Games of Genus

by C. J. Strange

  … he’s not all there, this geezer.

  “Very well.” Professor Moriarty draws back again, relaxing in his chair. “Why don’t you start with telling me what it is you’ve become aware of, and then I shall do what I can to bridge the gaps for you. Constable—what was it?”

  “Lestrade,” I answer, ready with my collar number in case he needs further identification.

  Moriarty pauses, then leans forward on his desk, clasping his hands over the scattered papers and books that cover the whole surface.

  “Constable Lestrade,” he repeats, the way he takes his time on each syllable of my name only adding to my discomfort. I do not want to be here anymore, I decide very firmly. I want to be down the pub, or up the shops, or back at the station, or anywhere but sitting at this weird stranger’s desk with his eyes boring holes into my own.

  “Yes?” I finally wheeze, though I really don’t want to. I’m beginning to regret coming here, beginning to wonder if this was all a big joke on Bert Maguire’s part. If so, I swear to it, I’ll have him for this.

  Moriarty smiles. It’s not a warm or pleasant one, either.

  “Why don’t you start us off by telling me what it is you’ve seen.”

  Remember why you’re here, Gav, is the determined thought at the forefront of my mind. You wanna be a flippin’ detective? Detect.

  I allow myself a half-second to adjust and settle myself, physically and emotionally. Everything about this bloke sets me on edge, and it’s not as if this stuff is easy for me to talk about to begin with.

  That comfort zone thing everybody’s always banging on about? Yeah. I’m way outta mine.

  “I—I was working a case last night,” I say gradually, defiantly doing everything I can to maintain eye contact with him the entire time. If he’s going to try and set me off, I’m going to be annoying and resist it. “We responded to the Palace for Pyronamix—the music festival there, run by KING Entertainment?”

  Moriarty nods, but says nothing. I’m not shocked he’s heard of it; it’s probably all his students have talked about all week, considering the tsunami of forceful campaigning it hit social media with.

  “I was—we arrested the terrorists responsible for the bombs that destroyed the interior of the building,” I continue, tip-toeing my way around some of the words. Considering I got to know them all during the unsolicited undercover operation that resulted in their capture, I’m having a hard time seeing them solely as ‘perps’.

  “Bravo,” says Moriarty, with zero enthusiasm. It would have been less chilling if he’d just smirked at me again, but whatever…

  “Er—y-yeah, thanks, mate.” I scratch the nape of my neck awkwardly. “Anyway—this event. I was expecting drunk kids, public indecency, you know. The stuff you would expect from kids getting together and partying. But, ah…”

  My voice peters out into an uneven silence. I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know how to put into words what it is I saw.

  I look to the professor for a reaction—anything to escape the inevitable. He gives me nowt. I swallow, steel my nerves, and finally wriggle away from his gaze.

  “We—we had witnesses come forward said they saw some of the bands and other kids there—s-savaging other kids,” I stammer out. “Ripping their throats out, raping them on the spot, even…”

  I shake my head. Over a decade on the force, and I’ve at last seen something that’s rendered me fucked.

  When I glance up, Professor Moriarty is watching me with those dark eyes of his. Not blinking.

  “Mm.”

  I steel my muscles to avoid jumping when he reclines in his chair again. He casts a wary glance toward the door of the lecture hall before his eyes are back on me.

  “I believe you may have witnessed the actions of a fresh albeit formidable plague upon the streets of Old London Town,” he says in a low, dark undertone. “Have you per chance heard whisper of a cult lurking beneath this city, a cult who worship an abominable entity they refer to as the Abyssal SIN?”

  … er.

  For what he just said, Moriarty may as well have said it in Latin. I would’ve understood it about the same.

  “Quite.” He can understand from my blank stare that the response is to the negative, and sighs. “As a police constable of New Sovereign Yard, I am certain you know well the disrepair and destitution areas of the Underground that are no longer in service fall into?”

