“I’m so glad,” Holly said, “that you’re here to witness this. I’m sure if it was me, on my own, suggesting they were bloody fools, I would be the unreasonable one.”
“Holly,” Barton said, bristling. “I didn’t want to return to all this. It’s what I always tried to protect you from.” He reached out to Grace again, this time squeezing her dainty hand. “But you can be damned sure I’ll kill those monsters once and for all, for all of us.”
“How?” Pax said. She had never learnt what he had been through to get in his current state, but she was fairly sure, from their own experiences, that it hadn’t been especially helpful. “What’ll you do next time, jump in front of a bus?”
Barton glowered at her. “You brought those bloody Fae to my home, I could’ve –”
“You could’ve what?” Holly cut in. “Last I checked Pax brought our daughter to our home. Those psychotic fairies already had her! No thanks to you!”
“I was doing –”
“Stop! Stop it!” Grace jumped to her feet, wincing as she did. Her voice was high and desperate. “Stop fighting! We’re alive, aren’t we? I thought you were going to die, Dad! I thought we were all going to die!” She moved closer to Pax in solidarity, squeezing uncomfortably close. “You need to listen to her. Pax knows what she’s doing. She’s smart and she’s quick and she’s tough and she sees things better than the rest of you!”
The expectant gazes of Holly and Barton rested on Pax. Even Rimes’ googly eyes had grown larger with anticipation. Pax wanted to be somewhere else. Grace smiled encouragingly, and Pax quietly told her, “You’re going to break so many hearts when you’re older.”
“Pax,” Barton said, letting out a big breath. “I am grateful for what you’ve done.” But his stare was heavy again. “What did you see? Are you really okay?”
Pax hesitated. It was an invitation to explain the dream. Her burning heart and the electric soldiers and the foreboding feeling she’d had. And then what? Make this family pity her and argue about whose fault it was she’d been electrocuted? No, describing the dream wasn’t going to help. They had bigger concerns. She said, “I saw those blue screens, connected to your minotaur, when I was down there. What Apothel called the Blue Angel – whoever or whatever used those screens to send you messages – it’s the root of all this. How much do you know about it?”
Barton was frowning even harder. “I told you everything, more or less. We shared messages, scratched into the walls on those blue screens. Messages were scratched in return. The screens came out of nowhere and disappeared again. Apothel named the contact the Blue Angel because of this divine bloody intervention. But the Angel sometimes pointed us to glo, sometimes to nothing, wasting our time. Likewise, when we relayed the minotaur’s location, he did something to slow it down. Sometimes he did nothing.”
“He? You had some idea who this was?”
“No,” Barton said. “He, it, they, whatever.”
“Let’s assume nothing then, okay? This Angel, it didn’t give you anything else?”
“Some information. A lot of what we know came from the Blue Angel’s messages.”
“The turnbold’s weakness for zinc,” Rimes offered. “For example. I extrapolated advice about concentrated oyster brine from an Angel message.”
Holly stirred at the idea. “Is that so? That wretched blue square sent us on a wild goose chase! And one underground wiped away my marks on the wall! Your Angel wanted us trapped down there.”
“He – it – wasn’t consistent,” Barton said, “but it helped us stay alive.”
“Because it needed you,” Pax said. “Not for what you thought. It connected to that minotaur somehow, through those blue screens.”
“You’re sure that’s what you saw?” Barton replied warily.
“No minotaur,” Pax said. “No drink-induced illusions. Just an electric monster surrounded by blue screens.” She held Barton’s questioning gaze to drive home her sincerity. “I’m telling you, the Blue Angel is the crux of all this. If we want to figure out the Ministry’s angle and get ahead of it all, we need to figure out the Blue Angel.”
“And how do you expect to do that?” Barton said.
“You tell me,” Pax said. “You must’ve done something to explain who was sending the messages? Where do we start?”
There was silence at the weight of the question. Barton looked like his cogs were turning at half-speed, while Rimes sought distraction around the cluttered room. Grace, bless her, had an expression of tense concentration, doing her best to think of a solution.
