Strangeness and Charm cotf-3

by Mike Shevdon

  I'm supposed to be here.

  She walked through the cream arch of the scanner, her heart beating in her chest. She half expected the alarms to start blaring, but they didn't even bleep.

  She collected the bag from the belt and headed for the halfglazed door into the rest of the building.

  "Excuse me, Miss?

  Alex froze, then turned slowly. They weren't supposed to notice her.

  I'm supposed to be here. It was her mantra.

  One of the police approached her. She readied herself for the fight, marshalling her resources. A glance at the armed policemen and she was calculating how long it would take them to react before the guns came into play.

  "Your phone, Miss. You left it by the scanner."

  She almost hiccoughed with relief. "Sorry," she gulped. She accepted it from him. "Thanks."

  "No problem." He walked back to the security station.

  She turned and pushed through the half-glazed doors, greeted by the smell of floor polish and old wood. The building was dimly lit, high windows sending slanting sunlight to create islands of warm tones which were reflected back by the gold leaf on the ceilings. Alex suppressed the urge to giggle. She had expected the centre of government to be really sombre and stuffy, but this was completely over the top. It looked like some nineteenth century dealers had gone mad in a bling frenzy. There were statues everywhere. Faces of white polished marble watched her from every nook and cranny, piled one on top of another up the columns, looking down from pedestals in every corner.

  She crossed a hallway and headed around to where the office was supposed to be. Walking down the row, she looked for a name or a number. Various options presented themselves; media suites, interview rooms, even a whip's office, which left Alex wondering what sort of thing they got up to in here. None of them were security or the Office of the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod.

  She stopped at a junction.

  "Can I help you, Miss. You look a bit lost?" She hadn't noticed the old duffer on the bench seat under the window.

  "Oh, you made me jump!" she said, holding her hand to her chest. She had to peer into the gloom under the window to see him.

  He shrugged. "You have the manner of a person who's looking for someone and hasn't found them," he said.

  How had he seen her? She would have to be more careful. "I'm supposed to be presenting myself at the office of Black Rod," she said, "but it's really dark in here. I think I must have taken a wrong turn." She kept her language formal, responding to his odd way of phrasing things.

  "Ah," he said. "When you get to my age, you don't want it too bright. It keeps you from your afternoon nap."

  Alex smiled and shifted from foot to foot, unsure of how to respond to that.

  "Black Rod has moved office," he said helpfully. "I'm surprised that whoever sent you this way didn't know that."

  "Me too," said Alex, nervously. He might be old, but the old gent was as sharp as a pin.

  "It happened some little time ago," he said. "Take that corridor until the third turn to the right, and it's the second door along."

  "Thank you," said Alex. "Third turn on the right, and second door. Got it." She waved her thanks and headed off.

  "He's not there at the moment," called the old gent after her.

  "It's OK," she said, speeding up. "I'll leave him a message."

  She marched down the corridor as fast as she could, her footsteps echoing loudly on the patterned tile floor. She thought of running but that would only attract attention. People didn't run here.

  She took the turn sharply and counted along to the door. It was locked, but the label confirmed it was the right door. It was also half-glazed, but the glass was frosted so she couldn't see if anyone was inside.

  She knocked in case he was in there, asleep. There was no answer from within and no sound of snoring, so she put her hand on the door. The lock tumbled and the door swung open. She clicked on the light in the absence of an external window, conscious that others would now see it if they passed. She wouldn't have long.

  Inside the room was an old desk, a green-glass shaded lamp positioned over pile of paperwork. To her right the wall was lined with books, each one leather bound and inlaid with gold so that the room was scented by them. To her left was her prize; a long display case high on the wall that held an ebony staff about the size of a walking stick. The ebony gleamed dull in contrast to the bright gold of the ferrule in the middle and the lion's head mounted on the end.

  She shifted the visitor's chair so that she could stand on it and reach the case. Scanning around the case for alarms or sensors, she found none. It appeared to be locked, but although the lock was a good one, it was brass and so opened with minimal effort.

  She opened the case and lifted out the rod. Its surface was smooth and felt almost soapy. She pushed the case closed with a click and turned to step down. The old gent from the corridor was watching her from the doorway.

  "I see you found what you were looking for," he said.

  She narrowed her eyes. "Don't get in my way," she said.

  "On the contrary, young lady, it's my job to get in your way. This is, after all, my office."

  "You?" Alex exclaimed. "You're Black Rod?"

  He smiled. "The honour is mine."

  She stepped down from the chair. Even without the heels she would have been taller than he was. "I'm leaving with this, and you won't stop me."

  "What you hold in your hand is not in itself terribly valuable. It's a symbol, and as such is immediately recognisable. You won't be able to sell it without getting caught."

  "I'm not going to sell it," she said.

  "A trophy hunter. I see. What makes you think it will look better on your wall than on mine?"

  "Get out of my way," said Alex.

  He stepped back, but a burly looking policeman in an antistab vest took his place. "I think it would be best if you put that down, Miss," he said.

  "You brought reinforcements," she said to Black Rod.

  "It's not a game, young lady. I gave you the chance to put it back."

