Urban Witch (Urban Witch Series - Book 1)

by R. L. Giddings

  We walked out across the field together, neither one of us caring to look back.

  That same evening two things happened which remain intimately linked in the minds of the local residents. The threatened storm broke and a young girl disappeared from a neighbouring village.

  The rain continued for three days straight whilst the police searched the sodden fields all to no avail. The girl’s parents made a series of desperate pleas for information appealing to anyone who might have seen her. Rumour had it that she’d been hit by one of the high speed trains which regularly criss-cross the Fens, her body simply carried away.

  No trace of her was ever found.

  Since that day I’ve never seen the patchwork man again though I’ve dreamt about him often enough. And in those dreams he has a name.

  Chapter 6

  We took a cab across town to Richmond. It was a beautiful clear day in the capital right at the end of October. Even after six months I still hadn’t gotten used to the idea of living and working in London with its beguiling mix of architectural styles. The way a row of Georgian house-fronts suddenly gives way to coffee shops and sandwich bars. Every now and then I’d find myself looking at a street sign that I dimly recognised before the realisation hit me: the last time I saw that it had been on a Monopoly board. Another piece of my city wide mental map was being pressed into place.

  It was taking a while but I was slowly learning how to orientate myself using landmarks. I knew that the Olympic stadium was in the east whilst the former power station at Battersea was across the river to the south. It wasn’t much but it stopped me from feeling completely overwhelmed when I was out and about. I supposed that after a while I’d get used to it, though I didn’t think that I’d ever get used to how much everything costs.

  I’d lost Helena to her lap-top as soon we’d entered the cab though the driver was keen to involve me in conversation, driving us through a series of back streets in an attempt to avoid the mid-day traffic.

  I could see the tension in Helena’s upright posture as she worked at the computer, assiduously avoiding eye contact. There was something masculine about the way she angled her shoulders, the way that her hands moved over the key-board. A wariness about her that I felt I might do well to adopt.

  As the cab driver became more and more irate at the behaviour of various cyclists he lost interest in us and, with nothing to distract me, I tried to make sense of the morning’s events. It wasn’t easy. I was still shaken up by the bird attack. It had unnerved me more than I’d care to admit. At first I’d tried to convince myself that it was some kind of natural phenomenon but Kinsella’s reaction suggested that it was somehow linked to the Iron of Fortitude.

  My biggest concern was still for the book. I’d taken a risk removing The Book of Lost Souls from the Ptolemy without permission but, so far, it seemed to be paying off. If I could prize it away from Helena before Monday morning then things could still turn out for the best. But if Janice found out that I’d broken protocol by by-passing the system then there was very little that even Kinsella could do to save me.

  I should have felt smug about being paired with Helena but that had been slightly over-shadowed by the fact that I was due to get off early to collect the keys to my flat. That now didn’t look likely if we were going to be talking to this Brodsky character. I really needed to text my dad to let him know that I was going to be delayed but hesitated about getting my phone out in Helena’s presence. She was paranoid enough as it was. It wouldn’t be wise to upset her further.

  And then there was the issue of taking my skills out onto the street as an active member of The Bear Garden. My biggest concern was the old dilemma about confusing humans with actual practitioners. I needed to be able to tell the difference between a real threat and a perceived one. There was no quicker way of bringing your career to a premature end than by firing off ill-considered spells in a public place, especially with the number of video-phones on the streets nowadays. The point that they try to drill into you during your training is that if you’re unsure whether your spell is appropriate to the conditions then the best strategy is to do nothing. By the same token, my effectiveness against any magic-user that I might encounter would be very limited. They’d doubtless be more powerful than me as well as being protected by a panoply of wards and binding spells. I’d just have to stick close to Helena for the time being and hope for the best.

  There was no point dwelling on my fears. Too much was happening. And besides, there was still the issue of my big move. I’d left a key at my old place so that my dad could get in and collect the various boxes and bin-bags full of clothes I’d left for him. There were still a few basics that I still had to buy: I didn’t own a kettle, for example.

  I was looking forward to seeing my dad anyway. There was no situation imaginable that he didn’t have a solution to – as long as it didn’t involve magic of course.

  “That’s your mother’s world,” he’d say, though not unkindly. “I can’t help you there.”

  My final problem was Helena. I desperately wanted to impress her. Wanted her to like me, if I’m honest. But so far, everything I’d done appeared to have had the reverse effect. Suffice to say that we hadn’t exactly hit it off so far.

  And, was it me, or did everything seem to be happening all at once?

  *

  We arrived in Richmond much sooner than I’d anticipated. My suspicions that it was a fairly well-to-do area were confirmed when I spotted a Ferrari dealership on the corner. I kept looking around for a newsagent’s. I was desperately thirsty after the cab ride but I knew that that was just an excuse. I’d go in to buy a bottle of water and come out with a packet of cigs. My neck and shoulders were starting to stiffen up after the excitement of this morning’s events and the prospect of a soothing cigarette was proving increasingly difficult to resist.

