At this point, Denny lost patience. It had all just been too much for him. Having relied on finding Tamar and having her explain things to him, it was just too hard. She did not even know who she was for God’s sake! But she would remember, he was certain – well almost certain – if he could just get her out of here. Something about this file had made her lose her powers, that much he had been able to ascertain, and also any memory of ever having had any powers. It was possible that Askphrit had something to do with it. After all, he was going around changing history and Tamar had explained that this would alter people’s memories. But if he could get her back into mainframe, which was stuck, in the same second of eternity, maybe she would go back to normal.
It would not occur to him until later that if she had forgotten her past, because it never really happened, then why it was that
he
still remembered it?
Anyway, that was the current plan, and she wasn’t having any of it. So, in a moment of desperation, he did what was probably the most stupid thing he could have done, he lost his temper and said. ‘Sod this, let’s go. Close files.’
The world vanished; he opened his eyes and said. ‘Oh Hell!’
Tamar rubbed her eyes in disbelief. ‘Where did he go?’
Kent shrugged.
PART TWO – TO HELL AND BACK
~ Chapter Thirteen ~
‘W
hat the hell could it be?’
Hecaté shrugged – as perplexed as Stiles. ‘It does not make sense. It would have to mean that there is another one of them out there, someone else using the files to travel, but that is impossible.’
‘We covered that. The fact is, there is an anachronism showing up in the present, and it can’t be Tamar and Denny or Askphrit, since they all came from here.’
‘I know, I know. So, who is it? And are they a threat? Maybe it is nothing to worry about.’
‘Where are Tamar and Denny? Can you find them?’
‘No, but that just means that they are blending in, because they do not need any help.’
‘Well – that’s good – right?’
‘Indeed, but …’
‘We should try to find out what’s causing the anachronism in the present, in case it’s a problem,’ said Stiles. ‘It couldn’t be caused by the time freeze could it?’ he added, hopefully.
‘No,’ she said, looking at him as if he were stupid.
‘Well, I don’t know, do I? This is all new to me, but what I
am
good at is detecting. What exactly are we looking for?’
‘There are several reports here of a man in strange clothing, who appeared suddenly in York, in a shopping centre. There are pictures – look. Since we’ve only just picked this up, we have to assume that this has happened since they left, in a manner of speaking. If you understand me.’
‘I think so, you think it might be because of something they, or Askphrit did.’
‘Yes, possibly, now that the files are open, who knows what may happen?’
‘Still, there’s no rush is there? I mean, he’s frozen in time now, just like everyone else.’
‘Yes, I suppose he is, but still, we should try to find out why he is here, what brought him here. Maybe he needs our help.’
‘I agree, I guess I’m going to York.’
‘I will send you.’
* * *
‘It’s all gone wrong,’ moaned a weasely figure from the back of the room.
‘Patience Molbus, patience,’ soothed the tall thin man. ‘It is out of our hands now in any case, but we must have faith in our champion. These unforeseen circumstances were to be expected in some ways, we are after all, dealing with an extremely cunning adversary.’
‘But …’
‘But, we would not have sent her, had we not had confidence in her powers. She is extraordinary.’ He broke of and stared dreamily ahead, like a man trying to pierce the veil of mists ahead. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘I really think she might be the one.’
There was a solemn and portentous silence as this sunk in.
After a long while a voice was heard from the back of the room. ‘The one what?’
The thin man sighed. ‘Chimps!’ he said. ‘I am working with chimps.’
‘Yes, but the one what?’
‘You be careful Tibyd,’ said the thin man. ‘I may have to promote you – anything to get rid of you,’ he muttered.* It seemed fair to him. It was after all how he had ended up with most of this bunch in his division in the first place.
*[
This of course being the time honoured method of getting rid of incompetent employees without risking an unfair dismissal trial and all the attendant publicity. This explains a lot about upper management ]
Tibyd beamed. ‘Thank you Sir.’
* * *
‘Do you think he’ll come back?’
‘I don’t know. He looked pretty mad.’
‘Why, do you think?’
