by Lucy Banks
“But I am ever so much your boss, right? So I need the food more than you. Your cheddar cheese is smelling very nice.”
Pamela tutted and handed over the sandwich. “Doesn’t seem very fair.”
“Life isn’t fair,” Ribero declared, biting into the bread with a grin. “This is very good. Thank you.”
“Hang on,” Kester said as he shuffled around in his seat. “This file about me, the one at Infinite Enterprises. What sort of information does it contain, exactly?”
“Oh, just the juicy stuff.” Mike gave him a leery grin. “All the stuff you want to keep private, basically.”
Miss Wellbeloved reached across and patted Kester on the arm. “Don’t panic, Kester. It’s nothing too private. Just details about your role in the agency, your specialist skills, the cases you’ve worked on so far. That kind of thing.”
Serena sniggered. “You look a bit worried, Kester. What have you been getting up to that you don’t want people to know about?”
Kester chose to ignore her and stared out of the window instead. The train ploughed on through field after field, past provincial towns and tiny villages. The sun finally rose, casting a mildewy light through the clouds and making everything seem far bleaker than before. It’s the one thing I dislike most about this time of year, Kester thought, sighing. Everything is always bleached of colour.
Finally, the rolling fields gave way to a more urban landscape. Patchwork seas of rooftops gradually merged with concrete tower-blocks and glassy skyscrapers. More people boarded the train until they were surrounded by a swarm of suits and briefcases. The bustle and noise was infectious, and Kester found himself feeling perkier despite his tiredness. Apart from driving in occasionally with Mike on the spirit runs, he hadn’t been to London for years. Even though he’d lived in Cambridge with his mother, he’d never felt much of an urge to visit the capital. They’d been far more comfortable staying at home in familiar, safe surroundings.
The train slowed, clacking along the rails towards the station. Mike and Serena, who had managed to both fall asleep leaning against one another, both woke simultaneously, then sprang apart like two dogs sprayed with water. Kester bit back a chuckle as he watched Serena hastily wipe a line of dribble from her lips.
“That was quick.” Mike stretched out, taking up most of the space around him.
“It did not feel quick to me,” Ribero grumbled, glowering at the woman standing next to him who kept bumping her handbag against his shoulder. “It felt like a very long, unpleasant journey.”
“Well, we’re here now,” Miss Wellbeloved said as she popped her book into her bag. “We just need to catch the underground train to Holborn, then it’s a short walk from there.”
Finally, the train ground to a halt, the doors sliding open with a metallic whine to let them out. Kester fought to remain upright as the throng of commuters shuffled on either side, carrying him along in a tidal wave of motion. He looked over his shoulder and saw the others looking similarly disgruntled.
“Hang on, Kester, I’ve got your tube ticket,” Miss Wellbeloved called out, as she brandished the tickets in the air, like a flamenco dancer waving a fan. “You can’t get to the underground without it.”
Kester wrestled a path back to the others and tried to ignore the swearing and nudging from the city workers as he did so. He felt uncomfortably out of place, and the continual pressure of bodies around him made him hot and bothered.
They passed through the ticket gate as a group, then headed to the underground station, which was no less crowded. In fact, if anything, it was worse: stuffy, stale, dingy, and crammed to the brim with commuters and tourists. After waiting for ages for a train with enough room on it to squeeze all of them on, they finally departed and whizzed through the black subterranean tunnels.
“Are we late?” Ribero asked as he watched Miss Wellbeloved check her watch for the tenth time in five minutes.
She shook her head. “Not quite yet. Come on, this is our stop.”
After another flap with the tickets, they finally emerged outside again and stood on the street corner, taking in the cityscape in front of theSpiritm. Cars and double-decker buses zipped up and down the road in front of them, and tall, neo-classical buildings formed a solid wall of impassive grandeur and severity.
“Which way do we bloody well go?” Mike shouted as he peered up and down the street.
