Blood & Magic Page 3

“Alice, my lovely!” Ruth said, as they entered the entrance hall.

  Her arms open, Ruth ran to a woman on their left and squeezed her skinny frame as tight as she could. Alice Harvey-Smith was one of the first Inquisitors Ruth trained and, due to her uncontrollable mouth, Meyer knew more about Alice than he cared to. The two exchanged a further hug as Alice bent down to accommodate Ruth's height. She was tall and slender, the epitome of a modern businesswoman, her black hair cut perfectly straight as if in an homage to Cleopatra. Alice appeared innocent enough, but Meyer knew otherwise. She was one of the most successful female criminal barristers in the country, having studied at Cambridge on a scholarship before joining a prestigious chambers in London, and was, possibly, the most feared Inquisitor in recent history. Meyer always thought of Alice as a panther, beautiful to behold, but dangerous to her core.

  The sound of footsteps coming to a stop behind him, made Meyer turn. Helena Stevens stood in front of him, looking as haggard and prickly as ever. She was the head of the damn government initiative to oversee their world and as such, always carried an air of superiority that challenged even Wade's. The government helped keep the existence of the alternate population a secret, covering up the media debacles the Inquisitors would sometimes cause. The issue was, their role extended far beyond its original purpose. Helena took over as head of the Department of Alternate Studies six months ago, a department with a government budget ten times of what was officially declared in the treasury accounts. What went on there remained a mystery, but its goal was a mixture of keeping secrets secret and something they liked to brand as ‘utilising alternate methods in the war against terror’. Her predecessor had been woefully ill-equipped to cope with their kind, which had cost him dearly. All credit to Helena, she had not entered this unprepared. She was a bulldog if ever there was one and Meyer thought, chosen as a fair match for Wade. She had even mastered mental blocking, which said something about her resolve and determination. Meyer often watched Wade trying to read her and took enormous amounts of pleasure when he failed, pearls of sweat glistening on his head as frustration overtook his wrinkled face.

  “My dearest Helena,” Meyer said, as genuinely as possible for the time of night.

  “What are you doing here? You aren't part of the council.”

  “And it is lovely to see you again too.”

  “Wade is late.”

  “Wade is always late.”

  “We don't all have time to waste,” Helena said, glancing around the room.

  “I'm sure we don't.”

  “Your services are required tomorrow, the usual car will be sent. We have a selective mute for you to interview,” Helena said.

  A selective mute meant a suspect or interviewee held by the department that they could not break using human methods of interrogation. That was where Meyer's particular skill set came in handy.

  Helena turned and walked away, not waiting for any form of a reply. As she left, Meyer noticed the young man who had been standing beside her, following in her shadow like a dog with its master. He didn't recognise his face, but he appeared the government sort. A well tailored suit made from a dark material, perfectly groomed from his side swept hair to his finely trimmed beard and built like someone who incorporates the gym, of all things, into their daily routine. Meyer wondered how much training he had been given by Helena. He was guessing not a lot, which meant that perhaps tonight wouldn't be so dull after all.

  Ruth joined Meyer again with Alice in tow and the three engaged in further polite conversation, Ruth speaking enough for all of them. Meyer let the conversation drift over his head, his attention was better spent watching Helena, or more accurately, watching the reactions of those she approached. To say they became tense would have been an understatement, hopping from foot to foot as they fidgeted nervously, their bodies turned slightly away as to make best of any opportunity for escape.

  The door to the council chamber opened and everyone was ushered inside, that was, apart from Meyer and Ruth. Before Helena reached the door, Meyer called out to Helena's assistant, “Boy?”

  The man turned, the two making eye contact for a brief second.

  “Et cogitationibus tuis,” Meyer said under his breath, before coughing to conceal his words. “Good luck boy.”

  The man took a double take, confused by the interruption. He turned to ask Helena, but she was gone, having already made her way into the chamber without him. He ran into the room to catch up with her, oblivious to what had happened.