Kent looked ruefully at her. ‘Can’t imagine,’ he said eventually
‘So, what do we do now?’
‘I guess I’ll make up the spare bed. You hungry?’
Tamar opened and closed her mouth a few times and finally said. ‘Now you come to mention it, I’m starving.’
Kent grinned. ‘Maybe later I’ll take you flying.’
‘Cool!’
‘If you like, that is.’
‘Well yeah.’
‘And I’m sure that if he wants to, he can find you again, so don’t worry about it.’
Tamar wrinkled her brow. ‘Who are you talking about?’
Kent glanced at her strangely. ‘Oh, no one.’ He said eventually.
‘You’re not afraid?’
‘No, this is great.’
‘Cold?’
‘I really hadn’t noticed.’
‘You’re really taking to this flying thing. Even I was nervous the first time I did it.’
‘I wish you hadn’t said that.’
‘Trust me. So where do you want to go?’
‘Um.’
‘Want to head back?’
‘God no!’
There was a scream in the night. Mega Man swung round sharply, causing Tamar to wonder if her spleen was really a necessary organ, because she was not sure that it had not rocketed out of her body. ‘Hey!’
‘Sorry, I’m not used to passengers.’ He paused listening. ‘Fire at the foundry, I have to go, I’ll just drop you off at home …’
‘Won’t that waste precious time? Better just leave me here – there on that building. I’ll be fine, just don’t forget to come back for me.’
‘I can’t just leave you here, you’ll freeze to death.’
‘Don’t argue, just go, I mustn’t be the reason you don’t get there in time.’
He nodded shortly and swooped off into the night.
Tamar shivered; it was bloody freezing.
* * *
It was dark, and everything was still, there was no sound – really no sound at all, not even the sound of his own breathing. ‘Oh Hell!’ he said again. Again no sound came out, but he thought he heard the echo of his words, very faint and from a great distance. Now he was really scared, a fear that was building up slowly to primal terror. Very slowly, after all, there was no point wasting his adrenaline all at once – he might need it later on, for when things got really bad. Because technically nothing bad was really happening to him at this point, nothing was happening at all, in fact, but later on there might be monsters. ‘Am I dead?’ he wondered, ‘strange, I expected more pitchforks.’
It was like being in a black hole – that is, if he had known what a black hole was like, this was what he might have expected – except there was no sense of gravity and no whirling stars, such as you saw on Star Trek. No, it was more like being nowhere at all. He remembered Tamar describing a half-remembered experience of the same type.
‘I
am
dead!’ he thought. ‘Oh shit! I haven’t got time for this. Let me out, I’ll be dead later.’
He pondered for a while, got bored and decided to do something about the situation. After all, if this was the afterlife you could keep it. He dug around in his pocket and pulled out the Athame. He had faith in this toy, if anything could get him out of this … It had never let him down before. He weighed it in his hand and grinned without amusement in the darkness.
Then he heard a voice. ‘Hey you! Are you all right in there?’
* * *
‘Bloody freezing! Bloody, bloody – stop thinking about it, he’ll be back soon.’ Tamar flapped her arms around herself to keep warm, and looked down at the world so far below her. There was something familiar about this view that she could not quite put her finger on. Something … Suddenly without warning the large skyscraper opposite lit up like the world’s hugest Christmas tree. After a few seconds, the flashing lights resolved themselves into words. It read “CLOSE FILE”
‘Close file?’ she murmured. ‘What the hell does that…’ she was back in mainframe before she finished the sentence. ‘…Mean? Oh yeah.’
‘That was bloody convenient,’ she thought. She was now more certain than ever that they were being helped. She suspected Clive – he was always in the middle of these things, but whoever it was, well, she agreed with Denny, a little
more
help would come in handy right now. And to hell with interfering with free will.
* * *
‘I will send you,’ said Hecaté.
‘How?’ asked Stiles. ‘I mean doesn’t teleportation rely on time, I remember Cindy telling me…’
‘Hmmph!’ it was an impressive snort even for Hecaté. ‘Witches!’ she added in a derogatory tone. ‘They may have to rely on such chicanery moving between dimensions,
but I,’ she drew herself up impressively. ‘Am a goddess.’
