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  The Ministry men let that sink in. Farnham was right on the other side of the room now. Near the cloudy-panelled corner space. He said, “What are you working on here?”

  “Oh, that.” Rimes cleared her throat again, quieter. “A weed.”

  “Why’s it glowing? Put some kind of dye on it?”

  Pax tensed. Was it electric weed? The fuel for the Fae weapon? Christ, that would do it – moments from exposure. She could grab Devlin’s shins and yank; in the cluttered confines he might hit his head, be knocked out cold. Break his neck even – shit, why not bite out his Achilles tendon while she was at it, if she was considering murder.

  “It’s – no – it’s –” Rimes pattered towards Farnham. She bumped into something and a glass broke, making Devlin move quickly to the side, out of range. So much for ankle-biting.

  “What is that?” Devlin demanded.

  A noxious smell caught Pax’s nose too, and she threw a hand over her nose and mouth to avoid gagging. It smelt like a broken sewage pipe.

  “Bloody hell!” Farnham shouted, marching across the room. “Are you serious?”

  “Ah – oh my –” Rimes said, metal and glass tinkling as she ineffectively dealt with the breakage. “It’s quite harmless but – oh, it smells –”

  Smells was an extreme understatement. Stinks didn’t cover it either. Pax squeezed her nostrils closed but even the traces of the odour made her stomach lurch. As something rose up her throat, a second from betraying her position, Devlin gagged, too.

  “Open a window – Christ!” Farnham boomed.

  Devlin ran groaning for the door.

  “Quite harmless!” Rimes reminded them. Farnham ran, too.

  As the agents got outside they inhaled big, deep breaths of fresh air. One of them coughed and spat noisily.

  “Bloody loon!” Farnham complained. “Living up here among that crap!”

  Devlin was too busy spluttering to agree. Rimes walked after them, unaffected by the smell. Pax’s eyes were tearing, the fumes working through her hand, clamped over her mouth and nose. She needed to run, it was choking her. She’d get caught, reeled in, disappeared – after everything – all because of a smell.

  “You do that on purpose?” Farnham demanded. “I swear, you fucking –”

  “Easy,” Devlin said, hoarsely, then started coughing again.

  “That smell gets in my suit,” Farnham continued, “in my hair? Bloody hell.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Rimes started, anxiously. “But this is – well – I don’t get visitors! Please, wait – let me make a tea? You say something affected the minotaur? We can talk –”

  “Fuck this and fuck you,” Farnham spat, storming away.

  Pax curled over, all but burying her head between her legs. About to explode.

  Farnham stopped, his heavy footsteps coming back. “You’re a goddamned mess, woman. Waste of all our energy, having you out here.”

  “Please...” Rimes replied, sounding genuinely hurt.

  Pax’s mouth forced itself open, trying to inhale, but she resisted. There’d be no coming back from a mouthful of that gas.

  “Disgrace,” Farnham growled. “For Christ’s sake. Come on. We’ve got real work to do.”

  More hurried footsteps, the car doors opening. The engine started. Pax’s vision blurred. Tears flooded her face, seeping through her fingers. As the car pulled away, she let go, taking a quick, sharp breath in – a vile mistake. She gagged, loudly, and coughed it back out, reeling forward. She hit her head on the desk and fell onto her hands and knees. Scrambling up, she shot out, running for the open door in a half-crouch, choking, nose streaming.

  Pax burst through the doorway, shoving Rimes out of the way, and inhaled with a great gasp. Again, again, rolling her eyes back to the sky. Shit, shit. She leaned forward again, hands resting on her knees, and hesitated to look up at the Ministry car.

  The cloud of dust lingered in the road, blocking her view of the men’s exit. She froze, staring as the dark shape of the vehicle turned through the trees. Heading back down the hill.

  They weren’t stopping, weren’t coming back.

  They hadn’t seen her.

  “My,” Rimes commented lightly, at her side. “That was fortunate.”

  Pax straightened up, taking in the frail recluse. She wasn’t sure if Rimes had deliberately broken that canister, but she could draw two conclusions. The doctor was on their side, but Letty was right about this place. They were free from neither prying eyes nor Rimes’ experiments.

