by Jenna Grey
“Well, if I’m being honest,” he said, “I’m not sure it is over, but at present I really don’t have any more information that would help you. I give you my word if I did know anything I would tell you. This country’s welfare, the world’s welfare, is as important to me as it is to you.”
“You’re not denying you killed them then?” Blaine said, giving a broad, white-toothed grin.
“I thought you said that it was of supreme indifference to you,” Bert replied, grinning back.
Blaine laughed, a real belly laugh.
“I won’t mention it again,” he said. Then he turned to Polly. “So, how did you meet Bert and Finn?”
Polly hesitated, desperately forcing herself not to look across at Bert for a prompt.
“It’s all right, you can tell Jack the truth,” Bert said.
It was all right for Bert to say that, but Polly had come to realise long ago that ‘the truth’ came in various shades of grey. She took a deep breath and tried not to babble.
“I came here a little while ago for a tarot reading, and Bert realised that he knew my grandmother. When he found out I was living in the house with Gaunt, and Winchard was there, he told me that if I ever needed to get out, that I could come and stay here for as long as I wanted. He knows just how dangerous my uncle is. Most people would never believe that a human being could be that dangerous.”
“Oh, I believe, trust me. I’m willing to believe practically anything,” Blaine said.
There was something in the way he said that that made Polly think he knew far more about what was going on than he was admitting. She could sense some kind of arcane energy coming from him. Was he a magician as well? At least they seemed to be on more neutral ground now, and she felt a bit less intimidated. Finn did finally relax a little, leaning against the table, but he still seemed very wary.
“The police got a warrant and did a search of your uncle’s house, and I went in and had a look around,” Blaine continued. “The stuff we found there was enough to convince anyone that your uncle didn’t deserve to breathe God’s good air.” He hesitated for a moment, then reached down and picked up the shoulder bag that Polly hadn’t even noticed he’d been carrying. He opened it and pulled out a plastic zip case which contained a wad of papers that looked very old.
“I found these in Gaunt’s study. I don’t really have enough knowledge of old Norse or old English to make much sense of them. I wondered if you might be able to help. I managed to make out the name Sigurd Thorgeirsson on a few of the documents. I looked up what I could find about him – he seems to be important in this somehow, but I haven’t been able to work out how he fits into the picture. There’s some newer stuff there as well from the 1930s, but the only German I know is Auf Wiedersehen and how to ask for a beer. You might as well have them; they could fit in with the other documents.
Blaine stood and put the folder of manuscripts on the already overcrowded table. Bert glanced down at them, and his face lit up with delight.
“Oh, you did well, my boy,” Bert said. “I’ve been dying to get my hands on these documents for a great many years.”
“And you can translate them for me?”
“It might take me a while, but yes, I can translate them. Is it all right if I hang onto them for now?”
“Of course, they belong to Polly, technically. I’ve got copies.”
“I’ll be glad to help if I can. I do speak both of those languages and German. I’m sure I can translate them for you.”
Polly knew, just knew, that Bert wasn’t fooling Jack. He was all too aware that Bert was holding out on him and already knew what those documents contained. They reminded her of two old lions, circling one another, trying to look for weaknesses before they attacked. She had no doubts that it would be Bert that won the battle.
“So, are we done with the questions?” Finn asked, his expression chilly.
“Almost, just one more.” He turned to Polly. “Have you been back to the house since your uncle’s death? Not a trick question, just curious.”
Polly floundered, but Bert stepped in to rescue her.
“Yes, to get some of Polly’s things. We saw the sigil, under Polly’s bed. I take it you found it?”
Blaine gave Bert a penetrating stare.
“I did. What do you make of it?” Blaine asked.
Bert shrugged.
“I haven’t really had a chance to look at it closely enough yet, but it’s pagan, some kind of contract with the old gods, I think. It was obviously linked to Polly.”
“Yes, couldn’t really not be, seeing as how it was under her bed.” He glanced across to Polly, and she withered under his stare. “Sorry I plundered your house, Polly, but the police were just trampling over these documents, and I had to rescue them. They don’t have any idea of what they’re dealing with here.”
“I’m glad you do,” Bert replied. “I’ll be in touch very soon.” He bent down and picked up the watch that he’d been fiddling with earlier and held it out to Bert. “Oh, by the way, this has got a spirit trapped inside it. You might want to dispose of it thoughtfully. I don’t think he’s very happy about being there.”
Bert laughed, a real belly bouncing laugh, and took the watch.
“By Jove, you’re right,” he said, opening a drawer and dropping the watch inside. “I’m impressed.”
Blaine bid her and Finn a cheery farewell, and Bert followed him out into the shop to see him out. She heard Blaine protesting about wanting to pay for something – of course, the dragon. That made her smile. One thing was for certain, that wasn’t the last they were going to see of Jack Blaine.
“So you’re really going to trust this man?” Finn asked, leafing through the old documents with considered care. These things were hundreds of years old, some of them over a thousand, and they needed more delicate handling than they’d been receiving by the looks of it. They’d laid them out on the kitchen table, so they could see more clearly what they had to work with. Polly couldn’t make head nor tail of them; all she could see when she looked at the page were lots of straight lines and angles that looked like a forest of dead trees.
