Illustrations pending


“Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.”
-- George Orwell, 1984


***

Previously in the Clan SteelClaw Chronicles…

Two snake-like eyes were peering out of a pale face. The head was enormous, bulging out of a red suit that looked like armour. To all appearances, the creature was female.

“Hello,” she said softly. “I am Tetra, of NOIR – the New Olympian Isolationist Regiment. I have been ordered to find you, and kill you for crimes against New Olympian secrecy. My condolences. You left New Olympus despite the dangers to our people. If the human world finds out about us… our technology is strong, but no match for the world at large. You must not be found, and there is only one way to ensure that happens.”

“Look, you’ve got the wrong guy! I’ve never even heard of New Olympus!”

“Tell me about your childhood.”

“I… I don’t know. I can’t remember anything about my past, not since twenty-nine months ago.”

***

Tetra trailed off incoherently, clutching her head and screaming madly. Suddenly she seized up, and crouched on the floor for a moment. As the gargoyles started to close towards her, she leapt up and wrestled Halo from Sabrina. She ran towards the edge of the car park and with a terrible scream jumped into the sky.

In mid-air, her head exploded and her body fell from the car park.

The gargoyles looked dumbfounded. Llewelyn rushed to the edge of the building to see what had happened but it seemed that there was a hovercraft of some kind nearby, which had caught the creature. The craft was now zooming away with the corpse. After a moment, they turned to find the human. Ed had been unable to go anywhere, but was watching fascinated from behind the pillar.


-- ‘PIECE BY PIECE’


Vashkoda stood before a wall of solid earth, stretching a hundred feet or more to either side. Unlike her experience in Thaylog's memory, this time she found herself in her own body...or at least a mental projection of it. She could not sense Ed's thoughts or emotions at all.

Had the spirit sent her to the wrong place?

Vash considered climbing the wall, but when she looked up, she couldn't even see the end of it. Strange, she thought. This must be here for a reason. Maybe I am meant to discover its purpose.

She walked towards one edge of the structure to see what was on the other side. As she approached, she heard a loud and steady wail, and felt a sudden drop in the temperature. Cautiously, she inched her way around the corner-

-and was knocked back several feet by a powerful force. Stunned, she looked up and saw a stream of turbid hurricane-like winds, erupting from the ground and shooting towards the sky. The force of the stream was such that it formed a massive pressure gradient that repelled anything that even tried to approach it.

Apparently, it was meant to act as a barrier, similar to the other wall she had found.

She returned to her starting position, and decided to explore the opposite edge of the first wall.

This time, it was a stream of fire. Vash had to squint her eyes to block out the intense golden light. She noticed that the roiling, burning mass never moved beyond the edge of the barrier. The dry heat was incredible, but if she ran, Vash thought that she might be able to make it to the opposite side.

She took a deep breath, folded her wings across her back, and dashed along the barrier as fast as she could. The hot air made her eyes water and her skin gleam with sweat, but it didn't take long for the liquid to evaporate, burning her skin as it did so.

As she neared the end, the air changed, becoming moist and heavy. Now the heat was almost unbearable, and Vash could hardly breathe. Thankfully, by this time she had made it past the flames, and dropped to the ground, exhausted.

A cloud of vapor surrounded her, so that she didn't immediately notice the nature of the fourth wall. When she finally rose to her feet and approached, she saw that it was a sheet of flowing water. Where it met the flames at the corner, the liquid boiled and turned to steam.

Unlike the other barriers, this wall was almost transparent. When Vash came up alongside it, she thought she could see colors and movement behind the water. She hesitantly reached out the touch the surface with her finger. The moment she made contact, the water around the finger turned to ice.

She drew back in surprise, both from the change and...something else. When she had briefly touched the water, an image had formed in her mind, and she had sensed the presence of another consciousness. Surrounded by mist as she now was, the experience reminded her of the Dreams she had when she was on Merlin's isle.

She had to assume that it had been the reporter's mind she had felt. She didn't know why his memories were shielded behind the barrier, but she seemed to have found a way past it.

Vashkoda raised her hand to the water once again, this time pressing her entire palm against it.
She was no longer aware of the wall or her body. Her mind was filled with thoughts and images and feelings that were not her own.

She was watching the sunset from a beach, and somehow knew that she was on an island. As her head turned, she saw a great city, glowing with both magic and electricity. The sight was familiar to Vash, but it was not something that would be seen in the human world for at least another century. Where...or when, was she?

Figures approached. Vashkoda couldn't believe her eyes.

Although a few were humanoid, none of the strangers could be called human. Some had wings, others had scales, and still others had bodies that looked half-animal. Vash even spotted two or three gargoyles among them.

She expected that the human would be frightened by these creatures and flee. She was surprised when instead, she detected warmth and a natural acceptance towards them.

The reporter extended his hands in greeting. Vash's mind focused on those hands... there was something not quite right about them.

A searing pain jolted her out of the memory and back to the barrier. She saw that her hand was now fully coated in ice, and had to use all of her strength to tear it free from the wall. The skin on her right palm was raw and bloody, burned from the intense cold.

-- ‘FRAGILE ALLIANCES’

***


I’m about to do something really stupid.

But I need somewhere to keep my thoughts. I’m not exactly big on the whole idea of a diary, it’s restrictive. Things come out wrong. Or maybe they come out right. But then, it’s not like anybody is going to be reading it. I hope not anyway. I guess I’m really going to be in trouble if that happens. It doesn’t matter. I’ve got too much guilt to deal with. I’ll risk it.

