CHAPTER 46 0300–1400, Thursday, August 6, 2015
***Julian***
I sat up in bed with a gasp. Why wasn’t I in the hidden room in OMG’s offices? I tried to come to my feet, but my side seized up and my back cramped, sending me to the floor. I felt a wave of exhaustion slam into me, and my head suddenly felt like it was full of cotton candy. I had to call someone and let them know where the puca was before it could get loose. Maybe if I could contact Badger, then he could do something? I managed to lift my right arm far enough to knock my phone off the nightstand; I rolled onto the floor to look for it, but in the dark, I couldn’t find it. After a couple of seconds of blind groping, I decided…that no bed had ever felt as comfortable as the carpet did…
***Ena***
On the other side of the city, beyond Aldgate and Bank, Ena sat brooding in the OMG offices. It was late, but she hadn’t felt like sleeping tonight; in fact, she hadn’t felt the desire to sleep for the last couple of nights, but somehow the thought didn’t bother her nearly as much as the bruises on her throat did. Ever since Tara had been killed by that bloody American, she had known that she’d have to accelerate her plans, and it was useful not needing to take a break. Tara was gone, but that was the beauty of having a backup plan. Sorry, Kel.
It had been conceivable, desirable even, for one of the girls to be eliminated, but she’d been angling over the last couple of years to ensure that it was Kelly who disappeared, so that she could get her hands on a bigger stake in the company. After the whole Wikileaks fiasco, she just didn’t feel like she could trust a born techie to hold on to their confidential information indefinitely. When Kelly planned to rat them out to save her own skin, it seemed like that had been an accurate instinct, so Ena had made her move.
Ideally, there would have been more time to prepare, and she was sure that another year or two would have made the process go more smoothly. But if her plan was going to work at all, then she’d know about it before sunrise.
Ena sat in the dimly lit room, flipping through a dossier of politicians and civil servants that she’d amassed over the past several years, happily making notations. Every couple of minutes, she glanced at the door to the partners’ office, waiting to see the outline of her remaining partner in the frosted glass. It was around three in the morning, and her brow was just starting to furrow in worry when she felt a sudden change of pressure in the air accompanied by a thump from the room hidden on the other side of the bookcase.
“What the hell?” she said into the darkened office. Could someone have broken in? Had that damned Yankee thought that she was so stupid that she’d put the chain back in the same place? Ena scurried across the room, lifted out the correct book, and entered the hidden space just in time for her eyes to go wide as they took in an object trailing green flames slicing the air and striking a large shadowy mass that shouldn’t have been there with a sound like a butcher’s cleaver biting into a side of pork. A man’s face framed by ginger hair appeared in the air in front of her just long enough to recognize it, and then it disappeared with a pop of inrushing air.
The bulky mass lay on the floor in front of her. With trembling fingers, she flipped on a light to get a better look at whatever the damned American had been attacking. She gasped and froze in horror at the naked, bloody, bloated, and burned thing on the floor. It moved, lifting a nearly hairless head on its singed neck and looked straight at her with eyes of crimson set in a face that she’d known for years. Its mouth opened and a voice like a cat gargling razor blades came out.
“ Freeee…meee…”
***Julian***
Each strike caused a flash of pain in my head, and I groaned at the unfairness of it all. A man should be able to at least wake up before he’s attacked. I covered my head to ward off the assault as I heard the door slam shut. My whole body was rocked back and forth by strong hands grasping my shoulder.
I tried desperately to pull my thoughts together, but someone shouted in my ear: “Mr. Adler, it’s past noon, and checkout was over two hours ago. If you don’t vacate the room in the next five minutes, we’ll be forced to call the authorities.”
My mind cleared enough for the words to make sense, and I realized that the pain I was experiencing was purely from an excruciating headache being exacerbated by one of the hotel workers. I opened my eyes and managed to crawl to my knees.
