The Catalyst

by Helena Coggan

  “I think it sounds a lot like integration, sir, and as such is laudable.”

  “Only to those who want to hear that.”

  “Mr. Greenlow, if the only people who hear your messages are those who want to, you are going to have a very small congregation.”

  This time the crowd’s reaction was definitely a boo. Stephen Greenlow’s smile remained fixed, but a little of the warmth had vanished from it now.

  “Join us, Rosalyn.”

  “No.”

  “You’re Gifted; you would have fought the Ashkind during the War.”

  “And that would have been a good thing, yes? Me, fighting non-magicals? One-on-one? That would have been fair?”

  His face darkened. “It would have been a necessary evil.”

  “But evil nonetheless. And then, in this hypothesis, I would presumably have accepted the Great Truce when it came, as your bunch of ragtag extremists has never done.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You would have your future children attend school with Ashkind?”

  “Indeed, as you did yours. I’ve met your eldest, and he doesn’t seem to have been damaged from it. Now let me through.”

  Something not entirely friendly crossed his face when she mentioned Aaron. Seeing it, she tried to move forward, but at his signal the rest of the Gospel moved to block her.

  “Let her through, Stephen.”

  They turned as one to see a man standing in the doorway of the Department. Rose sighed in relief. He was wearing plainclothes, but his regulation shotgun hung on his belt. The Gospel eyed it nervously.

  “I said let her through,” Rose’s father said. “I won’t warn you again.”

  Stephen Greenlow glared at David. “This is a peaceful protest. You have no jurisdiction over our activities.”

  “Of course not, but should you attempt to impede my daughter’s entrance to this building by forcible means, it would cease to be a peaceful protest and I would have to react accordingly.”

  They stared at each other for a few seconds until Stephen Greenlow clicked his fingers and the Gospel campaigners parted to let Rose through.

  David nodded with mocking amusement.

  “You have them well trained.”

  “Don’t push it, Elmsworth.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. Come on, Rose.”

  She walked through the glares of the campaigners toward him. Only when she had stepped through the doorway and the doors had closed behind them did she breathe properly.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up a finger to stop her, listening. A few seconds passed before Greenlow’s shout of “What do we want?” rang out again. David closed his eyes and leaned against the door.

  “Thanks,” she told him.

  “No problem. Sorry I took so long. We were so hell-bent on ignoring them that we didn’t realize you were here.”

  “We?”

  “James is up there.”

  She nodded. “You e-mailed?”

  “Yes. There’s been a murder.”

  “An interesting one?”

  “Very.”

  “Don’t-discuss-in-the-lobby very?”

  “Exactly.” He nodded to the lifts. “Shall we?”

  “I’d be honored.”

  They moved toward the security entrances, but a sharp female voice stopped them.

  “Uh-uh. Security procedures, remember?”

  Rose turned to the receptionist, exasperated.

  “Emily, you know perfectly well who I am.”

  “Rules are rules.”

  Rose sighed and moved toward the desk.

  “State your identity and purpose,” Emily said sternly.

  “Rosalyn Daniela Elmsworth. Here on duty. Well, not duty, but . . . you know. Whatever you call what I’m doing. Volunteering?”

  David laughed from behind her. “Your altruism is unparalleled.”

  The receptionist entered her name into the computer and clicked twice. Rose looked up into the camera in the wall and touched two fingers to her forehead in a gentle salute. She knew who would be watching.

  “No,” Emily said, “I’m afraid you only have second-degree security clearance. This department is responding to an emergency at the moment, and so is closed to all but those with first-degree security clearance. Your identity will need to be confirmed by one such person before you may enter.”

  Rose looked at the receptionist incredulously.

  “Come on, Emily. You know who I am. I’m allowed to be here.”

  “What I know doesn’t matter. Your identity —”

  “Oh, wave her through, Emily,” David said tiredly.

  “Major Elmsworth, correct protocol —”

  “— is not high on my list of priorities at the moment. Someone is dead, and I really don’t have time for this. Wave her through.”

  Emily looked him up and down, paused, and pressed the button to open the barriers. “Just this once,” she called after them weakly. They ignored her.

  Rose contained herself for the minute it took for the lift to arrive and the doors to close, and then she started to speak, trying to voice the half a dozen questions rocketing around inside her head. Her father, however, turned to her quickly, cutting her short.

  “Questioning has been delegated to the nearest available operative to the suspect,” he said brusquely. “Did you or did you not contribute in any way to the circumstances that led to the unlawful death of Private Thomas Argent of the Third Royal Battalion?”

  “Am I a suspect?”

  “Everyone’s a suspect with murders, Rose. You know how this works.”

  Rose was slightly taken aback. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirrors and wiped her face clear of expression.

  “I swear before the powers that be that these accusations bear no truth or relation to myself and my thoughts, intentions or actions. If this be untrue let me face the wrath of the Angels.”

  Her father nodded approvingly. “Good. You’re learning.”

  The lift pinged to a stop and they got out. Rose’s father pushed his way out first, absentminded; she rolled her eyes and followed him.

