No Hero (18 page)

And what is there to say? What do I ask them? How can I ask the best way to stop one of them from dying?

“Erm...” I say. I stare at them. “I suppose,” I say, “I was wondering... Is there an easy way to tell you apart?”

“Of course,” says the maybe-Ephie.

“Our names!” says the other.

More laughing. More splashing. I laugh too. It’s nice to know there are still laughs on this job.

“Seriously,” I say when they finally settle down. “Is there?”

“Yes,” says one.

“Freckles,” says the other.

“Two,” says the first pointing to two brown specks on the right corner of her jawline.

“Three,” says the other, pointing to the same spot. And sure enough there is a rough triangle of three freckles there.

“Ophelia,” says the first.

“Ephemera,” says the second.

Which of course means I had them backwards. But that’s why I’m doing this. Learning. Understanding the basics. Easier to save them when I know who they are.

“It’s OK,” says Ophelia, abruptly serious. “We think you’re doing a good job.”

I look at them both. The giggles are gone. Two serious little girls. Old beyond their time. But there is a stillness to them, a confidence.

“So does Shaw,” says Ephie. “Don’t worry so much.”

I look at them. And it’s right there—they do trust me. Which is an insane responsibility. It’s a responsibility like a weight on me. But at the same time... someone here has confidence in me. They may only be ten, but, still, they trust me.

“Twelve,” says Ephie.

“What?”

“We’re twelve,” she says.

I smile. I shake my head. It doesn’t stop. But here and now, for the first time, I really think I can handle it.

“How come,” I ask, “you two aren’t the prune-iest two people in the world? Seriously, you should both look like Mother Teresa by now the length of time you’ve been in there.” And then there’s laughter again, and splashing, and I don’t know if they really feel better about things or not, but I actually do.

I check my watch again as I head up in the elevator. Still not lunchtime. And I feel like doing something. I feel like my feet are on the ground again. Like I can achieve something.

What would Kurt Russell do?

A stupid thing to think, but it brings a grin to my face.

I think I’ll swing by Olsted’s place. Just in the car. Scope things out. There’s not much of a chance of learning much, but I don’t see how it can hurt anything.

I see the smoke from a mile away, a dusty dispersing cloud. My stomach starts sinking about half a mile away. A quarter of a mile and I almost turn the car around just so I don’t see what happened, but I keep going in the blind hope that maybe, just maybe, there’s a pizza place right next to Olsted’s building and they just happen to have left the oven on too long.

As it turns out, confidence and coincidences are not going hand in hand today.

I pull up where the police tape marks off the end of Olsted’s street and stare up at the smoking ruin that is the top floor of the building.

It wasn’t us. It almost seems unfair. This really wasn’t our fault. When we left the place was whole. This was that damned Progeny. And Olsted. Damn him too.

We got the book. But I’m beginning to worry we missed the ball.

It feels important I find out what happened here, but I want to avoid awkward questions with old co-workers. They’ll have too many questions I can’t answer. I’m about to turn the car around and try and catch Shaw before she checks the local news, when I spot a familiar blond head amongst the crowd. I pull out my cellphone. Press the number three.

I’m sure Swann would be fine with the fact I put her on speed dial. She patted my hand. A whole number of times. And it’s not about that anyway. I just don’t have many people I call regularly. My parents in Australia—as infrequently as possible—and the front desk back at the force. That’s about it. That’s why she got number three. No other reason.

I can see her pick up. “One street west, two minutes,” I say. She looks up, looks around and I duck back into the car. But, she watches me pull away. Because she’s a good policewoman.

“Don’t tell me you’re responsible for this.” Swann’s expression is half smiling until she sees my expression.

“Oh shit, Boss.”

Apparently I still have to work on playing things cool.

“No.” I hold my hands up. “Really. I promise. This wasn’t my fault.”

“So it was an accident? Tell it to the judge, Boss.” She’s joking but the smile is getting smaller.

“Last time I was here, this place was completely intact.”

“When were you last here?” There’s an edge to her voice. She’s not quite interrogating me, but it’s close. This isn’t going quite how I wanted.

“Last night.” I sound sheepish. I’m not making things better.

