by Helen Harper
I step back to the door. The Trace reacts almost immediately and I’m thrown through to the corridor on the other side. A split second later I’m dragged down the hall as the Trace continues its inexorable pull towards the time orbs.
I’d have let it yank me the whole way but I spot a bucket outside a small door and force myself to stop. Although it feels like I’m fighting against gravity itself, I lurch over and fling it open.
‘Bo, what the hell are you doing?’
‘Here,’ I say I reach inside, grab a broom and toss it to him.
He catches it and frowns. ‘I’m well aware that I’m your sidekick, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to act as general dogsbody too.’ I give him an exasperated look. ‘Wait, you’re not going to…’
‘We, O’Shea. We are going to.’
He tuts. ‘I’m never going to live this down.’
‘If it works,’ I promise, ‘no one will ever know.’
I relax slightly and let the Trace continue its magnetic pull. Now that it’s getting closer to its destination, it’s easier to handle. I hope the theory that the further away it is from whatever it’s seeking the stronger it feels holds true once we start to leave the base. It’s the only way the escape plan will work.
We twist through the labrynthine corridors, passing laboratories, offices and classrooms. Things become more awkward when the Trace yanks me down a flight of stairs leading to the basement; it’s almost impossible to stay on my feet. When there are only a few steps left I think I’ve managed it, but my over-confidence is my downfall. I trip, tumbling headfirst and landing in an ungainly heap at the bottom.
‘Bo! Are you OK?’
My ankle feels twisted and sore. If I were still human I’d probably be unable to walk – but then again, when I was human I’d never have attempted something as foolhardy, reckless or illegal as this.
O’Shea helps me up and I stumble a few steps, gingerly testing my weight. With each step, the pain dissipates. He registers my look of surprise and grins. ‘Cool to be a vampire with those regenerative skills, huh?’
I smile back. ‘You know, it is.’ Then something else hits me. ‘The Trace,’ I whisper. ‘It’s not pulling me any more.’
Both O’Shea and I look around. Several boxes are piled neatly on the floor, each one with an official-looking tag prominently displayed on the front. I crouch down, open the first one then recoil.
‘Fingers,’ I say, utterly disgusted.
‘Eh?’
O’Shea peers inside. Rather than having a similar reaction to me, his expression changes to one of awe. He reaches in and pulls out one long-nailed specimen. ‘Do you know how rare these are?’
‘Jesus, get rid of it! We don’t have time for sightseeing. You do remember that all those soldiers with big guns are on to us?’
‘I certainly hope they have big guns,’ he mutters but he does return the finger to the box.
I pull open the next crate. Bafflingly, it’s filled with what seems to be drug paraphernalia. The next one is a collection of empty glass vials. I throw open box after box. There are no time bubble orbs.
‘Uh, Bo?’
‘What?’ I snap.
‘Look.’ His voice is quiet.
I glance up, following his pointed finger. There, directly opposite us at the end of the room, is a door marked ‘Incinerator’. I close my eyes briefly. ‘You have got to be kidding me.’ No wonder we’re surrounded by all manner of illicit materials. This is where they are sent to be destroyed.
‘We’re too late.’
‘This is ridiculous! Why would they destroy them? We could use them! They could use them! Bloody British nanny-state bureaucracy!’ I kick at the nearest box before realising I’m giving a good impression of throwing a tantrum. ‘Sorry,’ I murmur. ‘I’ve dragged you into this and made you commit what could be construed as a terrorist act for nothing. I swear that this is the first and the last time I ever try to break the law.’
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ O’Shea chides. ‘I’ve broken the law lots of times. Sometimes it pans out and sometimes it doesn’t. Much like life.’
‘O’Shea,’ I sigh, ‘much as I love you, you’re not exactly my role model. At least I had an excuse when I screwed up with Bergman. This time there’s no one to blame but me.’
‘You remember what you were saying about the men with big guns?’
I meet his eyes. ‘You’re right,’ I say quietly. ‘We need to get out of here.’
