Blue Angel Page 5

  “Right, well,” Sam said, trying to recall what she’d planned to say. “Before we begin – about Malcolm Joseph. I established –”

  “We’ve all seen the video,” Mather said. “I’m not sure you needed to meet him.”

  Sam was momentarily stunned. Of course you’re not, you haven’t given me a chance to explain. “Um. Malcolm thought the words might have been Greg, you lost. Or locks.”

  The men stared with equally empty eyes. Mathers said, “What I need, Ward, is for you to send another message to the FTC. Include whatever you think you’ve learnt this morning if you think it will help.”

  “But it wasn’t about –” Sam started to explain.

  “Shall we go through last night, then?” Mathers turned to Landon. The field agent gave her a look, checking she was done.

  Sam revised the explanation: It was clearly a distinctive sound, enough for Malcolm to spot a difference in syllables. Something we should investigate fully as –

  “We secured the device from the girl’s home,” said Landon, interrupting her thoughts. “The girl Rufaizu had contact with. Casaria had met her but hadn’t reported it. The girl –”

  “This is Pax Kuranes?” Sam said. “The gambler?”

  Landon nodded and continued, “Yeah. The girl –”

  “Twenty-seven years old?”

  “If you say so.” Landon didn’t see the relevance.

  Sam thought accurately identifying the suspect might be important for finding her. Referring to a grown woman as a girl might send the wrong message. She didn’t say so.

  “This girl had been talking with the Fae,” Landon went on. “We caught up to her yesterday, Casaria, Gant and me. My faeometer went off.”

  “Did you see it?” Sam asked, worried he might neglect details there, too.

  “No, I did not,” Landon said. “I saw the readings on my faeometer, and the girl ran, making the Fae presence seem likely. I saw the Fae weapon recovered from her apartment.” Landon straightened his shoulders, resisting looking at Mathers. Clearly they had discussed this next bit in advance. “There were no Fae at the Sunken City when I got there. None helping Casaria or the civilians. Whatever happened with them happened earlier in the day. The latest problem is unlikely to be connected to them.”

  “Huh,” Sam said. In other words, no reason to involve her, even if everyone was talking about the damage a potentially Fae weapon had done. But she had expected that. “What Malcolm Joseph heard this morning – what if it’s a noise created by the praelucente itself?”

  Mathers digested that. “That’s a question for Support.”

  “Does it not –”

  “We’re understaffed, Ward,” Mathers told her. His get-out-of-anything card. “Trust that their work is being prioritised properly. I believe you have plenty to be getting on with.”

  Sam’s frustrated smile threatened to return. “Certainly, but my team can work –”

  The phone chimed and Mathers put the call on speaker, waving at Sam to leave.

  “Two incidents in the space of a week,” Director Tarrington said, not bothering to introduce himself. He had the drawn-out baritone of the eminently well-educated, a voice that sounded bored and disappointed at the same time. “It’s not on, is it?”

  “Sir, thank you for calling. I’ve got –”

  “It’s not a social call, Mathers, your city is on the national news again. You understand that babysitting the Ordshaw MEE is not my full-time occupation?”

  But it should be, Sam thought. Nowhere was the MEE’s work more important than in Ordshaw, and their own director had a part-time attitude.

  Mathers said, “Sir. I’ve got Sam Ward and Agent Landon here.”

  “Ah, Ward,” Tarrington said. “You’ve had contact with the little wretches behind this mess?”

  “Director Tarrington,” Sam said. “Sir, good morning.”

  “Yes, yes,” Tarrington replied. “What are the buggers saying?”

  Sam thought, you’d know better than me. She said, “They claim no knowledge of the device and no knowledge of the Fae behind the attacks.”

  “Unlikely. But we’re not looking at all-out war? Buildings collapsing and all that?”

  She found Mathers and Landon watching her expectantly. “No sir, it seems the Fae weren’t responsible for what happened this morning.”

  “Very well. You’re a bright lass, so what’s your take? The praelucente’s unstable, is it? Anything we can take from it so far?”

