by Sean Stone
The room fell silent. Adam looked down at the red carpet, his face a similar shade. Genevieve stared at the wall intently, trying her best to hold back her emotion. William remained still. The last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself, he felt awkward enough.
“I didn’t know,” Adam said quietly. “Elizabeth didn’t tell me.”
“She can’t tell you,” Genevieve said more softly. “I took her memories. I couldn’t let her live with the guilt of killing her father. Instead, I have to live with her resentment for me. She sees me as a villain. But it’s a small price to pay for giving her a free conscience.”
Adam nodded silently.
“Now back to the matter at hand,” Genevieve said loudly.
“Yes, the matter at hand,” William repeated as he re-joined them.
“If we need power to deal with The Thirteen I think I might know a place where there is a lot of it,” Adam said. He was staring ahead thoughtfully and a small smile was on his lips.
“Where?” William asked, hoping that it didn’t involve a sacrifice. Sorcerers had a horrible habit of sacrificing things. There was no way he could get on board with a sacrifice even if it was to stop Nickolas.
“Montford Manor,” Adam said. He got up and went to over to the table at the back of his office. “I’ve been preparing an exhibition on Henry Montford — the last of his family to actually live in the mansion.” He came back with a tatty old journal and put it carefully down on the table before them.
William picked it up and leafed through the pages, noticing Adam wince as he handled the old book. It was an old spell book belonging to Henry Montford. William had heard of him, but he’d died over a hundred years ago.
“Henry sacrificed several sorcerers in his time and harnessed their power. When he was killed all of that power flowed into the site where he died,” Adam explained.
“Montford Manor,” Genevieve said, nodding along.
“You think you can get that power?” William asked.
“Worth a try,” Adam said with nervous excitement.
“We’ll need something to gather it up in,” Genevieve said. “It wouldn’t do to try to absorb it ourselves. It isn’t clean — nor safe.”
“Agreed. I have Henry’s athame,” Adam said, pointing at a dagger at the back of his office. William knew that warlocks often used daggers to steal power.
“It’s risky using such a dark object,” Genevieve said.
“We already know it can do the job, though,” countered Adam.
“I’d rather use something else. Something of our own design,” she said.
“Alright,” Adam said. “If it eliminates any risk.”
“How long will that take?” William asked, ever aware that Nickolas was preparing for a ritual.
“We’ll start right away,” Adam replied.
William was more than happy to leave the problem with them for now. Whilst they worked on that he could focus on something else. He still needed to look into Kayla the ancient. He’d asked Adam about her and he claimed not to know anything about ancients other than that they were an old extinct race who posed as gods in ancient times. According to his research evidence of them was found in Egypt, Greece and Rome, where they posed as the deities of their mythologies. William needed to look through all the files at the station. He’d gathered books from many different people over the fifty years he’d been running SIT and surely something amongst it all could point him in the right direction. If not there was always Alistair, but going to him was the last resort.
*
CHAPTER TWENTY
Clara had spent over a week in the hospital. She should have been in longer but Jamal sped up her recovery with a little magic. He’d tried to do the same for Phil but his efforts were less effective on the sergeant, he’d been hit with a pretty powerful curse that had set him ablaze. Phil would survive, but it would be a while before he was out of the hospital.
The day before Clara was discharged Jamal came to visit her. She could tell from his face that it was more of a work call than a social one. He always put his serious face on when he needed to discuss business. He closed the door — on account of who she was she’d been given a private room — and came to sit in the bedside chair.
“What is it?” Clara asked, pulling herself into a more upright position. Her stomach ached where the wound was, but otherwise, she was fine.
“William has appointed me acting sergeant until Phil recovers,” Jamal said. That wasn’t what he’d come to the hospital to say, though.
“And?”
“And he would like me to talk to you about your murderous impulses.”
“Excuse me?” Clara laughed. “Murderous impulses?”
“You tried to kill James Tenson.”
“I was defending myself,” she lied. She’d started the fight with James as soon as she’d seen him in the crowd. She’d been looking for him.
“Clara, I saw what happened. You had him on his back and you told him you were going to kill him,” said Jamal.
And I would’ve done too if my powers hadn’t failed. “Can you blame me?” she asked. There was no point denying it.
“No. I completely understand, but William is concerned. And honestly so am I.” He shifted in the chair and then continued. “I know why you want to kill James, but you have to understand that killing isn’t as easy as you seem to think. You can’t just end someone’s life and then walk away. There are consequences.”
“I know. I was trying to show James the consequences of his actions. He murdered my granddad,” she said heatedly. She couldn’t believe that she was getting a lecture for trying to kill James Tenson of all people. “And you know that I want to kill Nick — I’ve been trying to find a way for ages, so why isn’t that a problem?” she demanded.
“It is a problem, but… Listen, Clara, it’s different now. I’m worried about you,” he said and his face confirmed his words.
“But you weren't before?” she asked. Confused. What changed?
