Existentially Challenged, page 10
16
“Diablerie spoke to an informant,” said Elizabeth Lawrence, tapping her steepled fingers together over her desk.
Alison, feeling tired and breathless from her long recounting of the previous evening’s events, could only boggle once again at Elizabeth’s ability to summarize. “Um, yes. Mr. Chahal.”
Elizabeth continued tapping her fingertips together in silence. Alison could only guess at the route being taken by the train of logic in her head. “Rajesh Chahal,” she repeated to herself, before her hands moved to her laptop and she began to type with the measured, careful finger movements of a pianist. “We have a file under that name.”
“We do?”
Elizabeth tapped the Enter key, and her eyes scanned a screenful of new information. “Occult scholar. File first opened in the Ministry era when he uncovered certain magical truths at university. Some feelers were put out to see if he could be persuaded to join the Ministry in some capacity. That went nowhere. Apparently he was vehemently against keeping magic secret.”
“But magic isn’t secret,” said Alison. “Not anymore.”
Elizabeth didn’t seem to hear her. She kept reading, idly stroking an invisible beard. “There’s no record of Chahal since he turned down employment. That was over ten years ago.”
“Does that mean something?”
Elizabeth caught her eye. “It would normally indicate to me that he was part of another clandestine organization during that time,” she said gravely. “Rajesh Chahal may be dangerous, Alison. He must know something about Diablerie’s agenda, if he isn’t directly involved. I need to be informed immediately if he makes another appearance.”
“Okay,” said Alison, nodding rapidly. “What about his information?”
“I don’t see how a small-time faith healing outfit could be an urgent matter,” said Elizabeth guardedly. “Still, there is clearly more to it, especially if Diablerie seems interested. I believe we shall wait and see if it appears on our radar again.”
“Okay,” said Alison, a little disappointed for reasons she would find it hard to explain.
“Alison,” said Elizabeth, switching to her softer, mollifying voice. “You’ve done well. I believe I still owe you something.”
“You do?”
“The information you requested, the last time we spoke. We were interrupted before I could deliver it.” Elizabeth shifted in her seat, silently taking a long breath in through her nose. “What do you remember about the incident ten years ago, when the skies went dark for a week?”
Obviously what Alison remembered was every slightest detail, as was the case with every other time in her life, but something told her this was one of those short-summary situations. “It said on the news that there was a volcanic ash cloud descending on the country and we should all stay indoors.” She took Elizabeth’s silence as a prompt for more. “We played thirty-seven games of Scrabble—”
“The Shadow Crisis is the only known case of an Ancient attempting a hostile invasion of our world,” said Elizabeth mournfully. “We can still only guess at its motives, but I’m certain it was a deliberate invasion. Because it started at the place that posed the biggest threat to it. Right here.” She pointed downwards.
Alison fought the urge to look down at the carpet. “Here?”
“At the Ministry. The old Ministry headquarters under Westminster Abbey. A human in a dual consciousness with the Ancient in question allowed themselves to be captured and placed in the dungeons there for reeducation, as was policy at the time. Once there, they became a kind of living rift through which the Ancient entered our world.”
From what Alison could remember of the old Ministry of Occultism bunker, it had mostly been old marble and unnecessarily ornate wall decoration. It hadn’t looked much like a place that had been ground zero for an interdimensional conflict, even one from ten years in the past. “How big was it?”
“It wasn’t what you’re imagining,” said Elizabeth, perceptive as ever. “No misshapen monster emerging through a hole in space, waving tentacles. Our people could have handled that. And occasionally did.” She went back to hunting through her briefcase, still talking. “The Ancients are noncorporeal beings. It was more like . . . an influence. It influenced the Ministry staff the way magic normally influences people. Altering them, body and mind.”
