“I can’t do that,” the man replied.
Jack got a very puzzled look on his face and glanced at me. “He’s telling the truth.” It was my turn to be puzzled…and a bit frightened. Jack Redderton was attuned. Somehow, his extradimensional ability allowed him to be a human lie detector. If someone spoke an untruth around him, he’d perceive that fabrication visually—as vomit, excrement, a flood of maggots. Let’s just say he didn’t spend much time around politicians.
“It’s not the only thing I’m telling the truth about. Stay away from Sloane—and don’t tell him any more about the—the—” The man seemed to be struggling to speak. “Damn it! Just stay away from him.”
I shook my head. The man was dangerous, but I wasn’t going to be bullied into acting without information, especially not when my backup had the drop on the hooded man. “No. I need you to explain why not.”
“I can’t!” the man yelled, his voice roaring out so loudly that my ears throbbed, and a woman of a certain age on the other side of the road pulled out her mobile phone and started dialing. If she was calling the police nonemergency number, then we only had…I don’t know, twenty minutes until they’d answer. Recent budget cuts had not been kind.
I took a deep breath and tried not to remember this guy ripping anyone apart. “If you can’t tell me what’s going on, then good day.” I turned my back to walk away, but a viselike hand clamped on to my shoulder, jerking me to a halt. Immediately, I reached for my connection to the Dreamscape. It looked like things were going to turn ugly. Shit.
“Hands off,” Jack said. The man let out a grunt, and the hand on my shoulder gave me a shove that felt like a truck had clipped me, propelling me through the air. I yelled in surprise, flailed a few times, and crashed into a shrubbery. I forced myself back to my feet—you never want to be on the ground in a fight—and gritted my teeth against the pain in my shoulder. I’d failed when I’d tried to use my emotions to fuel my attack against the Choker, so I reverted to something simpler—I dredged up a memory of fire, grabbed my connection to the Dreamscape, thought of the hooded man, and pushed with my will. A whump of displaced air and a rush of heat told me that I’d been successful.
I stumbled out of the bushes, and saw that the hooded figure was on the ground, rolling, his clothes burning bright orange. You’d expect him to be screaming, but all I heard was the crackle of flames and the rustle of fabric as he rolled. Probably holding his breath. Being burned hurts, but being burned on the inside hurts a lot more. I know.
I heard another sound—the honking of a car horn. I must have been a bit dazed because that finally got me to notice that although I was mostly fine, Jack wasn’t. My friend, the private investigator, was sitting in the road hunched over. Blood stained his shirt, his hands were shaking, and he was pale. A line of cars had stopped. I glanced back at the hooded figure. He seemed to be winning his battle against the flames, so if I wanted to make sure that he stayed down, I only had a few seconds to act. But Jack needed me. I owed him.
“Jack!” I yelled, and tottered over.
“I’m okay, Jules,” he replied, but his voice was still shaky. I looked him over again, and with my panic receding, I saw that the blood on his shirt was coming from a cut that was relatively small.
“Umm…buddy, what is it, then?”
“That…thing…could have killed me. ’E wanted to kill me. I’d intended to give ’im a bit of a prod with the old hook, put the frightners inna him,” Jack explained, his East End accent slipping out under stress. “But jus’ before ya lit him up, ’e spun around faster than I could see, an’ ’e drove me own hook inna me. His strength…” The big man looked up at me with dolorous eyes but shook his head and continued with a bit more focus: “I felt like a baby. When that hook cut into me, I could tell that he didn’t see me as a person. That he wanted me dead. I thought it was all over. But if I’d been standing there when he burst into flames, I’da been hurt a lot worse…that’s what’s wrong with me. Oh, and he was telling the truth again. He really couldn’t tell you why to stay away from Sloane.”
Jack had been investigating the paranormal as part of the Redderton Detective Agency since he was a child, and he had been exposed to all manner of supernatural unpleasantness, so I didn’t take his reaction lightly. When I glanced back, the hooded figure was gone; his torn and scorched sweatshirt lay on the ground in tatters, but he’d been able to get up, shake off being turned into a human torch, and vanish from sight in just a couple of seconds. I was beginning to suspect that I knew who, or what, he was, but I put that aside for now, helped Jack out of the road, and sat down on a low wall.