“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m seeing things differently. I just don’t want you to do something that you can’t live with afterwards.” He put his hand over hers on the bed. It was warm and his touch made own hand tingle. She wanted to pull her hand away, but not because she didn’t like the contact, more because she was afraid if they stayed that way then he might somehow learn that she was starting to like him more than was appropriate. As if sensing that she was thinking about pulling away he squeezed his hand around hers and held on tight. “Taking a life will change you. I don’t want you to change for the worse.”
“Are you saying you’re going to stop me from going after Nick?” she asked quietly.
“No,” he said and shook his head. “You’re going to do it either way. I just want you to know what you’re getting yourself into.” He looked into her eyes giving her a sorrowful expression, but she thought she could see a longing there as well. For what, she did not know. Was it the same longing she felt? The longing to lean forward and kiss him. She didn’t know where those feelings had come from, but they were here now and they weren’t going away.
“I know what I’m getting myself into, and I know that I have to do it. I have to kill Nick. And James too if I get the chance.” James was more of an afterthought. He didn’t matter either way.
“Promise me that you won’t go after either of them without me, and you won’t go after them without a plan that I have agreed to,” Jamal said, still holding eye contact with her.
She took a moment to think about what he was asking of her, but there was really nothing to think about; if she didn’t say what he wanted to hear then he wouldn’t help her.
“I promise,” she said and he smiled.
She’d only been back for two days and Jamal wouldn’t allow her to do any field work, she was kept behind walls at all times. She wasn’t greatly bothered, what she needed was inside anyway. She needed to research what her father had told her — she needed to find Kayla
and decipher his riddle. Yesterday she’d spent the day at the station going through every case file they had. Today she had a meeting with Tim at the research labs and then she was returning to the station to continue searching through files. Bianca had been assigned the same task. Bianca preferred running dispatch, but William had decided they could no longer afford to have a person sitting behind the desk all day. He was working on recruiting more officers, but until he did everyone was expected to work in the field — or in Clara’s case in the office.
“At least William’s finally decided to do something about Nick,” said Bianca. She was sitting on the sofa looking through one of the old books from the bookshelf in the corner. Clara was doing the same; she figured whilst they waited for Tim to arrive they might as well keep working. There were hundreds of books in the office, gathered by her father and grandfather over their time in the company. Most of them were pharmaceutical books left out for show, but some were supernatural. Clara had looked through many of the books before when she’d been trying to find a way to kill Nick but she hadn’t managed to work her way through them all, her time as of late had been rather stretched.
“True,” Clara agreed. “And with the coven helping, we might actually get somewhere. But not unless we can find a way to kill him.” No amount of fighting would do any good if they couldn’t kill him in the end.
“What about the name your dad gave you?” said Bianca.
“Kayla? No-one knows who she is,” said Clara. She’d asked about but nobody recognised the name. The only person who had was Alistair and she wasn’t allowed near him. She knew there was no point in trying to go anyway, Jamal would know and he’d stop her. Now that he was the acting sergeant he was her commanding officer as well as her mentor, so she had no choice but to obey him and these days he was keeping an even closer eye on her.
“What did William say?”
“He said he’d look into it but I won’t bother holding my breath,” Clara said. If she couldn’t find anything then how could he?
The intercom buzzed and Clara’s secretary announced that Tim had arrived. Clara quickly tidied the office up a bit and had Tim sent in. He came in smiling broadly and shook Clara’s hand. Clara introduced him to Bianca and then they all took seats on the sofas.
“What did you want to see me about?” she asked. She didn’t want to seem brash but she had more important things to do.
“I’ve been looking through old files and I uncovered some articles of interest,” Tim said. He opened his briefcase and took out four files. He laid them out next to each other on the glass coffee table and then opened them one by one. They were personnel files. Each one had a picture of the employee and then a biography underneath.
“Who are they?” Clara asked, browsing each one briefly.
“They are researchers who once worked for the company. All of them had their employment terminated and received very generous severance packages shortly after Jonathan Langford died,” Tim explained and Clara knew what he was getting at.
“You think they were working on the weapons?” she asked, though it was more of a statement.
“Indeed. And I think that they were paid to disappear so that when you came looking, you wouldn’t find anything.”
“At the very least this supports our theory that there are weapons,” Bianca said excitedly.
“Do you know where they are?” said Clara.
“No. I haven’t been able to find anything else,” Tim said and shook his head.
“Okay, well this is good. We’ll see if we can find them at the station. Thanks, Tim.”
“My pleasure. I’ll let you get back to your work and I shall get back to mine” he shook their hands again before leaving and then made his exit.
Clara immediately stood up and started returning the books to the bookcase. She wanted to leave straight away but just couldn’t leave a messy room.
“Are we going now?” Bianca asked. She started tidying up as well.