  And if they were going to move, they had to risk Barton using that glowing liquid.

  4

  “Tell me again,” Sam Ward said, chair legs squealing against the floor as she sat, “what you thought you heard.”

  The man across the table, Malcolm Joseph, looked nervous.

  He was a few years younger than Sam, dark-skinned and, from the broad curves of his upper body, likely spent more time in the gym than reading. He folded his thick arms over a stained grey t-shirt, hiding Mickey Mouse’s face, and said, “I panicked, okay? But I’m cool now. When can I go?”

  Sam clicked her pen and wrote the date in the top corner of her writing pad. Then the time, 09.32 by her watch. Malcolm Joseph, IP-6, AGa-26. Was this office designation 26 or 27? She turned to Hail. “Is this AGa-26?”

  Hail nodded, standing rigidly by the door. She ignored his look that said she should know. He was hardly one to judge professional standards; he hadn’t even combed his mop of ginger hair.

  “Sorry you’ve been kept waiting, Mr Joseph,” Sam said, unapologetic. She was feeling, she imagined, more put out than him. She was three days late to all this. Saturday night, she had endured a date explaining why he had fallen out of love with eight different women. Sunday, she had watched Attenborough documentaries and eaten ice cream. This morning, even, she’d taken an extra ten minutes for her run. Meanwhile, the Fae had fired on humans in two separate incidents, an untested weapon had been set off, and now this. No one had told her about any of it until she got into the office. She wasn’t sure if it was the weekend staff’s incompetence (they were only in it for the overtime) or the general fear that her involvement created more work for everyone (because, oddly enough, she noticed details that others missed). Thankfully, Malcolm’s case had given her a rare, if tenuous, opportunity to broaden the scope of her department, InterSpecies Relations.

  “You can go as soon as we’ve covered a few questions. You did agree to be interviewed, didn’t you?”

  “Sure, well – of course I want to help, but it’s been hours, see – and this is pretty strange. Are you people even legit –” He cut himself off as Sam offered what she hoped was a friendly expression. Not a smile, as you had to be taken seriously, but a calming look.

  “What he heard,” Hail said, impatiently, “was the sound of –”

  “Thank you, Agent Hail,” Sam said. She’d heard Hail’s take on the way over, and he was toeing the Ministry line: atmospheric sounds caused by the movements of the praelucente and the creatures surrounding it (caused by a broken pipe, as far as the public was concerned). But in the online video of his outburst in the street, Malcolm Joseph had used words to describe those sounds. “I’d like to hear it from Mr Joseph.”

  Malcolm shifted in his seat, almost unfolding his arms then quickly folding them again, remembering what he was wearing. He must’ve grabbed the t-shirt in a hurry; it didn’t match the work he’d put into his physique. He started defensively, “I’m a COO, you know. Gold Hat Enterprises. Public-facing and B2B relations, tech and PR management.”

  Sam guessed he managed a couple of clients, if any. She knew the smell of embellishment; the Ministry was full of people who described work rather than did it. “You ran out into the road shouting that you heard something. What happened?”

  “Okay,” Malcolm said. “Here’s why I did that. The building was shaking like an earthquake. Woke me up. The wall cracked, there was dust, a sound like everything was falling apart.
This big chunk of ceiling almost hit me on the way out. I didn’t know what was going on. It happened fast, everyone was panicking.”

  “You felt light-headed? Did you smell anything?”

  “Smell?”

  “Gas?”

  “Is that what it was? I mean, I don’t remember a smell – but that’d make sense, wouldn’t it? Because what I heard, I know what it sounds like now, but at the time it shit me up.” A hand shot to his mouth. Even strangers were cautious in front of Sam. Was it her fringe? Too square? She didn’t actually begrudge cursing; should she swear more herself, to relax people? “Sorry,” he went on. “I was in a strange state, that’s what I’m saying.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen the YouTube video,” Sam said. “You shouted that it spoke to you. Gave you a rather specific message?”

  “Um. It started like a groan. Then it sounded like speaking. Like words, almost, but all twisted, distorted.” Malcolm slowed down. “I – I know how it sounds. What I said before, I mean, that’s just what it sounded like.”