Heck, while I’m at it – here’s everything you need to know about me. My name is Ed Newman, although I’ve been going under the pseudonym of Robinson to try and avoid being tracked. It hasn’t worked. Actually, I don’t even know my real name, so Newman is assumed too. My real name must sound something like ‘Ed’ though – I can feel it. I don’t know how, it’s just that gut feeling where everything sounds so right. But maybe it isn’t. Things are seldom right, even when they feel right, it seems to me.

So I can’t remember anything since being washed up on the shores near Plymouth; an amnesiac. A human. That doesn’t go without saying. Maybe it would have once, but since then I’ve discovered other creatures out there – loads of creatures. There are even Egyptian gods, it seems. And gargoyles – really weird. And… well, I don’t know what I am. What I really am. I look human and feel human and have no memories other than being human, but something tells me that I’m not. It’s that deep instinct again. I hope I’m wrong.

Question is – what should I do? I can’t work out the pieces of the puzzle.

I promised Thaylog Legacy I’d take care of his special charges – a group of creatures predominantly – but not exclusively – of gargoyle lineage. I think one of them is extraterrestrial, but possibly not organic. I wasn’t all too clear about that. Well anyway, I accepted it. When I say ‘promised’, I mean I took his offer as a job. I’m getting paid enough. The man (or is he a monster?) had a huge fund for the clan (that’s what he calls them). They used to occupy a lovely 1940s mansion in the north-east corner of Newbridge Forest. They don’t any more.

The mansion got razed to the ground. The authorities concluded that it was arson. There were no bodies found in the Mansion though, and no evidence outside that indicated it had been set alight. So what happened? The clan got antsy and decided on a little pyrotechnical fun; that would fit the profile of one of my ‘charges’, but it doesn’t seem right. These guys are billed as – well, some kind of superheroes. Maybe not mask-wearing Spider-man wannabes stopping muggers on the streets, but I know they’ve got some connection with the downfall of that Dominion company. Now those guys were bad news, and the fact that it’s gone benefits the city in ways even I’m not sure of.

Shit, I’m taking a lot on intuition here. Would help if my intuition was actually worth something.

At any rate, I’ve lost all links I have to the clan. I’m almost positive they didn’t die in the fire – no corpses, and gargoyles don’t simply evaporate. They could have moved, of course: I took a trip to New Orleans following up on a police report, but there’s nothing to suggest that the clan is still there, even if it once was. The most recent contact I had was with a female gargoyle named Vashkoda, a sort of earnest knight woman. Not very talkative, but pretty determined. Unfortunately, since we returned from this whole Egyptian adventure thing, it’s all turned into a god awful mess – I had to rush off as soon as I heard about the mansion arson, and was busy filling paperwork. When she and her new pals Malachi and Cairo woke up, they must have left without waiting for me. Pain in the arse, but what’s to be done?

What indeed. I can’t think of anything at the moment. I can think of some suspects for arson. Legacy’s business rival, Alexander Thailog perhaps – but he’s not too financially secure at the moment. Turns out several of his business scams have backfired, he seems more concerned with bankrupting his son’s company. It doesn’t rule Thailog out, but the move doesn’t seem to have any purpose, any strategy. Did he even know about the clan? I think he did, but what he knows is another thing.

Then of course there’s Zentech. Another creepy company. This diary must sound like the Leningrad Gazette or something. But seriously, these guys are top-dollar bastards. Their policy is so controversially environmentally unfriendly that the fines must outweigh the repairs. They refuse to change on matters of ‘principle’ even when this destroys habitats, endangers species of wild animals and pollutes the air. They also screw over workers, and bankrupt towns. Even the source of their wealth is perplexing, most of it seems to come from diamond sales. Maybe black market. They’re reported to be very into monster-type stuff, and Newbridge is the place for monsters all right. But I’m omitting the most crucial evidence, and that’s the CCTV camera on the gate picking up two Zentech vans passing a couple of days prior to the arson attack. Again though – why do it?

Maybe I should first establish why I’m doing what I’m doing first. Apart from my work headache and my complete lack of any information as to my past before three years ago, I also have some kind of creepy woman on my tail. I think she’s dead (actually, I think her head exploded), but that’s still creepy. She said she was with NOIR – the New Olympian Isolationist Regiment. Such an organisation doesn’t exist; likewise with New Olympia or Olympus or whatever. Maybe it’s the name of an alien planet, or the land of the gods – like that bastard Ra in that Egyptian adventure. Great, so I’ve pissed off a god. Mind you, if Ra’s anything to go by, he probably deserved it. Why write this journal, though?

I guess I need somewhere to collect my thoughts. To work out what I’m doing. Who knows, it may help me remember something. And I should probably be honest about my dream. I’m not sure what it meant, but I ought to write it down. Apparently there are ways that you can remember your dreams if you concentrate really hard in the morning and just sprawl your inchoate thoughts onto the page. I’m not sure how you do that without thinking of them, haven’t got that far yet. But maybe the solution is in my dreams. What I wrote this morning was a jumble, but the impression was, well – excitement. I dreamt that I was looking out of some kind of giant telescope and I could see the world, I could see people. And there was this one-eyed woman there, and she called me—

What did she call me?

Damn. I forget.

