Adam could only assume the reprieve was temporary, but from a higher vantage point his magical senses could now pick up Victor’s trail. A tangled spaghetti of magical puppet strings bathed the darkened forest in purple light, but the angry blue smear that Victor had left behind cut a swath through it.
The trees were even denser in that direction, to the point that Adam wondered if he could literally leap from tree to tree. No less strenuous than sprinting away from chainsaw-wielding deer, but at least he’d be able to take breaks.
He saw a flurry of magical puppet strings below him, and saw that the two deer had been joined by a pair of gray rabbits. The four of them were standing around in a small conference, examining the chainsaw issue. Experimentally, the rabbits both hopped up and grabbed the top handle with their forepaws, alongside the jaws of the deer. The deer’s necks cocked and the blade turned horizontal.
The foursome staggered left under the added weight, moving in a curve away from Adam’s tree, then overcompensated and staggered too far the other way, giving the surrounding bushes a severe impromptu pruning. Then, inevitably, the animals swung back, and the harsh metal teeth of the blade bit down into the tree with a shower of sawdust.
Whether or not Adam could have made the jump to the next tree was a matter for academics, for at the moment he leapt, a fat crow swooped down and clotheslined him about the side of the head with its outstretched wings. His forward foot brushed ineffectually against the target branch before he plummeted into a bush that didn’t break as much of his fall as it looked like it should have done.
He landed on his back, and a blunt piece of stone in the depths of the greenery made intimate contact with the back of Adam’s skull. Something seemed to burst in the back of his brain, and all his limbs went limp. The forest ceiling flew away, until he seemed to be viewing the world through the wrong end of a telescope.
From somewhere a long way off he could still hear the buzzing of the chainsaw, and some part of him remembered that he was supposed to be avoiding it, but the concussion spread through his thoughts like a riot squad, leaving calm silence in the wake of their tear gas and truncheon blows. The forest shrank to a pinprick in the darkness.
Later, Adam had vague memories of having difficulty breathing, of something pulling on the back of his collar and compressing his throat. He remembered the cold sensation of animal dribble on the back of his neck, and a change in the texture of the ground underneath him, from rough soil to cold stone.
Full consciousness returned in slivers until he finally felt confident that he could determine which direction was up and which was down. Down turned out to be the cold stone floor that was pressing his cheek into his nose.
In attempting to clutch his aching head, and very nearly dislocating his shoulder, he discovered that his hands were tied together behind his back with something tough and plastic that bit harshly into his wrists. With a bit of wriggling and kicking of the legs he was able to sit up, causing a few more fireworks to go off in his mind.
He was in a small chamber with much of the crypt about it. To his immediate left was a plain stone casket, and he had a faint idea that there were several more taking up the dusty, unlit space around him. Directly in front of him was an outline of a rectangle in the darkness that suggested a door.
Experimentally, Adam switched to his magical vision and was almost blinded by a familiar blue mass within a few feet of his position. Victor was in the shadow directly across from him, sitting in a loose fetal position with legs drawn up and head hanging low, so that his nose was level with his knees.
“Bigdor!” greeted Adam, before he shook the last few cobwebs out of the speech center of his brain. “Victor!”
“Hello, Adam,” said Victor, in a slow monotone.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m completely unharmed and entirely relaxed and calm. I am relaxed. Even more so to be talking to you, a friend in whose presence I am comfortable.”
Adam frowned. “Victor?”
“Adam?”
“That is you, isn’t it?”
Victor wasn’t raising his head to speak. “Yes. It’s me. And I’m very calm.”
“Did they drug you or something?”
“Not at all. The only drug I could be said to be on is the wonderful, intoxicating happiness I feel at this very moment. Not that I’m excited. I’m just content. Very relaxed. And content. And calm.” Adam noticed at this point that Victor was speaking through gritted teeth.
“Do you know where we are?” asked Adam, shelving the matter for the moment.
“I think it’s the Danvers family crypt. I don’t know anything else about it. What I do know is that it’s probably the most relaxing place I could possibly be right now.”
Adam shifted uncomfortably. “Are you absolutely sure they didn’t drug you? I’m getting a really, really strong impression that they did.”
Victor released a low sigh that sounded uncannily like an unlit gas cooker. “I assure you I haven’t been drugged. It’s just that I’ve recently realized that I need to take a more relaxed approach to life.”
“How recently?”
“Within the last thirty minutes.”
More and more of Victor’s appearance became apparent as Adam gradually shook off the concussion and adjusted to the darkness. He saw something drip off Victor’s nose, which he initially took to be sweat, until he noticed that Victor was sitting in a large puddle of the liquid, and that it emanated from a point behind his back.
Finally, Adam had enough working brain cells to be able to devote some of them to his sense of smell. He sniffed and grimaced. “Is that petrol?”
Victor tapped his feet in the liquid, making little splup sounds. “Some of it.”
“What do you mean, some of it?”
“The rest of it’s in this barrel.” He waggled his torso left and right, and there was the sound of metal sliding musically across stone. There were lengths of chain crisscrossing his chest that were securing him to an ancient oil drum.