“Oh Finn, I know you could see the innate goodness in the man, you’re just being obtuse. Polly, tell him to behave himself,” Bert said.
“I think we can trust him, Finn, I really do, but it’s not him we’ve got to worry about. I don’t trust the government. They could lock us up in the Tower of London or something,” Polly said.
“Oh, I don’t think we need to worry about that,” Bert replied. “I’m pretty certain that Jack knows a great deal more about the arcane than he’s letting on, and knows when to keep his mouth shut. He sensed the spirit in that watch, and that was no mean feat. He’s going to be a very valuable ally. I’ll tell him what he needs to know when the time’s right.”
Finn gave Bert a very unpleasant look.
“If you say so, Dad, but I still don’t like it.”
“Do you think we should have told him about Hel and how she’s involved?” Polly asked. “I think he’d believe you. He seems to know a lot about this sort of thing.”
Bert mulled it over for a moment.
“Not just yet, dear, not just yet. It’s going to open a can of worms that is better left unopened for the time being. Sufficient to the day the troubles of the day. I will tell him when we really have no choice but to tell him.”
“I suppose so, but I just hope we don’t live to regret keeping it to ourselves,” she replied.
Bert made her jump as he gave a loud ‘Ah ha’, brandishing a yellowing parchment at her.
“Now this is interesting,” he said, lifting an old document for them to see. “This is an old Norse document, from the time of our good friend Sigurd Thorgeirsson, mentioning the Hellstone – I never even knew this existed. My word, what a find – we must hang onto this, what a treasure and—” Polly could see that Bert was about to go off on a verbal ramble so pulled him back quickly.
“What does it t
ell us about the Hellstone that we don’t know already then?”
Bert snapped out of his reverie and gave her a gap-toothed grin.
“It tells us a great deal more about it than anything else I’ve found, my dear. Apparently, it says here that the stone was fashioned by the god Loki himself, the prankster of the old Norse gods.”
“Hel’s father? Yes, he’s behind a lot of this misery,” Polly said, through clenched teeth.
“Indeed. The tale you told us of Hel’s love for Baldur and the length’s Loki went to to secure his daughter’s release tells us a great deal about his motivation where his daughter is concerned. Loki arranged Baldur’s death so that Hel had a chance to win his love, and it was Loki who helped to keep Baldur trapped there in Helheim. He seemed to be willing to go to any lengths to keep his daughter happy.”
“So Loki is behind most of this?” Finn asked.
“He almost certainly is, my boy. Everything seems to lead back to him.”
Polly was still trying to get her head around the concept that the old gods really did exist, but then she realised that if Hel existed why should Loki just be a figment of some ancient Norse poet’s imagination? Somewhere out there, there was a god who wanted Polly banished to Hell so that his daughter could be freed. It was a terrifying thought.
“This story tells of a great Danish chieftain called Idmund Hromundsson who seems to have set quite high ambitions for himself – the usual old chestnut – world domination,” Bert continued. “He decided that he might need a little help from the dark gods and employed the services of some black magicians. They agreed to call up demons to fight for him, in return for a few favours – namely large chunks of real estate in some prime locations. Loki created the Hellstone for Idmund so that his magicians could bring the dead out of Helheim to help him conquer the world – if they did him a favour in return, of course.”
“Exactly what my uncle planned to do,” Polly said, bitterly.
“And can you guess what that favour was?” Bert asked. Polly didn’t need to expend too much brain power coming up with the answer.
“To rescue his daughter Hel, from Helheim, using a human sacrifice of some sort?”
“Exactly. Your uncle just resurrected a plan that was over a thousand years old. Here, see...” He held up another document, a parchment with a facsimile of the sigil they had found under Polly’s bed and in the cellar of her house.
“It must have gone wrong for Idmund as well, otherwise we’d all be speaking Old Norse now,” Finn said.
“The powers of good will always overcome evil, even if it sometimes takes a little while to achieve it.”
“Look at this,” Finn said, picking up some newer looking typed documents. “These are from the 1930s – German. That’s the letterhead of one of the German Reich Ministries.” Polly looked at the broken text, typed in purple ink, the letters uneven, written on some old typewriter long since scrapped.
“My German is a little rusty, but let’s see if I can translate,” Bert offered. “Oh my word, this is a find. It seems that there were people interested in using the Hellstone, long before your uncle ever thought of it. This is a letter from Heinrich Himmler, the Reichfuhreur, to another high ranking Nazi official, asking him to send men out to look for the Hellstone. They obviously never found it.”
“I know that Hitler and Himmler were heavily into the occult,” Polly said. “There are so many stories about them looking for lost artefacts – we’ve all seen Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Last Crusade. I can see why they would want the Hellstone.”
“God, can you imagine what would have happened if he’d found it?” Finn said, his face draining of colour.
“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” Bert replied. “But as I said, good will always overcome evil, even if it takes a little while to do it.”
