by Tony Lewis
“How far away is it?” asked Stitches, taking over the needle and thread.
“About a hundred miles I reckon. I’ll make sure the Bat Nav is charged up and give it the details.”
“Okay then,” said Ollie, climbing into the darkened rear of the hearse and pulling the curtains, “let’s get loaded up and get going.”
* * *
Jekyll was at a dead end. In fact the end that he was at was not only dead, it was in a wooden box six feet under the ground and starting to smell a bit funky.
He had spent the best part of a day and a half wandering the streets and back alleys of Fibula, trying to gather any information he could about Flange and his mysterious disappearance, but with no luck. Fed up and bored, he was currently sitting in a small café called The Open Wound, on the High Street, nursing his third cup of double strength espresso. The thick, muddy brown liquid was the only thing keeping him awake at the moment.
“Excuse me,” came a voice from behind him.
He turned in his seat and was confronted by a woman dressed in a grey suit. She looked to be in her early forties, had long blonde hair, dangly silver earrings and was wearing an understated amount of makeup. She was extremely attractive.
“Can I help you?” asked Jekyll as he stood up to offer her the chair opposite him.
She sat down and rested her hands, fingers interlocked, on the table.
“I think,” she said in a quiet voice, “that I may be able to help you. My name is Scorpio Bytheway.”
Jekyll held out a hand, which was accepted. Her skin was warm and soft and she smelled of long, country walks in the morning mist.
“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Bytheway. So, how are you going to help me?”
“I gather you’ve been asking around town about Mr. Flange.”
“Have I?”
“Yes. And you’re interested in why he seems to have gone missing.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. And part of the reason why you’re spending so much time in Fibula is that you don’t want any bother with a certain lady’s father.”
Jekyll sat up straight in his chair and pushed his back into it, as if trying to distance himself from this stranger without her realising that that was what he was doing.
“Alright. Exactly who are you and how do you know so much about me?”
She smiled serenely, but there was no threat there. It was what it was. A genuine smile. She seemed to on the level and, if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t getting any bad vibes from her despite his initial reservations.
“I work in the local library,” she said, “but in my spare time I practice fortune telling. Every now and again I get flashes on people. I was coming to see you anyway, but when we shook hands I got a hit on you.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve got next week’s lottery numbers to hand, have you, or know exactly which farming implement is going to do me in?”
She chuckled softly and indicated to the waitress that she wanted a cup of tea.
“No, I’m afraid not. I can’t control the flashes and they can be quite intermittent. But that’s not why I came to see you. Thank you.”
She spooned two mounds of sugar into her tea and gave it a vigorous stir before taking a sip.
“A few nights ago I worked late at the library, cataloguing and sorting the books, erasing the comedy genitals in the biology section, the usual stuff, but it meant that I didn’t get out of there till about eleven thirty.” She sipped more tea. “On my way home I have to walk past Mr. Flange’s house, but as I got nearer that night I could hear raised voices, so I stopped to listen. Noise at night is pretty unusual around here. When I realised it was coming from Flange’s house I crossed the road and hid in an alleyway. About five minutes later, the front door opened and I saw both Flange and Vortex step outside. They were talking a lot quieter now that they were in the street, but I’m positive they were arguing about something. Anyway, they stayed there for a while, speaking and gesticulating at each other until Vortex wandered off and Flange went back indoors.”
“Did you manage to catch any of the conversation?”
“I’m afraid not, but it certainly didn’t look friendly. Vortex was waving his arms wildly about, and Flange was stamping his feet.”
“Mmmm.” Jekyll took a swig of his rapidly cooling and congealing beverage. “What did you do after that?”
“I was going to hang around for a couple of minutes until I was sure that Flange wasn’t going to come back out, and that Vortex had definitely gone, but as I was standing in that alley I got scared.”
“Scared? Why?”
“The only way I can describe it is that I felt spooked, like someone had just walked over my grave. I felt cold and shivery and a bit nauseous, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Still can’t, as a matter of fact. I didn’t care who saw me at that point, I just wanted to get out of there and get home.”
“Have you seen either of them since? I bumped into Vortex the other night but since then, nothing. No one’s seen or heard from him.”
“No I haven’t” said Scorpio, “which is especially unusual for Flange. He’s a regular at the library. He normally comes in three or four times a week. A real bookworm.”
“Really,” Jekyll said interestedly, “what sort of books?”
“Spell books, magical history. Even some volumes about the dark arts. He loves all that stuff.”
Jekyll thanked Scorpio for her help and bade her farewell, as she was due to start work shortly. She promised to stay in touch and let him know if she heard anything else of interest.
He ordered himself another coffee and pondered over what the lady had told him, and how to fit it into what he already knew.