***

I knew I wouldn’t keep this diary up regularly. Fact is, I’ve tried to dream but nothing’s been particularly exciting. I dreamed a sock was chasing me the other night. I don’t even want to read up and see if Freud has anything to say on that

I think I found the clan, or some of them. It was obvious really: I mean, where would you hide if you wanted to lay low? The mountains of course. I heard some rumour in the paper about monsters in the forest by the mountain side, so I drove up there and called out. Lots of nothing. But there’s only a few cave entrances in the area, so I left marks there. On the way down I saw claw marks on the rock, and since the moss had been torn away, it must have been pretty recent.

I’m using the money from IDE to buy a cottage and some farmland on the outskirts of town. At least if I find the gang they’ll have somewhere to go.

***

Just as an addition to the last entry, I feel I ought to add something, but I’m not sure how to say it. I think I was being followed on the mountain. It’s my intuition again. Maybe I’ve got spider sense or something. But I don’t feel safe here. Maybe I’ll move into the cottage too. It’s not like I’m likely to find the clan tomorrow.

***

I found the clan the following day.

I thought it was going to be nasty, jumped by some kind of vampire-woman, but I heard some kind of cry and was brought into their cave.

When I said I found the clan, it would be more accurate to say that a few of them found me. The assembled company was Silver, Llewelyn, Chaz and two creatures I’m completely unfamiliar with – Gigi, and my assailant Ansalong. They quizzed me about Vashkoda and Thaylog and my research into the arson attack. They’re decent people. Silver’s very protective, very sharp – her voice is slightly husky but that might just be because she’s tired. She looks like she hasn’t slept comfortably for weeks, and given how vulnerable her kind is during the day that isn’t surprising. The vampire creatures, Ansalong and Gigi, it turns out have been living off the blood of the local wildlife for a few weeks – they can’t really risk killing humans. Lucky for me. I’ve since arranged a more permanent supply. Still, they’re okay for people who’d happily kill me. I don’t seem to fret about that so much nowadays. If I die, then hey, I die. Right now it seems like I’m near death all the time – I’m sure there are less ambiguous bad guys wanting to do me in.

I’m not going to transcribe all that went on between us, but I ended up inviting them to the cottage. They arrived the following day. It isn’t a huge place for a bustling clan, but it has four bedrooms and lots of winding passages, and a big garden with a barn and a couple of fields. It’s nice enough. Who knows, maybe I can persuade them to fix it up with their gargoyle strength so we can trade up? On first impressions, this probably won’t be a reasonable expectation.

“Ni-ice,” said Llewelyn as I came out to meet them. “Kind of rural, not Avalon or anything, but homely. I like it.”

I must ask her about ‘Avalon’ later.

“Hi. Good to see you. Look, I know you don’t really trust me, and you might prefer the open cavely dampness up on Mount Hirayama. But you’re welcome to stay, and there’s blood in the fridge and places to hide.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” said Silver.

“Yeah, screw us around and we’ll slit your throat,” Ansalong spat.

It occurred to me that I probably ought to know how to kill these creatures. I know that not all of them are stone when they sleep, but I had a feeling all these were. It would be easy to smash them to rubble. I don’t want to, heck I kind of like them. But it’s worth knowing. I don’t think I’ll move in the house just yet though.

***
Winter has set its teeth back into Newbridge and I really wish it hadn’t. So much for February. Stepping outside is like going skinny-dipping in the Arctic circle. It must be about time for spring by now. Worse, it means that I’m so preoccupied with keeping warm, that I might be starting to see things. I thought there was something at my window the other night, but looking again it seemed to disappear. I can’t help thinking of that creature Tetra who came after me in the Newbridge car park. Alternatively, some of those SteelClaw gargoyles or whatever they are might have tracked me down. I telephoned the clan the other night, and I wish I hadn’t; what if they have some way of tracing my calls and finding out where I am? Still, it doesn’t seem very likely. And besides, they’re settling in well. The cold does not seem to affect them much and they have set to work rebuilding the barn. With Llewelyn’s power to control fire, they aren’t going to have too many fuel problems either, which is good.

I did some research. It seems that gargoyles can be smashed fairly easily while in stone sleep, and that happens at any point the sun is up. Vampires seem to be more vulnerable to traditional remedies but I doubt I’d ever be able to put a stake through the heart of Ansalong or Gigi. Also, these are not pure-bred gargoyles it seems but mixed with other races. I’m not clear on the distinction here, but –

***

I had to break off writing my last piece and I’m afraid I’ve lost my thread. I seem to be safe for the time being but… well, I’m getting ahead of myself. I suppose it would pay to start at the beginning.

As I was writing my last entry, a brick smashed through my window. My window on the seventeenth floor. And it wasn’t even a brick, as I saw when I took a closer look, although it was vaguely brick-shaped. It looked like it was made of marble but had strong Grecian patterns along it, and there was a light in the centre that was flashing. The first thought that crossed my mind was: bomb.

And I froze. Stupid really. I don’t know how I could have dealt with it. Throwing it out of the window would be murderous, trying to disable it dangerous, and running would not necessarily do the trick. For all I knew it could take out half the continent, although in hindsight this is unlikely: you don’t put a bomb through somebody’s window where it can be discovered unless you want them quite particularly, or so I would imagine.

I began to see images flashing before my eyes. What if I could live free of human life and run wild as some magical creature. I pictured my skin blood red as I soared through a bright futuristic city on some kind of hovercraft. The image did not last long but it was disturbing.

