‘We don’t know how Maxim got into the country,’ Hanson said and then stopped, considering. ‘We don’t know he’s actually here, but we know that we’ve had four people go missing in the last thirty-six hours. Those are the ones that were reported, and before that we got several unexplained disappearances in Germany, Italy, and France.’
‘They’re really bumping up their schedule,’ Nisa said.
‘Quite, and getting less circumspect. There’s a body in autopsy now. Initial suggestion is that he was frozen to death. He was found in bed, covered in a duvet, and the room was at eleven degrees. His wife is missing.’
‘They didn’t kill Lisa May’s husband.’
‘No, but this time they wanted it quick and efficient. Or that’s the assumption.’
‘Regulars handling that?’ Kellog asked.
‘The autopsy. They’ll ship us the body when they’re done and Norbery will check it over.’ Hanson’s gaze flicked to Nisa. ‘You up to trying that spell of yours on the corpse? I know you’re not used to–’
‘I don’t think another body is going to bother me,’ Nisa interrupted. ‘After watching Emily die and then finding Jilly’s parents… I think it’s going to take a while before anything shocks me. I hope anyway.’
‘It’s worth a try. How about that list of potential sites?’
‘We’ve got a few,’ Kellog said. ‘Stonehenge and Avebury are the two most likely. The henge is a little more likely since it’ll be quiet up there by that time. Glastonbury is a possibility. We’ve never established exactly why it’s active and Maxim may know.’
‘I’ll get manpower… Where do you want people distributed?’
‘We’re going to be spread thin. The only advantage we have is that he probably won’t try anything close to home. The Eternal Flame is likely to make it hard to do anything with the energy he can collect from soul sacrifices which makes central London unlikely… But that said, I think I’d prefer it if Nisa stayed here. We should have one person ready to head out if something comes up. I’ll take Stonehenge. Norbery can take Avebury. Can we get Tremain over from Exeter to handle Glastonbury?’
‘I can ask.’ Hanson looked to Nisa. ‘Are you all right with being backup on this? I’m thinking we get a helicopter on standby and we can have you just about anywhere we need you in a few minutes, if it’s close to home anyway.’
Nisa glanced at Kellog. He was, she was sure, trying to keep her away from Maxim, and therefore Alaina, in case what they found was going to provide that shock she had mentioned. He was not sure of her objectivity, which was fair because she was not sure she had any. And it did sound like a good plan… ‘I’ll spend the night here. Think that helicopter could pick me up from the square?’
‘I think it could pick you up from the top of Nelson’s Column if we need it to. Let’s hope we don’t need it to.’
Tower Hamlets, December 21st.
Nisa sat on the sofa, turning the coin she had been given over and over in her fingers. The light had dimmed to almost nothing and she had not noticed it, and it came as something of a surprise when Faline sat down beside her, pressing against her side in a rather cat-like manner even though she had assumed human form.
‘Hey, uh, what time–’
‘It is still early,’ Faline said. ‘I wanted to be sure to see you before you left. You will be careful tonight, won’t you?’
Nisa gave her a grin she was not entirely feeling. ‘I don’t think I need to be. I’m pretty sure everyone is keeping me away from where the big event is going to be. I’d be annoyed, except I’m not sure what I’d do if I was there.’
‘Your best, of course. You should have more confidence in yourself. You spotted the link between the shadows and the disappearances. You should be proud of that.’
‘Didn’t get us very far. Now Alaina’s missing.’
‘It has given you a chance, and undoubtedly disrupted any plans they, or Maxim, have. Now there is every chance that the ritual can be stopped and Alaina can be recovered safely.’ The Witch Cat seemed very firm on that, and who was Nisa to deny her.
‘Okay. That’s what happens then.’
‘Yes. But be careful.’
This time the grin was more genuine. ‘Okay, Faline. I’ll be careful.’
‘See that you are.’
Westminster.
Nisa’s phone buzzed at her as she climbed out of the underground at Charing Cross. She was answering it before she even looked at it, expecting it to be Hanson asking where she was. ‘I’m almost there, I–’
‘N-Nisa? It’s Alaina.’
