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The Stranger Times

Page 27

by C. K. McDonnell


  ‘Sorry,’ said Mrs Harnforth. ‘I think you have had the wool rather pulled over your eyes.’

  ‘But she …’

  ‘By any chance did this lawyer encourage you to kill the story?’

  Banecroft slammed down the front legs of his chair and reached for the bottle of whiskey again. ‘I think you know the answer to that. Just so I’m clear, is there anyone actually on our side?’

  ‘We don’t have a side. That is very much the point. Besides, you didn’t take this lawyer’s advice.’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Banecroft, pouring himself another indecent measure. ‘I’ve never been one for following orders.’

  ‘That is why you are here,’ said Mrs Harnforth.

  Banecroft’s glass stopped halfway to his lips and he gave Mrs Harnforth a long, hard look. ‘Which brings me to my next question—’ Annoyance flashed across his face as he was interrupted by a knock on the door. ‘What the hell is it now?’

  Manny’s voice wafted through. ‘You said we tell you when the trucks is here.’ There was an odd pause, and then, ‘The trucks is here.’

  CHAPTER 39

  Moretti took a bite of the doughnut and then spat it back into the bag. Another food these Limey a-holes couldn’t get right. The sooner this was over and he could get back to the States the better. Of course, after yet another screw-up from the dog, the likelihood of that ever happening was in serious jeopardy. He tossed the bag on the ground as he turned the corner and headed towards the warehouse. This time he was going to have to hurt the dog – really hurt him. Their previous talk about the price of failure had clearly not penetrated his thick skull.

  Moretti had to admit that the initial error had been his own. Getting rid of the nosy reporter had made sense, and having him throw himself off the same building – well, he’d figured that would have the authorities barking up all the wrong trees. In his own defence, what the hell was a wi-fi-enabled camera? He still didn’t understand it completely, and seeing as he’d smashed the camera to pieces as soon as he’d picked up the chatter on the bug he’d placed inside The Stranger Times, he would not be undertaking further investigation.

  Somehow, while the camera had been in the back of his car as he’d driven through Manchester, it had picked up a wi-fi signal and sent its content to the little dweeb’s hard drive.

  Desperate times called for desperate measures, and he had instructed the dog to slaughter the remaining staff of that silly rag and burn the place to the ground. Moretti didn’t know why his powers hadn’t worked on the Irish guy, but claws still ripped and fire still burned. If you couldn’t avoid leaving a mess, then leave the biggest mess possible. If the dog had any awareness of the beast taking over, he was too dumb to realize. Or maybe the guy would always have been fine with the order to liquidate civilians. Regardless, it should have been simple. Then he’d seen the dog crashing through the window and hightailing it out of the church like a whimpering cur.

  Moretti stopped in front of the metal shutters to the warehouse and, after glancing around briefly to make sure nobody was watching, performed a quick series of movements with his left hand. The shutters juddered upwards with a complaint of grinding metal, and the gloomy interior was flooded with the dawn’s early light. Moretti stepped inside, his eyes taking a moment to adjust.

  The dog lay in one of the raggedy armchairs – back in human form and naked. He cowered pathetically as the lights came on.

  ‘Ah, did I wake you up, puppy?’ Moretti casually took a handkerchief out of his pocket and cleaned the sugar from his hands – far too much of it. They really didn’t know how to do a simple frickin’ doughnut. ‘So, how did it go?’

  Gary Merchant didn’t look up. ‘You know how it went.’

  ‘No,’ said Moretti. ‘I know how it was supposed to go. What I don’t understand is what the hell went wrong?’

  The dog finally raised his eyes to look at him. ‘There was a – I don’t know – this bloody great demon or summat. The black fella – it came out of him. Had wings. You didn’t tell me about nothing like that, did ya?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Moretti. ‘I see. So your failure is my fault, then, is it? Is that what we’re saying?’

  Merchant looked down at the ground again and hugged his legs to him. ‘No, I just …’

  ‘You just what?’

  ‘I just …’

  ‘Speak up. I want to know. I bet they want to know too.’

