Unmarked Journey



  Unmarked Journey

  By

  Dexter Findley

  Book One of the Unmarked series

  For Mike.

  Prologue

  The man who appeared from the rift stared down at Volus with hate in his eyes. His tall, thin body was swathed in a shocking crimson robe, the exact color of arterial blood. His skin - a glistening, dark shade of tan - bore white marks Volus had never seen before, swirled and daubed on his arms, shoulders and head. Behind him the rift shimmered violently, obscuring a starlit desert-scape on the other side.

  The Red Man raised his hand, as if preparing to swat a fly. Sparks flitted between his fingers. Volus' eyes widened with surprise and his reflexes kicked in, raising his left arm in defense. The man's electric-clad hand met with a Blocking mark on the underside of Volus' arm: the electric shock was still tangible, but nullified, its deadly force channeled away from his body.

  In the fleeting split seconds after the blow landed, Volus considered his options. He was quickly regaining control of his mental faculties: the interloper’s advantage of surprise was wearing off, as was the effect of the sleep he’d just been rudely ripped from. He hadn’t used Knowledge for a long time, but with every passing second he felt more and more comfortable with his old powers and abilities, like overcoming awkwardness after re-connecting with a childhood friend. He found himself thinking it was nice to have an excuse to let loose, regardless of the imminent danger.

  A few minutes before, Volus had been asleep in his cramped loft garret in Manchester. He’d woken to a hissing noise, to the rift crackling open before his eyes. For a moment he had thought he was dreaming, until the smell of burnt metal hit the back of his throat and that Red Man appeared.

  Now he was fighting for his life.

  The Red Man swung with his other fist, clenched and burning like wildfire. Volus brought his blocking arm around and met the inferno head-on. This time he was marginally more prepared and managed to catch his opponent off balance.

  He clenched his right fist, preparing to return fire. Its tattoo-like marks were subtly etched across his knuckles, trailing down the back of his hand and up his forearm. He had chosen them to be so similar to his own skin tone as to be barely visible, unless seen from up close: he was not the type who liked attention. The marks were Knowledge marks, just like the one on the underside of his left arm; but unlike that one, which was a Blocking mark, these were marks of force.

  He let himself feel the weight of the power developing in his fist. The Red Man was on the back foot, recoiling from Volus’ last block. He waited for the right moment with an impeccable sense of timing, and then planted his energized fist straight into the man’s sternum.

  It was a blow that should have winded the strongest of people, and perhaps even caused terminal injury in weaker ones. But the Red Man didn’t move. He looked down at Volus’ fist planted on his stomach, registering the fact almost casually. He then cracked something that Volus could only surmise was a smile, although in reality was more of a stretched grimace.

  The Red Man shrugged off his robe in one swift movement. Volus saw that he was quite naked underneath.

  The man’s whole body was patterned. Every inch of his skin either bore part of a white mark, or made up the dead space between the marks’ lines, circles and intersecting spirals. Where Volus’ fist had connected was a strange form of Blocking mark of a jagged, spiky design, splayed right out across the man’s stomach. It seemed to crawl faintly as it absorbed the residue energy from Volus’ attack.

  The now-naked man lunged. Volus dodged, successfully. But the man seemed to shift his weight faster than was humanly possible, and in no time was already turned and facing Volus, ready to strike again.

  There was only one thing to be done. Volus felt time dilate as he concentrated: the world slowed momentarily, but in reality it was just his heightened mental state that caused the effect. He focused his energy in the pit of his stomach, and pushed it up into his chest, up his neck and out his throat.

  The sound waves destroyed the flimsier furniture in the room, and sent all the loose objects flying. A ratty old cushion burst spectacularly, sending a plume of grey feathers into the air. The Red Man weathered the storm, like an ancient oak in a winter gale. His lithe frame had an inner strength beyond its outward appearance.

  And now Volus was spent. To scream in such a way was a massive expenditure of energy, a last resort that took many invasive, delicate operations to be able to perform. A last resort that hadn’t paid off.

  Well, it was worth a shot, he thought. His whole being was weakened. The energy that should have been crackling in his muscles and his Knowledge marks was currently sending feathers floating around the room. What a damn waste.

