Wolf in Shadow-eARC

by John Lambshead

  Rhian looked at her. “Are you sure you are feeling better?”

  “I read that in the Guardian’s art page,” Frankie confessed.

  Rhian leaned against the “crane” and looked up the river eastward towards London. Light blazed from the Docklands towers because money never slept. The computers would be digitally ticking through the night, buying and selling options on everything from copper to olive oil. A war there, a famine here, a glut of guano somewhere else, all data input and output, all to be traded. Inexorable logic squeezed a profit out of human hope and fear. A green laser marked the sky above the Millennium Dome, the giant plastic tent built by Tony Blair to commemorate the fact that the current calendar had clocked up a number with three zeros on the decimal system.

  A footbridge crossed high over the river by the Center. Steps and a lift in towers on each bank gave access, lending the structure the appearance of a double-glazed modern Tower Bridge. The other side of the river was mostly unlit. Large sections were still wasteland, but the blocks of low-rise yuppie flats on waterside frontages encroached further every year. An open area was covered by the curved plastic roofs on pylons that were a feature of Docklands architecture. Rhian wondered about its function: a car park, a trendy open air market, or somebody’s idea of landscaping?

  “That was a nasty one?” Frankie said.

  Rhian nodded. “The last monsters were elves.”

  “I guessed. The potential portal was so huge that it might have persisted for days and flooded the area with energy from their part of the Otherworld. And all those people.” Frankie shuddered. “Every death would have added to the potency of the spell, prolonging the event. We closed the hole just in time, but what about next one, or the time after that? They only have to get lucky once. We have to stop this at source and someone, somewhere not too far away, is controlling this.”

  “So how do we find them?” Rhian asked.

  “I don’t know. They will have a place, a coven gathering to carry out the necessary rituals for the spell. It will be well screened by a thrice-blessed circle. It could be in that old building there and we wouldn’t know.”

  She pointed at a derelict sugar warehouse across the river lit up by the lights along the river bank footpath. You could still make out the Tate & Lyle brand name of the importer. The building was as out of place among the new East End as a condom in a convent.

  “Maybe we ought to look?” Rhian asked, waving her hand vaguely in the direction of the footbridge.

  Frankie shook her head. “That was just an example. No doubt it’s just an old listed warehouse, scheduled for redevelopment into upmarket apartments or sound studios or whatever makes the developer the most profit.”

  The women walked slowly along the embankment to the car park, Frankie deep in thought. Rhian kept her counsel, having nothing useful to contribute. Frankie paused before unlocking the car.

  “The Commission has the resources we lack. That’s why we are going to going to contact them in the morning. I just hope we won’t regret getting involved with my old employers, the Goddess rot their blackened souls.”

  “Boss, the lights have gone out,” said a plaintive voice. “Boss, boss?”

  “Shaddup, you arse. I can see the fuckin’ lights are out.”

  Damn, so Mitchell was still alive. Jameson hoped he had shot him in the brief exchange of fire. He dropped flat and rolled to change position, firing as he moved to where his memory placed the targets.

  “Shit!” said a voice.

  A storm of shot came downrange, intermittently lighting up the far end of the hall. Jameson took careful aim at a half-glimpsed shadow and rapidly fired three times, exhausting the magazine. A grunt and thud signaled a hit.

  He rolled to the right seven or eight times. Ejecting the old magazine, he pushed a new one home. The slider jacked up a new round with a click that sounded louder than a pile driver. He smeared himself against the floor, waiting for another burst of fire that never came.

  A loud scream trailed off into a gurgle and obscene sucking noises. Daemons like Karla could see in the dark. The mechanism had never been tied down; Karla flatly refused to cooperate in any investigations. Maybe she saw into the infrared or maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever it was, she was a sighted predator in the Kingdom of the Blind.

  The surviving gangsters scrambled for the door, not caring that they were silhouetted against the outside lights. Jameson considered dropping them as punishment for their stupidity, but sorting out London’s underworld was not part of his remit. Randolph frowned on too high a body count as it created administrative problems. He grinned, as the thought occurred that the gangster’s therapists would be on overtime.

