Digital Magic (The Chronicles of Art Book 2)

by Philippa Ballantine

  “I’m OK... really.” Ella brushed Bakari off, not happy about showing her emotion in front of a stranger. Not that he could blame her; Ronan was so still it was pretty disconcerting. “It’s just not what you expect to happen in Penherem.”

  Ronan raised an eyebrow. “The more sophisticated the century and the more sophisticated the crime. Seems to me the further humans go, the better they get at killing.”

  Bakari abruptly wished Ronan would be still again. Ella didn’t need to hear anything like that. She came from a far different world than the two of them did: she couldn’t imagine the places they had been, nor the nightmares they had witnessed in action.

  Luckily, she was too distressed to really take much notice of anything. Getting up hurriedly, she brushed the last few crumbs off her clothes. “I better get home. Penny and Alice probably won’t hear unless I tell them. They don’t get out much and I wouldn’t want them to wander onto the Green and see...” She bit her lip, thinking no doubt what that scene would be like.

  "That’s a good idea, Mouse," Bakari leant across the table and gave her hand what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze, "There’ll be a lot of frightened people out there." And in here, too.

  She made her way slowly to the door, her stride showing the limp she usually tried so hard to conceal. Ronan rose quietly and opened it for her. He had done it so smoothly that Ella looked up at him in surprise. Bakari shook his head. Everywhere the Panther went he stood out as different. How he ever managed to be so successful at what he did was the real puzzle.

  Opening the door for Ella, Ronan touched her shoulder and, bending close, whispered something to her. She gave a little start, but also gave him a tiny smile.

  Ronan took his seat opposite Bakari and resumed buttering the toast he had only half finished. “What?” he asked innocently.

  “Just don’t get too comfortable here.”

  In the pause afterwards, Ronan wolfed down his slice. “I like Penherem. Perhaps if you are so concerned with its citizens, you shouldn’t have brought me here.”

  The odd gleam in Ronan’s eye didn’t make Bakari feel any better. He had no way of knowing how much the other suspected, but that look made him suddenly change his mind. Best if Ronan was kept in the dark; he might react badly if he found out about what Hamish had been doing.

  “It’s like this,” Bakari pulled his dreads back from his face with one hand using the time to gather his thoughts. He needed to encourage trust, but not expose his real reasoning. “The mask was dug up from around here a couple of hundred years back, and it’s worth a lot of money. I need that right now.”

  “Don't we all.”

  “You'll get your share.”

  Another silence while Ronan leaned back in his chair, eyes hooded hopefully, weighing up the evidence. “I’m not fond of games, Vortex.”

  “You don’t need to worry,” Bakari found himself snapping. “I just want the mask—that’s all you’re hired for.”

  “Well,” Ronan rose abruptly like a horse from a starter’s gate. “Then I better do what I’m being paid for. But I do it my own way and in my own time. Alright?”

  “Of course it is.” Please let that sweat stay inside him for a second longer. “Just get it done.” He carefully kept his eyes on the lurid tabletop until he heard Ronan reach the door. “And be careful, there are extra cops in the village.”

  “I might just check in on that—might be interesting.” The Crew’s voice was pretty neutral but that didn’t mean he hadn’t made the connection.

  Bakari felt as though his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. “Just try not to look suspicious.”

  “Who me?” Ronan ended the conversation with the banging of the door behind him.

  Bakari counted evenly to twenty, all senses tuned for signs that the other was still about. Then he got up and went into the bedroom. Making himself comfortable, he pulled the hair-thin cable from the pocket in his trousers and plugged himself in, retreating to his proper world.

  The chilly cartel might provide the money to hire Ronan, but others in his plans provided something he needed even more—information.

  These people knew more of magic and the occult than he could ever find on the Line. He would never have been able to deal with a bunch of wild-eyed freaks talking about moon cycles and what type of tree he would be if he was a tree. This contact of his was cool, calm, professional and never pretended that magic was anything more than another type of power. Any romantic notions that Bakari had about magic he kept to himself.

  He opened his control cube, signaled into Third Step and once more shrugged on the shape of the crow. Sending the carrier wave, he waited for a moment, scanning the deceptive rolling green hills. It felt different to him somehow, as if something were moving subtly underneath it. The real worry was that he could not immediately spot the difference—it was only pure instinct that was ringing his bells.

  The crow leapt into the air, dipping and diving, feeling the power that followed in its wake. Bakari spun in Third Step, creating a basic bot of his own. It leapt into existence in the shape of a trowel fronted black beetle and, dropping to the earth with a rattle, it began digging.

  Bakari diverted a minor portion of his processing power to track what it could find, while simultaneously checking on the progress of his signal wave. It had been intercepted, but knowing the level of its receiver, it would be a few nanos before he was no longer alone.

  The beetle was ferreting through the local Line, searching for anything unusual. The steady stream of data it sent back was perfectly normal. And yet….

  Bakari concentrated his perception. That was what had attracted his attention! The Penherem node had always been one of the more basic, a simple collection of domestic housefeeds with the Hall being the exception. But now the beetle was bringing back far more data than it would have found even a few days ago. The Penherem node was flickering like a lit up Christmas tree, pulsing with a life that didn't seem to correspond with any connections to the real world.

