Ariel swallowed. “Yes. I have no doubt.”
“What is really going to stimulate your mind however, Dr Speedman, is this thing in my hand. From little acorns grow mighty oaks. You want to see my kind of miracle, then look at this.”
Argent threw the acorn at the wall behind him. Instead of breaking or bouncing off it sank directly into the marble and began to steam.
Ariel watched in amazement as in a matter of moments branches began to form, creeping across the wall like the limbs of a giant octopus. Vines and purple flowers writhed around each limb. Creaking and cracking it grew at such an alarming rate that Ariel had to step backwards, dreading that an errant branch would lash out and strike him. Argent simply stood smiling at it.
Steam and heat emanated from the rapidly growing tree as if from the deepest jungle and in its epicentre a void began to form. A thick trunk had developed with a hollowed out centre reaching off into blackness. Ariel stared into the void and felt deeply afraid.
Argent turned to him with a flourish and asked. “Have I impressed you yet, Doctor?”
Ariel tried to control his breathing, his thumping heart. His hands were shaking.
“It’s extraordinary Mr Argent. I’ve never seen anything like it. What is it?”
“Well, with the right nurturing and watering, it keeps growing until it becomes a doorway. A beautiful doorway. So soon we won’t have to rely on dangerously unstable and unpredictable thin spots anymore. We will just come and go as we please.”
Ariel’s voice was shaky as he spoke. “I see. I’m not a botanist Mr Argent. How does one nurture so exotic a flora?”
Argent stood staring at the blossoming magic like a proud parent.
“Well, like the Venus Flytrap, it’s carnivorous. Our kind aren’t nourished in quite the same way as you flesh and bloods. We get our satisfaction from some other part. Soul, spirit, manna. This plant needs sacrifices of soul matter to keep it healthy and growing. Here let me show you, son.”
Ariel felt his blood run cold. Argent let the words hang in the air for a moment, his rheumy blue eyes staring at him across the desk.
So, this is it. This is what impending death feels like.
Ariel felt paranoia all around him, was waiting for a sudden sharp blow to the back of his head, or the coldness of a knife in his kidney.
Argent slowly put down his glass and that grey tongue flicked out like a sickly chameleon.
Ariel took a deep breath, and then a strange calm came over him. If this was to be his fate, then so be it. He had done his best, he hoped he had made his lab proud, and that his death somehow brought some new piece of knowledge to the subject. For posterity.
Ariel felt Carver slide just outside his field of vision, and heard the lift doors open. The nerves in his unprotected back were tingling. As he didn’t smoke, he considered opening one of his bars of chocolate, then realized that he was probably going to die unceremoniously enough without his face being covered in chocolate.
Argent leaned his long bony frame across his desk, and whispered.
“You’re a Popper, Ariel, since you unearthed that thing in Iraq in your salad days. Do you know what that means, heard that term?”
Carver appeared at Ariel’s side again, his head cocked to one side, studying him. Behind him Ariel could heard several sets of footsteps, and something being dragged across the tiled floor. His mind raced with all manner of torture implements and execution devices. The worst part was that the Unseelie usually never even asked captives any questions, they tormented endlessly for the pure pleasure of it. He was shaking in his ill-fitting tuxedo but kept his eyes front.
“I’m familiar with the term sir.”
Argent stroked his long chin beard, his eyes lit up a little and he seemed to become more animated. He was looking over Ariel’s shoulder.
“You already understand magic, the light and the dark side of things. So we’re bringing you into the fold, to the inner circle, for as long as you are contributing.”
Ariel tried to keep his eyes front as two hulking bodyguards stomped past him dragging something red and groaning. He glanced down. A white coated scientist, one he thought he recognized from the lab far below, was semi-conscious and being dragged across the tiles, leaving a smear of dark blood.
He was brought before Argent and propped up on his knees, where he stayed, swaying with concussion, bubbling with tears and muttering to himself under his breath, in German Ariel thought.
