Interesting People (Interesting Times #3)

by Matthew Storm

  The other man sighed. “Artemis is…I know she’s hard. I know she’s difficult and she doesn’t tell us much. I don’t know half of what goes on here, but I know she’s a good person. She’s trying to do the right thing.”

  “I know she’s a good person, Bruce.”

  Bruce gave him a skeptical look. “You know, Oliver, one of the reasons I was chosen for this job is I’m good at reading people. Like when they stand on the other side of my desk and lie to me.”

  “You think I’m lying, Bruce?”

  “Yeah. No offense.”

  Oliver thought about that for a moment, and then shrugged. “None taken.” He left the reception area and entered the main hallway, turning his head to look at the door that led to Artemis’s office. It was closed. She’d been keeping it that way more and more these days. When he’d started this job Artemis had led a briefing in the conference room every morning. Now it wasn’t uncommon for him to go for three or four days without seeing her.

  Tyler’s door was open. Oliver could hear him talking on the phone. He decided to put off checking in with him until later. Instead he went into his own office and logged into his computer. He had a dozen emails waiting from Seven. The tech guru had gone to London to examine Vault 2, one of the labyrinthine underground storage facilities Artemis had hidden around the world. Oliver hadn’t been there; the only Vault he’d been inside himself was Vault 3, in Santa Clara. It was a fascinating place. Each of the vaults contained files on the things Artemis and her various teams had done throughout the centuries. Some of the files Oliver had seen himself dated back to the 1500’s. Each also contained any number of artifacts Artemis had collected, items she felt needed to be hidden from a world she didn’t feel could understand or use them properly. Items Oliver had seen himself ranged from a dagger that could supposedly cut through anything to a time machine the Nazis had built in the 1940’s. The time machine had been the source of their problems a few months ago, when Sally had stolen it for her own purposes. The last time Oliver had been there he’d spent some time hitting it with a sledgehammer. He hadn’t done much damage to the thing, but it had felt pretty good.

  Oliver spent half an hour going through Seven’s notes. There was nothing in them that would require a field team to investigate. Vaults were generally quiet places, but they did need to be monitored in case something went wrong in there. Oliver was almost sorry there wasn’t more interesting news. He wasn’t really in the mood for a transatlantic flight, but he didn’t want to hang around the office, either. Keeping busy was good for him. Keeping busy made him forget he was angry.

  Something Saffron had said last night suddenly occurred to him, and he opened a news search for Stuttgart, Germany. A brief article caught his eye almost immediately. According to eyewitnesses, it had briefly rained frogs over a small section of the city. Hundreds of the small amphibians had fallen from the sky. Surprisingly, all of the frogs had survived hitting the ground and immediately set about fleeing in all directions. The episode was blamed on a freak storm system that had developed nearby, seemingly sweeping the frogs up and carrying them through the sky, only to deposit them very gently on a city street later. That was the best explanation anyone had come up with, anyway. Oliver thought about Saffron. She’d have to have been the one responsible for it. Or at least she’d likely been involved somehow. Frogs? What had she been thinking about?

  It was getting near to lunchtime when Oliver’s office phone chimed and Artemis’s voice came over the intercom. “My office,” she said. “Now.”

  “Yeah.” Oliver clicked the phone off and got up, hoping she’d called Tyler in as well. He didn’t feel like sitting in her office by himself. Their more recent private conversations hadn’t gone all that well.

  It turned out Tyler had been called also; he was waiting outside her door for Oliver to arrive. “Good night, buddy?” he asked.

  “Good enough.”

  “You have any idea what this is about?”

  Oliver considered mentioning the rain of frogs, but decided against it. There was no way Artemis would send them to Germany over that, unless she’d connected the incident to something much larger. The frogs would have had to be both speaking and on fire before she’d consider it worth looking into. “None,” he said.

  “I guess we should go in.” Tyler knocked softly and then put his ear near the door. Oliver couldn’t hear a response, but there must have been one; Tyler opened the door and stepped inside. Oliver followed him, shutting the door behind them.

