‘If he wants this done by the book, that’s how we’ll do it,’ said Stronge. ‘We’ll go away and come back with a warrant.’
I saw the panic in the fae’s eyes.
‘You’re forgetting the squeeze we’re under,’ I said, showing Stronge my watch. ‘The little hand’s almost at 12. We don’t have time for red tape.’
Stronge looked like she was about ready to start slashing upholstery. ‘What do you suggest then, Fletcher? Because I’m getting pretty tired of watching my ideas get shot down.’
‘Okay, here’s an idea: how about we seduce the guy?’
Stronge’s frown somehow became even more pronounced. ‘I thought we weren’t doing stupid ideas.’
‘This one could work.’
‘I don’t care. There’s no way I’m doing that.’
‘Oh. This is awkward, but you weren’t actually the seducer I had in mind.’
The detective’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who then?’
I nodded to Shift.
‘Me?’ His frantic chewing stopped.
‘Yeah. Not like you are now, but like the bit of crumpet you were when we got here.’
He grimaced. ‘Crumpet? Jeez. Just when I think you’re starting to evolve, you go and say a thing like that.’
‘Come on, Shift, I’m not asking for much here. Just tuck it between your legs and flutter your eyelashes at the bloke.’
He almost spat out his gum. ‘No way.’
‘You got a better idea?’ I said, exasperated. ‘I know, why don’t you disguise yourself as a blonde-haired Amazon package and we’ll post you in there?’
‘Get bent, Fletcher.’
The Arcadian let out a troubling cough that only stopped once he’d hammered a fist against his chest and dislodged the phlegm sticking to his ribs. ‘Sorry to be a bother, but the portal won’t be available for much longer.’
His voice was coarse and gruff, his eyes red-rimmed. The city was getting the better of him again.
Stronge’s shoulders slumped. ‘I hate to say this, but Fletcher’s seduction plan is the only one on the table. I don’t like it any more than you do, Shift, but the clock’s ticking and there’s too much riding on this to go burning your bra.’
Shift gnashed his teeth for a bit but he knew Kat was right. He jabbed a finger into my chest. ‘All right, mister, I’ll do it, but you better put some gratitude in that attitude.’
‘Trust me, you have my undying thanks.’
‘I don’t want your thanks, I want your green. You’re going to owe me big for this one. Double my usual fee.’
‘Deal.’
I had no idea how I was going to cover that spread since the Fletcher & Fletcher coffers were pretty much bone dry, but I’d come up with something. Hopefully.
We shook on it and Shift reverted to the blonde bombshell who stepped out of the squad car a half hour back.
‘Good luck,’ said Stronge, giving her a sisterly pat on the back.
Shift tossed her long, platinum hair over one shoulder, turned on her heel, and headed across the road to the surly midget with the cigarette clamped in his mouth.
‘Hey, honey, do you have a light?’ she purred.
There followed a brief bit of muffled chit-chat and some arm-touching, then the two of them headed inside.
‘Mennnnn,’ Frank groaned, shaking his head.
The pinched look on Stronge’s face suggested she had much to say on the fragility of the male ego, but the work came first. Leading with her chin, she marched across the road and the rest of us followed, the Arcadian trailing behind, his breaths coming in short, plosive bursts. The side door opened easily, kept ajar by the wad of chewing gum Shift had stuffed into its lock mechanism.
I turned to Stronge. ‘You wait here and keep an eye out while we shoot the kid’s chuff through that portal.’
‘After all that?’ she said. ‘Forget it, I’m coming with you.’
‘Not a good idea. We don’t want any more people in there than strictly necessary.’
‘What about Frank?’
‘I need him to help me prop up old Blue Lives Matter here,’ I said, gesturing to the Arcadian, who could barely stand on his own two feet. ‘Besides, we could use someone keeping an eye out in case any wrong ‘uns show up out here.’
Stronge wasn’t in love with the idea, but she couldn’t fault my logic. ‘All right, Fletcher, have it your way. Just don’t balls this up.’
