‘What the hell, Fletcher?’
‘Next room on the refurb list, promise,’ I replied, hand on my heart.
Once she’d recovered from the shock, Stronge turned serious. Well, more serious. She was always some degree of serious.
‘Do you believe her?’ she asked.
‘I do.’
‘I was talking to him,’ she said, nodding to Frank. ‘Well, is she telling the truth?’
Frank considered the question. The effort made his mouth slowly drawbridge open until it hung so low that his tongue fell out and he had to suck it in like wet spaghetti. After another minute of deep contemplation, he finally said, ‘Yeeeeeeeesssss.’
Fletcher & Fletcher were in accord, leaving DCI Stronge the lone cynic.
‘There’s something not right here, mark my words,’ she said.
‘Kat, you came in here with a question and the question’s been answered. Let’s move on.’
She chewed her bottom lip. ‘Okay, but only because Frank agrees with you. He’s the one with the good nose.’
Frank smiled. I did, too. We were all on the same page. All that remained now was to follow the will-o’-the-wisp’s lead and nail the grotty little bastard it used to nest in. And we would have, too, if it weren’t for one problem: the wisp was lying on its back at the bottom of its jar.
‘Is it dead?’ asked Stronge.
I took a closer look and saw that it was still giving off that faint, throbbing glow. ‘No, just sleeping.’
Frank gave it a rattle but the bug wouldn’t stir.
‘Leave it,’ said Stronge, staying his hand. ‘We need it too much to risk killing the thing.’
‘What are you saying? We just let it sleep?’
‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘Me, too. I’ve been up for two days straight—I’m no good to anyone right now. Give me a couple of hours of shut-eye and we’ll take a fresh run at the suspect then.’
I supposed she wasn’t asking for much. The sun wouldn’t even be up in that time, and the killer still had some recuperating to do.
‘All right, deal. You wanna take the sofa?’
‘No thanks,’ she replied with a shudder, most likely recalling the enormous coffin spider.
‘Suit yourself. Just make sure you meet me back here in three hours. No more than that.’
Stronge zipped up her gilet. ‘Fine. Stay put until I get back, okay? Promise you won’t go off half-cocked without me.’
I promised.
The promise wasn’t kept.
Chapter Seventeen: Reality Bites
When you don’t sleep, you need to find ways to occupy your mind, to keep the dark thoughts at bay. In the small hours of the morning a man is apt to search his soul, and often what he finds there ain’t pretty. So I fill that time. Mostly, I spend it the same way the living spend their waking hours: watching movies, playing games, wandering aimlessly. Procrastinating, in other words.
Then there are nights I use that extra time productively. For instance, I might swot up on a subject I’m unfamiliar with, study a new language, or hone my magic. On this occasion, I chose to spend the twilight hours reading the book Jazz Hands loaned me: The Modern Encyclopaedia of Faeries and Otherkin.
It was a big book. A whopper, really, but it was loaded with interesting titbits. I was only a short way in and I’d already learned a couple of beauts. For instance, did you know that fae don’t have navels, or even fingerprints? I didn’t, but now I understood why the suspect didn’t leave any dabs at the crime scene. Another thing I wasn’t aware of: the fae have a habit of robbing babies and turning them into slaves. Also, fairies can’t lie, though they are master manipulators and can do incredible things with a few withheld truths. But the big reveal, the thing that really caught my attention, was learning why the Arcadians vacated our realm all those years ago.
Apparently, the reason was twofold: the first being that people stopped believing in magic, and in doing so, negated their existence. The second was an ecological issue. As the world advanced, the growing pollution became too much for their delicate constitutions, and the fae were forced to relocate. Thinking about it, that was probably why the Arcadian we were hunting grew himself that little indoor forest: to filter out some of the city’s impurities. Didn’t do him much good when he caught a lungful of exhaust fumes from that bin lorry, though, did it?
