City of Shadows

by Declan Finn

  “In answer to your latter, implied question, it’s more than likely that there wasn’t another option for you last night,” Pearson answered. “And you’ve handled the demonic before. You had other options. But bi-locating in your condition while you were heavily battered? It’s unlikely that it would have gone well.”

  I waited to swallow my current mouthful. “How about my actual question? When was the last time this happened? Battle of Britain?”

  “More often than you’d think.” Pearson frowned. “The demonic is rising, Tommy.”

  I said nothing, letting him fill in the silence. It was a tactic that worked for interrogations. I was less interested in interrogating him than I was in eating. Fasting was fine, fasting during a running battle with Jihadists, shadows, and police officers, all before climbing a towering inferno? That was a little much.

  Pearson paused for a long, long moment. “You’re not the only one who’s been fighting the darkness, Detective Nolan. You’re not alone. Never forget that part. Demons are on the rise. Darkness is routinely praised in the newspapers. Your own Mayor was getting away with only mildly exaggerated forms of coercion of everyday people than the regular political class. And he was pure evil. The cult you fought. That was also evil, but it was one of the most monied, powerful and connected organizations in a city that runs on money, power, and connections. And they’re considered ‘respected.’ Just imagine what it’ll be like a few years from now. We already have academics suggesting we snuff granny if she walks funny. In the UK, our National Health Service would rather let children die than allow them to go anywhere else on the continent and get treatment. In America, there would be civilians with guns ready to rescue the child and burn the NHS on the way out. Here? The populous has largely forgotten about it already.”

  I frowned, my plate cleaned. I would mull over this later. The problems of the world were too big for me right now, especially before coffee.

  I stood. “Come on, we need to get to work on the Soul Stone before something else goes wrong. Scotland Yard should be busy the day after a race riot. But let’s not be too easy to find.”

  The morning was spent working on the easy ways of cracking the Soul Stone. We didn’t know why it looked like a diamond, but even if it had changed from obsidian to diamond, he wouldn’t be an obstacle. Diamonds could be cut. At the right angle, diamonds could break.

  First, it occurred to me that no one had actually tried to break the Soul Stone. The archaeologists wanted to collect a sample off of it to test it for aging. They couldn’t do that while being delicate. Kozbar and the Fowlers wanted a few flakes for the personal use of their own minions. Once their minions had a flake of the gem embedded in their flesh, the pieces of the stone could be charged with the personal hatreds and negative emotions of the wielder and the darkness around them.

  No one had tried to simply hit the damn thing with a hammer. So that was the first thing I did. I placed the Soul Stone on the floor of the basement in the Cathedral, reared back with a claw hammer, and slammed down on it.

  The heavy wooden handle cracked. The handle broke so that a few wood fibers barely held on as the handle bent into a right angle.

  I frowned. “Okay. Maybe not.”

  The next step was a nail gun. That was a simple trip to another side of the church basement. The short version is that the Vatican owes Westminster Cathedral a new nail gun.

  One of the folks who had come to hide in the Cathedral basement during the riot last night walked in on us doing this and wondered what we were doing. When we explained, he took us over to one side of the basement and slightly opened his jacket. In his belt was the handle of a German Luger. He hid it away again, looking around the empty basement as though someone was going to take it away from him. It had been a souvenir from World War Two and a family heirloom. It was the sort of gun that shot through several people at once, and would we like to borrow it?

  We were prepared for the test firing. We found a thick wooden box and put the Soul Stone inside. Both the gun’s owner and Father Pearson left the basement to protect against ricochets. I whipped up some ear protection. (No, I wasn’t going to fire a Luger in an enclosed space.) I fired three careful rounds into the Soul Stone from thirty feet away.

  After the third bullet, I stopped firing. The Soul Stone hadn’t even chipped. But the bullets had shattered, turning into shrapnel and perforating the wooden box more than a block of Swiss cheese.

  We thanked Father Laroche from the next parish over and handed him his Luger back.