Since it showed no signs of exploding presently, I reached out towards it. There was still a chance that it might not be a bomb, and besides it had such a fascinating design. It was clearly not human. And it didn’t look like the sort of thing a gargoyle would make, either. Gargoyles are very practical, very essentialist in my experience, which I grant you isn’t that extensive. Why would a gargoyle make a bomb anyway? It would be easy enough for one to work outside the law. Besides, it was too beautiful – or so it seemed to be as I began to notice the intricacies of the pattern on it – to be dangerous.

This was the tone of my musings as I stared at the thing in what was otherwise blind panic. And then I did something stupider. I reached out to touch it. It was warm to the touch – not particularly warm, but enough to surprise me given the coldness of the weather. It had not occurred to me in that moment that the window was open and the wind was blasting in. I went to look outside. The city street was moving along slowly, one of the traffic lights broken. The odd pedestrian stumbled hunched along the street carrying bags of shopping. Across the street a skip lay bathed in shade in front of an industrial site and a street light picked out was the gate of an industrial site and a mass of graffiti along the wall. The tree perched along the side of the row cocked its head at me as if to say ‘well, I didn’t do it.’ Whoever did it must have been long gone. But how on earth do you strike such a high floor?

I looked up. Mrs. Rodgers isn’t exactly a placid old lady and many is the time she’s harangued me about having the television on at hours of the night she considered ‘unearthly’ – and not without reason. Visiting gargoyles has the unfortunate side-effect of being very much a night activity. Short of a near supernatural capacity to hear almost anything I do and her persistence in writing strongly worded letters of complaint with a good deal of underlining and exclamation marks, I don’t really think she’s the sort of person that would throw anything into my room; not something like this, at any rate, although maybe if she threw her letters as paper aeroplanes out of her window, the wind would carry them and save me the bother of binning them. I should ask her. I’m sure she’ll appreciate the clarity of that thought.

Possibly the flat to my left. But apart from the implausibility of the angle, the flat next door was empty. Then again, I thought, how do I know that it’s empty? It might seem empty but what’s to say that it isn’t secretly harbouring a bitter NOIR soldier with an exploded head. Ridiculous, I thought at first, and although I was to follow up on this conclusion presently, for the time being I set about placing the notice board from the kitchen across the window which would suffice until I could get the glass replaced.

I glanced at the clock and was surprised. I’m not sure when the ‘brick’ passed through the window but it had been half past ten when I sat down to write my journal. It was now a quarter past eleven. How on earth did forty-five minutes just pass? I guess I must have been staring at the object a lot longer than I thought, but even so it hardly felt like much time had passed. Boarding up the window only took moments. Maybe I just took a very long time starting my entry, but I don’t think so. At any rate, this did have a comforting implication. The item had not exploded yet. Barring the possibility that it was an unexploded bomb and any minute now a bunch of green, nine-fingered aliens were going to pop down in latex bodysuits and glass bubble helmets to deactivate it, I figured that it was probably not going to explode.

Slowly I picked it up, and put it on the table. I looked underneath, and across its sides and on top. A single light seemed to emanate from the top as if an LED was placed underneath the material, but after looking around there seemed to be no way of getting into it, and I began to wonder if it was electronic at all. I held it up the light but it did not seem to be transparent.

I came to the conclusion that there was only one group of creatures that had experience of this kind of stuff. I decided to go and visit my contacts at Clan SteelClaw.

Pulling up outside the cottage, I still felt like I was being watched, and in the gloom I was reminded of that whatever-it-was at my window the other night. The device was still warm in my hand, and I began to worry about whether it was radioactive. Too late now, I thought as I knocked the front door.

“You have a key,” said Ansalong blandly as she swung it open.

“Yeah, but it’s not polite to storm into somebody else’s house. Or not in the human world anyway. I guess you really can’t just storm into other people’s houses though, can you?”

She gave me an acidic look and I walked briskly through the lounge. As I approached the door, I heard the sounds of anguish, despair and frustration. I kerbed the door and was quite taken aback at what I saw.

“Calcutta, you idiot!” shouted Gigi. “Anyone knows it’s Calcutta.”

“I can’t believe she’s going to win it!” moaned Silver. “She doesn’t have a clue!”

“Is the wrong answer,” came the cheery voice of the television presenter. “The correct answer is Calcutta. I’m sorry, Jim, you’ve just lost all your money but will go away with our exclusive Cranium Crackers hat, badge and fridge magnet courtesy of our sponsors, Crunchi-Crisps.”

“Get on with it,” Llewelyn was groaning, “Judge Blobman: Space Interrogator starts on channel 4 any minute.”

“I knew he’d piss it up the wall,” said Ansalong as she swept down to take a seat on the sofa.

“And now,” came the television blurb, “a word from our sponsors.”

“This is it!” cried Chaz leaping forward until his nose was adjacent to the set.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Llewelyn, sitting up sharply.

I remained by the door and watched to see what the fuss was about.

“Crunchi Crisp Industries,” began the advertisement, “is happy to announce its new three flavours. Avacado and Lasagne! Fried Gibbon and Spinach Soufflé. And last but not least— ”

The television spluttered and the room went blank.

“What’s happened?” cried Chaz. “What’s the newest Crunchi-Crisp flavour?!”

“Calm down, Chaz!” said Silver. “Something has happened to the power.”

“Is this your doing, human?” asked Gigi, turning to me.