  The Red Man advanced on him.

  As his air supply was cut off at the neck, Volus realized there was one course of action left. After all, he had no idea who this Red Man was, or even what he was. He certainly didn’t know what he wanted. All he knew, all he could think of in those dizzying last moments of breathlessness, was that it would probably be a good idea to stop him.

  The fierce blast of energy he’d just expelled from his body, in the form of a sonic scream, had been facilitated by the scribing of numerous tiny Sound marks etched on the inside of his mouth, and on the skin of his neck tracing the path of his windpipe. The process itself had been accomplished by one of the highly skilled Wise who specialized in scribing Body Knowledge marks on people, using her own particular, unique abilities. The Wise had taught him how to effectively expel the great force from his body, and how to channel it: used correctly, it could knock a group of assailants right off their feet.

  With all the remaining energy he could wring from his dying frame, Volus again focused on the pit of his stomach. He could feel his body’s fat reserves metabolizing, and some of the muscle too. Time dilated again, and regardless of his brain’s de-oxygenation, he saw things in a rational light.

  As his vision gradually blacked out and the wave of energy surged up his torso, he deftly wrapped his weakening limbs around the Red Man’s slender frame. He felt his fingers meet each other at the small of the man’s back, where they locked together and held tight.

  The Red Man, sensing something was awry, tried to shrug him off; but Volus’ embrace was determined, despite his less-than-hopeful state. Volus thought of his family, his estranged wife and his son he’d last seen as a young boy. What a waste of time arguing was. How pointless all that fighting.

  He never opened his mouth. He let the scream backfire, into his own body. Those marks, instead of propelling the sound outward, combusted with their unreleased power.

  The Fire Brigade could list no cause for the explosion in the loft apartment. In the end they put it down to a gas leak, although they all knew that was impossible. It had caused no fire, and there were no broken gas mains; all that was left were the charred remains of two bodies and wispy feathers floating around apartment’s wrecked shell.

  One

  Elra woke up to the smell of mold. A rather impressive swathe of pastel-green blotches had been growing on the wall of her bedroom for quite a while now, and no matter how often she asked her mother to talk to the landlord about it, nobody ever came to sort it out. The spores, insidious and noxious, kept relentlessly spreading, consuming wall-space and creeping onto unsuspecting items of clothing left in the corner of the room.

  It wasn't just in her bedroom. By virtue of their council flat's location on the ground floor of Driesdale, a grey, dripping tower block, mold had also spread to the sitting room and the bathroom. It was particularly prevalent on the bathroom ceiling. Elra had recently spent many lonesome hours lying in the bath staring up at the greenery above her, the tepid water mirrori
ng the unwholesome dampness in the air.

  Mold wasn't the only problem with the flat. Elra could understand, of course, that her mother, single and stretched as she was, could not be expected to hold down her job at the hairdressers, keep an eye on her seventeen year old daughter, and stay abreast of every tiny going-on. She supposed that's why her mother had finally asked Barry to move in.

  This was bad news. Barry was a particularly obnoxious individual, unpredictable and unreliable to the extreme. When their relationship had been on a purely casual basis, where Barry would occasionally come round (more often than her mother would go round to his), things had been bearable. Elra found herself escaping to her friend's houses (especially Cali's), or, failing that, retreating to her room and putting her headphones in (with the volume on max).

  When she returned, she more often than not found the kitchen carpeted with empty cans of cheap cider (or the floor sticky with their liquid), half eaten takeaway cartons chucked in the sink, and occasionally, the air heavy with the acrid smell of weed. She knew Barry was into harder and badder things than cannabis, but it seemed even her mother drew the line somewhere.

  While she stood up for herself on that front, she conceded readily on others. If Elra misgauged the timing of her return, it was a mixed bag of what noises she would find emanating from her mother's bedroom. Sex noises or arguing were the norm, but all too often, especially of late, there had been crying. More than once had Elra seen her mother sitting at the kitchen table, muted and introspective, nursing a considerable black eye or cut cheek.

