by KJ Harlow
“I know that man,” he said. I shot him a quizzical look before glancing at Walter.
“You mean the guy with the gun? Don’t worry about what he’s doing, he’s just–”
“No, not him, the guy he’s shooting. That’s… he’s Mortimer Weston.” I gave Sid a confused look. He was staring intently at Mortimer, shivering slightly. The poor guy was going into shock. I had to get him to Central Hall ASAP.
“You got the last name wrong. He’s Mortimer Wildblood.”
“Yes, that’s what the papers called him a long time ago. He was meant to be hanged but somehow escaped. So he’s back, is he? He’s responsible for all this?”
“Yes, that’s him. You won’t have to worry about him any longer. As you can see, he’s dead,” I lied. Sid stared at Mortimer’s body as Walter continued to riddle it with bullets.
“Tomorrow is his birthday, you know.”
I scoffed out loud. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes it is,” he swiveled and squinted at Westminster Station where an electric board was mounted above the entrance to the gates. “It’s September 9th today, isn’t it?” I squinted at the board and could just make out the date in red LED lights. I nodded slowly.
“He was born yesterday in 1953, not that it would do him any good now anyway, seeing that one of your people can’t seem to stop shooting the poor lad. Imagine, dying the day before your birthday…” Sid descended into meaningless babble as I ushered him down the road. I’d have to be more careful with who I trusted in the future.
“It looks like everyone’s safe for now,” I said, staring intently at one of the monitors on the control room wall. We had just finished our Regroup 10 minutes ago. After I gave my recount of what happened in Andover, I sat down, zoned out and let everyone else do the talking. I was too busy trying to figure out where the Tormented were planning to strike next.
We had tapped into the surveillance at Central Hall Westminster. We watched as the tireless nurses of London methodically examined each patient, squatting down to take their temperature, administer treatment or simply to reassure. Tracy and Agatha were standing either side of me, eyes flickering from one screen to the next.
“Do we know where Mortimer and Matylda went? Or Dante?” I asked for the fifth time, a hint of anxiety creeping into my voice.
“You know how they work. We retreat, they revive themselves, talk, then disappear,” Tracy said prosaically.
“They must have learned their lesson from Melbourne. Sure they haven’t set up a home base here in London, but it makes it that much harder to find them,” Agatha said. I didn’t know it was possible to get a headache in spirit form, but that was exactly what was happening as I stared at the plethora of screens. I closed my eyes, furrowed my brow and rubbed my temples with my fingers.
“‘Dante says he needed more time’. That’s what Mortimer said. More time for what?”
“He’s already raided Andover of all their weapons. Maybe he’s planning to find more people to turn into Conflicted?” Tracy offered.
“Do we have any surveillance on people of interest who they could be targeting?” I said, opening my eyes and letting them roam over the screens again.
“No. Their actions seem to be more unpredictable this time,” Agatha said quietly. Death came out of the meeting room towards us; he looked visibly tired as he stood to my left and gazed up at the screen.
“How’s Tor going?”
“He’ll be fine. He refuses to go down to the resting chambers and insists that he’s fine just sitting in the meeting room. He can take a good beating, that’s for sure,” Death said. He stretched upwards. “Excuse me,” he said, stifling his yawn.
“You look like death,” I said, looking up at Death. Tracy snickered and quickly smothered it when Death shot her a venomous look.
“I’ll have you know that healing Deliverers takes its toll on me, not to mention the millions of souls that come through here every day.”
“Pretty sure that Natasha does most of the heavy lifting…” I said under my breath, referring to Death’s receptionist I almost punched the lights out of when I first came down to the Underworld. I shot a quick glance at Tracy, who put a finger to her lips while her eyes sparkled mischievously.