‘Don’t worry, Kat, the hard work’s already done. The rest will be a piece of piss.’
Stronge waved us on and Frank and I escorted the kid inside. A flutter of the hands, a quick bit of gutter Latin, and the building’s CCTV was fried. Following the directions Jazz gave me, I guided my companions through the museum and towards the promised portal.
The Arcadian’s feet gave out from under him, causing his trainers to drag on the buffed wooden floor with a jarring squeak.
‘Sorry,’ he gasped, barely able to support his own head.
‘S’allriiiight,’ whispered Frank, propping him up and lacing an arm around his snake-hipped waist.
I heard the soft, slow patter of footsteps heading our way, followed by a puddle of torchlight leaking around a nearby corner.
‘Let’s go.’
Moving quickly, we continued through pale grey corridors and to an atrium topped by a grand, windowed dome. Onwards we pressed, sticking to the shadows as we skirted the soapy alabaster monolith of Jacob wrestling an angel. Gold-framed oil paintings of landscapes and military skirmishes passed by in a blur until we arrived at our destination: the Rothko Room.
The space was compact and dark; darker even than the rest of the dimmed-down museum. A single bench sat in the centre of the room, surrounded by a series of large abstract paintings big enough to step through. I’ve heard people describe these pieces as soothing, as objects of contemplation and meditation. That’s never the vibe I got. With their oppressive blacks and blood-red tones—the kind of deep, dark red that’s last to pump from a dying heart—they didn’t make me feel liberated, they made me feel trapped.
‘There,’ I said, pointing to the painting labelled, Red on Maroon.
It was a large unframed piece on a vertical rectangle canvas. The base colour of the painting was a rich crimson and overlaid with a maroon rectangle, which enclosed a smaller crimson rectangle, suggesting a door-like structure.
I checked my watch. Two minutes til midnight; right on time. I had Frank sit the kid down on the ground then use his brawn to drag the bench across to the painting.
‘Here goes nothing,’ I said, taking a step onto the bench and placing myself inches from the negative maroon space of the painting’s eerie inner rectangle.
I counted down until the time was right—the very stroke of midnight—then carefully recited the phrase Jazz had given me.
‘Imagine a door and a door there shall be. Imagine a door and a door there shall be...’
Again and again I repeated the line, beating it into submission until a tingle of electricity sparked the air, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. A spot of black appeared within the centre of the painting’s crimson frame, spreading like a drop of ink in water until it had permeated all the way to its borders. The blackness of the rectangle was perfect, absolute, a depthless void that would have stolen my breath if I had any left to give.
The portal was open.
‘Come on, we don’t have long,’ I told Frank.
He hooked his hands under the kid’s armpits and hoisted him to his feet, but froze at a sudden sound.
More footsteps coming our way.
‘Come back, Cookie, we ain’t done...’ called a familiar voice in the distance.
‘Shh,’ chided another voice I recognised—the midget security guard this time—‘I’m just checking to see what’s up with the cameras. Help yourself to something from the fridge, I’ll be back in a mo.’
A lance of torchlight swung around the corner and into the Rothko Room. Th
ere was nowhere to run to this time. Nowhere to hide.
‘What the—?’
The guard couldn’t see me, but he wasn’t blind to the shambling, glassy-eyed figure with his arms wrapped around a blue-skinned youth.
‘S-stay right there,’ he stammered, fumbling for the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.
I could already see the portal fading, its perfect black rectangle turning crimson as the void gave way to the light. It was now or never. I leapt from the bench, dovetailed into Frank’s body, and hauled the limp Arcadian to the dying portal.
Over my shoulder I stole a glance at the guard, who wore a face like a smacked haddock.
‘Stick this up your rules and regs, you fucking clown shoe.’
And we were off to the races.
Chapter Forty-One: Ghost Town
I felt a crackle in my ears and an all-over tickle like walking naked into a giant cobweb. Then we were through to the other side. Through to Other London.