“So,” said Adam, as the realizations ran through his mind like a domino fall-over. “If you get excited and cause a spark—”
“Something might happen,” interjected Victor hurriedly. “Or it might not. I don’t know, I haven’t been thinking about it. I’ve been too calm and relaxed.”
51
Alison’s mind raced as she lay flat on her stomach and stared down Mike Badger’s shotgun barrels. This was the kind of situation, she felt, that would call for some very expertly chosen words.
“Um . . . isn’t this . . . where the Brownies are meeting?” she stammered. Badger didn’t react or immediately blow her face off, which was very slightly encouraging. “Oh, I see it isn’t. Sorry. I’ll get out of your hair.” She made to get up.
Badger adjusted his grip on his gun pointedly, and she froze again. “Don’t you wanna keep watching?” he asked.
“No, no, that’s fine. Whatever old men in dresses get up to in the privacy of their own homes is completely—”
“Keep watching,” suggested Badger sternly. “It’s what you came here to see, in’t it?”
Alison swallowed, then slowly turned back to the window, half expecting the shot to come at any moment. In the Danvers cellar, the meeting of the Hand of Merlin was continuing undaunted.
“I was actually able to get the address of that fellow who made the internet video, and I sent Mr. Badger to have a look,” said Danvers Sr. “There didn’t seem to be anyone or anything there. They’d completely cleared out. I’m starting to think he doesn’t want to be found.”
“Nonsense!” said Jack, the angrier man. “He called himself the New Hand. That’s who we are. Why would he say that if he wasn’t trying to reach out to us?”
“Are we the New Hand?” asked Danvers. “I thought we were the . . . what were we last week, Roger?”
“The Re-formed Hand of Merlin,” boomed Roger.
“No, that was the week before. I’m pretty sure we w
ere the Phoenix Hand last week. I know it was something silly.”
“It doesn’t matter!” shouted Jack. “Do you have any more bright ideas for getting in touch with the chap?”
Danvers winced, looking at his fingers as he toyed with them. “That’s something I rather wanted to bring up. I’m having second thoughts about the whole matter. Randomly killing things feels rather extreme. This person might not be terribly stable.”
“Extreme?” squawked Jack, sounding momentarily like a pantomime dame. “We’ve got horrors slurping around the streets, and the government support them. I call that the time to start getting extreme. Anyway, it’s hardly killing when you’re talking about shoggoths. It’s more like mopping up.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Danvers uncomfortably.
“Naturally,” said Jack, his broad stomach somehow expanding further as he leaned back. “Now, is there some other internet thing we can reach them on? Are they on that, what do you call it? Twatty?”
“Seen enough?” asked Mike Badger, his gruff voice startling Alison out of her fascinated trance.
She slowly turned back to face him, trying to look as harmless as possible, but he’d already turned his gun away and rested the barrel on one shoulder. “What?” she said.
“Twelve of ’em showed up the first time,” said Mike, with pity in his voice. “That’s what’s left in there, now. They’re just old men with precious little to do all day.”
Alison rose cautiously to one knee, keeping her eyes on Badger. He jiggled the butt of his gun invitingly, and she had stood fully before it even occurred to her that she didn’t need his permission. “So you want me to take that they’re nothing to do with the Fluidic Killer.”
Badger shrugged with his free arm. “Aye, I’d’ve thought they made that pretty clear themselves. So you go back to your fancy new Department of Extraordinary Gentlemen or whatever and tell them nobs down south to stop fussing. They’re as ’armless now as they were when your lot threw ’em under the bus.”
“And what about you?” asked Alison reproachfully, drawing herself up haughtily.
“What about me? I just patrol the place while they’re ’aving their meetings. For good reason, turns out.” He softened slightly as Alison broke eye contact. “Come on, girl. I’ll give you a lift. There any more of yer?”
“Yes,” admitted Alison, after a brief hesitation that was her last drop of defiance. “There’re three others.”
“Where’re they?”
“I . . . don’t know. We were separated.”
Mike clicked his tongue and glanced around, as if he could have spotted the three others hiding in nearby bushes. “Are they gonna be together?”
“Two of them will be, probably,” Alison stirred the dirt with one foot. “Actually. If you must know. Those two are trying to arrest the other one.”
Badger’s chunky features twisted absurdly into an expression that attempted to be amused, aghast, and confused at the same time. “This is the new, modern, efficient Department, is it? Bloody ’ell. All you do is run about pickin’ on each other. No wonder yer all so bloody useless at demon ’unting.”
Alison folded her arms tightly, affronted. A vision of Nita Pavani flashed into her mind, and she tried to think of what she would say. “That’s, you know, actually quite an offensive thing to say,” she began, which was a safe bet. “How would you like it if someone blew up a gun in your face just for being different? That’s how fluidic oppression started.”
“Oh, pack it in,” said Badger, casually scratching his head with the edge of his gun barrel. “Should introduce you to me lad Davey. Give him someone else to talk to on that bloody phone.” His own words seemed to fire his memory, and he dug out his mobile. “I need to call him so he can bring the car about. Don’t go running off.”
