way through the French doors to join them in the living area.

“Your friend, Sandy, we were attacked at the market in town,” he told them, pulling a lump of flesh from the back of his vest, “By a woman who shot lightning. God, if I’d have known Miss Sellers wanted this level of favour I’d…”

“You’d have said yes,” Rick reminded him, a little unfriendly, “Because no one says no to Miss Sellers.”

“He’s describing Stacey,” Andrew pointed out, though it didn’t take a massive leap in imagination.

“There’s more – she said to tell you the New Order was here,” Tomas continued earnestly. Rick tried to remind himself it wasn’t Tomas’ fault that he didn’t know that if Stacey was here that would amount to the same damn thing, but restraint was getting harder. “The woman with the lightning, she made off in a jeep.”

“And Sandy?” Rick asked, though he already knew the answer.

“She went after her.”

“We need to go,” Andrew began, already throwing off his coat and heading towards his room where undoubtedly his BioSuit would be waiting. They had yet to invite Iron-Man style suits and so had to instead often change Super-Man style in a waiting phone booth. Not that there were many phone booths these days so it was often more of a case of making a hell of a load of noise in public toilets.

“There’s more,” Rick stopped him. “The orb is gone, Ben took it.”

“What the f…” Andrew began again, but Rick cut him off.

“Somehow with killer cultists all over our arses and the very real possibility that they have somehow now managed to get their hands on exactly what they want – can we skip the I told you so accusations and go right to the figuring out where the hell they went?”

“You think in a few seconds I can suddenly magic the answer out of my arse?” Andrew snapped at him.

“Yes. Now tell me where the unusual stuff is on this island.”

“What?”

“Every place has unusual crap going on,” Rick explained quickly, “If there’s a Temple of enormous power there’ll be weird things that happen in the vicinity. You know, birds won’t fly there, compasses go wonky. If you look at the site above the Temple in London they had an impromptu Prince concert there once – you know, weird shit.”

“Look, this entire island has been a mish-mash of different cultures across the last several thousand years,” Andrew snapped back at him, “It is crisscrossed by a series of stone Neolithic monuments dating back to 3800 BC and include everything from crumbly ruins to an entire underground Hypogeum carved into the underground – Temple sites are possible across the island even without looking for the lost city of bloody Atlantis. This is very much a needle-toothpick kind of situation – of course, if we still had a damn compass – or say a bloody orb – it might be different.”

“What about the church?” Tomas piped up. Rick and Andrew looked at him, quite clearly having forgotten that he and Louise were even there.

“The Maltese are deeply religious, there are hundreds of churches on this island,” Andrew responded condescendingly.

“Yes, but you asked about weird shit – what about the Miracle Church?” Tomas retorted if he took offence to the condescension he didn’t show it. Light dawned in Andrew’s eyes, so Rick asked, Tomas answered, “The Rotunda of Mosta. During World War II a bomb dropped through the main eye of the rotunda and right into the middle of the congregation during Sunday service. But it didn’t explode, the locals called it a miracle and it became known as such. I take it if this thing you’re looking for might mess with compasses, it might mess with electronics as well.” He shucked off his other flip flop before adding, “Oh and Mosta is the direction the crazy woman was headed.”

They didn’t need to say another word, Andrew and Rick shared a look that was equal parts determination and irritation and turned to head for the doors to the outside.

Until the sliding doors exploded inwards.