Again, it took a moment.
Kat craned her head to the speakerphone. ‘Detective Stronge here. Am I hearing this right? Are you saying Frank would become part of Fletcher?’
‘Yes,’ Jazz replied.
‘Then what happens to Frank’s body?’
‘It will go back to the way it was before it was magicked out of the ground. It will become a cadaver. Coffin fodder.’
‘Noooo bodyyyy?’ Frank moaned.
I jumped in. ‘I don’t get it. So long as you’re talking about slapping us together like some Fletcher & Fletcher sandwich, why not do it the other way around? Make it so I merge with Frank and get my body back.’
Jazz scoffed. ‘You’re talking about permanently returning a soul to its physical form. There’s a name for that, my lad, and it’s resurrection. I may know a few tricks, but I can’t raise Lazarus.’
I took her point. If it was that easy to bring back the dead, this planet would be even more overrun than it already was. Besides, the name of the game was getting into the Unseelie Court; how was I meant to translocate if I was anchored to a corporeal form?
Stronge was on her feet and pacing now. ‘Tell me you aren’t seriously considering this, Fletcher. Frank’s his own man. He’s one of us. And you want to just get rid of him?’
‘That’s not what this is about,’ I explained. ‘Jazz is talking about a merger. Frank would be around still, but he’d be part of me. We’d be part of each other.’
‘It pains me to say it, but he’s right,’ said the voice on the other end of the line. ‘Frank won’t be gone, he’ll be subsumed. He’ll become part of a unified whole.’
‘You’re a unified hole,’ Stronge snapped. ‘I’m sorry, that was uncalled for...’
‘Your frustration is perfectly understandable,’ Jazz assured her. ‘Trust me, I have no love for the method I’m proposing, but given the gravity of our situation I believe it to be necessary. Remember, Frank will still be with us, and there’s a big positive here worth considering…’
‘What’s that?’ I cut in.
‘Frank’s sage presence can only serve to make your personality less insufferable.’
‘Yup. Cheers for that.’
‘You’re welcome. So what’s it to be, Fletcher? Are we doing this? Shall I go ahead and prepare the rite?’
There followed a blanket of quiet as the three of us in Stronge’s office sat wrapped in thought. The whole time Frank’s eyes stayed glued to mine, though I couldn’t be sure what was going on behind them. Finally he nodded.
I broke the silence.
‘We’re on our way to you now,’ I told Jazz.
And hung up the phone.
Chapter Fifty-Three: Painting the Town Red
It was a long walk to Legerdomain, or at least it felt that way. The sun had reached its zenith and rolled back over the rooftops, leaving the city swallowed by night. The hustle and bustle of the day was over and the evening not yet begun, giving way to a void, a silence that begged for introspection.
The phone call with Jazz Hands had landed like a bombshell. Her proposition came with a huge ask, but it had to happen, right? The fae needed to be stopped. As undesirable as the solution was, surely it was worth it to put an end to the lunacy and save the city? I just had to make sure Frank was definitely on-board with the arrangement—that he fully understood the terms and conditions—but when I turned to him, the answer was already upon his lips.
‘Weee doo iiit.’
‘We should at least have a proper conversation about this.’
He shook his head and repeated his assertion. ‘Weee. Doo. Iiit.’
Was he right? Was this the only way? A crisis as grave as the one we were in always demanded a sacrifice. Then again, was this really even a sacrifice? Frank wasn’t going anywhere; Jazz wasn’t talking about putting a pillow over his face, she was only proposing to put him back where he belonged. Back with me. Back where he began.
Plus there were other factors that made Jazz’s proposition sound like the right choice. Things I didn’t much like to admit but were no less true for my denial. The fact was, Frank slowed me down. Not always, but sometimes. If I was honest with myself, there were days I felt like I was carrying the feller, correcting his mistakes, tidying up after him. Frank provided some handy muscle—no doubt about that—but was I really better off having him shambling around in my footsteps? Maybe this change was for the best. Maybe I’d be better off with him inside my head instead of being out there, running amok. Given the circumstances, anyway.
