She left and that night, her uncle bid her into one of the Secure Rooms.
'What that man said under the influence of the Head... there's no way he should know. He's just a cultist from rural Georgia. There's simply no way he could have known that. The Head told him.'
'What? What did he say?' Her uncle ignored her, frowning one brow.
'This matches up with other reports. Look, you work this job long enough, you see things that don't add up. Strange things. You realise it's all soft around the edges. '
She wanted to laugh but there was no way to deny that voice.
'We've managed to open up funding. There's a place on the task force. If you're ready to go deep into it. Into things we've just begun to suspect.'
She shook her head. 'Shirelle, I bought you in for this kind of thing. I need you.'
It took a while but she joined the task force. The work was the same, just with a narrow focus. And soon, she believed. There were people with abilities. Objects that, here her vocabulary failed her, were haunted was the best word. Most of them framed it in religious fashions. But some did not. The risks to international security seemed... obvious and terrifying. A dozen operations she'd worked, each one weird ,and she'd identified twenty potential assets, but each one too dangerous, too weird, too elusive, to touch. She was an intelligence officer with seven years' experience. She knew things the guy on the street never did. But studying these case files, she got the impression there was a whole other world, operating like a weird machine behind the curtains. The task force was small but, she increasingly believed, vital to national security.
Another story that.
And in investigating this weird case, the scroll, she came across Lark. A man with no past, no real existence at all. She'd seen people living off the grid before, but never one whose file kept vanishing, who seemed to exist on no files at all.
A man who walked out of a secure Civil Defence building with no weapons. Just... walked.
Calling her at her home. She switched on the light, sat up, her boyfriend grumbling.
'Still want to know where the Scroll is?'
'Of course.'
A place. A time.
'But I'll want money.'
'That can be arranged.'
Up, call Coffee, call her boss. Scramble a squad. Coffee met her at the office, with his namesake for two.
'You know, we'll probably have to arrest this bastard. I'll have police there. My woman Captain Filbin knows the score, knows to just do as she's told. She's a STATUS: MARTYR. She'll drop the guy, if you like, as well. Or he can hang himself in jail.'
She shrugged. 'I don't like him. No loss.'
'But?'
'This guy. He puts the scares on me. Boss said yes to the money. I'm taking it just in case. But if you get a shot at him, take it. There's something wrong with him.'
Sixty-Five
So, listen: backstory.
That chick whose been following me? Who spied on the first meet with Ludo?
Here's who she is.
I couldn't say because I can't think about her or it'll tip her off. But she's not here now. Had to mix up her gender even, when I think about her. Needed to keep her on me without letting her know she'd been made.
I worked for the Library for ten years, keeping everything cool. The part of the job people ask me about is the cop bullshit. The fighting stuff. But that wasn't my only duty and it wasn't my favourite part. My favourite part was me, alone in the dark, warm, honey-coloured reading room with some of the greatest grimoires in the history of the world, just waiting for me. Earning my way up the organisation, getting access to more and more rooms, with more and more books. Alone, reading, learning, finding new techniques and ideas to experiment with.
But there was a price for all this.
Teaching.
The job had two parts. Lecturing. That was alright. Getting up with a room full of people. Either the new guys, the guys with the money who thought they were in some upmarket Rosicrucian deal, Silver Star or Golden Dawn, some occult slumming or freemason glad-handing.
Or lecturing to the adepts, the guys who figured out that, hey, this is real. The ones who did the homework and had the hunger and did the work. People we could use.
Part I hated? Tutoring. Working with small groups, talking over their rites and ideas. Listening to each beginner with the same ideas, the same 'yes but, what actually is art?' theories. The boring epistemologies and the same predictable freak-outs the first time they copped a minor possession or just lost focus and ended up mental for three days and their husbands got mad.
Part I hated more than that?
Grooming people to work for me.
Listen, I know how this sounds but... I was pretty good at my job. I was the youngest officer the Library ever had. Twenty-two. I worked harder than anyone. Trained myself with diligence. Loved magic, loved the research, loved listening to reports from spies we paid off to rat out the other cults. Loved researching the correct rituals to shut down scum and bastards.