  “There was a sound –”

  “It’s possible, sir” – Mathers cut her off – “that we heard the praelucente itself make a noise.” Sam stared, aghast. “It may have been caused by an injury, after the weapon was discharged. Our working theory is this morning’s surge was an attempt to recover.”

  He’d been paying attention, at least.

  “Excellent, Mathers, now that’s something I can sell. Things are back on track with the bonus of new observations. Good thinking.”

  Sam blurted out, “We’re also exploring exactly what Agents Landon and Casaria saw for more insights.”

  There was silence for a moment. Sam looked at the toes of her shoes.

  “Casaria.” Tarrington tested the name. He must have known it from past HR crises. “Is he there?”

  “No, sir,” Mathers said. “He was dismissed before the latest crisis.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Mathers,” Tarrington huffed. “The man isn’t even on site?”

  “Actually,” Sam said, not daring to look up but forcing the words out, “I was about to propose to Deputy Director Mathers that I retrieve him, seeing as our Operations team are fully occupied.”

  Another stiff silence. Sam could feel Mathers’ unappreciative eyes warning her against this sort of initiative. To save face, he said, “A reasonable idea, sir. I’m happy to send Ward out into the field. Agent Landon, you’re without a partner, aren’t you?”

  Landon and Sam locked eyes. It was a cold thing to say, knowing Landon’s partner had died only the night before, though that barely seemed to register on the big man’s impassive face. He was staring at Sam like he’d rather it be anyone else. The look she got from most of the office. Most of the time. She smiled back.

  7

  Barton’s idea of videos was actually a pile of movie reels requiring an ancient projector, which had been buried under crates of stones. Pax and Holly heaved the lot out of the way without receiving an adequate explanation for their existence. Once they’d dragged the projector back to the bedroom and left Rimes to tinker with it, they turned their attention to a map of Ordshaw that Barton had found in a box near the beds.

  Pax spread it across a too-small table that would have been best cleared with a broom. The map was crumpled, beige, and faded, and smelt vaguely of urine. It was marked with fifteen circles drawn with a big red marker pen, and seven crosses in blue. They were spread evenly across the city, with more blue in the east and red in the west. The prospect of travelling through Ordshaw hardly filled Pax with glee, but she was willing to consider it as an escape from the looming threats of probing Ministry agents, unsavoury experiments and Barton family tension.

  “The crosses are contact points,” Barton called out from the bedroom. “The circles are where we were sent for glo pickups. Mostly beyond Ripton and around Nothicker.”

  “First point being,” Holly said, “this liquid turned up in the worst parts of town.”

  “There’s one not far from you,” Pax said, noting the circle in Dalford.

  “Whistler Bridge,” Barton called through, then continued like he knew the map by heart. “West of that you’ve got the Weirway Reservoir. Below that, a subway near the east side of Lyle Square, that’s an active one. Then...central New Thornton, that was under a fire escape by the Portrait Gallery. One south of central in Tupsom. The one out west, the closest one to us here, that was by a laundromat in Ripton.”

  “Who knew you were so well-versed in the lay of Ordshaw,” Holly said,
to silence from her husband. Her malice hung in the air worse than the smell from Rimes’ broken jar.

  Studying the points on the map, Pax pictured the locations. A bridge, a reservoir. The large bricks of the gallery wall. They were all strangely familiar. It gave her the same uneasy feeling she’d got seeing that dark-skinned man’s face in the news article; a dreamlike memory, or understanding, of something she’d never seen. Dreams worked that way, didn’t they? Maybe Barton had mentioned these places to her before?

  It didn’t mean anything, not if she didn’t want it to.

  Pax stood back and her own smell wafted up at her. She flapped her t-shirt to clear it. Shifting boxes hadn’t made her any cleaner. She ran a hand over her face and turned to the bedroom. She asked Rimes, “You got any spare clothes?”

  “Oh yes,” Rimes nodded happily. Then paused. “Not really for women, though.”

