Blood & Magic (22 page)

“Somebody has got to have good news for me,” Alex said.

The room fell silent.

Alex had spent her Monday researching Byron. Apart from being a ‘person of interest,’ he had no criminal convictions, although his name popped up with regards blackmail cases, robberies, murders, fraud, the list went on and on. She had even tried talking to detectives who had investigated him, but all gave her the same story. There was no evidence that Byron had any knowledge or involvement in the illegal acts, but every single one believed he had actually orchestrated them in some way or another. Byron was exactly that, the puppet master and he would not have set up the dinner between Charlie and her without reason. It had been a trap and Alex had gleefully walked into it.

“Well, I found something,” Dimitri said.

There was a quiet again across the room, but this time for a different reason.

“Would you like to share?” Alex said.

“Well, instead of waiting for the rehab reports to come over, I followed them up myself at the clinic. Turned out that this Ben Morris character had a record. I said that on our systems, he ain’t got any criminal record, but this guy showed me paper copies of Met case reports, regarding two arrests for dealing. Apparently our victim had quite a drug problem, so much so, that his girlfriend ends up dead and he is accused of giving her an OD. Problem was, when we showed up to arrest him, he was high as a kite and claimed not to remember anything. The case fell apart, we had no witnesses and the evidence wasn’t good enough to prove he had actually done anything,” Dimitri said.

“But this went to court? How can we have no record of any of this?” Alex said.

“I’m not sure, every case file is available through the Police National Computer Database. I did a search, but this just doesn’t show up,” Drew said.

“How is that possible?” Alex said.

“I don’t know.”

“Anyway, case falls apart and he goes into rehab. Guy at the centre said he was completely crazed, that this Ben bloke had near enough admitted to drugging up the girlfriend while talking in his therapy sessions,” Dimitri said.

“We need to go through all the records and check we haven’t missed anything,” Alex said. “I’m talking about heading to the archives and sifting through what they have. They’ll be paper records of any of these incidents, but I don’t think we should just be looking for cases involving the victims. We need to check case files for each police division where the victims lived at any point in the past few years. Trawl through everything, talk to the archivists and see if the names come up anywhere.”

“And when did you become the boss?” Minerva said.

“Alex is right, this is our lead,” Drew said.

“But that’s thousands of records across tens of police boroughs,” Dimitri said.

“I know,” Alex said.

“It will take months,” Minerva said.

“In which case, we should get started. I want everyone on this. We need to get the tech guys to find out where that record went.”

“Should I talk to Nick?” Alex said.

“I can handle it,” Drew said.

The room descended into noise and Alex left the protests, returning to desk. One unread message sat in her inbox, the sender listed as ‘Unknown’ and the subject ‘Favour’. Alex double clicked the message and a window popped up on screen.

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies

If Alex wasn’t mistaken, they were lines were from the poem ‘She Walks in Beauty’ by Lord Byron. Beneath it, were two attachments labelled ‘catch_1’ and ‘catch_2’.

“Dimitri,” Alex called to him and he took a seat beside her.

“Is this what I think it is?” Dimitri said.

“Just came in.”

She passed him one of her headphones and plugged the jack into the computer. Clicking on the first video link, it opened to a black screen before starting to play. The video overlooked the house on Bedford row, where the Greys Inn victim was first attacked. The time stamp in the lower right corner read ’21:05’ and the date, the 15th - the night of the murder. They watched for a moment as the street remained empty, until a man in a long black coat walked along the road. He moved freely, his steps measured, pausing at the door to the house. The man turned to look across the street and Alex paused the video. The details of his face had been etched into her mind as he lay dead just nights before and there he was, the Greys Inn victim.

He entered the house and the video continued on for a while, Dimitri and Alex staying perfectly still as they waited for what it would reveal. Ten minutes in, a black shadow appeared at the corner of the screen, before it moved swiftly toward the camera, almost gliding across the street. Alex and Dimitri leant in, scanning the screen for it with no avail, when a pair of bright blue eyes overtook the screen. The camera jerked and the picture turned to static as they both jumped out of her skin.

“What the hell was that?” Dimitri said.

“I don’t know, a man?” Alex said.

“It was more like a ghost.”

“There is no such thing, for God’s sake get a grip.”

“How could someone climb up to the camera that fast and were they… eyes?”

He was right. The camera was at a height of three stories and whoever this shadow was, they had climbed it in an instant.

“Maybe he is an acrobat or one of those, what do you call them?” Alex said.

“Street runners?”

“There has to be some explanation.”

Alex closed the video and opened the second file. The video showed the back of the morgue, the time signature 3am. A man walked out of the far door, a black bag slumped over his shoulder. A woman walked with him, a hood covering her face, but he was not as careful. Just before they moved out of sight, he adjusted the weight of the body bag on his shoulder and Alex paused the video, printing the screen. This was her killer, the man who had taken the body of the Greys Inn victim.

