Origin Of Shadow

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Book excerpt

Chapter One

The ticking of the timepiece was far louder than it should have been. Every innocuous click of the hands reverberated around the room. Sixteen-year-old Vincent Wilder stood perfectly still, making sure his chin was raised the right amount, tilted up at just the right angle. Too much and he would look stubborn and superior, too little and he might as well be staring at the ground. The rest of the expression was easier to master – stony always worked. He needed to look nonchalant, as if this kind of thing was an everyday occurrence. Which it was, or at least it would be, when he took the helm from his father. When it was his turn to rule, he would be so used to deals like this that it wouldn’t matter how loud the bloody clock ticked. Nothing would faze him. He tried to hide the fact that his fingers twitched nervously behind his back, flexing back and forth, fingering the neck of an imaginary violin. He didn’t know why, but just the repetition of the movements comforted him. As he recreated Clinchino’s magnificent 12th symphony, he chanted the Wilder mantra in his head. His family’s mantra. Duty, honour, obligation, reputation. It did nothing to bolster his confidence. He still felt like a fraud. Narrow your eyes and puff out your chest. He sincerely hoped they were taking him seriously enough, or at least as seriously as his young frame would allow.

A single drop of sweat trickled down his forehead, running a salty trail on his skin. He wanted to reach up and wipe it away, but didn’t dare draw attention to the fact that he was perspiring. If they saw it, would they take it as a sign of weakness? Worse than that, would his father see it as weakness? So he did nothing and let the sweaty drop work its way down his forehead, running into his right eye. He blinked to clear the drop, but his vision blurred and his eye itched. He could hold off no longer and was forced to wipe at it with a hurried hand.

His eyesight cleared, and nobody seemed any the wiser. Maybe he’d gotten away with it. He heaved an invisible sigh of relief and took the opportunity to glance down at the table and the people sat around it. On one side of the table, sat a couple in their early forties, close together, huddling as if for comfort. Their eyes, however, were strong and defiant, the woman’s in particular. Her hands were flat on the tabletop, and she leaned forwards, speaking with determination.

The ashen-faced man beside her was silent. Despite the stony expression on his face, Vincent could see the man’s hands trembling.

Across from them sat Franco Wilder, Vincent’s father. Once, he had had a thick shock of dark hair, long and wild, draping across his shoulders. That was how Vincent always pictured his father, but the figure that sat before him had changed drastically in the past few years. As soon as Franco’s hair had started thinning, he had shaved the lot, and the bald head made the most terrifying man Vincent had ever met, even more intimidating.

Franco’s posture was rigid and unmoving, a coiled snake waiting to strike. The dark eyes, eyes that had chastised Vincent since childhood, were now zeroed in on the couple before him. He was not surprised the other man’s hands were shaking. His father’s fingers were locked together tightly, but Vincent knew that it would only take a split second for Franco to wrench the knife from his concealed thigh pouch and spring into action.  Nobody could wield a knife with the same sheer brutality as his father. Vincent’s muscles too were primed, ready to propel him into a fight. If something did happen, which was definitely a possibility, it would be frightening. But he would be lying if he didn’t admit it would be exhilarating too. Never relax around Franco Wilder. He’d learnt that very young. 

A slight click drew his attention. Dimitri stared forwards with exactly the same angled chin that Vincent had been practising. How does he get it just right every time? It would have annoyed Vincent, but Dimitri had been his best friend since childhood and he was an outstanding person to have around in a conflict, so he let it go. That innocuous click, most likely unheard by anybody else in the room, was Dimitri’s quiet reassurance that he had Vincent’s back. Just in case. It was greatly appreciated.

“Tomorrow evening? No.” Franco’s voice was unwavering. Many a customer would have wilted under his fierce glare, but this woman held her head high, her stare unflinching.

“Then you don’t really want my business. It has been a pleasure dealing with you, Mr Wilder.” She stood, brushing down her fitted grey suit.

“Wait. Mrs. Nienna, Mr. Nienna. I’m sure we can arrive at some sort of agreement.” Vincent balked a little. He could not believe what he was seeing and hearing.  Franco cowered before nobody. What game was his dad was playing?

Franco’s outwardly calm demeanour would have convinced many that he was submissive, sincere in his plea, but it didn’t fool Vincent. He saw the way his dad’s fingers drummed the surface of the table. He saw the unnaturally tense shoulders of a man who was in control of every situation. The Nienna woman hadn’t retaken her seat yet and stood tall over Franco, as if trying to dominate him.

