Urban Witch (Urban Witch Series - Book 1)

by R. L. Giddings

  “What do you want?”

  When he stood and stretched I was aware of how physically big he was in his chinos and tailored black shirt. He almost touched the ceiling and made everything else in the room look small.

  “I need to know everything that happened to Helena and you’re going to tell me. But we can start with you offering me a drink.”

  “Coffee?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of a brandy.”

  “Bit early isn’t it?”

  “Might be for you but my metabolism’s a little on the over-active side at the moment. How’s about a brandy followed by some bacon and eggs.”

  “Does that mean you were out prowling the streets last night?”

  “Spare me the psychological profiling. Look, I’m finding it very difficult being polite to you on an empty stomach. Get me something to eat and drink and I’ll make the effort to be more agreeable.”

  It was a relief to get away from him and out into the kitchen. If I thought that Silas was odd on the Common he seemed even more odd standing in my living room and I was keen to get rid of him as quickly as possible. I didn’t want him bumping into my dad under any circumstances. The number of questions that would generate didn’t bear thinking about.

  No quick solutions presented themselves so I satisfied myself by going through the boxes which held the contents of my drinks cupboard. A couple of bottles of Rose and a collection of various spirits that I’d brought back from my holidays. Most were half empty and none of them came even close to the description: “brandy.”

  Then I remembered that I still had an un-opened bottle of rum that I’d been given for my twenty first. That was in a box marked “21st” which included all my cards and any number of cuddly toys.

  I cracked the seal on the bottle and poured a good slug of it into a tumbler. On second thoughts, I poured myself a glass.

  Silas took the tumbler without a word and swallowed it in one gulp. “Now, what about something to eat?”

  I took a sniff of my glass and then a small sip. Strong stuff. “I’ll make you a sandwich if you agree to leave me alone.”

  He fixed me with a long, hard stare. “Do you have any idea how much danger you’re in?”

  “From you?” I tried my best to sound disdainful but it didn’t quite come off.

  “From whoever targeted Helena. They obviously wanted something from her which they failed to get.”

  “Whoever it was, they’re dead,” I said, not even believing it myself. “They were killed last night. At the hospital.”

  Silas brushed past me and stepped into the kitchen. He quickly located the rum and poured himself another glass.

  “And who was this person? Anyone I’d know?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to be unprofessional but, at the same time, I desperately wanted him to leave. And he wasn’t going anywhere until I’d given him something.

  “It was a woman who worked at Brodsky’s gallery.”

  “Anja?”

  “You know her?”

  He looked at me, mouth agape. “Of course I do. She has a young son. And you’re telling me that she’s the one who killed those policemen?”

  “She was a shape-shifter. Like you.” The words sounded hollow.

  “And you believe that?”

  I took a long pull on my drink. It left a heat trail down the back of my throat.

  “I’m not sure. Everyone else seems to think so.”

  He came over and stood right in front of me. My eyes were level with his chest.

  “Anja wasn’t a shape-shifter, I think we both know that. But she was being blackmailed.”

  “Over what?”

  “She came over as a refugee from Croatia. She was granted asylum but she’d lied on her application. She said that her husband had been killed by pro-Russian militia.”

  “And he hadn’t?”

  “He is a member of the pro-Russian militia. He was the one she was trying to get away from.”

  “Were the blackmailers threatening to tell the authorities?”

  “Nothing as subtle as that. They were going to give the husband her address in the UK. He’s been trying to track her down for the last couple of years. He hadn’t taken kindly to losing his son.”

  “Well, you seem to know a lot about it.”

  Silas gave me a sour look. “I was dealing with Brodsky on a regular basis. It’s my job to know what he and his employees are up to.”

  He took my hand then and looked me directly in the eye.

  “Bronte, do you know what Helena was up to? Who it was that attacked her?”

  I wanted to tell him. I really did, but I couldn’t say anything. Silas was still technically on the side of the bad guys. Just because Helena had chosen to use him as an informant didn’t necessarily make him my ally. I had no real reason to trust him and I’d already told him far too much.

  If Kinsella found out that I had been entertaining him at home I needn’t worry about failing my review.

  “There’s nothing to tell,” I said in the end. “I’ve no idea what Helena was up to.”

  He swallowed his rum and passed me the empty glass, “Listen, you’re the last person I want to be talking to right now but, with Helena still in hospital, I’m left with no alternative. If we can’t be honest with one another then matters are only going to get worse.” He stroked my elbow. “Has Kinsella offered you any extra protection?”

  “I can look after myself.”

  Silas laughed at that. Actually laughed - the bastard.

  “Promise me this,” he said. “Whatever he offers you be sure to accept it. If I can track you down you can be sure that others can do so just as easily. We don’t want two of you in a coma.”

  If he was trying to frighten me then he was doing a pretty good job but, at the moment all I wanted was to do was get him out of the flat. I was desperate to get some sleep.

  I walked to the far end of the living room and indicated the door.

  “Alright,” he said moving out. “I’ll leave you to it. Just answer me this: do you think I was involved in what happened to Helena?”

