Prelude: Darkness

Vargas Havelock sat in his study.

The room was cold and silent. There were a pair of filing cabinets, a bookcase with a handful of reference books, and a steel desk. Everything was made of metal or plastic, and the walls were plain white. There was only one chair. The room had an empty, soulless feel that would have made most people uneasy. Vargas found it comfortable. Vargas was not interested in aesthetics, nor luxury. Vargas Havelock was an extremely focused man.

Now, he was sitting at his desk, one hand supporting his chin. Vargas Havelock was thinking.

Business was good. Within his sector of London, he now had undisputed control over the drug and arms markets. The other crime lords of London respected him, and he was on good terms with many of them. Vargas rarely had to fight turf battles or even send out his enforcers anymore. He was an established figure, and the mere mention of his name was enough to put down trouble.

Things had been different once. Twenty years ago, Vargas had been a street dealer with no more power and influence than the ones who now sold his product. But even then, he had possessed something that the other criminals had not: force of will and ruthless ambition. He had worked his way up the ladder slowly, driving out some of his competitors, buying out others. Now, he was at last approaching the stage he had always dreamt of: legitimacy. His network of contacts, patiently built up over many years, had expanded to the stage where he was on first-name terms with some of the most important businessmen and politicians of the country. He had long ago reached the point where he could convert his enterprises to legal ones and become a respectable businessman. But Vargas aspired to more than that. To be one of the few people in the country with real power, to be one of the figures in the shadows at whose word the nation moved: that was his desire. And it was nearly within his grasp.

Except for one thing.

An empire needed an heir. Vargas wanted more than just power in this life, he aspired to immortality. To have his own children carry on his tradition, past his own death: that was the final stage. Vargas had three children. One of them, Michael, was less than thirty feet away, sleeping in his bedroom. But the other two were missing.

It had now been almost exactly two years since Allandra and Ignis had escaped from him in the Rhosmaen valley, swept away by the raging river. Vargas had searched fruitlessly for almost a year - until Allandra had walked right into his hands.

The memory of that week in June still made Vargas clench his fist. Allandra had been in the palm of his hand. She had been back in her room in Hampstead, secure and under his control, on the verge of surrendering and joining her twin brother. And then she had been spirited away from under his nose.

If Allandra had been taken by a rival in the criminal world, or by the police, it would have been easier for Vargas to accept. But what was so galling was that, as far as Vargas knew, she had been rescued by a gang of children. There had been a girl with fair hair. A tall boy who had pulled Allandra away on the bridge over the spillway. And Ignis.

Ignis had always been the odd one out of Vargas' children. A year older than Allandra and Michael, he had been the one most affected by his mother's departure. With Karen no longer there, he had grown more and more intractable, and neither beatings nor threats would change him. It exasperated Vargas. He had always taken pride in his ability to bend any other person to his will, no matter how stubborn or uncooperative. But with Ignis, Vargas had failed. No matter what order Vargas gave, Ignis would ignore it. And afterwards, no matter what punishment Vargas inflicted, Ignis would pick himself up, dust himself off, and do the same stupid thing all over again.

At the time of Ignis' disappearance, Vargas had been coming close to giving up on his firstborn son. He had seen enough boys like Ignis that he could predict the direction Ignis would take. Ignis would continue to defy him, and as he grew older and stronger his acts of rebellion would become more and more extreme. And finally, if Ignis did not change, Vargas would be forced to kill him.

Except Ignis had changed. When Ignis had confronted Vargas on the dam that June morning, Vargas had viewed him as a nuisance, a diversion from the more important business of Allandra. But in the year since then, Vargas had had plenty of time to think over the brief conversation they had shared. Ignis had become more controlled, more capable. His potential had suddenly grown, and not in a way Vargas had expected. Two years ago Vargas had thought of Ignis as a failure, but now he was changing his mind.

However, it was still Allandra to whom his thoughts returned most often. Vargas had always planned for Allandra to be his heir: she was the most intelligent of the three, and potentially the most ruthless if shaped correctly. Whatever had happened to her in the missing year had made her more suited than ever to join him. Yet, at the end, she had dropped away out of his reach, carried away on a rope by some boy that he had never seen before, vanishing into the Rhosmaen forests . . .

And it was here that Vargas' thoughts always came up against a blank wall.

Where had Allandra and Ignis gone? Twice within one year they had vanished into the hills and forest north of Rhosmaen. He had searched every inch of the area, questioning every living being he found, and found no trace of either one. At times Vargas could almost believe that they were hiding in the forest, tucked away in some cave or tree. But that was impossible. They had been wearing new clothes, had received some kind of training: that meant some adults were watching over them. And there were no adults living in the forests near Rhosmaen.

No, the only conclusion Vargas could reach was that the Rhosmaen valley was some kind of drop-off point. From there, Allandra and Ignis must have been carried in a vehicle to a town or city a long way away. His investigations along those lines had produced no result, but a single car or van travelling across England could easily have passed unnoticed. His agents were still searching, but Vargas no longer expected results. If they were well dug into a city, it would be very difficult to find them, unless they broke cover . . .

Vargas paused. Last time, they had broken cover. He had been at a dead end, and out of the blue, Allandra had walked right into his Rhosmaen house. Ignis had followed within a week.

He was going about this the wrong way. Instead of searching for Allandra and Ignis, he should wait for them to come to him.

He would pull back his searchers from the rest of England and concentrate them in London. He would increase the security on his own house and everywhere that Michael went. And he would recruit eyes everywhere in London. If they had come to London and to Michael once, they would come again. And when they did, he would have them.

Vargas stood and walked to the window, looking out into the night. After a while, he began to smile. Ignis and Allandra would show themselves eventually. He could wait.

And next time, they would not get away.

Benedict Jacka

Prelude: Darkness