Barton spoke first. “Only me and Apothel ever saw the screens, not even the rest of our group. Whenever Rik or Mandy got near, they didn’t show. The Ministry don’t even believe they exist.” He looked at the doctor. “Assuming that’s still true?”
Rimes nodded, replying in a quiet tone, “Yes.”
“You could point me to the blue screens, at least?” Pax asked.
“Yeah,” Barton said. “There’s about a half a dozen locations where they showed. All near Sunken City entrances.”
“We saw one under a bridge,” Holly volunteered.
Pax gave her a conciliatory smile, then flashed on the images from her dream. The bridge, the body of water, the fountain. Pointless coincidence, she told herself. The city was full of bridges. “The Angel didn’t give you a clue to where it was writing from? Something in the way it wrote?”
“The messages were simple,” Barton said. “Not even full sentences.”
“Could Apothel have known more that he didn’t tell you?” Pax turned to Rimes. “He double-crossed the Fae; was he talking with his Blue Angel when that happened?”
“I don’t know,” Rimes said. “We lost touch.”
“We all lost touch,” Barton clarified. “If he’d told me, I could’ve helped.”
“But Rufaizu...” Rimes said, but stalled.
“He said something?” Pax pressed, hopefully. The doctor shrank with nerves.
“He said he had help. He came back to kill the minotaur, he was excited, and he said he had new help. Someone who would fight with him. That and – and he thought he had a solution. That was all he said.”
The solution Pax already knew about; Rufaizu’s return, drawing her into all this, spiralled around the discovery of the Dispenser, the Fae weapon that could injure the minotaur. The new help, she suspected, was a reference to Letty.
Holly, apparently, made the connection, too: “It was the fairies, isn’t that right, Diz? The Layer Fae. You told me all about them, without telling me a damned thing. Fairies. They killed your friend Apothel and they” – she spun a hand in the air – “dragged us into all this!”
Barton didn’t answer. Rimes replied mournfully, “If that’s true then no wonder Rufaizu got caught. The Fae can’t ever be trusted.”
Pax said, “What makes you say that?”
“The Blue Angel, of course,” Barton said. “But you’ve had first-hand experience of the Fae, haven’t you? Where is she?”
Pax felt Rimes’ curious eyes on her, and gave Barton a warning look. “She’s exploring our options elsewhere. Can we stay focused? The blue screens.”
“I can give you their locations,” Barton said, “but I wouldn’t bank on them showing, especially not if you think you’ve rumbled the Blue Angel. You might as well watch our videos and get the same experience of not seeing them.”
“Videos of what?” Pax said. “The Sunken City?”
“Yeah.” Barton gestured to some of the stacked boxes. “They’re in here somewhere, shot by a real pro. Experience the Sunken City without ever having to go down there.”
Pax scanned the clutter around them. Footage of their experiences, she realised, was preferable to actually encountering that dangerous world. “Show me.”
6
Most Mondays, Sam Ward came to work feeling reinvigorated. She was rested, freshly reminded of the banality of home life, and ready to make a difference. Some people hated coming
to the Ministry of Environmental Energy’s offices at 14 Greek Street, with its jutting buttresses and narrow slits of windows. Sam saw it as a place of opportunity and brought a new Big Idea every Monday. By Wednesday or Thursday, it would hit a wall of some sort and she’d start to slump. By Friday she’d have another new Big Idea, which she’d refine over the short break, ready for Monday.
She’d engaged in this cycle for three years, since the Ministry’s governing board, the Raleigh Commission, had accepted her proposals to establish an InterSpecies Relations initiative, to (quote) create understanding of and foster dialogue between those creatures that demonstrate communicative capabilities. She’d been taken off the streets and given her own office and two members of staff. Then she had been more or less cut off from the rest of the Ministry, and she slowly realised the appointment was designed to keep her from creating ripples.
