Pariah

by Donald Hounam

  ‘You’ve spoken to Doctor Death, right?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘I give up!’ I mutter. ‘Come on, then, let’s go see him. Maybe it’ll shut you up.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Doctor Death

  IT USED TO be posh, this part of Doughnut City. Big stone houses, three and four storeys high, behind iron railings.

  But then the university shredded itself and the Hole opened up, and all the money jumped into its Ghosts and raced out of town, up on to Boar’s Lump and down the river to Abingdon where the Society of Sorcerers’ headquarters made people feel safe.

  The Hole itself, it’s supposed to be an absolute. What I mean is, there’s a wall round most of it, so you’re either in or out. On the north side, though, it sort of seeped through and spread like mould.

  The walk from the mortuary down to the jack shack . . . at least the buildings are still standing and there’s shops, even if the windows are all covered by heavy metal grilles. You’ve got a reasonable chance of getting from one end of a street to another without being mugged. And the gang of kids hanging around on the corner isn’t actually lobbing bricks at us.

  A large dog leaps out of a derelict house and crouches in front of us, ears flat against its head, teeth bared, eyes wild. We stop dead. From the corner of my eye, I see Marvo’s hand moving towards her gun.

  ‘That won’t help.’

  ‘Just gonna scare him off.’

  ‘No. Let me do it.’

  The dog growls dangerously as I extend my hand. It shuffles forward on its belly and sniffs at the ring on my finger. It barks, then turns and runs off.

  ‘Search elemental,’ I say. ‘They can get aggressive if they can’t find what they’re looking for.’ I let a cyclist hurtle past, then head off across the street. ‘Bit like you.’

  As we turn the corner, I look back. The kids are staring after us. One of them crosses himself.

  The jack shack is this grim fortress of a building, down the hill in Jericho. Inside, we go up two flights of linoleum-lined steps, through another set of doors and along a narrow corridor. Through the window at the end I gaze down at a narrowboat drifting past on the canal and I get this picture in my mind of me and Kazia heading down the river towards London . . .

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Marvo gives me a shove.

  I grab a metal rail and haul myself up a narrow spiral staircase. It’s dark at the top and I have to fumble around until I feel a door. Before I can knock, it opens silently and a gas light flares into life.

  Doctor Death opens his eyes.

  He’s sitting in the corner of a windowless room, squeezed up under the slope of the eaves, behind a small, bare wooden desk: a chubby, rosy-cheeked little man wearing a brown suit. He smiles and raises his hand.

  Say what you like about Doctor Death, he’s always pleased to see you.

  There are two simple wooden chairs facing him across the desk. There are always exactly enough for any number of visitors. Not that he gets many: most people are too scared of him.

  So what’s he for? Every now and then, the local jacks fall over a case that demands something more complicated than grabbing someone off the street at random and hammering a confession out of them. So they haul Charlie in to build a new instance of Mr Memory: a data elemental who trails around after the investigation and remembers anything anybody might need to know later. When the case is solved, before Mr Memory is terminated he passes everything on to Doctor Death, who’s lived – sort of – in this tiny office on the top floor of the jack shack ever since it was built, and retains all the data for long-term archiving. If you want to know about any crime committed in Doughnut City over the last fifty years, talk to him.

  I drop into one of the chairs. ‘I need to know about Sean Marvell.’

  Doctor Death closes his eyes for a moment. ‘Sean Joseph Marvell. Born in Naas, County Kildare—’

  Marvo’s standing beside me, shaking her head, but that doesn’t stop him.

  ‘—on the nineteenth of July 1947. Currently serving a life sentence for—’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Sean Michael Marvell,’ says Marvo.

  Doctor Death frowns and closes his eyes. They reopen after a few seconds. He beams with pleasure. ‘Born in Littlemore, Oxfordshire—’

  ‘That’s him,’ says Marvo.

  ‘Eighth of March 2005. Died fourth of August 2014.’

  Marvo nods.

  ‘Cause of death?’ I say.

  ‘Traffic accident,’ says Doctor Death.

  ‘Show me.’