Argent put a long fingered hand under the man’s chin to steady him.
“This is the point where I make a long speech about trust, loyalty, that sort of….thing. But you don’t want to have to sit through that, I’ve talked enough tonight. I think the message is very clear Ariel without the exposition. This man, an educated man, a man who should have known better, has been passing valuable and profitable scientific information to both our competitors, and I believe the authorities also. He even passed details on to our financiers in London, but we’ve taken care of that. As you know us arms manufacturers are some way down the popularity pecking order. But I’m not going to procrastinate any longer. It’s late, I’ve finished my aperitif, and I’m hungry.”
Ariel ran a million ideas in his mind about what he could do. Through whatever luck, Argent had not discovered his true motives or blown his cover. If he had, it would be Ariel on his knees on the tiles just now, pissing his pants and praying. But the demonstration was clear. Ariel was being invited into the inner circle of the Chromium Project, possibly the only real human in there. He had no doubts that as soon as his usefulness had expired, so would he, and this man’s fate was both an initiation and a warning.
Ariel remained standing where he was, sweat soaking into his tuxedo, feet bound awkwardly in his too tight shoes, as Argent leaned over the snivelling man.
And opened his mouth.
Ariel watched in horror as Argent’s lower jaw seemed to stretch or dislocate, his mouth extending like a python, a huge stretched oval bigger than a dinner plate that grew and grew. Argent moaned and hummed the entire time, louder and louder, as if it caused him great pain. His eyes bulged and stared at the stricken scientist, who had closed his own and began to scream through his teeth.
Then Argent shot forward and swallowed the man’s head in a single gulp, enveloping it in his membranous, translucent maw. Ariel could see the man’s head twist inside, see the features outlined in the skin of Argent’s cheeks.
No longer held by the bodyguards, the poor scientist’s arms weakly fought against Argent, but the frail old man was now as solid as oak.
Then Argent’s neck expanded like a horrific goitre, and the man disappeared up to his shoulders. With a gut churning gulping sound, the man was then consumed up to his chest, and then swallowed whole, as a snake feasts on prey bigger than itself.
Yet somehow, as the meal passed Argent’s throat, his frame did not bulge and stretch, as if the man’s body had been compacted by some grotesque apparatus inside Argent’s body.
Ariel wanted to close his eyes, wanted to turn away, but he couldn’t. The scientist in him couldn’t.
Within less than a minute the man was gone entirely, except for a pulp filled shoe and a few feet of pasty, foul smelling intestine.
Argent stood up straight, seeming taller than before. He placed his cane down on the table and stretched out his legs. His deathly pallor was now gone, replaced by a rosy flush in his rapidly contracting cheeks. He cracked his shoulders like a man awakening from a long sleep, and to Ariel’s continued astonishment, he seemed to have grown younger. He now looked like Abraham Lincoln embalmed for several years, and without radiation poisoning.
He smiled at Ariel and picked his teeth, sucking at something in his mouth then producing an eye, unsullied, that he placed gently on the desk, still trailing its optic nerve from Argent’s chin, like a stray noodle. His hands were drenched in blood and gore.
“Well looky looky.”
He laughed his awful wheezing laug
h and turned his bright eyes to Ariel.
“Well young man, I hope that was an eye opener for you too. You have become known to us, and us to you. We value your time and your mind, but we just wanted you to know where you stood.”
Argent then threw the bloodied eye into the hollow tree and it vanished. He smeared the blood from his hands across the bark. Dark streaks remained there for a few moments then faded as if the tree were drinking the life.
Ariel tried to stand up straight, think of the mission, but realized that if he didn’t have one of those bars of chocolate soon, he would likely be on the floor.
Argent smiled at him and nodded approvingly.
“Well, you haven’t made water in your pants, son, so we’ll take that as a good omen.”
Ariel took the chocolate from his pocket. It had melted a little from the heat of his panic. He held it up in shaking hand.
“May I?”
Argent slapped his thigh and laughed.