But it wasn’t just the smog that sent the Arcadians packing in the olden days, it was an allergy to modernity itself. The poor lambs were intolerant to the industrialised world in general, and most products of it. The first thing to get their knickers in a twist was steel. For them, that stuff was a giant no-no. Legend has it that fae are wounded by iron, but according to Jazz’s tome, this assessment was a little off. It was the bulk manufacture of crucible steel—a modern alloy—that made this world unsafe for their kind, that turned it into poison. And so the Arcadians stopped visiting our realm altogether and returned to their homeland, never to be seen again. Until now.
So why come back? And why London? What was here for this fae besides even more pollution and modernity? I had no idea, but I knew this much: if the bloke who killed my client was having a hard time dealing with the city, things were only going to get worse for him when we had our rematch.
My reading was interrupted by a familiar buzzing noise: the sound of the will-o’-the-wisp voicing its discontent. I cast a glance to the jar on my desk and saw the creature had taken flight. It was bumping against the walls of its prison, desperate to find its way home, back to the Arcadian that had brought it to this strange and unfamiliar land.
I turned to Frank, who’d been assisting me with my reading, turning the pages of the book as necessary.
‘We shouldn’t, right?’
He stared back at me, eyes vacant, no clue what I was talking about.
‘Go after the Arcadian, I mean. Without Stronge.’
Frank’s expression remained absolutely unchanged.
‘Then again, haven’t we wasted enough time already? What if he slips the net while we’re back here sitting on our arses?’
The look on Frank’s mush changed not one iota.
‘We should get after him, right? Kat won’t care that we jumped the gun so long as we get results.’
A continuing look of blank serenity.
I climbed to my feet and pounded Frank on the back, knocking a small avalanche of dead skin from his shoulders. ‘Thanks for the assist, partner. You always know the right thing to say.’
My mind was made up. We’d strike while the iron was hot, or better yet I thought—checking my trusty hammer and finding a stamp on its head that identified what it was made of—we’d strike with good old-fashioned UK steel. Stronge was liable to be spitting feathers when she showed up here and found we’d ditched her, but she’d get over it. She’d already played her part. She’d got us this far down the road, now all Frank and me had to do was slap on the cuffs. The Arcadian didn’t stand a chance. We had the home advantage, the right equipment for the job, and we’d already dealt the guy a good drubbing. What could possibly go wrong?
It would be a few hours yet before dawn coloured the streets, so the intrepid Fletcher & Fletcher superteam headed into the night to bag themselves a sleeping fae. The wisp pulled north-east and we followed, heading in the direction of Newham. We were moving through a rough part of town—a place the police cars don’t stop—when something caught my eye. Reflected in the only unbroken window of a dilapidated building, I saw a figure. He was a good thirty yards behind me but his silhouette alone gave him away, his spine bowed like a flower in desperate need of water. My stalkers were back, or one of them at least.
I caught another flash of him in a parked car’s wing mirror. He was all done up in his Sunday best, his long hair tied back into a neat ponytail that swung like a pendulum with each footfall. From the way he was walking—unhurried and confident—he had no idea we were on to him. I wondered how come the bloke was flying solo. Was it budget cuts, or were my mysteri
ous tagalongs just short-staffed this evening? I landed on who cares? Frank and me had the numbers this time, that’s all that mattered.
I slowed my pace and gave my partner a signal to do the same, which caused our tail to draw closer still. I stole a casual glance over my shoulder as we rounded a corner and got a better look at him. My suspicions were correct. The figure had the same hollowed-out features, blood red eyes, and unnaturally long fingers as the strangers I’d caught in our rearview a few nights ago. I gave Frank a knowing look. This was our chance to discover who these stalkers were, and work out why they’d taken an interest in us.
We took a swift right into an alleyway narrow enough that I could have stretched out my arms and touched both sides. Naturally, our secret admirer did the same. I’ll bet the last thing he expected when he turned that corner was to find Frank standing there, looking right at him with murder in his eyes. Actually, scratch that, the absolute last thing he would have seen coming was a ghostly hand reaching through the alley’s solid wall, grabbing him by the ponytail, and cracking his nut against the brickwork.