  Moretti turned to the two figures chained high on the wall, their mouths muzzled. The homeless Type 2 looked at him with the terror he’d come to expect; the Type 6 looked at him with the pure hatred he’d known would be there. They both hung there, entirely helpless, their wrought-iron bindings holding them in place. Normally Moretti would’ve hosed down the homeless guy to get rid of the stench, but the whole place smelled so bad it seemed pointless. The witch looked amusingly incongruous, up there in her dressing gown and nightie, but Moretti wasn’t in a laughing mood.

  ‘C’mon.’ Moretti skipped towards them, his arms outstretched. ‘These brave souls have volunteered to give their lives so that your poor daughter might live. So tell me – tell us – why you couldn’t do the simple task that needed to be done in order to save poor, cancerous Cathy.’

  ‘Don’t you say her name!’ His voice came out in a snarl and he switched from whipped cur to snarling beast in a second. His eyes flashed red as he hurtled forward. With a casual wave of his hand, Moretti grabbed the dog and spun him around and around in the air, like a marionette, up towards the ceiling and back down again, finally bringing his face to rest mere inches from his own.

  ‘I really think, of the two of us, I should be the one getting upset.’ He spoke calmly again. ‘Thanks to you, the third and final piece of our puzzle will now be virtually impossible to catch. We’ll need a Type Eight. Type Eights are hard to find at the best of times, but now they’ll be cloaking their scent and we’ll never find them. All of this will be for naught. I’ll have to go somewhere else and start again. My time has been wasted. Do you know how unhappy that makes me?’

  The dog tried to speak. After a moment’s contemplation, Moretti loosened his grip enough to allow his jaw to move. ‘Does doggy want to say something?’

  ‘There was something else, at the paper place.’

  ‘Yes, the big bad demon. You said. That is of no use to us, believe you me. It sounds like a … Well, never mind, it seems pointless to attempt to educate you now.’

  ‘No, no, no. Something else. Not that. It smelled, y’know, powerful.’

  Moretti moved a little closer, trying to determine if this was truth or lies born from desperation.

  ‘Are you saying it was a Type Eight?’

  ‘Stronger than that. It felt … I mean, I don’t know what it was, but—’

  Moretti waved his hand in the air and the Book of Scent appeared. ‘You’d better not be wasting more of my time.’

  ‘I’m not, I bloody swear it. It was … incredible.’

  ‘Well, then …’ Moretti opened the book and began flicking through. ‘Say when.’

  ‘No. No. No. No.’ Moretti kept skimming through the pages. He moved on, past the normal, past the rare, on to … ‘That one!’

  Moretti looked down at the page and then up again. ‘Really?’

  ‘It was like that, but combined with the one from two pages back.’

  ‘That is not possible.’

  ‘It definitely was, I’m telling ya. I’ve got a crazy sense of smell now.’

  ‘But that’s not … That would be the most extraordinary of things.’ Moretti turned, talking more to himself now than to anyone else. ‘I mean, theoretically maybe, but …’ He clapped his hands together excitedly.

  ‘So will it work for what we need?’

  ‘What?’ said Moretti, turning. ‘Oh, yes. I mean, it’s a shocking waste in some ways, but it’ll definitely do for that.’

  ‘Right, then.’

  Moretti stopped. ‘If you’re lying to me …’ />
  ‘I’m not. Why would I make that up?’

  Moretti looked into the dog’s eyes again. There was no deception there. It didn’t know enough to come up with a lie this good. Moretti danced a little jig of genuine delight. ‘Oh me, oh me, oh me, oh my – these are the days to be alive.’

  ‘So, is it good, then?’

  Moretti turned back around and slapped the dog on the cheek affectionately. ‘Oh, my dear little moron, this is news of such unexpected, inexplicable good fortune that I could be drawn to the highly unlikely conclusion that someone up there likes me!’

  He turned and held his hands out to their guests. ‘Good news, my friends – you shall be dying in the very best of company. Free at last. Great God almighty, I’m free at last!’

  ‘Can you …?’ asked the dog.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’ Moretti clicked his fingers and the dog fell to the ground. ‘C’mon, c’mon, up you get,’ he said, turning on his heel and heading towards the door. ‘You need to change into something a little more hairy. We’re going hunting!’

