The Glass God (6 page)

She stopped before a door, like any other. Taped across it was a name neatly written in black felt-tip pen – M. Swift. Sharon looked from this to where a name plate sat, bare and empty.

“He said that having a name plate was like putting your signature in the devil’s logbook. Well,” added Kelly, unlocking the door, “he may have included a few expletives. But I’m sure you appreciate the sentiment.”

She pushed the door open. Beyond it Sharon saw…

… a disaster.

Piles of paper hid every part of the floor, save for five neat, foot-sized trenches which had been left at just the right distance to make stepping from one to the next, strenuously uncomfortable. The twisted mind that contrived this round-your-footsteps school of filing, hadn’t spared the walls or windows either: every available inch was covered with maps, memos, notes, diagrams and, in one or two cases, what looked to Sharon like mystic wards, inscribed in marker pen onto the wall itself. One map dominated all the others. Wider than Sharon’s outstretched arms, longer than the bed she slept in, it showed all of London from the M25 in, and was pinned to the wall over a slew of other documents which stuck out around it like nested fledglings peeping from under their mother. Red dots were stuck across its surface, forming a thick mess across large parts of north London, and a slightly thinner mess south of the river. Each dot had a date – a day and a month – scratched next to it in tiny writing, but there was no other indication of its purpose.

In the middle of the room, encased by all this junk and sagging under the weight of many unwashed coffee mugs, was a desk; a computer sat huddled on one corner, as if embarrassed to be so digital in this analogue room. The only chair had also fallen victim to the mess of paperwork and was burdened by seven copies of the Yellow Pages, the earliest dating back to 1992. Sharon thought about moving them, then couldn’t work out where they’d go; so, stepping carefully towards the desk, across the paper-infested floor, she balanced precariously on top of them, like a toddler on a bar stool. The others lurked in the doorway, waiting to see what fell first.

“This,” said Sharon, “is not good office practice.”

There was a small sigh of relief. It came from Kelly, who appeared to know exactly what good office practice was and to hope someone else might too. “Ms Li,” she exclaimed, “I’m so glad you’re here, you have such a can-do attitude! Obviously, call me if you need anything, I’m just next door, and good luck with your investigation!”

She turned to go, and was somehow out of sight before Sharon had a chance to say, “Oi, don’t you bloody go, you can’t just leave me with…⁠”

The door to the neighbouring office slammed, with, Sharon felt, perhaps more emphasis than necessary. She looked down at the desk, and the pile of Yellow Pages shifted beneath her. Things were growing at the bottom of one of the abandoned coffee mugs. Since the things weren’t about to utter prophetic truths, she averted her gaze.

“Um… Ms Li?” Rhys stood in the doorway. So, to Sharon’s surprise, did Miles. “Can we, uh… do anything?” hazarded the druid.

Sharon looked at him, then stared around the room, searching for inspiration. “Dunno,” she said. “Ever gone looking for the missing guardian of the city before?”

“Um… no. Sorry.”

“I haven’t either,” offered Miles, “but I do have Google maps on my phone, should we require them.”

Sharon’s eyes narrowed. “That’s great,” she muttered, in the tone of one who still didn’t trust technology to know the difference between a canal path and a motorway. “But, and I don’t mean this in a negative way, what exactly
is
your job in this?”

“Oh, I’m here to assist!” Miles exclaimed. “I am, in fact, your minion. I believe that’s not the politically correct term, but I don’t mind it. Anything you need, anything you desire, be it menial, demanding or dangerous, and I will be only too happy to assist.”

Rhys sensed an itching at the back of this throat. He felt that if anyone was going to do menial, demanding or dangerous jobs, it should be him. He eyed Miles up and down, noticed the healthy glow to his skin, the well-muscled neck leading into what he deeply suspected were toned and rippling chest and shoulder muscles; the fine posture, the excellent speech, the educated tones ringing through, and felt a surge of itching all the way to his eyes and nose.

“A minion, huh?” murmured Sharon, trying out the sound. “Cool. So, uh… you’re an Alderman, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“And I’m guessing you have mega-useful skills, in case guns and death start happening?”

“I wouldn’t say
mega-
skills,” offered Miles. “I can score five perfect hits with a handgun at thirty paces, have a Brown Belt in taekwondo and a Purple in judo, practise fencing every Sunday and have been rated ‘superior’ on my evocation and abjuration exams by leading members of the Westminster Coven of Wizards; whether any of that will be appropriate, who can say?”

Sharon’s eyes met Rhys’s, unable to hide a flicker of alarm. “Cool,” she mumbled. “So, uh… do you know where to get a cuppa coffee round here?”

Chapter 8

Nothing Is Impossible

Two hours and several doughnuts later, Sharon sat with her head in her hands and tried not to whimper. In her time spent in Swift’s office, the only definitive conclusion she’d reached was that this was a man for whom the notion of multicoloured highlighter pens and neatly labelled ring binders was anathema.

