The Sign of Ouroboros

by David Longhorn

  ***

  On Thursday afternoon, Declan Healy started to do some more digging on the Ouroboros affair. He had already identified some odd patterns of behavior among influential people linked to Deputy Commissioner Faversham. There was nothing especially damning about the data, not yet. But Healy, who never ignored his hunches, felt sure there was a hidden network. Perhaps a conspiracy reaching to the very top of the British establishment, and beyond.

  Technically, he told himself, I'm still looking into Matt Arnold's death. Just not in the way Faversham wants me to.

  He would have continued to build his file on Ouroboros, but a case he had been assigned a few months earlier intervened. A low-level drug dealer and pimp called Wayne Dotrice had knifed a social worker, then vanished. The suspect had been carefully avoiding his usual haunts and the case seemed to be going nowhere. But this morning, a report reached Healy that Dotrice was hiding in an old warehouse by the Thames. Wishing he could call on Knapton, Healy set off for London's East End to join up with two local beat officers, Higgins and Clark.

  The red brick warehouse at Jamaica Wharf proved to be a huge building that had been almost converted into yuppie apartments before the money ran out. There were signs of vandalism, and it was an obvious place to hide out.

  “A big place for just three of us to search,” mused Healy. “How reliable is your informer, Constable?”

  Clark, the older of the two uniforms, shrugged.

  “Not too bad, but all they told me was that a nasty piece of work was living here, and he answers your description of Dotrice.”

  “Okay,” said Healy. “It's a big place to search, just the three of us. Plenty of escape routes, probably. But we can give it a try.”

  Inside the Jamaica Wharf building was a labyrinth of hanging plastic sheeting and incomplete building work.

  “Tell you what,” said Higgins, “let's split up. We know Dotrice is a spineless toe-rag, and we've got our tasers.”

  “Yeah,” added Clark, “it looks like a bust, anyway, and we don't want to waste hours on this.”

  Reluctantly, Healy agreed. He was the outsider, and did not want to appear timid in front of junior officers. While the two uniforms went upstairs, he began to work his way through the unfinished apartments on the ground floor. There was, he soon realized, no sign that anyone had been living there.

  Clark's probably right, he thought. If Dotrice was ever here, he's long gone now.

  Then he saw something that puzzled him. The bare floorboards were covered with a layer of plaster dust, and in it, he saw footprints. Healy put his own foot next to one and judged that it belonged to a flat-soled shoe worn by a woman or a smallish man. He followed them through a series of corridors, towards the back of the building. Then the prints seemed to stop in an area where the dust had been swept away.

  This feels wrong, thought Healy. The old Spider-sense is tingling.

  He spoke into his radio, asking Clark and Higgins if they had found anything upstairs. There was no reply. He heard stealthy movement, a plastic sheet being lifted. Before he could turn around, his right arm was gripped and twisted behind his back. Another arm locked across his windpipe, pulling his head back. His radio clattered onto the floor.

  “We meet again,” said Cleo, from behind him. “And this time, we won't be interrupted.”

  Healy felt her breath on his neck. He groped for his taser with his free hand as the woman nuzzled at his neck in a disturbing parody of affection. He felt a slight scratch as he found his weapon and jabbed with it blindly while pushing the button. The distinctive buzzing of the taser was almost drowned by the woman's shriek. Her hold relaxed and he broke free.

  “You bastard!” she shouted, her face contorted with anger.

  Fully clothed this time, he thought. And not nearly so friendly.

  “Don't try anything,” he warned, brandishing the taser. “You are under arrest. Turn around so I can put the cuffs on. Don't make this difficult.”

  Cleo lunged at him, trying to knock the taser out of his hand. She was fast, but he managed to jump back out of her grasp and then jabbed the weapon into her forearm. She screamed in rage, and Healy was taken off guard by the two prominent fangs in her upper jaw.

  Plastic teeth? She must be barmy!