  “Time to go, Karla, before they call reinforcements,” Jameson said softly. “Karla?”

  Something stroked his cheek causing him to jump clear of the ground. “Jesus, don’t do that!”

  She put her hand on his shoulder and laughed with genuine amusement.

  “I might have shot you,” he said, trying to regain some dignity.

  “No, I wouldn’t have let that happen,” she said, in all seriousness.

  He was still remonstrating with her as their beat the retreat out of the back window of the Temple. They had covered about ten meters across the wetland when a powerful torch snapped on, illuminating Karla from behind. The flat crack of pistol shots sounded. She gave a little cry and fell down into darkness.

  “Bastards!”

  Jameson pulled his Glock and fired two double taps at the torch, which spun and dropped onto the mud, flicking off.

  “I’m gut shot,” a gangster moaned.

  “Tough shit,” Mitchell replied callously. He raised his voice. “It’s just you and me left, pretty boy. Let’s see what you’re made of.”

  Mitchell advanced, firing his pistol. Jameson walked towards the gangster, waiting for his eyes to readjust as his night vision recovered from the torch-light. He held his fire, ignoring whip-snaps from the bow waves of passing supersonic projectiles. An outraged moo and the sound of a heavy body blundering through the pasture suggested that one of Mitchell’s rounds had struck home, albeit not on the intended target.

  Mitchell’s gun clicked and refused to fire, either empty or jammed. Jameson kept walking a few more steps until the man was clearly outlined against the background orange light of Badford town center. Mitchell struggled with the recalcitrant gun, then he stopped fiddling with his pistol and glared at Jameson. His expression showed not a shred of remorse or fear, just burning hatred. Jameson shot him through the heart twice. Mitchell dropped silently. Jameson walked right up to the gangster and shot him again through the face. He’d had his chance.

  He found Karla sitting up, examining her torn leather jacket.

  “The bastards shot me,” she said.

  “Are you okay?” Jameson asked.

  Karla didn’t answer, engrossed in examining her wound. She grimaced and caught something that dropped from her clothes, passing it to Jameson. It was a spent round.

  “The other two passed straight through,” she said casually, wiping her hands on her trousers and climbing to her feet, using Jameson’s shoulder as a crutch.

  “Are you going to carry me?” she asked, playfully.

  “I might,” Jameson replied. “For a suitable reward.”

  But Karla didn’t reply. Cocking her head to one side, she seemed to be listening to something he couldn’t hear.

  “Jameson, I think we should get out of here,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Something’s coming, something of the marsh, something attracted to the spilling of blood.”

  She straightened. Abandoning the wounded maiden routine, she pulled him along after her.

  “This isn’t the way back to the car,” Jameson said.

  He looked towards the ditch, on the far side of which was the pub. It is never truly dark in southeast England, as the lights from a dispersed complex of twenty million people leave a re
sidue of background illumination. Against this dim glow, Jameson imagined he saw tentacles emerging from the stagnant water. A thump of hooves and moos signalled that the cows were on the move.

  A scream sounded from near the Temple. Jameson stopped, and, hearing more cries, took a few steps back towards where the gutshot man had fallen.

  Tentacles burst from the temple roof, hoisting a figure into the night sky. He screamed for help. The screams choked off when the tentacles tore him to pieces. Jameson was halfway convinced the screams were in a Scottish accent.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE BLACK MUSEUM

  Jameson and Karla made a low-key entrance to The Commission building the following afternoon. He would have avoided the place until Randolph cooled down, but he wanted to consult Kendrics about the scrap of paper liberated from the Temple at Badford,.

  The geek’s office was a showpiece for creative chaos. He sat surrounded by desks and tables piled with modern and obsolete computer equipment. Servers, in various states of repair, were piled along one wall, and most of the floor space was stacked with printouts and magazines. Coffee mugs occupied every free space, and a solitary pizza takeout box lay abandoned on a stack of copies of Digital Witchcraft & Wicca magazine.