“Nice to see you too,” I replied. “It’s probably just a power cut. I’m sure if we sit tight it will be on again shortly.” And then, with a gesture towards the television, “I take it commercialisation has now crossed the species barrier.”

Chaz arose suddenly, and his profile in the moonlight looked like an eight year old who had just discovered a way of attaining his favourite crisp flavours. “Hey, can you buy us packs of Crunchi-Crisps?”

“Chaz!” Silver warned.

“Please,” prompted Llewelyn, and Chaz promptly regurgitated the word to me.

“That isn’t the point Llew,” hissed Silver.

“Well he needn’t bother with the Haggis and Parsley flavour… or Vindaloo and cheesecake…”

“What’s that?” cut in Ansalong sharply.

And I remembered the reason for my visit, glancing down at the item in my hand. It was still glowing, faintly now but definitely. I held it out for the assembled gargoyles to see.

“My question exactly. It smashed through my window an hour or so ago.”

“Your window is on the seventeenth floor,” mused Gigi.

“Exact—hey, how did you know?”

“Followed you.”

“Did you peek through my window the other night?”

“Which other night?”

“Thursday?”

“No, I followed you back from your last visit and checked back the following night.”

“So who did I see at the window?”

Ansalong tutted impatiently. “The Ghost of Christmas Past? How should we know?”

Silver by this time had picked up the item, and was fingering it carefully. “The design seems familiar,” she mused. “I can’t place it, but I have seen something like this before. It… it…”

She threw it sharply out of the window, it passed through with a loud smash, and collapsed to the ground. Her eyes bulged and whether it was the moonlight on her face or the change in her complexion, I do not know but it seemed that she turned blue. But Chaz did not look surprised, even though the vampires and Llewelyn did. After a few moments, the gargoyle Silver ceased to be there at all – she had morphed into a human.

Llewelyn appeared from the adjoining room and wrapped a blanket over her. Silver got up slowly, shivering.

“It’s a device for detecting shapeshifters,” she croaked. “I felt a sudden urge to change as I held it, something overpowering.”

“Why would that be sent to me though?”

“My question exactly,” said Ansalong menacingly.

“I don’t know… I… I don’t think I’m a… shapeshifter, or whatever you are, Silver. But then… I don’t remember anything past three years ago. Even when a demon tried to tempt Vashkoda into scouring my memory…”

There was a sound of surprise from a couple of the gargoyles.

“Uh, long story. Even then, she came across some kind of mental block made real. Or false I suppose, since she wasn’t really reliving my memories. Well, I don’t understand that and I don’t understand this either. It doesn’t make sense. I suppose I could be a… a…”

“Shapeshifter?” volunteered Llewelyn.

“But shouldn’t I just be able to click my fingers and turn into Maxwell Maxley or something?”

Llewelyn spoke slowly compared to her usual rush of words, mulling over what she had to say. “Not exactly. As I understand it, there are the Great Shapeshifters, the Children of Oberon, and Lesser Shapeshifters whose lineage is mixed. You could very well be a Lesser Shapeshifter. Maybe the trauma of your last change caused your mind to suppress the memory of your past life?”

“So you’re saying I was…”

“Human, quite likely. You had an identity, a life, everything and then for some reason this shape shifting thing triggered and afterwards you were in danger. Maybe someone wants you to shift, wants you to show your power.”

Silver had taken a seat again but I could not see her expression in the gloom.

“Power?”

“Yeah. I mean, have you ever tried shooting webbing out of— okay, I’m just pulling your leg now. I’m speculating, but it’s entirely possible that your shapeshifting could be involuntary and natural.”

“But someone threw this through my window. And that assassin in the Interdimensional Enterprises car park…”

“Well the lesser shifters can be dangerous, especially if they’re unawares. The greaters, or the Children of Oberon, shouldn’t interfere with human events, but these rules don’t apply to the lesser. There are a couple of groups that are very secretive, and if a child accidentally was born to a normal mother, then who knows what steps they would go to in protecting their own? There’s a Chinese sect called the Manjara Dragons… my dad had to stop an attempt by them to massacre a small village in 1647. They’re dangerous people.”

“But if I can’t help shifting…”

“I didn’t say that. It’s involuntary, but so is thinking. You can’t shut off thoughts, and lesser shifters can’t avoid shifting. At least, that’s my understanding.”

“So they sent that device over to make me change?”

“I guess.”

“But I didn’t.”

“Have you ever changed before?”

“How should I know?”

“If you aren’t used to major changes, it might not work immediately. But that doesn’t mean it won’t work eventually.”

The lights in the room flickered back on and a 1950s movie blared on the television. “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” demanded McCarthy on the radio that the people on television were listening to. “Why they could be anyone,” a man was moaning.

“This sounds crazy…”

But so do monsters whose heads explode. And gargoyles and the New Olympian Isolationist Regiment – it’s all crazy. But it makes sense. These creatures must be New Olympians, probably they fancy themselves as Greek Gods or something. And their isolationist regiment would secure their independence by killing anyone that threatened to betray their secrecy. Makes sense, really…

Or so I thought as I drove back that night, but it did not make me sleep any easier. Not that I got to sleep that night. When I entered my flat, I realised that it had been turned upside down. Not by thieves, either – my laptop was still where I had left it, sentence unfinished. This was by someone looking for something. Looking for the object or looking for me? I stepped forward into the gloom. Dare I switch the lights on?