“I’m all right…” My voice was slurred, and the look on the twentysomething hotel employee’s face told me that he’d already made up his mind about what had left me insensible on the floor. I decided to use my fantastic negotiating powers.
“Mm not drunk…” I was pretty sure I’d convinced him.
Two minutes later, I’d managed to grab most of my stuff before being unceremoniously led out of the hotel (after I’d paid for another night’s stay). By the time I was outside on the curb, my brain engaged enough to be horrified by the implication of nine or ten hours having elapsed while I had lain insensibly on the floor, paying the apparently preordained price for imposing my will on the real world.
I hadn’t been able to see how large the growths on my back had become, but the pain told me that they hadn’t been quiescent while I slept. And if the puca was now in the real world, clothed in Kelly’s skin, it could infect others as easily as it had infected me. This problem had just stepped up to a whole new level of terrifying.
I didn’t have any particular hard evidence that the puca would be able to go on a rampage, but my gut instinct told me that I was right. When I had fought Don in Burger King, it had been obvious that the creature had been weakening quickly. When it had attacked in the office, it had faded out in just over a minute. And when it appeared in OMG’s building, it had already gorged on dozens of victims in its nightmare world. All of that was leaving out that I seemed somehow to be a kind of catalyst for the creature—a creature that I was almost positive had “devouring humanity” on its to-do list. I shuddered to think what it might have accomplished in nine hours.
Nevertheless, I didn’t have any better plans, and I’d vowed to stay away from my family to keep them safe. So, ironically, I headed into the office to do work for OMG. I was supposed to be there to take feedback from legal on the contract that I’d drafted, and I figured that I could use it as bait to make sure Ena showed up where I wanted her. If I was right, the contract signing was literally a deadline for me. She needed me to help her finish the contract but after that, she’d have no use for me, and I’d have no way to keep track of her. A woman as rich as Ena could disappear in the blink of an eye, and I’d never be able to find her again. I work in procurement—I’m no detective.
I facepalmed after that last thought and quickly dialed Badger’s number. I’d asked the detective to follow up on Ena’s comment about Nick, and, while fearing the worst, I wondered if my colleague was all right. It probably said a lot about my last few days, and how deep of a hole I had dug for myself, that a probable murder could slip this far down my priority list. I let the phone ring a dozen times. It didn’t go to voice mail, which seemed vaguely disturbing.
Inspiration struck me. It wasn’t the first thing that had struck me in the last twenty-four hours, and that may have been slightly related to the quality of the idea. It did, however, allow me to get everyone in position for the plan that I’d been working out over the past few days. If I was right, then I knew how to destroy the puca and end this whole nightmare job. I made another call. After spending fifteen minutes going through layers of bureaucrats, I reached Superintendent Singh.
“Mr. Adler, Detective Badger has you pinned as a person of great interest in several serious crimes. Therefore, I presume that you have a very good reason for calling me?” Her voice betrayed her doubts about me; it was clear that Badger wasn’t the only cop who assumed that where there’s smoke, there must be fire.
“Yes, Mrs. Singh, I do have a very good reason for calling you. I understand that Kelly MacDonnell dropped off her statement yesterday and provided details that sh
ould allow the Serious Fraud Office to follow up on OMG. However, what you don’t know is that I’ve been working with Ena O’Brian to engineer her assumption of control of OMG by eliminating her partners and helping to guarantee her the contract with my company.” I’m not a great liar, but I was playing into the superintendent’s bias.
“Julian, that doesn’t make any sense. You were working with Kelly when she came in here to give her statement.” It was funny how she’d suspected the worst of me but now fought against accepting it. I think it was her way of coping with the consequences of what I’d said.
“I’m telling you that Kelly’s dead. If someone looks into it, they’ll find that Tara Grady is missing as well. In fact, I’d bet good money that a check will show that Ena has plane tickets booked. I’m going to be finishing up some work in the next few minutes, but I’ll be at St. Bernard's Hospital in Ealing tonight at eight thirty. It would be a real shame if there was a repeat of the Saint Mary’s Massacre.”
