Chapter 1 The shadow Fiend

Prologue

 

It was a brisk December’s night. The ice-cold air frosted the windows of stationary cars and petrified the widowed branches of the council set trees. The west London streets bore an unnerving shade, with the night’s moon vacantly peering behind the sky’s blockade of smog. A tan skinned man of an intentionally inconspicuous character, dressed in a large overcoat and a shirt with a draping grey hood concealing his face, hurried down the dimly lit street. He wasn’t sure why he was there. He couldn’t remember. In his hand was a modified iPhone, it had an antenna and was at least an inch thick. Inscribed on its back were the words, property of Noir. The phone’s screen was lit with a calendar alert.

 

^4/12/15:blue moon _(full) Argyle road ^22:35   

 

"I'm late. S**t I'm late!" spoke Noir loudly in frustration.

 

His phone had been ringing on and off for a while, each time a picture of a man was displayed with the name Lawrez above it. The picture was comical; the man clearly hadn’t wanted it taken as his face displayed utter annoyance. He had short brown hair and an average face set upon a large bulky neck. The picture depicted the man in nothing but a towel stretching his massive body builder frame as he was reaching out in frustration. Every time Lawrez called Noir ignored it and a message was left in his voicemail box. It didn't matter, there was something much more important he had to bare witness to. A blue moon, it had been years since the last one and that was just a new blue moon sitting lightless in the sky. Just then a loud and guttural scream startled Noir from further down the street.

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

Argyle road was a street like any other. Houses packed tightly together, most seemingly absent of life. The sky’s spittle fell silently through the cold winter’s air dampening the pavement.

A man lay lifeless beneath a barren tree. Fear still lingered in the steam of his last breath. His eyes were wide open, as black and desolate as the night’s sky. A bloodied tear trickled down his sunken cheek.

The silence was broken by the hurried footsteps of a figure as an azure beam broke through the shrouded sky.

"Oh hell. It's happening, where is he?"

The beam shot directly into the body raising it from the ground. Its jaw stretched open. Blood began pouring from every orifice, flowing like a horrific crimson fountain. As the footsteps drew closer, the deceased fountain ran dry. By the time Noir reached the levitating body every drop of blood that had once flowed through its veins was now a glutinous plash beneath his feet.

"Oh my," whispered Noir whilst pulling back his hood.

Noir didn't express astonishment like most people. He felt it deep in his mind and it annoyed him like a child annoys an elder. Luckily for Noir there wasn't much that surprised him. He was an information broker; if something was a surprise to him it meant he wasn't doing his job properly.

Noir knelt down to inspect the pool of claret that was now soaking into his socks. "Just blood, but so much."

The body began to moan a deep and husky death rattle. "This guy’s dead. I don't get it. This can't happen," Noir stood back and began to swipe through the applications on his peculiar iPhone. "Nope, definitely not possible."

As the moan became a deafening roar, the body inhaled deeply further stretching its jowl. Noir was worried. Noir didn't get worried but at this point he was close to panic. Every shadow in the vicinity drew towards the body including Noir’s own. The moan deepened once again. Noir held his hands over his ears. "This ain't right!" he shouted, the shadows combined to flow up the body's blood drenched legs growing darker and gaining an almost solid form. As the body sucked them up it regained its complexion. The corpse ,no longer pale, closed its elongated jaw and landed on its feet.

Noir searched his brain for an answer to what he was witnessing but could only find fear, which was another emotion Noir hated, he could usually tame his fear but right now it was running unabated within his mind. He felt an unfamiliar shiver up his spine and the unusual tingle of his hair standing on end. Noir was frozen. Shocked.

The body’s cheeks filled out. It now stood revitalized, fully revived, heart racing and mind rebooting. It took a stumbling step back then a steady step forward as its eyelids raised revealing two pitch-black orbs. The body faced Noir. "Who are you?" it asked.

 

The body’s voice clearly reverberated with fear. The worry that cause Noir’s heart to pound heavily in his chest lessened as he watched the body display the kind of vulnerability only found in the face of a lost child. Something sparked in noirs mind, he remembered most of why he had set the alert on his phone. Noir was exactly where he needed to be. He smiled.   

 

"My name? They call me Noir."

"Noir," whispered the body to itself.

"And yours?" asked Noir.

The body had a look within its mind. "I'm not sure" it whispered as it stared into the pool of blood beneath it. "My name?" it said.

"You don't know do you?" laughed Noir. "Do you even know what you are?"

The body stared into the lightless eyes of its reflection. "What am I?" it whispered again. "Do you know?"

"Technically..." Noir stopped himself; he wasn't about to divulge information freely. "Tell me. What's the last thing you remember?"

The body stood with a face as blank as its eyes. It traveled far and wide within its mind. It doubled back. Retraced its steps until it was tired then it looked deep into noirs eyes. "Nothing." it said

"Not a single memory of who you were, but you know things right?" asked Noir.

The body didn't just have basic knowledge like how to read and write, the importance of money or what celebrity had recently had a sex tape leaked. It knew things, many things. It recognised Noir but also knew better than to allow Noir to know of this. The thing the body didn't know was how it came to exist.