Alison considered doing that very thing as the Yorkshireman turned his back to address his phone, but decided that it almost certainly wouldn’t have helped matters. The best possible result of that course of action was getting lost in the woods again. Also, from what she had seen, she had no reason to doubt Badger’s case that the Hand of Merlin were irrelevant. The meeting couldn’t possibly have been some elaborate performance for her benefit. But wait a moment . . .
“You knew we were coming,” she said aloud, taking a step towards Badger. “How did you know straightaway I was from the Department?”
Badger looked at his phone, baffled. “He’s not answerin’.”
There was enough concern in his voice that, despite everything, Alison felt moved to reassure. “He’s probably just stepped away from his phone.”
He gave her that confused-aghast look again. “Trust me, love, that’s not it. He’d glue his hand to that thing if he didn’t need it for wankin’.” He headed towards the forest, clumsily jogging like a runaway supermarket trolley loaded with sacks of potatoes. For want of a better idea, Alison followed.
They passed swiftly through the portion of forest that was within the grounds of the estate and reached the perimeter wall, where a small, padlocked wooden gate was concealed by the thick brush. On the far side of it was the very same Range Rover that Alison had seen Badger driving back in Doncaster. The internal lights were on and the doors were closed, but there was nobody around.
“Davey!” shouted Badger into the wilderness. The sun had fully set now, and the darkness had no response. He glanced back at Alison. “These mates of yours. They dangerous?”
“Yes,” said Alison, with only the slightest hesitation. “Well. At times. Two of them have got magic infusions. Diablerie doesn’t.”
Badger hunched his shoulders in alarm as if Alison had hurled a crystal wine glass to the ground. “Diablerie? As in Doctor Diablerie?”
“You know him?”
He was turning white. He wobbled his head as if he could dislodge his sudden fear from his mind. “You don’t do odd jobs for the Ministry without hearing about Doctor Diablerie. You telling me he’s out here?” He examined the surrounding wilderness intently, keeping his breathing shallow. “This poor bugger getting arrested, what did ’e do that you needed to send Diablerie after ’im?”
Alison coughed. “Actually, um. Diablerie’s the one being arrested.”
Badger fell silent for three seconds. Alison knew the precise length of time because he marked each second by patting his open palm with the end of his shotgun. “I need to find Davey. Right bloody now.” He patted his pockets. “You know anything about gadgets?”
“I suppose.” Alison was facing the fact that she was pretty much just along for the ride at that point.
Badger offered his mobile. “Davey put some kind of tracking bollocks on our phones in case we got separated. You ever used something like that?”
“Sure,” said Alison. This wasn’t strictly true; eight months ago she had glanced at someone’s computer screen while it had been displaying part of a webpage on how to use tracking apps. But she felt that a fuller answer wasn’t what Badger wanted.
She took the phone—noting that it wasn’t even locked with a pass code or fingerprint—and started the app. It took a few moments to find a signal, but soon an indicator was flicking indecisively towards the forest, away from the house. She pointed. “Basically that way.”
She began to walk, but Badger’s rough hand grabbed her shoulder and held her back until he was in front.
“I’m the one with the tracker,” she pointed out.
“Aye, and I’m the one with the gun, which is traditionally the thing you put on the front. Bloody ’ell, do us all a favor, love—don’t become a battlefield strategist.”
Alison followed sulkily as Badger stalked through the brush, the shotgun out in front of him like a divining wand. She focused her gaze on the weird roll of stubbly fat on the back of his head that almost acted as a secondary collar, trying to keep track of the various parties currently at large in the nearby country and which of them she was supposed to be with.
“You were in Doncaster,�
� she said accusingly. “In the flat where the Fluidic Killer was.”
“Saw that, did yer,” conceded Badger wearily.
“If you know something about the Fluidic Killer and you don’t tell the authorities, you could get in a lot of trouble,” she tried, speeding her pace to keep up.
“Aye. You’re Ministry now, right? Or Department or Bureau or whatever they change it to next.” He turned and made a sarcastic Cub Scout’s salute, three fingers pointing heavenwards. “I, Mike Badger, know nowt ’bout the shog slayer. That do?”
“Then how did you know where their flat was?”
“Old Danvers told me,” said Badger, with the dismissive air of one who knows he’s saying something that will annoy the other person but doesn’t want to seem like he cares too much.
Alison recalled the meeting. “Someone’s leaking information to Mr. Danvers,” she said.
Badger stopped and turned again. “Yeah, but you saw ’em. What do you think they’re gonna do with the info? Besides, I thought ye weren’t keeping secrets these days. I thought that were the . . .”
He turned and stomped into the next clearing, where he was greeted by a mob of deer. They were standing in identical stiff poses, distributed unevenly around the small circle of grass as if they were plastic chairs that had been hastily packed away in a storage room.
Alison and Badger both jumped slightly as every single deer simultaneously turned to look at them, with a jerky mechanical motion as if their necks were hydraulic.
“Chris?” said Badger.
The glazed looks vanished from the eyes of the animals as they were returned control of their bodies, and their muscles relaxed. They staggered around for a moment, gathering their bearings, then one by one hopped skittishly away.
“Chris, I know that were you!” shouted Badger at their retreating tails. “What’re you doin’ here? What’re you up to?”
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