Existentially Challenged, page 26
“Well, it’s just the way you need to think when you’re an investigator.” He frowned at the date of birth again to double-check he hadn’t misread it the first five times. “Let’s think about this. How would it make sense for Miracle Meg’s file to have this date of birth?”
Alison put a finger to her forehead. “The file could be wrong?”
“Hm. Possibly. But the thing is, almost everyone who gets admitted to the school is in their teens, or older. It’d be really, really unusual for Miracle Meg to be admitted at the age she looks now. And this record is from a couple of years ago, so she’d have been even younger. Nineteen would make a lot more sense.”
“Okay,” said Alison, undeterred. “Maybe she is nineteen, and she just looks really young?”
Adam stared at her. “So, what are you saying, Alison? She’s got dwarfism or something?”
“It’s possible!” She tapped her chin again. “I suppose there’s no way to know for sure.”
“Um, there might be.” Adam coughed. “We could check the medical report that’s attached to the file.”
He pointed, and Alison noticed for the first time that the database entry had a second tab. She reddened. “Sorry.”
The medical report didn’t contain any reference to Megan Arkwright having any condition that might restrict her growth. But that became a moot point fairly swiftly, because it did have photographs of Megan at the time when she was admitted to the school, just to make Alison feel even sillier.
She and Adam both leaned in simultaneously when they saw the pictures. There were two: one in profile and one head on, fully lit and in high resolution like a police arrest photo. As such, the conclusion they both drew as they simultaneously leaned back was unmistakable. It was Adam who voiced it first.
“That’s not Miracle Meg,” he said. “That doesn’t look anything like Miracle Meg.”
Alison kept staring. It was true. As well as being in her late teens, the Megan Arkwright in the database had a different hair color to Miracle Meg and a generally different facial structure. Plus, the wall markings in the background indicated that she was about five foot six inches in height. At first look, the girl in the photo was totally unfamiliar to Alison. But then a creeping thought darted across her mind, and she clutched the side of her head as if to stop it from falling out. “Ow.”
“What is it?”
She looked to Adam with frightened eyes. “I’m getting this . . . it’s like, I saw something in the past, but I can’t see it in my head exactly the way it was when I saw it.”
Adam glanced to the side, then back. “You mean . . . you’re remembering it the way most people remember things?”
“Is this what that’s like?” She grimaced. “How do you live with it? It’s really weird. There’s something really familiar about this girl’s face, but . . . I just can’t place it.”
Adam placed a hand near Alison’s mouse hand and made awkward testy motions with his fingers until she let him use it. He clicked back to the previous page, then quadruple-checked the details again. “There can’t be more than one Megan Arkwright with healing powers in Worcester. There’s something behind all this we’re missing. This is why Miracle Dad threw such a fit when his name came out. He knew sooner or later someone would look up . . .” He sighed. “If I could just pursue the investigation a little bit longer . . .”
“Well, you can’t, can you?” said Alison brusquely. She was still disturbed by her inability to remember something and was internally debating whether she should call her doctor. “Mr. Danvers took you off the case.”
“Whatever they’re doing, they’re going to be doing it again, this weekend, at the contest,” said Adam, into his chest. He looked up. “You believe they’re up to something, right? You saw them in that tunnel!”
“One of them,” said Alison, uncomfortably looking around the room for eavesdroppers and playground monitors. “Adam, please don’t go after them at the contest. You’ll get in even more trouble.”
“I can’t anyway, I’m supposed to be watching out for magical rioters or something.” Adam turned his brownest and moistest puppy-dog gaze on her. “But . . .”
“I can’t either!” Alison deflected the gaze with a sweeping gesture. “I have to be on hand to help out with, you know, the administration and stuff. I already told three people I’d remember their agendas for them.”
Undeterred, Adam cranked up the puppy-dog power by a couple of cocker spaniels’ worth. “Alison, I’ve . . . I’ve messed up. I’ve basically thrown my whole career away chasing one stupid theory. But I get it now. I get how I’m supposed to do this. And now we’re so close to finally figuring this out, and if I can push it just one tiny bit further I know I can turn everything around. There’s never going to be a better chance than this weekend. They’re exposed. Away from their home turf. If we let them get away after this . . .” He left the point hanging.
Alison was hugging herself, staring at the picture of Megan Arkwright on her laptop screen. There was a sadness in the eyes that made Alison think of the body she had seen in the shrine to El-Yetch underground. She wondered if there was anyone out there still waiting for them to come home.
“You just want . . . someone to watch them, right?” she asked, uneasily passing the words like kidney stones.
“Yes!” He nodded so fast that his ponytail started whirling around his head like a morris dancer’s ribbons.
“I think I might know someone who can help out.”
MEANWHILE
42
On the roof of a small terrace of apartments in one of London’s lower-rent districts, Leslie-Ifrig lay on their front, supporting their chin on their fists. They were looking down on a small beer garden that was bestowing the surrounding neighborhood with the gift of its ambient rock music as the owners of several nearby windows with twitching curtains showed a complete lack of gratitude.