  The tall woman spat at him, not emitting a gob of spittle, but two jets of dark fluid. Startled, Healy twisted his head, crouched, and put an arm across his face. A few droplets of the liquid hit bare skin on his hand and face and he felt a sharp, stinging sensation. Cleo sprang forward and grabbed his wrist. They struggled for the taser, and Healy felt himself losing. He tried to break free but lost his footing on some of the ubiquitous plastic sheeting and fell backwards.

  The accident was a stroke of luck. Taken off balance, the woman hit her head on the door jamb. Healy recovered first and handcuffed the moaning Cleo just as Higgins and Clark appeared at the other end of the corridor.

  “Did you get him?” shouted Clark.

  “Yeah, only the him is a her,” replied Healy. “She must have followed me here.”

  He expected questions from the uniforms but they said nothing as they advanced towards him.

  Hang on, Healy thought. Why would she follow me and then attack me with two other coppers nearby?

  He switched the taser to his left hand, took out his telescopic baton with his right.

  “Don't come any closer, lads,” he said to Higgins and Clark. “As you can see, your friend here didn't get me. Now suppose you tell me what this is about.”

  “Let me go!” shouted Cleo. Healy glanced around, saw her trying to struggle to her feet. When he looked back, he saw his brief moment of inattention had let Clark and Higgins split up. They had been shoulder to shoulder, now they were about three feet apart, and just out of reach of Healy's baton.

  “Let's be reasonable, now,” said Higgins.

  “That's how we talk to criminals, mate,” responded Healy, feinting with the baton. Higgins flinched. Predictably, Clark made a move, and Healy's taser connected with the man's overhanging beer gut. Clark crumpled, swearing.

  “I thought you were the stupid one,” said Healy, turning to hit the off-balance Higgins on the elbow. “I'm told that really hurts.”

  Healy secured both officers with their own handcuffs and felt pretty good about it.

  “Came for one scumbag, got three,” he said, bending over Clark. “Why did you do it? Faversham's orders? Part of his little conspiracy, are you?”

  “Piss off,” snarled Clark. “You've no idea how high this goes, you wanker.”

  “Tell me,” said Healy, picking up his radio, “just how high? Because when I call this one in, a lot of people will be going down.”

  Healy paused, unsure exactly how to call in the arrest of two colleagues. He decided to play it straight and made a straightforward request for assistance. He was told to wait five to ten minutes for a unit to respond.

  “Right,” he said, squatting beside Higgins. “Let's try you. Is it money, sex, drugs? Do they have something on you?”

  Higgins said nothing, did not even meet Healy's eye. Instead, he stared past Healy, eyes wide.

  “You'll find out,” whispered Higgins. “It's a great privilege. Don't struggle.”

  Suspecting a trick, Healy got up and stepped away from the two men. Then he heard an odd groaning noise behind him. It was coupled with a series of sharp cracking sounds, like someone snapping their fingers. Healy took a quick glance over his shoulder, then spun round, baton raised. The handcuffs were lying on the floor, still locked. The cuffs lay beside a small heap of clothes and a pair of shoes. The last vestiges of a woman's face disappeared as Healy looked on, immobilized by shock.

  A huge golden-brown serpent, jaws agape, reared up until its head was in level with Healy's face. He started to back off, forgetting the bound men directly behind him. He tripped over Higgins and sprawled on the dusty floor just as the creature made its move. The scaly body landed on top of him, and its nightmare he
ad spat black venom into his eyes, blinding him. Screaming in pain and fear, Healy jabbed the taser into the scaly flank of the monster.

  ***

  Marcus Valentine and Kathy Hopkirk set out from London after lunch on Thursday. It had not taken either of them much time to pack. Marcus believed in traveling light, and all Kathy's possessions amounted to two bagfuls.

  “You got a plan?” asked Kathy.

  Marcus glanced over at the pale young woman. They had just left London's sprawling outer suburbs and were passing into rich farmland. Kathy was staring out at black-and-white dairy cattle. He wondered if she'd ever been out of the city before in her young life.

  “I've got some ideas,” he said. “All of them a bit vague. For a start, Clay's book offers a few clues.”

  “About what?” she asked.

