Bitter Moon

by R. L. Giddings

  They looked on respectfully. They were about to witness something which very few people had ever seen. It wasn’t long before their patience was rewarded.

  The huge carpet of fur started to shrink, diminishing before our eyes, shifting, coalescing. It became difficult to know just what we were looking at, like watching packed snow melting under direct sunlight: complex, unique, intricate. It slowly resolved itself into a simpler shape - a blurring together of elements - before it finally started to resolve itself into something more recognisable: more human. The whole thing was transforming in front of us. Anyone who needed evidence of the unique nature of what we were observing needed to look no further. It was truly unprecedented, the enormity of what we were seeing stunning us all into silence.

  And then the leopard was gone, as if it had winked out of existence, and before us was a mangled human corpse, the back of his head gone. I’d last seen him at The Tower of London. Although he’d been aware of the dangers of transforming with silver still in his system, he’d done it anyway, eager to get his revenge on Melissa Stahl.

  He looked so fragile lying naked on the cold marble floor, his body mangled by gunfire. He’d been raised in a village in Tibet only to die in a church in East London.

  “Terence,” I said.

  The men all looked at me, resentment in their faces.

  A pall of gunsmoke hung in the air, illuminated by the slants of light arcing through the windows. There were other people beyond the shattered doors, I couldn’t see them but they were out there awaiting the signal that all was well.

  One of the gunmen approached me.

  “Hello, Bronte.”

  It was Marcus. He slipped off his helmet, his normally blonde hair dark and matted with sweat.

  “Would you mind sitting down for a moment,” he said. “You’re looking a little pale.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said though I didn’t feel fine. “Besides, I need to do something first.”

  There was a Lost Property table over in the corner. I selected an over-coat from the pile and carried it back over to where Terence’s body was lying in a pool of blood. I knelt down and carefully draped the coat over him, taking great care not to actually touch his. I couldn’t face the thought of making a connection, of sharing his last moments. As it was I didn’t feel that I could trust my own senses. They had become somehow suspect.

  I hastily made the sign of the harp and uttered the words of the sovereign prayer. It did not feel right doing that in a Christian church but, as Ma Birch never tired of telling me: Christian churches were routinely built on pagan sites so I wasn’t being sacrilegious. I didn’t know whether Terence had had any religious beliefs of his own. Living in Tibet he’d doubtless have been raised as a Buddhist.

  Marcus stepped forward, still gripping his rifle.

  “How did you know he was here?” I asked.

  “We’ve been monitoring the area. We knew he’d gone to ground. Once we’d set up a search grid it was just a matter of time.”

  I nodded.

  “I suppose you’re a little disappointed?” he said.

  I narrowed my eyes. “How so?”

  “You must have been hoping that it was Silas.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “Accept it,” he said. “He’s dead. It’s only a matter of time before his body turns up.”

  I quietly ground my teeth together and said nothing.

  “We all feel for you, Bronte. But isn’t it about time that you came back to us?”

  “I’m not sure that’s going to be happening anytime soon.” I hadn’t been able to face going back to work since the events at the Tower and that had been over a month ago. I couldn’t see myself going back there anytime soon. Every night I woke up in a panic, re-living the moment Silas’ body was thrown into the Thames.

  “Who are these guys, anyway? That guy with the beard, particularly.”

  “You mean Igor? Yes, that is his real name,” Marcus started moving towards the door and I went with him. “He’s a Battle Mage from Romania. Kinsella called him up as part of this new team.”

  I looked around at the assembled men. There were eight of them in all. From the way they moved it was obvious that they all had some kind of military background, though Marcus seemed to fit right in.

  “So, this is a new thing?”

  Marcus shrugged. “All part of Kinsella’s new Dark Team. Things have changed a lot since the Tower. It’s all about being more proactive, now.”

  The Dark Team were, traditionally, an odd mix of pathologists, cryptologists and exorcists. Their area of expertise lay in ensuring that the dead stayed dead through a combination of ancient rituals and disarming techniques. From what I saw around me, it looked like a lot had changed.

  “And how did you end up being part of this new superteam?”

  “I volunteered. I’d taken my weapons training a while ago so I just needed to brush up on my ‘defence against the dark arts.’”

  I looked around: not a single female amongst them.

  Boys and their toys, as Millie was fond of saying.

  “If you’d like to say your goodbyes,” he indicated Terence’s shrouded form. “I can let you have five minutes.”

  He re-slung his rifle and left me to it.

  *

  I walked out through the shattered remains of the front entrance squinting into the daylight.

  A couple of police cars were parked across the main road and Spitalfields market looked to be under lock-down. Other members of the Dark Team were being briefed on the steps of the church, most of them wearing dark glasses, though this probably wasn’t an affectation. I imagined from the pallor of their skin that they didn’t get out much. They’d probably want to de-brief me before I went home but I wasn’t in the mood. I suddenly felt desperately tired.

  Terence was dead and I was nowhere nearer finding a solution to Silas’ disappearance. Things were not looking good.