  Artemis was at her desk, a pot of tea off to the side and a small steaming cup in front of her. She hadn’t put out cups for them, Oliver noticed. That was unusual. Even lately while they been having a difficult time with each other, Artemis always served tea. She didn’t look at either of them as they entered. “Sit down.”

  Oliver sat and took a moment to consider his boss. In all the time he’d known her, Artemis hadn’t aged a day. She looked exactly the way she had the first day they’d met. That was, she appeared to be a petite, blond-haired, ten-year-old girl. Despite all the times he’d asked, she’d never explained exactly who or what she really was. Her age was a mystery, although through a slip of the tongue she’d revealed having been present when the Great Pyramid of Giza was under construction. That had been at least five thousand years ago. Why she’d been there he didn’t know.

  Artemis wore a plain black t-shirt, which was unlike her. She normally favored bright colors or even cartoon characters. She also looked exhausted and had dark circles under her eyes. Oliver wasn’t sure if that was a new development, or whether he’d just not noticed before. He’d have had to admit he hadn’t really been paying attention. Maybe the recent unpleasantness in the office was catching up with her. Or maybe she’d been hit with a bout of insomnia. Then again, Oliver wasn’t entirely sure she required sleep. She’d never mentioned it. Maybe after work she just went home and stared at the wall until it was time to come back to the office.

  “Mr. Jones,” she said, nodding at him but still not actually looking at him. “Mr. Jacobsen.”

  “What’s up, boss?” Tyler asked. Oliver didn’t say anything. “You feeling okay? You don’t look so good.”

  Artemis rubbed at one of her eyes. “I am fine, Mr. Jacobsen. Thank you.” She looked over at Oliver and stared at him for a moment, and then turned to a stack of papers on her desk. “I am missing your report on the Millford incident, Mr. Jones.”

  “I haven’t written it yet,” Oliver said.

  Tyler winced. “I had gathered that,” Artemis said. She shook her head. “It is of no moment. Do attempt to complete the task at some future date. For now, I have another matter for you to investigate.”

  “Already?” Tyler asked. “We’re keeping busy, that’s for sure.”

  “Hang on,” Oliver said. “You don’t even care about Millford now? Zombies rose out of the ground and nearly killed both of us. A man died.”

  “Men have a habit of dying,” Artemis said. “It is an unfortunate reality of humanity.”

  “Which explains why it doesn’t bother someone like you,” Oliver said. “Given that you have no humanity.”

  Artemis glared at him with eyes of steel. Oliver glared back. Tyler cleared his throat. “Um…do you guys want me to leave and come back in later?” he asked.

  “No,” Artemis said. “We have finished with that part of the conversation.” She opened a drawer in her desk and removed a manila folder. “Two women have been murdered.” She pushed the folder across her desk to Tyler. “The first was in Sonoma. The second was in Vallejo. The police believe this is the work of a serial killer.”

  Tyler opened the folder and looked inside. “There’s nothing in here,” he said.

  “No,” Artemis said. “You are to begin a file for me as you investigate this matter.”

  “Murders aren’t really our purview,” Oliver said. “Not unless you think monsters or lizard people or werewolves were involved.” He suddenly realized he’d chose
n his words poorly and glanced at Tyler. “Sorry. I didn’t mean you.”

  “Forget it.”

  “The victims were killed by having their throats cut and were disemboweled postmortem,” Artemis continued as if Oliver had never interrupted. “Multiple organs were removed and some were not recovered. In each case the police found the stoves in the victims’ houses had been lit and something burned there. I believe at least some of the organs were cooked. Which of them, I could not tell you.”

  Tyler looked like he was about to gag. “Cannibalism?”

  “I do not believe so,” Artemis said. “No cookware was used.”

  Oliver shifted in his chair. “Look, that’s horrifying, but it’s still not the kind of thing we get involved in. If it’s a serial killer, and I’m sure the cops are right about that, then they’ll catch him. It’s awfully mundane for us.”

  “You consider the loss of human life a mundane matter, Mr. Jones?” Artemis gave him a cold look.

  He’d walked right into that one, Oliver thought. “No. You know I don’t. But we’re not cut out for it.”