  And it’s like the walls of the room have fallen away. We’re still sitting in our chairs on the wooden floor, but I see overhanging trees and a cab lying on its side in the ditch, one wheel broken. The only light is from the oil that has spilled from its lamps and traced flickering paths of fire across the road.

  The horse is still attached to the shafts, eyes rolling, legs spread-eagled, struggling and threshing desperately while several men – one of them a uniformed jack – wrestle with the harness. Its hooves skid on the tarmac, then find a secure purchase—

  The body of a ten-year-old boy.

  I can hear Marvo screaming.

  ‘That’s enough,’ I say. And the walls close in again. Doctor Death sits, smiling blandly, behind his desk. His eyes drift closed. His head falls slowly forward onto his chest.

  The gas light is dying.

  ‘Come on.’ I pull at the back of Marvo’s chair as I get to my feet.

  The door closes behind us, leaving me fumbling for the metal rail of the spiral staircase. I lurch down a couple of steps, but I’m pretty sure I won’t get far—

  ‘Where’d he get that from?’ Marvo’s right behind me; her voice is still shaking. ‘Was someone there with a scryer?’

  ‘You mean, at the crash site?’

  I stop and turn. It’s almost pitch-dark, with just a gleam of light from below. Marvo’s a couple of steps up, looming over me.

  ‘When the jacks turned up, there’d have been a data elemental.’ I’m guessing, but it seems reasonable. ‘It would see everything—’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s suspicious? That there was a data elemental—’

  ‘Someone died. It’s routine. The elemental remembered what it saw and passed it on to Doctor Death.’

  ‘Why do you call him that?’

  ‘What should I call him?’

  ‘The archive.’

  I sigh. ‘Like I said, Doctor Death.’ I head off down the stairs again. ‘And I’m sorry about your brother, but it was just a traffic accident.’

  I can hear Marvo’s shoes slapping on the metal steps. Her breath on the back of my head. I pull my hat out of my pocket and put it on.

  ‘Is this because of that girl?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Kazia.’

  We’re at the bottom of the stairs, beside the window looking out over the canal.

  ‘You’d rather run around looking for her than help me.’

  I was going to ask Marvo to drop me across to the mortuary so I could pick up the shark. Maybe this isn’t a good time to ask. Maybe I’m more pissed off than I realise.

  ‘I saw Kazia.’

  Marvo’s eyes go wide. ‘Are you mad?’

  I shrug. ‘No more’n usual.’

  ‘She tried to kill us!’

  She sure did. Not just me and Marvo, either: Marvo’s mum as well – although that’s sort of understandable.

  ‘I mean—’ It’s like the words are all mashing themselves up in Marvo’s mouth so she can’t get them out. ‘Did you talk to her?’

  ‘Didn’t really get the chance.’

  ‘But you would’ve. Christ, Frank, you can’t still fancy her. I mean, it’s stupid!’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Look, you did six years in that sorcery joint—’

  ‘Saint Cyprian’s. And it was seven—’

  ‘Then a year or so holed up in that bloody monas
tery. What the hell do you know about anything?’

  I mutter, ‘I know jealousy when I see it.’

  So she hits me.

  ‘Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘No.’ Marvo gives me a good looking-at. And I’m still wondering why I’m so interested in the fact that her eyes are a sort of greyish-brown – not blue, like Kazia’s – when she mutters, ‘You’re a prat, Frank.’

  And she turns and walks off along the corridor towards the stairs. At the last moment she stops—

  ‘Still cutting yourself?’

  When I was at Saint Cyprian’s, there was this kid who crucified himself.

  OK, he was weird, even by Society of Sorcerers standards. He’d already jumped off one of the pinnacles over the chapel and the idea was that angels would appear and catch him. Only they didn’t . . .

  Luckily – or not – he fell into the branches of a tree and there was a bit of bouncing and screaming before he landed on his head in a pile of manure that the gardeners were spreading around the rose beds. He woke up in the college infirmary. But he refused to believe about the tree and the manure and insisted that God really had sent angels to save him and that he must, therefore, be the Son of God.

