‘Well... if he had bigger fish to fry.’ Ellis laid out the photos of Alex Culverton meeting with Teischen on Cohburn's desk. ‘Bruno Teischen. Code 6 with the CIA due to fears of him supplying arms through the back door to Iran and Syria through Kazakhstan. Mix in Culverton's hot-ticket missile technology and it could be the final flash-point for the biggie: World War Three.’
Cohburn looked at Weiss. Weiss took a moment more studying the photos before looking up.
‘Okay. We'll keep tabs on Alex too,’ Weiss said. ‘But even discrediting his brother to give him a clear path to deal with Teischen – he's still got the old man to answer to. And old Joe Culverton would never sanction deals with Teischen.’
Cohburn nodded thoughtfully. ‘Also how Alex was able to make that crucial signal call while he was in full sight in the marquee? And put his brother in the frame at the same time?’
NINE
Bright light.
Ryan looked around from his school-desk, taking it all in: a classroom with twenty or so students aged between twelve and nineteen.
Among them, at the other end of the classroom, a girl with corn blonde hair. He’d have looked away if she caught him looking, but at that moment Jessica Werner seemed more distracted by some movement in the corridor through a glass screen by the classroom door: the visual check-point for teachers before entering the classroom, this time being used equally the other way.
Others in the class too looked back at Ellis Kendell and Josh Eskovitz peering in at them.
‘Okay, fresh blood. Let’s do it,’ Ellis said, and they entered the class.
After settling the class down, Ellis took center stage, Josh Eskovitz hanging just behind. He surveyed the class thoughtfully.
‘I suppose most of you will be wondering why you're here.’
A teen boy in a tie-dye towards the back leered slyly. ‘Yeah, you could say that, Sherlock.’
A few giggles and murmurs rose around the class. Ellis fixed him with a withering stare, making it clear he’d seen and heard it all before. The turf marked: interruptions wouldn’t be taken to kindly.
The boy fell quiet, and the faint murmurs from the rest quickly died too.
‘What brings you here is that you all have one thing in common: you can see things within certain people that others simply can't see.’
Glances exchanged across the classroom – some with dawning realization, some still quizzical – and the murmurs were rising again.
Ellis rolled on quickly to quell the mounting speculation. 'Apparitions', if you will. And while a number of you have already experienced seeing those apparitions, others haven't. But we know you have that ability.’ He slowly scanned the class. ‘So you will. Believe me you will.’
More glances exchanged around the classroom, some now with dawning realization.
‘And once that happens, you become in danger. That's when you need to enter Blind School. Not only for your own safety, but to learn more about what you've seen and why. Yet be able to continue viewing safely.’ Ellis paused, staring the message home. ‘In short, to see without being seen.’
On cue, Josh Eskovitz started going round, handing out dark glasses. Obviously a student introduction routine they’d enacted many times before. Josh held up one set of glasses as he looked round the class.
‘These will allow you to see and view safely without the subject picking up the tell-tale eye refraction that reveals they've been spotted. But you must wear these at all times – never remove them.’
The class studied the glasses on their desks, one of the girls pressing a side hinge. There was a buzzing noise and fork flashes sparked inside the lenses. Startled, she dropped them back on the desk top.
‘To the casual observer, they look like normal sunglasses – but in fact they have a protective field.’ Josh looked around, checking that he’d handed all the glasses out. ‘The cover story is that you've developed a degenerative eye condition known as Hemeralopia – which means you've become oversensitive to light, and if not treated will go blind. Thus the need for your regular attendance to Blind School.’
Ellis studied the class keenly as he picked up again. ‘But that cover-story must be kept up throughout, even to your family and friends. Never confide the real story beneath to anyone – the risks are too great.’ He stared the message home, smiling wryly after a second. ‘Aside from which they probably wouldn't believe you, as a number of you will have already discovered when you've tried to share what you've seen.’
Continued furtive glances around the classroom. A gentle hubbub returned, and out of it Ryan's question rose.
‘So what will we actually be doing while we're here – at Blind School?’
‘While you need our help, we in turn need yours. We need to track the people you've seen and also for you to help us identify others.’
Tie-dye grinned slyly. ‘So that you can kill them?’
‘No. They can't be killed. They can only be 'contained'. But it's far too early for you to learn about containment...’ Ellis seemed distracted as he looked towards the classroom side window and a man observing the other side. ‘First off you have to have a better understanding of what you've seen. What it represents.’
Ellis nodded towards the side observation window, and the man the other side nodded back. His cue to take over.
Parked in his black van, Frank Lyle looked intently towards the group of teen girls as they came out of the sports center two hundred yards ahead.
He observed them part company and honed in on one of them, a pretty brunette, as she headed off alone on foot.
He edged out and started following.
Professor Jules Mentinck was in his early fifties with a wild shock of greying blonde hair. He invariably wore velvet jackets with leather elbow patches, though often opted for bold, vibrant colours which he felt matched his exuberant personality. Today it was a burgundy jacket with bright floral tie.
Having taken over from Ellis Kendell, he hit the main nub of his lecture as swiftly as he could. ‘...What you're in fact seeing are known as 'fallen angels'. Effectively, angels that have fallen from God's grace and have been banished from heaven. So if they can no longer be good, they devote themselves to being evil.’