“What did Sloane want from you?” Jack asked after five minutes of deep breathing.
“He wants information about an object.”
“You gonna give it to him?”
I thought about the answer. Then I thought about whether or not I could trust Jack. I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “You’re working for Edward Sloane, aren’t you?” I asked, remembering Sloane’s questions in the cafe. “You were outside, watching and signaling Sloane about my answers. That’s how you were so close when Mr. Hoodie showed up just now.”
Jack looked up at me. His face was still pale, and I stared into his sunken eyes. He looked away first and ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Yeah, Jules. I am working for him. I followed you so that I could tell you. Let you know that I’m not going to be able to help you look for Olivia while I’m on this case. Redderton’s needs the money, and Sloane is loaded. He’s paid up for the summer, in advance, in full.”
“Just for your services as a lie detector?” I asked, curiosity overcoming my annoyance and disappointment.
“Not just for those. I can’t say any more,” the big man said, his head hanging down. I wasn’t going to get any help from Jack, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell him any more about the artifact just now. Still, he was a friend. “Let’s get you out of here,” I said, offering my hand.
“I can take this from here, Mr. Adler,” a voice said in military academy–crisp received English. I raised my head and took in the moleish, well-rounded, Coke bottle–lensed, and late-middle-aged form of Detective Chief Inspector James Badger.
Jack lumbered to his feet and smiled at the policeman, as did I, although I was beginning to feel a bit overly popular tonight.
“Hey, some guy just roughed us up. Are you not going to go after him?” I asked of Badger. Although he had helped me in the fight against two different monsters, James Badger had also arrested me on several occasions, and was a stickler for the law.
“My duty is to secure the safety of the public, Mr. Adler. In this instance, you two,” he said before adding, “Unless either one of you would happen to know anything about a man ‘dousing a bloke in petrol and lighting him up,’ as one member of the public happened to describe whatever just happened here when he called us a few minutes ago?” Jack and I shook our heads emphatically. “Good. I’ve got a car on the way for you, Jack. Just wait there, that’s a good chap. If you don’t mind, I’ll be back in a moment. I’m just going to walk Mr. Adler home. He seems to be having a deucedly hard time getting there safely tonight.”
The cost of using my powers was catching up to me, and I didn’t know how long I’d be able to stay awake, but while we walked, quickly, back to my house, the detective lending an elbow for me to lean on, I caught Badger up on recent activities, including the potentially prophetic dreams that I’d been having.
When I’d finished, Badger looked up at me, his mouth drawn into a line; he pointed a finger at my chest and addressed me. “I can say on behalf of the Arts and Antiquities unit that it is imperative that any extradimensionally attuned artifacts are delivered immediately into the care of the Metropolitan Police. So, should you happen to come into possession of, or learn the location of, such an item, then I’d be ready, willing, and able to dispatch a considerable contingent of constables to ensure its safe delivery,” Badger said, adding a
conspiratorial wink and twitch of his walrus-like mustache that I knew to be as close as I was going to get to a smile from the proper little man.
I almost sagged in relief. Or maybe that was reality taking its revenge. Anyway, reading between the lines, James was telling me that if I knew how to get my hands on the wax disk from my dream, then he’d be willing to back me. Having tried to go it alone before, I’d learned the value of working within existing power structures. It’s cool to be a rebel, but it’s productive to be a cog.
“I’ll keep that in mind, James, but if my dreams are true, there’s still the minor problem of an outbreak of vampires in less than a fortnight,” I said.
“Following what happened in Cairo, the British government is willing to seriously consider and allocate resources to extradimensional threats, but I’ll need a good deal more evidence before I can offer you any help on that count,” Badger said, pushing the doorbell.
