Existentially Challenged, page 8
“Is she?” asked Alison.
Rajesh and Diablerie both turned to her wearing capital-L Looks of condescension. “No,” said Rajesh slowly. “Obviously not.”
“Does that look like one possessed by demon spawn to thee, girl?” said Diablerie, pointing to the distracted but unbesmirched face of Miracle Meg.
“Well, I guess she doesn’t . . .” murmured Alison, going red.
“. . . doesn’t have a face like a bag of spanners covered in sick,” offered Rajesh, turning back to the screen. “Still, they’ve done their homework. El-Yetch is an Ancient on record, and those infused with her have tended to manifest healing abilities. Anyone could have found that out from the Ancients Wiki, of course, but then there’s this.”
He brought up a surprisingly professional website, headed with the words “modern miracle!” and “are you worthy of the blessing?” in an elegant cursive typeface. Rajesh highlighted a paragraph of small print on a lengthy FAQ.
“See? ‘No cancer patients.’ It’s not common knowledge that magic healing doesn’t cure cancer. For a scam, it’s doing a very good job of looking legit.”
“Oh yeah, I heard about the cancer thing,” said Alison, recalling a passage she had read during her short education at the government magic school. “The magic mistakes the cancer for part of the organism and makes it worse, right?”
“They’re based out of Worcester,” said Rajesh, not acknowledging her. Alison was feeling increasingly shouldered out of the conversation. “They don’t make a secret of their street address, in case you want to pay your respects. Apparently they do regular services in their front garden.”
“this is the intelligence with which you would buy your freedom?” roared Diablerie, straightening up. “The niceties of small-time salvation salesmen?”
Rajesh half turned in his chair, resting one elbow on the backrest, continuing his show of being absolutely unperturbed by Diablerie. “There are a lot of eyes on this, and the interesting part is that none of them have been able to figure out how they’re pulling the scam.” He lowered both his head and the tone of his voice to emphasize the gravity of his words. “Testimonies all state that real magical healing is going on. At least two of our peers went to investigate and are now evangelical El-Yetch converts.”
Diablerie harrumphed. “So it falls to Diablerie, as master of skepticism, to succeed where our more credulous fellows have fallen. Very well!” He snapped his cape around himself. “We shall journey to Worcester, and quest to drag these shysters into the light of truth.”
“So, um, question,” said Alison, sensing a gap in the discourse. “How do you know she doesn’t have actual healing powers?”
Rajesh and Diablerie turned those capital-L Looks on her again, now both with an extra dollop of aghastness. “So Diablerie’s supposed to be mentoring you, did I get that right?” asked Rajesh.
“ ’Tis a gradual process,” said Diablerie moodily. “One can hardly expect fast results when one leashes a sloth.”
12
The warehouse had gone quiet. The cargo container behind which Adam was hiding with Black and Rawlins was still providing cover, and the side closest to them was intact, but it had been making some very disquieting creaks and pinging noises, and none of them had risked peering out since the last salvo of magical fire. Instead, they were trying to keep abreast of the situation with Adam’s magical senses, but at a distance, and amid innumerable traces of the magic that had already occurred, his ability to pinpoint specifics was severely reduced.
“There’s still . . . two blurs,” he reported, squinting with all his might. “Maybe one blur now. They still haven’t thrown any more magic around since the last time.”
“Moving?” asked Rawlins.
“No.” Adam’s face twitched. “Wait. Yes. I think.”
“This is pathetic,” said Black, who was sitting on the concrete with his back to the cargo container. “We know the perp isn’t watching the windows now. We should be backing Victor up.”
“After you,” grumbled Rawlins.
“Something’s coming,” reported Adam. “They went blurry for a bit then came back. I think they must have gone out the rear exit and are coming around the side.”
“Is it Victor?” asked Black.
“It’s . . . definitely a pyrokinetic.” He snapped out of his squint. “Did you guys bring weapons?”
Rawlins wordlessly reached into his back pocket and produced a stun gun. The kind that was useless at anything further than handshake range.
“I think I might start writing my report, now, since we’re about to die,” said Black, digging his phone out of his jacket. “What’s a more heroic way of saying ‘stood around like frightened prannies’?”
“Watching the six,” suggested Rawlins.
“Wait, they’re close enough now,” said Adam, squinting again and pressing his face right into the side of the cargo container. “It’s Victor.”
“You sure?” asked Black, clambering to his feet.
“Unless there’s someone else infused with the same Ancient in there,” said Adam, before stepping out from cover. He was momentarily distracted by the sight of the other side of the cargo container, which now closely resembled a gigantic wad of chewed gum, some parts of which were still dripping.
A figure appeared at the side of the warehouse, walking in the calm and measured way of someone who intends to collapse onto the first surface they can find that’s even mildly softer than a bed of nails. Ash and soot had turned them into a black silhouette, and there was still smoke rising from the folds in their clothing.
“Victor?” said Adam, hesitating.
The figure paused, tottered back and forth for a moment as if about to fall flat on their face, then snapped out of it and took several rapid strides forward. “Where the hell were you?!” spat Victor, shaking burnt ends out of his shaggy hair.