And yet…
‘We can’t do it, Frank. It’s not fair. Why should you get the wrong end of the shitty stick?’
‘Muuust dooo,’ he replied, his voice creaking even more than usual.
I stopped walking and Frank did likewise. Just because he was willing to accept his fate, didn’t mean I had to. Frank was more than some dried-up chrysalis I shed when my soul soared free. He was his own person. He should have his own body. His own mind.
‘I don’t wanna go back to being a one-man show, Frank. I like having you around.’
It wasn’t just that I’d gotten used to Frank sitting across the desk from me; I needed him. He was my best friend. No, he was more than that. They say blood is thicker than water, and Frank had mine running through his veins. My actual blood. That made him family. Okay, a weird kind of family, but still, I couldn’t give up on him. Not like this.
Frank gave me a lopsided grin and made a sloppy OK sign. ‘S’allriiight,’ he slurred.
I felt a prickle in my eyes. The noble bastard had me blubbing. ‘You don’t get it, Frank. You’re the best of me. I need you by my side.’
But he wasn’t having it. Frank was determined to do the right thing. Determined to sacrifice himself for the greater good. And being prepared to so that only proved my point.
‘Sorry, Frank, but you’re too good to be living inside of this skull.’
Seeing as I no longer had my mobile, I found a payphone (one of those poncy WiFi kiosks they rolled out recently that mostly get used by drug dealers), tapped in the number for Legerdomain, and got Jazz on the blower.
‘Forget about the rite,’ I told her. ‘We’ll find another way to get the kid back.’
I swear I could hear the smile in her voice. ‘Whatever you say, Jake.’
Was that the first time she’d called me by my first name? I wasn’t sure. At that moment, I wasn’t sure of much at all.
‘Whaaaat nowwww?’ asked Frank.
It was a reasonable question, but one I wasn’t really qualified to answer. Try as I might, I had no idea how we were going to bust the Arcadian out of the Unseelie Court without my being able to translocate there.
One thing I did know, though: Frank looked a fucking state. There were so many holes in his outfit that he resembled a scarecrow coming apart at the seams, and the wounds beneath the shredded fabric weren’t going to heal by themselves. He needed fixing up, and since there was a plate of cow brains in the kitchen fridge that would do the job nicely, that meant a trip to the office.
We were on the home stretch to the engine room when Frank was accosted by a man on the street. Burst capillaries spidered his cheeks, and one of his eyes was hooded by a drooping lid that hung low and loose. He wore a Parka mended with electrical tape, hood up, fake fur trim caked with filth.
‘Sorry to bother you, guv,’ he said. ‘I missed me train home and I don’t have enough money for another ticket. A fiver’s all I need—I'll pay you back if you text me your bank number.’
He thrust out a grubby mitt and arranged his mouth into a big brown smile.
I’ve always had a soft spot for the homeless. I’ll knock them a couple of quid no matter how rough around the edges their hard-luck stories are, and this one was rougher than a kitten’s tongue.
I nodded to Frank and he fished around in his pocket for some loose change.
‘Bless you,’ said the man, accepting the donation. ‘But you can keep it, Cookie.
’ The last part was delivered in a Southern drawl and aimed my way.
‘Shift?’
‘The very same.’
Frank was equal parts shocked and delighted.
‘What are you playing at?’
‘I’m working,’ Shift replied. ‘See that restaurant across the street with the couple eating together? His wife hired me to make sure the woman he’s with is there to talk business and nothing else.’
‘What about the office job? What about Alan?’
‘He’s for the daytime. By night I’m this guy.’
It was a smart ruse. A rough sleeper asking for change is pretty much invisible in this town. The perfect cover for a snooper.
‘I’ve gotta hand it to you, Shift, you keep yourself busy.’
The bloke in the restaurant reached under the table and placed a hand on his companion’s bare knee.
Shift groaned. ‘Ugh. What is it with married men and their secretaries? This is gonna break that poor woman’s heart...’
He pulled out his phone and took aim at the restaurant window. He was busy snapping incriminating pictures when the device started chirping.
‘Boy, I am popular tonight,’ he said, answering the call.