  “Silas, one of the last things Helena said was that I shouldn’t trust you. Nothing has happened since to change that.”

  As he came forward he stroked my arms gently and a tiny tremor of pleasure whickered through my body. “You think you’re doing the right thing but you’re wrong: if I was involved in the attack on Helena why would I be so keen to find out the attacker’s identity?”

  He was very close, his body giving off a lot of heat.

  And with that, he kissed me lightly on the forehead and was gone.

  It was only later that I realised that I’d resolutely failed to get any more information out of him.

  *

  I arranged to meet Marcus in Trafalgar Square later that day.

  It was a bright, sunny afternoon but autumn was slowly starting to assert its grip. I was glad that I’d worn a coat as it was quite chilly especially in the shade. The square was busy, though not overly so. Despite the fact that it was a Sunday a group of workmen were busy putting the finishing touches to a large stage in the centre of the square. It looked like they were preparing for some sort of concert.

  We’d arranged to meet at the entrance to the Underground but I was early and, since there was no sign of him I decided to walk over to the National Portrait Gallery. That was where Helena had supposedly met with her mysterious stranger. The Portland Stone which makes up the front of the building glowed pink in the late afternoon sunshine. Two separate staircases lead up to a balcony on the first floor and I made my way up there so that I could get a better view of the square itself. From that vantage point I had a clear view across to the steps leading down to the Underground. I tried to imagine what might have happened the previous day.

  Helena had met Mr Mysterious inside the gallery. If it was their first meeting then they would have had to agree on a pre-arranged rendezvous point. That
bit made sense but then why leave together – unless of course, they were on some kind of date? It wasn’t impossible but it was starting to seem more and more unlikely. The only reason I could think why they might leave together was that he wanted to show her something. If it had been a simple exchange of information that could have been dispensed with in the gallery itself.

  And then there was the other question: had the person responsible for stabbing them both followed them from the gallery or had they simply bumped into them outside? Had it just been a random, unprovoked attack? Perhaps whoever it was had merely intended to follow the couple only to panic when they realised that they were going onto the Underground. If they were relying on instructions from a third party then they’d effectively be cut off down there, unable to use their phones.

  Or perhaps the attacker had planned to rob them from the start and had decided to seize their chance in the confines of the station entrance. Nobody had come forward to say that they’d witnessed the actual stabbing itself but there was every chance that the CCTV footage might provide an answer.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the sight of someone waving at me and, when I looked down, I saw that it was Marcus wearing a grey hoodie. He looked genuinely pleased to see me.

  I skipped down the steps to meet him and was rewarded with a kiss on both cheeks. He hadn’t shaved and I enjoyed the brush of his cheek against mine.

  “Did you manage to catch up on your sleep?” he inquired.

  I considered telling him about Silas’ visit but instead I said, “Too much going on. I couldn’t relax so I just lay on the bed for an hour.”

  He’d started marching across to the entrance to the Underground and I followed. We chatted idly about the difficulty of finding a decent flat in London. He was easy to talk to and it was just such a relief not talking about work even for a short while.

  It was lovely just to talk to someone normal. Though it said something about my most recent experiences when I had started considering wizards as normal.

  The casual hoodie suited him. It was in direct contrast to the cool Mafioso look Silas went in for but it was easy to go too far with that and look like you were appearing in some retro aftershave ad. The hoodie was fun. Marcus looked sleek and fit. I liked him in it.

  “Where’s Terence,” I asked.

  “I decided to give him the rest of the day off. He’s got some injuries but I think that thing on the stairwell really shook him up.”

  That was a relief. I wasn’t sure if that was because I felt uneasy around Terence or because I just wanted to be alone with Marcus.

  “What about you?” he asked. “How are the stitches holding up?”

  My hand went instinctively to my head. The skin around the stitches felt puckered and sore. They were the main reason I hadn’t been able to get to sleep. I couldn’t get comfortable.

  “Still a little tender but my headache’s gone.”

  “Any clearer on what it was that attacked you?”

  I shot back. “No, but I’d recognise it if I saw it again.”

  It came out a little more bluntly than I’d intended but I was annoyed that by calling it a “cat” I was going to be dismissed as a fantasist. Terence had called it a werewolf and, because he was the one who’d killed it, that was the end of the discussion.

  “Do you think it was a werewolf?” Marcus said. “Honestly?”

  I scowled. I could see that he wanted to hear my side but I felt like I’d lost the initiative. Anything I said was just going to sound like sour-grapes.

  At length I said, “On reflection, it could have been. An albino perhaps. But it was huge whatever it was.”

  “You did pretty well then,” he cracked a smile. “Not to get too badly mauled.”

  He took my chin and brushed my hair aside to better get a look at my stitches.

  I laughed and pushed against his chest. “You’re the one who’s going to get mauled.”

  He laughed, holding up his hands in mock terror. “Oh, she’s turning! She’s turning.”

  “You’re a little premature. I don’t turn ‘til later in the month.”