“Anyway,” Death said loudly, “I didn’t come out here to get sympathy. From what I can hear, you guys are still behind the eight ball with the Tormented situation. I clenched my jaw and pretended to be fascinated in the screen showing surveillance of a vacant park. “I’m glad that you guys got back down here in one piece but you did fail the mission. You couldn’t defend Andover. The Tormented now have a virtually unlimited supply of military grade weapons to arm the Conflicted with–”
“OK, I get it!” I exploded. “You don’t think I’m trying to figure out where the Tormented are going to be next? That’s all I’ve been thinking about since I got back.” I turned to Death and stabbed a finger into his chest. “I don’t even know why I care so much. Stan’s Ceased. I don’t have a reason to keep fighting. I–”
“Will you excuse us?” Tracy said loudly, clapping a hand over my mouth and hooking my elbow with her other arm. She pulled me across the control room towards the stairwell. I glared at Death while Tracy ushered me through the glass door and into the stair well.
“Time out,” Tracy said. She grabbed my shoulders and squeezed. “Breathe.”
“There’s no oxygen in the Underworld,” I said glumly. “Besides, we’re dead and only exist in spirit form down here.”
“Do it anyway, it will calm you down.” I inhaled, held my ‘breath’ then released it over the space of 10 seconds. Standing in the dim stairwell with Tracy holding my shoulders relaxed me.
“Come on, I want to take you somewhere.” Halfway down the stairwell, we bumped into Walter.
“Oh hello girls, getting some beauty sleep are we?” He said, winking at us. I rolled my eyes.
“No, far from it,” Tracy said. Walter’s eyebrow pitched up. “You can come too if you’d like.”
“Oh no, I’ve got to go back up and talk to–”
“Come with us. I need to ask you something.” I said interrupting him. Before he could object, I had hooked my arm around his. Tracy led the three-man Deliverer chain down until we were staring at the gnarled, wooden door of The Room. Tracy placed her hand on the door and closed her eyes. Club music dripping thick with bass started pulsing through the door as strobe lights licked our feet underneath it.
“Welcome,” Tracy said, giving me and Walter an enigmatic look before pushing the door open, “to Delux Lounge, the place where the coolest people hang out in Detroit.”
I walked in and was immediately overcome with the smell of stale cigarette smoke. I scrunched my nose up in distaste, surreptitiously batting at my nose. There was a bar to my right. The bartender was polishing a glass. He looked up at me and winked. My heart only had a moment to ache for Stan before Tracy yelled in my ear.
“So what do you think?”
“I think it’s a bit noisy.”
“I know right? It is pretty cozy.”
“No, not cozy…” She happily skipped away to the bar to flirt with the bartender.
“I think it’s a pretty cool place,” Walter said. “I’m too much of a fossil to be in a place like this, though.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. My foot started tapping unconsciously to the beat of the music. “I’m sure you were a VIP at all the bars around the world when you were doing deals and breaking hearts.” The room was too dark so I couldn’t see his expression properly, but for a split second, I thought I saw pain in his eyes. It must have just been the strobe lights rolling over his face.
“That looks like a comfy booth, too bad it’s taken,” Walter said, his eyes flicking over to the corner.
“This isn’t real, remember? We could just make those skanky looking girls disappear,” I said. I looked at the offending clients. In a blink, they were gone. I loped over to the lounge and jumped onto it, giggl
ing. I had already acclimatized to the odor in the room. The music was so loud that I could feel it vibrating in my rib cage.
“What are you doing sitting down, girl? You can do that in your room. We’re here to dance!” Tracy put her drinks on the glass table in front of me and dragged me up by the hands. I shook my head, but she was insistent.
“Come on, dance it out. I know we’re running out of time and Tormented to stop, but just give yourself 10 minutes and dance it out.” Tracy started jumping around, almost knocking into the other patrons on the dance floor. I laughed at her as she curled her finger at me seductively.
So I danced. I danced harder than I’d ever danced before. I had hard questions I had to find answers for but they became smaller and smaller as I let myself get taken away in the riptide of throbbing music. The answers would come to me when the time was right – that’s what I told myself, anyway.