I expected Dana to answer, but after fifteen seconds of waiting, worried, I dug my keys out of my pocket. Blinking hard to keep my eyes open, I entered, looking right and left, then peering into the darkness, trying to spot anyone lurking. Badger followed close behind, and I heard the sound of a gun being drawn from his holster. I crept through the living room and stepped through the opening to the hallway, the wooden floor creaking under me. I felt my head swim with exhaustion, and I knew I didn’t have long before I passed out, so I blundered quickly through the rest of the apartment, making far too much noise. Much to my surprise, there were no hidden attackers or mysterious visitors. Also—no wife.
“James, what do you think of all of this?” I asked, letting down my guard and hoping that the trained investigator might see an angle that I hadn’t.
“I think this has all the makings of a situation that could get a lot of people killed. I like you, Mr. Adler, but don’t think for a second that I won’t be looking for you if I hear that you’ve hurt an innocent member of the public.” Badger was quiet after that, and he made his way to the door. I thought he was going to leave, but he paused at the threshold and looked back at me. “I also think that this has all the makings of a moment of confluence. There are other plots moving, coming together. A smart man might be able to use that chaos to snatch what he wants from under the noses of the powerful. Good luck.”
After Badger left, I peeled off my jacket, swallowed a couple codeine pills, and collapsed onto the couch. Lights out.
Chapter 11
2200, Thursday, June 16, 2016–1600, Friday, June 17, 2016
I awoke. I checked my watch. Only out for four hours this time. Pretty good. I was still on the couch, and it was almost dark. In that indescribable way that you know that a house is empty, that you’re the only living, breathing soul there, I could tell that Dana still hadn’t come home, and I felt a pang of anxiety.
I sat up. My head was swirling with fatigue and the pain meds in my bloodstream were filling the space between my ears with cotton wool, but it had been a damned busy, frightening day, and there were a lot of things to consider. I’d started the day off with my wife in the hospital, and the lack of a clear ultrasound had done nothing to put my mind at ease, but there wasn’t anything I could do about that. I’d then had the great pleasure of Sloane showing up and killing my deal with Mia to help find Olivia, and Mia subsequently setting me on a quest to track down Henry VIII if I wanted a chance to win back her assistance. Trying to get home, I’d been accosted by Sloane, who’d offered me another deal. But before I could even recover from that, I’d been warned to stay away from him by a hooded figure, who I’d lit on fire. Of course, all of that had been a precursor to Badger showing up and offering his assistance. It’s nice to be popular, but this was simply ridiculous. Finally, when I’d staggered home injured, my wife was nowhere to be found—after a day when she’d gone out to research the artifact.
My mother’s note had been explicit in saying that I needed to find the artifact to keep Olivia safe, but merely hinting at the thing in the supernatural community seemed to have been like dropping a freshman congressman into a room full of lobbyists—everyone seemed to want a piece of the action. Unfortunately, I had no idea where the item was, what it could do, how I should use it, or why anyone else was interested. I could just spill what I knew to Sloane or Mia and hope that they’d open up, but the Sons had rarely provided me any help, and I had no reason to trust Edward Sloane and several reasons not to. Even worse, if he took the artifact for himself, I might never get Olivia back. Badger would take the thing, and I’m pretty sure that he’d intend to keep it out of the wrong hands, but I needed it, and I didn’t trust the rest of the Met Police to keep it safe. No, I’d have to wait for Dana to find something or for the information to come into my possession some other way. In any event, I had most of three days until Sloane needed an answer. A lot could happen in three days, especially if they were anything like today.
Passing out after using my powers wasn’t actually restful, so my eyes were pretty heavy, but I wanted to stay awake until Dana got home. To keep myself occupied, and to leverage the stimulant power of pants-shitting terror, I considered my potential vampire problem. My dreams all pointed to Sloane being instrumental to putting down the bloodsuckers, and the look on his face when I’d first mentioned vampires had told me that I’d had his attention, but he didn’t seem very interested in working with me on that problem. Since he knew my history, I guessed that he wasn’t dismissing my information, which left another option—he didn’t feel like he needed me for that. Would he have more time for that problem if he didn’t have to worry about recovering the magical doodad? But why did he want the artifact? That thought brought me back around to the question of where Dana was at.