She produced a worn picture from her briefcase, a posed photograph of a large number of individuals. The focus was on a circle of seated elderly men dressed in the robes of the Hand of Merlin, the inner council of the old Ministry of Occultism that had ostensibly been in charge but which had become largely ceremonial in its last few decades and more concerned with getting together for elaborate dinners while the Administration team did the actual work.
Behind the Hand’s chairs was presumably the Administration team themselves: a row of men wearing ordinary suits and ties, and one short young woman on the far right dressed in blouse and skirt. Who, on closer inspection, looked a lot like . . .
“That’s me,” said Elizabeth, noticing Alison’s gaze lock on to the image. “At the time, I was assistant to the Swordkeeper. That’s the man next to me.”
“Swordkeeper” was the title Richard Danvers had held when Alison had first joined the Ministry. He had very swiftly changed it to “head of field operations” after the Ministry became the Department, and prior to that had always insisted on “Swordkeeper” being printed as small as possible on his business cards.
The Swordkeeper in the picture was a man Alison didn’t recognize. He was tall with midlength gray hair and an expression that, while neutral, suggested that his tolerance for this photo-taking ritual had a very clear and hard limit.
That led Alison to realize that, while she recognized some of the long-standing Hand of Merlin members—Richard Danvers Sr., most notably—the administrative team were all strangers. Besides Elizabeth, not a single one had been with the Ministry at the time of Alison’s recruitment. Between that and the sad look in Elizabeth’s eye as she looked over the faces, Alison was getting a bad feeling.
“I never knew his real name,” said Elizabeth quietly. “I only ever knew him as Mr. Teapot.”
Alison gave a little spluttered cough on reflex. “What?”
Elizabeth’s lip curled briefly with embarrassment. “The Ministry was still a government secret. There was a rather juvenile code name policy among senior staff. So the Swordkeeper was Mr. Teapot. The Scrollkeeper was Mr. Spoon. And the Master Apprentice was Mr. Sugarbowl.”
She indicated them in turn. Mr. Spoon was one of the younger men, in that his stringy brown hair was only beginning to gray, and he was just about the only person wearing a genuine smile. Sugarbowl was a stocky, bald man, standing with chin up and hands behind his back as if doing everything he could to artificially increase his height without resorting to standing on tiptoe.
“Spoon was the first to die,” said Elizabeth bluntly. “He began acting strangely after speaking with the prisoner. He started going through his research obsessively. He was convinced something terrible was about to happen. We came in the next morning and found him dead in his office.”
Alison could only stare at the smile on the face of Mr. Spoon. It reminded her of Archibald Brooke-Stodgeley.
“I didn’t know what was happening,” said Elizabeth. “I was an assistant. No one told me anything. I tried to distract myself with paperwork. I only realized how serious the situation had become after Mr. Sugarbowl’s death.”
“But why were they dying?” asked Alison, looking up.
“I never learned what killed Mr. Spoon. I do know what killed Mr. Sugarbowl. It was when Mr. Teapot marched into his office and shot him eighteen times with a revolver.”
Alison blinked. “Eighteen?”
“He reloaded twice.” Elizabeth caught her look. “I saw the body. I saw what Mr. Sugarbowl had been turning into at the time. If it were me, I would have reloaded once more.”
Again, Alison couldn’t help looking down at the faces of the smiling dead men. Sugarbowl and Teapot were practically standing side by side like . . . well, like a sugar bowl and a teapot. She stared at the few inches of space between them and, in her mind’s ear, heard the sound of eighteen bullets passing through it.
“They were our leaders, so the Ancient hit them hardest,” continued Elizabeth. “But by the time of Sugarbowl’s death, its shadow was already spreading beyond the Ministry. That was your ‘volcanic ash cloud.’ Teapot was able to get the government to issue the isolation order in time, but the worst was to come . . .”
She faltered when, with either excellent or very poor timing, a familiar sound of heavy footfalls faded into earshot, approaching from the elevators. When they became loud enough to make all of Elizabeth’s stationery quiver, an ominous shadow fell across the frosted glass in the door.