Nisa stopped at the side of the road. There was not much traffic about late on a Sunday, but it was London, so there was some. ‘Alaina? Where are you? Where’s Maxim?’
‘I… He has… He wants you to come to the Temple, to the Order. Alone. He says he’ll… Don’t come, Nisa! Don’t–’ The line was dead before she got anything else out, and Nisa was left staring across the road at the square.
On the other side of the square was XC, and Hanson, but if she went there and got help… And even if she did, there was only Hanson and Sandra. They could get Kellog and Norbery back by helicopter, but that would take time. And Maxim would know what she was up to and then he would… Something shifted near the column: the shadow of a man was watching from there, but there was no man to cast a shadow. Maxim wanted her to know she was being watched. She turned, heading for the Strand.
What was going on? The one thing everyone had been sure of was that Maxim would not want to be in central London. The Eternal Flame was there, burning with stability. It was, she was sure, responsible for the entire Order not being swallowed up in Glitches, but Maxim was going to perform distinctly black magic in the building which held it? It was a stupid sort of thing to think around magic, but that defied logic. Not that it made much difference.
Okay… walking smartly, she had ten to twelve minutes before she arrived at the Order’s hall. If she called or sent a text, the shadows would see her… There had to be some way of letting people know, but how?
The City.
The front doors of the hall were wide open as Nisa walked up to them, but there were no lights on. The shadow beings did not seem to like the light, which was interesting to know but hardly unexpected. And how was she going to make use of it?
A dim light showed as she stepped into the foyer and she made out the shape of a man, a real, solid man and one she vaguely recognised from the ball. He stood at the back of the foyer holding a shuttered lantern. The way the light flickered suggested it came from a candle, which was either being retro for the sake of it or trying to avoid harming the shadows.
‘Your ring,’ the man said. ‘Take it off, drop it on the floor, and then follow me. Maxim is waiting for you.’
‘Why me?’ Nisa asked, not moving.
‘Ask Maxim. Move or you know what happens.’
She did not, not really, but she imagined it would involve harming Alaina. Besides, she was going to learn nothing and get nowhere by standing where she was. She slipped her ring off her finger and dropped it onto the floor at her feet, and then she followed the man and his dim light into the heart of the building. She could feel the darkness closing in behind her.
‘Where are you taking me?’
‘You’re going to see something only the members of the inner circle normally see. High Masters at least, and only the Grand Masters are allowed regular access.’
‘The Eternal Flame? He’s… he’s doing this in the room with the flame?’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘But that’s impossible.’
‘Not for him. You’ll see. He’s going to change everything.’
Change everything? How could you possibly change everything? Unless… Da’at, Daath, Unreality: she understood it more now than she ever had. It seemed to her that it was less a heretical form of magic that dealt in things which were not meant to be, and more of a… hack. Unreality magic was the backdoor admin controls of the
universe, or The System, or whatever reality really was. With it, you could get into the code and change how things were, how reality worked. It was unsurprising that The System and its agents took a dim view.
But the Eternal Flame was anathema to that. It was a source of magical stability. It reinforced more ‘natural’ forms of magic, the things which affected normal objects. It made other forms of magic harder, and it repelled Glitches because Unreality was the raw material of a Glitch. If Maxim wanted to work Unreality magic, right beside the Eternal Flame was the last place he needed to be.
Nevertheless, there they were going down several floors until they were deep under the main building, probably near its centre, and walking into a room which looked to Nisa as though it had been there forever. Perhaps twenty metres across, there had to be around fifty people standing in it, surrounding a small, stone plinth which occupied the centre. The roof was vaulted and made from brick as best Nisa could see. Four brick columns climbed up from a circle about two or three metres in diameter around the plinth; those were there to hold the ceiling up and they looked like the Romans had put them in, but the plinth itself might have been older. It almost seemed as though it had been grown rather than cut. Its shape had just happened rather than being the conscious design of some mason. On top of it was a bowl which looked like it was ceramic, but covered over in metal, probably platinum. Within the bowl the flame burned, blue-white with darker blue flickers dancing in it. Even across the room she could feel the heat from it, but somehow she did not think that the heat was quite the same as any other fire.