I know from my experience of being a good guy that the easiest way to catch a thieving bad guy and have an airtight case against him is to wait until he’s leaving the premises with the stolen property in his possession. Our only wiggle room if we get caught is that we don’t have anything belonging to the military on us. Apart from the broom.
I don’t imagine my fabulously overblown reputation as the Red Angel will survive a stint in jail – not to mention what might happen to O’Shea with his colourful record. Still, at least I can keep us safe until we exit the building.
When we finally make it back to the door with the keypad, we both stop and listen. O’Shea points to his ear and shakes his head, indicating he can’t hear a thing but if these army guys are any good, they’ll be as quiet as the grave.
I shrug and take the broom from him, turning so that my back is to the door. Then I straddle the broom carefully. O’Shea sidles up behind me and puts his arms round my waist. ‘You’d better hang on tight,’ I whisper.
‘We’re going to look like idiots when this doesn’t work,’ he says.
‘It’ll work. It has to.’ I squeeze my eyes shut. I want to find the moon, I think to myself. I want to find the moon. I envisage it in my mind, round, full and complete with craters. I want to find the moon.
Still stuffed under my dress, the Trace tugs. ‘Start backing out, Devlin,’ I say. ‘Slowly and carefully.’
He does as he’s told. We shuffle out. I’m gripping the shaft of the broom with both hands and O’Shea’s hold around my waist tightens.
‘Stop right there,’ a deep voice yells, followed immediately by the sound of a dozen guns cocking. ‘Hands up.’
‘Oh no,’ O’Shea whispers.
The Trace pulls at me. I mouth the words. I want to find the moon. Then the force almost takes my breath away as the Trace flies upwards, taking both O’Shea and me with it. He screams aloud as we rise into the air. The soldiers below seem to panic.
‘I said stop!’ followed by ‘They’re fucking flying!’
The material of my dress is starting to give. We’re not high enough yet – neither are we close enough to the fence. ‘Lean left!’ I yell to O’Shea.
Our combined weight is just enough, although a gust of wind helps. There’s a loud rip. ‘Any seco…’ My voice falls away as my dress finally rips apart and both O’Shea and I start tumbling. I catch a glimpse of the Trace as it’s freed, hanging against the night sky for an instant and no longer in the shape of an orb but now a tiny moon. A moment later it’s gone.
Trees and buildings blur as I try to turn my body so I can roll when I land and avoid any real injury. The thump when I hit the ground is extraordinary. It’s as if all my internal organs have mashed together. I lie there for a moment, groaning. It bloody hurts.
‘I am never ever doing anything with you again, Bo Blackman,’ O’Shea moans. ‘You are dead to me.’
‘As long as you’re not dead,’ I tell him, slowly getting up to my feet.
There are shouts from within the base. It won’t take the soldiers long to find us ‒ we really have to hurry. I pull O’Shea up. He winces dramatically; there’s a nasty cut on his cheek but, as far as I can tell, he’s going to make it.
‘Can you run?’
‘You bet your arse I can.’
We take off. We’ve landed further from the fence than I hoped we would but it’s still hard to reach the top of the hill where the bike is hidden. My side is burning and there’s a pain in my ankle – and O’Shea is f
ar worse. Halfway up, I stop and beckon him onto my shoulders. We complete the rest of the ascent piggyback then I run as hard as can until we’re weaving through the trees and reach the bike.
‘Thank fuck.’
‘You still need to drive, O’Shea. I can’t do it barefoot.’
He flashes me a quick grin and gets on. I leap up behind him. ‘Go!’
Before he turns on the engine, there’s a rustle. At least twenty camouflaged soldiers appear out of nowhere and they all have guns. Big ones.
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Camera Never Lies
O’Shea and I are dragged off to separate rooms. I’m trussed up like a chicken, able to do little more than blink. Colonel Arbuckle, who has long hair tied back tightly in a bun instead of a crew-cut, is even more stern and scary looking than her soldiers suggested. It’s less because of her stature, which is actually fairly diminutive even compared to mine, and more because of the freakishly hard lines on her face. If it weren’t for her lack of tattoos, I’d have said she was a black witch.