The blow left him on the cobbles, but not for long. Frank hauled him up by his tie, clamped a hand on either side of his canister, and turned his face to mine. He wasn’t exactly what you’d call a looker. Our stalker had a snub nose, eyes capped by a thick black monobrow, and giant, pointy ears covered in downy beards. He hissed at me, spitting like a cobra, two white fangs protruding over thin blue lips.
So, the people following us were vampires after all. That was always my guess given the hours they kept, but it was nice to know for sure. When I saw that he cast a reflection I was given doubt, but now I thought about it—fun fact, kids—his kind were only invisible in mirrors backed with real silver.
Anyway, the length of the chompers he was baring told me he was at least a hundred years old, so no newcomer to the game. Best not take chances and treat him with the respect he deserved.
‘Tell me who you’re working for or I’ll kick your arse all the way back to Transylvania,’ I said.
Okay, maybe not too much respect. You can overdo these things.
The vamp struggled but Frank’s grip remained firm
‘Have you got cloth ears?’ I said. ‘Why are you and your mates tailing me?’
He shut his mouth and went as tight-lipped as an uncooked mussel.
I gave Frank a nod and he dealt the vamp a squeeze hard enough to shift the plates in his skull. Our stalker’s mouth came undone but the scream stayed trapped in his throat.
‘Ease up a bit,’ I told Frank, ‘I don’t want to end up wearing this numpty’s eyeballs on my loafers.’
Frank loosened his grip a smidge, allowing the vamp to let slip a great, pained gasp.
‘Fancy having another go at answering my questions?’ I asked.
His expression was hard, his eyes two narrow slits. ‘I’ll tell you nothing,’ he snarled in an accent that was hard to place.
‘That’s a shame,’ I said, glad that Detective Stronge wasn’t about to see me extract a confession in a way that definitely wasn’t kosher.
I launched a fist at his face that connected with his jaw and left him wearing a Hammer Horror chin trickle worthy of Christopher Lee himself.
‘Whoopsie. Sorry about that, pal. I’m all thumbs today.’
‘I’ll gouge your eyes out and skull fuck your soul,’ he screamed.
‘Pack it in,’ I said, giving him a sobering slap across the chops. ‘Getting on my wrong side right now would be the biggest mistake of your life, and I’m factoring that haircut into the equation.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘We covered that ground already,’ I replied. ‘Tell you what, why don’t we switch things up a bit and you tell me why you and the rest of the Lost Boys are creeping on us?’
Once again, the vamp developed a bad case of lockjaw.
‘Suit yourself.’ I turned to my partner. ‘See if you can change his mind, would you?’
Frank adjusted his grip on the vampire’s skull, but doing so gave the rat bastard his moment. He arrowed out an elbow, catching Frank in the bollocks and folding him in half. I was quick enough to throw the vamp a dig before he made a break for it, but it didn’t do much damage, in fact, it only served to rile him up.
Quick as a wink, he took my legs out from under me, then his feet were going at my ribs like he was trying to kickstart a busted motorbike. Despite his age, the vampire fought like a young man, nothing held back, no slowing down. Doing what I could to get back in the match, I placed my palms on the ground and made it up to one knee, but that was the best I could manage. While I was wobbling, the vamp cocked a fist and took a swing. Thankfully, Frank had caught his breath by that point, and grabbed the feller by the wrist before he could land the hit.
What happened next is a bit of a blur. There was a tussle that I thought was going to end with Frank duffing the vamp up a bit, only it turned out a bit more serious than that. Growling with ape-like fury, Frank yanked at my attacker’s wrist and lurched back a good three feet. It took me a second to understand the strange object he was holding, that’s until I saw the ruined mess of the vampire’s shoulder and realised Frank had wrenched his arm out at the socket.
The vamp pulled a face like a man at an airport caught with a balloon of heroin up his jacksie, then opened his mouth and let out a scream louder than any I’ve heard before or since.