  “What you are cut out for is for me to decide, Mr. Jones,” Artemis said. “However…” She stopped speaking and looked through the window for a moment. “However, these murders are not simply notable for their brutality. It is…” She sighed. “This reminds me very much of another case. One I was involved in a long time ago.” She looked at Tyler. “I think perhaps you will guess which case I am referring to, Mr. Jacobsen.”

  Tyler bit his lip. “It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve worked on since I’ve been here,” he said. “I think I’d remember that. And I can’t think of an open serial killer case that looks anything like this.”

  “Think of a closed case, then, but one that remains unsolved.”

  An answer had already occurred to Oliver, but it seemed too crazy to say aloud. Then again, crazy was more or less his life these days. “Jack the Ripper,” he said. Tyler glanced at him, eyebrows raised. “I’m not an expert, but that seems to fit the bill.”

  “I am an expert,” Tyler said. “Well, as much as any cop is. A lot of us study the case.” He looked back at Artemis. “Jack the Ripper. That fits, sure. There’s a theory he was burning organs as some kind of sacrifice.”

  “The burning was not part of a sacrifice,” Artemis said. “So now you understand why I wish you to investigate this matter, Mr. Jones.” She looked at him expectantly.

  “No,” Oliver said. “You want us to go see if this is some kind of copycat killer? That still seems like a job for the police. Why would we care?”

  “You have mistaken my intent, Mr. Jones. I do not wish for you to investigate a copycat case. I wish for you to determine whether the killer is, in fact, Jack the Ripper.”

  Nobody spoke for a long moment. Then Tyler said, “Holy crap.”

  “Indeed.” Artemis sipped her tea.

  After more than a year of doing this job, Oliver had thought he’d long since lost his capacity to be surprised. It seemed he’d been wrong. “Okay,” he said. “You’re telling us, and feel free to correct me here, that Jack the Ripper might still be alive? Is he…” Oliver hesitated. “Is he like you? Is he immortal?”

  “He is nothing like me,” Artemis said. She glared at him. “The only reason he might be alive is because I did not kill him.”

  “I’m confused,” Tyler said. “Does that mean anyone you don’t kill personally…”

  Artemis rolled her eyes. “No, Mr. Jacobsen. Of course not. It means…” She sighed deeply. “I worked in London in 1888. The murders were very much in the news at the time, as you might imagine. I was asked to investigate. Ordinarily I would not concern myself with such matters. Murder was hardly uncommon in Victorian England. However, the person asking me was Robert Gascoyne-Cecil.”

  Oliver and Tyler glanced at each other, and then back at Artemis. “The Prime Minister,” she said. “With all we do here, it would serve you both well to learn some history.”

  “Sorry, boss,” Tyler said.

  Artemis sighed. “I’m sure you both have guessed that much of the freedom we have to do the things we do here comes from having people in positions of great power feel indebted to me. It has been this way since before the time of Augustus.”

  “The Roman Emperor?” Oliver asked.

  “No,” Artemis snapped. “Augustus Smith, the barber down on 4th Street. Of course the Emperor, Mr. Jones. Would you like me to finish speaking, or do you have any more idiotic comments you have been holding on to?”

  Oliver blinked. It was no secret that he and Artemis had been fighting since Sally Rain had been banished to the Island, but she didn’t usually spar with him in front of other people. Nor did she go after him like that for asking a question. “Forget it,” he said. “I take your point.”

  Artemis closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again she said, “I had planned to turn him over to Scotland Yard when my team caught up with him. However…I suppose you would say I was having a bad day when that happened. It had been a few bad years, truly, but that is not entirely relevant. What is relevant is that he…he offended me.”

  “Couldn’t keep his mouth shut?” Tyler asked.

  “No, it was not anything to do with what he said. It was simply what he was. I do not think I would be able to explain it to you in a way that would help you better understand. He was an obscenity. In a moment of what I now recognize as weakness, I did not turn him in to the authorities. Instead, I sent him to a type of prison.”

  “Like the Island?” Oliver asked.

  “Nothing at all like the Island.” Artemis shook her head. “More like…are you familiar with Tartarus?”