My work crew, well, I hated them. Workshy. Slow to adapt. Specialising in one tradition and remaining stultifying fuck-ignorant of others. The ones who felt like they were special for making adept. I was impatient, short and barely bothered to hide my anger at their lack of commitment.
Pretty bad teacher. Mully used to raise an eyebrow when I ranted at him but I didn't care. Teaching was a distraction from my tasks. Towards the end, Scarlet used to get all furious at me. 'These people need you to train them! You're not going to be here forever, one way or another, and we need better recruits.'
I was still all fucked up from Jon but I tried. I slowed it down. Never lost my patience. They just figured I'd gone soft.
My last group of initiates, there were five.
Rosengarten, who was fat, with a greasy ponytail, who wore trenchcoats everywhere. He had a thing for Latin and would rattle it off without ever being asked. Prick thought he was smarter than anyone. Failed physics in first-year university before he came to us.
Connor, who stared out of life behind a ridiculously untrimmed goatee and hair in his nose. 'I've got a friend,' he says, 'who does everything better than you.' Listened to a novel? He read it before you, even if you made it up. But he had good ideas about magic and computers that I couldn't be less fucking interested in. Heavy metal band t-shirts and German Army overcoats in summer.
Raj, the six-five-tall Sikh with a drinking problem. Christ knows how he wound up with us, but he had a real skill with some of the most useless rituals I've ever seen. He could communicate with angels, which is like asking the CEO of a drug company to help you score aspirin.
Then, the women.
Straw, who needed a bath. Militant feminist, atheist, lefty. All of which is fine. Endless loudmouth and obstructionist, which is not. Once, and I saw this happen, this is true, she told a priest his display of religious imagery was offensive to her. In a church. There's five all-female magical circles in the city, she was chucked out of every one for being a dick. Good with a variety of folk traditions. Bad with applying herself to learn the hard stuff.
Katanya. Best of a bad lot. Remarkably gifted with animal magic. She could read them, summon them, control them, understand them, dream with them. You know what our Order was called. The Library. Animals, well, they can't fucking read. Flighty, dreamy. Never knew why she was recruited, and even Scarlet agreed on that.
Carma. Her actual name, actual spelling. Lazy. Stupid. Disrespectful. Sleeping with one of the higher-ups. Naked greed for power. I caught her using magic on bank tellers and bar tenders, slipping them a credit card she'd runed up. But, and here was the thing, she had an instinct for hurting people. I think they saw Jon writ small in her.
Those were my replacements. It's Carma that's been following me. Still stupid. Still lazy. She thinks you can say some words and that's magic. She's never understood that you have to go to a place where you can believe it. Where you don't fight it. But she doesn't care about that. Sa
y some words and plunder. That's her philosophy.
They sent her? After me? And they're surprised I made her? Maybe they were. Maybe she's a warning. Maybe Carma's a decoy. Doesn't matter. See, she'll run back to whatever half-assed try hard is running operations over there and report on the Old Man. And that'll get someone's attention.
And that's what I want. The whole damn family, together at last.
Because someone let the Old Man know Gallowglass had the scroll. Someone who suspects the Old Man's ambitions like I do. And I'm having a suspicion who that was.
Four in the morning.
Take it to the bridge.
Sixty-Six
The Old Man has more money than God, but he spends none of it. A lifetime of smashing enemies, controlling people through fear and horror, seeing black wonders, and here he is, with me. A shitty old van, he's strapped in to the back seat, his nurse in the front, flecks of spit at her lips. She's a pretty thing. Icelandic, someone said.
She's gone, though. Ludo can see it in her eyes. She saw things, bad things, checked out a while ago. Waste, really. Ludo likes 'em with a bit of life in 'em but, what the hell. She'll say yes just to feel something that doesn't want to make her puke. Ludo's seen it in refugees and amputees. Ludo never understands that. He uses pain for business, not much for pleasure but, hell, the Old Man has the power, and that's all the permission he needs. If he likes to hurt, who can say no? He wants to fuck a pretty blonde's mind into ruin, hey, whose gonna stop him? To Ludo, that just makes sense. He's not much interested in the moral dimensions.