  His full title was Major David Jonathan Elmsworth of the Department for the Maintenance of Public Order and the Protection of Justice. She had never heard anyone call him that, though, because he hadn’t needed to be introduced in about thirteen years. Everyone — everyone — knew who he was. It wasn’t just his appearance, although that was distinctive enough: unintentionally messy brown hair, the olive-green eyes of a powerful Gifted, and the constant look his dark stubble gave him of having not quite shaved enough that morning.

  It was his reputation: ever present, as bright as it was dark, clinging to him like smoke.

  David Elmsworth was one of the good guys. Being a good guy meant capturing and imprisoning the bad guys by whatever means necessary, and while this was messy and often brutal, David was very, very skilled at it. He had been made the effective — though not official — Head of the Department at the age of twenty-seven. Now, at thirty-five, the very mention of his name was enough to relocate a gang to another, more lawless, city.

  Rose loved him inexpressibly.

  “So who was Argent?” she asked him, hurrying past the windows and the gray skyline. Raindrops had started to slash themselves across the glass.

  “Grunt, essentially.” He took a right turn; Rose followed him. “Used to be pretty high rank, then went and ruined it all by getting drunk and picking a fight with a man in his posting who’d dumped Argent’s sister. Got thrown out and was starting to work his way back up again. Late twenties. No partner — broke up with his boyfriend a few months back, didn’t stay in contact. The way I heard it, the boyfriend probably wouldn’t care if he lived or died anyway. The sister might be a bit more of a problem.”

  “Circumstances of death?”

  “The killer broke into his flat. And I mean broke into it. Door off its hinges, half his stuff smashed. Obviously whoever killed him came in with the i
ntention of killing him. Which means . . .” He indicated for her to continue for him.

  “Which means it was planned, which means the killer had a grudge against him, which means the victim probably knew the killer personally. What happened to the bloke he picked a fight with?”

  David grimaced. “Not in any condition to rejoin the army.”

  “Makes it more likely. What did Argent work in?”

  “The details are still classified. Nothing that would be unanimously carried by an ethics committee.”

  “Personal acquaintance, then. What kind of soul was he fused with?”

  “High-class Gifted originally, but he was Leeched.”

  “Method of death?”

  David looked at her, still moving. They turned into a dimly lit corridor lined with metal doors. “That . . . is sensitive information, Rose.”

  “Who just said that correct protocol was not high on their list of priorities at the moment?”

  “That was waving someone known to the organization through security. This is giving secrets to a possibly volatile element.”

  She laughed. “Don’t talk to me about ‘possibly volatile elements.’”

  Her father looked at her.

  “Sorry.”

  Silence for a few yards. Rose tried again.

  “Method of death?”

  “I can’t tell you. I am, for once, following regulations and not telling you. That should be enough information in itself.”

  Rose looked at him, perplexed. And then it hit her and she stopped in her tracks. Her father took a few steps before realizing that she wasn’t with him anymore and turned to her, eyebrows raised.

  “No,” she told him.

  “Apparently, yes.”

  “How?” Rose demanded. “How the hell could you know that?”

  “There was no weapon found at the crime scene. Half of the objects broken were a good six feet away from either footprints or blood. There’s only one explanation for it: the killer used magic to kill his victim. Which means . . .” David sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. “Which means somewhere in this ridiculously large city is an unregistered, dangerous and powerful killer armed with magic.”

  Rose’s heart, having missed a beat a few seconds ago, was thundering at double speed now to make up for it. Despite herself, she grinned. “I’m not surprised they called you in. Who else have they got on this?”

  “Everyone. This is big, Rose.”

  “Oh, I know.”

  David gestured for her to keep walking, and she followed him round a corner and leftward, toward a door that was larger than all the others, a gray bulk of reinforced steel and bulletproof glass. The Department had received a grant for the door after the father of a man killed in a struggle while resisting arrest for manslaughter got through the lax security with an AK-47. The door had been built in record time. The people in here were precious, and they made a lot of enemies.

  David walked up to the door and pressed in his code. A red light opened up above the keypad and scanned his face.

  “State your identity and purpose,” a male voice said, far more firmly than Emily had done. It wasn’t a bluff. Rose knew that anyone whose identification was not affirmed to the satisfaction of the scanner was not long for this world. This building was one of few in the city allowed to use magic in its security arrangements. Her father had never told her the exact fate that would befall an intruder, and Rose had no wish to know.

  “Major David Elmsworth,” David said clearly. “Staff. Here with daughter.”

  The red light blinked and turned to Rose, who likewise confirmed her identity.

  “Thank you,” the male voice said, and the red light shut off. The door swung open.

  “David!” someone yelled. The room was full of computers and the clicking sound of typing. Old Wanted posters lined the back walls. The ceiling was covered with pipes and strip lighting. Being in this office was always slightly disconcerting. As the Department’s activities were so central to the safety of London, only the magically Gifted, whose loyalties were in no doubt, could work here. This meant that the office was a sea of blinking green eyes, from the faintest turquoise to deep emerald.