Three helpers entered and deposited large cardboard boxes on the desk behind him. Some eyes around the class shifted to the boxes. What was in them?
‘... As evil as they can be.’ A sweeping stare of the class. After hundreds of such lectures, Mentinck knew how to play his audience to maximum effect. ‘And they're literally thousands of years old.’
Another sweeping stare of the class, then Mentinck's expression lightened, a wry smile curling his mouth.
‘They were the first to go over to the 'dark side', if you will.’
Mentinck's regular little joke to sweeten the pill for new pupils. But as a few groans rose from the class, they were distracted by a heavy trundling noise from the corridor.
Two lab technicians wheeled a large metal podium on a trolley into the classroom, but Mentinck paid them scant attention. He opened the boxes and took out leather-bound books, started busily going round the class handing them out.
‘The main history of 'fallen angels' in the Christian religion is contained in these three books: the Dictionnaire Infernal, Lesser Key of Solomon and the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum.’
Some eyebrows knitted and a redhead near the front quizzed, ‘Pseudo what?’
‘In layman's terms – a hierarchy of demons. And in fact 'demons' is no doubt the term you're more familiar with for 'fallen angels'.’
Mentinck surveyed the class as the technicians set up the podium behind him: seven foot high with two spherical pods separated by a slim metal stanchion.
‘Some of the illustrations vary between these books – so we've gone for an amalgam guided by known descriptions.’
But the class were only half paying attention to Mentinck now, their main focus on the metal podium behind him as it was switched on. The pods glow
ed and a hum steadily rose, like a generator winding up power, and lights start to flash along its stanchion.
‘Now if you turn to the fifth page tab in the red volume – the Dictionnaire Infernal.’
The books were all marked with tabs. Ryan dutifully turned to the page, and found himself looking at an ink pen colour illustration of a wolf-like figure with wings and a pointed tail. He looked briefly across the class at Jessica, and she seemed mildly amused by it. Ryan had to admit, it had a slightly comic-book feel to it.
‘And let's lower the lights to get the effect more.’
That impression quickly changed as the lights dimmed and Mentinck pressed his remote control again, an image surging to life on the holo-pod and two wide screens behind.
Jessica's expression dropped and half the class shrunk back in horror at the vibrant 3-D image suddenly confronting them in the semi-dark: grey-green, its skin scaly and slimy, veins bulging, its pale grey eyes were also scored with scales and veins.
‘Marchosias is always a good one to start with – not only because it's one of the more iconic demon images – but because it embodies features we see on many other demons.’ Mentinck pointed. ‘Griffin or bat-wings, a serpent's tail, extended claws... and wolf-like features – though often also convergences with goats, bats or dragons. And finally...’ Mentinck paused for effect, pressed the remote again. ‘Fire-breathing!’
A plume of fire shot from Marchosias's mouth along with a roar – and again there was some shrinking back in shock and a few shrieks.
Mentinck smiled. It was going well, the class reacting how they should. He'd got their attention.
TEN
Dusk light. Frank Lyle was crouched close to the ground, talking on his hands-free phone by a freshly-planted cherry tree.
Two foot below him was the brunette teen girl he’d seen earlier in front of the sports centre, now in a coffin, terrified. Tears were streaming down her face.
‘Please... please. Let me out of here.’
‘You just don't get it, do you? I need you to tell me that you love me before I let you out.’
The comment didn't compute: she just repeated the same.
‘Please... please. Let me out!’
‘Ah – not even a pretty please. Can't even manage that?’
The girl's breathing was fractured, staccato. She was rapidly running out of air. She swallowed hard.
‘Okay... okay. Pretty, pretty please. A hundred times pretty please let me out.’
Frank Lyle slowly smiled. ‘Now if you can manage pretty please – then saying you love me shouldn't be that difficult, should it?’
‘I... I suppose not.’
But in the glow of Lyle's cell-phone, there was a lost look in her eyes; as if part of her knew she was probably just being played and wouldn’t be let out.
‘So why don't we try that now, and you tell me how much you really, really love me...’
Lyle waited expectantly. In the fading light six cherry trees could now be seen on the same small plot.
Notebooks around the class had several pages filled as Mentinck came towards the end of his lecture.
The initial awe from Mentinck’s first few holo-pad illustrations had long since worn down; now they simply looked tired and shell-shocked from the volume of information he’d thrown at them in the past two hours.
Another hologram was on the pod as Mentinck wound down.
‘... And here on Asmodeus we see various heads merging: a wizened man, a horned-goat, a bull... and other faces too on its body: a serpent, a dragon, gargoyles.’
All those writhing faces and eyes staring back at the pupils had an unsettling on them. Some pupils were looking round the class for the reaction of others, including Ryan. His eyes rested on Jessica for a moment – and this time she caught him looking. She gave a tame smile back.
Mentinck pointed towards the hologram. ‘Once again extended claws and Griffins wings; and, as we see here with Abaddon, Angel of the bottomless pit –’ Mentinck pressed his remote control. ‘ – Not only wings, but a spear or pronged fork to prod his victims down. And lizard scales on the lower half of his body.’