  Pax gave her a dumbfounded look, but Barton explained from the bed, “The spare stuff was meant for us, in case we needed to regroup here. Apothel, Rik, me.”

  “And did you?” Holly asked bitterly, joining Pax in the door. “Regroup here?”

  “Not often,” Barton said, quieter. “Grace, honey, check those boxes over there. Rik was slim, some of his stuff might fit you. Must be some shoes or something?”

  “Perhaps,” Rimes said, focused on trying to spool the movie reel.

  “You didn’t have digital back then?” Pax said. “Or video, at least?”

  “Not as effective,” Rimes explained. “The atmosphere played havoc with Rik’s equipment, so the more basic the better.”

  “Rik, Rik,” Holly said. “Who, pray tell, is Rik?”

  “You don’t know?” Rimes gave her a surprised look. “Rik Greivous?”

  “The filmmaker?” Holly exclaimed. “Excuse me, no. My husband was friends with Rik Greivous? I’m sure he would’ve told me that.” She glared at Barton, and for someone so big he managed a great feat of shrinking into the bed. “Ludicrous. You’re telling me this boys’ adventuring club included one of the great film auteurs of our time?”

  “I’m sorry,” Barton said.

  “Who’s Rik Greivous?” Grace asked.

  Pax wasn’t sure who Greivous was either, but recalled what Barton had told her before: “He disappeared?”

  “Mysteriously!” Holly said. “He was a genius loner, famously avoided social contact, but my husband somehow got to be friends with him? Possibly the most interesting detail of your life and you kept it from me?”

  Her voice was rising, so Pax tried to intervene: “I’d say the more interesting detail was getting drugged up to fight monsters.”

  “He kept that from me, too!”

  “What choice did I have!” Barton answered loudly. It was only getting worse. “It wasn’t a damned public meeting group, we needed to keep our work quiet!”

  “Oh, your work now, is it. Your secret career!”

  “Besides,” Barton growled, with the sense that this next barb was going to be particularly fierce, “you met him.”

  Holly froze and Pax cringed. This same scene had been played out a thousand times in her youth. Sarcastic sniping leading to defensive shouts, to screams and the eventual slamming of doors. An occasional smashed plate. People who spent too much time together to know that was the problem.

  Holly stared daggers at Barton until he explained.

  “Grace’s third birthday. You shook hands. He left a gift. You spent most of the day bitching with Fiona Antwerp that I hadn’t trimmed the hedge.”

  She put a hand to her mouth. “That shady young man?”

  “And I would’ve brought him round again, but he disappeared,” Barton said, his voice wavering with upset. “He had his own projects, he left us for them. Then he was gone altogether. We were left guessing like everyone else.”

  Holly’s mouth was open like she realised her husband wasn’t too happy, either.

  Rimes brightly ignored the tension to say, “His house burnt down, you know?”

  “You think it was something to do with the Sunken City?” Pax asked.

  “Oh no,” Rimes said. “Rik had urges I don’t think most people could understand. Artistic ones, I mean. He gave up on us before he went missing.”

  “Months before,” Barton said. “Said he couldn’t do it any more, there was something else up. The general theory is suicide, isn’t it?”

  “But they never found...” Holly started, clearly aware of this legend of Rik Greivous, but hesitating as she acknowledged it was personal, now.

  The Sunken City had left Pax with her uneasy feeling; perhaps Rik hadn’t been able to live with the memory of its horrors. She said, “Did he touch anything down there?”

  “No,” Barton said. “He observed. Recorded things, rather than get his hands dirty.”

  “What if the Ministry –”

  “It was nothing to do with the Sunken City,” Barton growled, the memory clearly a painful one. Wondering if it was worth coming back to later, Pax let it drop rather than risk angering him. He was sure, for whatever reason, that Rik had followed a different path.

  “The videos were really starting to come along,” Rimes said, and flipped a switch. The projector whirred, a flickering bulb lit up the wall and the image stuttered into grainy life. “Rik was trying to combine the cameras with glo when he left...”