  Most of the staff were glued to their screens, quiet. In one corner, however, people were rushing about from one computer to another, throwing instructions and obscenities at one another. Rose had learned most of her swear words in this place.

  In this corner was the man who had called her father’s name. James Andreas had been discharged from military service and brought here after David noticed how well he coped under pressure, in a case where an Ashkind agent — whom the Department occasionally employed so they could have ears in the right places — had gone rogue. The agent had kidnapped James and held him hostage; one of the bullets from his gun was now in James’s torso. The injury had prevented him from working in the army ever again, but now he had a successful career in one of the more exciting Government departments. He always said, perfectly cheerfully, that it was a price he would pay any day. He was seventeen years old — barely an adult — with a smile as bright as his red hair, and an adrenaline addiction that meant he was always the first to venture out into cross fire with a very large gun and no bulletproof vest. Rose had been with her father in this department for as long as she could remember, and she knew every type. People like James never lasted more than three years, and James had worked here for almost two. Rose hoped he would survive his expiry date. She liked him.

  David and Rose hurried over to him. James was bending over a computer screen, scratching the back of his neck and muttering under his breath.

  “Did the Gospel hold you up?”

  “Tried to recruit me,” said Rose.

  “What do they want this time?”

  “Educational segregation.” David knelt down and peered under James’s desk, looking for a pen. “I nearly had to pull rank on Stephen Greenlow. They’ll go away; they always do. What have we got here?”

  “Just got the autopsy back on Argent. As expected. Lacerations down the right side of the body, shallow but painful: probably from a broken object. Blow to the back of the head, from when he was thrown against the wall — that’s where we found him. Killed with a clean hit to the chest.”

  “What from?” David asked sharply.

  James grimaced. “That’s the problem. There wasn’t a bullet, or any external bleeding severe enough to kill him. He was killed by a blow that crushed his ribs and his lungs. No damage to the heart or spine, no bullet holes, no stab wounds. So the killer must have used pure magic. If you want to look at his body, though, you’ll have to be quick. His cremation’s scheduled for tomorrow.”

  Rose asked the obvious question.

  “Have we got anything on the killer’s identity?”

  “No. Of course, with the way our luck’s going, we never expected to have anything. It’s, what, seven o’clock now? Argent was killed about three hours ago. Neighbors heard shouts, crashes. They thought it was an argument. The girl who lived next door to him was listening. She’d heard a lot of stuff when he and his boyfriend broke up, and she was scared, ’cause Argent was a violent bloke. But then the noise stopped, and the girl had only heard one person leave. She couldn’t hear anyone moving around, so she called the police. Took them half an hour to get there, and by the time they did the trail was cold. The killer made sure not to leave any tracks or fingerprints.”

  “What’ve we got on Argent’s missions from when he was high up in the army?” David asked, sorting through James’s desk for a piece of scrap paper.

  James sighed. “We’ve applied to get the information, but it has to go through a few thousand layers of bureaucracy first, which is going to take a while. Argent was pretty good. He was in — are we allowed to call it black ops?”

  “This place is CCTVed,” Rose said quietly. “I’d be careful.”

  “Fine. He was in covert operations, then, and he was good enough to get posted a lot, which isn’t exactly goin
g to make our job easier, because he’ll have made a lot of enemies. He passed his Test when he was fifteen, so he had his powers registered and was allowed to keep them. But then, of course, they removed them when he was kicked out.”

  “But there can’t be many people in the general population registered with magic who knew Argent and had an incentive to kill him. That’s got to be a pretty narrow category.”

  David laughed bitterly, still looking through the desk. It always amazed Rose how many pieces of paper people thought it necessary to have at any one time.

  “Wide enough. He’ll have Gifted friends, family, enemies, exes, colleagues, old classmates, people he beat up in bars, the loved ones of those he killed when he was a soldier . . .” He had found a pen and paper by now and was scribbling while he spoke. “It’s certainly better than the, what, four million registered Gifted in London we were working with before, but it’s not enough to go and start making arrests.”

  “So what are we looking at?” Rose asked. “In terms of charges, I mean. What would he go down for?”

  James sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Where do we start? Murder, obviously, breaking and entering, illegal use of magic —”

  “Illegal arena of magic use,” David reminded him, without looking up. “Let’s assume he didn’t ask Argent if he could use magic in his home. It would have destroyed his element of surprise somewhat.”

  “All right, fine, ‘illegal arena,’ and . . . well, that’s death, easily.”

  Death. Firing squad, lethal injection, electric chair, the snap of a neck in darkness. It was a very short word to mean so much.

  “Elmsworth, get over here!”

  The shout came from their right. Both David and Rose looked up automatically. Connor Terrian, one of the Department’s more manic but unfortunately senior staff — head of the clean-up teams that swooped in after unfortunate incidents, and, irritatingly, two military ranks higher up than David — was staring at the bank of screens that showed footage from the security cameras in the lobby. As they walked over, he swore under his breath.

  “You brought your kid, then,” he said shortly. Before David or Rose could answer, he said, “Good. Here’s a use for her. We’ve got incoming.”