  Exposed to this sudden influx of energy, Bakari's beetle was confused, the sheer volume of information more than such a simple bot could possibly handle.

  This was strange. He'd need to load the more complex ones that he'd last used in the sprawl—unfortunately, right now there was no time for that.

  It came boiling up from the ground beneath him, the blocky ill-defined avatar which could possibly be some sort of leafy vine. The quality of an avatar told a lot about the skill level of the user. Only those who were willing to risk brain surgery had the access to high quality avatars like Bakari's. It was more than likely that this second contact was using a simple carrier system, disparagingly referred to by Bakari’s kind as Boxes. So whoever this contact was, they were not at home on the Line—which was perfectly fine, since their expertise lay elsewhere.

  The voice too was a badly modulated concoction that could have been either sex and any age. “You need our help?”

  Bakari felt at least safer with this contact, whom he had taken to calling Green in his head. He told it all about the killing in Penherem that day. Images about what had been done to Rob were flashing in the back of his eyes. Bakari hadn’t gotten a look at the crime scene, but he had seen plenty of others just like it. It was every Liner’s nightmare. Though, by the time the spine was cut open, the avatar had been slain and the agony was over.

  He didn’t say anything to Green, but he’d already had the unnerving thought that sooner or later the helmets would figure it out, and then it would not be long before one of them was knocking at the librarian’s door. The village gossips would love that.

  Impossible to tell how Green took the news, but the avatar did not retreat. It was still for a moment, as if the Liner had simply walked away from the screen—likely they had.

  “The method of killing suggests a certain intent.” So Green might not know the Line, but they knew the methods people used against Liners. “You must come to London and meet with me. I have some
...less conventional items that might move things along. Time is of the essence.”

  Bakari cocked his head and looked out through raven’s eyes. He needed no reminding that this was dangerous.

  “Panther will have to come with you—bring him.”

  “I’m not going to do that.”

  The vines curled in on themselves. “If you haven't got him under control...”

  “I don’t think anyone has. It can’t be done.”

  The raven stared at the ill-rendered pixels for a long nano or two. “Perhaps not,” the voice came. “Meet my messenger at Flash Point.”

  And then just like that, the avatar blinked out; someone had pulled the plug. Hopefully, that didn’t mean anything bad.

  Bakari was now going to have to convince Ronan to visit the sprawl. And although that would get them away from the trouble in the village, it would be dropping them back into the past and London—the place that had almost killed him.

  Not many people in this day and age appreciated the value of a well-washed dish. Helen Carew stared down into the foam filled sink and fished out the last stubborn glass. No, there really was nothing better than taking something soiled, and with the mere application of a little time and detergent, making it sparkly and useful again. It was just a pity that the same could not be done with people.

  At that grim thought, she scrubbed harder, covering the bench top with suds and water. “I am a great artist and people see my work and want to buy it.” The affirmation didn’t seem to be working, in all honesty, yet she muttered it five more times as she laid the glass on the opposite side of the bench. Sometimes it raised the spirits for the rest of the day, but this morning she had barely pulled the plug out of the sink before the positive feeling had drained away.

  It was turning around that did it. All those sad faced goddess figures drying on the kitchen table: each one of them said No one’s interested in me. Helen frowned, trying to hold onto her good mood.

  Perhaps it was Hamish’s death, or maybe that man she had seen in the village a couple of days ago. He’d been leaning on her fence staring at the birds eating from her little clay feeder in the rowan tree. At first, Helen had hoped he might have been enticed in by the notice she had only put up that very day: ‘Goddess images—improve your luck, improve your life’. It was meant to encourage tourists to visit her shop, but she was quite prepared to sell them from the gate if necessary.

  Still, he wouldn’t have been the first man to sneer at the little women. However, this man, with the deepest brown eyes she had ever seen, hadn't sneered. Instead he smiled encouragingly when Helen brought one of the goddesses out to show him. “They’re powerful,” he’d said.

  Ah, what a voice he’d had. Helen sighed as she wiped her hands on the tea towel.

  “Yes, powerful,” she reminded the quiet goddesses on the kitchen table. “But it’d also be nice if you sold.”

  Almost on cue, the wind whistled around the corner of the house and made the chimes hanging in the trees ring cheerfully. Helen peered out the kitchen window, wondering where on earth that had come from. She saw movement in the bushes; perhaps a peeping tom, or just another mindless vandal. With a flood of anger she didn’t know she had, Helen picked up the coal shovel and dashed outside, not even thinking for a moment about Hamish’s murderer.

  Barreling out of the back door while waving her impromptu weapon, she couldn’t have really been expecting a satyr to stand up out of the delphiniums. The coal shovel dropped out of her hands to lie rocking on the path, while satyr and artist stared at each other. Helen’s first thought was that he was completely naked, not that it mattered much when his lower torso was covered in ginger brown fur—but it was the principle of the thing. Still, when she managed to pull her eyes upwards there was so much more to see. The lean tanned torso was broad with strong arms, but his face was very sweet, even with the pair of polished tan horns nestling just above his eyebrows. The satyr seemed calm enough, his head tilted to one side, his nostrils twitching like he’d smelt something unusual. Helen wasn’t quite sure if she should shout and wave her hands to scare him off or to invite him in for some lunch. No one had ever mentioned the social conventions of such a situation to her and yet neither could she try and pretend she was dreaming or on drugs. The satyr was so immediately real that he simply could not be denied. Every hair, every breath proclaimed him to be more alive than anything else Helen had ever seen.