It doesn’t help that there’s something peculiar about her eyes: the colour of her irises doesn’t seem quite right. I realise it’s because she’s wearing tinted contact lenses. Is Arbuckle trying to pass herself off as human when she’s really something else? Daemons are generally welcome in the armed forces these days so I can’t imagine why it would be a big deal. Unless being a daemon in the army, as well as a woman, makes life too complicated.
‘You know Trace spells are notoriously ineffective,’ she says, leaning against the wall with her arms folded. ‘I’d love to know where you got that one from.’
‘Considering my position, I’d say the one I had was pretty ineffective too,’ I say, mildly.
‘What were you looking for?’
‘A broom. I had the sudden urge to clean and mine was broken.’
Arbuckle’s strange eyes narrow. ‘This is not the place to be flippant, Ms Blackman. Even if you thought that disguising yourself as a witch and flying away on a broomstick was a good idea.’
‘I made an error of judgment. It was all my doing: I forced Devlin O’Shea to come along with me. He has nothing to do with this.’
‘It’s not very heroic,’ she continues, as if I hadn’t said a word, ‘breaking the law to sneak into a military zone and steal a time bubble orb.’ I must have looked surprised because she laughs sharply. ‘You might think army intelligence is an oxymoron, Ms Blackman but I can assure you I’m not stupid. What I don’t know is what you were planning to do with it once you got it.’
I mull over my options. I need something to extricate O’Shea from this mess. I could fabricate a story but I’ll tangle myself further in a web of lies. At least the truth is fairly honourable and might display my good intentions. I tilt up my chin. ‘I want to find Tobias Renfrew.’
Arbuckle’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I wasn’t expecting that. He’s been missing, presumed dead, for more than fifty years. What makes you think that you can discover the truth? And why would you even care?’
‘If you’ve been paying any attention to the news lately, you’ll know,’ I tell her drily.
‘The fake ear that purportedly belonged to him?’ she scoffs. ‘That’s why you’re engaging in activities that could see you locked up for the rest of your natural life?’
‘There’s more to this than a severed ear. I have friends who almost died because of it.’ My voice is quiet but there’s a hint of challenge. My implication is obvious: threaten me or mine and face the consequences.
‘It probably has nothing to do with Renfrew,’ she says dismissively. ‘It was some scam between a bunch of lowlife criminals.’
‘All the same,’ I shrug, ‘I’m going to find them and I’m going to find Renfrew. Whether he’s dead or alive.’
Arbuckle taps her mouth thoughtfully. ‘You thought a time bubble would help you.’ It’s not a question. ‘You were going to use it as some sort H.G. Wells-inspired time machine and travel back to the night of his disappearance to find out what really happened.’ I smile. Arbuckle rolls her eyes. ‘The reports of your sleuthing skills are greatly exaggerated.’
Her disdain makes me stiffen. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You don’t think others have tried? That the police haven’t attempted to use time bubbles to solve crimes?’ She blows out air in an expression of disgust. ‘There would be no criminals loose on the streets if that were the case.’
I frown. ‘But…’
‘Time bubbles evolved in laboratories during the 1970s to keep dangerous chemicals safe. They are meant to provide a form of stasis, not tourism. That’s why companies use them as the latest type of cryogenics. But being inside a bubble is entirely different to being on the outside: you can’t plug it in and see who was on the grassy knoll. You can’t go back and kill Hitler. They’re bubbles. You’re trapped inside; your movements are limited. What do you think would happen if you engaged a time bubble here and now? If you set it to go back, say, a year and there was already someone inside this room in that time?’
I stare at her. She sighs, exasperated. ‘The past is set in stone. It’s already happened and you can’t change it. A bubble will not establish itself in a place where there are living beings. It would displace them from their own time, and time will not allow that. You can only use a time bubble to go back to places which are empty of people. If you think you can transport yourself to Renfrew’s mansion on the night of his party and see what really happened, you’re kidding yourself. Those serial killers you murdered…’
‘I didn’t murder them!’ I splutter.
