1816: Untitled, Chapter 8

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He wasn’t sure where else to go.

He hadn’t immediately decided to head for Dora’s house; he’d just picked a direction and started running. But it wasn’t long before he realised that he’d naturally picked that direction, and it seemed as good a place as any to go.

Quickly he found himself surprised at his own stamina; although he’d occasionally made an effort to try and get some exercise, he still considered himself massively unfit, but tonight was different: he didn’t feel the slightest bit out of breath, even after running up the big hill which the police station was at the bottom of, nor did his muscles ache.

Shortly after this thought, he realised that he was moving a lot more quickly than he should have been able to, much to the surprise of the drunken vagrant lying propped up against a crumbling brick wall outside the train station. As Magnus swept past, the vagrant was knocked onto his side, his paper bag-clad bottle of cheap cider skittering away as it fell from his hand; the golden nectar that helped him forget life’s troubles dribbling on to the street and down a nearby drain. He did not move to reclaim it; indeed, although he did not know it right now, his last mouthful this evening would turn out to be the last drop of alcohol he ever touched.

Magnus did not concern himself with his surroundings, nor with what anyone who might see him streaking through the city streets at an improbable velocity might think. He simply headed for his destination, following the route he would have taken were he driving his car; his mind strangely clear and focused. This didn’t feel the same as when the primal instinct had taken over shortly after he’d discovered Stacey Barman’s body; he felt in control, this time; he felt powerful.

But he also felt afraid. It was a dull feeling pushed to the back of his mind by his determination to reach his destination as quickly as possible, but it was there nonetheless. What he was doing should have been completely, physically impossible, but the wind whipping his hair and biting at the skin on his face certainly felt real.

The city streets seemed deserted as they flashed past in a blur. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but he guessed it must have been late — or early. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed between him being locked in the cell and his strange, unexplainable escape, but he guessed it must have been a few hours at least. Night had already fallen when the officers finished questioning him — they would probably have a few more for him now, if they ever saw him again, that is — and the hour had gotten sufficiently late for the lights to go out, after all.

It didn’t matter. He needed to get to Dora. He wasn’t sure what he’d do when he reached her, but right now she felt like the only person who could help him deal with the situation, so ever onwards he ran, until he found himself coming into her familiar street. He slowed and eventually stopped in front of her house, unsure of how to announce his presence. He didn’t have his phone with him, after all, and he didn’t want to raise a commotion if the hour was as late as he thought it probably was.

It turned out he didn’t need to worry. Not long after he arrived outside her house, Dora’s front door opened, she stepped out and slowly began to walk towards him. Almost imperceptibly at first, she began to glow; as she approached, with each step the radiance seemed to grow within her until her features were all but obscured, and Magnus was reminded, with a certain degree of horror, of the golden figure he had chased away from Stacey Barman’s murder scene.

A dark thought entered his mind, but he pushed it out; he knew that Dora hadn’t done this, because Stacey Barman’s assailant had been, as closely as he could tell, male. Although the brightness of the light emanating from Dora was almost blinding at this point, her form was still recognisably female; although she was still wearing her night clothes, the light bursting forth from her made her figure clearly visible through the material. Magnus’ heart ached as he gazed upon the literally radiant figure of the woman he could never have.

“Hi,” she said, her voice eerily calm; almost devoid of emotion.

“Hi,” he said, equally coldly.

The two just stared at one another for a moment. Silence reigned around them; time seemed to stand still. The world seemed to bend and shift, but it neither became the dark, twisted world that Magnus had come to recognise, and nor did it become the bright but chilling world Dora had come to know. It simply seemed to wobble in a state of not-quite-reality, but neither of the two took their eyes from the other.

Magnus was the first to move. He extended his right arm in front of him; he was unsurprised to notice that it had taken on the battered, gnarled, darkened appearance he had previously seen when his strange powers had previously manifested. The fear was still there in the back of his mind, but he was coming to recognise this strange phenomenon now; it was part of him, whether he liked it or not, so he was going to have to come to accept it.

After a moment, Dora reached out with her right arm, too, her hand outstretched. She moved it slowly towards Magnus’ hand until the pair of them were almost touching, the tension between them almost palpable.

Then, a flash of golden light, and Magnus was knocked backwards with great force. He landed on his backside and was winded; the first time he had felt aware of his body’s physical limitations since the long run from the city centre. He looked up; standing in front of Dora was the same golden figure he’d seen before. It put its hands on its hips defiantly and looked down at him: the triumphant hunter gazing down at his cornered quarry right before he finished it off for good.

Neither the golden figure nor Magnus said anything, but Dora gave a shout of surprise as the former lunged at the latter, moving so quickly that he simply seemed to be in one place one moment, and another the next. Magnus, still on the ground, rolled out of the way to escape just in time, but he was still at a clear disadvantage, even with his staggered assailant.

The golden figure was angered by his unsuccessful attack and let out a howl of rage.

“Die!” he cried, obviously preparing to lunge again. But this time, Magnus was ready. The tendrils erupted from his hands again; one swept the golden figure’s legs out from beneath him, and another knocked him aside, sending him skittering across the street as if he weighed no more than a cardboard box.

Magnus leapt to his feet with agility that surprised himself and turned to face his floored opponent, the situation now reversed from what it had been a moment ago. But the disparity didn’t last for long; his attacker rolled backwards and nimbly leapt to his feet, clearly undeterred by how his quarry was proving to be something of a feisty one.

The golden figure swept towards Magnus at lightning velocity once again; once again, Magnus deftly sidestepped, but missed with the dark tendrils this time. The attack came again; his assailant was nothing if not predictable. And again, and again; every time, Magnus dodged the assault, the pair of them indulging in a peculiar dance as Dora looked on.

But Magnus didn’t realise that the golden figure very much had a set of steps in mind for the pair of them until it was much too late; with his last lunge he didn’t aim for Magnus at all, and instead snatched up Dora’s surprised figure, still glowing with an intense radiance, and streaked off into the distance with a chilling laugh.

Magnus was left standing alone. The world, which had been shimmering between light and dark moments ago, began to fade out, and as he sank to his knees all trace of the light and vibrance that had been here a moment ago was gone, and he was once again surrounded by the despairing words and scrawled symbols that seemed to cover every surface.

Was he destined to be alone? Was this how it was always going to be? Was this what the conflict between light and dark really meant?

He didn’t know. But he knew that he had to find out — and that even if Dora was, it seemed, on the opposite “side” to him, he had to help her.

“Good,” came the now-familiar voice of the shadowy figure as it appeared from nothingness beside him. “I see you’re starting to get it.”