Frank laid the Arcadian down to catch his breath and recuperate. The street we’d stepped onto looked as though an elephant had teetered down it wearing stiletto heels, leaving behind great deltas of cracks. Behind us stood the other side of the portal, a door-sized rectangle floating mid-air, black as burnt coffee.
‘You all right, kid?’
Without turning to face me, the Arcadian bobbed his head. It wouldn’t be long before he was back on his feet and walking again. While I waited for him to recover, I cast a gander about the hidden city.
The night sky was freckled with pinprick stars, obscured only by a mismatched collection of ramshackle buildings that reached toward its black velvet canvas like drunks clawing at the last bottle of hooch on a high shelf. Other buildings—long since collapsed—looked as if they were burrowing into the ground, searching for sanctuary in the subterranean darkness below.
The kid made it into a sitting position and took in a long breath. His violet eyes skimmed the dusty rubble littering the abandoned streets of the ruined city. ‘Wow,’ he scoffed. ‘They should have sent a poet.’
I gave him a nudge and he reluctantly sloped after us as we headed down a river of darkness toward the city centre. Along the way, Frank oohed and aahed at the zig-zagging structures that craned overhead like vultures eager to peck. We passed through a part of the city that looked as if it was built in the Fifties, then rounded a corner to find a grungy Victorian neighbourhood pockmarked by the kind of broken-down slums that Oliver Twist and his gang might have called home. Other London was the very definition of art by committee: a disordered jumble, an insane mish-mash of architectural styles crushed together to form a muddled, nonsensical whole.
‘What is this place?’ asked the Arcadian.
As Jazz explained it, Other London used to be teeming with people. They came here to escape the city I call home, built the place from scratch, and slotted it together by pure force of will. Now there was nothing. Other London was free of people. Free of traffic and pollution. Free of pretty much anything.
‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ I replied. ‘Come on, let’s find you a home.’
Not knowing exactly what we were looking for, we followed our feet along mismatched roads and through a cobbled plaza. We passed a derelict tavern with a weathered sign hanging on a single chain and painted with the words, The Rabbit Hole (a rabbit’s head peeking out from the O of the “Hole”, a carrot clamped in its greedy mouth).
The three of us continued down the street for another half-mile until it terminated at a grand mansion clad in white bricks. The building stood alone upon a parcel of empty wasteland and was surrounded by a tall rust-eaten fence, parts of which had fallen asleep on duty. A palace it wasn’t, but it was something. It was a start.
‘Home sweet home,’ I said, doing a little spin for effect.
We stepped over the fallen gate and chased a winding path to the mansion’s front door. A pair of crumbling fountains flanked the threshold, the marble sea monsters frolicking in their dusty bowls no longer dispensing water from their dried-up mouths.
‘How do we know this whole place isn’t about to collapse?’ asked the Arcadian.
To show the kid how sturdy the building was, Frank slapped one of the pillars supporting its porch, only for the blow to create a crack that almost felled the structure.
‘Bit of cement and you’ll have that bodged together in no time,’ I said, dismissing the seriousness of the damage. ‘Step lively, lad...’
I hopped up the short flight of steps leading to the front door and the others hesitantly followed. The entrance opened into a large circular lobby dominated by a flight of stairs that twisted up in a spiral like a child's slinky. A faded fresco of moons and stars decorated the domed ceiling, while the walls were hung with tattered red drapes. I tried to imagine the mansion in its heyday and suspected it had been host to more than one masquerade orgy.
I snatched a look at the kid and caught him gnawing his bottom lip.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘You don’t like the feng shui of the place?’
‘Do you seriously expect me to live here?’ he replied, his raised voice echoing off the lobby’s curved walls and scampering down the building’s empty corridors.
‘Not to your taste? Fine, we’ll find you somewhere else.’
So long as he stayed out of London, I didn’t care where he hung his hat.
‘You don’t get it. It’s not just the building, it’s the whole place. The whole city.’
I parked my backside on the stairs with a sigh and gestured for the kid to take a seat beside me.
‘Look, I realise it’s no Shangri-La but you’d better make peace with it, ‘cause I ain’t gonna be pulling another hidden city out of my arse.’