  "Put the staff down, Miss, or it'll go badly for you," said the policeman. "You're not going anywhere." He pulled out a nightstick from his belt and flicked it so it extended with a snap.

  "How many did you bring?" she asked the old gent.

  "I think the officer would like you to surrender," said Black Rod. "It would be a shame if you were hurt in the arrest, but he's quite prepared for that eventuality."

  "You've got it all wrong," said Alex. "I gave you the chance to back off. Remember that later."

  The policeman stepped in, making a grab for her arm. She wrong-footed him; instead of moving away she stepped in close, lifting her hand to his face. He flinched, expecting a slap, but her hand was gentle against his cheek. He grabbed her shoulder and twisted her arm back painfully. Alex grimaced, but she had the advantage and she knew it.

  The policeman's face went grey, his eyes unfocused and he let out a sigh as he dropped to the floor as if he'd been poleaxed. "That's what happens when you stand up too fast," said Alex. "All the blood rushes to your feet."

  She stepped over the ungainly heap to find Black Rod in the doorway. "You'll never get past security with that. Give up now and I'll put in a good word for you."

  She glanced back at the collapsed policeman. "I think they might not listen to you after what I did to him. Are you gonna stand in my way, or am I gonna do the same to you?"

  He stood aside. "You're a very misguided young woman," he said. "Violence is not the answer."

  "It's one answer," she said, "especially when no one's listening. Get inside." She stepped outside and nodded towards the office.

  He glanced towards the corridor.

  "You can try that," she said, "but I bet I can run faster than you."

  He smiled grimly and she backed him into the office. She yanked the cord on the phone out of the wall and left him leaning against the desk. Outside she pulled shut the door and la
id her hand on it. It wasn't coming undone any time soon. Inside, she could hear him talking quietly but urgently. He had a mobile phone, she should have thought of that.

  She ran down the corridor and then stopped. Running would only attract attention. She leaned around the junction in the corridor. There were two policemen turning the corner at speed. She shifted her glamour. The black rod became a nightstick, the skirt suit shifted to a black uniform and stabvest. It wasn't a perfect match but in the gloom it would do.

  She turned the corner, pointing across the junction. "Down there! Man down! I'm going for help."

  They didn't see her, only glanced at the uniform and made the turn at speed, pounding down the adjoining corridor. She wondered how long it would take them to process that she sounded like someone from a TV cop-show. Not long.

  She ran back towards the entrance. Everyone was running now, so she wouldn't look out of place. She swerved around the corner, barely missing an officer going the other way who yelled something at her as she passed. Beyond that was the security station and freedom. She straightened herself and pushed through the doors into the well-lit area.

  "Quick!" she said. "They need help!"

  She expected them to move, but the first of the two armed officers watching the door turned hard eyes on her.

  "That's not uniform," he said. The second turned to follow his gaze. The first lifted the muzzle of his weapon. "On the floor! Now!"

  From behind him there was a searing flash and the second officer sailed backwards into the cream scanner arch, toppling it sideways onto the bag scanner so that the people manning that scattered under the assault.

  The officer pointing the gun at Alex turned to meet the new attack and Eve was there, right behind him.

  "Surprise," she said as he turned, reaching up to him in a gesture that looked like she was reaching for a kiss. She held his chin and twisted it sideways with a sharp snap. He dropped like a rag-doll.

  "Out! Now!" she shouted at Alex.

  Alex stumbled forward, looking at the vacant expression of the policemen on the ground whose head was at an entirely unnatural angle. Eve grabbed her by the collar and dragged her round the body, through the debris into the daylight, accelerating into a run. Alex caught a brief glimpse of the gatehouse where bodies were piled inside like drunks after a long night out.

  "Are they dead?" she asked as they ran past.

  "It doesn't matter," said Eve, taking the rod from Alex. "Very soon now, none of it will matter. Now run!"

  Down the road from the House of Commons entrance, people were running towards them. The crack of a pistol shot echoed from the grand facade of the mother of parliaments. Alex shifted glamour with the rest of the group, splitting up and merging into the scattering crowds, becoming one of the fleeing tourists before heading for the rendezvous.

  Once in the safety of the crowds, they might as well have been invisible.

  Hours later we were still on the train. I had forgotten what it was like, queuing for tickets, standing around waiting on platforms, and then the interminable journey. The only thing the railway and the Ways had in common was that they didn't necessarily take you where you wanted to go. We'd taken a fast train to Newport in South Wales and were now coming back on ourselves to get to Hereford. After that it would have to be a taxi.

  "How are you doing?" Blackbird asked.

  "I'm OK."

  The presence of so much metal around me wasn't comfortable, but it was bearable. I glanced over to where Gregor was asleep in the corner seat against the window.

  "How can he sleep like that?"

  She smiled and shrugged. He had talked animatedly about anything and everything for the first part of the journey and then when we boarded the slow train to Hereford, he tucked himself into the corner, closed his eyes and slept. It was like there was a hidden Gregor switch; he blinked and was off.

  The carriage in which we travelled had few other passengers, but even so I leaned across the gap between the seats to speak more privately.

  "Do you trust him?" I asked Blackbird.