  “I think about Clay's conversion, whatever it was, took place when he was halfway through writing his book,” Marcus explained. “He had obviously prepared a lot of scholarly notes and other material, but had only actually written the first few chapters. That's why it begins in such a reasonable tone.”

  “And then it goes a bit bonkers in the middle?” she suggested.

  “Pretty much,” laughed Marcus. “Towards the end of the book, he becomes obsessed with the idea of traditional festivals as the half-remembered rituals of Ouroboros. So to him, May Day, which is coming up, would qualify.”

  “But people have been doing these things for hundreds of years,” Kathy objected. “May Day, Halloween, loads of others. None of them have raised up some ancient god. Not as far as I know, anyway.”

  “True,” said Marcus, “but Clay's argument is that the rituals have degenerated. People don't focus on Ouroboros. Invoke the name and the concept. If they did, according to Clay, there's a chance the summoning would work.”

  “So why did it go wrong back in Sussex?” she asked. “Like that priest told you.”

  Marcus shrugged.

  “Clay and his acolytes might have chosen the wrong place, or the wrong time. They went for Midsummer's Eve, the solstice. But if the core of the Ouroboros cult is a belief in renewal and regeneration, a spring festival might make more sense.”

  Kathy fell silent for a minute or so, then said, “So how do you stop them from doing this?”

  “There are a few possibilities,” said Marcus. “One is simply to get the police involved and say that an illegal gathering is taking place. I could throw in a claim that the cultists are vandalizing a historic site, the stone circle.”

  “You don't sound very sure,” she said. “Will that copper you know help out?”

  “Unfortunately, Detective Sergeant Healy seems to be incommunicado,” he replied. Then, seeing her puzzlement, he added, “He's not answering his phone at the moment.”

  Kathy snorted. “Police. When you actually need 'em they're never around.”

  “As I said, there are other possibilities,” Marcus pointed out. “Such as putting a spanner in the works during the actual ceremony.”

  “Wouldn't that just lead to a big fight? With us badly outnumbered?”

  “Let's hope we can avoid any violence,” he said.

  Again, Kathy snorted.

  “You're an optimist.”

  “From everything you've told me,” Marcus went on, “there may be some kind of gestalt entity involved here.”

  “Try me in English, professor?” she said, irritably.

  “Gestalt a German term for a kind of linked consciousness,” he explained. “Your and Brad's dreams suggest some kind of telepathic linkage between cultists. It could be that one strong personality is dominating all the others in this way.”

  “You mean Olivia?” she asked.

  Marcus made a noncommittal sound.

  “It could be her,” he conceded, “or it could be something working through her; Ouroboros itself, a being that is both one and many.”

  Kathy looked baffled.

  “It's just a theory, of course,” added Marcus.

  Kathy did not reply, and they drove on in without speaking for half an hour. Then she said, “I can feel them.”

  “The cult? You sense their presence?” asked Marcus.

  “Ahead of us, still some way off,” she explained. “It's the same feeling I get in my nightmares. Being part of somebody else's mind, one piece in this bigger thing.”

  “If it gets unbearable, let me know and we'll stop. I can find you a hotel while I go on.”

  She looked at him, her eyes narrowed with anger.

  “For a clever man, you can be a really stupid bastard,” she said. “Don't you get it? I want to do them some damage. I want to get back at them! I can't do that in some random motel room.”

  Marcus struggled to think of something to say.

  “I hate them so much,” Kathy went on. “Don't you see? The one time in my life I was part of something, the only time I've ever belonged. And they rejected me. I wasn't good enough, I was a dirty junkie, a streetwalker. Just like all the others, all the people who've treated me like shit!

  Marcus started to protest but she cut him off.

  “Yeah, I know they're probably killers and bonkers with it, but some of us can't be all cool and rational like you.”

  She was crying now, with anger and frustration. Marcus reached into the glove-box and handed her some tissues.

  “Thanks,” she said, after blowing her nose. “I needed that. Got to let it out sometimes. And I'm sorry I called you a stupid bastard. You're not. Well, not all the time.”

