Wolf in Shadow-eARC (47 page)

“I was Recinus, Governor of Londinium, who opposed the revolt of Carausius. Look on me and see the fruits of loyalty,” the head said, in a hollow voice.

“I was Carus, Commander of the Fort, who plotted with Carausius. Look on me and see the fruits of treachery,” said a second head.

“I was Carausius, Imperator, Lord of the North, Ruler of Britain and Gaul. Look on me and see the fruits of ambition.”

There were more but Rhian shut them out, since none of the names or events meant much to her. Frankie stopped at the first free spear.

“You didn’t by any chance bring some tape, Rhian?”

“’Fraid not.”

“Just put me on the top and say the words, you silly cow. I will do the rest,” said the phone.

Frankie gave it a filthy look but did as she was bid, holding it in place with outstretched hands while chanting a spell. The phone morphed into a head, just as rotten and decayed as the rest.

“Max said you’d guide us home without the need for me to open a gate,” Frankie said to the head.

“Just walk back along the bridge to London. Even you two bimbos should be able to manage that.”

Frankie opened her mouth to snarl a reply but was beaten to it by a rough voice.

“Oy, what’re you bints doing?”

“Just examining the traitors,” Frankie replied calmly. “As my Lord Allectus commands.”

“Oh well, right, sorry, ma’am,” the soldier dipped his head in a slight bow of respect. “But it’s not safe for a lady of quality this side of the bridge without an escort.”

“Indeed, no, thank you,” Frankie said, turning and walking away.

Rhian hurried to catch up, ignored by all and sundry. Apparently her lowly status rendered her invisible.

“Who the hell is Allectus?” she asked.

“I’ve worked out where we are. This is the fag-end of the Carausian revolt. Carausius set himself up as Emperor of northern France, the Low Countries, and Britain. He executed officials and officers loyal to Maximian, the western Emperor. He did okay for a while until he lost prestige when the new western Caesar, Constantius, recaptured Boulogne. Allectus was one of Carausius’ henchmen. He mounted a coup, assassinating Carausius and starting a new wave of purges, hence the heads. These are troubled times and it’s going to get worse.”

“Oh, why?”

“Allectus was a financial officer, a bean counter with no military experience. He will be soundly beaten in a battle somewhere on the south coast by an army sneaking ashore in thick fog. His defeated Frankish troops sack London before Constantius gets a fleet up the Thames.”

“Um, Frankie, have you noticed the weather?” Rhian asked, pointing downstream.

Thick banks of fog rolled across the water, spilling out across the marshy countryside. The east wind had got up and there was a distinct chill in the air.

“Oh goddess, it’s later than I thought. Come on!”

Frankie grabbed Rhian’s arm and started to run.

Something was on fire in the City, a house or other building, judging by the thick trail of black smoke that twisted into the sky before dissipating to the east. It solidified into a giant bronze figure of Mithras, who waved his sword and shield. He screamed something that Rhian didn’t quite catch about the whores of Babylon and thrust the sword towards London Bridge. Bolts of golden lightning flashed from the tip and headed in their direction.

Rhian screamed, put her arms out protectively and waited to die. A blue haze covered her and Frankie, a shield that caught the lightning and absorbed it, radiating the energy away over the city. Quanta of blue power shot over Rhian’s head like a stream of tracer bullets. Mithras raised his shield and they bounced off, but the impact forced him to his knees.

A giant figure of an ancient Egyptian queen stood over Southwark. A ribbon held back her black hair. Brick-red, it matched the color of her ankle-length dress. She held an ankh in her left hand and a long steel rod in her right. The ankh was the source of the blue energy. The strangest thing about the goddess was her hat, which resembled a stylised throne. She looked straight at Rhian. A deep calm soaked into Rhian’s soul like a cool breeze on a summer’s afternoon, like the smell of new baked bread, like the caress of a lover’s hand.

Oh, James, how I miss you, she thought but not with the usual bitter guilt and pain. Under the jet-black eyes of the goddess she felt regret and sadness rather than hurt. Mostly she experienced such joy that once she had been loved unconditionally, beautifully, by someone who sacrificed his life for her.