There followed a conversation that I was only privy to one side of.
‘Hey... Oh yeah? Where?... Seriously?... Well, then get the hell out of there... Yeah, thanks for letting me know... Okay, bye.’
He hung up wearing a haunted look.
‘What’s the scuttlebutt, Shift?’
‘The Scuttlebutt? You really are a fossil, Fletcher.’
‘The gossip, then. The buzz. Whatever you want to call it.’
Shift lowered his voice. ‘I just got word from the grapevine that some weirdos crashed a local bar. You should check it out.’
‘Weirdos? There’s an old man outside the station who wears a nappy and dances to techno all day. This is Camden.’
‘You don’t get it. These were a different flavour of weirdo. The Uncanny kind.’
‘And what makes you think I have time for a side quest right now?’
‘Because these weirdos had blue skin. The ones who didn’t have fangs, anyway.’
Frank gave me a wide-eyed look. Arcadians and Vengari drinking together? That couldn’t be good.
‘We’d better check it out,’ I told Shift. ‘You gonna go like that or do you want to change first?’
He laughed. ‘What do I look like to you: Seal Team Six? I’m a snitch, Fletcher, not a soldier.’
‘Are you serious? You’re not gonna back us up?’
‘Damn right I’m not. I wish you and Frank all the best, but you’re on your own.’
It wasn’t long after we ditched Shift’s cowardly arse that Frank and me were moving in on the Black Heart, a tucked-away boozer hidden down a quiet side street not far from Camden Underground. Only tonight, the Heart was anything but quiet. Spilling out of the pub arm-in-arm were a gang of Hooray Henries, except these roaring poshos weren’t the kind I was used to, these were Arcadians, and with them, equally mullered, a crowd of crooked albinos with wire hangers for bodies.
As promised, the fae had taken leave of their sanctuary and braved the smog for a night on the town, and they’d brought the Vengari with them. There they were, brothers-in-arms, all fired up on the impending nuptials and the pact that came with it. There was no makeup or magic to disguise this monster mash; the players were out in the open, plain as you like. No doubt a night of Bacchanalian revelry lay ahead; who knew how much damage the pricks would do before they sobered up?
One of the Arcadians, who I recognised as being part of the team that escorted Frank and me from our jail cell and into the heart of the Unseelie Court, caught wind of us.
‘Well, look who it is,’ he slurred, tilting forward as if he was leaning into a stiff wind. ‘Fletcher and Fletcher. Tell us, which of you is the top and which is the bottom?’
One of the Vengari cackled and joined the pile-on. ‘They say sodomites end up with men who look like them, but this is ridiculous.’
Yeah. Funny as cot death, these pricks.
We squared up to the mob. ‘Have you lot got any idea what you’re doing? Do you even know what the Accord is? You’re throwing the whole balance out of whack, you bell-ends.’
A Vengari burped acid in my face. ‘Didn’t you hear, Detective? Forget about balance. The whole world is about to change.’
An effete fae slung an arm around the vampire’s shoulder. ‘He’s right. The wedding is at midnight. Soon the Court will ring with the bells of matrimony.’
‘The age of man is over,’ hissed the Vengari. ‘See for yourself…’
He aimed a finger at the pub window. It was dark inside—the Black Heart was that kind of boozer—but I could just about make out some people moving around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first, not until I put my face through the glass to get a better look and saw that it wasn’t people in there but ghosts. The realisation of what I was witnessing sent a wave of dread all the way to the pit of my stomach. Dead bodies littered the pub floor, a half dozen or more, leaving behind pale wailing figures that drifted about, unnerved and untethered. Together, the vampires and the fae had murdered every last punter in the place.
‘What did you do?’ I said, though the question mark was purely for decoration.
One of the Vengari showed that he’d taken his pint to go, and raised a glass sloshing with blood. ‘Cheers!’ he crowed, knocking back a hearty belt of the red stuff.
Thank Christ it was only the middle of the week. A handful of regulars had met a sorry end, plus the barmaid who’d been topping them up, but it could have been so much worse. Had it been the weekend, the place would have been a charnel house.