  It was almost painfully stereotypical, Elra thought. A poor, single mother caught in an on-off relationship an abusive boyfriend involved in crime. Did life get any more grey and gritty than that?

  In reality, Barry was a mere peon in the criminal world. A disposable cog, an ex-meth-head who had managed to make it into the lower ranks of the business. In a way, that made him even more dangerous and unpredictable: he had no attachments, no loyalty to anything apart from himself.

  And today he was moving in.

  Elra swung her legs off the bed and threw open the window to lessen the dank moldy smell. She found the weather outside to be particularly miserable, so she promptly closed it again. On the other side of the glass, grey tower blocks rose into the rain-etched sky, their brick the same color as the clouds above them.

  It was so gloomy outside that, with the bedroom light on, Elra could pick out her reflection in the pane. Looking back at her was a tallish, frizzy-haired, almond-eyed girl with skin the color of rich honey. She'd taken mostly after her dad, so her mother said. It was a quirk of Elra's upbringing that she had never seen a photo of her father: the fierce, handsome mixed race gentleman who her mother seldom mentioned had left their lives as quickly as he'd arrived. He'd actually gone before Elra's mother had even had a chance to find out whether or not she was pregnant, something that Elra found rather curious.

  Her mother, on the other hand, had the looks of an English Rose that had been left in the vase slightly too long. At forty years old, the brightness of her youth was beginning to dim. Lines were forming in the creases of her face. Small ones mostly, only visible up close, weather marks of a life full of disappointments. Not to say she wasn't an attractive woman, of course. She was many powers of ten more attractive than Barry, who at best looked like an albino rat, and at his worst looked like a member of the undead. His skin, sickly pale and blotchy, seemed overly taut. His body-fat was minimal, but his movements were quick and violent, and that made up for his lack of physical presence.

  Elra stepped away from the gloom outside the window with a sigh. She walked into the kitchen and threw together a sandwich from whatever was in the fridge. She checked the time: 1pm. Three hours left of just her and her mother.

  She slung a heavy bomber jacket from Camden Market over her shoulders, covering up her ratty Rage Against the Machine t-shirt. She bunged her phone and some cash in her pocket, and headed out into the dampness of the day.

  Two

  Elra passed Fallowdale, the tower block next to Driesdale; then the park, devoid of any children; and then a later-built run of council flats, Teathing Gardens.

  Social life on the estate had always been something of a challenge for Elra. She didn’t really seem to fit in with anyone: most of the people her age were either foot-soldiers for the local gangs (‘young bloods’ as they were called by their elders), or came for very traditional Bangladeshi and Pakistani families, and thus seemed to hang out exclusively with others from their culture (with one or two happy exceptions, of course).

  Other cliques of people her age included the Somali contingent (tension between them and the Banglas seemed curiously high, despite their shared faith), the migrant university students (tourists in scheme of things, really: they spent a year, perhaps two, living in the ‘ghetto’ then would forever brag about it to their mates at parties), assorted roving druggies (exploited by the gangs, a general menace) and those, like Elra, that were 'unclassifiable' in a world of cultural divides and strong needs to belong. Elra’s friend Cali was one: her father was Polish and her mother was Nigerian. Neither family seemed to particularly like the other, but they both liked Cali well enough.

  She came to the base of yet another tower block, a different shade of grey from the others, whose broken sign said Victory Rise.

  The foyer smelled like piss. Elra quickly made it to the elevator and punched the button for the eighth floor. The door closed suddenly and the elevator jarred into life.

  The open corridor to Cali's flat commanded a view of the surrounding estate. Identikit doors and windows, row after row, stack after stack. A great density of people encased in greyness. The builders of these blocks held efficiency above all else, apart from perhaps the inventive use of concrete. They viewed buildings as machines to live in: there was no room for flair or character in their ideas. Boy, did it show.

  Cali’s mother was home when Elra arrived, unpacking some shopping. She was a big, dynamic woman with a strong personality and a faint Nigerian accent. ‘Elra! How excellent of you to come round!’

  ‘The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Tupolski.’

  ‘Don’t you “missus” me young woman!’ she chucked, gesticulating at her with some toilet roll. ‘I’m missus to no man!’