The Old Man is muttering away in a language that hurts the ears. Sort of like the barking of Hebrew or Arabic, but much worse than that.
Millions of dollars in the bank and you'd think he'd shell out some fucking money a decent ride. Even his wheelchair is old. Rickety. Leather and hard steel. Ludo's seen bedsores on his arse and smelled them.
'Mortification of the flesh, boy. You should try it. You'd be amazed what kind of insights you can reach with suffering.'
But Ludo doesn't play that shit. Pain goes downstream. One way.
The one thing the boss does pay for is guns. Ludo is wearing combat pants, a flak jacket, combat boots, and is motherfucking strapped. He has an M14, two Jericho 941 pistols and the hunting knife he's had since he was a boy. He has ammunition to spare and two concussion grenades. Some of the other guys are carrying more but, well, that's movie bullshit, that. If Ludo meets something he can't take down with what he's carrying, might as well call in an airstrike. They're going to some bullshit community centre to kill a girl, not mixing it up with armoured cavalry.
Driver gives the high sign and Ludo leans in.
'Hey, hey boss. We're almost there.'
The Old Man slowly returns. His mind, it goes places. Not like other old guys, who mutter about the past. It really goes places.
'The plan?' snaps the old man, spitting in Ludo's face. His breath is too fucking hot.
'We go in. That Lark fag told it true. It's like a youth hostel or something. We make sure it's ok, there's no surprises. Then, Watonga and Miles will escort you in. You want the nurse with you?'
The Old Man's head rotates like the worst lighthouse ever. He watches the back of her head.
'Yes.' Fairly hisses.
'Oh shit,' says the driver.
The whole street is covered in sigils. There's like, packs of people, all sort of folks, drawing on phone boxes, letter boxes, bus shelters, shop windows, car bonnets, street lamps, everywhere. Some damn image. Ludo shuts his eyes and feels the corrugated flesh of the Old Man stroke his face. Calm comes over him like a ketamine high.
The driver just stops the car.
The nurse, her mind bursts like a fat pimple and she starts headbutting her passenger window and Ludo can hear her nose break first, then her cheek. That doesn't stop until he takes his pistol, puts one through her skull, splashing the front window with the usual.
The driver, well, he comes to a full stop. Easy as anything. Parks like it's Sunday. Gets out. Sits down cross-legged, starts to claw at his face. Nasty.
The Old Man's protection stays fast in Ludo. He can see, he can think, but there's something like a dam in his mind. He's suddenly utterly without curiosity. But he can feel a pressure. He can feel something trying to break in and whirl his mind up but good.
'Fucking hell,' hisses the Old Man.
The second van comes in, the rest of the crew. The engines cut out but the car keeps rolling. Hits the side of a shop and just keeps going. A long second later, the back door opens and Watonga gets out, eating a scalp.
The Old Man taps at his skull with a knuckle. Ludo gets it together under that pecking. 'I know you can hear me. Kill everyone who gets in our way and you can have it all. All the money, all the houses. It's yours.'
'What about your wife?'
'She'll understand.'
Ludo calculates that worth. 'I'll come back in a minute to get your chair ready.'
He loads his rifle and switches off the safety. There's two dozen people on the street. Watching silently as autistics or busy with their art. Shouldn't take long.
The music comes on in his head. Drum and bass. His murder anthem, beating out war.
Sixty-Seven
Carma doesn't like Scarlet. Hates her. But then again, Carma hates everyone.
She sort of plans to sleep with Everett, Scarlet's man. That'll get her another patron, since her old one died, and fuck up that cold ho's day.
But right now, Carma's scared.
She's fucked up the assignment and she knows it. She saw that prick Lark, like, three times in the last few days, and she was supposed to be on him twenty-four seven. They even bought Carma these fucking cool pills that were better than speed. They taught her the spying rune special. Rosengarten had to show her how, and he sweated the whole time she was in the room, staring at her tits every time he thought she wasn't looking.