  “The Greek underworld? You cross the river Styx and all that?”

  “Not precisely, but you are on the correct track. In Greek mythology, Hades was…” she stopped. “This is hardly the time for lessons, so I will make this brief. Hades was the underworld, where the dead went. Tartarus was set aside from that as a prison. A place of punishment. That is where the sinners were sent. But those are just places from mythology. The Nether Lands are quite real.”

  That rang a bell with Oliver. Hadn’t Saffron said something about the Nether Lands? Or had it been the bird she’d brought along with her?

  “The Nether Lands?” Tyler asked. He glanced at Oliver. “I’m guessing this has nothing to do with Holland.”

  “No,” Artemis said. “It is merely another prison. It has existed for thousands of years. Who created it or why I do not know. It is a terrible place, though. Much more so than any prison on Earth. I thought it suitable for the likes of Jack the Ripper.”

  “Okay,” Oliver said, “but that was over a hundred years ago. He’d have died by now.”

  “Not necessarily,” Artemis said. “The Nether Lands exist in their own dimension, connected to but separated from this one. Things in there do not age according to the same rules we are accustomed to. If he was not eaten or otherwise destroyed by the creatures that inhabit that place, he might still be alive even a hundred years from now.”

  Oliver nodded. “I’m getting it. So you think he might have made some kind of jailbreak and is running around loose now? Maybe you should have sent him to the Island and…” Artemis gave him a look that threatened to smash through a brick wall and melt ice on the other side. “Forget it,” Oliver said. “Just forget it. So now we have to go clean up one of your mistakes.”

  Artemis reached for her teacup and Oliver noticed her hand trembling. Maybe he’d gone too far? Well, it served her right, didn’t it? She was the one who had locked Sally up and now went around pretending she’d never existed. How was he supposed to feel about that? For that matter, why didn’t she feel anything about it?

  After a long moment Artemis spoke again, her voice quiet now. “The Nether Lands are surrounded by a barrier wall that is impervious to anything I know of. However, not long ago, we had a problem with our timeline. I trust you both remember that situation wel
l enough that we do not need to discuss it now?” She glared at Oliver as if challenging him.

  Tyler shook his head quickly. “No,” Oliver said.

  “Very good. It is possible, if unlikely, that the barrier was weakened when the timeline was rewritten. It may have even vanished for a few moments. If that happened…”

  “We’d be in a lot of trouble?” Tyler asked.

  Artemis nodded. “There are things in the Nether Lands far worse than Jack the Ripper. If he was all that escaped, I would consider that a small victory.”

  “Okay,” Tyler said. “So we go up to Vallejo, see if it’s him, and then what? You want us to shoot him or something?”

  “No,” Artemis said. “If you determine that it is indeed Jack the Ripper, you are not to confront him. Call me and I will deal with him personally.”

  “Why?” Oliver asked.

  “Because I do not have a way to explain to the police why a man born in 1859 is still alive and murdering women in California, Mr. Jones. Use your head.”

  Oliver’s jaw clenched. “I meant why don’t Tyler and I just deal with him? That’s our job.”

  “Because he is mine to deal with,” Artemis said.

  “You going to send him back to the Nether Lands?” Tyler asked.

  “I cannot,” Artemis said. “Long ago I possessed a key that allowed me access to a certain place…a nexus point where other worlds intersected. It was a place of a multitude of doors. From there I could go to many worlds.”

  “Sounds useful,” Oliver said.

  “Indeed. Unfortunately, I lost the key many years ago.”

  “How did you manage to lose something like that?” Tyler asked.

  “I moved my headquarters in 1912,” Artemis said. “The key was among many items from Vault 2 I was bringing to America. Regretfully, the supposedly unsinkable ship I was on sank. Everything I was bringing with me is on the bottom of the Atlantic.”

  Tyler nodded. Then his eyes widened. “Wait, you were on the…” he paused. “Forget that question. Are you actually saying you met Jack the Ripper?”

  Artemis raised her eyebrows. “Certainly, Mr. Jacobsen. I would have thought that point was clear.”