Flange was obviously into wizardry of some sort or another, but for what reason, Jekyll couldn’t fathom. Could be a hobby. Could be something more serious. But taken in conjunction with the recent thefts of the pages and his subsequent vanishing act, it firmly put him under the spotlight, centre stage. And did he have an accomplice in Vortex? Maybe Scorpio had seen them arguing about their plans for the pages and ultimately the Cup itself. Or maybe they just didn’t get on, but were plotting together as a matter of necessity. That could make sense. Well, it made about as much sense as anything else at the moment. Vortex, as assistant to the curator, would be best placed to get hold of the missing items, maybe even more so than Flange. But it was obviously the caretaker who had the knowledge, if the collection of books in his house were anything to go by. Jekyll did wonder, though. Why, if they had gone to the effort of arranging the theft, had they not gone after the Cup themselves? Or maybe they had. Perhaps that’s why they’d gone missing. Maybe they were on the trail of Ollie and the gang and were going to ambush them when they had collected all the pieces. If that was the case, maybe he should follow as well and try to warn them, because there was a good chance that he could track them and locate them before any text message would get through. Or maybe…Jekyll rubbed his eyes. He had been staring out of the window whilst pondering about how many maybe’s he was dealing with, and had just seen something that blew the last half an hour completely out of the water. There, on the other side of the street, walking confidently along without a care in the world, was Vortex. He had a smile on his face and a spring in his step and…Jekyll scrunched his eyes and looked closer. There was something else in Vortex’s step that caught his attention. Nestled between the tops of his shiny shoes and the bottom of his perfectly creased trousers was a pair of bright red socks.
“You devious so and so,” Jekyll muttered to himself.
The thought that struck him on seeing the assistant was that he had obviously set up Flange, and was somehow going to claim the Cup for himself and leave the poor caretaker shouldering the blame. Clearly there was no way he could prove it, but that didn’t stop him being able to put the wind up the old boy, in the hope that he slipped up or gave up altogether. He threw some coins down onto the table and rushed out of the café, and alo
ng the street.
“Mr. Vortex,” he called when he got to within a few feet of the man. “Can I have a word, please?”
Vortex stopped in his tracks and turned to face him.
“Haven’t we met before?” he asked Jekyll.
“Indeed we have. We bumped into each other a few nights back. You dropped some papers onto the ground.”
“Oh yes. I remember now.”
Jekyll couldn’t detect so much as a twitch on Vortex’s face, or any change in his demeanour whatsoever. He decided that the best form of attack was attack.
“I’m going to cut to the chase and get right to the point,” he said, lowering his voice and staring at Vortex straight in the eye. “I know what you’re up to and I’m going to do everything in my power to put a stop to it.”
That got a reaction. Vortex suddenly seemed to shrink into his cloak and he began to breathe heavier.
“Why would you do such a thing?” he asked his voice trembling.
“Because what you’re doing is wrong and is liable to upset quite a lot of people. Probably kill a few as well.”
“Well I’m doing my best to make sure that it all goes as smoothly as possible, but I’m afraid I can’t please everybody. And I can appreciate that things may get a little raucous, but I don’t think anybody’s going to die.”
“So what do you expect to gain from all this then?”
Vortex was silent for a few moments before answering.
“Well. Hopefully I’ll take over and become the head of it all afterwards. That would be the logical course to follow, wouldn’t you agree? But please don’t say anything to anyone. You’ll ruin the whole thing. A lot of work has gone into this and I don’t want it spoiled at this stage.”
“I bet you don’t. So where’s Flange?”
“I really can’t tell you anymore. If I give too much away, I might as well forget the whole thing. I really must be going now. Excuse me.”
With that, he turned on his heel and walked away.
Jekyll considered going after him and pressing him further, but realised it would be a wasted effort. Vortex wasn’t giving anything away, and without definite proof he was stuck. He could go to Starch, but again he would have the same problem. There was no way he would be able to convince the curator that his trusted assistant was plotting something so insidious. What to do? Surveillance was the only option left open to him. He would have to keep tabs on Vortex and watch his every move, and hope that he gave something away. He was going to have to be patient, but luckily that was a game he knew how to play.
* * *
“Go on then, Flug. Your turn,” said Ronnie.
“Okay. I spy wiv my little eye sumfink beginnin’ wiv horse.”
“What are you doing?” enquired Stitches. “That’s not how you play, for goodness sake. You say the first letter of horse, H. Not the whole word, right?”
“Okay.”
“Okay. Try again.”
“I spy wiv my little eye sumfink beginnin’ wiv da H from horse.”
“No, just the H of horse, not horse itself, okay. Try again.”
“Um. I spy wiv my little eye sumfink beginnin’ wiv H.”
“That’s it. Horse?”
“Nope.”
“Hearse?”
“Nope.”
“Humpbacked bridge?”
“Nope.”
“Oh I don’t know. What is it?”
“Tree.”
“I give up. I’d get more sense out of a particularly stupid rock. How are we doing, Ethan? Are we nearly there yet?”
“We’re just on the outskirts of town now,” replied the lycan. “Might as well get the map out and give it to Flug. Hopefully something else will jog his memory.”
“There’s not enough dynamite on the planet to manage that,” said Stitches.
Ollie unfolded the piece of paper and handed it to Flug.
“Right,” the half vampire said. “I want you to look at this again and tell me if you recognise where we are okay.”
“Okay. I spy wiv my little eye…”
“No, no, no. We’re not doing that now. Look at the place we’re driving through and tell Ethan when to stop, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re going to end up in the middle of nowhere. You know that, don’t you?” said Stitches. “You do recall that he frequently gets lost going to the toilet at home.”