  “A dinosaur trying to speak,” Sam quoted his own words back to him.

  “Hey, it was nuts. I was half asleep?”

  “A gas pipe burst, under the block. Is it possible that caused the sounds?”

  “A splitting pipe?” Malcolm exclaimed. “Making those sounds?” The instinctive response showed he’d heard something unnatural, even if he quickly changed tack. “I inhaled some gas, is that it? Makes sense.”

  “I’m interested in exactly what you heard,” Sam said.

  “I wasn’t with it, was I? I was high as a kite –”

  “Please, Mr Joseph, what did this voice say?”

  “Kind of…like…‘Greg...you lost.’”

  “Greg you lost. You heard these words distinctly?”

  “Yes. Well, no, they were kind of rolled together, but that’s what made sense, I guess? It seemed important at the time. I must’ve inhaled some fumes.”

  “There someone called Greg in your building?”

  Malcolm took a second. “Not that I know of.”

  “Friend of yours?”

  He shook his head.

  “Does it mean anything to you? Half-remembered from somewhere?”

  He shook his head again. “I mean, it might not have been quite Greg, just a noise like that. And it sounded more like...locks? Maybe? But that wouldn’t make sense, would it? Grammatically.”

  “Since when did dinosaur speech obey grammar,” Sam replied, knowing all too well the creatures of the Sunken City had a scant disregard for English. She wrote it anyway. Locks, not lost. Hail would’ve let that go.

  The details were necessary to understand the Sunken City, but even more necessary to justify her work. She could help the whole organisation run more efficiently if they only listened. That was the great irony of them all thinking she was trying to make life more difficult – her advice, and interference, would reduce work. A misreported audio reading had led to six days of wasted manpower in June when agents were searching for a sickle instead of an effundo porcum, but Management ignored her suggestion of implementing validation checks. Iron out those niggles and they could afford the manpower to do real work, like developing a relationship with the Fae.

  “So what’s the deal?” Malcolm interrupted her thoughts. “Is my block safe to go back to? Do I need a check-up or something? Only, I’ve got a presentation on Wednesday, and I’ve already lost half a day here.”

  Sam gave him a wan smile. It was impressive, half a day lost before 10am. “You’ll probably be allowed back in by lunchtime. The fire service are still running safety checks. You should rest, though. And I’d recommend you be careful how you talk to people about this. The video, I understand, has already been seen by a few thousand people, and I wouldn’t want any undue embarrassment for you.”

  “Seventeen thousand,” Hail said. “Last I checked.”

  “Of course,” Malcolm nodded quickly, not questioning why they were monitoring it. “You think I wanted that uploaded? If the press asks, I’ll give it to them straight. Wasn’t thinking. Inhaled gas.”

  Sam stood, then paused. “Did you happen to see anything, Mr Joseph?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “I told you, cracks all up the wall. It was crazy.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Like the gas?”

  He asked like it was a possibility. Had he seen the fumes from a bufo cloaca? The blue glow of the praelucente itself? “Yes, like the gas. A haze in the air, anything near the ground level?”

  Malcolm considered it, then flashed a pearly white smile, “I was off my face, I guess – I didn’t notice anything but the sound, and had my eyes on where the door was.”

  With the hallucination excuse in place, it was unlikely he’d say anything useful now. That was rather the point for the Ministry, but not overly helpful for Sam. Then, they’d always cared more about keeping the public quiet than doing a good job.

  But if the creatures themselves were becoming more noticeable, especially if there was a chance the noise had come from the praelucente, then she could use this. She could break free from the box they’d put her in, and make Management take notice. Today, she told herself, InterSpecies Relations was going to matter. She was going to matter.

  5

  From the slack expression on his face as Barton wriggled his toes, Pax could see the liquid had started to take effect. Holly was right that it didn’t look safe to drink, but a more natural glow was returning to Barton’s skin. In a matter of minutes, while Rimes rustled up some tea, his bruising had lightened. Pax willed it to work faster, so they could get away. The lab’s ventilation system had quickly cleared the stench, but with animal noises outside and potential Ministry visits, nothing about this place felt safe.