I decided to risk it. Better to see the worst, and besides, anyone in the room would have heard me enter anyway. Only later did it occur to me that if the person was waiting outside they would want to see the light switch on. But then again – wouldn’t they have seen me drive up? It was hard to say. And it was not a question I wanted to wait around to see answered. I quickly packed some clothes into a bag, closed my laptop – although if a NOIR person had read it, their fears would be confirmed – and was ready to go. I looked at the noticeboard over the broken window. And my insides squirmed.

It was tilting upwards at the bottom. No doubt about it. Someone was pushing it forward from the outside. I could feel the cold air through the window now. It was moving forward and forward and— it stopped.

It was still. Why had someone stopped pushing? It didn’t make sense.

Rappa-rap-rap!

I jumped for my life and it took me several moments to realise that someone was knocking at the door. The movement of the board had stopped. Should I go over and move it back or just flee? For that matter should I answer the door? Was this a pincer movement? I could try and escape through another window. But clearly that was no use. Not in a block of flats, not as a human. There was a second knock at the door, sharper. My eyes switching with wild speed between the noticeboard and the door, I turned to open it.

“What in tarnation do you think you’re doing at this unnatural hour pounding and smashing and scuttling around then, mister? I’ve never heard anything like it!”

“Mrs. Rodgers…”

“Now look here young ‘un, I’ve tried to write to you politely but I think it’s time I took the matter into me own hands. You’re a noise vandal you are with yer yuppie phones and laptop computer diary. I—”

I stepped back.

“How did you know about my computer diary?”

She stopped. She stuttered. I reached for the sideboard – thank goodness I had made myself a sandwich before I started my journal – the breadknife was still there.

“How did you know?” I repeated, in what I thought was a demanding voice.

Mrs. Rodgers looked wild. “You young maniac, threatening a poor innocent old lady like me. Who the heck do you think I am?”

“I think,” I said recklessly, for caution had already been thrown to the wind and by now I was intoxicated with the idea of finally bringing this messy affair to a climax one way or the other, “I think you want to kill me.”

Mrs. Rodgers’ eyes glassed over. She shook her head wildly. “You unnatural, you foul, you… you…”

And then an explosion blasted off her head. I jolted as blood splattered across the floor in front of me. Her body fell to the ground and behind her stood a familiar looking creature: a creature with a red suit of armour, and bulging face. It was dark blue and had what looked to be tusks but the similarity to my would-be assassin in the car park of Inter-Dimensional Enterprises was undeniable.

“She didn’t want to kill you,” the creature said. “But I do.”

I held up the knife. She raised a weapon shaped like a pistol, except for the flattened end.

“Who are you?”

“I am Tetra of the New Olympian Isolationist Regiment. I have returned to finish the job I failed to do before.”

“But your head exploded!”

“I shed heads involuntarily. It is part of who I am. My last incarnation would not have killed an innocent like this nosey old woman tonight. But nor would she have successfully located you. This head is quite efficient for the task of murder. I tingle at the thought of seeing your life expire.”

She blasted her weapon. I braced myself. But it was not aimed at me – it was aimed at the corpse of Mrs. Rodgers. It faded into nothing, and even the blood stains seemed to disappear. It was as if every sign of the murder had been scrubbed clean.

“How do you know that I’m the one you’re looking for?”

“The Revelation Chip has been hard at work. Every time you touch it, the radiation sepps beneath your skin. You do not realise it, but you are beginning to revert, to return to your true self. Can you feel it – the searing pain under your skin.”

She was right, I could feel it. My hands looked like they were burning, but looking closer I could see that they were not inflamed – they were just red. And it felt right. It felt inexplicably normal. My hair caught fire, but in a second it felt more like ice had settled on it. My legs changed proportion and my arms grew longer. I gasped in pain, my mouth dry. Was this how Silver felt as she changed?

“Right on time,” said Tetra. “You are Red, and for the crime of betraying the secrecy of the Island of New Olympus, I sentence you to death. Have a nice afterlife.”

And as she fixed the gun on me, I threw myself back. I crashed through the board and out of the window – and fell. Death by laser fire or death by breaking my back on a grimy pavement below. Frankly, I thought I had made the wrong choice.

But I didn’t count on getting a third option. Silver grabbed me by the arms as she glided past and after a few moments of swooping across the city streets she landed in a park near Clarion Street. Still dazed at what had just happened I found myself stating the obvious.

“You’re not a human any more,” I said.

“You’re not a human any more,” she repeated bluntly.

She had me there. So what was I? I was about to ask, but she ushered me through the side streets. Thankfully there were no streetlights in these areas and we were able to pass relatively undetected. That’s what I thought anyway.

I guess I forgot that my hair now had a bizarre and disobliging habit of bursting into flames at regular intervals. When Tetra’s laser blast hit the pavement next to me, I probably ought not to have been as surprised as I was. Silver ushered me into an abandoned house. We waited behind a wall. The stench of the damp was overpowering, and the rubble freezing. Time passed. I’m not sure how much time, but not all that much. Silver was creeping towards the door. But I realised in the gloom that it was not just her: Tetra was right next to her, Silver did not seemed to have noticed. They were about to collide.

I shouted; Tetra turned and fired. Silver dodged and grabbed the weapon. Another blast of energy cleaved huge chunks out of the wall, and the roof began to cave in. I choked as the dust fell. But Silver and Tetra wrestled with each other, and at the end of a brief scuffle, Silver managed to lock Tetra’s arms behind her back. I picked up the weapon and pointed it towards Tetra.

