Wolf in Shadow-eARC

by John Lambshead

  Jameson enjoyed the thrill of the race, weaving the big sports car in and out of the lines of traffic in hot pursuit of a bright orange ST. In heavy traffic the agile ST was quicker, but as soon as a lane opened he was able to use the endless pull of the big V-12 to power past the four-in-line Ford. He was quite sorry when he turned off to Badford. The car’s satnav guided him to a modern, blocky concrete building located well out of town in the marshes down by the river. The windows were dark, but the front was dimly illuminated by an exterior light. Jameson suspected that there would be additional security lights activated by motion detectors to scare off the local riffraff.

  A long gravel drive ran up to the front of the Masonic Hall across flat, featureless land. Jameson drove on past to where the map showed a lane that led to a waterside pub. He left the car at the back of the near-empty car park. The hostelry was still open, presumably catering to a few hardy regulars who were no doubt cronies of the landlord. Mostly the business would rely on lunchtime trade, families if the swings and slides outside were any indication. The map showed the rear of the Hall was but one or two hundred meters from the pub across country.

  He and Karla climbed over a gate and set off across a grassy field. He set his small electric torch to diffuse illumination so as not to draw too much attention. A large lump resolved into a cow lying down. It lifted its head to look at Jameson with disinterested eyes, mouth moving rhythmically on the cud.

  He backed away slowly and adjusted the torch to throw a tighter beam that reached further. The light revealed more resting bovines. Jameson plotted a weaving course that stayed as far away as possible from the cows. He was a city dweller and found large beasts with horns disturbing. If they weren’t dangerous then they looked as if they might be. Actually the cows did him one favor, because without the longer reach of the torch, he might have fallen down the steep bank into a water-filled drainage ditch that was not shown on his map.

  “Flat and wet, Essex,” Karla said in his ear, with the gloomy triumph of someone whose most pessimistic forecasts have proved accurate.

  Tossing a mental coin, which landed vertically in a virtual cow pat, he turned left at random and walked along the ditch. After fifty meters or so he found an earthy ramp over the ditch, gated to keep in the cows. Climbing over the bars, they headed back towards the Hall. It seemed further away than when they started.

  Jameson stepped into a small drainage channel that ran at right angles to the ditch. Water and mud splashed as high as his knee. He was beginning to regret his cunning plan to sneak in around the back.

  “I will shoot you if you mention the topography of Essex again,” he said to Karla.

  By the time they reached the Hall, he had tramped through so many pools and channels that he had given up trying to avoid them. He squelched with every step. His shoes were ruined and his suit fit only for the dry cleaners.

  At the back of the Hall, Jameson cracked open a window with a small aluminium jemmy that he had taken the precaution of bringing.

  “You know,” he said softly to Karla, swinging his legs over the sill, “if there is such a thing as a burglar and petty housebreakers guild then I must by now be eligible for a fellowship.”

  He shone his torch around a decent-sized room. It was furnished with leather arm chairs and resembled the lounge bar of a genteel provincial hotel. Broadsheet newspapers were carefully placed on occasional tables. Jameson had never been a Mason. The thought of standing with one trouser leg rolled up, left breast bared, a noose around his neck, chanting things like “so mote it be” was not something that appealed. God knows, Cambridge sporting clubs had been bad enough for stupid traditions, mostly involving alcohol, and, if you were lucky, girls, but at least you were not required to pay homage to a supreme architect. Nevertheless, he had read up on Masonic ritual to prime himself for the night’s jaunt, and the room was not entirely what he had expected. He pushed open a door and entered a large space with a high ceiling done out like a medieval great hall.

  “This,” he said to Karla, “is more like it.”

  They entered to the right of a stage, on which stood a throne. There was just no other word adequate to describe the high-backed wooden chair upholstered in rich blue leather and fronted by two pillars. Wooden benches ran along the walls to the sides, shields decorated with coats of arms above. A formal double door opposite opened onto the front entrance. So far it might have been the senior common room at a Cambridge college, except that the Master was not usually enthroned. There the similarity ended.