The kid fiddled with the toggles of his hoodie. ‘How am I supposed to live here with no company? And what about food? What am I supposed to eat?’
Just then, a rat the size of an American toddler scuttled past and disappeared through a crack in the wall.
‘Bon appétiiiiit,’ groaned Frank, who was new to humour and had a tough time reading a room.
I understood why the kid was upset. Who knew more about loneliness than a ghost? And yet this was the only option left, at least for now.
‘It’s not forever, okay? This is just until we figure out a way to get the Vengari off your back. And your family.’
‘So, forever?’
It was a distinct possibility. Both factions were sorely invested in the kid getting hitched. Still...
‘Look on the bright side,’ I said, ‘there’s nothing here to set off your allergies, and you’ve got the full run of the place. With a bit of elbow grease you can turn one of these buildings into a palace; live in luxury like you did back home.’
The Arcadian wrung his hands as he stared forlornly at the cracked marble floor.
‘I get it,’ I said. ‘It’s not ideal. But would you rather live here or get married off to a bloodsucker and be responsible for the downfall of human civilisation?’ I made scales of my hands and weighed them up and down.
‘Will you visit, at least?’ he asked, a catch in his throat.
‘I’d love to but it’s too risky. Anyone could follow me through, then we’re back to square one.’
The kid fought back tears. ‘I understand.’
God, he was gonna have me blubbing in a minute. ‘Take it easy. Enjoy the peace, get your health back, and one day, if things change and the heat dies down, you can give up the hermit life and return to the land of the living.’
‘And then what?’
‘I dunno. Move out to the sticks. Get yourself a nice country pile and live in nature like you’re supposed to. Eat all that sweet crap you love until your teeth fall out.’
The Arcadian offered a broken little smile. I turned to my partner, who looked just as sad as the kid. I didn’t want to say goodbye, neither of us did, but it was the only way. Frank and I still had work to do in London, starting with a visit to the office to dea
l with Tali. I’d yet to confront her, to let her know her game was up. Maybe it was already too late, but until I did that, until I convinced her to confess her sins, there was no chance of turning things around. No hope of saving her soul.
‘Right then, we’d best sling our hook,’ I said.
‘Don’t you have to wait until midnight rolls around again?’ asked the kid.
‘Nah, it works different going the other way.’
‘How come?’
‘I dunno. Magic. Don’t overthink it.’ I climbed to my feet. ‘All right, Lurch, let’s go.’
Frank offered the kid a consoling handshake before joining me, body sagging, weighed low by pity. ‘Byee byeee.’
I clamped a hand on the Arcadian’s shoulder. ‘Stay strong and keep your pecker up, kiddo. You can do this.’
With our goodbyes said and done, Frank and I reluctantly made our way from the shell of a mansion and back to the portal. It was a tough walk. Frank moved in broken, halting steps, continuously throwing looks to the site we’d abandoned the fae. Me, I didn’t look back. God knows I wanted to, but I didn’t. Guilt sat heavy in my gut. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more we could have done. More besides ditching the kid and letting him live out the rest of his days in a forgotten wasteland. What kind of a fate was that, anyway? I was no stranger to purgatory, but at least I had company. At least I had purpose. And here I was, condemning someone—a good someone—to the worst kind of limbo.
The sound of a chippy rock theme wrecked the peace of the silent city. My phone. I groped it out of my jacket pocket and answered Stronge’s video call.
‘Fletcher…’
‘Hey, Kat. Wow, you’re coming through crystal clear here. This magic phone Jazz gave me gets amazing reception.’
And yet Stronge seemed unimpressed by the performance of my remarkable interdimensional mobile.
‘Someone’s coming,’ she spluttered. ‘Coming your way.’
It was right then that I noticed she was hurt. Blood matted Stronge’s hair and ran down her temple in a wet red rivulet.
‘What happened? Who did that?’
Deadly Departed: A Supernatural Thriller (Fletcher & Fletcher, Paranormal Investigators Book 2) Page 24