“Fortunately, I looked it up last night,” Miss Wellbeloved retorted. Taking Ribero’s arm and nodding at the others, she pointed to their right. “Come on, it’s only a short walk this way.”
They scurried down the busy pavements. Kester still found it difficult to adjust to the seething masses of people, not to mention the noise and the musty smell of car-fumes. He found himself suddenly missing the peace of Exeter with its surrounding greenery and sleepy ambiance. I think it’s safe to say I could never survive in a city like this, he thought as he fought to keep up with the others.
“There it is,” Miss Wellbeloved announced. She paused and pointed ahead. “See?”
Kester looked up. Then up a little bit more. The vast, glass-fronted offices of Infinite Enterprises towered above them, dwarfing the surrounding buildings. He gawped. On the occasions that he’d driven into London with Mike on a spirit run, they’d always dropped the spirits round the back. The front was far more intimidating, which was saying something.
“Gosh, it’s a bit . . . fancy, isn’t it?”
Miss Wellbeloved nodded. “They are the largest supernatural agency in the country, hence the ostentatious building,” she said. “Shall we? We’re running the risk of being late.”
They marched up to the entrance, which was obscured by frosted glass. A huge metal sign, complete with gold frame, announced the company’s name.
“How come they choose to be so conspicuous when they’re a supernatural agency?” Kester asked as Ribero pressed the intercom button.
“Sometimes, the best place to hide is in full view of everyone else,” Miss Wellbeloved said. “People just presume Infinite Enterprises is a standard London business.”
“And,” Mike added, “if anyone does check online, they have a false business website. The government’s created fake business details for them on all the other major sites too.”
Ribero pressed his ear to the intercom, frowning. “Hello? It is Dr Ribero and his agency.” He paused, then shrugged. “I think that did the trick, yes?”
They waited. A quiet buzz followed, then the glass door slid open, releasing a welcome burst of central heating. Miss Wellbeloved raised an eyebrow at the others, then stepped into the building.
“Whoa,” Kester exclaimed as the door slid shut behind them. He hadn’t meant to express himself quite so loudly, but the interior had taken him by surprise. If the outside had been grand, the inside was even more imposing. Polished onyx floors ran the entire length of the endless reception area, and soaring metal pillars supported the high ceilings above. At the end of the room, a receptionist peered at them disapprovingly over his computer screen.
“Hello there,” Miss Wellbeloved said as she smoothed her hair. “We’re Dr Ribero’s agency, here for the nine o’clock meet—”
“I know who you are,” the receptionist interrupted, tapping at the keyboard that Kester noticed was made of glass and metal. “Could you please form a queue and take turns to press your finger on the glass pad? Then I’ll present you with your passes.”
Kester craned his neck over the top of his father’s shoulder. There was a black glass pad embedded in the desk, which Miss Wellbeloved dutifully pressed her finger against. A red flash emerged briefly from underneath.
“Next, please.”
“What is it?” Kester whispered to Pamela.
“Fingerprint scanner,” she replied. “It’s so only verified people can access the rooms within the building.”
“Gosh
, it’s like a police station, isn’t it?” he joked as he stepped forward to the glass pad.
“I assure you,” the receptionist drawled, looking at him as though he were a particularly unpleasant form of cockroach, “what the police use is far inferior to our system.”
“How?” Mike challenged as he leant over the desk. “What makes it so good, apart from the fact that you’ve used some posh, black glass?”
“It is 150 times more sensitive than standard police fingerprint equipment,” the receptionist snapped. “Which means if your finger so much as tickles any surface, we’ll know it’s you, simply by scanning the area, in a millisecond.”
Mike squidged his finger against the glass. “I think I’ve left a dirty mark,” he said deliberately and gave the receptionist a wink. “You’ll have to clean that now.”
Miss Wellbeloved gave him a warning look. “How long will it take for our passes to be created?” she asked with an anxious glance at her watch.
The receptionist ducked down, then brought out a box of passes with a flourish. “Already prepared. Please clip them to your tops and have them clearly visible at all times.” He watched them all fumble with their passes, then pointed to the line of lifts to their right. “You need to go to the 14th floor and turn left. The meeting is in the Flamel suite.”
