Blind School (10 page)

The priest made the sign of the cross and stepped back from the graveside with a small nod.

A tearful Marisa Culverton was first to step forward and throw a handful of earth on the coffin, then John. Finally, Alex.

But Alex appeared even more disconsolate than his mother or younger brother, tears streaming freely.

‘Oh papa... dear
papa
.’

The other mourners appeared visibly touched by the display. More handkerchiefs came out amongst the women, whereas the men, less comfortable with open emotional displays, looked down or away.

Marisa Culverton was one of those to turn quickly away, a coldness in her eyes. She wasn’t fooled for a minute by the crocodile tears.

Marisa Culverton's expression was stony in the back of the limousine heading away from the funeral. John sat beside her, quizzical.

‘What? You think something was suspicious about father's death?’

Marisa eased a tired sigh. ‘Work it out: One day Alex is pushing like all hell to get Joseph out of the hospital. Next day your father is at home –
dead
.’

‘What... Alex? I know he's got his many bad points, and God knows he and I don't see eye to eye...’

John’s voice trailed off as he cast an anxious glance back towards Alex in the limousine behind.

‘And that air-show incident too,’ Marisa offered. She closed her eyes for a second, not wishing to accept it herself. She took a fresh breath. ‘All I'm saying is keep one eye over your shoulder with Alex. Watch your back.’

TWELVE

Professor Mentinck was winding up another holo-pod lecture.

‘Finally, notice here the lion-like features combined with horns – not dissimilar to Valefor or Marbas.’

He pointed, then suddenly used the same hand to reach out and grip the central pole to steady himself as the bus turned a corner.

The ‘practical lesson’ Ellis Kendell had promised the class the other day: the scan bus.  

The hologram image was similar, but this time projected from the bus roof with a single wide-screen behind. At the other end fifteen students observed as the bus drifted along city streets.

Darkened glass. Full visibility looking out, none looking in. On one side halfway down the bus was a bank of screens manned by Ellis Kendell and an operator. Ellis pointed to the screens as he took over from Mentinck.

‘Okay. The scan-bus will be your on-off home for the next few days. The first view you get of demons will probably be on these screens. So huddle round closer to get a better look.’

As the students moved in, Ryan and Jessica were only two away from each other; they exchanged tentative smiles.

‘The screens pick up thermal images for eight blocks in any direction. And every now and then amongst those, you'll pick up a demon apparition.
We
won't see them.’ Ellis indicated himself and the operator. ‘But if you look closer at these screens, you’ll get an idea of what you might see.’

The students edged in, and at first as the bus sped along they could only make out a blur of vague shapes. But as the bus stopped at a set of traffic lights, the images became clearer: grey-green cross-sections of people milling on streets and in shops or restaurants.

‘Most of those will be mid-level demons or those already under watch. But once in a while we'll pick up the golden prize of a high-level demon. The main reason we're all doing this.’

Ellis stared the message home, then put the zoom control on a couple of screens. They sped rapid-frame through the city blocks, finally coming to rest on a small group of people. No demons visible among them, but Ellis knew he’d planted the seed in the pupils’ minds of how they’d be viewed.

   ‘So each day you'll split up as you go 'demon tracking'. Fifteen pupils in the bus, five each in three vans. All with the same scan capabilities, but without the holo - pod rostrum.’

Three days later Ellis sat at the end of the control room by a bank of screens listening to what he’d just said on tape.

On one screen he had the scan bus, while on another he viewed three vans as they swept out of the
Blind
School
compound.

   Ellis preferred doing it this way. He knew that the first few days induction for new arrivals to
Blind
School
were the most vital, yet he couldn’t be with them all the time. So he’d stay with them that first day on the holo-bus, then monitor the rest of their progress over those days on a series of screens.

‘And as soon as you pick up an apparition on screen, we move in...’

Ellis looked at one of the top screens with two pupils picking out an apparition on screen. The operator zoomed through five city blocks, then locked in: a middle-aged woman coming out of a department store.

The bus raced through the streets to catch up, the on-screen image becoming progressively closer until the pupils were looking at the same woman straight across the street from them – the action now caught on camera on three screens that Ellis surveyed: one with the woman live, another her thermal image, the final camera on the pupils inside the bus.

The combination of his voice on tape and the visual track-back ensured that all the key points were covered. Anything missed or that came up unexpectedly during the three-day induction he could then cover in later lectures.

Ellis looked through a series of video loops where the pupils had picked up apparitions and the scan bus moved in: a middle-aged man putting out trash by his house, a parked cab driver, a college girl jogging. Only low or mid-level fallen angels. Nothing too worrying so far.

   ‘And finally when you're viewing them live, you describe what you see to our sketch artist.’