“But no mention of the Torinstone; that’s why Gaunt never even knew it existed,” Polly said, but they didn’t hear her; they were too busy picking up documents and scanning them for anything useful, and she realised that she was a bit redundant. She had no idea what she was looking at or what she was looking for, and it seemed silly for her to sit here staring at them.
“Look, would you mind if I go back out and do a bit more in the shop? There’s nothing I can do here, and you can carry on looking through the documents in peace.”
Bert and Finn both just nodded, without even looking up at her, a sure sign that she wasn’t needed here. She slipped back out into the shop, and she didn’t think they’d even noticed that she’d gone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Blaine stood outside the drab block of flats for a moment, wondering what the hell anybody could have done to deserve to have this as their address. The visit to the magic shop had been enlightening, and it was pretty obvious that all three of its occupants had their secrets. That was okay – he’d get it out of them eventually. One thing was certain, Bert Fountain was not the kind of person who could be coerced into doing anything he didn’t want to do. He’d just have to trust him for now. He had no intention of poking a sleeping bear.
The building was made of cracking concrete, water stained, and looking as if they should have been demolished years ago. There was a gang of unsavoury looking youths outside, a motley crew of various races, all looking as if they could do with a good wash, and a few years community service. His car, a new Subaru, lay behind him, and he was reasonably certain that if he left it alone for 30 seconds, it would be stripped down to its chassis. He called one of the gang over, and they ignored him. He could already see them eyeing up his car, wondering how much they could get for it. There were plenty of places around here that would take it off their hands and sell it on after a few modifications, no questions asked. Okay, this required different tactics. He walked up to the apparent leader of the happy little band and confronted him.
“Nice car, ay?”
“Yeah, I guess,” the Neanderthal replied with a grin.
Blaine smiled back.
“I’d be a bit of a dickhead to leave it here unattended, wouldn’t I?”
His grin broadened.
“Yeah, a real dickhead.”
“Well, in that case, you’ve got two choices. You can either take this twenty quid and make sure that nobody touches my car while I nip up to see someone for a few minutes, or I keep my money and put you and your mates in hospital for a few weeks when you do what I know you’re going to do as soon as I’m out of sight. Your choice.” The Neanderthal laughed.
“You reckon?”
The kid stood with his mouth open slightly, assessing the situation. Blaine could see his brain, what there was of it, ticking over. He might not be able to write his own name, but he was streetwise. “Right now, you’re wondering who I am and whether or not you need to take me seriously. Trust me, you do.” Blaine opened his jacket just enough for the boy to see the Glock under his arm. “I could shoot your knee cap out right now and walk away with no comeback, which is a bloody sight more than you’d be doing. It’s just easier for me to give you twenty quid.”
The boy looked at him hard, and Blaine saw him swallow.
“Twenty quid?”
“For ten minutes,” Blaine replied. There was a nod, and Blaine pulled out the money from his jacket cuff, tore it in half and handed one half over. The boy took it without looking down, keeping his eyes fixed on Blaine. “You get the other half when I get back. Not a scratch, right?” Blaine concluded.
The lifts were fucked, and Blaine wasn’t sure he would have trusted going in them, even if they weren’t. The whole place stank of body waste, sewage, semen and disinfectant ineffectually attempting to mask it – a disgusting mixture of smells that made him feel nauseous. There was very little of the wall visible beneath the graffiti, vile slogans that pretty much summed up the lives of the people that lived in this rat hole. Blaine took the stairs, stepping over the used condoms, old needles and other detritus that littered the place. Widget’s flat was on the fourth floor. Oh well, he c
ould use the exercise.
He reached Widget’s door and tried the bell. No reply, so he knocked. Still no answer.
Well, he wasn’t coming all this way for nothing. He pulled out his wallet and took out the old credit card he kept just for this purpose, sliding it down and opening the lock easily. There was the immediate smell of new death, a faint odour that promised very unpleasant things to come. He pulled his gun and edged forwards cautiously, although he didn’t sense the presence of anyone else in the flat.
The flat was tidy but scruffy, the furniture worn, the curtains faded. It was a sad testament to a life that had never reached its full potential. There was a photograph of Widget at his graduation from Hendon, proudly displayed on the shelf, along with some photographs of an elderly couple; his parents, Blaine guessed. There were the remains of three cups of coffee on the table – interesting. Two visitors. The last two people that had seen Widget alive.
Widget lay sprawled on the floor, dead as mutton.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, son, I really am sorry. If it’s any consolation, I’m going to get the mother fuckers that did this, trust me on that. Safe journey to the other side.”
Blaine knelt by the body and looked for any clue as to what might have killed him, not easy without touching. No apparent signs of violence or heart attack. Blaine would like to bet it was another open verdict, the same as the others. Cause of death unknown. He reached out, trying to sense the residue of a soul. There was nothing; this body was empty and had been for some time. Poor bumbling PC Arnold Widget was long gone... and whatever had vacated this body recently had left nothing behind. He had a pretty good idea who had been its last occupant, and he prayed to God that he was wrong. He called it in and went to wait outside for the boys in blue to show up. His car was just as he’d left it.
“You saw the flat I just went into?” Blaine asked the Neanderthal. There was cautious silence. “Come on,” Blaine persisted, “I know you were watching me.”