  The next step was to take the Soul Stone out into the city. We went out the back way, just to make certain that Inspector Shaw and the police weren’t out looking for us. We weren’t worried about the CCTV cameras since they had been installed all over the city and the crime rate hadn’t dropped.

  The city was quiet after the race riot. You could call it subdued. The traffic was cut by a quarter. The traffic jams still popped up, but no one was in a real rush to go anywhere or brutalize anybody. The occasional shouts were at kids and teenagers with their heads in their phone, telling them to watch where they were going. But no one had the heart for violent road rage. Cabbies went about their business in silence. Everyone obeyed the laws and the traffic lights out of mechanical habit because they didn’t have the energy for timed bursts of speed or aggressive driving through a knot of traffic. The M25 around London was knotted, and no one even honked their horn.

  The city was muted, but the sun was shining. For the first time, I went out in sunlight and could feel it on my face. The shadows had gone.

  We visited a construction site and asked to borrow one of their diamond-tipped drills. Thankfully, those are relatively cheap, so we didn’t really cost the foreman anything. Five minutes under a blow torch did nothing to it, either.

  We went down to a dark alley for a meet Pearson had arranged. A shadowy man in black pulled up, did a brush-pass with Pearson, and moved on. It happened so fast, I was tempted to ask if Pearson had been pick-pocketed. Pearson looked at me, shook his head and moved along. We went down to the Thames River, near the reconstructed Globe Theater, and Pearson showed me what the meet was about. He opened his jacket and showed me a coil of bright yellow cord with diagonal stripes wrapped around it every few inches.

  I arched a brow. “Det cord?”

  Pearson nodded.

  “Which parish are you from again?” I asked.

  Pearson smiled and said nothing.

  I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Be cryptic.”

  We wrapped the det cord around the Soul Stone. It was a solid cocoon. We laid it in a concrete planter on the banks of the Thames. We walked a good distance away, behind shelter, checked the area was empty—no one wanted to run out the day after a race riot—and detonated the explosive. The planter exploded as though it was a window sill flower pot hit with a baseball.

  Pearson and I went over to the planter.

  The Soul Stone didn’t even lose its shine. It was still clearer than glass. Since it looked like a diamond now, it would have shown a scratch.

  Pearson glared at it. “Do we need Mount Doom to destroy this lousy thing?”

  “We take it back to the Cathedral,” I said, “and you start praying over it. If Holy Water purged the crap out of it, maybe we can pray it to death.”

  Pearson shook his head. “Trust me, I did that last night after you went to bed. It didn’t work.”

  As this point, you may have asked yourself, Why not use the Stone Soul to destroy itself? It was a perfectly reasonable question. Kozbar’s people used the Soul Stone to collect the flakes they used. Why not use the Soul Stone against itself? The short answer is that I wasn’t going to try using the Soul Stone at all, never mind trying to turn it on itself. Especially since I had no idea if the stone itself was aware. If it had any concept of how to defend itself, it had the tools. My first touch of the stone had proven that. I didn’t want to think of what it would do to me if I tried to turn it on itself.

  My que
stion was why the angels hadn’t taken it away with them.

  We sulked back to the cathedral, defeated.

  I opened the door of the cathedral and was hit with a smell of sin and corruption that I hadn’t detected since last night after we had dropped the Soul Stone in the baptismal font.

  Pearson saw my reaction and walked me over to the wall so I could get a grip. He went back and closed the door. The Cathedral was empty except for me, Pearson, and … who else?

  Footsteps echoed from the Lady Chapel. We turned. The footsteps were from army boots. They were black, to match the slacks. He wore a gray London Fog raincoat. He even wore his fedora inside.

  “I’ve been waiting for you gentlemen,” Inspector Aaron Shaw said.

  21

  Heart of Stone

  Aaron Shaw stepped forward calmly and casually, as though he hadn’t tried to run Pearson and me down like dogs the other day.