The video window closed to reveal the email, the messaging transforming slowly before them.

And all that's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellow'd to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

With a flicker of the screen, the email was gone from Alex's inbox. Frantic, Alex clicked on the Trash icon, but it wasn’t there.

“Damn!” Alex said.

“It self-deleted, just the kind of trick Byron would play,” Dimitri said.

“You saw what the video showed.”

“I did, but now it’s gone. I told you we couldn’t tryst him.”

“What other options have we had?”

“Let me call the tech guys, maybe they can-”

“No, it won’t do any good. At least we have this,” Alex said, pushing her chair across to the printer. She placed the single sheet of paper in front of Dimitri, printed upon it a blurred photograph of their killer.

“Result,” Dimitri said, taking it from her hand and waving it like a winning lottery ticket, “I’ll get a search out on this guy immediately.”

Alex left Dimitri to sort out a search for the man and climbed the stairs to Superintendent Stroud’s office. This time, unlike the last, she waited for the secretary to alert Nick to her presence. Before Alex could speak to her however, Alice appeared from Nick’s office, a wad of files tucked against her bosom.

“Hello Alex,” Alice said.

Alex looked her up and down. Damn her and her really expensive business suit. She had an amazing figure to match, naturally, and probably a team of hair and makeup artists to get her ready every day. Alex suddenly felt incredibly self-conscious, which was ridiculous, why the hell did she care?

“Hello, Alice isn’t it?”

“How goes your investigation?”

“It is on-going. What are you doing here?”

“I handle prosecution on a lot of cases for your unit. It means I often work very closely with your father which is, I imagine, why you are so frosty towards me?”

How direct was she? She had a point, Alex didn’t like the idea of this Alice woman being near her father at all, but to call her out on it?

“Your relationship with my father is none of my concern,” Alex said.

“Our relationship is strictly professional. There is no need to worry.”

“Who said I was worried?”

“One word of warning Alex, be careful who you mix with. Some people are better at playing the game than you think,” Alice said. With a sad smile, she readjusted the papers and walked past her, out of the office.

Alex stood perfectly still for a moment. Did Alice know about Byron? Was that what her comment had been about? But how could she?

“Detective Stroud, the Superintendent will see you now,” the secretary said.

Was Alice involved somehow and, if she was, where did that leave her father in all this?

The secretary cleared her throat, “Detective Stroud?”

Meyer had provided Henry with a host of books to read, their covers bound in varying shades of crimson, cobalt, emerald and black leather. All of which were unfortunately written in Latin. Even the modern ones, and by modern that meant from the 1930s, were both concealed by the secret hand of his family, which Henry instinctively knew how to translate, and by the fact they were written in the dead language. Henry found the Latin dictionary did not leave his side from one paragraph to the next, despite the fact Meyer had insisted his genetic memory would make the task trivial. The books belonged to the Fellows of eras past, and were, as far as Henry could tell, a guide to how to cope with being an Inquisitor in a world that was beyond understanding. The advice he had read so far was simple:
survive
.

Henry read in vain however, for he was out of the Inquisition. The rules of the assessment were simple: obey Tristan, and he had failed to do that. He had refused to kill a man and, although that decision made his future now more uncertain than ever, he did not regret his choice. After Tristan had left Gabriel and Henry in the warehouse, the body of the man who had been their target laying limp on the floor, Henry found himself unable to leave. Staring at the unblinking eyes of the old man, the fear still etched across his face, had planted Henry’s feet steadfast. It took Gabriel multiple attempts to dislodge him and when he woke up the following morning, Henry found had no recollection of the events after the factory.

Henry took a seat at his bench in his lab and looked at his rather large to-do list. Today, work needed to consume every part of his concentration. By midmorning, he was back in the swing of things, having redone the Kleihauer’s for the consultant that he had messed up nights before and caught up on his send-away tests. The laboratory was quiet, only the gentle hum of equipment broke the silence. Up to speed with work and despite there being no point in doing so, Henry took the opportunity to do a little practice of his magus abilities. He held his arm across the bench and swiped the display so it changed to magus detection mode. The blue light shone through. Focus Henry, focus on moving the dial. Henry opened his eyes to check his progress, but it hadn’t worked.

Henry lunched alone, taking the opportunity to read. There was so much to get through, although going over the material felt strangely repetitive, as if he had already read it all. It was a bit like watching a film again that you haven’t seen in years, you remember parts of it, but can’t quite remember how it ends. His peace was interrupted by the buzzing of his phone:

Dixie wants to go for a drink at the pub after work. If you ever want to make peace, I’d suggest turning up.

Elle Xx

At half past five, Henry wandered down to the local pub as instructed and found Elle sitting at a small round table in the corner of the room.

“Where’s Dixie?” Henry said.