  If one could see magic, and there are those in the alternate community that can, then this spell would have been anything but concealed. Lucky for Meyer, there were no Binders here to catch him. To them, after the glow of purple in Meyer’s eyes, they would see the spell ignite as a wisp of fire and smoke, twisting across the room as it homed in on its target. To Helena’s assistant, the whole spell appeared invisible, bar the goosebumps it produced down his neck.

  “Excellent,” Meyer thought.

  This man, Charles, for he now knew his name, would be useful. Wade might not have wanted Meyer to be in the meeting, but just because he couldn't enter the room himself, it didn't mean he wouldn't be able to find out what was going on. What he was doing was, of course, against magus rule. In fact, if he were found out, it would probably result in his death. Meyer pondered the fact for only a second before deciding that he was old enough not to care anymore. Life was short and making it a fraction shorter at his age made very little difference.

  “Why on the earth have they brought us in, when they are gonna have one of their secret little meetings. Made to stand out here like lemons we are. A right couple of melons-no wait, did I say lemons before?” Ruth said.

  “Oh do shut up woman.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “If you want to come and take a seat with me, I can tell you what is happening inside.”

  Ruth battled with herself for a moment, no doubt struggling to resist the urge to issue some retribution for Meyer's rudeness. The two settled into a pair of armchairs at the corner of the room, hidden in the shadows between the skylights.

  “That reminds me,” she said. “Aniseed twist?”

  She held out a crumpled bag of red sweets to Meyer, the smell of aniseed immediately filling the air with an unmistakably pungent smell. It would be rude not to take one and besides, Meyer rarely declined an offer of food. Unwrapping the boiled sweet, he made himself comfortable in the chair and calmed his mind, ready to enter Charles' consciousness.

  Meyer passed through some minor resistance, Charles had had some training, but it was at the early stages, so he would never know what was happening. Charles was nervous, that was the first thing Meyer noticed. The fact he preferred to be called Charlie was the second. His favourite food was lasagne which, as he was a little hungry, he was thinking of now, and lastly, an emotion Meyer knew all too well. Love. Charlie loved his fiancé in ways even his mind could not make sense of. However, fear loomed over his relationship; his government job meant they were growing more and more distant. A tough situation and something Charlie was at a loss how to fix, that part of his life flickering across his consciousness like a cold breeze, constantly nagging at him. Charlie hated Helena, which made Meyer smile to himself, although he knew that not to be an exclusive club.

  “What's going on?” Ruth said.

  “Dear, please be patient,” Meyer replied.

  “Don't you be calling me dear.”

  Infiltrating someone’s mind like this is a basic part of all mentalist training, it was the subtitles of the art where the skill lay. The human mind has to somehow comprehend the millions of bits of information it is constantly bombarded with, and if you add magic to the complexity of the neural network, well, the whole idea of 'consciousness' takes an interesting turn.

  Stepping through a door, Meyer found himself on a balcony overlooking the Thames. Leant against the railing was Charlie, completely focused on the view. Meyer moved quietly behind him, trying not to aler
t him to his presence. Standing next to the manifestation of Charlie's conscious thought, the pair watched a live stream of what Charlie was experiencing that stretched out across the sky.

  The council chamber housed a toroid table around 5 meters in diameter that comfortably sat thirty people. It was dark, apart from the light falling from the domed skylight above that lit the empty centre of the room and reached as far as the bodies of those around the table, their faces left in shadow. Charlie took a deep breath. He was trying to contain his nervousness, not wanting Helena to see him scared.

  “I have called this meeting to address an issue we can no longer avoid,” a voice called out, slow and measured, each word carefully considered.

  Wade was a gaunt man in his late sixties, with a bald head and eagle like nose. His grey eyes sunk deeply into his head forming large shadows under his brow.

  “Now is the time of change.”

  Mutterings rippled around the room as Charlie, to Meyer's annoyance, focused on Helena's reaction rather than looking at Wade. Time had not been kind to her face, her skin clinging tiredly to her cheek bones that had, perhaps, made her attractive at one time. Helena’s lip raised into a slight confident smile at the news, as if she knew everything that was about to be said.