  Kinsella was standing at the bottom of the steps talking to the bearded Battle Mage I’d seen earlier. They were looking at something on Kinsella’s electronic tablet. I hadn’t seen Kinsella since the events at the Tower.

  I had to wait until they’d finished talking before I could summon up the courage to step forward, just as the guy with the beard wheeled around in my direction. He towered over me, stepping to one side just as I stepped the same way. He scowled, raising his arms in exasperation before marching off.

  “Sir,” I said. “Could I have a word?”

  Kinsella finished what he was doing on his tablet before looking up.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine,” then I let out a long sigh. “Actually, I feel terrible.”

  He pursed his lips, “Okay, I won’t keep you.”

  “What about my de-brief?”

  “It can wait,” he reached out and touched my arm. “I got most of what I needed from Igor. Good work with those kids, by the way.”

  I hadn’t expected him to be nice to me. It caught me off guard.

  “What’s going to happen now?”

  “Seal this place off. The Met boys aren’t happy but they’re going to go along with it. The Dark Team will give the whole place a thorough going over. Make sure there are no other surprises. Part of the new protocol.”

  “I was just talking to Marcus about that.”

  “What happened at the Tower surprised a lot of us. We’re trying to be more proactive now.”

  Proactive. That word again.

  “I suppose that explains all the firepower.”

  Kinsella nodded taking that as a compliment.

  “We had the idea a while back but couldn’t justify the budget. Now, after all that’s happened…”

  Only I wasn’t listening. I kept picturing the body lying on the floor of the church. Except, this time, it wasn’t Terence. It was Silas’.

  “What about those two little girls? What if they’d been caught in the crossfire? What then?”

&
nbsp; He took my elbow and squeezed it gently. “Lucky for us you were there. But don’t worry – we’ve learned a lot from today’s exercise. We’ll scrutinise it to see if there’s any lessons to be learned. You can be sure of that.”

  Was this the same Kinsella? In the past his work had been characterised by a cautious steady approach which had won him a number of admirers, including me.

  Now his men – and they were all men - went in with all guns blazing.

  As I looked off down the road I saw a figure striding along the pavement. I recognised her walk before I could make out her face. She swept her dark auburn hair off her face as she crossed the road.

  Millie.

  She was wearing a powder blue, high necked blouse under her coat paired with a pleated white skirt and matching shoes. An outfit she would have prepared the previous night.

  Kinsella looked up as she approached. He seemed relieved by her arrival, but I wasn’t done with him yet.

  “So, what’s going to happen to this Dark Team now that you’ve got Terence? Is it going to be disbanded?”

  Kinsella arched his eyebrows, “Much as I’d like to discuss our day-to-day operating procedures on the street like this, I’m going to have to decline. Besides, you’re still technically on medical leave.”

  I felt a flush of blood to my cheeks. “That’s right, yes.”

  “Well, we’re looking forward to getting you back on-board, once you’re well enough. Pending reports, of course. Have you had a chance to see the psychologist yet?”

  I shook my head. I’d had my fill of psychologists as a teenager. After my mother tried to kill me all they wanted to discuss was what her possible motives might have been.

  Kinsella said, “Try and get in to see her sometime this week. Okay?”

  He took my silence for assent though he couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Millie didn’t say anything, she just gave me a big hug and then led me by the hand out through the police lines. Once we were on the other side of the road we looked back at the men gathered on the steps.

  I said, “You know about this new Dark Team, I take it?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Who are they? I don’t recognise half of them.”

  “Battle Mages most of them,” Millie said. “Just back from operations in Syria.”

  “Syria?” I didn’t like the sound of that. “What’s in Syria?”

  “Nothing good. I heard: demons - that’s the current thinking.”

  “So, why are they back here?”

  “Something serious is kicking off, I know that much. Tactics have changed; the way we do things has changed. Kinsella’s created this whole new tactical unit but there’s no one to over-see their operations. It’s basically a paramilitary group that answers directly to him.”

  I turned to face Millie. “If there is a new threat on the scene you think that they’d at least warn us about it.”

  “Don’t you think that I’ve asked? It’s like he’s developing a completely different off-shoot to The Bear Garden. It’s worrying.”

  We walked along Commercial Street looking for a café but the whole road had been sealed off at both ends. We could see traffic in the distance and just kept walking towards that. I just needed to get away from the church.

  Eventually, after a lot of walking, we managed to find a coffee shop that was open.

  I had to consciously resist the urge to just go home and get back into bed. Lying in the dark crying over Silas wasn’t getting me anywhere. Besides, Millie was supposed to be keeping an eye on me. Although no one had said as much it was obvious that was why Kinsella had called her. If I went home now she’d have to stay anyway, waiting until Kinsella had finished up.

  The coffee shop was small and dark inside, though not uninviting. While Millie went to order our drinks, I sat on the sofa next to the fire. I still hadn’t shaken off the cold from the church. She came back a few minutes later carrying two enormous cups of coffee.

  The sight of her made me laugh out loud. “What the hell are those?”

