“I have heard about it,” Byron said.
“How?” Alex said.
“How does anybody?”
“Can you answer our questions please,” Alex said.
“News travels fast,” Byron said.
She was getting bored of this guy already, he was as slippery as an eel.
“Did you know the victim?” Alex said.
“And who was the victim?” Byron said.
“That is what we were hoping you could help us with,” Dimitri said.
“Well, do you have a picture of him for me to see? No? Do you have a name for him? Ah, no again I fear,” Byron said.
“How do you know that, Byron?” Dimitri said.
Dimitri was getting rattled by this guy and they had only been talking for a minute. Alex could always tell when his temper was flaring, as he slightly hopped from one foot to the other, but the last thing she needed was for him to take a swing at this bloke.
“A guess detective, I mean, how could I possibly know that?” Byron said.
“We need access to your CCTV cameras,” Alex said.
“We don't have any,” Byron said.
Alex peered through the darkness, Byron wasn't lying. Unless the cameras were hidden of course, which, if she suspected they were, would require a search warrant to check and she certainly wouldn't get one for a case she wasn't supposed to be working on.
“Guest lists?” Dimitri said.
“We don't maintain any. We are a quiet club, the only people we entertain are those who know about us. Is that all detectives? Because I am very busy,” Byron said.
What more could they ask? It was a tenuous link at best, the card of a nightclub on the victim of a case she was no longer supposed to be investigating. In any other circumstance, she would have ordered a warrant to seize whatever records this place had, but Alex couldn't do that and, by his expression, Byron already knew it. The interview was over.
“That is all, thank you for your time,” Alex said.
She and Dimitri headed back towards the door. As they left, Alex felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to find Byron standing right behind her.
“You should come visit us one night detective, we find ourselves entertaining quite a few members of your police force,” Byron said.
He handed her a card, the same as the one she had found on the victim. Dark red, with a gate on both sides. As she took it, she noticed how the red light of the club illuminated the number 666, hidden in a special coating on the card. No, 66b, that was what it said. It was a ridiculous font.
***
Well, that was a bust,” Dimitri said.
He was right of course, they had learnt nothing from Byron.
“Do you think we should drop it?” Alex said.
“You are asking my opinion? Are you feeling okay?” Dimitri said.
“Okay then, pretend I didn’t ask for your God damn input.”
“No, too late, you’ve already asked. I think you are right not to drop it, but we need to be a little subtler about it.”
“You are telling me to be subtle?”
“Hey, I can be subtle. I am not sure where we go from here though, all I know is that you need to cover your back at work. We need to keep Drew on side, so no more smacking him in the face, okay?”
“Why the sudden change of tone Dimitri? Thought you hated my guts?”
“I don’t want to be part of an operation that fails to get a result. Next case, I want to be leading the investigation.”
They drove back to the station, Dimitri not once making a sexist remark about her driving, which was something at least. Alex wasn’t sure she would get used to the nice Dimitri, but she took comfort that it couldn’t last long.
Drew hadn’t messed about after Alex left, the briefing room was plastered in paper. He had put up white boards for each case and attached reams of information to each, until the walls looked like the obsessions of a madman. The table itself now had laptops placed for every seat as police support staff and detective constables sat reviewing the CCTV footage.
“You’ve done pretty well getting set up,” Alex said.
“We are also getting physical copies of all the evidence collected brought here. Find anything at the club?” Drew said.
“Dead end,” Alex said.
“Watch out, Nick’s coming,” Dimitri said.
Detective Superintendent Nicholas Stroud entered the room, his mountainous build almost filling the briefing room doorway.
“Good morning everyone,” he said, his voice gravelly.
“Sir, we are starting to review all of the footage again from the CCTV cameras surrounding the areas of the crime, just as you requested. We are working on rotation, so hopefully someone will notice some connection or detail that we missed before,” Drew said.
Nick walked over to one of the detectives sitting at the table and stooped over him to look at the screen.
“Good, I have the other unit going over witness statements again and checking if we followed up all potential leads. Minerva, I want us to go over the forensics we have retrieved from the earlier cases. Might be worth having a look around some of the crime scenes and talking to Chris. I want us to be thorough about this, we can’t afford any more mistakes.”
“We wouldn’t want to miss any evidence, would we?” Alex said.
Nick glared at her, before turning on his heel and starting to leave.
“If anyone finds anything, I want to know straight away,” Nick said, disappearing through the door.
“Real smooth babe,” Dimitri said.
She didn’t correct him, was there really any point?
“So, where do we begin?” Alex said.
“The house where you think the guy was first assaulted last night seems like a good place to be start,” Dimitri said.
“You mean carrying on looking into the Greys Inn murder?”
“You think that is where the break will come from?” Minerva said, joining them in the corner of the office, Drew at her heels. Her accent was Scottish and so naturally harsh that Alex immediately thought she was angry at the suggestion, before realising she was merely asking a question.
“How do we look into it, without leaving any trace? Every search we do is recorded and logged by the powers that be,” Drew said.