  “The Inquisition is in great peril. We find ourselves with the fewest number of Inquisitors of the past one-hundred years, relying more and more on them at a time when the threats are numerous.”

  “What is going on?” Ruth said. She had sat patiently, or at least her version of patient, for the past 5 minutes, all the time rustling the bag of sweets so viciously that Meyer wondered what would be left inside.

  “Wade is getting into bed with Helena,” Meyer said.

  “He's doing what?” Ruth said. “Are you sure you are-”

  “No, of course not! Just give me a minute.”

  Meyer felt his arm go dead. He always forgot how bloody strong Ruth was, although he probably deserved that.

  Wade continued on, “The alternate community is split, with Deliverance radicalising more and more members by the day. There is an expanding anti-government movement amongst our population and, due to a large proportion of our time now spent addressing issues of national security, we-”

  There was a laugh around the room at those words, everyone knew what that meant. Inquisitors had been increasingly given government tasks as a “priority” in the last few years, that did not require the skills of an Inquisitor. But as the Department of Alternate studies gave the Inquisition its resources and political protection, they did whatever it took to keep Helena happy.

  “We can no longer fight this on our own. The Department of Alternate Studies has offered to directly aid us in our mission and, as of today, they will be setting up human task forces to assist in keeping the peace. They will have full jurisdiction over the alternate kind, including the right to detain and interrogate individuals suspected of breaking either human or alternate laws.”

  Meyer noticed out of the corner of Charlie's eye, that Alice had stood and was leaving the council chamber out of a side door. Where was she be going that excused her from a council meeting?

  The room fell quiet, only the faint sound of Alice's footsteps breaking the silence. Around the table, representatives of both the Inquisitors and Inquisition, a distinction that desperately needed a better naming convention, began to mutter amongst themselves. What this meant was clear, full impending government control, no longer would the Inquisition police their world or act as a barrier against human policy on alternate matters.

  “We will also give the department access to all of our records so we can harmonise our efforts to protect the Alternate community in the United Kingdom.”

  A step too far. Fists banged against the table as shouts filled the room.

  “Share the records?” A voice bellowed to Charlie’s right. It was Oberon, Doyen of Vis. He stood from the table, his dark robes billowing around him as his chair toppled to the ground. “This is unacceptable.”

  “Madness, this was never proposed to us for consideration,” a woman said across from Charlie, her words eerily echoing around the room. It was Ione, Doyen of Viva, her eyes narrowing as her fingers clenched at the table.

  Others stirred from their seats and before long, no voice stood out over the commotion. Immune to the shouting, Wade slowly stood as a smug smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

  “As Master of the Inquisition, I have made my decision in line with the charter of Magus Lore. This cannot be undone and you will hold your tongue Oberon. Do not think you cannot be removed from this chamber as I have had others before you. Your allegiance is to the council and to my decision, which is made. This is the best option, for all of us,” Wade said.

  Meyer left Charlie's mind, slumping into his chair. Hand over their control? How had that ever been agreed? And the records? Their secrets were the only thing that gave them any leverage with the likes of Helena. If Wade gave everything away, there would be no bargaining chips left. As much as Meyer hated him, Wade wasn't stupid, there must be a bigger play at hand, but what that was... The other big question was why had Wade brought Ruth and him here in the first place? Meyer had assumed it was for another job, but if it was in connection with this, then nothing good would come of it.

  “We are in deep trouble, aren't we?” Ruth said.

  “That, my dear, might be quite the understatement.”

  - Chapter 6 -

  Revelations

  The car braked suddenly, sending Henry crashing from the back seat into the foot well. He lay awkwardly, a prisoner in his own body, completely unable to move as an acidic warmth spread through his skin. Static crackled through the radio, drowning the car in constant noise.