  She trailed off as the image focused. The camera barely picked out the shapes from the shadows. Pax and Holly shifted closer together and Grace scooted up next to Barton as the outline of a tunnel became apparent, highlighted by a couple of dancing torches.

  “There’s no audio,” Rimes whispered, as the whir of the machine and the tick of the spinning reel had already made clear. “We attempted that separately.”

  There were two people in the image, big silhouettes in front of the bobbing lights. The image jumped unsteadily, picking out a wall, then the shape of the tunnel again, the two men moving ahead. One of them dropped back and turned towards the camera, his torch lighting his face. His rounded but sturdy physique was unmistakable. Younger Darren Barton smiled awkwardly, for the camera, then continued down the tunnel.

  The man in front waved a hand above his head. The cameraman bobbed, hurrying to catch up. The image steadied again with three shapes ahead. Barton and the leader, surely Apothel, panning across a wider space. Beyond them was a third figure, a man bigger than them.

  No, not a man.

  It was humanoid, but there was something wrong with it. A bump, something extra. As the camera got closer and the focus shifted, Barton and Apothel moved to flank it, spreading their arms. The third figure moved and the bump stretched over its shoulder. An extra limb, rising like a scorpion’s tail.

  “What on earth,” Holly uttered.

  “A glogockle?” Pax recalled the pictures from Apothel’s Miscellany.

  It suddenly lumbered towards Apothel. As all three figures moved rapidly, the image became a mess of blurred shapes.

  The camera spun suddenly, and everyone but Barton jumped at the hint of a tooth or claw flashing across. The image spiralled, then stopped, facing a wall lit by the camera’s torch. A shadow danced across the wall then was gone. A moment later, it went black.

  The doctor gave a light laugh. “They used to enjoy watching that one.”

  “What on earth,” Holly said again.

  “What was that?” Grace asked, fascinated.

  “Glogockle,” Barton confirmed. “And that’s as good as the footage got.”

  Pax shook her head. What were these fools doing? Videoing fights with demons and chuckling over them while swigging beers? “Anything recording the Blue Angel’s messages? Or at least the locations?”

  “Nothing useful,” Barton said. “But you might like the chapel. You got that one?”

  Rimes nodded, already feeding another reel into the projector.

  The image flickered into life again, opening on a wall that appeared to have been clawed by some ferocious animal. As the focu
s adjusted, the scratch marks became identifiable as writing and crude images, like the cryptic symbols from Apothel’s book. A childish depiction of a minotaur and a savagely scratched lightning bolt. Other nonsensical shapes. The camera dwelt on them briefly before turning away, to Young Barton, sat on a barrel. He gave another sheepish smile, then chugged on a can of beer.

  “Called it,” Pax muttered to herself.

  Behind Barton, the room stretched far back into deep corners. A circle of light obscured part of the image, a lantern on a distant table. Apothel moved by the other wall, something in his hands. He turned towards the camera and the lantern lit him from one side. He fit the descriptions Pax had heard well enough. Big, bearded, and friendly, even in this poor resolution. He waved, but the camera spun back to Barton.

  Barton’s mouth moved, responding to something Greivous was saying. From Barton’s tight shoulders, the cameraman was teasing him.

  “His idea of fun,” Barton mumbled. “Bothered me more than Apothel.”

  “I can’t even,” Holly said, and Pax saw the concern in her face, watching her husband in this unfamiliar terrain. “This whole other life...”

  “Where was this?” Pax asked.

  “The Ripton Chapel,” Barton said. “It was like a meeting hall. Apothel had a few places like that across Ordshaw. Squats. That was one of his favourites; he laid out a lot of ideas on those walls. Can’t make them out here, can you?”

  Pax squinted at it, as if that would help. “Is it still there?”

  “I haven’t been back in nine years. The only place I revisited was the loft in Hanton, where...” His eyes rested on Grace for a moment, as he thought better of saying it. Where Apothel was killed. “I checked other places, looking for Rufaizu, but half of them had been boarded up by the Ministry within a week. The chapel included.”