Morgan realised he was parched. He dipped his head to take a drink, then spat it back out again at the unexpectedly vinegary taste.
"It's just wine, silly," the girl said. "It's their little gimmick."
"Listen," Morgan said. "This is - this has... This has got to end."
"What has to end?" the girl said, and Morgan was almost taken in by her soft, innocent face, except there were still droplets of a dead man's blood all over it. He clenched his fists and wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't hit her.
Tomas took a step towards him "Morgan -"
He backed away. "I've had enough of this," he said. "I've had more than I can fucking take, in point of fact. You show me things that make me think I'm going crazy, only I know I'm not because I've seen... Because I've seen them with my own fucking eyes!"
Tomas rested a hand on Morgan's shoulder but he flung it away violently. "Don't touch me, you freak!"
"I understand, I really do," the little girl said. "This is a strange world we live in and it's full of ugly things, but getting all het up about them just isn't going to help."
"Don't," Morgan said. "Don't pretend you're something you're not. I heard what you said. I know you're another - another thing like him." He glared at Tomas, who dropped his eyes, scratching a hand through the back of his blond hair like someone trying to ignore a socially embarrassing faux pas. It enraged Morgan. He had a right to lose it, after the day he'd had.
"I'm curious," the girl said, as unruffled by Morgan's outburst as Tomas was distressed by it. "How do you know I didn't just read the files on Karamov's men before I found you?"
"Because I'm not stupid."
"Whatever the other children might have said." And there it was again, the hollow echo in her voice of something else speaking through her.
The words caught on the jagged edge of painful memories, and Morgan flinched, but his anger drained away. At least she wasn't trying to deceive him. "OK," he said. "OK then. Tell me who you are."
She offered her hand for him to shake and he took it without thinking. It felt perfectly normal, just a small, dry, warm little girl's hand. "I'm Jessie-Belle Jordan," she said. "But you can call me Belle. I'm with the CIA."
Morgan laughed.
Belle pouted, her mouth a little rosebud of displeasure.
"She really is," Tomas said. "Belle's pretty famous in the - in the circles you're now moving in."
"But she's..." Morgan realised he didn't know where to start. He settled for, "Ten years old."
"Eleven actually," Belle said. "I was born in 1967, turned eleven in 1978 and I've stayed that age ever since. To be quite honest with you, Mr Hewitt, I'm getting a mite sick of it."
"So it's an illness then," Morgan said. "I don't know, something genetic that makes you look this way.
She shook her head. "I don't look eleven, I am eleven."
Even a day ago, Morgan would have smiled and walked away. But not now. "How is that even possible?" he asked her.
She shrugged prettily. "Regular hormone injections. Growth-stunting - illegal but effective. And magic, of course." She pushed up the sleeve of her lacy cotton blouse, and Morgan saw for the first time that the skin beneath was covered in a tracery of tattoos, the black of them obscene against the soft white flesh of her pre-pubescent body. They continued up to her shoulder, and Morgan somehow knew that they covered her all over, a network of runes and arcane symbols.
He felt a sour lump in his stomach at the thought of grown men doing that to this little girl.
She smiled and rested one of her hands against his arm, the touch as light as a bird's wing. "There's no need to look so sad for me - nobody did this out of spite. It had to be done; I begged them to."
Morgan placed his hand over hers, so much larger it swallowed it entirely. "But why?"
"Because when I was but ten, something happened to me and no one my mamma and papa talked to - not the doctor, or the priest, or the exorcist - could do anything about it. The hormones and the tattoos and the magic are the only way to tame the thing that lives inside me."
He didn't want to understand what she meant. Tomas had been right - he was happier not knowing. But he found himself studying her face, her delicate mouth, her button nose, her cornflower-blue eyes. As he looked into those, the black dots of her pupils seemed to lengthen and lighten, till they were narrow red slits. And he could see something through them, beyond the eyes - inside the little girl. Something that was twisting and writhing and screaming to get out.
"Enough," Tomas said. "Belle works for the CIA, Morgan, that's all you really need to know. And what," he asked Belle, "is the Agency's interest in this?"