Sean Anderson, the Department’s occasional liaison to the British government, barged into Elizabeth’s office with his muscular chest already inflated for a rant, but he had to switch gears in a hurry when he noticed Alison’s presence, and his twin lungfuls of air escaped from his mouth as something between an animalistic roar, a cough, and a belch. “Ah!” he said, after he had recovered. “Good. Little Miss Muppet’s already here. I don’t have to start punching down the walls looking for her stupid arse.”
Nita Pavani trotted into the office behind Anderson’s bulk and demurely moved into the corner like a sniper taking position.
“Tell me,” barked Anderson as Alison shrank to avoid his flying spittle. “After the last time the media went through your knicker drawer, did I or did I not advise you to keep your sodding head down?”
“Erm, you did not,” said Alison, calling upon her eidetic memory.
Anderson frowned in bafflement, and his eyes rolled back for a few moments as he went over recent events in his head. “Well,” he eventually said. “I was implying some very bloody emphatic things.”
“What’s this about?” droned Elizabeth. She had already put the photo back in her briefcase and was sitting with hands clasped before her, the emotional brick wall fully rebuilt.
Pavani stepped forward, her mouth set into a thin, disapproving line, and turned her tablet around to show an image of Alison looking like a deer in headlights as Beatrice Callum barked questions in the car park of the Builder’s Arms.
“Yeah, what you’re doing now, gawping like a blind goldfish looking for something to suck?” said Anderson, indicating Alison’s open-mouthed expression. “That’s what we call looking like a pranny, and you can do it as much as you want in your own time, darling, but not when you’re in front of the media! Because that makes us all look like prannies!”
“I’m sorry!” said Alison, it being her default response. “They surprised me . . .”
“They’re the media!” roared Anderson. “You expect them to call ahead and ask when would be the most convenient time to hound you to your idiot grave where they bury idiots?!” He was tottering a little.
“Hardly the mainstream media,” said Elizabeth, who was examining the display on Pavani’s tablet.
“Actually, these activism streams rate very highly with teens and young adults,” said Nita. “This particular branch of LAXA has close to a million subscribers.”
Elizabeth leaned closer. “These teenagers, who drive around the country in a van, solving mysteries.”
“Yes?”
“With a dog.”
“Yes!” said Nita, exasperated. “Why does everyone keep saying that like it’s weird?”
“If you don’t mind, we were having a meeting,” said Elizabeth pointedly.
Anderson glared at her, looking her up and down. Clearly he was unhappy with the power dynamics in the room, with Elizabeth holding court in her executive throne. “Damn right we are. That’s why we’re going to have it in a meeting room.” He stomped over to the door and held it open. “Come on! All three of you. Someone get Danvers as well.”
“What is there to discuss?” asked Elizabeth, not moving.
“The department’s taken some flak, or damage,” said Anderson condescendingly. “And now we have to talk about how we’re going to control the amount of damage we have to take. There’s probably a quicker way of saying that.”
17
“We need to take a closer look at these Modern Miracle people,” said Adam.
“Uh-huh,” replied Richard Danvers, not looking up.
“William Shaw was killed from life essence removal, and this faith healer two streets over is handing out mysterious reserves of life essence. It might not be a coincidence.”
“Right . . .”
“I spoke to Mr. Brooke-Stodgeley and he agrees with me that she’s probably a conduit. That’s a life essence manipulator who can—”
“I know what a conduit theoretically is, Adam,” said Danvers. “Sounds like you should be talking to Sumner about this. Isn’t he running the Shaw case?”
“Ah, yeah,” said Adam uncomfortably. “Sumner’s kind of stuck on his own theories. Mr. Danvers, all I have to do is go to one of these Modern Miracle sessions, and I’ll know exactly what kind of magic we’re dealing with—”
“Adam,” said Danvers sternly, finally giving up on being able to read his newspaper in peace. “Two things. First, I know the current structure is new for you, but it’s very bad form to go over a colleague’s authority like this. It can make for a hostile work environment.”