She dismisses my interruption with a wave of her hand. ‘Those serial killers knew what they were doing. They knew history. They probably experimented in order to take themselves out of our time and into another. But they didn’t interact with the past, they merely existed inside it for a short period. In fact, they probably saw nothing more than a few buildings or trees.’
‘It doesn’t mean it wouldn’t prove useful,’ I say stubbornly.
Arbuckle shakes her head. ‘As useful as looking at a photo or a painting.’
‘Renfrew might be using a time bubble,’ I point out. ‘It makes sense. No one has seen him since that night in 1963. If he used a bubble, he could…’
‘Didn’t you hear me tell you they were developed in the seventies?’
‘He still could have…’
‘No,’ she says flatly. ‘He couldn’t.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
For a long moment she doesn’t answer but regards me steadily. Finally she nods to herself. ‘Wait here.’ She stands up and walks out.
I can’t move a bloody inch, I can’t do anything but ‘wait here’. I go through the motions of straining against my bonds but it’s pointless. They’re not vampire-proofed like Magix’s damn handcuffs but the army clearly has considerable experience in dealing with tribers. What makes it worse is that my face is itching, probably from the oil that’s congealed on my skin. No matter how I contort myself, I can’t reach it.
At least the discomfort gives me something else to focus on, now that Arbuckle’s revelation that utilizing a time bubble to investigate Renfrew is a waste of time. Not only was breaking into Brigstone the worst idea I’ve ever had, it was also for nothing. Even if we’d succeeded, we’d have failed.
I can already picture the look on my grandfather’s face. Assuming he doesn’t immediately disown me first, of course.
Arbuckle strolls back in and places a heavy file on the table in front of me. A fountain pen is clipped over the front page and in the corner at the top I can see the words ‘Renfrew, Tobias’. A squirm of excitement shoots through my belly. She’s really going to let me see the army’s own records?
‘I have spoken to my superiors and I can’t show you all of this,’ she says. ‘In fact, even what I’m going to let you read is classified.’
‘So why are you doing this?’ I ask, virtually salivating.
‘B
ecause we need to do something to make you desist from your current course,’ she answers briskly, turning over the cardboard cover to the first page.
A photo of Renfrew stares out at me. His head is turned towards the camera so the famous ruby in his ear is displayed prominently. His mouth curves into the semblance of a smile but there’s hard look in his orange daemon eyes that the camera can’t fail to capture. Renfrew is perched over a desk with a pen in his hand. It’s apparent that he takes – or rather took – his health seriously. His body is lean and the faint shadows around his arms where his suit is bunched up highlight his muscle.
‘I’ve never seen this shot,’ I say.
Arbuckle snorts. ‘We’re not the Daily News. Like I said, this is all classified.’
She flips over several pages at once. I try to take in as much information as I can but Arbuckle does a good job of keeping the important parts concealed. As far as I can tell, they all relate to Renfrew’s military career. When she stops at the next report, however, I feel my heart in my mouth. The date at the top is January 17th, 1963. That’s the night of the party, the last time anyone ever saw him alive.
At 22.30 hours, the guests assembled at the front courtyard. Extensive interviews have stated that the numbers exceeded eight hundred, including staff. The subject took to the stage at 22.38, wearing a mauve smoking jacket rather than the tuxedo he wore earlier on. Neither the tuxedo nor the jacket were ever located.
‘He changed his clothes,’ I breathe. That fact had never been released.
‘Well,’ Arbuckle says, pragmatically, ‘there was a considerable amount of blood.’ She turns the page to the crime-scene photos. I have seen these before but the scale of the brutality still turns my stomach. There’s evidence of five separate corpses, all hacked to pieces.
‘At least you can say he was an equal-rights killer,’ she continues, pointing to different limbs in turn. ‘Witch. Human. Daemon.’ A tiny smile lifts the corner of her mouth. ‘Vampire.’