  ‘Sorry, Abeje’

  ‘That’s more like it! Califindra! Elra’s here!’ she bellowed into the depths of the flat.

  ‘I know, nma!’ Cali retorted, emerging with a shower cap tight on her head.

  Now, Cali was something of a beauty. She was dusky and slim, bright-eyed and lithe. She wore her hair short and straight, usually held back with a band.

  ‘Cali, I thought you’d said you'd finally embraced your curls,’ Elra joked.

  ‘So did I,’ her mother continued. ‘I told her Black is Beautiful. That curly hair is beautiful. But no, she wants to look like a Disney Princess. I’ll be the one laughing when she’s bald at forty.’

  Cali gave her mother a withering stare. Abeje deflected it with a judicious eyebrow raise, and turned back to the shopping.

  ‘Want to go to Boomtown?’ Cali asked.

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Elra replied.

  ‘Cool, give me a second to wash this out and I’ll be right with you. Sorry. Nma?!’

  ‘Yes sweetie?’ Cali’s mother cooed in a faux voice as she messed around with some jars of pickles.

  ‘Can you make Elra a cuppa, or a coffee, or something?’

  Elra shot Cali’s mom a smile and shook her head in polite declination. ‘I’m good thanks, don’t worry about it,’ she muttered. Christ, if she treated her mother like this...

  Three

  Boomtown was a colorful coffee-and-cake shop that seemed totally out of place in its colorless surroundings. It was on Sylings Road, a few fronts up from the hairdressers Elra’s mother worked at, and two down from the Bangla Cash-and-Carry on the corner. It sold fantastic coffee, both hot and iced; home-made ice-cream and sorbets and som
e rather exceptional cake, by the slice or by the round. Its main selling point (apart from the fantastic food), was its decor: a direct smash-up of trendy New York bar and Arabian city-state chic, with opening hours to match. It functioned as a wholesome hangout (literally) for people who were not yet old enough to drink, or whose religion forbade it. Thankfully cake, coffee and a decent chat is not considered haram in the Koran, so more often than not the clientele consisted of groups of young Muslims.

  Just so this time. Elra and Cali sat with a pair of massive coffee milkshakes at a table for two in the downstairs section, away from the passing eyes of the people in the street. Behind them in a booth sat a gaggle of girls giggling raucously over boy stories, aged roughly thirteen to sixteen, their hair covered by the most colorful and lush hijabs. All in all, Elra thought places like this were infinitely more sociable than pubs, the preserve of lecherous men and coarse-voiced battleaxe females.

  ‘He’s moving his stuff in today,’ she said.

  ‘Today? I thought you had some time!’ Cali retorted.

  ‘Nope, that’d be far too easy.’

  Cali gave her a stern look. ‘Seriously, if he ever gives you any crap, don’t hesitate to come over.’

  ‘Thanks, I will do. I’ll probably end up taking you up on that sooner rather than later, unfortunately.’

  ‘And when I say come over, I mean come over for a while. Weeks, if you have to.’

  ‘Aw, Cali. You really are...’

  ‘Stop it,’ Cali interrupted. ‘You’d do the same for me.’ She took a long gulp of her milkshake and fixed her eyes on Elra. ‘We need to get out of here, girl.’

  ‘We certainly do,’ Elra retorted.

  ‘I’m not even kidding. More to the point, you need to get out of here.’

  Elra looked at her, knowing she was telling the truth.

  ‘Uni?’ Cali posited.

  A look of regret passed over Elra’s face, then disappeared. ‘If I can get the A-levels and the references, yeah. And justify the ton of debt.’

  ‘They’re student loans, Elra. They’re no-interest. Anyway, it’s the government. It’s not like they’ll bankrupt their own citizens.’

  Elra chuckled. ‘They don’t give a damn either way. The point is, I’ll be taking out loans for living as well as tuition.’’

  ‘Look, girl, you need a way out. Me, I can afford not to. Mom and Dad love me, they’re a solid couple: and they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. But with this crack-head - ‘

  ‘Meth-head,’ Elra corrected.

  ‘...Meth-head who’s barging his way into your life, things are