“Oh,” said Adam, adding, “Sorry,” as an afterthought.
“Second,” said Danvers, “this is a conversation I would prefer to have over my desk, rather than through a toilet door.”
Adam leaned away from the door of the toilet cubicle as if it had become red hot. “Sorry,” he repeated.
Danvers sighed in relief as the room outside fell silent, then focused on concluding what had been, up until now, the only part of his daily routine in which he could actually relax for five minutes. This done, he flushed, got his clothing back in proper order, and emerged from the cubicle to wash his hands.
As he was doing so, he glanced into the mirror and found himself locking gaze with Adam, who was still in the bathroom, standing expectantly by the door with hands in pockets.
“Was there something else, Mr. Hesketh?” asked Danvers, hands frozen in the act of washing.
“Oh. I thought you wanted to keep talking across your desk like you said.”
Danvers pinched his eyes. Good management, Danvers reminded himself, was about being someone your employees wanted to follow, not just obey. He hadn’t intended that to apply so literally, but the point was, this would be a bad time to snap. This was a time to offer guidance. “Adam, is everything all right? Any problems settling in at Investigations?”
“No. Yes,” said Adam. “I mean, other way round. Yes to the first part and no to the second.”
“Are you sure?” Danvers scrutinized Adam carefully while he waited for the roar of the hand dryer to stop. “I’m getting the sense that you feel . . . unchallenged.”
“No, it’s just . . .” began Adam. He tried to stop himself there, but Danvers made an encouraging movement with his eyebrows, and he resigned himself to finishing the sentence. “It’s just, I feel like everyone thinks of me as if I’m a really useful magic-sensing power on the end of a stick, and I think I’ve got more to offer. As an investigator.”
Danvers nodded. “Okay. This is good, actually, Adam. It’s great that you want to expand your skill set. Very forward thinking. But . . . it hasn’t even been a week since the restructuring. What you need to be doing now is listening to your senior team members and learning as you go.”
“But I was with the Ministry before Sumner,” said Adam, in a plaintive voice.
Danvers stared. “You were?”
The awkward moment ended when they both jumped at the sound of a fist like an oversized leather coin purse slamming against the outside of the door. “Oi! Danvers!” came the voice of Anderson. “Get wiped and trousered up. Meeting time.”
18
“All right, quick summary for the latecomers,” said Anderson as Danvers skulked into the meeting room. “Arkin got ambushed by some new-media scum, and now it looks like we didn’t come down hard enough on some conjuring twat who was breaking X-App.”
“The X-Appropriation Act,” explained Pavani, the teacher’s pet for the afternoon.
Danvers hadn’t sat down yet. He paused with his hand on the backrest of a free chair. “This is the top priority, is it?”
Anderson threw out his hands. “Slow news week,” he said, in what passed for an apologetic tone for him. “Believe me, if she’d waited till World Cup season to bugger something up we’d be laughing, but this is the flavor of the month. The narrative is that DEDA isn’t taking X-App seriously. We need to counter that narrative. Nowish.”
“We did set up a dedicated skepticism department,” said Danvers idly, having now taken a seat and rested his chin on one hand.
“We definitely should not draw attention to that,” said Pavani spitefully. “In case anyone notices that there are only two people in it.” She glared briefly at Elizabeth, who returned a completely passive look. “I suggest going back and actually arresting this appropriating magician. Say we needed time to get a proper warrant written up, or something.”
“Erm, we couldn’t arrest him in the end anyway,” said Alison nervously. Anderson had steered her into the meeting room’s biggest, most central chair, and she was starting to feel like an extremely reluctant Jesus at the Last Supper as his disciples discussed the itinerary for his upcoming violent martyrdom. “Because he was using—”
“Because there wasn’t enough to build a case,” said Elizabeth quickly.