Shivers ran up and down Vincent’s spine. He bristled with the desire to teach her a lesson in respect, in Wilder honour. Duty, honour, obligation, reputation. How dare she condescend to the greatest man this country had ever known?

That same haughty entitlement in her stature tinged her voice as well. “I want two crates of Sarro, and I’ll pay eight thousand coins, but it has to be tomorrow. I need to make sure I catch the boats if I want maximum distribution. And how will anybody in Pabell get a taste for Wilder Sarro if the taverns and docks are allowed to run dry?”

With a polite smile on his face and his head tilted to the side, Franco looked as if he was considering her offer, but Vincent saw the darkness in his dad’s eyes. Franco had no intention of accepting the drug deal, and Vincent would have staked his family’s entire savings on the fact.

“Of course, I would normally gut somebody for even suggesting such an insult to our family name. Eight thousand is a pittance for even one crate of the strongest, purest intoxicant on the market.” Franco sat forwards, his fingers intertwined, chin resting upon his tented hands.

The tattoo at the back of Franco’s neck twitched as he tilted his head from side to side, the black phoenix stretching its wings.

“But just this once, I can make an exception. As you say, they need to get a taste for it, right?”

What? Vincent broke his silence as he nearly staggered forwards with the shock. “Father?”

Franco snapped around to look at his son, his face filled with disgust. Vincent balked and nodded, forcing himself back to his silent guard position, chin uplifted.

“Tomorrow. Midnight. At the docks. I bring my men, you bring yours and we make the exchange,” Franco said quietly. “It’ll be a strain to get so much purified in time, but you leave me no option.”

“I trust the quality will not suffer?”

Franco stiffened in annoyance. “Don’t worry. Every kid with a spare pocketful of coins will be dribbling and retching in a backstreet or alleyway before you know it.”

Mrs. Nienna nodded firmly, and the man at her side visibly relaxed. Franco rose from his seat to match her height, and they were back on a level playing field again. It was a strange sight to behold, a slight, unassuming, middle-aged woman squaring off against the most notorious baron in Pabell city.

“Karla—if I may call you that—allow me to confirm the terms of our arrangement. We will bring two crates of pure Sarro. No nasty hidden ingredients.” He paused and stared at her. “Unmarked, opaque wrapping.”

She broke into a sly smile. “And we will bring our eight thousand coins.”

A slight nod of the head was the only reply that Franco gave.

“Then it seems that our business is concluded, Mr Wilder,” Mrs. Nienna said as she rose to her feet. The man stood beside her, but still he said nothing. His shoulders were tensed, like the hackles of a cat, Vincent thought, and he could see the distrust in the man’s face. They shook hands, concluding the deal. Vincent stood his ground, even though every muscle in his body was screaming to leap to his father’s side. He didn’t trust these people one bit. Why had his father agreed to such an insulting price? It had to be because of who the Nienna’s were. There was something different about them, unusual. He had dealt with common thieves and bandits all his life. When he had left school at fourteen, he had grown up with them, drank with them, and fought beside them. These people didn’t look like the usual pickpockets or traffickers, and they didn’t sound like them either. None of this made any sense.

Only when Dimitri escorted the couple out and the door had closed behind them, did Franco turn to his son, bulky arms crossed over his thick chest.

“Go on. Ask me,” he said quietly.

“Why did you accept such a bad deal? I don’t understand.”

Franco stared at the closed door, his jaw clenching in its habitual way, chewing as though he had gum in his mouth, a tactic he had seen his father use to buy precious seconds of extra thinking time in tense negotiations.

“Come on. Think about it.”

The stages of the meeting flashed through Vincent’s mind. “It doesn’t make any sense. You never take less than twelve thousand for that amount of Sarro. They said they’re pushing it to the marketplaces and taverns, but who’d buy from them? Everybody knows we run the Sarro trade around here.  Nobody would dare buy from them. It’s almost as if…”

Franco’s jaw was incessantly gnawing the invisible gum. “Say it.”

“It’s almost as if it wasn’t a real deal.” Vincent’s words drifted off as the realisation came to him. “They aren’t used to buying, are they? They haven’t done it before, or…they’re not even genuine customers.”

The side of Franco’s mouth twitched in an acknowledging click.

“That’s why you agreed to such a fleecing. You knew it wouldn’t go through anyway.”

A nod of the head confirmed Vincent’s suspicions.

“So, who are they? And why follow it through if you knew it was all a fake?”

“I wanted to meet them, to see if they were who I thought they were.”

“Right, and who do you think they are?”

Franco’s face broke into his rarely-seen grin. It was almost grotesque. “They are our enemies. The ones who are trying to bring us down.”