“Isis, Great Mother, Queen of heaven, we thank you,” Frankie said.

The goddess lowered her rod. The weird bifurcate end played silver flashes over Mithras. He snarled with rage and cowered under his shield.

The fog reached the bridge and rolled under. It piled up, higher and higher, until it spilled over the edge and the first tendrils flowed around their ankles. In seconds the mist covered Rhian and Frankie completely and they lost sight of the divine duel.

The bridge vanished from under Rhian’s feet. She fell into the river and water closed over her head. She wished she had learned to swim.

CHAPTER 24
OVER THEIR HEADS

Buildings with roofs that resembled giant plastic tents suspended on aluminium pylons no doubt looked just spiffing in Dubai or other desert sheikdoms, but whoever thought them appropriate for the ambience of East London had to be seriously deranged or an aficionado of wacky baccy.

Jameson was not surprised that Whitechapel University had long outgrown the Victorian building in Whitechapel that had housed Whitechapel Technical College. This was the name by which the seat of learning had been known when it trained competent plumbers and practitioners in similar essential trades. The University had long abandoned such mundane studies. Now it offered honors degrees in such groundbreaking subjects as kite design.

He parked the Jag in the visitors’ car park, took a deep breath, and headed for the plastic tent that housed the Department of Commercial Psychology and Investment Studies. He and Karla followed the sign to reception. There he flashed an identity card at the receptionist that identified him as a senior official in the Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills, one of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s more lunatic reorganizations that provided activity in lieu of actually having any ideas.

She and Karla were suitably equipped with little plastic ID cards to clip to their clothes. They were then allowed to penetrate the hallowed halls of Whitechapel University without being mistaken for Al Qaeda bombers. After observing some of the posters on the student noticeboard, Jameson decided that Al Qaeda would be more interested in recruitment opportunities than terrorist operations at the college. The management must be worried about someone trying to nick the computers.

A series of confusing directions had them process up and down endless identical corridors. Eventually, they located a door marked Professor Pilkington, Chairperson of Psychology and Economics, which seemed near enough to Commercial Psychology and Investment Studies to be their objective.

Pilkington was a round man with a beard and rather wild hair whose magnificent stomach strained the buttons of his short-sleeved shirt. Jameson had always distrusted people in short-sleeved shirts as trimmers. Halfway fashions were the preserve of people trying to suggest individuality but who were frightened to go the whole radical hog and don a T-shirt with an anticapitalist logo.

“I was not expecting someone from the Department or I’d have been more prepared,” Pilkington said.

“My name is Jameson, from the Assessment and Enforcement Section,” he lied, flashing a humorless grin. “We like to drop in unannounced.”

“Ah,” Pilkington said, nervously. “What would you like to know?”

Jameson opened his black civil service briefcase and took out a file. “You received a substantial private grant from Mr Shternberg to research mass psychology and its economic impacts.”

“Ah yes,” Pilkington said, blinking.

“We would like to know how the project is proceeding.”

“I believe the Department has returned the normal reports,” Pilkington said.

“Yes, but it is quite unusual for a new university to be supported so handsomely for such a strategic research program. It has become something of a test case for us in DIUS, as the Minister is keen to support universities other than the traditional elitist Russell Group.”

“Indeed,” Pilkington said, brightening.

“Should the project go well, the Minister might be minded to divert research funds from Oxford, Cambridge, or London to energize new nonelitist colleges such as Whitechapel.”

“I see,” Pilkington said, eyes defocusing as dreams of untold riches floated across his mind.

Complete bollocks, of course, as no politician would want to take on the big three. They could call on too many allies and alumni in high places, but it sounded the sort of thing a chippy politician might say in the eternal quest for votes.

Pilkington pulled down one of those stiff cardboard boxes that only academics seemed to find useful and tipped the contents out on his desk. A few minutes of desperate scrabbling, and he had located a file.

“Yes, right, well, the project is on schedule. A substantial tranche of the capital outlay has been spent on the necessary computer equipment and software, notably a Beowulf Cluster for parallel processing.”