Eleven
“I love you, have I ever told you that?” My gin and tonic sloshed out of my glass and onto the sticky carpet at my feet.
“Rose,” Tracy said, grabbing my hand and squeezing it, “I know you love me, but there’s something I have to tell you.”
“That you love me too?”
“No, that you’re not actually drunk.” Walter seemed highly amused at my ‘inebriated’ state. He watched us from the corner of the booth as I tried to comprehend what my friend had said.
“But I’ve had like five gin and tonics and a long island–”
“Yes, but we’re in The Room, remember? You’re not actually drunk, you can’t be. It’s all in your head. I took you down here to take your mind off things. You yelled at Death before.”
“Oh my god,” I said, shakily putting my drink down then cradling my head in my hands. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…” I started rocking back and forth. Tracy looked at Walter helplessly.
“Looks like it worked too well,” Walter said. He was reclining in his seat, absent-mindedly swirling a glass of scotch on the rocks.
“We’ve got to go back; they might have found something already.” Tracy leaned back and crossed her legs, ignoring for for the moment.
Walter abruptly sat up and put his glass on the table. “We’ve got to sober her up first.” he stood up and stepped across to stand on my left. He gestured for Tracy to stand up as well. “Get ready to grab her, OK?” Tracy’s eyes widened as she shared a knowing look with Walter. He closed his eyes for a moment. In a second, Delux Lounge collapsed towards Tracy. The following second, the Grand Canyon started folding itself out from Walter. Where one moment I was cradling my head on a comfy lounge, I was now teetering on the edge of a 6,000-foot drop.
I screamed and the canyon screamed back at me as Tracy and Walter grabbed my arms, pulling me back from the abyss. A westerly wind whipped all around us. The clouds that had happily occupied my mind were blown away in an instant. Tracy and Walter helped me regain my footing. Walter raised his hand and the gusty wind became a breezy whisper.
“Welcome back,” Walter said, his mouth lifting at the corner. I looked at Walter, then at Tracy who was bent over with her hands on her knees.
“That’s the last time I’m taking you clubbing,” she huffed. “You’re high maintenance, you know that?” I smiled at her sheepishly.
“Thanks guys, I really needed that.” I looked out over the canyon. This was the first place I visited when I came to The Room. Walter came here when he needed to think; guess it was time for me to do the same.
“I didn’t listen to anything you guys said during our Regroup–”
“We know,” Tracy said brightly.
“–So I wanted to check with you guys again. Did you find anything on Mortimer before the Tormented came back to London?” Walter shook his head as Tracy’s shoulders slumped slightly.
“No. As you said, all we could find were articles in the papers dating back to the early to mid-2000’s about Mortimer’s killing sprees,” Tracy said dejectedly.
“We only had about 10 minutes before they smashed the helicopters into Big Ben. After that, we had our hands full just trying to contain the situation and not being seen at the same time.” His face darkened just as clouds scudded across the moon.
I nodded and turned back to look out over the canyon. This mission was another red cross against my name. I rolled the die and guessed right with deciding to go to Andover, but we were too late. The Tormented had raided the armory and caused havoc back in London. Dante hadn’t made his appearance yet either. He was planning something – something he needed ‘more time’ for – and we had no idea what it was.
“Don’t worry. The guys are working on it back in the control room,” Tracy said, resting her hand on my shoulder reassuringly. “We’ll find them then go back up to hit them where it hurts.”
“So many innocent people are dying. Dante doesn’t care who he hurts. If it moves him a step closer to achieving his mad goals, he’ll do it.” Walter stood next to me and glared up at the clouds, as if that would make them disappear.
“‘Mad goals’ is right. From the moment he shot and turned a human into a Tormented, no one has understood why he’s building his army.” Walter looked down at me, his eyes shrewd but gentle. “One day we’ll be able to Cease him. We’ll weaken him first by targeting the Tormented then when he’s the only one left… we’ll find out why he’s doing this and defeat him once and for all,” he paused, knowing what he was about to ask was heavy. “Do you want to be there for that?”