Before she’d started, it was clear the Raleigh Commission had already had contact with the Fae Transitional City. The Ministry had made peace with Valoria, the Fae leader, and her council a decade ago, though it hadn’t led to open communication. The MEE knew roughly where the FTC was located and mostly left its inhabitants alone. Some field agents still believed the Fae were a threat, and there was a plan – Protocol 21 – to eliminate them, but it wasn’t something they discussed seriously. The Fae hadn’t interfered with any MEE business in years. Given their reputation for disruption, that proved the existence of a mutual understanding between the two governments.
Sam imagined herself codifying that understanding, laying out regulations and proposing diplomatic missions, encouraging new levels of co-operation. The technology swaps and cultural exchanges could hugely improve efficiency and decrease MEE patrols, to say nothing of the wider effects these learnings could have.
Except it turned out neither Management nor the Fae wanted this. As countless phone calls and emails went unanswered, and meetings were postponed or cancelled, Sam learnt the Ministry weren’t interested in change. She discovered the same situation in the Ministry’s Support and Operations departments: Doctors Hertz and Galler, respectively, conducted research into Sunken City biology and technology that was kept entirely in-house, despite having potentially world-changing implications.
The point of the MEE, Sam realised, was to maintain equilibrium. It was more true in Ordshaw than anywhere else, because the unusual elements under Ordshaw had extra potential to generate change. As far as she was aware, no other UK city had a subterranean labyrinth of monsters. But then, no one much spoke to her, so they might.
This belief made her ineffective position especially uncomfortable. Sam had resigned from her previous job at Lyndale Finance specifically to get away from the repetitive chores of completing spreadsheets, filing reports and silently enduring circular meetings. Such mundane work made her entertain the idea of joining the MEE. Managing the Sunken City demanded innovation, and she enjoyed being innovative.
Having been left with a dead duck in the IS department, Sam tried to find ways to extend her jurisdiction. She proposed language analyses, worldwide surveys and behavioural studies to better understand animal behaviour in the Sunken City, amongst a few hundred other ideas. The answer was usually the same: the MEE didn’t have specialist analysts or field agents to spare, as (in spite of their vast resources) they rarely hired new staff, due to trust issues.
Still, she tried. Four years at Lyndale Finance had taught her that this was simply the way the world operated; you had to make small changes where you could. At least in the MEE she had a title, and her own office, and a good wage. She didn’t want to rock that boat. It would just be nice to feel like her work mattered.
So, each week started with a new Big Idea. Last week, she had focused on the return of the vagrant boy Rufaizu, who was rumoured to be in town, even if no one could place him. He was of interest because his father, Apothel, had explored the Sunken City before his death nine years ago. She had canvassed the various locations Apothel had once frequented and suggested a handful of pubs and bars worth monitoring. Management accepted her suggestions with no enthusiasm, and explained that the search for Rufaizu had nothing to do with her. She sent a disagreeable email explaining that if Rufaizu had direct contact with the myriad creatures, it was of interest to IS. That email had gone unanswered.
By Friday, she had devised an idea for a funding application for improved phone lines in the office, assuming all communications came under her Relations title. This Monday, feeling fresh from her pre-breakfast run, she was going to nail it.
But she found a markedly unusual atmosphere when she came into the office.
Most Mondays, the bullpen on the sixth floor of 14 Greek Street, consisting of five rows of computers, typically staffed by no more than four people, was a slow-moving hub of chatter about the weekend’s television. Sam was usually one of the first in, giving her time to share pleasantries with the secretary, Tori, and to start mentally preparing her new ideas. This Monday, the analysts’ eyes were glued to screens and Tori was frantically fielding phone calls. People were busy and focused and it felt like Sam was late.
A rushed field agent told Sam that Rufaizu had surfaced on Friday. Surfaced, been captured by the MEE, shot by the Fae and finally hauled into their med bay on the fifth floor of Greek Street (a floor otherwise used for storage). The shocks stacked up from there, culminating in the dual disasters of a Ministry agent being killed in the Sunken City and a novisan energy surge, around 06.42 that morning, hitting a building with enough force to convince the residents it was an earthquake.