Pilkington looked at Jameson, who nodded as if he had a clue what the man was talking about.

“Data examination and input has been completed and initial statistical analysis undertaken. The project is on time and into stage three, model formulation and testing. Doctor Vocstrite is the project leader. He could no doubt tell you more.”

“Fine, take me to him,” Jameson rose.

“Ah, that might be a problem,” Pilkington said.

Jameson sat down again.

“The project was at a critical stage and Vocstrite found the university atmosphere distracting. Mr. Shternberg kindly arranged to supply resources for the team to take a sabbatical somewhere quiet where they could really focus.”

“And where would that be?” Jameson asked.

“I don’t actually know,” Pilkington said shiftily.

“Some of your staff are on sabbatical and you don’t know where?”

“There was a mix-up,” Pilkington replied defensively, “and the necessary travel file and health and safety assessment seems to have been deleted.”

“Does he have a mobile phone?”

“Well, yes, but he seems to have switched it off—on sabbatical—you see.”

“E-mail?”

“Not picking them up.”

“Shternberg?”

“He, ah, has been very busy lately and not returning our calls?”

“And this doesn’t worry you in any way?”

“No doubt they will turn up.”

“I want to see Vocstrite’s labs and offices,” Jameson said.

“Is that really necessary?”

Jameson just looked at Pilkington, not commenting.

“I’ll get a passkey.”

Jameson and Karla spent a fruitless two hours taking the rooms apart without finding anything useful. There were empty spaces in the cabinets suggesting missing files, and when he tried a computer, he discovered that the hard drive had been removed. In short, the college had been “dry-cleaned” by security experts, no doubt people working for Shternberg.

“I can smell perfume,” Karla said, when they sat down to consider what to do next.

“Maybe one of his assistants was a woman,” Jameson said.

“But this is Vocstrite’s office,” Karla replied.

She could be so innocent about the convolutions of human existence. It gave her a charming naivety for a monster who drank blood and could rip a man in half with her bare hands. She sniffed around the room like a bloodhound. Karla had astonishingly acute senses that could track a moth flying in pitch dark. He was not so surprised when she fished out a business card from behind a used coffee mug. He dutifully took it, loath to crush her enthusiasm, and read it. He read it again.

“Bingooo,” said Jameson to Karla. “I could kiss you.”

The thought was father to the act, so he was busy for the next few seconds.

“I take it I did good,” Karla said, letting him come up for air. She didn’t really need the stuff except for talking.

“KM Ferndale, Ph.D. Senior Lecturer in Bronze Age History, Kings College London, oh yes, you did good alright. Let’s get out of here and give Doctor Ferndale a ring.”

Rhian panicked and thrashed, swallowing water, not knowing up from down. She reached for the wolf. It shrank away, frightened and unable to help. It didn’t like water, either. A hand grabbed Rhian by the collar of her jacket and pulled until her head broke water into blessed light and air. She struggled, trying to grab something, anything, for support.

“Stop it, Rhian, lie still or you’ll drown both of us,” yelled a voice in her ear that a rational part of her brain identified as Frankie.

With a tremendous effort of will she forced herself to calm down and relax. Frankie swam, towing Rhian on her back like a Thames waste barge. Water sloshed against her face and she swallowed more of the river. The swim seemed to go on forever. All she could see were clouds and the looming mass of London Bridge, the modern concrete version.

“Grab hold,” Frankie said.

Rhian turned her head, which caused her to sink. She threw her arms out in panic and hit something solid. Scrabbling hands found rope, and she hauled herself up until her head and chest were above water. The rope ran along the edge of a floating wooden landing, supporting fenders to protect docking boats. She got both arms up on the pontoon and coughed up water.

Frankie pulled her completely onto the wood, and she got up on her hands and knees. Hacking coughs racked her body, turning into retching until she brought up more of the river.

After the final heave she became aware that Frankie was saying something.

“Pardon?” Rhian said.

“That fecking bitch, that evil, stupid fecking bitch,” Frankie said.

Rhian was a little shocked as the prim middle-class Frankie never swore.

“Which bitch?” Rhian asked, wondering if she had anything more to spew up.