  CHAPTER 40

  Banecroft sat up on the roof and watched as, in the wan light of early morning, the delivery trucks below him were loaded.

  ‘Is it safe for a man with your blood-alcohol level to be sitting up here?’

  He didn’t turn around. ‘Perfectly. I’ve worked it out, and sadly I’d almost certainly survive the fall.’

  ‘Yes, but I do worry about the poor sod you’d inevitably land on. This paper can’t afford a lawsuit.’

  Mrs Harnforth stepped forward and perched on one of the short, stone bollards. Banecroft was reclining in the rusted and weather-worn sun lounger he’d found up here.

  He picked up his bottle of whiskey again.

  ‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough of that?’

  ‘No, no, I don’t.’

  He poured himself another unhealthy measure.

  ‘You’re angry.’

  ‘I’m always angry.’

  Mrs Harnforth sighed, not unkindly. ‘That’s not anger, Vincent – that’s pain. A great well of pain. Instead of dealing with it, you’ve just tried to drink yourself to oblivion. How has that worked out for you?’

  Banecroft held up his glass in a toast. ‘Too early to tell. Cheers.’

  Mrs Harnforth looked out at the city waking up. Even now, the Mancunian Way elevated motorway held a steady flow of traffic, and lights could be seen in apartment windows in the distance. ‘Ask your questions, Vincent. I know you have them.’

  ‘Oh, how terribly kind of you. I do appreciate how you like to give the impression I have some kind of control. You lied to me.’

  ‘I did no such thing.’

  ‘A lie of omission is no less of a lie and you know it. I had no idea what you were getting me into.’

  Mrs Harnforth turned to look at him. ‘Would you have believed me?’

  ‘That is irrelevant.’

  ‘No, Vincent. Quite the contrary. If I had told you the truth, you would have scoffed at it. You always had to see it to believe it. A mind like yours has to be allowed to get most of the way to the truth by itself, or else it just will not take.’

  He jabbed a finger in her direction. ‘You brought me here under false pretences.’

  Mrs Harnforth considered this and then gave a nod. ‘That’s fair – I did. I would apologize for it, but I think we both know that would be hollow. I did what had to be done. I would do it again in a heartbeat.’

  Banecroft glowered at her and then threw back a large gulp of whiskey.

  ‘Whilst you’re so enjoying being angry, please do not forget where you were when I found you, Vincent. You’d hit rock bottom and were attempting to dig your way through it. You’d be dead by now if it weren’t for me.’

  ‘There are worse things.’

  Mrs Harnforth gave him a long, hard look – one of the few in his entire existence that Banecroft was unable to match. ‘One day we will have to have a serious chat about that statement, but not today. In the meantime, yes, I lied to you, but I did it for both your own good and the greater good.’

  This was met by a mirthless bark of laughter.

  ‘Mock all you want, Vincent, but I knew if I placed you here – somewhere amidst the crackpots and the wild conspiracies and the monsters of the imagination – at some point the truth would come knocking and that mind of yours, still sharp despite the extraordinary lengths you have gone to in order to deaden it, would recognize it when it presented itself to you.’

  ‘A boy is dead! Just a kid, chasing a story. And because I didn’t know the truth, he’s dead. That is on you.’

  Mrs Harnforth shook her head. ‘I don’t believe so, but, to be honest, you may be right. I don’t know. My position …’ She looked at the skyline again. ‘I’ve seen so much, been responsible for so much, I’ve … Undoubtedly, there is blood on my hands. I can’t deny it. Maybe poor Simon should be added to that. That is for others to judge. Still, I believe in the truce I have made it my life’s work to preserve. I left rather a lot out down there. It is not going well – the Accord, I mean. There is pressure from all sides, and it wasn’t the best of deals to begin with. At times it feels like an impossible task, but someone has to do it.’

  Banecroft gave a sarcastic trio of claps and Mrs Harnforth’s calm demeanour slipped for just a moment, anger flashing in her eyes. He spoke in a mocking falsetto. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’

  ‘As I said, Vincent – I am very busy. There are an awful lot of places I need to be, so I would appreciate it if you could dispense with the histrionics and ask your damned questions.’