“Oh yes. We need to find these people and get them to tell us where the weapons are. Once we have…” She stopped mid-sentence as a particular book caught her eye. It was a hardback illustrated copy of A Winters Tale by William Shakespeare. She remembered her father’s words: “Find our family’s story and you’ll find the research.” It wasn’t anything to do with their family, it was a clever play on words. Clara had thought he meant to find a book about their ancestors or a book written by them. She slid the book off the shelf and looked at the cover. There was nothing remarkable about it, although it wasn’t as heavy as she thought it would be. She opened the front cover and discovered that it wasn’t a book; it was a box designed to masquerade as a book. Inside the box was a single black button. It was like something out of a spy movie.
“What’s that?” Bianca asked.
“A button,” Clara said foolishly. Bianca could obviously see that it was a button.
Without a second thought, Clara pushed the button and then, with her hands clasped tightly around the book-box she waited. But nothing happened.
“Well that was a bit anti-" Bianca was cut off by a loud click. The cabinet behind Clara’s desk sprung open. Clara didn’t use the cabinet and apparently neither had anybody else because it was empty. The back panel slid aside and revealed a brightly lit room about the size of a generous cupboard.
“Oh. Me. God,” Bianca said, awed. “Who built that?”
“My granddad,” Clara replied, equally awed.
“Was your granddad Batman?” Bianca said. “If you’re family built this then why didn’t your dad ever think of using the weapons?”
“The weapons weren’t created until after he lost the company. Whatever’s in there was made when Jonathan Langford was in charge,” Clara said. Although it was quite clear that there was nothing in the small room. There must be another secret door inside.
“Oh right,” Bianca said and went quiet.
“Come on,” Clara said and then she practically ran into the cabinet.
Inside she saw a panel of buttons on the wall by the entrance and realised that it was a lift. A secret lift that led to a secret lab. She was in a spy movie. Looking back, she saw that Bianca had not followed her inside. She’d made it as far as the cabinet but hadn’t gone any farther.
“What’s up?” Clara asked, nodding for her friend to follow her.
“Do you think it’s safe? Maybe we should call Jamal,” Bianca said. Always a scaredy-cat.
“Oh, get in here,” Clara said and then yanked her friend inside. She quickly pressed the “doors close” button and the panel slide back into place, shutting them inside the lift.
The choice of buttons was limited. There was one that said “CEO”, which was where they’d just come from. One said “holding” and the final button said “laboratory”. Clara pressed “laboratory” and then waited for the lift to start its descent. Or ascent, she wasn’t sure which way the lab was. Nothing seemed to happen but a moment later the door slid open and revealed a large room. White tiles lined the floor and the walls were comprised of white panelling. The lights blinked on when they arrived making the room blinding until their eyes adjusted to the brightness. The edges of the room were lined with immaculate grey worktops, covered in all kinds of futuristic looking equipment. There were four desks at the far end of the room, each with its own computer and stacks of papers. In the centre of the room was a large empty glass box; it looked like some kind of cage but as far as Clara could see there was no door.
“This is amazing,” Bianca said as they stepped out of the lift.
Clara started to examine the room in silence. She looked at the equipment but had no idea what it was, a more technical mind would be able to figure that out, but she’d never had much of an interest in science. On one side of the room, the worktop and shelving above it had been used to display various objects, most of them guns. Weapons. Clara marched straight over. Finally, they’d found what they were looking for and if just one of those weapons could even da
mage Nick then they’d found what they needed. There were several bottles of different coloured fluids which Clara assumed were potions of some sort. At least fifty small vials of ashes were placed in neat rows on one shelf, they too were a variety of colours. Each bottle and vial was labelled but Clara didn’t read them, she figured there’d be time for a more thorough look later. One area was labelled “enchanted jewellery” and necklaces, bracelets and rings were on display. Clara presumed that the enchanted items must have been created before Jonathan took over unless he’d somehow managed to get a sorcerer to work for him. The rest of the items were more conventional weapons; guns, bullets and grenades, which had undoubtedly been created during Jonathan’s tenure. Clara noticed one of the labels read: “Iron Bullets - for sorcerers” and she reached out to take one, wondering what an iron bullet would do to a sorcerer.
Bianca screamed from behind and Clara wheeled around. A man, who seemed to have come out of nowhere, was standing behind Bianca, one arm wrapped around her stomach, the other around her throat. His mouth was open and two large fangs were hanging down. Clara got the distinct feeling that she’d met him before but couldn’t recall where from.
“Don’t. Move,” he commanded, his voice was raspy. She stayed put.
“Who are you?” Clara asked. She looked around for something that could help her. There were several guns behind her but she didn’t know what they did, or even if she could get to one in time. There were her powers, but what if they cut out on her like they had when she was fighting James?
“It doesn’t matter who I am,” he said. His eyes were fixed on her, waiting for her to move and she was sure that if she did he’d rip Bianca’s throat out and then come for her.
“How did you get down here. It’s daytime,” she said. If she could stall him until he looked away, then maybe she could do something.