There are some things that a man learns in half a decade of marriage, and one of them is to pick his battles. After our visit to the hospital, I certainly wasn’t going to make an issue of her being late tonight, but this wasn’t the first time she’d been late without warning in the last few months. I’d hoped, prayed, that she’d forgiven me for losing our daughter. She’d claimed that she had, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. Still, I loved Dana in a way that went beyond words, even if the rock-solid relationship we’d had before the supernatural intruded into my waking life was now more like Jell-O. Whatever Dana had been doing, I had to believe it was for the good of our family, and I was going to support her. I just hoped that she was safe and didn’t push herself too hard.
I grabbed a weighty tome that Mia had assigned and started reading. My eyes must have drifted shut at some point without my mind crossing over into sleep, because when the front door slammed, the clock on the cable box told me that forty-five minutes had disappeared. The banging noise flooded my system with adrenaline, and I lurched to my feet, cursing as my shoulder and side screamed in stiff agony, and holding the heavy iron crowbar that we’d secreted under the couch. Experience a few break-ins, and see how paranoid you get. Swaying, I faced the door…where Dana appeared a moment later, her expression grim.
“Nothing. All day looking through books, and I found nothing,” she said, plopping down onto the couch, kicking her shoes off, and rubbing her swollen ankles. “Did you make any progress?”
“Well…” I sat back down onto the couch and, while rubbing Dana’s feet, quickly gave her the lowdown on my eventful day.
Dana waited until I’d finished, but as soon as I said, “And then you walked through the door,” she squeezed my hand and said, “This changes everything.” I just stared at her, blinking. “Okay—so it should be obvious. You’ve seen the vampire—that’s obviously who Mr. Hoodie was—we know the wax disk is real, and you’re in contact with Sloane. We can be one hundred percent sure that your dreams are prophetic. That means that we are going to find the artifact! This is fantastic!”
I kept blinking. “Ummm…but this also means that vampires are going to kill a lot of people.”
“Oh yeah. That’s terrible. You get on that. I’ll work on exactly how we find that damned ob
ject…” Dana replied, closing her eyes. She was becoming lost in thought, and I needed to reel her back in.
“I was thinking—let’s go shopping,” I said. Dana’s eyes snapped open. I explained my plan, and it received her enthusiastic support. Dana helped me peel out of my shirt, and eventually I limped to our room and crashed into bed, leaving Dana on the couch fiddling with her laptop
◆◆◆
I awoke. After the events of the previous day I’d expected to have a remarkable trip to the Dreamscape. Instead, I had found myself in the nocturnal imaginings of a twenty-something man who was deathly afraid of bees. I’d dredged up the memory of a trip to a honey farm as a child, and a few minutes later I was consigning a nest of thumb-sized honeybees to some enforced rest. No vampires or prophetic dreams.
Even more surprising was that when I awoke, more refreshed than I had been in days, it was nearly nine, and Dana had already left the house. In the kitchen I found a note:
Julian,
I’m hitting the library again early. Meet me in Camden at ten. Try to think of what you want to do for Father’s Day on Sunday.
Xoxo D.
Trying to ignore the pang of loss that her last sentence drove into my chest, I was glad that she was so energized by her hopes of finding Olivia but worried that at thirty-seven weeks of pregnancy, she was pushing herself too hard. Nevertheless, I didn’t have to meet Vir and Paula in Windsor until after one, so I got dressed, checked that there was no one waiting to ambush me outside, and headed out.
◆◆◆
When Dana and I met at Camden Market, the sky was overcast, but the cloud cover made the day hot and muggy, and the narrow streets and alleys of the market magnified the effect as we wended our way to our destination, pushing through throngs of noisy tourists. Dana wiped sweat off her brow and handed me her bag to hold as she took her wallet over to a street vendor and paid for some freshly squeezed orange juice.
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