  He got out of the infirmary after a couple of weeks . . . and promptly summoned a demon to nail him to a cross.

  This time he didn’t make it and they carried him out in a box. But all the novices were dead impressed, and for a while we had this craze for banging sharp objects through our hands and feet.

  I got really good at it. For some of the novices, I think it was a religious thing – like they thought if they emulated Jesus no demon could touch them. Me, it was a way of focusing on all the stuff I couldn’t handle. A nail through my hand – I dunno, I felt sort of clean . . . as if I could deal with everything.

  Such as people telling me that because I had this Gift I was special, when I didn’t feel like anything much except an arsehole.

  After a while I got . . . well, embarrassed by the crucifixion bit. It was just too creepy. But I liked the cutting, so I carried on with it, mainly on my arms. A bit of blood. Enough pain to feel like I’d done something to myself. Then a quick lick of magic goo. A few words. Good as new.

  I’m staring at Marvo. ‘How’d you know about that?’

  ‘People talk.’

  ‘Charlie?’

  A gas light is still burning. With the cold light flickering across her face she looks like some sort of wraith.

  ‘Well, I’m not,’ I say. That’s a lie, by the way. ‘And I was doing fine till you came busting in.’

  ‘Course you were.’ She runs off down the stairs and I’m just about to go after her when I hear: ‘Goodbye, Frank.’

  And I realise I’m not supposed to.

  It seems to be my day for listening to footsteps fade away into the distance. I’m just standing there with one hand on the stair rail, thinking: OK, at least I can get out of here now . . . when I hear voices below me.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ Caxton to Marvo.

  ‘Sorry, Chief. Wasn’t feeling too great.’

  ‘But you’re all right now. Good. I want you in my office. What about Sampson?’ Long silence. ‘Did he get lost like I told him? Good.’

  ‘No, Chief. He’s upstairs.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A Lost Tortoise

  THERE’S BEEN AN exciting change since the last time I was in Caxton’s office: a shiny new desk lamp. Still the same silver talisman, though, hanging on the wall behind the desk: an owl perched on top of an open human eye. Caxton steps over to rub her finger across it; then she tosses her coat over the back of her chair and thumps down. She plonks her glasses on her nose, opens a drawer and hauls out a clean new notebook and freshly sharpened pencil. She looks up and blinks.

  ‘So what are you two playing at?’

  I make one of my occasional stabs at an expression of innocent outrage, but I don’t think I’ve quite mastered it yet. Caxton glares at me.

  ‘I told you to find Marvell.’

  ‘And here she is.’ I point, just in case Caxton can’t see her.

  ‘Instead, I find her wandering around the place like a lost tortoise and you lurking in the shadows like . . .’ Apparently she can’t decide exactly what I was lurking like; so she mutters, ‘Smartarse nekkers,’ and turns to Marvo. ‘So what happened to you?’

  Marvo just stares at her.

  ‘Back at the mortuary . . . what happened to you?’

  While Marvo puzzles over this, let me fill you in on who’s here. There’s me, Caxton and Marvo, obviously. Ferdia is sitting by the window, still looking shaky from wrapping the Crypt Boy in magic. And Mr Memory’s beside him, leaning forward to flick specks of dirt off his shiny black patent-leather shoes.

  ‘It’s Frank’s fault,’ says Marvo at last.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ I mutter.

  ‘Stupid bloody kids.’ Caxton takes off her glasses and peers at the lenses. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  Marvo shrugs helplessly.

  ‘I don’t employ you to fall over.’

  ‘It won’t happen again.’

  ‘It better not.’ Caxton has found a handkerchief and is polishing her glasses fiercely. Without the magnifying effect of the lenses, her eyes are small, with red rims. She looks scared of . . . well, of everything.

  Until she looks up. I don’t know if it’s just the effort of having to struggle to focus on me, but she’s got this mad look on her face like she’s going to jump up and punch me.

  ‘Hang on,’ I splutter. ‘You don’t think I sent it . . .’

  ‘One of your little friends . . .?’