  The street that we turned down was lined with exclusive looking antique and jewellery stores amongst a smattering of exclusive looking restaurants.

  The place we were looking for was halfway down on the left its livery picked out in blue and gold. The Brodsky Gallery. It was one of the bigger properties on that section of the street. They had a poster up by the front window advertising an exhibition of Chinese artefacts that would be taking place later in the month. The person who owned this place was running a thriving business.

  As Helena opened the front door a brass bell tinkled to announce our arrival. Directly in front of us as we entered there was a black and white photograph of the proprietor, Max Brodsky. Underneath was a printed piece charting his rise from poverty in the former Czechoslovakia to the position he held today. The photo looked to be at least twenty years old. His face was thin and pinched, framed by a mane of grey hair. He wore large, tinted spectacles and a black polo neck sweater, looking for all the world like the author of airport thrillers rather than an up-market gallery owner

  “This is our man,” Helena said. “Got a number of businesses: antiques, jewellery. Also has something of a reputation as a dealer in occult artefacts.”

  “And you think that he might have some information about the Iron?”

  Helena looked at me as if for the first time, “We were alerted that someone might be trying to smuggle it into the country. This was one of the addresses we were watching.”

  I nodded, momentarily pleased with myself.

  The front of the shop had a number of sculptures on display, all of them individually lit to good effect. The majority of them showed androgynous figures in a range of sado-masochistic poses, their body-parts laced together with a tracery of fine wires. Most were limited edition castings but two were actual originals. The first ones were expensive but the prices for the other two just about took my breath away.

  Like I said, I’m never going to get used to London prices.

  “I’m sorry, the gallery is closed this afternoon,” the assistant appeared from the rear of the shop. Eastern European, wearing a white blouse and three-quarter length t
rousers.

  Helena wasn’t fazed, “That’s alright we’re here to see Mr Brodsky. Perhaps you could tell them we’ve arrived.”

  The woman considered the request but appeared unsure as to how to proceed.

  In the end she disappeared off into the back of the shop and I spied her talking on the phone.

  When she came back she still had the phone in her hand. “I’m afraid he’s not here.”

  “We were meant to meet him here at one o’clock,” Helena said.

  The girl stepped past us and indicated for us to leave. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where he is. If he returns, I’ll be sure to get him to ring you.”

  “I don’t think you understand. We’re not leaving until we’ve spoken to him.”

  At that point the girl started to cry. “You’re with the police, yes?”

  Helena nodded uncomfortable with the sudden show of emotion.

  “I’m really worried about him. He’s been working late every night this week and last night he rang me asking me if I could watch the shop for him.”

  “This morning.”

  “No, he wanted me to start at lunchtime. But when I got here there was no sign of him. The lights were on. The door at the back was open and he always locks that – even during the day. The one thing I did notice was that someone has broken into the warehouse. It looks like they’ve tried to rip the door off its hinges.

  Helena exchanged a look with me. “Anything else unusual?”

  The girl put her hand to her mouth whilst she thought. “His car. His car is still in the yard. He drives everywhere.”

  Then she started to cry again. Helena looked at me then back at the girl. “Would you mind if we took a look around?”

  “I won’t get into trouble?”

  Helena was already walking past her. “We’ll be as quick as we can.”

  I wanted to give her a hug but, instead, I rubbed her arm and told her she was doing the right thing. Helena walked straight through the gallery and out the back. There was a small yard with a big wire gate at the end letting out onto a small access road.

  The girl had been telling the truth about the car: a powerful looking black BMW. There was also a fork-lift truck which looked like it had seen better days.

  Helena crossed the yard towards the little warehouse opposite. The girl had been right about the door. It was solidly built of metal but someone had pealed the entire bottom section up and away from the frame. She ducked through the gap and I followed.

  The place was dimly lit. Around the edges of the room there were various work benches but the centre was dominated by probably forty packing cases all standing on end like monoliths in a Sci-Fi movie.

  Helena moved over towards one of the larger packing cases. “So we’re looking for anything which he might have that has any supernatural significance.”

  I smiled at her coyness, “Like the Iron of Fortitude?”

  She didn’t like that.

  “If you happen to come across it you’ll be sure to let me know.”

  Her sarcasm reminded me that I was only there under sufferance

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Any clues to his sudden disappearance,” she said, running a hand over the packing case. “Perhaps he’s received something. I don’t know: a warning of some kind.”

  We examined a number of packing cases all to no avail. If we were going to get anywhere with the search then we’d need to start unpacking and examining the contents of the crates and I didn’t think that was going to happen. The girl in the office would come to her senses eventually and insist that we leave.

  As I crossed in front of Helena she looked up as if she were trying to remember something. Then she said, “What did Melissa Stahl say to you?”

  “Nothing,” I said, a little flustered.

  Helena didn’t appear particularly happy with my answer, “I thought you’d be old friends, especially the way she looked at you at the end.”