But the only time she saw Lark was when he was busy. He walked away from her so many times. Scarlet gave her some of his hair, put it in a jar of liquid. Said it would point the way to him. But half the time, it just fucked out, stopping working, then suddenly jumping into life again, like a hunting dog. Even then, she'd follow it, only to find he was gone.
So, really, it's Scarlet's fault for giving her shitty magic.
Carma's scared because she doesn't want to go back without something to report. But then, the finder comes alive and she races to midtown. The Forum. Fancy mall for rich pricks. And she watches.
Jesus Christ. She can't even see him. Wait. There he is. Dealing with the big sexy guy who handed him his ass before. Carma shudders, remembering how stupid Lark made her feel when he was a teacher. How he'd just stare at her with cold eyes and dismiss her.
'I'm not even going to waste my time correcting you. You didn't even try.' The last word Lark ever said to her.
Yeah, so the fuck what? She'd get it in her own time. Or have McGill give her some private lessons. She just had to take off her pants and that weird old fuck would give her anything she wanted. He didn't even really want to fuck her. He just wanted to stare and have her pose for him like a toy. That was fine. In return, she got charms and money and she was learning power. Worth it, bent over in a dark room while a powerful man lost his dignity over her, murmuring like a frog.
Carma didn't need to do fucking homework. Fuck Lark.
But McGill died last year and suddenly, Scarlet was expecting results. And none of them were delivering, but Carma was the worst. How the fuck could Jon and Lark have just walked out on them like that? None of them trained up good, and suddenly the Library didn't have the muscle it had enjoyed for seventy years.
Jesus. Straw, dead on exorcism. Katanya, kicked out, leaving without a word, just tears in her eyes. Fucking weak. Raj, one eye taken out by some rogue spirit, then molested by some porn-cult bastard, broken and weak now. Connor, a man so hated by the magical community of the city they laughed at him when he came to demand k
nowledge when they deferred to Lark. Silas, the new guy, on the Satan tip and clearly a loser.
No wonder it was all coming apart. And it was all Lark's fault. Now, he's cheating Carma out of the success she goddamn needs to stay on the Library's payroll.
Then.
Oh fuck.
The Old Man appears. She can see him from the roof, looking down at him through night vision binoculars. Even from up here, Carma can just tell he's fucking badass. She sees Lark's body language change. First time ever, he's nervous. Usually he's still, forever going in and out of trances. This time, he's shifting his weight, jigging it. Like a prick. Carma's pretty happy to have seen that motherfucker sweat. Even when the big guy was handing out a whoopin' under the bridge, he didn't act like this.
Carma picks up the phone.
'Scarlet, he's meeting someone. That soldier boy from before.'
The one who beat him up?
'Yeah. But, there's someone else here as well. Some old bastard who looks like he's a thousand.'
Phone goes silent.
Are you recording? The binoculars are something, the Library can see what she sees.
'Yes, I'm fucking recording.'
Listen. Remain hidden. Absolutely, remain hidden until the meet is done. Then head back to the chapterhouse.
'Word.'
Are you listening to me?! Stress snaps in her voice. Carma likes hearing that shit. Likes hearing Scarlet sweat.
Carma snaps the phone shut.
'Ho,' she sneers at it and watches again but nothing really happens. The Old Man rolls off and Lark takes something off a table. Book, Carma reckons. He opens it. Flashes his phone on it, starts to read, then seems to get with it, snaps the book shut, puts it in that faggy doctor bag, moves on out of her sight.
Satisfied her work is done, she gets up, dusts herself off, walks down the fire stairs and gets a late night bus. Takes some of the pills, stashes the rest in her bra, unwilling to risk Scarlet or that fucking suit-wearing motherfucker Everett asking for them back. The motherfucker is like that, always with his forms and saying shit like 'requisition.' If she has to fuck him, that'll be the most boring lay ever.
Black City (The Lark Case Files) Page 21