"I just go where I'm sent, but my handlers told me you Brits have stumbled onto something big here."
"And if we have, why do you imagine we'd want to share it with you?"
"I did save your life, Mr Len. Whatever you've found, you might at least let me have a quick peek at it."
Tomas looked like he wanted to argue, but after a moment he sighed and nodded.
"And what have we found?" Morgan asked. "What is in that case?"
Tomas set it down on the floor, squatting beside it. "I don't know. But I'm pretty sure it's what Karamov was selling."
"Yeah, what with all those bodyguards chasing us when you took it," Morgan said. "Maybe Karamov just really liked that briefcase."
Belle laughed as Tomas fiddled with the clasp.
"Locked," he said. "Hang on." He slipped his fingers into the join and pulled. His muscles corded above the sleeve of his t-shirt for a moment and then there was the shriek of distressed metal and the case split open.
For a moment, Morgan thought it was empty. Then he saw that there was one thing in it: a small, black, leather-bound book, the edges of its pages yellowed with age.
"That's it?" he asked. It looked like it was ready to fall apart. "Is that the Ragdoll artefact?"
"Ragnarok artefact," Tomas said. His expression was strange, half disappointment, half relief. "I don't think it can be. It doesn't look old enough - or powerful enough."
"Knowledge is power," Belle said, darting a hand to grab the book before Tomas could. "The pen is mightier than the sword."
When she flicked through the book's pages, Morgan saw that the whole thing was filled with spidery black runes, broken up every now and again by pen-and-ink illustrations of unrecognisable, multi-angled objects and sometimes what seemed to be tracings of ancient inscriptions. In places someone had gone back and written in the margins, narrow columns of letters perpendicular to the main text. Morgan wasn't sure why, but he had a strong feeling that whoever had written it hadn't been entirely sane.
"I know that handwriting," Tomas said.
"How?" Belle squinted at the close-packed, incomprehensible runes. "Is it even a language?"
Tomas held out a hand, and she reluctantly handed him the book. "I think so," he said after a second. "A cipher, maybe? I don't know - but I think Nicholson wrote this."
Belle's eyebrows arched towards her hairline. "You're sure?"
Tomas nodded as Morgan asked, "Who's Nicholson?"
"Our boss," Tomas said. "The head of the Hermetic Division."
"Ex-boss," Belle said.
"Nicholson retired?"
"Died, a long time ago."
"So why," Morgan asked, "would anybody be interested in some old notebook of his?"
Tomas frowned. "I don't know. Giles seemed pretty convinced this had something to do with the Ragnarok artefacts. Nicholson knew more about them than anyone in the world, but what he knew he told us. We were the ones he sent into the field to hunt for them. Why would he write down anything important in a book no one could read?"
"Maybe these are the things he wanted kept secret even from his own people," Belle said.
Tomas looked troubled, but after a second he nodded. "Maybe."
"If it even is Nicholson's," she added.
Tomas flicked to the front of the book. And there, finally, was something
written in English: Geraint Nicholson.
Belle sighed. "Let's take the I-told-you-so as read."
Morgan was vaguely aware of her and Tomas talking beside him, discussing the book, Nicholson's reasons for writing it and what made it so valuable. But he couldn't concentrate on anything except the name written in the front of that book.
He knew that name, had known it since the day his parents told him the secret they'd been keeping all his life.
He could still see their faces now. His mother had been so angry Morgan thought she might explode with it. His father hadn't seemed angry at all, which was somehow worse. His face was blank and whenever Morgan spoke to him there was a second's delay before he answered, as if the words had to travel a long way to reach him.
"You're not ours," his father had said. "You never were. Not like -" But he hadn't said the name. Her name hadn't been spoken in their house since the day she'd died.
Morgan had thought this was their way of punishing him for what had happened. "Don't say that," he begged. "Please, mum - tell him it isn't true."
"I wish to God we'd never taken you in," his mum had said, her voice so cold and businesslike that Morgan had barely recognised it. "You've been nothing but trouble since the day you arrived."