“Thank you very much,” Ribero declared, patting his pass. “We’ll head up straight away, right?”
“Make sure you use the fingerprint control as you pass through the door on the 14th floor,” the receptionist continued with a hint of a smirk. “You’ll then have thirty seconds to pass through.”
“Why only thirty seconds?” Serena asked.
“Security.” The receptionist gave a particularly nasty smile. “After that time, a series of lasers are emitted along the wall.”
“And what do they do?” Pamela asked.
“They’re not strong enough to kill you, but they’ll singe your flesh enough to make you pass out, I should imagine.”
“Oh lovely, some barbequed Mike, just what I fancy,” Serena snipped as she strode towards the lifts.
“It’d go quite nicely with that sarcastic sauce of yours,” Pamela quipped. The lift doors slid closed with a hiss, surrounding them in a perfect cube of gold-tinted mirrors.
Kester couldn’t actually tell that they were moving until a minute bump announced their arrival. They stepped out into a seemingly endless corridor with a stern-looking walnut door to their left.
“Passes at the ready, everyone,” Miss Wellbeloved said. She eyed the walls with suspicion, presumably to try to figure out where exactly the lasers were fired from. One by one, they pushed a finger against the reader, before passing hurriedly through into the next section of corridor. An enormous set of double-doors, complete with bronze plaque, announced their arrival at the Flamel suite.
“Here goes nothing,” Mike muttered with a nervous titter.
Ribero waved a hand, then rapped at the door. “It is nothing,” he said firmly. “Don’t be intimidated by shiny signs and big doors, Mike.”
A tinny voice shouted at them to enter. Ribero opened the door with a flourish. Kester peered over his shoulder, feeling both terrified and exhilarated in equal measures.
“I should have known you’d be late.” Larry Higgins, who happened to be closest to the door, twisted round to look at them all with an expression of complete contempt. “Are you lot ever on time?”
Miss Wellbeloved tutted. “It’s only a few minutes past nine o’clock,” she said before smiling at the other people in the room. “Though we are sorry if we’ve held things up at all.”
Curtis Philpot, who looked even spindlier than when they’d seen him last, shook his head. “It’s not a problem,” he declared, gesturing at the empty seats around the vast, glass table. “Commuting across London can be rotten at times.”
Kester sat at the nearest seat, then he looked around the room with interest. Luke and Dimitri, who were sat seated either side of Larry, each gave him a wave, though Luke’s was considerably friendlier.
“Why, fancy seeing you all here so soon!” Luke drawled, giving him a wink. He’d dressed in a sharp three-piece suit, though the cowboy neck-tie was still in place.
“I know, can you believe it?” Kester chuckled. He looked round at the remaining two people at the table: a towering man with a mane of flowing brown hair and the roundest eyes he’d ever seen, and a shaven-headed black man, who had roughly the same size and build as a barge. They made an intimidating pair.
“Now that we’re all here, I’ll get the formalities over,” Curtis Philpot began, twisting at his tie. He gestured to the two unfamiliar men. “Allow me to introduce Cardigan Cummings and Ian Kingdom-Green, who are unequivocally the finest spirit investigators at Infinite Enterprises.”
The two men nodded and surveyed the others with interest. Kester couldn’t take his eyes off the pair of them—one theatrical and grandiose, the other impassive and unreadable. He was looking forward to hearing them speak.
Philpot quickly introduced the others, then flicked on the projector screen and dimmed the lights. “Right, let’s get down to it then,” he began with a nervous twitch of his eyebrow. “We need to act quickly on this, and of course, it goes without saying that everything we discuss in this meeting is strictly confidential.”
The others nodded. Kester bit his lip, hoping he wouldn’t say anything stupid by mistake.
Philpot clicked his mouse, and the screen at once filled with a 3D image of a building, which Kester guessed was Infinite Enterprises.