  The floor was tiled in a blue-and-white diamond pattern, with a blood-red star in the center. Concrete beams lent the room a pseudo-classical feel, like a Greek temple. The red neon light shaped like a G hanging down from the roof was a wonderfully tacky addition to the décor.

  From his research, he knew that the room was supposed to resemble the middle section of King Solomon’s Temple, although he doubted the neon light was an entirely authentic touch. It would be laid out east-west with the Master’s seat facing east to the rising Sun. The clock behind would always be stopped at midday, when the meridian Sun was overhead.

  Despite his cynicism about boys’ secret societies, the hall room had a certain grandeur. He could understand how someone could become lost in the intricacies of the ceremonies in such a room.

  “What exactly are we looking for?”

  Jameson jumped, as Karla had spoken in a normal conversational tone that was at complete variance to his mood.

  “God knows,” he confessed, shining the torch on her. “Anything out of the ordinary, I suppose.”

  “Out of the ordinary,” she repeated, eying the neon G.

  “Just so,” Jameson replied, walking down the walls to examine the coats of arms.

  He was not really expecting to find anything. The real purpose of the break-in was to ratchet up the pressure on Shternberg. His perambulation took him back to his starting position at the west wall behind the Master’s throne. He was struck by the Egyptian motifs, a pyramid and the all-seeing Eye of Horus emblazoned in gold leaf on the wall behind the throne. It reminded him of American bank notes. Egyptian-style gods, flat perspective drawings of human figures with animal heads, made offerings on each side.

  “I thought Freemasonry used biblical symbols,” Jameson said. He was speaking to himself, as Karla had zero interest in human ceremony or religion. She seemed to be preoccupied by something, her head tilted to one side.

  He mounted the stage and poked around the throne and lectern, but found only a variety of sacred books, including the King James’ Bible, the Koran and the Talmud. Freemasonry was marvelously ecumenical, so no doubt they could produce a Norse Edda or Hindu . . . his brain jammed. He was sure Hindus had religious writings, because they were written in Sanskrit, the oldest of the Indo-European languages, but he blanked on the name.

  It was, Jameson thought gloomily, another senior moment, another marker on life’s inexorable escalator to enfeeblement. He made a mental note not to mention it to Karla, or she would be back on the internet to research some new horror to keep him fit. It would probably involve dried seaweed or something equally execrable.

  While he was exercising the inalienable right of an Englishman to wallow in gloom and self-pity, he noticed a torn scrap of paper on the floor behind the throne. Presumably only the grand high wizard, or whatever the high mucky-muck in charge was called, got to sit on the throne. The scrap must have slipped down unnoticed.

  He picked it up and had a quick glance, but Karla interrupted him.

  “Jameson, someone’s coming,” she said, urgently.

  He thrust the paper in his pocket just as the main doors flew open, admitting five men. One snapped on the lights.

  “Well, well,” the one in front said, the one with a semi-automatic pistol pointed at Jameson’s chest. “The Worshipful Master calls it correctly again. He said we might have visitors.”

  “Inspector Drudge,” Jameson said, recognizing one of the newcomers. “Oh
, you are in a world of trouble when I report that you are consorting with armed criminals.”

  “What makes you think you’ll be reporting anyone, Commander?” Drudge said, laying sarcastic emphasis on the last word. “Good job I had his car number logged on the police computer, Frank. The traffic cameras tracked him all the way to Badford.”

  The thug in the expensive clothes must be the gangster Frank Mitchell. He didn’t look much like his prison photo.

  “Sure, you did your bit. I’ll let the Master know,” Mitchell said.

  “Right, I’ll be off then,” Drudge said.

  “Like hell you will!” Mitchell flashed a sharklike grin at the detective. “You’ll get your hands dirty with everybody else, just so’s you don’t get no ideas about grassing.”

  Drudge looked unhappy but held his tongue. This didn’t look good to Jameson.