“Getting some drinks,” Elle said.

“Ah… okay. Erm… Weather isn’t too cheerful is it?”

Weather talk? Really? That was only supposed to be a backup conversation and that’s what he opened with?

“Not too pleasant, I guess,” Elle said.

Come on Henry, think of something better. Anything.

“How has your day been?”

Admittedly not an original or interesting conversation starter, but far better than the weather.

“Oh, you know, same old,” Elle said.

“I’m sorry if I upset you the other day,” Henry said.

“When you said I had terrible taste in men? Or when you said I had slept with Matt because I was drunk?”

“Well, both I guess.”

“It wasn’t those things that upset me.”

“Oh, so it wasn’t me?”

“No, it was you. You said I needed to work out what I wanted, thing is Henry, I don’t know. Who are you to presume I do?”

“How can you
not
know? Everyone knows what they really want.”

“Do they?”

“Yes, they just don’t know if it’s a good idea to have it or not.”

“Oh really, so what is it you
really want
then?”

Henry felt himself blush at the question. He knew the answer straight away, but it certainly wasn’t one he could tell her.

“I suppose, it is the same as everyone else,” Henry said.

“And what is that?”

“To love and be loved, although that is a soppy answer. I don’t know, maybe to be successful in my job, make a real difference somehow.”

“I think you are right, everyone wants that.”

“To make a difference?”

“You know I didn’t mean that.”

“Well, you’ve already got what you want then! You have Tom, so you just need to get married and everything will be perfect.”

“I can’t see that happening. Anyway, we are talking about you. Why haven’t you found love then?”

Where to start? The truth was that fear ruled his life, even if he tried to deny it. He imagined very few people could actually understand how every person he saw was ready to judge him, at least in his mind. How he actually cared what other people thought to such a painful extent, that he found himself losing sleep recounting all of the day’s interactions and generating all the reasons they might think him stupid or inferior and then build up the dread of further social encounters. The odd way that he found having fun more stressful than working. When you worked, people focused on the work and that was fine. When people had fun or socialised that focus was lost. People expected you to relax, feel at some kind of ease taking part, be excited. These things were impossible to Henry and the effort of pretending caused so much anxiety and stress, that now he actively avoided them. His friendship with Elle and Dixie wasn’t something he could explain, but it was the exception to the rule. What made things worse, was the anger he felt at himself, for how stupid all his thoughts were, how he couldn’t beat them. He knew they were all misguided and he had a million techniques to combat them, but nothing worked. So he lived life not in control of what he did and he hated it. It was unfair to expect anyone to love him, he wouldn’t ever ask for it.

Henry looked up and realised only a second had passed. Maybe he should just learn to be less efficient at over-analysing everything.

“Why haven’t I found love? Because I’m not looking,” Henry said.

“Why?”

“Not something I want in my life at the moment, I don’t need someone to make me feel complete or-”

“Anything
soppy
like that. No, you are better than the rest of us, aren’t you? You don’t need someone to make you feel happy. Look at me, I’m perfect, I’m Henry Fellows.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“Why have we started arguing?”

“I don’t know Henry, I argue with you more than anyone else I’ve ever met. Just imagine if we were in a relationship, it would be disastrous.”

“We’d be terrible,” Henry said.

Elle laughed and leant into Henry’s shoulder, wrapping her arm around him as she squeezed his hand in her own. Henry tried not to flinch as she sidled up to him, snuggling her head onto his shoulder, but human affection was a million stresses in itself.

“So, how are you feeling?” Dixie said, appearing with three glasses of wine balanced between his fingers.

“Fine,” Henry said. “Elle, what were you saying?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Elle said.

“But what about the arrhythmia?” Dixie said.

Damn, he should probably be carrying on that charade. “Still looking to get it under control, but I’m fine. You know, drugs and stuff keep a lid on it.”

“What happened that night? You just disappeared,” Elle said.

“Yeah man, after Elle told me I checked the A&E board, but you weren’t there,” Dixie said.

“Ah, yes, erm…” Henry needed to think of a good explanation and quick. “I didn’t know what was happening and was a little embarrassed about fainting in the lab, really sorry Elle about being short with you.”

“I was just worried. Where did you go?” Elle said.

“Nowhere,” Henry said.

“Nowhere?” Dixie said.

“Oh, no, erm… Hospital, I went to Hospital,” Henry said.

“Which hospital?” Elle said.

“Erm…” Think Henry, think of something for God’s sake and stop saying ‘erm’ all the time. “London Bridge.” That was the closest to Bart’s, he was sure of it.

“Why didn’t you just stay here? London Bridge is a fair distance, you could have had a heart attack,” Elle said.

Good question. Now all he needed was an answer to it. Think Henry, there had to be a good reason.

“As I said, I was embarrassed. I went for a walk to clear my head, then realised something was wrong, so went to A&E.”