‘Marvellous, isn’t it?’ She looked around at the sound of Maxim’s voice. He appeared through the crowd, walking toward her… And that was when she realised that he cast a shadow in the blue light, but none of the other people there did. A glance behind her showed her own, blue-tinted, shadow, and that her guide had left, locking the door behind him. ‘This place was first dug out by men in animal skins, searching for the power they felt was below them. The Romans finished the work, building this room to contain it and hide it. Men have coveted the power of that flame for well over two thousand years, Sergeant Harper.’
‘It’s… very historic. Impressive.’
‘I suppose it is. It’s quite unique. A Glitch, as your colleagues refer to them, which has survived this long in our world because it actually strengthens the mundane reality of this world.’
‘Clever survival trait. You’d almost think there was an intelligence behind it.’ Nisa scanned the room, hunting for Alaina and seeing no sign of her. Where had the bastard put her?
He smiled. ‘There is no intelligence behind this world, Nisa. No “System” to keep us on the straight and narrow. It’s all a fiction.’
‘I’ve seen–’
‘A fiction!’ Maxim roared, no longer the reasonable man in the expensive suit. ‘A fiction designed to manipulate us and keep us from disturbing their precious status quo. I know. I’ve seen. I’ve spoken with the shadows and I know there is a world to be made where magic is the ruling force.’
‘And you’d be the ruler of the ruling force. Sure. Where’s Alaina?’
He smiled. Nisa did not like that smile. Not one bit. ‘Ah yes, I was forgetting. You came to save your poor, sweet Alaina. Alaina!’
The shout produced a figure from the back of the room where she seemed to have been hiding behind as many of the shadow-possessed people as she could. Now, however, she pulled herself up straight and walked toward them, and Nisa knew right there that she had been made a fool of. There was the strut, the smile which teetered between amused and arrogant, and there was the choice of garment, which was little more than a silk teddy, heavy on the lace, and a pair of black high-heeled pumps. This was not someone under duress… but there was something wrong with her.
‘Alaina has not been Alaina for quite some time,’ Maxim said. ‘She was a sweet thing, innocent. I enjoyed corrupting her sufficiently that I could use her as the host for my demon.’
‘She’s possessed?’ Nisa whispered.
‘Really,’ Alaina said, ‘you might as well say that you fell for a demon. Alaina Peters is so far gone now I doubt she’ll ever be able to cope with it if I left her. I am Alaina.’ She looked at Maxim. ‘Can we get on with this? That fucking flame burns, even from here.’
Maxim took a pocket watch from his jacket and flipped it open, peering at it. ‘Yes, of course. We need to be moving on if we’re to have everything ready for the moment of the solstice. Hold her.’
Nisa’s eyes widened. ‘What–’ But two pairs of strong arms grabbed her and pulled her back toward the door, pressing her against the wood. ‘What are you going to do, Maxim?’ she yelled at him. ‘What’s going on? Why am I here?’
And then Alaina was standing in front of her, a finger tracing a line over Nisa’s chin, sliding smoothly from her ear to the tip. ‘The Eternal Flame is a Glitch. It’s a little piece of Daath which has found a way to exist in this reality for far longer than most of them. But… it can be flipped, transformed. He’s going to transform it into the shape it was meant to be, reverse it. It probably won’t last long then, but it’ll be long enough. With the boost the transformed flame will give, we’ll be able to change the world.’
‘And the shadows, me?’
‘The shadows are left over from some past world, and they want to be real again. They’ll help him control the fire. You… Well, you’re here for the same reason these people are. We need power and your soul is just… Mmmm… There’s something just so fresh and sweet about it. We’ll burn your soul in the new fire and change the world.’ She smiled. ‘Of course, you won’t be alive to worry about that.’