Leslie-Ifrig bobbed their head left and right in appreciation of Twisted Sister, their smile never wavering throughout. When the song was over, they called back over their shoulder, “Still no sign of police!”
“Shh!” replied Victor, who was huddled under a tarpaulin in the middle of the roof.
Leslie-Ifrig pouted at the beer garden, decided they weren’t interested in listening to “Message in a Bottle” for the third time, then hopped gracefully into a standing position and sauntered over to Victor. “No sign of police,” they repeated, in a quieter voice. “Just some people having a lovely time. Do you want to come out from under there?”
“No,” said the tarpaulin as the mass underneath pulled it closer around itself. “The helicopters will see.”
The skies were completely clear. The only sound was the music and the occasional muffled argument between middle-class homeowners trying to decide who was going to go out to complain about the noise. Leslie-Ifrig looked down. “No helicopters either.”
“They’ll come.”
Leslie-Ifrig sighed tolerantly. “You want to know what I think, Victor? I think you keep going on about the police coming to get you because you secretly want it to happen.”
“Why would I want that to happen?” asked Victor contemptuously.
“I dunno, I think maybe you think you deserve it because you hate yourself.”
“I hate you.”
“Aww.” Leslie-Ifrig rubbed the part of the tarpaulin they assumed was over Victor’s head. “I hate you too.”
Victor finally poked his head out from under the tarpaulin like a green plastic turtle. “Why are you still here?” he spat. “Haven’t you caused me enough trouble?”
Leslie-Ifrig hung their head, then turned and sat down with their back to Victor, bringing their knees up to their face. “I’m sorry,” they said. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble. And I’m sorry if you lost your job because of me. I didn’t know you liked having it so much.”
“Like it?” Victor scoffed. “I haven’t liked a single aspect of my life since the day I started setting things on fire. And I liked my job less than I liked getting my prostate checked.”
Leslie-Ifrig smiled in bafflement, brow furrowed. “So why are you so broken up about losing it?”
“I’m not! I mean . . .” Victor dropped his gaze. With his face pointed down and just his hair visible at one end of the tarpaulin, he looked to Leslie-Ifrig like a gigantic discarded bobble hat. “They only wanted me around to blow the tits off monsters when they needed it. But that was something! At least I was useful to them. It’s the only place I ever belonged!”
Leslie-Ifrig cocked their head as they thought about this. Then they leaned back, pointed a hand skyward, and allowed power to flow out. Instead of a blast of fast-moving conflagration, they created a curved line of glowing air that slithered lazily upwards and outwards like a fiery caterpillar, before curling back in. When it had stopped moving, it had taken the form of half a heart symbol.
“You could be useful here too,” they prompted, nodding toward the empty air where the other half of the symbol belonged.
Victor stared up at the artwork with an unimpressed scowl. Then he looked Leslie-Ifrig directly in their good eye, wriggled one hand out from under the tarpaulin, and pointed.
His caterpillar of fire was a little redder and a little more erratic than Leslie-Ifrig’s. Its edges were jagged and wavered constantly as it crawled across the air beside Leslie-Ifrig’s contribution, but it still formed a coherent line. When it stopped moving, Leslie-Ifrig’s half heart was forming one side of a crude line drawing of a penis and testicles.
Leslie-Ifrig burst out laughing. It sounded like a child’s laughter mingled with the huffing of a labored steam engine. The cracks on their face expanded, increasing the orange glow coming from the molten substance in between. At length they pulled themselves together, then glanced at the airborne graffiti again and launched into a fresh round of smoky guffaws.
“It’s not funny,” grouched Victor.
“Then why are you smiling?”
Victor’s head disappeared under the tarpaulin again. “I’m not!”
“Looked like you were.”
“I say I wasn’t, and I would know best,” said the tarpaulin pointedly.
“Fair enough.”
Leslie-Ifrig sat in silence for a few moments, watching the remnants of the giant fiery penis gradually dissipate into an incoherent but considerably less puerile blob. Then they pulled out the phone from their back pocket, flicked through to a messenger app, and examined their last few pieces of correspondence.
“Would you be feeling better if you still had a job?” they asked, giving the tarpaulin a sidelong look.
“Obviously” came the reply.
“I think I might know someone who can help out.”
THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY
LATER THAT DAY
44
The entrance doors to the Pelican Theatre were a grand affair. Ten-foot-high oak slabs that wouldn’t have been too out of place on a church, adorned with carved wooden decorations evoking ribbons, bunches of grapes, and theatrical masks. They were designed to immediately impose upon incoming visitors the grandness and sheer occasion of a night at a London theater. And no doubt would do so, had they been opened at any point in the last thirty years.
The current owners of the Pelican Theatre felt that the brief journey across the threshold just didn’t offer enough chances for user engagement. Now, the theater lobby could only be accessed by one of the newly built side corridors, which marked the end of a circuitous path that started at the main car park, wound through the convention center’s main entrance plaza, and passed two food courts.
At the point where the walkway left the main entrance plaza, it passed under another, elevated, walkway that connected parts of the business center on the second level, and this was where Richard Danvers had set up DEDA’s temporary operations center. He had fully commandeered the largest meeting room and had already scrounged up several desks, a whiteboard, and most of the building’s coffeemakers.