  He reached down to find the near-empty bottle of whiskey. Mrs Harnforth moved two of her fingers in a precise motion and the bottle rose into the air and moved silently across the rooftop away from him. He watched it go.

  ‘Well, that answers one of them.’

  The bottle came to rest beneath the ledge of the window that led out to the rooftop.

  ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Harnforth, ‘this reminds me of something I should have mentioned. The man behind the Were – you said that when you met him, he dangled something in front of you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Banecroft. ‘Like he thought the shiny object would somehow distract me.’

  She nodded. ‘He was trying to perform what is commonly referred to as a glamour. It allows a practitioner to gain control of another’s mind.’

  ‘I see,’ said Banecroft. ‘And was I saved by my aforementioned razor-sharp mind?’

  ‘No. You were saved by the key that is currently resting in your trouser pocket.’

  Banecroft shoved his hand in and extracted the tarnished bronze key to the front door of the church. ‘This?’

  Mrs Harnforth nodded. ‘Exactly that. It is what is known as a totem – quite a powerful one. As are all the keys to this place. Anyone carrying one of them is shielded from magical interference. Mostly.’

  ‘If I’m “protected” from hocus-pocus, then how come …?’ He nodded in the direction of his dearly departed whiskey bottle.

  ‘It protects you, not objects. It also does not prevent that bottle from being walloped against the side of your thick skull, I’m afraid. Invincible you are not.’

  ‘So the opposition has magical powers and all we have is a keyring’s worth of protection?’

  ‘That and, as you met this evening, Manny’s associate.’

  ‘Do I want to know what in hell that was?’

  She shrugged. ‘Probably not, but rest assured, when you’re in this building you are protected. She is old magic, and all but the most foolhardy or the most powerful would avoid facing off against her.’

  ‘I knew all that hippy peace-and-love stuff from the Rastafarian was nonsense.’

  ‘She is not him. She is … I suppose “with him” would be the best way to put it. Which does rather bring us to …’ Mrs Harnforth hugged her coat around her. ‘It is cold up here, Vincent, and as I said, time is ticking on. Shall we get to the question y
ou really want to ask?’

  Banecroft leaned forward and spoke mostly to his own feet. ‘My wife.’

  Mrs Harnforth walked towards him and placed a cold hand against his cheek. ‘Your wife,’ she said softly.

  It took a few moments for Banecroft’s voice to emerge, and when it did, it was stripped of all its bravado. ‘I … I knew, when they found her, that it wasn’t her. Even when the tests – when everything said it was her – I knew it wasn’t. I knew.’

  He looked up at her, his eyes filled with tears.

  She spoke softly. ‘And then you spent every penny you had, let your life crumble around your ears, trying to find the woman you loved in a world where everyone said she was dead.’

  ‘That body’ – his voice was a hoarse croak now – ‘was not her.’

  Mrs Harnforth took a step back and turned away. ‘I know you believe that. I wish I had answers for you. I’m afraid I don’t.’

  Banecroft ran a sleeve across his face and reached down reflexively for a bottle that wasn’t there.

  ‘I’ve looked into it,’ she continued, ‘and I’m trying to get an old friend of mine to take a look at it.’ She turned back to him. ‘Maybe there is a truth to be uncovered. If there is, she will find it. Although it might not be one you want.’

  Beneath them, the doors of a truck slammed shut and an engine started up.

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ asked Banecroft.

  ‘About that?’ said Mrs Harnforth. ‘Nothing. Not right now. You have to give it time. I promise you, my friend will do what she can when she can. In the meantime, you have a paper to run.’ She pointed at the truck as it pulled out on to the road. ‘In a few hours, every member of the Folk within forty miles will know that a Were is on the hunt, and they will be ready. Similarly, the “powers that be” will be forced to act. You have done good work this week.’

  ‘It came at a cost.’

  He looked up at Mrs Harnforth. In the half-light of morning, she looked considerably older than she had previously.

 

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