I took a deep breath and exhaled through my nose. Tracy looked at me as she waited for a response. “I don’t know. I need a reason to fight,” I said quietly.
“You don’t. You could have left after Stan died. You could have gone back out the waiting room to be sorted, but you didn’t. You’re here with us now. You have a reason to fight.” Tracy threw an arm around me and looked intensely at me.
“Can you tell me what it is? Because I have no idea where to start.” I felt the frustration bubbling at the bottom of my stomach but I kept a lid on it this time. Tracy squatted down in front of me, forcing me to look at her face.
“Just tell me this: do you want to defeat Mortimer?”
“Yes,” I replied almost immediately. “I’ve got a score to settle with him. He owes me my life.” The moment I said that the Grand Canyon started packing itself up. I was back in the perpetual whiteness of The Room.
“Let’s go back upstairs and see if the others have found anything then,” Walter said.
“What have we got?” Death turned around and glanced at me before looking back up at the screens.
“Nothing yet,” he said coolly. I ignored his frosty tone of voice as my eyes roamed over the surveillance again. Tor’s hulking figure appeared in the corner of my eye as he came out of the meeting room.
“Hey, how are the gunshot wounds?” I said, looking at him with a faint smile.
“They’re gone; I’m better,” he said, standing next to me with his arms crossed and looking up at the monitors on the wall. I wanted to reach out and touch his back to see if he was lying but resisted. Everything that had happened on the ship with Stan felt like eons ago. I wanted to tell Tor that things between us were good again, but it would have to wait.
Silas and Agatha came out of the meeting room, discussing something quietly. They stood 10 feet away, eyes occasionally looking up at the monitors. Tracy and Walter were speaking with one of the workers who wanted to show them something on his screen.
“Does anyone have anything?” Death said, suddenly breaking the silence. “Why aren’t we able to find where the Tormented have gone to?”
“They’re covering their tracks really well,” I said quietly. “So far, we haven’t been able to anticipate where they’re going to next.”
“You should all just head back up there and scout some more,” Death said. This was the most frustrated I’d seen him. I took a few deep breaths. I wouldn’t let him get under my skin again.
“Maybe we should cast our ne
t wider,” Silas said as he walked towards us. “If they went as far as Andover to raid the armory, could they be plotting something even further out?”
“How far out do we go then? Wales? Ireland? We can’t tap into security footage there. It will take too long. He had a reason to go to Andover. We will only cast our net wider if it makes sense to. Even if we did, it would take too much time.” I was staring at footage of Big Ben on the central screen. Most of the helicopters that had crashed into it had broken off. It was still standing and its clock was still working. 10:28.
“Oh my God,” I said smacking my head audibly. Everyone in the room looked at me. “‘More time’. Mortimer said that he wanted to give Dante ‘more time’. What if…” I rushed away from the surveillance screens and approached one of the workers. Initially startled, he nodded as I told him my request in a low voice. Pacing back to the front of the room to the take my place next to Tor, I waited while the worker tapped into the surveillance for the localities I had requested.
“Where are you going with this?” Death said impatiently.
“Just wait.” I looked up at the screens; Big Ben was reflected in my glasses as my eyes roamed over the wall. A moment later, all the screens blinked and started showing the same thing.
“Clock towers,” I said triumphantly. “Whatever Dante is trying to do, it involves clock towers.” Death looked at me skeptically then glanced at the clock towers on that had filled the wall of screens.
“Agatha,” I said turning around to face the senior Deliverer, “How many clock towers are there in England?” The question took her off guard. She was still for a moment as she thought about the answer.
“Things might have changed in the last decade or so but 15 to 20, give or take?”
“There are 21,” I said, doing a quick count. “They’ve already crashed helicopters and lured us into a trap at Big Ben, so we can rule that one out. That leaves 20 for us to check out. We can all go back, split up, check out the remaining clock towers and see what Dante’s got planned for us.”