Sam had been a little slow to react herself. Her first (unvoiced) question was why on earth no one had told her about any of this. Admittedly, IS Relations had taken her away from questions of novisan, the largely unexplained energy source that the MEE struggled to measure across Ordshaw. But the questions novisan raised affected all of them. It was, after all, the driving force of the praelucente; it was the energy they used to keep track of its location, and to identify when it might have produced a positive surge. Her thought, as usual, was that something affecting the Sunken City in general had to involve IS Relations.
When she took it to her boss, Deputy Director Mathers brushed her off, saying she should wait for correspondence from the Fae Transitional City. Which would never come. Dr Galler, Support’s tech guru, said no, she could not look at the Fae weapon, not until he had done a detailed analysis. The Ministry were concerned that the morning’s surge might have been a reaction to the weapon being set off – possibly distressing the praelucente. But, just to doubly frustrate her, they couldn’t actually confirm it was a Fae weapon yet (let alone the rumoured weapon they called the Dispenser), so it shouldn’t concern IS. Dr Hertz, their biologist-slash-physician, meanwhile, said no, Rufaizu was in no fit state to talk. Her last hope had been to talk to the agents involved in the Sunday night events, but they had, incredibly, been sent home.
Mathers said he would get them back in, although he noted the agent who’d been closest to the action was Cano Casaria, and didn’t Sam have history with him? As if she needed reminding. She left it with him and studied Casaria’s reports about all that had happened.
That had occupied Sam until she noticed a couple of analysts laughing over an online video. Malcolm Joseph’s panicked charge into the street, claiming something spoke, gave Sam, and InterSpecies Relations, an excuse to actually do something. The interview itself, granted, wasn’t promising, but she was working on it.
On the way back from the discrete site of Maclolm Joseph’s questioning, Sam rehearsed in her head what she was going to say to Deputy Director Mathers. This was a major crisis and the exact words of what a civilian had heard were important. She needed to be allowed to expand her investigation, as they might be dealing with something new, or a sound emitted by the praelucente itself.
Sam stopped herself at Mathers’ door, nails digging into her palms.
She could organise a team to properly collate the weekend’s findings, to id
entify and keep track of this new sound. Then she would have the opportunity to explain the source of the morning’s tremor. They might, after all, be taking for granted that it was caused by this unusual weapon. She could do this faster and better than Operations or Support – she’d proved that often enough (in her own head, at least).
Sam knocked and waited for a response.
She knocked again.
“Yes, yes, come in already!” Mathers called out, as though she should’ve guessed.
He looked like he hadn’t slept, tie half undone and a few strands of greying hair loose across his brow. With him was a bulky field agent in a tattered suit. Landon. The agent’s over-large brown jacket was ripped and his shirt crumpled. His hair was thinning, and his skin textured with the gristle of age, making it unclear if his swollen nose and red eyes were injuries or the result of an unhealthy lifestyle.
“Agent Landon,” Sam greeted him. “Is Agent Casaria in yet?”
“Probably sleeping,” Landon said.
“I’d really like to talk to him.”
Landon didn’t seem interested, looking to Mathers to move things along.
“You can start with Landon,” Mathers said, reclining in his large leather chair. “I’m expecting a call from London, it’d do well to have Landon on hand for it.”
Sam was wary of her uncomfortable smile as she considered a tongue-twister involving Landon and London, to avoid getting annoyed at the promised phone call. In MEE parlance, London translated to the Raleigh Commission. Lord Tarrington, the Commission chairman and the titular director of the Ministry, liked to waste time brainstorming over the phone. He was one half of the Commission’s two permanent peers. The other, the elusive Lord Broderick Asquith, frustrated the office in a more novel way, by rejecting modern technology and insisting on sending faxes – faxes! – to issue ill-informed but highly disruptive orders. Alongside the two permanent peers, the Commission had a rolling membership of some five to seven other government bigwigs who cast long-distance votes on things they had no expertise in. One of Sam’s unsuccessful proposals had been to limit the Commission’s ability to directly interfere with the day-to-day running of the Ordshaw office.
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