“Ground work. Talking to people doesn’t leave any trace on a computer. Means you might need to get those little manicured hands of yours a little dirty,” Dimitri said, smirking at Alex. “But I think you are a tough bird at heart.”
“Tougher than you’d ever like to find out,” Alex said.
“You need to carry on with the Holmes actions or Stroud will find out. Not to mention that he might have a point about all this, the Greys Inn murder could be unrelated,” Minerva said.
“You won’t have time to do both, but we can cover for you. There is a lot of footage to look through, on paper you guys will never have had time to even leave the office,” Drew said.
“Drew, are you sure about this?” Alex said.
“You might be on to something, when we were sorting all this out, it struck me how few links we have made. I mean so few links. Every new murder raises more questions than helping to solidify any theory we have,” Drew said.
“I’ll come in over the weekend to catch up going through some of the footage, Dimitri you in?” Alex said.
“I have a fiancé, I can’t work all the time,” Dimitri said.
So did she, but she quite liked the idea of an excuse not to be available at the weekend.
“Well, I’ll be here,” Alex said.
“I would wait a while before you look into the house where the victim was attacked, imagine there will still be some government presence around there,” Drew said.
“The priority is finding out who the victim is,” Alex said.
Drew passed her a small piece of folded paper, which opened up to reveal the picture of the victim Alex had taken on her phone the night before.
�
�I printed off another copy and the secret squirrels didn’t manage to find it when the cleared out the place. Be careful Alex,” Drew said. “I don’t want you to lose your job quite yet.”
- Chapter 19 -
Realisations
Falling. Falling through memories, through abstract thoughts and disturbing nightmares. Dozens of lives lived, dozens of lives lost. Pain, the only constant and repeated through time, again and again. It always ended in pain, yet the dreams continued and reality was lost.
He walked alone in the darkness, the revolver gripped tightly in his right hand, hidden by his coat, the oil lamp outstretched in front of him to guide the way. He could feel it, the Dragos was his.
The shadow in the distance took a right into an alleyway, but it would not elude him. Slowing as he reached the turn, he raised the gun ahead of him, his finger poised on the trigger. He turned ready to adjust to wherever the creature stood, but the alleyway was empty. His back against the wall, he walked into the darkness. Dragos were tricky to hunt, reptilian in their physical and moral attributes, slippery and scheming by their very nature. He reached the end of the tunnel and looked either way, but there was no sign of it. Damn. It had escaped.
A drip of sweat fell through the air, forming a perfect sphere before it struck his forehead. He looked up and the shadows fell toward him. He could not raise his gun quick enough as a blade pierced his neck. Blood poured from the wound, like hot water flowing down his body. The oil lamp smashed to the floor with a last flicker of life before it died, the world crashing into nothingness. All was lost, his time was over. Now his thoughts, lay with his son.
Henry awoke with a jolt.
Beep Beep. Beep Beep.
He reached out to quell the noise, but did not find his bedside table as expected. Henry continued to search for it in vain, before realising he wasn’t in his bed, he hadn’t made it that far last night. Last night. The memory of the previous evening hit him and suddenly, he found himself searching for reassurance that his dreams or nightmares were in fact, just that.
But it was real. No, it couldn't have been. But he was laying on his couch, in clothes that were covered in mud and grime. He smelt almost putrid, of sewers and worse, a very vivid reminder of his time in the tunnels. Last night did happen. But it was impossible. There was a fall, a green creature, running, unconsciousness, a gun, a tunnel, an explosion, running, more running, a vile drink, sewers, and that woman. Except she hadn’t been a woman at all. God, that woman. Then a nightclub, a car and lastly here, falling asleep on this couch.
It had happened.
Sure he was strange, everyone knew that, but not you-are-part-of-a-mutant-species-with-magical-powers strange. He wasn’t human, he remembered now.
Henry sat up and finally located his phone in the pocket of his torn jacket, that now lay on the floor. 6pm — where had the time gone? He was late for work, in fact, the time for work had come and gone. Five messages and eighteen missed calls, all from Dixie and Elle. Bloody hell. What would they think, in fact, what would everyone in the lab think? There was another missed call from Matt, which made sense, he had been AWOL all day. He didn’t want to think about him though, he couldn't. The bastard who had slept with Elle, cheating on his wife and forcing Elle to cheat on her boyfriend. Elle, what would she think? They hadn’t ended on the best of terms yesterday, he had told her to go away, that he didn’t need her. The truth couldn’t be further from it.
Humans and alternates, that is what Gabriel had said. Henry was an alternate, but something slightly different. He was an Ink, an Inquisitor, because his father had been before him. And his father, his real father, was dead.