  She shrugged again, "Do we have any choice?"

  "We should have gone back to the library and looked at the book ourselves. We could have been at the church hours ago."

  "I can't read the symbols, Niall. It's some sort of code," she said. "If we get to the church and it's all in code, what are you going to do?"

  It was my turn to shrug.

  "Quite," she said, glancing sideways. "He's just curious — about everything."

  "That's what worries me. We all know what curiosity did. Do you think he's involved with this society, The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn?"

  "It's possible," she said. "They were supposed to have had a schism in the mid 20^th century, but it would come as no surprise if fragments of the society were still in existence, or that Gregor would be part of it."

  "While he was prattling on, I remembered where I'd seen that name before. There was a book, The Mysteries of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, or something like that. It was sitting on one of the old sofas in the abandoned industrial building when Amber and I went after the escapees. I thought at the time that someone was filling their heads with dangerous rubbish."

  "It could be more dangerous than any of us suspected."

  "There's something else," I said to her. "In Angela's vision, there was a library, not the British Library, but a much older one. There was a man reading a book and the book had the symbols in it — similar to the ones that Gregor showed us in the book, or very like them.

  "Who was the man?" she asked.

  "I don't know, maybe it was that guy, Crowley? How would I recognise him?"

  "We could probably have found a photo if you'd said something earlier," said Blackbird.

  "I didn't want to say anything in front of Gregor or Julian. Who knows what else he's aware of that he's not telling us?"

  "That's not what worries me. 'The sun will rise and they shall fall — The Order of the Golden Dawn'? Is that a coincidence?"

  "It may be just that, a coincidence," I suggested.

  "Even Deefnir thought it was important. There's something big coming, Niall. I can feel it."

  "Deefnir thought it was to do with our son," I pointed out. "You don't think he's in danger do you?"

  "There have been plenty of opportunities to try something," said Blackbird, "but we've seen nothing of the Seventh Court since you brought Alex out of Porton Down."

  "They'll be lurking somewhere, I don't doubt."

  "No, if they were here then Raffmir would take the opportunity to taunt you. He couldn't resist it. He'd be appearing at every opportunity, pretending to know more than he really does."

  "Then what's it all about?"

  "I don't know," she said. "Alex may have triggered something. These people she's with, perhaps they have something to do with it?"

  "Aren't you the one who is always telling me how useless prophesies are?"

  "That's the frustrating part. If we only knew what we were looking for…"

  Gregor stirred, his eyes flicked open. He sat upright. "We are almost there, yes?"

  The train began slowing as we tracked around the outskirts of Hereford and then curved around to cross the river into the city.

  "Now," said Gregor, "we shall see what can be seen."

  Gregor's instructions to the taxi driver were to take us to the village of Kilpeck, which turned out to be about ten miles or so south-west of Hereford. The taxi dropped us near a country pub, one of those that had once been a local for the villagers but had been transformed into a restaurant catering for the owners of sports cars and four-by-fours. Gregor paid the taxi driver and asked him for a business card so that we could ring when we needed to get back to the station.

  We walked up the lane past farm buildings and village houses towards the church, topping a small rise at one end of the village. It was a squat building on a rise of meadow graveyard with walls of pinkish stone and a slate roof rising to a
sharp peak, a bell-cote at one end. The roof stepped down twice to a rounded end that looked as if it might have been added as an afterthought.

  "It's Norman," said Blackbird, "and in surprisingly good condition. When did you say it was built, Gregor?"

  "Construction was in the twelfth century, sometime around 1140. There was a motte and bailey castle on the western side but alas, that has not survived. Only the church remains intact."

  Gregor walked through the churchyard gate straight up to the ornate doorway. I recognised it from the drawing in the book he showed us, and from Angela's vision. It was the same portal, there could be no other like it, surely? The heavy wood had been weathered to an almost stone-like grey with huge iron hinges bracing the door, while the stone archway had been detailed with carvings of mythical creatures with vines twining around and in between them, bound together with celtic knots. If anything, the reality was even more impressive than the vision had been.

  "Wow!" I said. "That's some door. Was this place important at some point?" I looked back to the village behind us, which hardly seemed to merit the ostentation put into the church. Gregor ignored my comments and focused on inspecting the carvings around the arch.

  I turned to Blackbird, intending to try and indicate that I had something to tell her out of Gregor's earshot, but she was already moving away.

  "Look at these corbels," said Blackbird, heading off around the side of the church.

  "These what?" I asked, following her.

  "The stone projections under the roof-line," she explained. "Decorations carved under the roof-line. These are superb. I've never seen anything like them."

  Along the wall, under where the supports for the roof jutted out were stone carved heads looking down at us. Some were recognisable; a hound nestled against a rabbit and an owl's face peered down at us. Others were oddities, creatures that looked like aardvarks or men in strange helmets.

  I looked back to see if Gregor had followed us, he was standing by the portal watching from a distance. "I've seen this place before," I said to Blackbird in a low tone that would not carry to Gregor.

  "You have?" she said.

  "In Angela's vision. There was a man here, talking to the priest. They were talking about something the man wasn't comfortable doing. He talked about protecting something."