  I nod. Other than rampant homelessness and drug abuse problems, abandoned tube stations and full stretches of track have become a literal underground hub of criminal activity I’ve witnessed first-hand.

  “If you truly are a Lestrade,” he says cooly, “then you will of course understand the precise art of information-gathering when seeking to advance one’s career in justice. I would personally recommend starting underground. Perhaps in the vicinity of unused track beyond the Belsize Park station, in the direction of Chalk Farm and Camden Town?”

  I stare at him in disbelief. Is he really lobbing that big a tip at me without even asking for something in return?

  “You reckon that might be a good place to start, eh?”

  Professor Moriarty nods, eyes following me up as I rise to stand. “I do.”

  Definitely not all there, I reiterate, convulsing with shudders by the time I finally escape that lecture hall and am jogging down the stone steps at the secondary entrance to University College London.

  But if he’s got that hot a tip for me, I’d be mad to pass him up on it.

  5 Holmes' Client

  Sugar Orchid Afternoon Tea Emporium, Old London

  November 5, 03:15pm

  Oh, sweet mother of all that is scientific and logical, save me. For I have just entered the most intensely and acutely boring phase of my life that I could ever have imagined.

  There’s the ghost of a bloodied and raped raver squatting in my apartment, I’ve not been offered a case that’s in any way gripping in over three months, and the sweet fellow sitting across from me yapping my ear off isn’t making matters any more tolerable. Regardless of how sorry I imagine I should feel for the poor little chap.

  I always omit that part. And whilst I do appreciate a nice, brisk, verbal spanking from my dear Jonathan on occasion, even that’s growing old and tiresome these days.

  “So, that’s why I was a bit concerned your expertise might not cover this,” OP or PO or whatever the little love’s name is babbles on. He’s hardly eaten from the tiered trays of tiny, assorted desserts and pastries, and he barely touched anything savory, either.

  Anxious, picky eater, or paranoid, I decide inwardly. Paranoid fits the puzzle perfectly, given how insistent he apparently was to meet at an Anomaly-friendly establishment.

  “To be frank, even with all of the crazy things I’ve seen, I still don’t believe it all.” The small, brown-haired chap with the light Mancurian accent huffs, squirming awkwardly in his seat. I wonder if he’s ever been in an establishment this exquisite. “I’m, you know, more of a science-y type of guy. But, well, these friends who went missing—”

  I swear, I am using every ounce of willpower within me not to zone out. But Sugar Orchid’s home-baked, perfectly-zested lemon tarts are interesting, and this conversation is unfortunately not.

  “—sort of the closest thing I’ll probably ever have to a girlfriend, anyway,” he’s saying when I fade back in, ears pricking at the mention of a girlfriend.

  The tough, dominant, older female in his life. Which explains why he didn’t turn around on his heel and walk out the instant it really dawned on him that Sherlock Holmes was a woman.

  “And, well, this is exactly what she would have me do, if she were here to command it,” he says, avoiding eye contact with me at all costs. Coupled with hand-stimming and various other signals, I’ve labelled him as plausibly autistic until otherwise disproven. “She would have me reach out, find a professional. Someone who knows about this crap, all this—this paranormal—crap.”

  A beat or two of silence
pass between us, as we soak up the atmosphere of the quiet little tea shop.

  “For the love of god,” I finally utter as if breaking, the noise wrenching itself from the very back of my throat like a raspy, choked cry for help. “Pour your fucking tea.”

  Across from me, my prospective client jumps. “Of—of course,” he whispers, and he reaches for the teapot that’s been steeping next to an empty matching cup for a grand total of eight-and-a-half minutes now.

  “You were all in town for this Pyronamix event?” I ask, doing everything in my power to seem at least remotely interested. The tea is spectacular and the pastries even more so; I may as well entertain the idea of him hiring me a tad longer.

  It’s better than sitting at home, pretending not to try and wake up my tenant so that he’ll come downstairs and find some way of amusing me.