*
*[For the full explanation of this statement see ‘Tamar Black - Reality Bites.’ in brief it goes like this. To teleport instantly from one location to another one must move into the astral plane where there is no time and simply travel in the normal way (the normal way for a witch of course is to fly) to your intended destination. You can of course see where you are going from the astral plane, but it is all done instinctively anyway. It’s amazing how convenient magic can be]
‘Okay, okay.’ Stiles held up his hands placatingly. ‘I know I know.’ But still, he looked at her interrogatively.
She smiled. ‘You do not believe in me? That could be a problem you know.’
(Deities rely on belief for their powers and indeed their very existence)
He looked sheepish. ‘I just wanted to know how you would do it. It’s the policeman in me.’
‘Moving things – or people – through space is not a problem for me. I do not rely on the astral plane it did not even exist when I was – born. I simply will it and it is done. Do you trust me?’
‘Of course.’
‘Good.’
She closed her eyes, and Stiles instinctively did the same. A chill went down his spine a creepy crawly presentiment; he snapped open his eyes and grabbed his gun of the table. Hecaté raised her eyebrows but said nothing. There was a flash (gods tend to be showy) and he was gone.
When he opened his eyes again, it was on an eerie, sepia toned, frozen world. The second of time he was in had gone mouldy, it seemed. He shivered.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ she had warned him, even disturbing the dust would change things, but that could not be helped. ‘Just don’t pull down anyone’s pants or put them in funny positions with their finger up their nose or suchlike.’
Stiles had been indignant. ‘How old do you think I am?’ She had looked shrewdly at him. ‘I think that, compared to me, you are a child and anyway, I know you, so heed me.’
Stiles conceded; there’s no point arguing with a woman, even a goddess, perhaps especially a goddess. He did not even bother to point out the grey at his temples and the crow’s feet around his eyes. There were times when she appeared to consider him a sort of ante-pubescent Just William (or Bart Simpson, for those of you under thirty, and if there are any under thirties reading this book – What’s the matter with you, why aren’t you out getting drunk?)
He moved carefully between the immobile people, being careful not to disturb so much as a fallen leaf. It was slow going and all around him was the feeling of dread expectation that one usually associates with nightmares. His hand tightened on his gun and he moved forward at a frustratingly slow pace. ‘It would help if I knew what I was looking for,’ he thought. ‘Maybe I’ll know it when I see it.’ But he doubted it; his coppering instincts were against the likelihood of such chimerical operations. Things just did not happen like that.
He had forgotten what he was dealing with; much like Denny still did on occasion. They both still tended to view the world in a hard headed, practical, common sense way despite all the evidence to the contrary that they had seen. And they were both capable of being surprised by coincidences, even though these turned up these days with the same regularity as they did in bad action movies.
As soon as he saw it, he knew he had found it, a – he almost choked on the word – clue. He almost spat on the ground, but he remembered Hecaté’s injunction just in time. Clues! What am I, Sherlock Holmes? Stiles believed in clues in the same way he believed in coincidences, on the other hand … it was undeniable.
Just ahead of him was a crowd of people all staring in the same direction, that they were standing still was a given in the situation but there was a suggestion in their attitude that this had been pretty much the case before time had stopped. And the expression on all the faces was unmistakable to Stiles. It was the expression you saw on the faces of people when confronted by a particularly gruesome traffic accident or shootout, but also, grimly enough in Stiles opinion, when witnessing a celebrity having an embarrassing incident in public. A mixture of shock, fascination and curiosity. These were the faces of people who had witnessed, sorry,
were
witnessing
something both horrible and compelling at the same time. The only problem was – they were apparently looking at nothing more interesting than the display in the window of Bennetton, and whatever you might think personally about this, people are used to such horrors. Stiles was disinclined to think that even the poster in the window bearing the legend “We’re all the same inside” with the appropriate graphics to complement it, could account for the large crowd it appeared to have attracted. You see worse every day – or was that just him? He did not think so.