Even then, Morgan hadn't believed it. He'd shaken his head and sobbed and his dad might have left it at that. Looking back on the memory now, he thought he might have seen the first flush of shame in his father's face. But his mother had been crazy with grief, and the rage that accompanied it had an easy target.
Morgan remembered her fingers clawing into him as she dragged him to the filing cabinet in one corner of the room. She'd pulled the drawers out so quickly that he'd heard the mechanism break, but she didn't seem to notice. File after file fell on the floor as she threw them aside after only a cursory glance. And then, finally, she'd found the one she was looking for.
For the first time, Morgan had seen a crack in the furious mask of her face, something softer and more human beneath it. But she'd still handed him the file. "Here," she said. "You should see this."
He'd taken it hesitantly. It was a plain brown manila folder with a line of type along one side. It only took him a moment to realise that it was his name and date of birth. "What is it, mum?" he asked.
She couldn't look him in the eye. "Just read it, Morgan."
Morgan had squinted closely, trying to make sense of it. But he was too young to understand and he passed it back to her. "It's just names," he said. "What do they mean?"
His mother hesitated a moment as if, for the first time, she was having second thoughts. Then her face hardened and Morgan knew she was remembering what happened three days ago. "This is your birth certificate," she said. "Those are the names of your parents. Your real parents."
And Morgan had looked again, at those four words - Thalia and Geraint Nicholson- and wondered how he could have spent seven years not knowing the single most important fact about his life.
CHAPTER SIX
Tomas spent a little longer flicking through the book, but it was futile. Whatever code Nicholson had used, it wasn't one Tomas recognised.
"We should skedaddle," Belle said. "Karamov's men are only lost in the maze, they haven't upped and disappeared."
"What about the book?" Morgan asked. His voice sounded shaky and Tomas wasn't surprised. At least when he'd first learned about the Hermetic Division and all it stood for, the veil had been drawn back slowly, giving him time to adjust to each new revelation. Morgan must feel as if the foundations of his world had been chipped away and replaced with quicksand.
It all came back to Nicholson - Nicholson, who was apparently dead. He'd always had such a vital presence, blazing with a passion nothing seemed able to quench. Tomas realised that he didn't find Nicholson's death upsetting so much as profoundly improbable. Men like Nicholson weren't meant to die.
"There's one gentleman who might be able to tell us why this book is so important," Belle said.
Morgan looked puzzled, but after a moment Tomas nodded. "Karamov."
"We have to do it now, while his goons are out of the picture."
"He'll have kept some with him," Morgan objected.
"Only a couple," Belle said. "We can handle them."
Tomas saw Morgan shiver, and he couldn't say he liked the thought much himself. He hadn't enjoyed watching what the little girl did to Karamov's man - no one saw another man's secrets being ripped out of him without thinking of his own.
"And after we find Karamov?" Morgan asked.
Tomas shrugged. "We take the book back to the Division."
"Shouldn't we find out more about it first, work out what it says?"
"Karamov -"
"But he's not gonna tell us everything, is he?" Morgan cut across him. He was speaking quickly now, almost stumbling over his words. "It's not like we can get him to translate the whole thing for us, is it? And that's assuming he even knows how. How can we take the book back before we know what it really is? We risked our lives for the fucking thing - don't we deserve to know why?"
"We're not here for our own amusement!" Tomas snapped. "We completed the mission, now we take a bow and go home."
"What's the matter, more than your job's worth?" Morgan snarled. "Listen, if it's too much effort -"
"There's always your German contact, this Anya Friedman," Belle interrupted loudly. "She might have some information for you, right?"
Morgan looked suddenly alarmed. "Shit! Weren't we supposed to meet her an hour ago?"
Anya was still waiting for them when they finally entered the huge, rococo interior of the Café Gerbeaud. Her long red hair flamed a beacon across the room as they squeezed between tables filled with lounging tourists.
Tomas smiled as he approached her, but her sour expression didn't soften even slightly.