  OP (because, you know, I’m 80% sure that’s the name he gave) finishes filling his cup with zero etiquette, only further proving his impoverished or otherwise less privileged upbringing. “No, we’re locals,” he lies, and when I know I’ve caught him in a lie, I smirk widely.

  “What?” he asks sheepishly.

  I sip my warm, floral tea. “Your pin. It’s a forgery.”

  “It—it is not.”

  “Don’t.” I place my cup down with a sense of finality. “Don’t do that.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t hire me as an expert, then reject my expertise,” I tell him plainly. “That’s one surefire way to have yourself swiftly removed from the holiday card list.”

  OP squirms uncomfortably. “You—you mean Christmas card list?”

  “No, I mean holiday card list, because I seldom celebrate Christmas these days.”

  I allow him to revel in the blunt, so-called anti-Sovereign honesty of my remark before continuing.

  “What part of your girlfriend-not-girlfriend’s disappearance are you wanting to attribute to the supernatural?” I ask, watching him stir a weight of sugar into his tea that makes even yours truly shudder at the thought.

  When he opens his mouth to speak, I want to pay attention. I genuinely do, and this time, it’s not a mere throwaway statement.

  But there’s something else in the tea house that captures my attention. Captures it, and holds it, like a fly who’s suddenly become stuck upon a previously unseen web.

  Someone’s watching me.

  Everyone is aware of the feeling of being watched. Another’s eyes upon you, with or without your permission. Sitting at a center table in the tea shop, interviewing a perspective client and not even wearing my favorite fascinator, I find it the most jarringly unpleasant sensation.

  “I beg your pardon,” I say flatly. “I appear to have missed absolutely everything you just said.”

  OP readjusts himself in the high-back chair. He’s only slightly underdressed for the establishment, in a knit sweater with a collared shirt and tie. He clearly knows how to do his homework.

  Well, I think with a smirk. He found me, didn’t he?

  … oh, bugger fuck.

  “You won’t believe this,” I admit with a nervous chuckle, “but I have the worst problem with my mind just wandering away on me, even when I try to reign it in.”

  OP smiles sympathetically at me. I hope it’s sympathetic, anyway. “You need me to repeat myself again?”

  “If you would be so kind, please and thank you.”

  I sip my tea and focus intently on him across the table from me, blocking out the perverse sense of another individual’s eyes affixed to my body.

  “My capt—I mean, my friend was being stalked by a man who said his name was Illiam,” OP explains for the third time. “She would hate me for sharing this, but her life’s on the line and I don’t have a choice. She said there were all these weird warning signs, stuff that made her think vampirism. After what my other friends witnessed at Pyronamix, I can’t discount her fears anymore, no matter how… ridiculous they may sound.”

  He stares at his tea—his sugary, sugary tea.

  “I just want to get her back,” he mumbles. “Safe.”

  I bite my lip, wrestling back a gut-deep groan. Oh, joy of joys. It’s a romantic one.

  “Vampires,” I deadpan. He nods in earnest, and I decide to put him out of his misery.

  “There are myths and tales of vampires in folklore,” is my gradual revelation, pausing at opportune moments to enjoy my beverage. “Though they would obviously rather be referred to by their actual name, the Traugr.”

  “Traugr?”

  “I imagine they are 50% what you believe to be real about vampires, and 50% the stuff of your wildest nightmares,” I advise him, peering over the rim of my cup to amuse myself with his reaction. “Tantalize me a tad more. Was there anything else?”

  OP lifts his tea, which is probably undrinkably bitter, and hesitates before committing to it. At this point, it’s more of a bloody prop than a beverage. And it’s starting to get right on my tits, I tell you.

  “There was some other lore she told us about,” he says, straining to remember. I wonder what sort of trauma he’s been under over the past twenty-four hours, and why. He’s clearly not firing on all cylinders. “Chasms—five of them, something about that. And something about a book, a mythological book. The Opus… Vertias.”

  I quirk one eyebrow.