“Of course son, have your candy bar, we’re not so formal here really.”
Ariel unwrapped it with quivering fingers, broke off a couple of squares and shoved them into his mouth. The taste of chocolate and the stench of another man’s innards was a new combination he imagined even Heston Blumenthal would quail at, but he swallowed all the same, needing the sugar.
Was this why the field agents he had met before he had left, the ones called Empire One, had seemed such scarred and damaged creatures? Their haunted eyes evaluating him as he stood at the side-lines, watching them train.
Was this the kind of horror they saw every time they went out? If so, he pitied them, to be the vanguards against such a nightmare, but he did not envy them. He realized he was not made of that stuff. He may be the Sherlock Holmes, but he was not and never would be, the James Bond of Monsters.
But there was no one else here to deal with this.
He took a deep breath.
Ok Ariel, your cover is intact. And we’ve discovered one thing at least. Not good. Not good at all.
Isaiah Argent is a Ghoul.
Ariel looked up at the wall behind Argent where the strange foliage was spreading like a dark grey octopus. Whatever magic was filling this room, it was emanating from that. Ariel thought as a specialist in the occult he had seen everything. He had to admit that outside of a fairy tale, he had never seen a magic tree. Usually as a scientist nothing gave Ariel more of a thrill than seeing something no other scientist had ever seen.
This time, not so much.
12
LONDON
Usher showed his pass to one of the armed police officers securing the inner cordon of the crime scene. He and Christi walked past, dreading what they might see.
The area had been sealed off and a team of unarmed officers were attempting to secure the outer cordon from the curious and alarmed public that was starting to gather. Several members of the public were demanding answers but the constables had none to give them.
“Is it a terrorist attack? Is it Al Qaeda?”
“What’s happened? Was it a suicide attack?”
The officers did what they could to placate the gathering crowd and keep them behind the barrier.
Usher walked up to the Incident Commander, a special branch Inspector he knew fairly well and one of their primary contacts within the Metropolitan police.
“DI Crabtree? Jim. It’s Major Usher from the MoD. I think your Assistant Chief Constable called ahead, said I’d be coming? This is my colleague Corporal Polson.”
Jim Crabtree, an experienced detective who had seen many gruesome crime scenes in his thirty year career, visibly sighed in relief. He extended his hand, palm clammy with nervous sweat.
“Major. Corporal. I assisted you on the Pimlico case two years ago. Glad to have your boys here.”
“Our scene investigation team arrived before me, sorry if they railroaded your men.”
Crabtree shook his head and led Usher towards the building via the established entrance and egress route so as not to disturb any evidence.
“Not at all. As soon as I got here I knew this was one for your lot. Look Major, I know this is all top secret and you can’t tell me much, but this is happening on my patch. I need to know if this is connected to what happened at Canary Wharf. If the terror threat has gone up our department will need to allocate enough resources to deal with it.”
Usher sighed. He didn’t like to keep good men like Crabtree in the dark. They were dedicated and professional and kept the city safe.
“Jim, the terror threat still gets issued from the Security Services; if it changes I’ll know about it when you do. Listen Jim, I’ll keep you up to date as much as I’m allowed to. I don’t want you or your men at risk either.”
Crabtree nodded and led them past a line of police tape. “Understood Major.”
Usher saw the first bodies outside on the street. Bricks lay scattered around them from where the wall to the old docklands sugar warehouse had been smashed from the inside.
The corpses were dressed smartly as if attending an evening out, but their limbs were twisted horribly and faces bruised and smashed. Usher entered the building and saw more bodies scattered around the walls. In the centre of the ground floor was a wide rectangular area once used for storage. It was covered in sand and was empty except for one horribly mutilated corpse.
Men with plastic hair coverings and surgical masks moved carefully around the scene, gathering data and using unusual equipment and reference photographs. Usher tapped one on the shoulder.
“Thom Usher, sent from an Empire Team to oversee the scene. You Greystone’s London forensic team?”