‘Thanks. Great comfort.’ Nisa swallowed and wondered whether her message had got through.
Salisbury Plain.
‘I can see the helicopter now,’ Kellog said into his phone. ‘You’re sure about this? If you’re wrong…’
‘I have no idea how she did it,’ Hanson said, ‘but I got a single, clear image of the Order’s building. Nisa hasn’t arrived here and there’s not a lot of time before eleven. I even called Faline to check Nisa had left there.’
‘Yes, but, the Flame is there and–’
‘And,’ Hanson interrupted, ‘Nisa’s ring is off her hand.’
‘Oh.’
‘Right. So you get on that chopper with your squad and you go straight to the hall and you shoot your way in if you have to!’
The City.
Nisa had no idea what all the Latin meant, but she could see that it seemed to be having some effect. As Maxim chanted what sounded like a relatively repetitive, if complex, series of phrases, the people standing closer to the plinth in the centre of the room were changing. She saw them slump forward, staggering briefly, and then rallying. But each one that was hit seemed to have a dark, shadowy halo around them afterwards, and Maxim seemed to be glowing more and more strongly with each person changed.
Nisa began to struggle, but her captors were strong and held her firm. He was killing them; Alexander Maxim was sucking the souls from people’s bodies and drawing the power into himself. And each one he destroyed was another blade of ice in Nisa’s heart. ‘He’s killing them! Let me… go!’
Alaina’s hand gripped her jaw. ‘Do you think you can stop him? Even if you get free, do you believe you can do anything to stop him? He needs your soul, but I can cripple your body without killing you. Be still and let him work.’
Nisa looked up at the demon who wore the face of the woman she loved, or thought she loved. Either way, Alaina did not deserve to be the puppet of something from Hell, or whatever side-reality the thing had come from. She felt anger flare and an image formed in her mind. She saw the pattern the coin had shown her, the pattern of the mind, and she turned it and followed it down to the right point in the path, and her will flexed and pushed energy into it.
‘Eat this, bitch,’ Nisa muttered and let the spell go. It was easy; she knew that the Eternal Flame still burning in the cen
tre of the room was helping her, and she had hopes that it would help her further.
Alaina’s eyes widened. ‘What are you…? No!’ And then she collapsed, her eyes rolling back as her knees folded and she dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. But there was still something standing there, its hand on Nisa’s chin before it staggered back from her. It was little more than a shape, a haze of dust and energy in the form of a woman, but that shape was changing as the demon lost hold of the shape it had been wearing for years.
Nisa saw lights flash where the thing’s eyes would be. A feral, shark-toothed mouth opened in a vicious grin. ‘I’m betting,’ Nisa said, ‘that you can’t take that flame long enough to do squat to me.’ The demon reached forward, mouth opening in a scream of rage, and then vanished, blowing away as though a sudden gust of wind had caught it.
The two shadow-slaves holding Nisa seemed to be perfectly happy to ignore the demon’s demise. Alaina was breathing, but unmoving, on the brick floor, and Maxim seemed oblivious. His voice rose to a crescendo and…
A shudder seemed to run through the entire room and Nisa felt the hands on her arms slacken briefly. Something had changed, but she was not sure what until she realised the light was getting dimmer. Looking in toward the Flame on its plinth, she could see… It seemed as though the shadows were being drawn out of the front rows of hosts and pushed in. The mass of darkness was shielding the fire, dimming it, enveloping it, and it did not really seem to be doing the shadow things much good.
She felt the figures holding her tensing. The grips on her arms became painful as the creatures within the humans reacted to what was happening further into the room. More ranks of shadows were pulled out of their hosts to add to the shield around the Flame, and Maxim kept up his chant which, Nisa realised, had changed now. He had done with the gathering of energy and this new chant was changing something. He was changing the Flame and he needed the shadows to smother it, but it did not look like that was going to leave many of the shadows intact. As Nisa watched, she could see the closer ones burning, fragmenting in the unnatural heat of the Eternal Flame. But they were winning. Slowly, Maxim was forcing them in to smother the fire.
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