“Talk to me, Boss,” she says.

We exchange a look. I chew my lip, she chews hers. Then she laughs. “Come on, Arthur, Boss, please. Give me a break. I just... I don’t know what happened here. I know you can’t talk much about what you’re doing now, but can you give me something? You have an idea about how this happened?”

I picture the scene when we left. The whole magician fighting an alien-possessed giant metal cat-monster thing. How do I explain that? Do they make straitjackets in my size?

“What do our guys... your guys think caused it?” I say, dodging the question.

“There was some sort of detonation,” she says, looking back over her shoulder toward the slowly drifting smoke haze. “Looks directed. Almost no damage going downwards. All out and up. Took off the roof of the place and flattened a chunk of the walls. No flame that we can tell of from the blast. Just the shockwave itself. Which makes no sense. But then, with the walls down you’ve got all sort of pipes exposed. Water, electricity, gas—bad combination. But the initial blast has us stumped.” She raises an eyebrow expectantly.

“What about the guy who lived there?”

“Come on!” Swann throws her hands up. “Give me something, Boss, Arthur. Come on, we’re friends. Answer a question.”

“I want to tell you. I want to. I do.” I’m almost pleading. “I’m trying to find something.” I take a step toward her. I almost take her hand. “You are my friend. I don’t want to...” I almost say I don’t want to screw her, but my brain balks at that wording, too close to too many other things I don’t know how to say. “I don’t want to mess you around. I want to help. Help me help you.” It sounds like a line, like some bullshit a TV spy would tell someone before he shot them in the back. And I hate it. Because I can’t think of anything I could possibly tell her.

Swann sighs, chews her tongue. “We can’t find the guy, Olsted. We found what we think is his daughter. Dead. Nasty gunshot wound to the top of the head. No one else.” She pauses. “Lot of scrap metal too.” She scrunches her face, confused.

God. The girl. The girl I shot. I shot a girl. A Progeny But... still. No, I can’t think like that. The Progeny killed a girl. I killed a Progeny.

“You’re looking awful guilty all of a sudden, Boss.” Swann isn’t smiling.

Oh piss. God, I just want to tell her. I just want her to know. And then she can judge me crazy. And then she can think I’m spinning her some bullshit. And then she can write me off as an asshole. And then she can never speak to me again.

Actually, no, I don’t want to tell her.

Hello, rock. Hello, hard place.

The thing is there’s no solution to this case for her. There is no way to explain it calmly and rationally. A wizard and an alien-possessed magic cat had a fight. That’s what happened. I don’t even know if the Oxford police force has jurisdiction over alien-possessed magic cats.

I hum. I hah. I keep looking at Swann. I keep on not telling her anything.

“Jesus Christ, Boss. Grow a pair!”

The words explode out of Swann with a violence I never expected from her. She looks at my shocked expression.

“What?” she says. “I mean, seriously? You don’t see where I’m coming from. Jesus, Boss. Ever since you took this job... It’s like they gave you a badge and took your balls. You used to... You were a good cop, Arthur. You were large and in fucking charge. You were the boss. And look at you now. I mean, just tell me to fuck off or tell me what you know. Have an opinion for longer than six seconds. Be the fucking boss.” She presses her hands to her temples. “Jesus, I used to think you...” She shook her head. “And look at you now.”

And there’s something there. Something beneath the surface of our friendship.

“What?” I say. “You used to think what about me?” And don’t let me have blown something I didn’t even know was there.

Swann is staring at her feet. I want to reach out to her but—

“Tell me to fuck off or tell me what you know.” She repeats it.

I can’t do either of those things. I have to do one of those things.

I wish I knew magic. I wish I were Clyde with hidden answers stitched into my skin. Or Kayla—something more or less than human. Because the answers aren’t something I can tell. They’re something I need to show. And I have no way to show her.

“F—” I say, but that’s as far as I can get. How can I tell her to go away?

“Olsted—” I start. “He—” She won’t believe me.

Nothing. I say nothing.

Swann looks up. “Fuck off, Boss,” she says. She turns away.

“Wait, Swann. Sergeant. Alison.” Every name I have for her. And she responds to none of them. “Please, I—”

“Talk to me when you have an answer. Because this is bloody pathetic.”