But as the fresh image came up on the holo-pod, it sparked something in Jessica’s mind: a hazy Abaddon-like image forming as she looked towards a man across a road junction, but not becoming fully clear.
‘And finally saving the best – or in this case worst – till last: Satan... otherwise known as Lucifer. Or often simply 'The Devil'.’ Mentinck mocked a small bow as he brought up the hologram, as if he was doing a Vaudeville presentation. ‘Without doubt the best known of all fallen angels. His reputation precedes him...’
Alex Culverton nodded as the young nurse brought him up to date on his father’s medication and latest monitor readings. He looked concernedly over her shoulder towards his father's bedroom door; the caring son.
‘It's okay. You go for your break now. I'll stay here and keep an eye on him meanwhile.’
The nurse nodded her thanks and Alex watched her leave. With a fresh breath he entered his father’s bedroom.
Alex knew that this confrontation now was inevitable, but didn’t appreciate how defensive and difficult his father might be until halfway through pleading his case. Obviously the hospital stay and drugs had made the old man even more stubborn than usual. Alex gestured helplessly.
‘I can’t emphasize strongly enough: this investigation with John over the air-crash isn't going to go away. It could seriously damage the company if he's kept at the forefront of our operations.’
But Joseph simply became more impatient.
‘As I said before – I have every faith that John had nothing to do with the incident. Besides, making changes now would send completely the wrong signal. It would look like I'd already made my decision about his guilt.’
‘Always the favourite, huh? No matter what I do, no matter what he does?’
Joseph looked sharply at Alex. ‘This isn't about favourites, Alex. It's about a shared vision for our company and the right accords with our partners. Something which no doubt in time you'll learn too.’
Alex nodded solemnly. ‘I daresay I will.’
His father’s gaze stayed on him for a moment, as if unsure whether Alex was being sarcastic.
‘Yes, well. I’m glad we finally got that clear.’
‘Me too.’ Alex smiled tightly. ‘So is that your last word on the subject?’
Alex made as if the answer was important to him. He steadily held his father’s gaze while with one hand he surreptitiously detached the flow-buffer on his father's plasma line and replaced it with another – full of air.
‘Yes... yes, it is,’ Joseph said gruffly, the insistence striking him as odd.
Alex watched the air move along the tube. ‘Like many other things you've said over the years – you probably have no idea the irony of that comment.’
Joseph's brow furrowed deeper – then as he followed his son’s fleeting gaze towards his feed-tube, suddenly he caught on.
‘...What the?’
But as he went to move, Alex leant across, pinning him down. And, one hand over his father's mouth, rode his body as the embolism hit his heart and the life ebbed from him.
Mentinck was in full flow as he held a hand out towards the final hologram.
‘But Satan's not depicted anywhere as a King of Hell, like Asmodeus or Beleth, and he's certainly no more powerful than them... So in the end what is he?’ He scanned the class. ‘A conundrum? A cipher for the evils of all the other fallen angels?’
The class gripped in the silent awe Mentinck anticipated, he pressed remote again. ‘And the illustrations of Satan vary too: from more human-like with horns...’ He clicked up a fresh image. ‘To more gargoylish.’
Click.
‘... And the wings from bat-like to more angelic. And if you add up all these images of man conflated with gargoyles, wolves and bats – you'll get some idea where today's demon culture has stemmed from.’ Mentinck stared at t
he class long and hard. ‘Except, as I say, these demons are thousands of years old. And as you've now learned, are unfortunately still with us.’
ELEVEN
As Mentinck wound up the lesson, Ellis Kendell watched through the side-glass.
‘So while that concludes the seventy-two named 'fallen angels' in Christian and Abrahamic religions – we have the demons from other religions and cultures to consider: Hindu, Aztec, Phoenician, Japanese, Slavic. Then too the factor that a number of these main fallen angels control numerous lower-ranked demons – sometimes running into 'legions'. Which, as any of you who've done Roman history will know, means five-thousand at a time.’
A collective low groan emanated from some in the classroom as they thought about the work-load ahead.
Mentinck smiled tightly back. ‘Don't worry. That's not for today. We'll get to that in future lessons. That’s it for now.’
Ellis walked in, one hand held up as some of the class started to shift.
‘Now tomorrow with Professor Mentinck there'll be some practical exercises – which I'll be joining you for.’
Glances exchanged around the classroom at just what 'practical' might mean.
‘Meanwhile, some of my men have phoned your families with the cover story about your condition, hemeralopia, and left them a clinic help-line number.’ Ellis took a fresh breath as a faint hubbub rose from the class. ‘Also a few here I need to have a word with.’
A quick scan which settled on a few people in the room. Ryan felt a twinge of concern as he realized he was one of them.
Ryan got the anticipated call from his father an hour after he got home that night. Mistaken identity mix-up was the cover-story for the hotel commotion the day before. One of Ellis Kendell’s team posing as a police officer had earlier phoned his father, Rob, to explain, but still after ten minutes of Ryan filling in his side of Kendell’s pre-scripted events, his father asked again:
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