“Firstly,” Philpot started, pointing at the screen, “let’s begin with where the building was broken into.” He tapped again, and the screen zoomed in, rotating to focus on the subterranean levels. “For those of you who don’t know, these are where the archives are kept. It’s a vast underground warehouse of files, both on computer and on paper. We’re talking files that go back centuries.”
He tapped again, checking to see they were all following. The screen zoomed in once more, to a corner of the underground room. “This is where we discovered evidence of a break-in. In fact, it didn’t look like the intruder had made any effort to conceal the fact they were there. Papers were scattered on the floor, and one of the computers showed evidence of a hacking attempt.”
“Did they succeed in hacking into the computer?” Miss Wellbeloved asked.
Philpot shook his head. “They did not. However, most of the files are replicated in hard copy anyway. We merely use the computers as back-up and ease of access for Infinite Enterprise’s staff.”
“So, what did they take?” Higgins asked, brows furrowed with ape-like concentration.
“Nothing.” Philpot shrugged. “We can only presume that the intruder found what they were looking for and memorised or photographed the details.”
“And what were they looking for?” Dimitri asked. He leant forward, arms folded, as severe as a court judge.
Philpot shrugged. “We have no idea. The spirit in question must have rifled through the files with phenomenal speed.”
“Anything picked up on CCTV?” Mike asked.
“No. But then, spirits are adept at invisibility, so in this case, CCTV is unlikely to help us.”
“Have you tried slowing down the footage to see if you can detect movement?” Serena suggested. Dimitri looked across at her and smiled wolfishly. She blushed.
“Of course we have, madam.” All eyes turned to the new speaker; the Infinite Enterprises investigator with the flowing hair, not to mention his impressively bushy beard. Ian Kingdom-Green, I presume, Kester thought, noting the man’s mildly theatrical tone. He looks like he’d be more comfortable in a Shakespeare play than working for a supernatural agency.
Ian Kingdom-Green continued, acknowledging their attention with a nod of the head. “My colleague and I have scrutinised the CCTV footage in
great detail, not to mention the files themselves and the point of entry.”
Beside him, Cardigan Cummings nodded. “That is correct. We found very little to go on, I’m afraid.”
Kester bit back a smile. For such a muscular man, this Cardigan Cummings has a surprisingly gentle voice, he thought. It made him feel far less intimidated by his rippling biceps, which looked as though they would burst out of his tight suit at any moment.
“What did you find?” Miss Wellbeloved nudged her glasses up her nose, eyes flitting from face to face.
Ian Kingdom-Green swept his hair over his shoulder. “My dear lady,” he continued, “all we could surmise was that this was an exceptionally powerful spirit. No other creature could have broken through our defence systems.”
“Any ideas who?” Ribero asked, eyeing him with undisguised wariness.
Philpot raised a hand. “We’re reluctant to speculate without due evidence,” he said. “However, given the recent events with the Thelemites, we wonder whether the intruder might have been Hrschni.”
“You mean Billy Dagger,” Mike corrected.
“Billy Dagger is merely the body Hrschni has been inhabiting for the last few decades,” Philpot said sniffily. “Prior to that, he has inhabited some of the finest humans our world has ever known, such as—”
“Suffice to say, the daemon Hrschni cannot be thought of as mere mortal,” Ian Kingdom-Green interrupted with a sweep of his arm, which nearly collided with Philpot’s laptop. “He is of the genus daemon-demonichai, one of the most ancient known creatures of the spirit realm.”
“Up until recently,” Philpot continued, hand hovering protectively over his computer, “Hrschni was the model spirit resident. Always completed his permit applications on time, always attended registration, and submitted to regular checks. Then he pulled a rather dramatic stunt at a concert and went off the radar.”
“Though the Thelemites have taken great pleasure in telling us that he’s joined their forces on a permanent basis,” Cardigan Cummings offered with a tight smile.
“We were at that gig,” Kester piped up. “It was pretty dramatic, you’re right.”