  I don’t think he heard the last. When he came back over to me he was so good looking it was distracting. I even envied him his cheekbones. If I didn’t get a grip on myself next thing we’d be holding hands and feeding the pigeons.

  “Did you find out anything more about the stabbing?” I said.

  “Something that might intrigue you,” he led me over in front of one of the lions which was currently swathed in scaffolding and screens. “The guy who was with Helena. The one who got stabbed. I’ve got a photo of him if you want to look.”

  He brought up the picture on his phone.

  The man was clearly dead but I still recognised him.

  “That’s Brodsky.”

  Marcus checked the screen to make sure he was showing me the right picture.

  “But he’s dead. I mean, he’s already dead.”

  I doubted myself then. Took a second look.

  “I’m almost definite: that’s him.”

  He put his phone away. “So if that’s Brodsky then who was the guy they found up at Brodsky’s place?”

  “Not Brodsky. Which sort of begs the question…”

  “What was Helena doing agreeing to meet up with a scumbag like that in the first place?”

  Scumbag. I hadn’t expected that from Marcus but it appeared to fit the late Max Brodsky perfectly and, by association, it sort of implicated Helena. Of course, neither of us wanted to say anything, what with Helena still being in a coma, but we were both thinking it.

  Time stretched.

  He said, “Shall we go and take a look at where it all went down?”

  I looked up, trying to get a good look at the top of Nelson’s Column which was difficult to do with the sun directly behind it. The clouds were scudding across the sky. It must have been quite windy up there. We were protected from it where we were. It took a while for me to realise what I was doing: procrastinating. I’d developed a sudden aversion to the idea of poking around where Helena had been stabbed and Brodsky had been killed.

  But it looked like I had no option.

  Marcus must have sensed something because he said, “Tell you what, after we’ve got that out the way why don’t we find a nice pub and I’ll buy you lunch?”

  It was a bit late for lunch but the idea of sitting in a warm pub sounded lovely. Millie might have warned me against going for drinks with Marcus but she hadn’t said anything about lunch.

  “Okay,” I said. “But only if we can split the bill.”

  “That’s great,” then he twisted his mouth. “As long as I’m not keeping you from anything.”

  “We’re only having lunch together,” I said. “Then I need to go home and bathe my stitches in salt water.”

  “Sexy!”

  *

  The steps down to Charing Cross Station were a real disappointment. A narrow, tiled corridor which you had to check to ensure wasn’t the entrance to a public toilet. They followed them down to the bottom before taking a sharp turn which opened out into a slightly wider concourse. The ticket gates were crammed over in one corner. It was a section that you could walk through every day of your working life and still not notice. It was poorly lit and not a little depressing.

  “We’re over here.”

  I followed Marcus down the steps and across to two sets of pristine pay-phones.

  There was no one using the phones though an extravagantly dressed busker stood beside them, taking what I assumed was a well-earned break. Otherwise, we had the area largely to ourselves. A Metropolitan Police signpost mounted on the floor announced that there had been an incident at the spot and they’d included a Crimestoppers number for people to ring if they had any information. The corridor was so narrow there that it had been pushed back so far that it would have been invisible to almost everyone passing through.

  “Just another stabbing in the capital,” Marcus sounded philosop
hical.

  “They haven’t even closed the area off or anything.”

  “Happened over twenty four hours ago,” he said. “Things move quickly in the big city.”

  I found it annoying that so little thought had gone into the murder investigation. There was a forlorn length of crime scene tape hanging from one wall. Well, at least they’d made some effort to follow procedure, no matter how rudimentary. There must have been a great deal of pressure exerted on the police to re-open the entrance considering how central the site was for tourists. I wondered how many people had passed by immediately after the stabbing, effectively destroying the crime scene, before the police had managed to seal it off.

  It all looked so depressing.

  Squatting down, I examined the floor more closely. Sections of tiling were stained with what might have been blood but it was difficult to be sure in the gloom. As I bent forward I became aware of my shadow becoming more intense and, when I looked up, I saw that Marcus’ palm was glowing with white light. The brightness dazzled me slightly and I had to wait a second before my sight cleared sufficiently for me to make out how he was doing it. He had his other arm stretched back behind him towards the lights in the stair-well. He was teasing out the energy from the fluorescent strip lighting in the ceiling in thin contrails with his left hand and then passing them down into the palm of his right producing an effect not dissimilar to a decent torch. In fact, a passer-by would assume that that was what he was holding.

  It was a neat little trick.

  “Okay, thanks,” I said. Was he trying to impress me? Surely he could have used the light on his i-Phone?

  Upon closer inspection, I suspected that it was indeed blood. Whoever had been responsible for cleaning up after the forensics team left had been less than thorough doing their job. They’d just washed the whole area down and left it at that.

  “Anyway,” I said. “Back to basics: why were they stabbed here?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that one. Could all be very mundane. Some street gang tries to snatch Helena’s bag. Brodsky goes to intervene and gets stabbed for his troubles. Helena keeps hold of her bag and she gets the same. The thief panics and runs down onto the platform.”