  “Not a clue, son,” I admit, which isn’t too shy of the truth. I would add a clever metaphor about playing one’s cards close to one’s chest, in leiu of laying them all on the table, but I am simply far. Too. Bored.

  And whomever sees fit to stare at a lady in broad daylight in the middle of Camden Town is still doing so.

  “In my sincere and expert professional opinion,” I say, coming forward to place both gloves hands upon the white tablecloth. “And with all due respect, I am not entirely sure I am in the position to consult with you, my darling. It may or may not be a compatability thing.” I wince. “Best wishes to you and the rest of the threesome, though.”

  “There’s five of us—” he blurts out, and he clearly wonders why as well as I do, because he cuts himself off and closes his mouth. A smart move.

  I scan my BitID to pay a total of seventy-five sterling plus tip for both of our teas, then slide both arms into the sleeves of my coat.

  “You have my card.”

  “No, I don’t,” he protests, frowning up at me. I smile patiently back.

  “Astute of you,” I say. “In any case, you were perfectly capable of contacting my associate in the first place, were you not?”

  OP’s frown deepens. “Uh, yeah, but how will you contact me if you have something to tell me?”

  I half-lid my eyes. “Yeah, I don’t really do it like that, mate,” I say boredly. “Give me a bell Friday. I’ll let you know if there are any developments.”

  The frown is gone, and suddenly the young chap is ecstatic. “Does—does this mean you’re taking my case?”

  “It means I’m moderately intrigued,” I tell him. “Ring me on Friday and we’ll go from there.”

  I do take my time to be polite. Jonathan would be rather proud, I imagine. I even shake the lad’s hand with my own, the proper lady my old man never thought I could be, and am on my way out of the shop before whoever wants a cheap and dirty eyeful gets even more value than what they paid for.

  6 Lestrade's Investigation

  Borough of Camden, Old London

  November 5, 10:06pm

  When the capital city of England began to shift from Old London to Britannica, the nation’s growing investment demanded more be put into the infrastructure and development of the new hub of British sovereignty, and less be put into the old.

  Many Tube lines were drastically shortened, some were put fully out of commission. The abandoned stations and stretches of track connecting them began to swell into an underground ring of smuggling, gambling, prostitution, and other shady activities that make my job as a beat cop even more bloody difficult.

  An entire wo
rld of crime we can’t even see, I muse as I descend step after step toward the subterranean chamber.

  It’s hard to imagine that this place was used only five years ago by commuters who called it Belsize Park station. The once-protected, burgundy building lies desolate and plastered in a rainbow of posters and graffiti, a sad reminder of how transiting via an underground system has recently been considered dirty, unsafe, and ‘classless’.

  While I can sympathize with the first two points, I’ve never had any shame in riding the Tube ‘round Old London. My travel card is still tucked shamelessly into my wallet alongside my credit card and driver’s license.

  Belsize Park sadly deteriorated when the majority of its residents followed jobs and a more modern means of living up to Britannica in the northwestern part of the county. Its proximity to a large Anomaly housing cooperative (council-built estates to home those with superhuman abilities within the comfort of their own communities) means it doesn’t shock me as a possible site for weird, cannibalistic activity. Especially when you factor in the entrance to the abandoned underground Tube lines.

  However, Professor Moriarty’s suggestion to head down the tracks in the direction of Chalk Farm and Camden Town worries me a bit. Even after Britannica became the hip new hangout for the young and elite, Camden remained a thriving community of (as far as I know) mostly-legal or at least predominently harmless activity.

  It doesn’t seem the most plausible site for criminal activity this… er, let’s go with ‘unusual’. I’m still particular to that one.

  I keep dropping, step by step down into the musky darkness. I cross one hand over the other, switching on my police-issue flashlight to make finding the right platform a bit easier. The off-white tiles that line the arced walls are marred, cracked, and broken, a canvas for another batch of less-talented graffiti. Other than the steady drip-drip-drip of water, I don’t hear anything. The station is deserted.