  Jameson weighed his chances. He assumed that they all had guns, even though only two were visible. If they ran to the form of the normal London villain they would be abysmal shots but you were bound to hit something if you fired enough rounds. Currently, the guns were pointed at Jameson, who must appear to be the more dangerous of the two. A natural assumption, but one that could get the gangsters killed.

  “I guess we should be going,” Jameson said, looking at Karla.

  Mitchell laughed, apparently with genuine amusement.

  “Not until we have a little chat, matey, about what you are doing in . . . the Temple,” Mitchell said, fronting the last couple of words with capital letters.

  “I was considering joining your happy band of scouts so I thought I’d have a look round first to see if the décor suited,” Jameson said.

  “And did it?”

  “No, the place has the ambience of a Burmese brothel,” Jameson sneered at Mitchell, trying to make him angry. An angry gangster might be a careless gangster.

  Mitchell’s face twisted in raw hate and he took a step towards Jameson, who tensed, but the man’s temper stopped as if it had been switched off electronically. His face reverted to an easy smile. Jameson had met many killers over the years, the cold-blooded, the angry, and the barking mad. Not all of them had been on the other side. Mitchell struck him as a thorough-going psychopath.

  “Naughty,” Mitchell said. “We shall have to teach you the manners needed when addressing a Senior Warden.”

  The man was one of your new breed of gangsters, all flash clothes, slicked-back hair and fake country-club vowels. He probably had a trophy wife and a daughter who competed in the local gymkhana. Jameson readjusted his footing so his jacket swung slightly more open, facilitating access to the Glock.

  “Uh, uh.” Mitchell shook the gun slightly from side to side. “The Master said you would be tooled up, so take out the shooter very slowly and place it carefully on the ground.”

  The other two gangsters produced pistols, so Jameson, under four guns, did exactly as he was told. Drudge was apparently unarmed.

  Mitchell examined Karla, who was dressed in her usual working clothes, a skintight leather cat suit.

  “I can see you’re not armed, sugar tits—well, not with a gun anyway.”

  He beamed at her and the men relaxed, laughing at their leader’s vulgar wit and lowering their weapons. Apparently they were under the understandable but unfortunate misapprehension that their prisoners were helpless.

  “Now, I suppose you think that you are a big strong man, and keen to prove it to sugar tits here. You won’t break just because we kick you around a bit,” Mitchell said to Jameson. “But I know you officers and gentlemen. Suppose we have some fun with your girlfriend instead. You got your little toy, Mikey?”

  “Sure, boss.” Mikey produced an old-fashioned cutthroat razor and opened it.

  “Mikey here is a little strange. You see, he likes to hurt women, don’t you, Mikey?”

  The thug just grinned.

  Seeds of doubt sprouted their first fragile shoots in Mitchell’s eyes, as this was not going to the usual script. Jameson should be begging and Karla wetting herself in terror, but the two showed no reaction at all.

  “I’m not kidding around here,” Mitchell screamed, trying to shake them.

  There was a moment of silence, then Mitchell’s psychopathic smile switched on.

  “Okay folks, you apparently need persuading that I’m serious. Mickey, why don’t you go over to the little lady and cut off that outfit. Try to be careful now; we don’t want her sliced too badly. I wouldn’t want her to lose a nipple or anything.”

  Drudge licked his lips and edged backwards, stopping when Mitchell shot him a filthy look.

  Mickey walked slowly to Karla, making sure she saw the light glinting off his blade. Jameson eyed the Glock, planning every move carefully in his head. The gangsters’ eyes were on Karla, the air heavy with sado-sexual anticipation. Mickey put his free hand on her shoulder and drew her slowly towards him, lifting the razor.

  Gravity is such a miserable little power, by far the weakest of the four natural forces that rule the universe. Jameson dropped in slow motion, thrusting his hand down, fingers reaching for the Glock.

  Karla was quicker than gravity. Unbound by the normal laws of physics, she moved so fast she blurred. Her left hand reached up and grasped the wrist holding the razor. She squeezed. Blood spurted from cracking bones and springing tendons. Mikey opened his mouth to scream but managed little more than a whimper before her right hand exploded upwards to catch his chin in her palm. She followed through, slamming his jaws together, smashing teeth and cutting off the tip of his tongue. Her arm straightened, forcing his chin up. She bent his neck back until something snapped with an audible crack.