Ellis’s gaze shifted to two screens to his right showing a portrait-artist agent sketching a man through a diner window as pupils alongside gave descriptions.

‘Then Professor Mentinck will explain what you've actually seen...’

On a bottom screen, Mentinck was pointing to another hologram image as the bus cruised through the city streets. Ellis turned up the sound for the video loop:

‘Notice here serpentine features, as we saw before with Andromalius and Balam. Though the shape of its tail and its scaling suggest more a lesser-ranked fallen angel – Jeherak.’

Ellis switched his attention to another screen showing a lab technician working on a computer schematic while four
Blind
School
pupils and the sketch artist guided him. He faded out Mentinck’s voice and brought back his own:

‘...And if there isn't already a match in the database to what you've seen, then one will be made.’

The pupils huddled round the computer finally seemed satisfied with what they’d seen on screen. The technician tapped his keyboard and sat back. The pupils all looked expectantly towards the holo-pod to one side as an image burst to life.

The pupils walked round the fresh hologram with hesitant awe. A tousled-haired boy of fifteen nodded at the technician.

‘Yeah. That's what we saw last night.’

The other reason Ellis liked doing it this way was that it condensed the process – tracking, initial viewing, sketching, final identification – leant more urgency to their activity. The sense that they were actually getting somewhere rather than the cold, hard truth: a rag-tag bunch of kids up against an army of thousand-year-old battle-hardened demons who outnumbered them fifty to one.

Ellis was about to switch back to his continuing summary when he was disturbed by some movement from behind. He looked round to see Josh Eskovitz approaching.

‘Sorry to trouble you, Ellis. But we got a local boy gone missing now too: three days with no contact back to his family.’

Ellis swivelled round fully from the bank of screens. ‘What age?

‘Thirteen, and dark-haired.’ Josh shrugged. ‘I know it doesn't fit the M.O of the blonde girls gone missing – but I thought you should know nevertheless.’

Ellis was lost in thought for a moment. ‘Yeah, you're right. Probably unconnected. But thanks anyway, and if you–’

But Ellis suddenly jolted as he was hit with something else: a flashback image of the man staring towards his son in front of his school the other day. He got up, took out his cell phone.

‘What is it?’ Josh pressed.

‘I should have trusted my initial instinct.’ Ellis hit memory dial. ‘I just hope I’m not too late.’

Carla had just grabbed her car keys and was halfway out the door as she took the call.

‘Yeah. I'm heading there just now.’ She shut the door behind her and pressed her key-button to open her car. ‘Why? What's wrong?’

‘Just make sure you get there on time, and don't let
Santos
out of your sight. Wait there for me to show – and when I do, don't acknowledge me or get involved in what might happen.’

‘Oh... okay.’ She got in the car, fired up. ‘But tell me a bit more, Ellis. What’s–’

She was talking to a dead line. Ellis had hung up.

Ellis looked sharply at Josh Eskovitz. ‘Which unit we got closest to Thomas Edison school?’

‘Uh... probably Unit Two. They were covering the south side today.’

‘Okay. Raise them and tell them to meet me in front of the school.
Pronto
.’

The agent in Unit Two was in the middle of a lesson when he took the call from Josh Eskovitz. He consulted his sat-nav as they sped through city traffic. 

‘Yeah... yeah. We'll take the next turn-off and cut across. Should be there in under ten.’ He signed off and nodded at his driver. ‘Yeah. This one.’

The driver swung into the turn and, the second he straightened out, he put his foot down.

Within a hundred yards, they were touching sixty, the pupils in the back of the van looking concerned at the sudden turn of events, amongst them Ryan and Jessica.

Brian Lee Marston observed the kids as they exited the school.

A noisy, confusing throng, his gaze was at first loose, aimless. But as he spotted Santos Kendell and Timmy amongst the crowd flooding out the school gates, his gaze fixed on them.

They headed towards Carla Kendell’s Chevy Impala. He was watching them so intently that the black van with tinted windows pulling in across the street hardly caused a blip in his concentration amongst the hectic activity of other parents picking up their kids.

Only as Ellis Kendell's car swept in and Ellis headed with purpose towards the black van did a tick of consternation cross Marston's face.

Ellis slid open the side door of the van and nodded towards Marston.

‘That guy forty yards along... in a grey wind-breaker looking our way.’ Ellis waited for the pupils to pick out Marston. ‘Any of you see a demon apparition in him?’

They looked quizzical, but spent a moment dutifully studying Marston. Ryan was the first to answer.

‘No. I don't see anything.’

A brunette girl at the front echoed: ‘Me neither.’

As Ellis's eyes darted anxiously between them, Jessica and another teen mumbled: ‘No
. Nothing’.

Ellis slid the door shut and headed towards Marston.