  Borrowed dreams swept through Henry’s mind, knocking aside his concentration as they flew. What did this guy want with him? He didn't have a lot of money and certainly couldn't be considered important. He didn't even have any knowledge that made him valuable, unless you considered his perfect recollection of every episode of the television series The Big Bang Theory. Henry’s thoughts flipped back to the creature reflected in the mirror, a world away from his current predicament, although it still played on his mind. Too much stress, that must be it. Life isn't easy when every social interaction is like preparing for a bungee jump. The conclusion had to be that he had broken, that life had finally become too much to handle. Maybe all of this was just a fantasy of his mind's creation and he was on his way to some psychiatric hospital. Was that a comforting thought? Do crazy people know they are crazy? It probably wasn't politically correct to call crazy people crazy, someone had probably coined another term for it: mentally perturbed perhaps? Henry wondered if crazy people considered that as well.

  “Two is down,” said a voice piercing through the static.

  “Damn,” said the driver of the car, his accent stereotypically London, which gave the whole situation a feel of a cab journey from a nightmare. Henry really needed to step down his imagination, it certainly didn’t help calm him.

  “Four is down,” the voice from the speakers said again.

  “Christ, where we supposed to go now?”

  “Under?”

  “Rosy, you joking? We won't last five minutes.”

  “Under,” repeated the voice across the radio, but this time not as a question.

  An endless chain of profanities and expletives filled the car, which told Henry wherever 'Under' meant, it wasn't good. At some point, he lost consciousness again, dreams tearing at his sanity as he lay defenceless against them.

  A cold breeze against Henry’s neck was the first sign he had that they’d stopped, followed by the hand clasping the scruff of his shirt as he was pulled from the car. He fell maladroitly onto the pavement, his head impossibly heavy while his mind remained in his semi-unconscious trance. Henry forced himself up, but reached only the shoes of the man in front of him before his body gave way again. He lay powerless at the heels of the man he assumed to be
the driver and his kidnapper. With another sting to the neck, a needle pierced into his veins, releasing a slurry of ice that chased the fire from his blood. After a few moments, the fog lifted, allowing Henry’s senses to return, which wasn't all good news, given the strong smell of rotting garbage. Gripping Henry by both shoulders, the driver lifted him to his feet and firmly shook him until his eyelids relinquished and finally opened.

  “Henry,” he said.

  Henry did not reply. His eyes were still glazed over, the figure in front of him no more than a blur, only his rough shape determinable. The man repeated his name as Henry felt a hand leave one of his shoulders, before it made contact with the side of his face, hard. Slapped into the present, the featureless figure before Henry took shape. The driver was a pale man with slicked back brown hair, a shark like grin and piercing blue eyes that stared directly at him, unblinking.

  “What do you want?” Henry said.

  “What do I want? A million quid and a ticket to the Bahamas. I'm here to help you. Trust me, you are in a shed load of trouble and we need to keep moving,” the man said.

  Henry's head pounded like an engine ready to explode. On the upside, his thoughts had finally been freed of the endless hallucinations and were again, his own.

  “Who the hell are you?” Henry said.

  “My name is Gabriel, but believe me when I say I didn't choose it. We are not safe on the street, you need to come with me.”

  “Come with you? Why the hell would I do that?”

  There was a click and Henry looked down to find a gun pointed at him, a revolver of some kind. It was the first one he had seen in real life and, although it appeared remarkably similar to those he had seen in the movies, it was a damn sight scarier in person.

  “Because I am asking nicely,” Gabriel said.

  Henry always appreciated the subtle signs in life, especially one as understated as gun pointed to your chest. As things stood, he had two options. He could cause a fuss and try to escape, no doubt getting killed in the process or, alternatively, he could follow this guy and perhaps get some answers as to what on earth was going on. That was, before probably being murdered, which did mean death of course, but a little bit later than option one. There was option three of course, where this was all a delusional fantasy, but then whatever he did wouldn't matter, as his mind would make it up as it went along. Henry gave a half nod, which received a self gratifying grin from Gabriel as he ran his hand along the side of his head to smooth his hair.