  “So happy to see you two survived being out in the riot yesterday,” he said calmly, his raspy voice coming out like a natural growl, no matter how genial he tried to sound. His hands were in his pockets. “Congratulations. But I’m afraid that you’ll both have to go to jail.”

  “Charges?” Pearson asked.

  Shaw gave a little smile. “Terrorism. Destruction of property. Attempted murder of Lord Fowler and Dame Toynbee. Theft of the Soul Stone from the museum. You have it, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “Does it matter? You’re going to frame us for all of it.”

  Shaw’s brows arched just a little. He cocked his head. His smile widened just a little, the smile boasting prove it. “Oh really? What makes you think that?”

  “Fowler and Toynbee had no explosives stolen,” I told him. I looked at Pearson. He had drifted over to the back row, leaving me closer to the door. “I got a close look at them when they tried to kill me yesterday.” I smiled at Shaw as he got closer. He was forty feet away and closing. “I suspect you’re not nearly as much of an idiot as you pretend to be. You could have found them with a minute’s worth of investigation. I don’t think you let anger cloud your judgment … at least not about this.”

  Shaw’s step paused a moment, but only for a beat. He kept closing, slowly. “Then where is my judgment clouded?”

  I shrugged. The next step was a guess, but given what the Fowler’s believed, Shaw was a stereotype. “Your bearing is stiff and military.” I looked at his pockets. “But the military teaches you to never stick your hands in your pockets. So you have a weapon. It’s not a gun, but it’s heavy. Special Forces knife? I’m thinking …” I looked him up and down. “SAS? Your attitude at the precinct says you hate Americans. Working with Fowler and Toynbee means you hate Catholics. Former SAS means you hate the Irish. So an Irish Catholic New York cop must be pushing all of your buttons. Am I close, or would you like to give me a few guesses?”

  Shaw’s smile faded, and his eyes became hooded. He drew the knife out of his pocket, looking over both me and Pearson. “No. That was quite enough for now.” He stopped twenty feet away from me and Pearson, the tip of the triangle. “I’ll take the stone now.” Shaw glared. “You have it in your pocket. Don’t you? That isn’t a gun bulging in your jacket.”

  I smiled. “You’re just going to kill us anyway. Molon Labe, sucker.” Come and get it.

  He grinned. “Good. I hoped you would say that.”

  Shaw stalked toward us but paused, unsure of who to attack first. His eyes flicked to me as the obvious target. I was bigger than Pearson, and a cop, the obvious threat.

  Pearson, however, was a spy, and sneaky, and didn’t hesitate to grab a chair from the back row and hurl it at Shaw. It smashed across the back of Shaw’s head. Shaw staggered closer to me and unsteadily turned to Pearson.

  I burst forward and hammered my fist behind Shaw’s right ear. Shaw rocked back, teetering off to the side. Shaw whirled, slashing at me with the knife. He caught my coat.

  His knife bounced off of the Soul Stone.

  Shaw smiled crookedly and stepped forward, slashing again with the knife. I tried to dodge, but he still caught my jacket, again clinking off of the Soul Stone.

  Pearson ran up behind him with another chair and smashed it over Shaw’s head.

  Shaw staggered forward, and I cuffed his ear, bouncing him off of the marble wall.

  Then the Soul Stone slipped out through the hole in my pocket created by Shaw’s knife work. Shaw darted forward, swept up the Soul Stone, and rolled away from us. He came up to his feet in front of the doors.

  Shaw grinned. “You see, I didn’t need to kill you two. I just needed the stone. Fowler and Toynbee have enough political clout and muscle in this country to see that both of you either spend the rest of your lives in jail or just go six feet under.”

  I glowered at him. “I will pray for your redemption, Shaw. But frankly, as far as I’m concerned, you can just go to Hell.”

  Shaw laughed. “Nice one, American. I’ll see you there.”

  The Soul Stone pulsed with a bright white light in Shaw’s hand. His hand closed around it firmly, as though he were afraid that it would get away. It glowed brightly, making it and him hard to look at. It pulsed faster and faster, and Shaw looked directly into the light, unable to look away. His eyes widened in terror as the stone pulsed so fast it looked like a strobe light. I couldn’t even look at it.