That was kind of a half-truth, he had been embarrassed as hell.

“Why didn’t you call me?” Dixie said.

“Or me?” Elle said.

“Again, just a bit embarrassed,” Henry said.

“You are an odd one Henry,” Elle said.

“You can say that again,” Dixie said.

“That isn’t news to either of you, surely?” Henry said.

“No, we’ve known you long enough to understand human principles of emotion and social normality don’t apply to you,” Elle said with a smile.

“You could have answered our calls though, or text back. You know, like any decent human being would have done,” Dixie said.

“I’m sorry, not sure what to say,” Henry said.

“It’s a good excuse for getting out of the charity run,” Elle said.

“Damn, didn’t think of that. You git,” Dixie said.

“Oh, darn it,” Henry said sarcastically.

“Bloody Mary was looking for you today,” Elle said.

“Me? Oh, she just got upset about some stupid rumour, it’s nothing,” Dixie said. “How was your weekend with Tom?”

“It was okay.”

“Take it you didn’t tell him about your little adventure with Matt?”

“No, and there is nothing in that.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“I don’t know, Tom is always away and we’d argued. Matt was really nice and I was-”

“Drunk,” Henry said.

“Yes, thanks Henry. I was a little drunk.”

Henry and Dixie stared at her blankly.

“Okay, a
lot
drunk. Ancient history now though, I’m not going there again,” Elle said.

“Because everything is fabulous with Tom?” Dixie said.

“No, in fact I think we came about this close,” Elle said, measuring an inch between two fingers, “to ending it all this weekend. He just never seems to put me first, I need to find someone who really cares for me, you know? Maybe I’m just being unreasonable.”

“I don’t think so,” Henry said.

“Yeah Henry, you are really one to give relationship advice,” Dixie said.

Henry grunted and excused himself, taking the small metallic case from his bag, and made his way to the toilets.

Inside he found a cubicle and, sitting on the toilet seat, tapped the wristband until it read his magus level. Forty-eight percent: too high. Henry opened the case and took the syringe, drawing up the black liquid until the 4 ml mark. Setting it on the lid of the toilet system behind him, Henry rolled up his sleeve and plunged the dark solution into his bloodstream. The magus level bars decreased almost instantly until the level hit 28 percent, the acid-like substance moving through his veins with an all too familiar pain. He was out of the Inquisition now, when the last of this solution was gone... well, that would be it.

Before Henry’s thoughts could spiral into a world of fear and panic, he was interrupted by his phone ringing.

“Hey Henry, what you up to?” Gabriel said.

“Having a drink after work, what do you-”

“We have a new body.”

“A new body?”

“Yes, you know, a dead one? Grendal has hit again.”

“But I failed Tristan's test.”

“Yes you did.”

“And-”

“You received a pardon.”

“A pardon, what do you mean?”

“I’ll explain in a minute. Make sure you are outside, I know where you are,” Gabriel said.

The line went dead.

Henry headed back into the pub with the closed syringe box in his hand. Across the room at the table, he noticed that he’d left his bag by his seat and Dixie and Elle had dutifully rifled through it in his absence. They had found one of the Grimoires. Henry reached out to snatch it from Dixie’s grasp, but he held it at arms length away from him.

“What’s this?” Dixie said.

“Just a book,” Henry said.

“Yeah, but in what language?” Elle said.

“It’s Latin and it doesn’t really matter,” Henry said.

“That is certainly not Latin,” Elle said.

“It’s my book for God’s sake.”

“It looks like some dodgy pictogram language, you part of a cult or something?” Dixie said.

“For God’s sake, give it here,” Henry said.

Dixie, momentarily taken aback by the seriousness, lowered his arm and Henry grabbed the book.

“And what is this?” Elle said holding the stunner in her hand.

“Looks like a flare,” Dixie said.

“No, it’s like an EpiPen, for my arrhythmia. Give it here,” Henry said.

Elle passed it to him and he put it back in his bag.

“I’ve got to go,” Henry said.

“Come on man, we were only playing,” Dixie said.

“It’s not that, I’ve got an appointment to get to. We’ll catch up another time, I promise,” Henry said.

He left the pub and crossed the street towards Gabriel’s car. How was he there already? Turning back, Henry was glad to see that neither Elle nor Dixie had followed him out, he didn’t need to tell them any more lies.

“You ok H-man?” Gabriel said.

“I’m fine,” Henry said, getting in the passengers seat.

“If you say so. If you need to talk about something, you let me know — okay?”

“Will do.”

“So with regards you failing the test. You failed it, nothing I could do about that.”

“But you said there was a pardon?”

“You appear to have made some friends on the council. Ione and Robin said that you being asked to execute someone without knowing why was unacceptable. They cited some magus law and you were given a pardon.”

“It
wasn't
fair, what they asked me to do was-”