  Helena didn’t miss a trick. And if she had picked up on it as well then that suggested that I hadn’t been imagining it.

  I said: “I suspect she just got me mixed up with someone else. Someone important.”

  “But aren’t you? Important, I mean.”

  I frowned at this. “I think you’re confusing me with my mother.”

  “Oh that’s right,” Helena smiled, showing all her teeth. “Isn’t she the one who works for the other side? I’ve always meant to ask you: what does she think about you coming to work for us?”

  I felt my face flush, my anger starting to rise. Normally, I’m pretty good dealing with this kind of implied insult. God knows I’ve had enough practice. But this time I was really struggling to maintain a civil tone, “I haven’t spoken to my mother in nearly ten years. But then, if you’ve read my file, you’d know that.”

  “You’re right, I have read your file,” Helena seemed to re-consider. “I’m sorry, you must get this all the time.”

  “I know that people talk about it. Usually they don’t say it to my face.”

  “So you’re not on speaking terms.”

  “No.”

  She probably wanted to probe further but then thought better of it, “We need to get a move on before this woman gets suspicious and decides to kick us out.”

  I was only too happy to do just that. I was pretty certain that we were wasting our time and I think Helena knew that too. So what were we were actually looking for? Was there something more about Brodsky that she wasn’t telling me?

  I moved around the remaining packing cases looking for anything that might shine some light on what had happened. There was no sign of any supernatural activity but something was wrong, I was certain of it. And I felt that Helena knew it too.

  “Over here,” I pointed towards one of the packing cases. It had Chinese stencilling along one side. When we got closer I could see that a spiral bound note-book had been placed face down on top of it. Helena picked it up.

  “What does it say?”

  “Nothing that makes any sense to me. Some kind of shipping manifest. Times, dates, weights. Do you think it’s significant?”

  I watched as she turned over a few pages, “I’m not sure. Let me just finish off down here.”

  Truth is I didn’t know what I was doing. I knew that some kind of malevolent force had been at work in there recently, the air seemed bruised by it, but there were no physical signs to support it. No clues. I traversed the room hunched forward, searching for anything out of the ordinary. I knew from my training that the smallest clue could be significant so I was alert to anything that Brodsky might have been working on before whatever it was spooked him. Despite my best efforts, I found nothing of any interest. There were a lot of splinters, lengths of bubble-wrap and discarded strips of duct tape but nothing that I wouldn’t have expected to find in an operation like this. I was so intent on the floor that I nearly tripped over one of the packing cases. It was lying on its side at an odd angle.

  Being “sensitive” to your immediate environment is frowned on by a lot of witches who are keen to distance themselves from all that touchy-feely nonsense. They worry that it belies an emotional softness and a lack of rigor. This flies in the face of how people like to think of a classically trained witch. They prefer them to be emotionally aloof.

  But really, emotions have got very little to do with it. It’s to do with picking up vibrations at a molecular level within precise parameters. More to do with physics than magic. Other witches may be happy to watch me negotiate my way through the mess of latent emotional signatures but they’re dead to these subtleties themselves. Like tourists that don’t speak the language – they get frustrated when others do. As a result, they frequently get the wrong impression about what I’m actually doing. I’m reading signals rather than interpreting them.

  The stronger the oscillations within the plane of an object the harder they are to ignore. Sometimes, though, it can be a real pain.

  “It would help if I kn
ew what we were looking for.”

  “Okay. You’ll have to pardon me for being so cagey,” she steepled her fingers together, taking a deep breath. “Brodsky’s been importing stuff for years. A lot of it’s illegal but we haven’t acted before because … well … he’s been very useful at procuring specialist items for us at the Ministry. So, when we got a tip off from the Dutch that someone in London was trying to acquire the Iron, Brodsky was top of the list.”

  “Do you know if it’s even entered the country?” I indicated the packing cases standing upright...

  “No, but to be honest we were less interested in the Iron itself …”

  “Which is probably a fake.”

  “Exactly. We were more concerned with finding the person who wanted it. Fairly routine stuff.”

  “But now Brodsky’s disappeared”

  “Fair enough,” she sighed. “So, the short answer to your question is that we’re on the look-out for anything suspicious. I’m thinking that it may very well have come from Russia but I could be completely wrong about that.”

  “Talking about “out of the ordinary”, what about this?” I pointed to the packing case on the floor. Something had just occurred to me.

  “What about it,” Helena asked. “It looks like all the others.”

  “Except it’s lying on its side.”

  “Okay. And…”

  “It’s been knocked out of position,” I used my arm to line up all the crates behind me. “This is the pallet it should be sitting on over here. They might look as if they’re just scattered randomly but they’re not.”

  I wasn’t explaining myself very well and I could see that Helena was becoming impatient.

  “These things are laid out in a grid system,” I said. “You can probably see it best looking down from above: there’s a pathway running along here and another one on the other side. If you think about it it makes sense. How do they move these crates about?”