The place was already abuzz with activity when Adam Hesketh arrived. The moment he rode the escalator up to the second level, he spotted Danvers through the main meeting room’s large windows, standing over a floor plan of the complex with his sleeves rolled up and his least approachable look on his face. Agents with smartphones were in constant motion around him, giving up-to-the-minute reports on what persons of interest were on the scene and what interesting things they were doing.
Danvers glanced up briefly when he saw Adam approaching, then immediately glanced down and impatiently gestured to Sumner, who was standing at his elbow looking like a smug cat next to a fish pond. Sumner looked at Adam, then made an identical gesture to the general throng of agents beside him.
Adam was on his way to the office door when a junior agent came out and very firmly pulled the door shut behind him. He was one of the new Administration hires who was still showing up every day with perfect hair and a buttoned-up suit jacket that hadn’t yet accrued any stains from running errands to Archie’s laboratory. “Hi! Adam, right?” he said, getting between Adam and the door. “I’m Jake. Nice to finally talk.”
“Just checking in with Mr. Danvers,” said Adam, awkwardly using two pointed index fingers to suggest a direction Jake might like to move in to get out of Adam’s way.
In response, Jake placed a hand gently on Adam’s arm as if about to spin him around. “Yes, he said you’d be showing up, and he said we should take you to your special spot as soon as you arrived.”
“Special spot?” said Adam, warily intrigued.
“Yes, you’ve got a special spot just over here.”
Not letting go of Adam’s arm, Jake gently pulled him over to a spot near the footbridge that went over the main walkway. There was a small seating area with a couple of soft chairs, from which one could get the best possible view of the main entrance plaza below.
“Just here,” said Jake, trying to point to both chairs with one hand. “Either one. All the crowds will be coming through here to get to the theater. Just do your magic-vision thing and let us know if you see anyone magical and dangerous.”
“Right,” said Adam, eyeing the nearer chair. “Can I have a computer? Or a desk?”
Jake glanced around nervously, then pointed to the two chairs again. “Either one’s fine. Literally, just watch out for trouble and give someone a shout if you see any.”
Adam plopped his backpack down beside one of the chairs, then plopped himself down. “Right,” he repeated. “I did bring my own tablet . . .”
“Oh, good idea,” said Jake as Adam pulled a rather scratched and elderly tablet out of his bag. “Play some games or something. Probably be a quiet time for you. I’m jealous!” He nodded back toward the meeting room behind them, then noticed that someone at the door was irritably beckoning him back, so he took off without another word.
Adam let a deep sigh bubble up from the depths of his gut like gas from a volcanic vent. Of course he hadn’t expected to be back in the inner circle of top investigators so soon after being benched, but still, it was galling to know he had been unofficially demoted to security camera.
He cast a token look over the convention center, but the big crowds wouldn’t be coming until tomorrow, and at the moment there was just a handful of hurried assistants from across the spectrum of politics and journalism running errands. He switched on his magic vision anyway and determined to his satisfaction that no crazed water elementals were gearing up to flood the building.
He turned to his tablet. Ever since the minor breakthrough of finding Megan Arkwright’s file from the school, he had redoubled his attempts to solve the case by staring at the evidence. He had even created a custom app on his tablet that immediately opened sixteen different tabs for him to stare at in turn. He was actually starting to find it relaxing. And he knew that sooner or later it would all come together. He could feel the truth behind it all jiggle like a loose tooth under pressure.
After thirty minutes, the loose tooth wasn’t coming any looser, so he cast another idle glance over the plaza, only to see a pink trail making its way up an escalator toward him. He shook off his enhanced vision just as it came into talking range.
“Hi, Adam!” said Rana. She was wearing a Modern Miracle T-shirt. “I wondered if you’d be here.”
“Rana!” said Adam, pushing his tablet to one side as he mentally assessed his posture for natural-seeming nonchalance. “Are you . . . are you here with Modern Miracle?”
“Yeah, I’m volunteering for them now. Sort of general-assistant thing.” She looked up at the bustling office behind them. “This is where I pick up our security passes, right?”
“Yes, yes it is,” said Adam quickly, not wishing to reveal that his colleagues had clued him in to the logistics of the situation as much as they had the potted plant to his immediate right.
“What’re you working on?” said Rana, suddenly leaning forward when she caught a glimpse of Adam’s tablet. “Oh. The vampire killings?”
Adam gave up trying to casually cover the screen with his sleeve. “Yes,” he admitted.
“Is Miracle still a suspect in all that?”
“There’s just . . . a lot of unanswered questions still,” he mumbled unhappily, although he did pick up on her use of the shorter, more familiar name. “You think they shouldn’t be?”
“Well.” Rana gleefully dropped into the other chair and leaned in as she took on a hushed tone. “Obviously when I first joined them it was partly to see if I could learn any more about that.”
“And?”
“And I’ve seen Miracle Meg working enough times that I’m pretty sure she’s on the level. They’re nice people. Really. I don’t think they’re killing anyone. It has to be a random vampire who hangs around after the sermons. A lot of magic kids do.”