  “The caffeine equivalent of four espressos. Guaranteed to wake you up.”

  I took the cup with both hands, swirling the contents before I took a sip. It tasted warm and dark and comforting.

  I sat right back in my chair and let out a little sob as the events of the morning came back to me.

  Millie sat down and put an arm round me.

  “They filled me in over the phone. Are you okay? I mean: really?”

  I indicated that I was fine. “It was Terence. The one they shot.”

  “They told me. That was the guy Stahl brought over from China.”

  “Tibet,” I stretched my face into a parody of a smile. Terence had been very specific about his homeland. “I don’t know why I’m so upset. He’s killed a lot of people in his time. Still. It all seems like such a waste. Stahl got her claws into him early on. He never really had much of a chance after that.”

  I took another sip of my drink then eased myself into the corner of the sofa, starting to relax properly for the first time in days. My legs were beginning to get hot from the fire while my body still felt cold.

  “How did you know?” Millie asked. “That he was hiding out in there?”

  “Is this you asking or Kinsella?”

  I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

  Millie set her jaw, making a conscious effort not to say anything.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “My fault for prying.”

  It was really me who should be apologising. “I’ve not been myself lately. Not since all that stuff with…”

  “Silas?”

  I put the glass down. “Is it that obvious?”

  Now it was Millie’s turn to look uncomfortable. “Some nights … it’s difficult. You call out for him, that’s all.”

  That stunned me into silence. I hadn’t realised.

  “Is it bad?”

  “No. Not in that way. Just - I don’t know what to do for the best.”

  She rested her hand on mine.

  “I’ve been a little twitchy of late,” I said.

  “Twitchy! That’s putting it mildly. You’ve been acting like a proper nut job,” she laughed and looked straight at me. “Your dad’s been worried about you as well.”

  “My dad! When did you speak to him?”

  “He’s been ringing every day. Mostly you’ve been asleep. I’ve spoken more with your dad in the last couple of weeks than I have with you.”

  I slumped forward. “I’m going to have to ring him. What has he said?”

  “Just that he’s been worried. I couldn’t say much. Just told him that you’ve been signed off work.”

  “I suppose we’re lucky he hasn’t turned up on the door-step.”

  “Don’t laugh! He was talking about coming down last weekend. I had to talk him out of it.”

  I leaned across and stroked Millie’s arm, “Thanks.”

  “’S’alright.”

  “Like I said: I’ve been a little twitchy of late.”

  “I’ve been a bit worried myself.” And, as she said it, she had tears in her eyes.

  *CHAPTER THREE

  It was very quiet down on the sand but I was thankful for that.

  Three months since the events at the Tower and I was still off work. In all that time I’d managed one meeting with the psychologist. It had not gone well. Things had started well enough, the questions had been open ended. Dr Warren letting me set the agenda: “How would your work colleagues describe you?” “Do you have someone you can talk to when you’re feeling stressed?” That kind of thing.

  It was when she started asking about my dad that my hackles started to rise, even though the questions themselves were fairly innocuous: “Would you say that you had a happy childhood?” And it wasn’t that I minded talking about my dad and his interest in locomotives and traction engines – I could talk about my dad all day. No, it was the fact that you couldn’t talk about my dad
without mentioning my mother. I batted the first few inquiries away confidently enough – God knows I’ve been doing that all my life. It was when she asked me to think of a title for my mother’s autobiography that I finally snapped.

  I thought that I’d been doing a good job of keeping my emotions in check up to that point.

  One of the problems of having magical powers is managing leaks. That becomes more problematic when you feel threatened or get upset.

  We didn’t realise that there was a problem until the water in her aquarium started to boil over. I don’t know how many fish were in there at the time but I’d imagine that she’d have had to pretty much re-stock it after my visit.

  I’d kept on meaning to ring her to apologise and arrange another appointment but I just never seemed to get around to it.

  In the meantime, I watched a lot of day-time TV and played on my phone. Millie took all of this in her stride. She never talked about work and I never asked her. We watched a lot of box-sets and drank a lot of Chardonnay. You know: normal stuff. Then, just before Christmas, Millie broke the No-Talking-About-Work rule. Kinsella had been pushing the authorities for a proper search of the Thames looking into Silas’ disappearance. When they finally agreed he put Millie in charge.

  So that’s what we worked on all over Christmas holidays. We took it very seriously, as did Kinsella who had managed to get the Port of London Authority to commission an expert on tidal movement to make a report. We needed to know where a body dumped in the river in late October was likely to end up in the middle of January. So he set up a computer programme in order to analyse all the available data.

  In the end he had managed to pin-point a hundred metre stretch of the river as a possible location. Millie had asked if I was impressed by that. I told her that I’d be impressed if we actually found something. But, inside, I was already starting to get excited.

  From then on I seemed to alternate between a state of heady excitement and one of utter despair. What if they didn’t find anything? Then – seventy eight days after Silas’ disappearance - I finally got to watch while a police Search and Rescue Unit started work.