“Uh, watching the six,” said Adam. “How did it go?”
Victor’s lips silently formed a number of different shapes for a few moments as he considered possible replies, before settling on “It’s sorted.”
“What was it?”
“Possession. Pyrokinetic. Hostile. I sorted it.”
“Right. Sorted it,” said Black. “So how much of them is left?”
Victor glared at him through his singed bangs for a moment, then, to Adam’s enormous surprise, broke into a smile. “In there? Not much at all.”
“Figures,” muttered Rawlins.
“Might as well leave it to the cleanup crew,” said Black, eyeing the melted cargo container and adjusting his collar self-consciously. “Come on. Back to the van.”
“Oh sure,” said Victor, lazily falling into step behind Black and Rawlins as they began to walk. “Guess I’ve got quite a long report to write, huh. Don’t expect you lot will have much to add, unless you can think of lots of things to say about the side of that cargo container.”
“Is that your phone?” asked Adam, walking beside him.
Victor slapped his buzzing coat pocket. “No.”
“Pretty sure it is.”
Hastily, Victor pulled out his phone wallet—the custom one he’d had made that was lined with Teflon—and thumbed the cover open. He glanced at the illuminated screen for less than a second before theatrically rolling his eyes and slapping it closed again. “Ugh. Just, er, someone messaging me on Facebook. Ah! Here’s the van.” He jogged ahead a couple of yards, pulled open one of the rear doors, and gestured to the interior. “Our carriage awaits.”
Adam didn’t get in. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah!” Victor’s pocket buzzed again, and his free hand snapped over it. “Yeah.”
“You seem a bit . . . hyped up.”
“No! I mean, of course I’m hyped up. I just got to scorch an entire warehouse. They haven’t let me do that in ages.”
Adam stepped forward and placed one pudgy leg on the van’s bed, before hesitating and peering at Victor again. “You didn’t overdo it with the magic?”
“I’m not hearing voices, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Victor, dropping his arms in exasperation. “I was in absolutely no danger of losing myself back there. Trust me. Maybe Ifrig had other things to worry about.”
“Okay,” said Adam distrustfully, before carefully climbing into the back.
In short order the four of them were back on the road, leaving the devastated warehouse to smolder and generate angry phone calls to and from the Department and the Department’s preferred professional cleaning service. After five minutes of silence, Adam found himself examining Victor, who was staring at the ceiling with his arms folded and one foot tapping rapidly on the floor. He heard Victor’s phone buzz again.
“That Facebook friend seems to have a lot they need to say to you,” he said, picking what he thought was a nice, neutral conversation starter.
“Yeah, maybe,” said Victor. He silently stared back at Adam, who was staring expectantly at him for a few seconds, then tutted and dug his phone out again. “Yeah, it’s not important. They’re just . . . trying to invite me to this message board social network thingy they’re on.”
“Oh.”
Victor peered closer to the screen and frowned. “Don’t suppose you know what Modern Miracle is?”
Adam began blinking rapidly as every single other muscle in his face suddenly froze solid. “I’m sorry, what?”
13
“So do you trust him?” asked Alison as she and Diablerie filed through the narrow back passages of the Builder’s Arms, looking for a door that led outside.
“Chahal is a snake,” growled Diablerie. “He slithers about the darkest cracks of the occult underworld, in pursuit of the Ancients know what. Diablerie trusts his information. His motives, less so.”
“Right,” said Alison. She found a door with a crossbar that gave her a good feeling, and sure enough, pressing it in brought on a refreshing blast of night air and electric streetlight. “So, this might sound like a stupid question . . .”
“There they are now!” cried a familiar voice. Alison turned to see the activist girl in the red beret and her phone-wielding cameraman standing near a gray van in the car park. They jogged over as soon as Alison appeared from the pub’s rear exit, the girl clutching a cheap microphone the way a natural historian wields a pin with which they intend to attach a butterfly to a board. “Alison Arkin! Will Abdul the Astonishing answer for his blatant display of X-ism?”
“Um,” said Alison, leaning back a good twenty or so degrees as the microphone was thrust under her chin. “He’s . . . promised not to do it again?”
“But what about justice? Have you and your partner made an arrest?”
The use of the word partner derailed Alison’s train of thought into a mixed flurry of emotions, but she eventually managed to stammer her way into coherence. “Sorry, we, we, like I said, sorry, we can’t arrest him, because he was using runes. Which is actual magic. So a crime wasn’t being—”
“And what are these ‘runes’?” asked the girl. She wasn’t looking at Alison, but deeply into the camera phone with set jaw and furiously interested eyebrows.
“Runes?” Even taken by surprise, Alison had enough sense to realize that saying too much about runecrafting in a public forum would be a very bad idea. “It’s . . . a way that some people can do magic. Not many people.”