I didn’t let her reply. Instead, I just pressed the “end call” button and clicked the “print” icon on my laptop. Legal had approved the contract, and now I had a fair copy. Ena would come to me, and the only question was whether or not she’d bring the puca with her. I called the last remaining OMG partner. She answered on the third ring.
“I’ve got your contract,” I said. I hoped that my voice sounded cold, but I suspected that the lack of sleep just made me sound tired.
“Ahh…ahead of schedule. I’m feeling a bit peckish. Would you like to bring it to me, and I can get it signed over a late lunch?” Her words were flippant, but I could hear the desire in her voice. According to Kelly, this contract stood between her and financial ruin, so she had to have it signed before close of business on Friday.
“I’m a bit knackered, Ms. O’Brian. It would seem that I’ve had to pick up the slack for the entire project team—I just can’t figure out what’s happened to them. I was going to get the contract signed off on our side and then knock off for the day. I’m sure you’re busy, what with Tara being…missing. Why don’t you meet me for supper? We can celebrate the deal at my favorite local restaurant, and then we’ll go back to my place to sign,” I said, gripping my phone so hard that the plastic flexed. I knew that she knew that my house had burned down, and the offer was more than wildly unprofessional, but I didn’t mind borrowing a page out of Janice’s book if it meant that I might be able to save her and myself in the bargain.
“That sounds like a lovely plan, Julian. Where can I meet you, and can I bring anything?” She knew all the right noises to make, which was a stark reminder of the skill and experience that the woman had. I guessed she’d have made a good salesperson even without the puca’s help, but I didn’t plan on letting her find out if that were true or not.
I gave her a meeting time, the address of the restaurant, and my personal number before saying a hasty good-bye. Superintendent Singh had surely started mobilizing the authorities by now; I really hoped that a suspect confessing to multiple murders would get a decent response time out of the police. If I was going to get the contract signed and make my preparations, I had to move quickly.
When I was about halfway to the CEO’s office, it occurred to me just how stupid it was to worry about the contract because there was absolutely no way that this deal was actually going to be allowed to complete. I could have gotten Olivia to scribble her name in crayon for all the difference that having the right signature would make. Thinking of Olivia made me put my head in my hands, and I decided that as soon as I was out of the building, I’d try to give Dana a call to make sure that they’d made it to her parents’ house all right.
Getting the signature was a total anticlimax; the boss had left instructions with his secretary to simply check the legal approval note and forge his signature on the document while he was out for lunch. Technically, I shouldn't have accepted that, but screw it. Like I said, I had no intention of allowing this contract to complete anyhow.
Gripping the document, I left my suitcase and most of my other things at my desk, grabbed a satchel, stuffed the papers into it, and left. I tried to call Dana, but it went straight to voice mail, which was a surprise because it should have been at least eight in the morning in Florida. I headed toward Paddington at my best limp, and I sighed with relief when I glanced back and spotted a police car, with lights blazing, tear down the street toward my office. I’d probably cut that one a little close.
The thought of cutting things got me to thinking about the activities of the previous night, and I finally had time to consider a few facts that had been puzzling me. It had been a pleasant surprise to find that using a pop-culture supercharge on my initial assault had allowed me to at least slightly inconvenience the creature, but the damage that I’d done later on with the blast of verdant flames had been outside of any of my previous experiences. As the train made the ten-minute journey to Ealing Broadway, I pondered what might have made that particular attack so powerful. I quickly ran through the events in my mind, and as I replayed the last minute, when the unknown woman made her doomed charge and the puca fled, I recalled the anger that I had felt very clearly, but I couldn’t think of what memory I had used.