The Vengari polished off his pint and bared his fangs at me. ‘The city is ours, ghost. Now step aside and make way for the new order.’
‘Over my dead body.’
Frank got the message. Lurching into action, he placed a hand on the vampire’s hollowed-out sternum and gave him a shove that sent him reeling.
One of his Vengari brothers propped him back up. ‘You’re going to regret that,’ he said, his teeth sharpening.
But I didn’t, mainly thanks to Frank, who chinned the bloke hard enough to send his oversized canines flying down his throat.
Then it all kicked off.
A drunken Arcadian threw himself at us, arms windmilling madly. Frank turned him into a big blue bowling pin, but after that, the mob was on us like stink on shit. Suddenly—I’m not sure how—I was down on the ground, buried by an onslaught of feet and fists. Frank stayed up a little longer than I did, but was soon on his back, laid low by a fierce drubbing.
My vision began to tunnel and the spots in my eyes coalesced into a single white blob. Was this it? Was this the fabled light at the end of the tunnel? Had I been forgiven for my sins? Was I finally going to the Promised Land?
The white light hovered there, begging for my approach, imploring me to step through it and come home. But I knew it was a trick. Heaven wasn’t ready for Jake Fletcher. Not yet. This wasn’t going home, it was giving up. The tunnel that light burned through wasn’t a portal to a better place, it was the hole of a guillotine, and the second I stuck my neck through it, the blade would come crashing down. So I stepped away from the light and swam off in the opposite direction, back to the real world, back to the drubbing.
What I saw next came in blurry snatches…
A blue head went scudding through the air, detached from its body.
A weapon moving too fast for me to identify pulped the brains of a too-slow Vengari, leaving him boss-eyed and certifiably dead.
An Arcadian’s legs were swept out from under him and his head punched with such ferocity that it separated his jaw from the rest of his skull.
There was more murder after that. Lots more. So much murder.
Soon the only member of the fae/Vengari pack left standing was the showboating vamp who’d waggled his pin
t of blood at us. He didn’t last long. Before he knew what hit him, he was lying belly-down on the ground between Frank and me, clawing at a slit throat. That was until his assailant arrived and finished him off with a kerb stomp that painted the tarmac in a great gushing wash of red.
It was just me and Frank left now. Me, my partner, and the person who’d single-handedly annihilated a whole squad of Uncannies. I rolled over to greet our saviour.
‘Hello, boys,’ said Erin Banks. ‘Did you miss me?’
Chapter Fifty-Four: Friends in Low Places
What did it take to put this woman down? How was it that the same universe that saw me pushed under a train for no good reason kept rewarding this cold-blooded murderer?
Battered and bloody but not out of fight, Frank struggled to his feet and put himself between me and the assassin.
‘Chill your boots, Igor,’ said Erin, ‘I’m not here to start any aggro.’ She cast a look at the puddle of blood and splintered bones at her feet. ‘Well, not much.’
‘What do you want?’ I said, pushing myself upright, my vision still spitting stars.
‘Good question,’ she replied. ‘If you’d asked me that a few hours ago I’d have said it was your soul fed through a shredder and your mate’s head on the end of my knife. Since then, I’ve mellowed a bit.’
I spat some ectoplasmic blood into the gutter and ran my tongue over my teeth to check they were still there. ‘Why the change of heart?’ I asked.
‘After you ran me over in a car, you mean? Oh, it didn’t happen right away, I can tell you that. Not until I healed up, turned on the news, and saw blue Smaug doing fucking loop-the-loops.’
‘Why would you care about that?’
‘I don’t if I’m honest. Not a big fan of London. No elbow room and the whole place smells of piss.’
‘Then why get involved?’
‘Because whatever happens here won’t end inside the M25, and that bullshit right there…’ she pointed through the pub window at the ghosts of the dead, who were already starting to vanish to the other side thanks to Erin wiping out their murderers, ‘...that cannot be allowed to stand.’
Deadly Departed: A Supernatural Thriller (Fletcher & Fletcher, Paranormal Investigators Book 2) Page 31