“I know, but…”
“It’s en suite.”
“Let’s give him a chance, hey,” said Ollie. “If he can’t figure it out, we’ll find another way.”
“Dere,” said Flug, pointing to a side alley that they were approaching.
Ethan slowed down and brought the hearse to a stop.
“Are you sure?” asked Ollie.
“Yeah. Remember walkin’ down dere wiv uvver people.”
The alley was dark and bleak, and barely touched by the meagre lighting on the main road. The whole area was awash with the litter and detritus of an active town that was now passive and lifeless, as if the darkness had sucked all the energy from it. The only sound that they could hear was the rustle of stray bits of paper as they swirled endlessly, occasionally colliding with the dank brick walls.
Ollie looked at the map and tried to make sense of where they were, and where they were supposed to be.
“Well,” he announced, “if we assume that the alley on the map is this one here, then I think we may have our starting point.”
“Seems as good a place to start as any,” added Ronnie “and Flug says he recognises it, so let’s go.”
Ethan found a place to park and they all got out.
“Is it safe to leave the car here?” Stitches asked. “Seems to be the sort of place where you’d come back to find your wheels gone and four piles of bricks in their place. Then someone nicks the bricks.”
“Don’t worry,” said Ethan locking the doors. “It’s insured. Third party spell and disappearance protection. I found the policy under the passenger seat, next to something squidgy.”
“Come on, guys,” said Ollie from the entrance to the alley, “let’s get a move on. Flug, you first.”
As they progressed further into the brickwork maze the atmosphere became more oppressive and intimidating, and each turn they took seemed to bring them closer to a vague, distant collection of voices somewhere ahead. Flug strode on with certainty, sometimes making lefts or rights without instructions from Ollie. Obviously he knew where he was going, the strange memory recall that overtook him every now and again once more coming to the fore.
“Can you hear that?” said Ronnie, stopping suddenly and cupping an ear.
“What?” said Ethan.
“I’m sure I can hear singing. Listen.”
Straining to hear over the wind that whistled through the tight confines of the alleyway, the group stood still.
“I can just about hear it,” said Stitches. “Seems to be coming from where we’re supposed to be headed. Looks like we’re on the right track then.”
About ten minutes and several turns later, they came across a figure standing next to a large oil drum that had a fire burning away fiercely on top of it. It cast a warm orange glow that cut through the darkness like the sun. It illuminated the little man next to it who was warming his hands, even though they were wrapped in fingerless gloves. (No one has ever quite explained fingerless gloves. Why would you take an item that is perfect in design and then remove the very aspect that makes them what they are? You wouldn’t wear toeless socks or bottomless pants, unless you were in Amsterdam of course, but then the Dutch have always been a bit odd. Have you ever worn a pair of clogs? Still, flavourless food seems to be a hit on every High Street, so maybe there is something in it. Or not, as the case may be.)
“Ah, good evening, gentlemen. And may I say what a pleasure it is to see five such fine specimens,” he said before bending down and putting another couple of bits of wood into the fire. “I hope I find you fit and well.”
The stranger was about five feet four, slim, pasty white and didn’t have a single hair on his head, not even so much as an eyelash. He looked like a Shaolin monk with a severe case of alopecia. He was smiling broadly, but the detectives couldn’t decide if it was a ‘come on over and let’s have a chat over the fire’ smile or a ‘come on over and let’s have a chat while I roast you over the fire’ smile.
“And who might you be, if I may ask?” said Ollie putting the map away, sensing that it wasn’t needed anymore.
“Weird Bald Guy,” said the little man.
“That figures,” said Stitches. “I bet you’ve got a couple of mates called Potential Serial Killer and The Stink.”
“How very perceptive of you,” replied the little man “they’ll be here in a while but you won’t get to meet them, unfortunately. You’ve got to be somewhere, I’m guessing.”
“You guess right,” said Ronnie. “Do we have far to go?”
Weird Bald Guy picked up a long two-pronged fork that had been resting against the oil drum, stuck something white and squishy onto it and placed it into the flames. From a distance it looked like a marshmallow. A closer look would reveal that said alleged sweet treat had an iris, veins and a lens. With it suitably browned to his satisfaction, Weird Bald Guy pulled it off the fork with his teeth and bit down. A disturbing pop echoed around the alley in spite of the wind, and a thin, stringy necklace of goo fell from his mouth and lay across his chin like a stranded jellyfish, before it was recovered with a loud slurp. He smiled that smile again, but this time it was definitely the smile of a psychopath on a roll. Either that or Weird Bald Guy was an estate agent and always looked like this.
“Oh, my dear fellow,” he answered after swallowing his unusual snack, “you have a very, very long way to go, but for now, go straight past me to the end, turn right and go to the building. Knock on the door and tell them I sent you.”
Not wishing to spend any more time in the company of this malicious and obviously less than sane dwarf, the five of them moved on. Ollie whispered a rushed word of thanks as they passed Weird Bald Guy, but no reply came. He was busy putting something that looked suspiciously like an ear onto the end of his fork.