I searched my recollection pretty thoroughly, and I could only actually recall seeing green flames in a high school chemistry class when we’d been messing around and threw copper into the fire. If that was true, then it meant that I hadn’t actually used a memory—not even one from a TV show or comic, like I’d done as a kid. What’s more, the flaming sword had managed to cross the barrier from the Dreamscape into the real world. I wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, but I knew that it was important. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any more time to work it out because I had arrived at the station.
CHAPTER 47 1400–2000, Thursday, August 6, 2015
***Julian***
Ealing Broadway station is directly across the road from the building where the Rolling Stones had their first gig together, but you wouldn’t guess that it had that kind of history from the dull, utilitarian exterior. The station entrance dipped down toward the track level unobtrusively and was barely more than a small break in the parade of shops that it anchored. Unfortunately, that meant that there was no way to sneak out of the station, and I noticed a familiar face across the road the moment that I crested the steps.
Given how quickly I’d left, there was almost no way that Derrick Redderton could have beaten me to the station. That meant Ena had somehow guessed my plans and sent him to take up position before now. If he’d been staking out my likely locations, then it explained why I hadn’t seen him lurking anywhere near my office yesterday. The profoundly ugly man gave me a wave with one hand while holding his side with the other. I decided to bite the bullet and crossed the road, wrinkling my forehead in distaste.
“Hey, scumbag,” I said, sauntering up to Derrick. I’m a people person. Apparently the private eye was as well, because a sharp punch lashed out and caught me in the gut. I doubled over and retched while stars danced in front of my eyes.
“Are you ready to be civil, Mr. Adler?” His thick cockney accent cut through the chatter of posh women coming out of the store behind us and gave me an awful idea.
“Yes, guv’nor. I’m a good boy, I yaam…d’ya need ya chimbley swept, guv’nor?” I’ve lived in London for years, but I sounded like a cross between Eliza Doolittle and Dick Van Dyke as I mocked the man who I was pretty sure had the most flexible morals of anyone I’d ever met…and I work for a pharmaceutical company. This, of course, earned me another gut punch. It was worth it.
When I straightened up a minute later, I looked the man in his beady eyes and stared into them. When a man stares into a woman’s eyes, it’s all about smolder and sex appeal, but when a man stares into another man’s eyes, it’s nothing but a challenge. He looked away first, and I wondered how badly hurt he actually was after the puca’s assault.
I said, “I’m going to get on the bus over there and drop my stuff off at ho
me. Are you coming with me, or are you going to piss off?” People in the street were giving us a pretty large bubble of space without making any indication that they had actually noticed the tension.
“I’m not coming with you. Ms. O’Brian just wanted me to make sure you understood that we’d be keeping an eye on you, so you wouldn’t pull a runner,” he said. The statement didn’t make any sense at first, but then I looked around and strangled a cry before it could escape my lips. I noticed a handful of people at each bus stop, who had turned to stare directly at me. All of them had eyes filled with black.
The veritable army of black-eyed people under the puca’s control confirmed the worst suspicions that Kelly and I had formed about what would happen if it gained a critical mass of infections, which it had been able to do in short order once it was physically anchored to our reality.
I sprinted back toward the station and hopped into a black cab. The thralls were left staring impotently from the various bus stops around the green as we sped away. I smirked and promised the driver an extra tenner to get me home in less than ten minutes. Where I’d grown up, a ten-minute journey would take you a dozen miles, but here I was hoping to go two miles and knew I was pushing my luck. I dialed the number of the only person who I thought might be able to help. We spoke for a couple of minutes, and I explained my plan and that my worst fears had been confirmed at the station. He agreed to make some calls, and I said I’d see him in a few minutes.
I arrived at Our Lady of the Visitation around two thirty in the afternoon and was happy to see Father O. waiting for me at the steps. He waved at me, but I saw new worry lines etched on his face, and I took note of the reams of police tape cordoning off the location of my former home. I paid the driver, adding the extra that I’d promised. He’d earned it—I think that we passed the Millennium Falcon on the way to the church.
Dream Job (The Dreamwalker Chronicles Book 1) Page 30