  Shaw screamed three seconds before he burst into flames. His knife went flying as he tried to put himself out. He patted at the flames, trying to keep them down, but every one he put out, three more would ignite. His hair caught fire. The back of his jacket was a curtain of flame. The fire extinguisher was behind him. I whipped off my overcoat and threw it on him in an attempt to smother the flame.

  The flames burst white hot through my overcoat. The explosion knocked me back and sent me sliding back along the marble floor.

  The flames went up in a flash that consumed both Shaw and my coat.

  The Soul Stone hit the floor with a clink.

  Pearson rushed to my side and grabbed my arm to pull me up. “I guess he took you literally.”

  I gave an involuntary laugh. “I guess so. Let’s get the rock and get out of here before—”

  A hand reached through the cathedral doors and grabbed the Soul Stone.

  Lord Fowler stepped into the cathedral. His umbrella hung over his left arm, his hat resting in the crook of his elbow. He was elegantly dressed in a black silk suit. Lady Polly Toynbee walked in right behind him.

  Toynbee held a pistol. Fowler placed the Soul Stone in his left hand and grabbed his umbrella. One button press released the umbrella, revealing the sword within.

  “Good day,” Fowler said. “So happy we could catch you.”

  I grimaced. “Nice. So glad you didn’t lose all your suits in the fire.”

  His expression darkened. “You will pay for all you destroyed, Inspector.”

  “Hard to replace a temple. What was all that about?”

  “Oh, another artifact brought to us by our extraterrestrial visitors. We had it moved to London brick by brick and stone by stone. Now do step away,” Fowler joyfully requested. “It would be terrible if we had to murder you both here. I think you’d both much rather enjoy a sporting chance as you try to leave the country.”

  I looked at the Soul Stone in Fowler’s hand. It was still as clear as a diamond. Not even being held by Shaw or Fowler could get it to darken.

  But for the first time, I noticed that the silver glyphs pulsed faintly with light.

  Fowler talked. I didn’t hear a single word he said. There were vague threats about taking the stone, killing Pearson and me, and then destroying the religious of London, one by one if they had to. Perhaps they would even take over the British Empire. Fowler was, after all, 128th in line to the British throne (Seriously, he counted?). With the stone, there would be no end to their power, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda. It was all James Bond villain monologue with a hint of Saturday morning cartoon special.

  I i
nterrupted with, “Have you actually used the stone?”

  Fowler arched a brow. He looked annoyed that I would be so rude as to interrupt him. “Of course not. This is the first time I’ve ever held it outside of the museum. Why do you ask, dear boy?”

  “Because it takes a strong will to use the stone. Say what you like about Jihadists—misogynistic, barbaric, violent, irrational, downright uncivil. But they have something you lack. They have conviction. Even they have the courage of their convictions. What do you have, Fowler? You believe in nothing. You couldn’t even use the stone to kill us, never mind use it to destroy London.”

  Fowler’s normally pleasant expression faded. His eyes became hooded, like a viper’s. “Oh really?” he drolled, his voice deep and cavernous.

  I nodded and stepped forward. “Really. You believe in nothing. You think the entire world is materialism and nothing but the physical.” I kept coming, ignoring Toynbee’s gun and the sword. “You have no imagination. You can’t imagine what right and wrong and justice look like. You’re holding a rock that sucks in sin and death and your brain can’t imagine anything better than aliens!”

  I stepped up to his sword point. The tip of it touched my shirt button. I sneered. “You couldn’t use that stone if your life depended on it.”

  “Indeed.” He lowered the sword but raised the stone. “Let’s see what happens when a superior intellect controls one of the greatest powers of all time.”

  Fowler stared at me, concentrating his way to a deadly blast. I watched as he hated me with as much energy as he could muster. Despite all of his bantering, all his pretty little speeches, all he amounted to was pure hatred. I met his eyes, and I didn’t blink.