  “Randolph has put the word out that he wants to see you,” Kendrics said, peering over what looked like a pile of old capacitors.

  “I am not here. You’ve not seen me,” Jameson said, very deliberately.

  “Okay, what do you want?” Kendrics asked, eying Karla doubtfully.

  “Does this mean anything to you?” Jameson replied, handing the torn paper over.

  Kendrics examined it owlishly.

  “It looks Egyptian,” he proffered.

  “Do tell,” Jameson said. “What gave it away? Look, is it a genuine copy of an ancient Egyptian script, something modern written in Egyptian hieroglyphics, or just a geek code that has nothing to do with the Pharaohs?”

  “Is that all you want to know?” Kendrics asked sarcastically, tossing the paper down.

  Karla looked up from examining fungal growth at the bottom of a mug that she had found on a filing cabinet. It was emblazoned with the logo “Geeks do it with Gadgets,” which at least had the merit of honesty.

  “You are not being particularly cooperative,” she said, without any detectable threat. But Kendrics still recoiled.

  At that point his phone rang, and he grasped it the way a man seized a letter he hoped would be announcing the cancellation of his root-canal appointment. He stiffened upon hearing the caller.

  “Yes, sir, no, sir, yes sir, he’s here now, sir,” Kendrics handed the phone to Jameson with a degree of malice.

  “I want to see you—my office, now,” Randolph said.

  “It’s not entirely convenient,” Jameson replied, but the phone clicked, indicating that Randolph had already cut the connection.

  Jameson reflected on who in the building might have dobbed him in. His thoughts must have shown in his expression because Kendrics looked anxious.

  “I’ll scan the hieroglyphs and run them through the databases while you are with Randolph. Shouldn’t take long,” he said, helpfully.

  Jameson nodded his thanks and went to collect his bollocking.

  “Do correct me if my memory is lapsing in my dotage, but I seem to recall forbidding you to carry out further larceny on Shternberg,” Randolph said.

  “Ah yes, but . . .”

  “And yet when we have a red flap on and I try to call you, I find your phone switched off,” Randolph beamed. “Now why would that be, do you think?”

  “Sorry, must have forgot to charge it,” Jameson replied unconvincingly.

  “Indeed, I find that not only can you not support the Gamekeepers and Cleaners clearing up one mess, but you have created an entirely new one for us to deal with, simultaneously.”

  Karla laughed.

  Randolph raised an eyebrow. “Something amusing you, monster?”

  “I was just thinking that we found the proof you wanted. Shternberg was master of a daemon-raising cult, a cult that we destroyed.”

  “You destroyed the cult, not the daemon.” Randolph said, crushingly. “The entire Coven had to be activated to put that down.”

  Karla shrugged. “That’s what witches are for.”

  Jameson decided to intervene before matters got out of hand.

  “If the Coven were in Badford, who dealt with the Dockside incident?” he asked.

  “Fortunately one of our resting,” Randolph pronounced the word as if it were distasteful, “employees handled the matter.”

  “Frankie?” Jameson asked.

  “The same.”

  “She was the best we had.”

  “Until her breakdown, and that was also something to do with you, as I recall.”

  Jameson wasn’t going to answer that.

  “She tried to phone in a report, but I wasn’t having that. I got her in here where we could subject her to a truth spell.”

  “She permitted that?” Jameson asked.

  “I convinced her that it was in her best interests to cooperate.”

  Randolph pressed a button. A screen on the wall flickered on and played back Frankie’s interrogation. Jameson watched the whole thing without saying a word.

  “I apologize, sir. That was far more serious than I imagined. I should have been there.”

  Mollified, Randolph waved the apology away. “We survived.”

  “A massacre would have powered enough blood magic to tear a massive hole in space time. We’re running out of time. Frankie’s right, they only have to get lucky once.”

  “So kill him,” Karla said.