  “How much longer?” Pax asked, hopefully. “You’ll be able to walk, right?”

  “After that much? No,” Barton said. “But it’ll do for now.”

  “It’ll do?” Holly said. “A painkiller won’t stop your foot from needing amputating.”

  “It’s not a painkiller,” Barton said. His eyes drifted to Pax and suddenly widened.

  Pax tensed, wanting to hide or at least avoid his gaze, but it was too late. He fixed on her with deep creases of concern as she huddled up self-consciously. After the confusion of his pain and all they’d been through, he probably hadn’t remembered exactly who she was yet. He was nothing if not protective of his family, and she was the stranger who’d put them all in danger. Pax cleared her throat and broke his gaze, ready to apologise, but he spoke first. “You touched it? The minotaur?”

  Pax paused. Not what she’d expected. She met his eyes again. His stare was intense, but concerned, not angry. She said, “Well, it touched me.”

  He scanned her up and down, like he was able to see into her. Did he know, somehow? About the weird dream? The unsettling feeling? “How do you feel?”

  “Fine.” Pax shrugged. “Better than I’ve any right to, actually.”

  “Fine? You touched it...no one’s ever touched the minotaur. Never got close enough. Never risked it.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Pax hurried on, to shift attention away from her. “It didn’t look like a minotaur. More like an electric kraken. There was a ton of messed-up stuff down there, nothing that looked like a minotaur.”

  Barton kept staring. Had he even blinked? “You didn’t have any glo?”

  Pax shook her head. “Can’t imagine it would’ve helped.”

  “It would. It reveals things...” Barton was high on the stuff. Were his dilated eyes seeing things now?

  “And it emits a pheromone,” Rimes elaborated, joining them with a tray of steaming ceramic mugs. “It keeps some creatures away, attracts others.”

  Pax took a mug; the tea was two quite different shades of brown. An earthy contrast to the liquid they were discussing. She said, “This magical glo, does it make your farts smell like roses, too?”

  “Oh,” Holly joined in, “perhaps it could solve
the Israel-Palestine conflict?”

  “No,” Rimes said, seriously.

  Barton looked unamused, still staring at Pax. “You’re seeing the effects, aren’t you?” He did know, didn’t he? But he lifted his leg, swollen foot on display as it rotated at the ankle. He took a sharp breath, still hurting, but said, “It works. If we had more, I’d be up in hours.”

  “You could say the same of opiates,” Holly said.

  “It’s not a damn painkiller!”

  Grace almost flinched off her perch at the corner of the bed. Barton reached towards her. “I’m sorry – honey –” He lowered his hand when she didn’t come closer. He breathed deeply, calming down. The outburst, at least, had drawn his attention from Pax.

  “But the bottom line,” Pax said, “is you’re not going anywhere fast?”

  “And your friend,” Holly added hotly to Barton, “is working with the people after us.”

  “She turned them away, didn’t she?” Barton replied, his protective streak shining through. “Mandy does what she has to, God knows she has no one else. And the research she offers the MEE can only help open their eyes – it’s not a betrayal.”

  “Absolutely not,” Rimes said quickly. “Just – just last month I submitted findings on wading moss that indicate a need for better air circulation around the Tupsom tunnels. The gaseous build-up there could put the city above at risk.”

  “There’s a lot more going on in the Sunken City than our problems,” Barton said. “And there is some good in trying to understand it. Glo, for instance, we’ve proven to work, repeatedly.”

  “Indeed,” Rimes said. “It’s not my speciality, but the Ministry measure an energy they call novisan – which I believe might be affected by glo. The same energy the minotaur uses. But measuring novisan is complicated. There’s nothing you can see or weigh. It requires systems of deduction – they’ve never given me the means myself.”

  “Novisan.” Pax tested the word. The best she had been given before was Barton’s tales of people getting tired in the Underground. She had seen it herself – heads nodding, briefcases slipping from lifeless hands, as blue light flickered in the dark tunnel outside the train. “That’s the energy this minotaur is draining and manipulating? Some kind of mystical life energy? Paired with a minotaur which doesn’t even look like a minotaur.”