"What have you morons been playing at?" she said before they'd even sat down. She was quite a beautiful woman, Tomas thought, a few years younger than him, but her anger made her unattractive.
"And it's lovely to meet you too," Morgan said.
She ignored him. "I want an answer - what the hell did you think you were doing this morning?"
"There was a last-minute change of plan," Tomas said.
"No kidding."
Tomas saw Morgan twitch a smile, then quickly drop it when Anya glared at him.
"We had to act," Tomas said. "We were in danger of losing the... the target object."
Morgan's hands folded reflexively over the waistband of his jeans, where he'd tucked Nicholson's book before they left the labyrinth.
Anya saw the telltale rectangular bulge hidden beneath his t-shirt and frowned. "Did it not occur to any of you amateurs that we might already have Karamov under surveillance? That we might, in fact, be perfectly capable of acquiring the target object ourselves at a time and place of our choosing? Maybe somewhere a little safer - and a little less bloody conspicuous!"
Tomas shook his head. "We couldn't take the risk."
"Yes, clearly risk-reduction was a very high priority for you. You alerted Karamov to our presence, scared off his buyer and almost got yourselves killed into the bargain. You couldn't have made more of a mess of this if you'd tried!"
"On the plus side," Morgan said, "we got a free tour of Budapest's premiere subterranean tourist attraction."
Anya's face flushed red with suppressed rage. Tomas knew he should be trying to control Morgan, but a part of him was enjoying watching the young man push the German agent's buttons.
Anya clearly sensed that she was getting nowhere with Tomas and Morgan and turned to Belle instead. "And what," she said, "are you doing here?"
"I came to help, Miss Friedman." Belle offered her small hand over the table.
Anya rolled her eyes. "I'm sure you did. I'm sure the CIA are involved in an entirely charitable capacity."
"I've confirmed her role with London," Tomas said. "Giles spoke to Washington and it seems the Yanks have been following the same br
eadcrumbs we have. They've asked us to pool resources, at least until we locate Karamov's buyer."
Anya shook her head. "I don't trust the CIA. They always have their own agenda."
"I agree," Tomas said. "Which is why I'd rather have her where I can keep an eye on her, than running her own operation and potentially compromising ours."
"Don't mind me," Belle said. "Just pretend I'm not here."
"Look," Morgan said to Anya. "We're here now, and we've got the book - it doesn't really matter how. What can you tell us about it?"
"Book?" Anya said, and Morgan's face fell.
"Later," Tomas insisted, glancing casually round the café, too full of people, far too public for this conversation. "We were considering going back to Karamov, seeing if we can get anything out of him about his buyer. What do you have on him?"
Anya's lips, very wide and red, pulled thin with annoyance. Then she sighed and tossed a thick brown folder on the table. "We've been following Karamov for four months now - on another matter entirely, the bribing of some oil-industry officials - but he's not an easy man to pin down. Nothing definite on his buyer, though we've been tapping every phone number that's registered to him or any of his goons. But see for yourself - it's all in there." She nodded down at the file.
Morgan drew it eagerly towards him.
"My local connection followed Karamov after you left him," Anya said. "He's back at the Gellert for now, a few of his bodyguards with him, but chances are he'll be out of the country by the end of the day. If he heads to Russia, we're in trouble - his power base there is very strong."
"Sorry," Morgan interrupted, pushing his chair back with a dry rasp against the tiled floor. "I need a slash."
Anya shook her head at his departing back. "That's great. Perhaps he'll let us know how it went when he gets back. Tell me, Tomas, when did MI6 start recruiting teenagers?"
"He knows what he's doing," Tomas said, defending his partner on a long-ingrained reflex. But the truth was, Morgan didn't know what he was doing, not in this area. They'd told Tomas the younger man was there for any wetwork, and no doubt Morgan was very good at that sort of thing, but that wasn't really the point. Hermetic agents were generally recruited because of their interest in the occult. Richard had been conducting his own research long before he'd come on board, but Morgan seemed to have no affinity for their work at all - a positive dislike of it, in fact. Why had Giles picked him?
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