  Mikey stopped trying to scream, his attention fully taken up with dying. The gangsters were slow, minds numbed by the impossibility of what they had witnessed. Mickey weighed sixteen stone, Mikey had a razor, and Mikey liked to hurt women, but Mikey was a bleeding corpse in Karla’s hands. They just could not grasp the reality. Instincts cut in eventually and they lifted their guns to fire at her.

  Loud explosions detonated in the concrete building. Jameson grasped the Glock and rolled over onto his front. Karla used the remains of Mikey as a shield. The corpse jerked with each hit. Karla hurled Mickey’s mortal remains at the gangsters. Jameson rose to one knee, shooting into the mass of flesh. A bullet smashed into the battery of switches by the doors, shorting them out with a blue flash.

  All the lights went out.

  “You gave me one hell of a scare. I thought you were a dead ‘un,” Rhian said.

  “Sorry,” Frankie said. “Closing so powerful a portal . . .” She shuddered. “I’ll be alright with some rest and a glass of wine.”

  “You had one hell of a nosebleed,” Rhian said. “Not to mention the blood weeping from your eyes and ears.”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” Frankie said. “You don’t have to remind me of the gory details. I had enough trouble fighting off that lackwit with the first-aid kit.”

  Rhian laughed. “He was only trying to be helpful.”

  “You try having a bandage wrapped around your head, over your eyes and ears,” Frankie said.

  Rhian studied her anxiously, noting the deep lines in her face, the dark smudges under her eyes, and the pallor that draped her like a cloak.

  “Are you sure you’re alright?”

  “I will be,” Frankie said. She experimented with a wan smile. “You don’t get owt for nowt. It’s the prime rule of the universe, and it applies as much to magic as the laws of thermodynamics apply to the material world.”

  “What exactly are the Laws of Thermodynamics?” Rhian asked.

  “Not exactly sure,” Frankie confessed, “but I know they are important and mean that everything costs.”

  “Your spell was rather spectacular,” Rhian said.

  “Wasn’t it just?” Frankie replied, proudly. Her smile vanished as quickly as it came. “Did you see what was left of the re-enactors caught within the portal vortex?”

&n
bsp; “Yes,” Rhian said briefly.

  She got a brief glimpse of skeletons covered in white ash before she concentrated on helping Frankie. She made sure she did not look again.

  “I wasn’t fast enough to save them,” Frankie said, sorrowfully.

  “You did what you could. We both did.”

  They walked slowly along the bank of the Thames outside the Exhibition Center, returning inconspicuously to the car park at the back. The Center swarmed with police asking questions and paramedics treating the injured.

  “You really should rest before driving home,” Rhian said, not being entirely altruistic.

  “Not on your life. I’ll manage,” Frankie said. “I want to be gone before The Commission arrive.”

  “They’ll surely hunt down the witch involved,” Rhian said, obliquely.

  “They won’t have to. I’ll phone in a full report to Randolph—tomorrow—when I’m feeling better. I can’t face bloody Jameson looking like this.”

  There was a pause.

  “I meant feeling like this,” Frankie said, coloring.

  The flush in her cheeks was an improvement, but Rhian thought it impolitic to comment. Cranes were laid out at regular intervals along the bank like sculptures, and Rhian stopped to examine one, partly to give Frankie a rest. The crane didn’t look right. Rhian made no claims to be an expert on dockside engineering, but it was too flimsily constructed and not quite big enough.

  “They are a sort of modern sculpture,” Frankie said, reading her thoughts.

  “There must be dozens of them,” Rhian said, somewhat exaggerating. “How much did this lot cost?”

  “Money no object,” Frankie replied. “This is The City. Think of them as an allegoric symbol of the insidious conversion of London’s Docklands from a vibrant, functioning industrial port to a superficial sham based on virtual technology and the movement of invisible assets.”