“Move,” said Silver, and whether Tetra was forced or conceded her present defeat and moved I do not know. But she did move.

Ansalong and Gigi were waiting nearby, and happily bound the wound-be assassin up. We must have formed an odd procession in the early hours of the morning as we headed towards the cottage, but nobody seemed to mind.

Now Tetra is trapped in the front room. She won’t talk unless it’s to shout expletives across the room, particularly at myself and Silver. Not being sure how to destroy her weapon, we kept it locked in the safe.

And now I sit here in what I hope is safety writing this and wondering what to do now.

What indeed. The obvious option I suppose is to simply kill Tetra. She does, after all, wants to kill me. And there’s nowhere I can return her to, nobody that would accept her without wanting me dead. But would that simply cause another assassin to be sent after me? Is it possible to reason with these people? Apparently not if they’re sending assassins after me, but you never know.

I am starting to remember part of my old life – it’s all filtering back. What memories I have are horrible, but I shan’t start transcribing them now. Maybe when I feel up to it. At the moment, I’m just so tired, but I daren’t nap while the gargoyles are asleep.

The clan, it seems, has saved my life. How odd. I wonder if that’s karma or just damn good luck. Whatever it is, I’m thankful for it.

***

Presumably, the gunk that I’ve just spent most of the day cleaning off is what remained of Tetra’s head before she escaped. Heck knows how. The only minor consolation is that she didn’t take her weapon with her – that is still locked away safely and only Silver knows the combination. What a bizarre ability – torpedoing your head. I wonder if I have any such abilities, but my instinct tells me probably not.

After three years of amnesia, I am at last beginning to remember fragments of my life. And to be honest, I’m not sure if I’m happy about that.

I remember that I used to be called Red, and there are feelings that I have. Feelings of betrayal, doubt, fear and yet a strange conviction and surety. It’s strange. The next time I sit down to write one of these, I promise I will transcribe it.

As for the present situation, Tetra has escaped and may yet seek to attack me. I have arranged for the window on my flat to be fixed and its security tightened – bolts on the doors, a security camera and suchlike. If she has another weapon of the sort I’ve seen, none of this will do me much good but I suppose that’s life. I could of course just get a new house, but I’d only be prolonging things. If she comes for me, she comes. At least I might be prepared next time.

If my readers, not that they exist, are wondering how I managed all these feats in my current form, I have received instructions from Silver on changing forms. It is an odd experience and a tiring one and more than anything a painful one. But for all that, it is a crucial one and I am practicing it.

***

“Red!” a voice cried from below. “Red! Come down from there!”

“Just a minute, Optia! I’ve got a really good view!”

He had. For the past hour, Red had been sitting and staring into the World-gazer at the top of the tallest tower on New Olympus. It had been constructed years ago to give the people a clue as to what the world around New Olympus was doing, and by looking into it, it was possible to see miles around, into the human world. There were mountains, cities, ships, deserts and forests. It was not possible to see the whole world; the curve of the Earth prevented too much being seen. But the magic of the World-gazer was ancient and somehow it managed to see further than the curve would normally allow. On a clear day, Red could see people tending to animals on a farm; sailors crossing the ocean; even giant flying machines.

“I’ve got to disable the World-gazer before the Council! Come down now!”

Red sighed, and flicked a switch by the site of the chair. Gradually, the seat moved downwards along the side of the tower until it was level with the ground once more.

“Sorry Optia,” he said.

Optia was a small creature, and the only hint of her ancestry was the fact that she only had one large eye in the middle of her forehead, as the Cyclops of the old tales did. She lacked the size of Cyclops of course, although Red suspected that the temper was a family trait as well.

“Sorry? That’s a laugh! If you were sorry, you wouldn’t do it! Look at this, I’ve got to be at the council in half an hour and the lens need bathing.”

“Well… maybe I could do that?”

“I trained for eight years to do this! I’m not going to be able to give a kid like you a crash course in thirty minutes! Besides, it’s quicker to do it myself. Pass the optic fluid. So did you see anything interesting up there?”

“Oh, Optia – it was gorgeous! The sun was up and there was a long beach with lovely golden sand. And there were loads of people playing and running and having fun, and palm trees.”

“Sounds tedious. Pass the lens case.”

“It was incredible. There are so many people out there, and so many places. Imagine going out there, imagine exploring that world.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you.”

“Wouldn’t imagine you mean?”

“The Isolationists are getting itchy lately. I think they sense that Boreas wants to make a move, and of course they don’t want that. But there’s this breakaway group, NOIR – the New Olympian Isolationist Regiment. Pass the optic fluid again. Creepy people, they’ve got some big ideas about keeping New Olympus hushed up and seem to have terrorist inclinations.”

“So that’s what this council thing is about?”

“In part. Look, I’ve got to get there now. This World-gazer looks pretty much fixed, at least for the time being. I’ll see you later.”

“Sure,” said Red quietly.

***
I promised that I would transcribe what I could recall of my dreams and this is it. I can’t believe the detail of this memory. This must have been soon before I left New Olympus.

The conclusions to draw from this are varied. I evidently was not born human: the fact that I have now for days looked like I do is fairly conclusive, but moreover the fact that it feels natural. I am a New Olympian. That feels strange too. And stranger: I was fascinated by humankind. The part of me that knows life as a human and is fascinated by gargoyle-kind has to speak up at this point and say that I’m rather scared by that.