Emotions are weird things, stranger still to someone who tries to deny their existence. They sneak up on you and when they decide to hit, there is no escaping the tidal wave. Henry sat and sobbed ashamedly, for he detested such an over the top expression of emotion. He cried for the man he didn’t know and he didn’t know why. He cried for the man who sacrificed knowing his son so that he could be safe, who had tried to protect him. He cried because he was angry at the man who was his real father, for dying and not being there to help him with this. Then he cried because, in some abstract way, he was happy. Happy was a weirder emotion, granted, but it had been confirmed that he definitely was weird. He was super powered, although Gabriel hadn’t put it quite like that. Henry was special and people needed him, he had a purpose. True, what an ‘Ink’ actually did was a mystery, but he had a role in life. The gap had been filled.
The recollection that his father had been murdered brought a stop to his tears. Someone had killed his father and he had no idea why. He needed to get out of the house into some fresh air, organise his thoughts. He had had his moment of emotion, now that was over.
When Henry saw his reflection in the mirror of his bathroom, he was appalled. He didn’t like his reflection at the best of times, but his face was marked with blood and muck and his hair was matted, protruding at jointed angles. The clothes he wore were ripped, his shirt torn and blackened. He stripped from his clothes, throwing them into a black bag, and showered with the water turned as hot as it would go.
Redressed, in a dark jacket and jeans, Henry found himself staring at his own reflection again. He had died over and over in his sleep, felt fear and pain, each time personal, yet in someway distant. His dreams were of different eras, of times long forgotten, but he had lived them as if they were now.
There was a knock at the door. Henry ran through all the different options of who it could be and decided none were preferable. He wouldn’t move, just hide in the bathroom until they went away. The door knocked again.
“Henry, open the door you stupid plonker,” Gabriel said.
Go away Gabriel. What did he want? The door knocked again.
“Henry, I know you are in there. I’m not going anywhere.”
Henry opened the door and Gabriel gave him a massive smile, which, naturally, was a little unnerving.
“Come on, let’s go get a drink,” Gabriel said.
“I’m fine thanks, maybe some other time,” Henry said.
“No, let’s go.”
“I don’t want a drink.”
“Okay, you can just have a glass of wine then.”
“Wine is still a drink, you know that right?”
“Yeah, but it’s not a real drink. Anyway, it’s not about the drink. We need to have a chat.”
“Must we?”
“Must we. You just walked out of a Dickens novel or something? Grab your keys.”
They left the flat and went around the corner to the George and Vulture. It was an aged pub that smelt of old polished wood and beer and, even though it was on his doorstep, Henry had never been in. Gabriel got the drinks as Henry took a seat at the far end of the bar. Two pints of some local ale, not Henry’s normal drink of choice, but a drink was a drink and he needed one after everything that had gone on. The place had a cheery atmosphere, alcohol and the buzz of pointless conversations perfusing through the air in a way you only get in old pubs, no shouting louts or burping floozies to be found here.
“So,” Henry said. “What’s next?”
“No chit-chat?” Gabriel said.
“No chit-chat.”
“Alright then. Tomorrow you go and check in with Rosy, she'll set you up with a system to control the amount of magus you produce. Essentially, Inks have more of the stuff than their body can handle. Acts as some sort of radiation and kills you off if you let it accumulate,” Gabriel said casually.
“What the hell? Nice way to break the news softly on that one! I thought I only produced this stuff when I first got the power thingy. Isn’t that why you injected me with the, well, the stuff you injected me with?” Henry said.
“Yeah, the stuff that reduces the thingy,” Gabriel said with a smirk. “But it isn’t just when you first change. You are producing a lot less now than you were yesterday, but it still needs controlling.”
“Shouldn’t we be somewhere sort
ing this out?”
“I can’t imagine it will flare up for another few days, by which time, you'll have your injections.”
“Okay…” Henry said, “And I take it the government already know all about me?”
“Yep, they know every detail about your life now and, in exchange, will keep your identity a secret in connection with any of this. For your dad, they once had to cause a blackout at the BBC television centre to stop something being broadcast on the news. Good times.”
Every time Henry met Gabriel’s eye, they flashed a brilliant green. His irises becoming emeralds studded with onyx pupils, as leafy ink spread out in a pulse across his body. Like roots of a tree they thinned and spindled the further from his eyes they got, then, as soon as the transformation had come it was gone again, the ink lines receding with the colour from his eyes.
“What does it mean, what I see when I look at your eyes?” Henry said.
“Glad to see it’s coming naturally to you. I am a first order alternate, which means I have one of the five powers. My ability is to manipulate life energy which, I’m told, technically effects the energy held within living cells. All very complicated and I don’t need to know how it works in order to use it.”
“Neat, so I’m like an alternate detector?”
“That is one way of putting it. Guessing you’ll spot quite a few other alternates in here,” Gabriel said.
“I’ll take a look in a minute, but first, I want to know everything about my father and how he was killed. It’s been a day now, you must know what happened?”
There was the sound of glass shattering by the bar, resulting in the familiar sudden silence as people gaped and stared. Gabriel fixed his gaze on the young barmaid who had dropped the tray of bottles, either he thought she was cute or he was just avoiding answering the question.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Henry said.
Gabriel shot him a dirty look and finished his pint.
“I’m going to spend a penny and get some more drinks for us,” Gabriel said, walking away.
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