“And there you have it,” said the girl to the camera. “Once again, a privileged minority weasels out of consequences by exploiting technical loopholes while their government friends look the other way—”
“It’s not a privilege!” protested Alison, before she could stop herself. “Runecrafting makes you go insane!” Specifically, attempting to draw runes temporarily gave one’s mind a direct line to the Ancients, and the Ancients didn’t understand that they had to take turns to speak. Alison had only attempted to copy down a rune once, and had spent the remainder of the night hallucinating non-Euclidean geometry on a bedroom floor.
The girl looked at Alison in shock for a brief second before turning back to the camera, her disapproving mouth tightening even further like the coils of a python. “And now the official DEDA representative has just equated magic users with the mentally ill. Look at this face!” She thrust out a pointing finger that came dangerously close to going right up Alison’s nose. “Look at and shame this face! For this is the face of government failing its people! This has been Beatrice Callum for LAXA Updates. Remember to like, subscribe, and donate for more great activism like this.” She maintained her fiercely righteous expression for a few seconds of silence. “How was that?”
“I think we can call it a video,” said the dreadlocked cameraman, finally lowering his phone and poking at the screen.
“Whew.” The girl who had called herself Beatrice relaxed, letting all the tension out of her face and lowering her height by about two inches. In an instant, Alison was addressing an actual human being just a couple of years younger than her. “Cool! Thanks for this. Good episode. I think people are really gonna engage, y’know?”
“LAXA?” was all Alison could say.
“League for Advancing Extradimensional Acceptance,” explained Beatrice, smiling with a hint of embarrassment. “I just joined them actually. I’ve been, like, planning to do some activism for my gap year, and this is where the really interesting stuff’s happening right now. Especially with the new law. Do you need a lift somewhere?”
She was pointing to the gray van she had come from. Her cameraman hauled open the side, and a large brown shaggy dog bounded out, brimming with surprise and delight at the cameraman’s extraordinary door-opening prowess.
At the same time, a face appeared at the driver’s-side window. It was a boy of about Beatrice’s age, wearing a red beret identical to hers. “Bea, you said we could get burgers now,” he whined at full volume. “I’m hungry. This is abusive.”
“I’m networking, David! Stop abusing me!” yelled Beatrice, with quite astonishing venom. “Sorry, that’s my brother. He signed up as well so he could drive the van, but all he does is complain. We’re investigating a feng shui consultant in Oxford tomorrow, and I just know he’s going to complain all the way through that, too, snotty little dick.”
The off-camera version of Beatrice spoke like an unsupervised factory production line, words pouring unconcerned out of her as if from the end of a conveyor belt. Alison had to wait for a gap as if trying to cross a busy motorway. “You go all around the country in that van?”
“Yep,” said Beatrice proudly. “Well, it’s not our van . . .”
“With a dog?” said Alison. Beatrice’s cameraman was still trying to pet the dog while simultaneously disentangling its excited paws from the front of his jeans.
“Yes.”
Alison coughed. “Solving mysteries?”
“Yeah!” A moment’s doubt flashed across Beatrice’s features. “Why does everyone keep saying that like it’s weird? Anyway, did you need a lift?”
“No, er . . . we came in Doctor Diablerie’s car.”
“Doctor who?”
“No, Doctor . . .”
An important fact suddenly dropped into Alison’s conscious mind like a rhinoceros from a set of bomb bay doors: the fact that Diablerie hadn’t spoken or done anything to draw attention to himself since they had left the pub.
For the second time in one night, Alison looked around for Diablerie and saw only empty, unchewed scenery. “Oh, nuts,” she swore, before jogging back toward the pub, listening intently for the sound of smoke bombs going off.
14
Rajesh Chahal was still hunched in front of the mirror in the pathetic dressing room of the Builder’s Arms. He had successfully wiped off the eyeliner, and was now struggling to scrape the last few flecks of glitter off his cheeks. There was a quick, businesslike knock on the door, and he turned to see a darkened figure in a top hat and cloak enter.
“Diablerie,” he groaned. “You forget something? I’ve got no more intel.”
The figure let the door close behind them, then stepped forward into the light, removing their top hat and setting it on the repurposed bathroom counter. Rajesh stared at it, then up at its prior wearer. His hand froze in the act of rubbing the swab on his cheek.
“Well,” he said, with fascinated caution. “It’s been even longer since I last saw you.”
The man wearing Diablerie’s clothes ran a hand over the door. “Is this room safe for talking?” he asked, in a soft voice.
Rajesh watched him carefully. “I suppose. Didn’t expect you’d want to talk in person anytime soon.”
The man continued his way along the walls, feeling for gaps or anything out of order. “Internet chatrooms aren’t as secure as they used to be, ‘Priest.’ ”
Rajesh pretended to go back to rubbing his makeup off, but he was only making pointless strokes of his hand as he scrutinized his visitor through the mirror. “So. You call me up out of nowhere and pass me information about Modern Miracle. And then you instruct me to feed that information back to you when you come here as Doctor Diablerie. Hm. Obviously I don’t expect you to explain—”
“Modern Miracle is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for,” said the man, finally turning from the wall. “A chance to prove the Third Way theory. But the situation needs a lot of massaging first. I need the Department’s eyes on it.”