  Randolph shook his head. “It’s not that easy. I agree, Shternberg is probably in this up to his greasy neck but killing him might not stop it.”

  “We could interrogate him robustly before his execution,” Jameson suggested, looking Randolph straight in the eyes.

  “Tempting—but no, he has too many friends in both Whitehall and Westminster,” Randolph said. “He also has 6’s protection, remember. The Secret Intelligence Service would love to get the leverage to take us over.”

  There was a long silence. Jameson looked at the screen, which had frozen at the end of the video showing Frankie staring at the camera. He noticed a petite, short-haired girl in an expensive business suit behind her. She sat primly, legs crossed. Her face was pale under hair as dark as a vampire’s crypt.

  “Have we got someone new on the payroll?” Jameson asked, pointing at her.

  Randolph twisted around to see. “That’s Appleyard’s personal assistant, not one of ours. You wouldn’t think freelance witching would pay well enough to hire staff, but apparently it does.”

  “So Frankie’s got a PA? What’s her name?”

  “Hmm,” Randolph tapped on his computer keyboard. “She’s a Miss Jones from Welsh Wales, a Rhian Jones.”

  Something stirred in the depths of Jameson’s memory, something about that name, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. No doubt it would come to him in the fullness of time.

  Frankie sat propped up on cushions in a comfy chair in her dressing gown. Gary gazed at her earnestly from a chair by the window.

  “It’s nice of Gary to come over and cheer you up,” Rhian said innocently.

  “Outstanding,” Frankie replied, giving Rhian a look that would strip paint.

  No doubt all Frankie wanted was to slob out in front of a costume drama on the television. Preferably one where the heroine died of consumption and the hero was tall and dark and vowed a life of celibacy unless saved by the love of a good woman. Instead, she sat trying to look elegant while dressed like her grandmother. It was difficult not to have a bad hair day after the Excel adventure. Magic did frizz it so.

  “I don’t see where you picked this virus up, Frankie,” Gary said. “No one else has it.”

  “Yes, it’s a puzzler,” Frankie said.

  “You look terrible,” Gary said sympatheticall
y. “All hollow eyed and wan.”

  “Thank you,” Frankie replied, shooting Rhian a silent plea for help.

  “You know, I really think you should get some sleep now,” Rhian said, standing up.

  Gary put down his cup and saucer. “I should go.”

  “Are you sure?” Frankie asked with phony regret.

  “You shouldn’t get overtired,” Rhian replied, playing her designated role.

  “No, that’s right. I can come back tomorrow,” Gary said.

  He turned and recovered his jacket where it was hung on the back of the chair.

  “You don’t see many of those in these parts,” Gary said, looking out of the window.

  Rhian took the few steps across the room to join him.

  “Have you got a rich friend?” she asked.

  “What?” asked Frankie.

  “A Jaguar sports has pulled up outside. Must have cost a hundred grand at least,” Gary said.

  “Oh joy!” Frankie said, with feeling.

  Rhian watched as a man and woman got out of the motor. They made an incongruous couple. He was middle-aged, forty at least, but lean and fit. His companion jumped lithely out of the car. She was only a couple of years older than Rhian. Whereas he wore a conservative dark blue suit that screamed old money, she had on what Rhian could only describe as a black leather cat suit. She looked ridiculously old-fashioned, like a 1960s actress in an action TV series—Department Z, the Enforcers, or something. She also looked as sexy as hell.

  They walked around the side of the flat, and the doorbell rang a few moments later.

  “You answer it,” Frankie said to Rhian, with a groan.

  Rhian opened the front door. “Yes?” she said.

  “Ah, the redoubtable Miss Jones, from Welsh Wales,” he said, in an upper-class English drawl.

  It has often been observed that an Englishman has only to open his mouth for half his fellow countrymen to form an instinctive dislike for him. Listening to that accent, Rhian began to understand how this might come about.

  “We’re here to see Frankie, and you,” he said. “Can we come in?”