  The wind rose again as the satyr’s head came up. With a bound he leapt clear of the perennial border and over the tidy white fence into the farmland beyond.

  “Wait!” Helen called, and not quite knowing what she was doing pushed open the gate and chased after him into the meadow. At this time of year it was full of dog roses, wildflowers and most of all thick green grass. Amongst all this the satyr’s back was very hard to see, so she ran faster and harder than she’d done in a very long time. Her breath was sticking in her throat, she’d forgotten to pick up the coal shovel, but still she hitched her floral skirt up higher and ran on.

  She could smell him, too, a thick musky tang that lingered in the grass and reminded her not unpleasantly of her late husband’s aftershave. Another moment and Helen might have stopped, indeed her brain was already catching up with her body, but just before that moment she found him.

  Normally there was no way that a slightly unfit and house bound middle-aged artist could have ever caught up with such a wild creature, if he had not wanted her to. But he had. The satyr was standing in the long grass, tufted goat’s tail twitching as he held out his hand to her. The run couldn’t have winded him at all, for he was breathing normally and the gloss on his skin was not sweat.

  Helen looked into those huge brown eyes and forgot about the strangeness, or how her legs were aching, or about the work waiting for her on the kitchen table. Those eyes were marvelous, the colour of warm oak and totally unsullied by any white. Merely looking into them was making Helen feel at peace, but there was more. It really made no sense at all, but she was not so disconnected from her own feminine nature not to recognize what he was offering.

  She should turn back and forget, maybe even find some sort of medication, but undoubtedly she shouldn’t take that offered hand. Later, Helen would remind herself that at that point these were the things she would have done, had he not in turn done one thing...

  The satyr smiled as if he completely understood and spoke her name. The way ‘Helen’ rolled from his lips was her undoing. A faint sigh escaped her. It was impossible to resist that voice. She reached out and took his nut-brown hand.

  6

  Consequences

  Sally’s breath was the loudest noise in the forest. Aroha was leading the way into the gathering darkness, trying to act as though she knew what she was doing though in truth she was frozen with fear. It was not that the People inspired such feelings in her—rather that she was afraid for her companions. Sally might not be at much of a risk but the two soldiers, trailing behind and armed to the teeth, breaking branches under their heavy boots, were in far greater danger. The smell of their army fatigues and weaponry would offend every one of the Forest folk.

  Aroha pushed through a stand of Old Man’s Beard, knowing they would not object to this violation of the least loved forest weed. At the same time she wove a little calmness ahead, hoping that it would carry higher and soothe any anger directed their way.

  Sally inched closer. “This is taking a while, Ta.” She was right. The waterfalls were not far from the village. But then, its inhabitants were not of the military nature and so the Forest People tolerated them. The stink of metal and danger were not pleasant to Aroha’s allies and in bringing them to this place she had to be more careful.

  “We’re almost there,” she hissed, looking over her shoulder to where the bush was shifting slightly.

  Daniel’s dark head appeared briefly, gave her a ‘keep-your-chin-up-smile’ and disappeared again. His less cheerful companion, however, remained hidden.

&n
bsp; The girls went on; Sally blissful in her ignorance, Aroha tense in her knowledge.

  Around them the bush was alive with the sound of birds, the liquid warble of the bellbird and the squawk of the tui. The little black bird with the tuft of white feathers at his throat was her frequent companion. They were excellent mimics and one that hung around her house had learnt to make the exact noise of the kettle boiling.

  Aroha knew this one was different though, a bird of the deep bush and possibly a messenger of the Forest Folk. It would be playing no tricks for her benefit.

  They worked their way upwards through the tall ferns and up the leaf covered slope. Suddenly her senses were alive. Aroha stopped and held her breath.

  “What is it?” Sally was looking about her, dumb to the touch of magic.

  How could she explain what she was feeling? It’d be like explaining colour to someone who had never been able to see. They were surrounded. The Folk might be invisible to the eye, but they were ready to slip through reality and into view; powerful and frightening, terrible and beautiful.

  “No… nothing,” Aroha whispered. “The falls are just over the next hill.”

  They waited there, poised at the very edge of magic until the soldiers caught up with them: Daniel as always first, Simon lingering in the background.

  Sally grinned up at him. “Ta says it's just over the ridge.”

  “Alright. Now, you two stay here.”

  Sally slipped her hand into Aroha’s for comfort as they stood on the ridge and watched the men pick their way down the hill, subtly moving shades of brown and green against an unfriendly background.

  “Think they’ll find the bot?” Sally whispered, even though the birds were loud enough to cover most sounds.

  She couldn’t answer; too busy weaving calmness into the ether. The Forest Folk were far angrier now, outraged at the intrusion of these men into one of their sacred spots.