  ‘I don’t have any little friends.’

  Marvo’s got this wounded expression on her face. Ferdia smirks.

  ‘There must be some way of tracing it back.’ Caxton turns to Ferdia. ‘Demons have to be invoked, right? So you can do contiguity . . .’

  ‘Not on a demon.’

  ‘Why not? If any two people or objects come into contact with each other, that creates an eternal magical link between them. A contiguity.’ She looks up at me. ‘And a sorcerer can detect that link, right?’

  ‘Top of the class, Beryl.’

  It’s not often that Caxton smiles. When she does, it’s like you’ve fallen asleep long enough for a completely different person to come in and take her place.

  It doesn’t last long. She looks from me to Ferdia. ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘Contiguity can only exist between physical objects,’ I say. ‘A demon is a non-physical being—’

  ‘Try telling that to the boy.’

  ‘Think of it as a force, like the wind.’ OK, I’m oversimplifying like hell. ‘It can knock you over but there’s nothing you can grab hold of.’

  ‘No contiguity,’ says Ferdia.

  ‘A demon has a spiritual affinity with the operator who summoned it up,’ I say. ‘But like Ferdia says, no physical contiguity.’

  Glasses on. Caxton is printing in her notebook: NO CONTIGUITY. ‘So neither of you has anything useful to suggest . . .’

  Ferdia’s shaking his head. Caxton pushes her chair back. She puts one finger to her lips, then touches the silver talisman on the wall again. ‘I’ve notified the Society.’

  ‘Not a good idea,’ I say, catching Ferdia’s eye.

  Calling in the Society is never a good idea.

  ‘As I understand it, summoning a demon is a lot of hard work.’

  I nod.

  ‘So this kid must be very important to somebody.’ She looks over her shoulder and whispers, ‘Maybe some of the royal family did survive . . .’

  It’s clouded over outside and the room has gone dark. Caxton leans forward to switch her desk lamp on. But someone forgot to change the battery and all she gets is a dim glow. ‘Bugger!’ The Blur. She goes red and shoves her notebook in Marvo’s face. ‘What does that say?’

  ‘Short. Feathers. Male.’

  ‘All demons
are male.’

  ‘Like sorcerers,’ Marvo mutters.

  Caxton glares at her. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  I say quickly, ‘The only person who knows who sent the demon is probably the Crypt Boy.’

  ‘What if they send another one?’

  Right now, I’m more worried that Marvo is going to have another of her famous insights and pipe up that Kazia has to have something to do with the Crypt Boy.

  It’s one of the things the Society is very insistent upon: unlicensed sorcerers are a Bad Thing. Kazia’s more or less responsible for three deaths that I know of. If I hadn’t messed up the ritual in the summoning room, I think she’d have made that four. But I don’t think she deserves to wind up screaming on top of a stack of burning wood. She’s not evil, just desperate and a bit bonkers.

  Like me.

  You want the real truth? I figure that maybe if I can save her, she might, you know . . .

  Yeah, I know. I’m a prat, like Marvo said.

  Ferdia’s staring out of the window.

  ‘So what am I supposed to do?’ Caxton grumbles. ‘Just wait around for the next demon to turn up?’ She glares across the desk at Marvo. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she snarls. ‘I don’t employ you for your policing skills. You’re a tatty and I expect insights.’

  Marvo’s staring down at the floor. And actually, Caxton’s got a point. I’ve seen Marvo come up with stuff nobody else could’ve figured out. She spotted what the shark was for, quick as a flash. I know I haven’t told her about what Kazia was up to in the mortuary – at least, I don’t think I did . . .

  And I’m sitting there wondering why Marvo seems to be broken, and hoping she doesn’t choose now to start working again—

  When I hear the shuffle of horses’ hooves from outside. Ferdia beckons. ‘Sampson . . .’

  Caxton’s window overlooks the street outside the jack shack. Two riders are dismounting from their big white horses. Knights of Saint Cyprian. The Society of Sorcerers’ goon squad. Bronze helmets. Black capes over silver breastplates. Swords. They look like something out of a pantomime.