  “That's all right,” he said. “I should have realized. Okay, we'll continue on to Hereford and see how you feel then.”

  Kathy did not reply, and he glanced over to see her close her eyes. Her brow was furrowed with concentration. Perhaps, also, with pain.

  Chapter 10: Plans and Observations

  Brad met up with Marcus and Kathy for dinner that evening. He brought them up to speed about his encounter with Kelly.

  “Well, at least you know she's in good health,” said Marcus. “But I smell a trap.”

  “Could they grab me in broad daylight?” asked Brad. “We'll be in a public place.”

  Marcus agreed that it was unlikely.

  “Besides,” he added, “Clay might let something slip about their May Day games.”

  Brad noticed that, while Marcus was his usual buoyant self, Kathy seemed even more withdrawn and unhappy than before. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her hands shook as she handled her cutlery. She saw his concern and explained that getting closer to the cultists was affecting her mind.

  “You mean you can see into their minds?” Brad asked.

  Kathy shook her head.

  “It's not like that, not when I'm awake. It's like hearing somebody whispering all the time, only with thoughts instead of sounds.”

  “Any particular thoughts?” asked Marcus. “Any clue what they're planning?”

  Kathy frowned, seemed to concentrate.

  “It's all about May Day and the ring of stones,” she said slowly. “I keep getting images of snakes, circles. There is something else, more of a flavor than a thought. An emotion, maybe. Hard to put it into words.”

  “Try,” said Marcus, reaching out to put his hand on hers. “If you can.”

  Kathy closed her eyes, oblivious to stares from diners at nearby tables. She started to breathe heavily, rocking back and forth.

  “Wake her up, she's going under!” said Brad urgently.

  But before the men could react, Kathy opened her eyes and gave a crooked smile.

  “No need to slap me, guys,” she said. “But you won't like this.”

  She looked over at Brad.

  “Especially you. This image, or feeling, I keep receiving. The nearest I can get to it in words is ‘sacrifice.'”

  Brad and Marcus stared at her.

  “You're sure about this?” asked Brad.

  Kathy nodded.

  “It's all bound up with the idea of purity, loss, rebirth. But sacrifice is in ther
e, somewhere.”

  “Perhaps it's a symbolic sacrifice,” suggested Marcus.

  “How likely is that?” asked Brad.

  The Englishman pondered for a moment, then said, “It's a fact that lambs used to be sacrificed for May Day. And some think that it went further than that in ancient times.”

  “That's something you can tell the cops, surely?” asked Brad.

  “I can try,” agreed Marcus. “Unfortunately, Healy has gone quiet, I can't reach him at all. He's probably too busy with other matters, so I'll try the local police force. But they might just file me under ‘crank.’ It's happened before.”

  “I've been studying maps of this stone circle, the Dancers,” said Brad. “And these so-called ley-lines. It's a bit like an electrical circuit, isn't it?”

  Marcus looked surprised.

  “I suppose so,” he conceded. “But I don't see how that helps.”

  “Just that,” said Brad, “whatever they're planning relies on a continuous flow of some sort of earth-energy?”

  “Yes,” said Marcus, “the stone circle collects and focuses it, that's the theory. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, just spit-balling,” replied Brad. “Trying to get things clear in my mind.”

  Brad turned to Kathy.

  “The million dollar question,” he said. “Do you really believe these people turn themselves into snakes or whatever? Or do they just believe they're shapeshifters?”

  Kathy gazed levelly back across the table.

  “They can do it. I'm sure. And I don't think that's all they can do. I can't put it into words, but in my gut, I just know that what they're planning at Wychmere is far stranger, and far more dangerous.”

  ***

  That night, Brad's dream of Kelly was very different to the ones that had haunted him for months.

  He found himself lying in a forest glade, with small birds hopping close by. A gentle breeze rustled the wild grass and ferns, swayed the leaves of ancient oaks. It was an idyllic scene that reminded him of books he had read as a child, stories that always ended with the hero safe and sound after his adventures.