The investigator carefully put down his utensils and stood away from the body he was working on. “Yes sir, Collins. Got here about an hour ago.”
“What’s your initial thoughts?”
The investigator glanced askance at Crabtree. “Sir, the civilian?”
“DI Crabtree has had the veil lifted, and this is his officer’s beat. He knows we can’t say everything but it’s his men in danger every day policing these streets. Carry on.”
The investigator Collins lowered his mask and nodded apologetically at the policeman.
“There are around twenty fatalities sir. All died from massive physical trauma, severe contusions, haemorrhaging, fractures. There is some evidence of trampling as they attempted to escape the scene.”
Usher looked around the warehouse at the carnage. There was blood spatter high across the walls and ceiling, innards streaked the floor like gelatinous snakes. The stench of fear and death was almost unbearable.
“Escaping from what?”
Collins shook his head.
“We’ve performed all the usual initials tests and rituals. There is residual traces of Thaumaturgy all over the scene. Unseelie were here for certain, although there is evidence of something else preternatural. Something I must confess that in twelve years I haven’t seen before. That doesn’t mean it’s not Unseelie.”
Crabtree shrugged and shook his head at Usher. “I’m sorry, Thaumaturgy? That’s not a scientific term I’m familiar with.”
Usher looked at the body near his feet. “It’s not really a scientific term Inspector. Our boys aren’t just trained to look for DNA and fingerprints. By Thaumaturgy he means magic, of sorts. Like everything it leaves a trace. The Unseelie leave a particular kind of trace.”
Crabtree took a step back.
“Major Usher, I might be your liaison officer in the Met, and I’ve seen some very strange things, but this is the point where I need to voluntary excuse myself and let you get on with your work. I need to not know some things in order to retain my sanity. I would appreciate a full report, edited to be mindful that it will be circulated to other departments to whom the word Thaumaturgy would mean an instant psychiatric evaluation.”
“Understood Inspector. Thank you for your continued support. I’ll get everything I can to you by the end of play today, suitably sanitized.”
As Crabtree left Usher and Christi looked over to the centre of the floor to the body that lay alone. “Collins, what about that one?”
They moved over to the corpse. It was a large muscular man in his mid-thirties, heavily tattooed with Cyrillic design. He was shirtless and wore only blood spattered grey sweatpants.
Christi crouched down next to him as Collins conducted an initial investigation. She spoke softly to the investigator.
“Don’t tell me. Death in the same manner as the others but over a more prolonged period. Evidence of earlier similar injuries half healed?”
Collins nodded.
“Yes Corporal. What do we have?”
Usher gestured to the corpses surrounding the side-lines.
“Little less formally dressed than all the others, don’t you think? The tattoos? Cyrillic script?”
Collins nodded. “Yes sir it’s Russian.”
Christi stood up and surveyed the room.
“So what we have here is the aftermath of an organized fight. Our fighter, judging by the story these tattoos tell us was a Russian mafia enforcer, gets in the ring with something he didn’t reckon on. A fight with enough glamour and clout that it could draw these esteemed voyeurs to watch it. Our man here gets beaten to death, then whatever he was in the ring with turned on the crowd.”
Collins nodded. “A fair assessment Corporal, consistent with injuries. You’ve dealt with the things that come through those thin spots for years. Any ideas what kind of creature could have done this to all these people?”
Usher and Christi glanced at one another. Usher sighed.
“Yes, I think we may have an idea of exactly what did this.”
Collins was perspiring behind his surgical mask. “Sir, is this the Secret Arena? Are they really pitting human against monster?”
Usher studied the room. “I think this is just the fringe of it Collins. A local bout to test out new fighters and new drugs. I think we’ve yet to see the main event. But it’s coming. ”
Christi pointed to the dead fighter’s shoulder. “Usher, that ink on his left shoulder. That’s not a typical mafia design; it’s more like a logo.”
The Last Line Series One Page 11