‘God Almighty,’ I gasped.
Usually, old Frank’s good as gold, but he’s got a temper on him, especially when it comes to someone raising a hand to yours truly.
The vampire shrank back clutching the unplugged hole in his torso, then turned tail and hobbled away. I didn’t have the heart to go after him. Honestly, I was too stunned to give chase—we both were, standing there shaking our heads, mouths agape.
Finally, after I don’t know how long, I came to my senses and realised Frank was still clutching the vampire’s severed limb.
‘Drop it, for Christ’s sake,’ I told him.
He let it go and the arm hit the ground with a wet slap. Gravity rolled it over, and as it did, the long, webbed fingers on the vampire's ex-hand unfurled like a blooming flower. I saw something on the palm: a black mark of some kind. When I crouched down to get a better look I saw felt-tipped words scrawled across the inside of the hand like an open mic comedian’s setlist. The handwriting spelled out an address and a time. Also included was a single word, written in capital letters: CONCLAVE.
Most vampires, like fae folk, have a tendency to be technologically adverse, so I wasn’t too surprised to learn that the one following us had committed important information to his person instead of maing a note on his phone. More surprising was the richness of the information he’d provided us with, and that we’d been jammy enough to retain it.
A conclave, for those of you not in the know, is another word for a vampire powwow. They’re typically convened so members of a clan can come together and discuss matters of importance. What those matters were and whether they had anything to do with our business, I had no idea, but I did know the meeting was happening tonight, and that I felt compelled to stick my nose in. A vampire had lost a limb to provide me with this tip-off; I had to honour that sacrifice, right? Then again, there was a homicidal Arcadian still on the loose, which was surely more pressing business.
And yet.
And yet…
What if the vampires were wrapped up in this somehow? They started following me right about the time Frank and I took the case of the murdered escort. Was it possible that the vamps and the fae were in cahoots somehow? That my client’s death was more than some random killing? That her murder had a purpose I didn’t understand? A purpose that would forever remain a mystery unless I earwigged on this secret meeting?
Or was I putting two and two together and coming up with a shepherd’s pie? There was every chance that the vampires were nothing more than a distraction. Something that had nothing to do with our investigation and would only se
nd us spinning off in the wrong direction.
I looked to the arm on the ground, then to Frank. ‘What do you say? Do we check this thing out or what?’
I needed to know. Should we stay the course or take this fork in the road? Was it a good idea to act on this new information or would peeling off at this point be like going on holiday in the middle of a car chase?
Frank’s forehead puckered as he considered the question. Finally, he replied with a long and thoughtful, ‘Braaaaiiiiins.’
So much for seeking my partner’s advice. That’s the thing with Frank, when his brain-lust is up, he’s no use to anyone. Getting him to focus on a task is like asking a hungry dog to balance a biscuit on his nose: you won’t get what you want, and you might lose a finger trying.
I needed to make an executive decision. I could only hope, unlike the film of the same name, that it wasn’t shit.
Chapter Eighteen: Fly in the Wall
In the end, I decided to chuck a frisbee into the abyss and see what this conclave was all about.
The part of town our expedition took us to was even worse than the area we were passing through when we caught a vampire riding our arse. Seriously, you wouldn’t want to raise a jackal in that neck of the woods. Derelict buildings lined potholed streets like rows of broken teeth, dossers scavenged for food in overflowing bins, and the whole manor stank of regurgitated booze. I didn’t need Frank to tell me that—the stench was palpable with or without a nose.
‘Show me that note, would you?’ I said.
Frank reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a legal pad, upon which he’d written the address the conclave was taking place at. I had him copy it off the vampire’s hand, which we left back in the alleyway, along with the limb it was attached to. Frank had wanted to eat the thing, but I told him no. I didn’t want him getting a taste for human flesh, even if that human was a nosferatu. It was already hard enough keeping reins on Frank without him going full Romero on me.
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