But that interest is now working against me. NOIR wants me dead to stop me from advocating interaction with the human world. But now that I see the world and have lived in it, is interaction such a good idea? I suppose on a political level there are regimes in the world that could be aided greatly by the New Olympians. There are many that are irresponsible and might not. But for ordinary people trying to get on with their lives in the midst of gargoyles and terrorists and things that go bump in the night – is that something they really want?

I guess I’ve let my curiosity get the better of me on more than one occasion. It led me into danger leaving New Olympus and it led me into danger with SteelClaw. Would that mutual curiosity lead the world into danger? The New Olympian people I realise, or perhaps remember, are deeply bitter people. Perhaps with good reason, but healing those rifts will be time-consuming and frankly unlikely to happen any time soon.

The alternative – hiding? I don’t think the New Olympians can hide. With the advances in human technology, their discovery is, I suppose, inevitable. Maybe making the first move is right after all.

But to put it into perspective, consider how this clan lives. It minds its own business, estranged from the world, and look at it. Some of its members are real champions, people to admire; but they are driven out of their home, split up, betrayed. What hope is there either way? If they take action they open themselves to destruction, if they don’t then they are targeted in any event. I don’t know.

What a nihilistic outlook I’m reaching here. Either choice is fraught with danger. But I guess I have to help this clan. And I think I want to. I didn’t expect to, I didn’t expect to like or even understand this work. And while I find them individually – what’s the word? – appreciable, they are odd and quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. But they need a link between the two worlds they straddled. I can’t be that link for the humans and the New Olympians; maybe the people of New Olympus aren’t ready for that yet. And in any event, I’m not ready for that yet.

The further I push my memories, the more I begin to see my final hours. It’s not clear yet, but I remember asking to be the link, to be… a spy. To go out into the world at watch. And the people – or rather, Taurus, Optia and Boreas betrayed me. They moulded my skin into a new shape and left me on the shoreline, but worst of all they purged my memories. Perhaps they did not trust my discretion. Maybe they were pressured by the isolationists. I don’t know any of that. But I won’t return to help them.

At the end of this ramble, I find myself little surer of myself than when I began. Except for one promise. When this is all over, when all the fear and running is done, I will help this clan reunite. I think it’s what I am meant to do.

***

So naturally the last thing I expected was to get a telephone call two weeks later from Tetra arranging to meet her alone in Colchester Valley at noon. I have to credit her, this personality seems remarkably honest and straightforward. For all I know she’ll be there with one of those laser gun things the size of a bazooka, but she sounded on the phone almost… remorseful?

I feel sorry for Tetra. Your thoughts, those things most precious and unique to you; to have them blasted out of shape on a regular basis must be horrific. But this also clearly precluded any agreement – one of her personalities might be trusted, but just as a snake sheds its skin, so Tetra sheds her head and her reasoning capacity changes.

She was standing quite plainly in the centre of the valley. There were no trees or crags of rock nearby to hide behind. It’s a very secluded area to reach from the road but opens to quite a wide expanse. About a hundred metres away, Tetra’s hovercraft floated. The shape of a body was there.

“Hello, Red,” said Tetra.

“Hello. What’s this all about?”

“You know what it’s all about.”

“Murder.”

“Yes.”

“Why can’t you just stop this?”

“I believe in my cause. Sometimes, anyway. I have examined the situation through so many different perspectives. Each feels right. To another perspective, each is wrong. But either way it stands that if I return empty handed, my family will be killed.”

“Why this way?”

“Why not just poison the water in your kettle or blow you up you mean? It’s just not the way things are done. Those things never change.”

“You’re Optia’s mother, aren’t you?”

“You remember.”

“All the things you used to do… you were insane. You assassinated Boreas’ brother, you attacked officers on the street.”

“I wasn’t myself then. Or I’m not myself now. I’m never myself really. You think you are right now, right to stand by your ‘clan.’ I see it. You have conviction. But conviction fades, rots, wanes, changes. It doesn’t take an exploding head to change the way you look at the world, to become disgusted, to feel yourself be eroded. Why wait?”

“No reason, I suppose.”

“Enough preaching then. I suppose it’s time to kill.”

“Yes,” I said, raising the weapon Tetra had dropped before. “I suppose it is.”

It was a good shot even if I do say so myself. It hit her through the chest and she fell dead with a crackle. She did not disappear, for I had not pressed hard on the weapon. I placed it down carefully on the ground and wiped my eyes. She didn’t flinch as she died, she didn’t find it unexpected. If I hadn’t killed her, maybe she would have killed me. Who can say?

On the hovercraft was loaded a body. I pulled back the sheet and retched. It was me. Or rather, it was Red. I’m not him any more, but nor am I the human persona I’ve adopted. But the image was that of Red. Tetra clearly had everything planned out. She had betrayed everything that she ever believed in for closure, and it seemed the least I could do was to finally close the matter that she had been sent to deal with. I tried to avoid some of the nastier questions involved with the cover-up. Whose skin she had moulded to make the fake corpse, I’d rather not know. I loaded her body up and placed the weapon in such a fashion that it looked as if both parties had died during a struggle. I noted the autopilot directions just in case I ever need to return to New Olympus, but I think that eventuality unlikely.

I set the craft off and watched it speed towards the horizon. In under a minute, it had disappeared from view. And then I went home to wash the blood off my hands.

END

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