"I know where I am. I know where I've been. I know a lot of things but what I don't know is who or what I am,” it said.

Noir couldn't just hear the fury driven frustration in its voice. He could feel it emanating from deep within the body like the boom from a subwoofer. Noir knew he had to keep it calm. He had no idea what it was capable of.

"Silence" said Noir.

The body's face transformed quite like a dogs does in anger. “Silence?"

"Yeah or would you prefer Tom"

The body’s anger retracted understanding the miscommunication.

"Silence isn't a very normal name is it?" asked the body in reply.

"No it isn't but you're not exactly a normal person now are you" said Noir with a cunning grin.

The body liked this; it had forgot the simple fact that it was a person. "Silence... hmm, not a bad name, not a great name but it will do...I guess.”

Silence smiled and patted his reflection away with his foot, "does it really matter what I am?"

"I've got an offer for you, mate."

Silence raised his head, blankly looking through Noir, he thought for a while whilst Noir prodded the screen of his phone. Reaching perhaps the midpoint of his mind, Silence realised he had to put a lot of thought into his decisions, being that his first few will be just that, the first few decisions of his life. He thought to himself that not many people truly got to choose what they did in life, most having a set of choices strategically placed before them, creating the illusion of personal achievement and setting them upon a path in which was inevitably predetermined; Fate. Silence decided with that very thought that fate wasn't something he would leave things to. He stepped out of the crimson puddle and closer to Noir. "An offer?" he queried.

Noir slipped his phone back into the weighted pocket of his overcoat. "A job offer, that is if you're interested?"

Silence was interested, he needed a job but did he really want to work for the infamous Noir. He had heard a story prior to his existence. This story crept from a dark place in his mind, a place he was afraid to bring light to but the man before him was scruffy, unkempt and slightly stout. How could this man be the black beast who bathed in the blood of French revolutionaries? The dates were all wrong he would have to be at least three hundred years old.

"Need more time to think?" asked the impatient Noir.

Silence had just been standing there with the same blank expression.  He shooed the story back to its dark place and listened to the rational thoughts that replaced it. "What kind of job?" he asked.

Noir smiled with a devilish glint in his eye. "I'm in need of a personal assistant. It won't be an easy job but it will be rewarding."

Silence grew tired of thinking. "Could I have a trial run to see if it suits me?" he asked.

Noir turned and began to walk away. "You can and it starts immediately. Do follow! We have a bus to catch."

Noir was peculiar in description. If you saw him you would say he was nearly thirty years old but his dress sense suggested he was in his mid-twenties. Hearing his voice he was definitely a young well-spoken man but his use of words put his age anywhere between eighteen and ninety years of age. He enjoyed walking and loved public places, he preferred catching a bus to riding in a cab. He liked to listen. Someone told him once that the world had a way of talking.

The azure light of the moon faded as Silence and Noir made their way through the dimly lit streets. The two reached a busy bus stop. With Silence still drenched in blood he instantly gained the attention of the small crowd. One old lady approached Silence with a pack of tissues held in her frail wrinkled hand.

"Oh dear look at you. Would you like a tissue?" asked the worried pensioner.

Silence took a few sheets from out the packet. "Thank you ma'am," he replied.

"You should really clean yourself up after a nose bleed my love. A handsome boy like you shouldn't look so rough," laughed the old lady.

Seeing that Silence was no one to be worried about the crowd forgot about his bloodied appearance and continued their ignorant babble. Noir didn't worry about appearance. He didn't need to. Londoners had a way of seeing things and instantly accepting them as the norm. It was for this reason that so many supernatural beings called London home.

The bus came to a sharp halt a few steps before the stop. The crowd climbed on pressing their Oyster cards on the reader before pushing past their fellow passengers. Noir handed Silence a freedom pass as they followed the crowd. "Don't let the driver see the picture," whispered Noir.

Noir was resourceful. He didn't like paying for things that he could get for free. He wasn't poor nor was he frugal. Noir just had his ways, he didn't mind paying £20 for a juicy steak but he thought £1.40 to travel ten minutes down the road in an uncomfortable bus was absurd.

The two took a seat at the back of the bus. Noir put his feet up on the seat opposite him while Silence sat stiff and played with a wristband that was under his sleeve. Noir took note of the wristband recognising it as a VIP access to a nightclub, a very infamous nightclub.

"Do you know where that wristband you have there came from?" asked Noir.

"A club in Ealing. I think it's called 109," answered Silence. The answer shot from that dark place, sending a shiver down his spine.

"You must know what kind of people visit that club then," said Noir.

Silence entered his mind again, looking around to see if he did know but all he could find was uncertainty. He saw visions of strange behavior, women with droplets of blood trickling down their necks, pale men clearing their chins with red stained handkerchiefs, groups of men and women with discoloured skin and odd growths. He retraced the steps of his bodies’ prior occupant and met with a large man whose complexion was as dark as the corners of his mind. Silence felt uneasy in this place, he felt as if he didn't belong.

"I'm not sure I want to know really," replied Silence.

"I'm not sure you have a choice," laughed Noir.