“Alison. Alison, please.” But my voice just echoes around her, doesn’t touch her. I watch her go, listen to the click of her heels on the road as she walks away.

She gets to the corner and I pray she just turns around, just gives a hint of a second chance.

She pauses. I pause breathing.

And then something comes running from the cross street. Someone. He’s dressed in white, long blond hair billowing out behind him. Almost impossibly thin arms and legs—slender and elegant. There is an amazing grace to his movements. He’s almost beautiful at this distance. Going a hell of a clip, too. Fast as a bloody bicyclist. Faster.

The runner collides with Swann. His arm does. It snags her, and she flies through the air. That impossibly thin arm caught around her waist. I hear her yell of surprise, of anger, then it cuts off as her head snaps abruptly sideways.

The runner doesn’t miss a beat, a step. He just keeps going. Tugs Swann out of sight.

I stand for a moment trying to work out if I saw what I just saw, if what just happened was real. And then I wonder what the hell I’m doing standing around when reality has been so thoroughly bloody breached for so bloody long. Someone’s just abducted Alison in front of my eyes and I’m bloody standing here.

I move. Get in my car. Turn the keys. Floor the gas. And I pursue.

The runner is already two full streets away when I round the corner. He’s going a ridiculous speed. Impossible. Inhuman.

Progeny. It has to be. Or something they made. Or Olsted made. Something with a spell. Magic and aliens. Just my bloody luck.

I accelerate hard, hit a speed bump, hear the bottom of my car scrape against it then I rebound up and smack my head against the roof. Disorientated, it takes me another moment to find the runner.

Goddamn Oxford traffic.

There are cars just swirling round in aimless traffic circles. There are traffic lights every six feet. Stop signs. Random protrusions of concrete blocking the road.

The runner is going to beat me. He’s pulling away, Swann flapping like a rag doll in his arms.

“Shit!” The word bounces emptily around inside my car.

The runner turns a corner and without really thinking I punch the accelerator, slam over the median of the traffic circle with a scream of horns and brakes, and pull into oncoming traffic. I slalom between cyclists and cars. People yell, gesticulate, curse, but I leave it all behind. I reach the corner and crank on the wheel. My suspension groans, tires squeal, and various electronics ping angrily at me as I violate the manufacturer’s parameters in a variety of new and exciting ways. The runner is still two blocks away, and a bus is turning into the space between me and him.

I am pleased to say that I do, at least, think twice before mounting the sidewalk. I still do it. I crash through a trashcan in a burst of litter. My car lurches violently. I flirt with the curb like a ham-fisted schoolboy on a first date. Women and children run. So do men, for that matter. But I gain on the bastard.

It’s down to a block between us and I have to plunge back into traffic. The car twists and I skew wide up on the other pavement. People are running. Somewhere I can hear sirens. Friends of mine—probably the ones from Olsted’s place. I stamp my foot on the accelerator, pop the clutch, listen to the wheels spin, and swing back into pursuit.

My heart thunders, my palms sweat, the wheel is slipping in my grip. Part of my head is yammering at the impossibility of the runner’s speed but the rest of me is screaming at that part to shut up and let me focus on driving.

We head back up Cowley. Long and straight, finally free of traffic, of traffic calming measures. Finally I can make a decent run at the bastard. I floor it. My needle heads toward sixty, seventy, eighty. Still the bastard is in front of me. His feet are a blur. Swann’s head snaps up and down. She must be unconscious.

This is a dream. A nightmare. Nothing seems real. I swerve across lanes. One hand is on the horn as long as I can keep it.

Then the runner jags left into a construction site. I’m going to miss the turn. I’m going to overshoot them.

I yank on the handbrake.

Kurt Russell movies really are bollocks.

The car screams. The tires scream, then think, “sod it,” and just give up. The car flips, first up on its side, careening madly sideways on two wheels and then goes into a full barrel roll. I’m thrown sideways. The airbag explodes from the wheel and slams into one of my cheeks, twisting my neck violently. The world is a blur, a vortex, snapping me round, round. The sky dances about me, caught in a breakneck tango with the earth. Metallic thunder booms.