At her feet, Rhys squatted in one of the few clear patches of floor, evidently fascinated by the contents of a folder.

“Did you know,” he said, “that wyverns have a kerosene problem?”

Sharon looked up from the depths of her despair. “Do they.” The ice in her voice could have liquefied nitrogen, but Rhys was too enthused to notice.

“Apparently their second stomach is the perfect environment for cracking hydrocarbons – wyverns could be very useful in the petrochemical industry, couldn’t they?”

“Anything about one of them eating sorcerers?”

“No. It’s mostly long-chain alkenes. Sorry.”

Sharon glared about her in frustration. Miles had somehow found a stool and, impressively, somewhere to plant it. He was likewise engrossed, in a report on the sanitary conditions of the kelkie nests at Twickenham. His feet were balanced on a pile of books, the top one of which was entitled
Black Grimoires – The Cautious Approach
. Sharon’s gaze swept back to Swift’s desk. Through a great deal of cursing, and some subtler encouragement from Rhys, they’d coaxed Swift’s computer into turning on, only for the entire system to spend fifteen minutes auto-updating with no regard for Sharon’s blood pressure. Now it was whirring like an asthmatic motorbike, with a screen laid out for her confusion that was almost as messy as the floor itself. She flicked through spreadsheets detailing annual expenditure on wands, wards, exorcists and transport; scrolled aimlessly through a guide to the latest techniques in three-circle summoning spells; then stared with furrowed brow at a news report from the
Archway Chronicle
detailing the disappearance of yet another one of its trusted readers, sometime around three in the morning on Tuesday last.

She hesitated, then clicked through to the full article.

Darren Clarke, digital rights executive, left the King’s Head, Islington, at one a.m. on Tuesday morning, heading for his home in Highgate. Friends reported that he was sober and appeared to be in good spirits. When he didn’t show up for work the next morning, colleagues attempted to contact him and, receiving no reply, went round to visit his abode. There was no sign that Darren had made it home. Police report the investigation as ongoing, but as this was the fourth resident to vanish from within the north London area in the last two weeks, speculation is mounting that there may be a criminal organisation at work. No bodies have been found, and police say that it is too early to speculate as to the fate of Darren, and others like him. 

Sharon looked up from the computer. “Anyone got anything generally on people disappearing?”

Miles shook his head, and tossed the file on kelkie nests back into the mess of paper on the floor. He fumbled at random for another document.

“Um… newspaper clippings?” suggested Rhys, holding up a file. Sharon snatched it from his hand. A note on the front declared in Swift’s scrawled handwriting, Bad Stuff. She scowled. If ever a man had needed to buy himself a copy of
Management for Beginners
it was the Midnight Mayor. If he was lucky, she’d even lend him hers, once she was through the chapter on successful negotiation strategies for the executive team.

She flicked through the clippings. They were sparse, but well fingered. The oldest dated from three weeks before, and reported that Kathleen Briars, a twenty-one-year-old mathematics student living in Roehampton, hadn’t returned to her home, and parents and police were worried. The most recent reported that Yusef Kanun, sixty-seven-year-old former car dealer, had also vanished. Said the police spokesperson:

“We have received no evidence of foul play. It is sad but true that people often leave their homes for reasons which are not, of themselves, criminal, nor constitute a criminal act.”

In one photo a much younger Yusef Kanun was beaming at the camera, his hand resting on the bonnet of a convertible car. Another showed a pair of shoes, their laces tied together, thrown over a leafless tree branch. The caption read: “Mr Kanun’s shoes were spotted by his nephew a few hours after he was reported missing. There were no reported signs of violence in the area.”

Sharon closed the file of clippings and slipped it into her shoulder bag. Looking up at the map on the wall, she wondered how many little red dots there were on it, and guessed at least thirty. Indicating the map, she murmured, “Anyone know what this is?”

After a pause, Miles said, “The Midnight Mayor was a rather private person. As far as I’m aware, the map was entirely his own work.”

Sharon sighed. “Bloody typical. Hasn’t this guy heard of ccing his emails?”

A thought snapped into her mind. She turned back to the computer, and went to Swift’s email. A box appeared requesting the password. She glanced up at the Alderman. “Hey – you know how to get into this guy’s email?”

“I believe that the Midnight Mayor’s system is designed to be secure against both technological and magical attack,” replied Miles. “He
is
the defender of the city, after all.”

Rhys, however, was on his feet. “Email?” he asked, eyes glowing. “I’m good with email.”

Sharon clambered off her perch, and balanced with one foot in a patch of empty floor and the other on a pile of reports, so that Rhys could position himself atop the volumes piled on Swift’s chair. He leant over the keyboard, frowning with concentration. “Passwords,” he murmured. “Passwords…⁠”

He tried a couple out.

“Well, at least the password isn’t ‘password’,” he mused. “Embarrassing how often you see that.”

“I’m kinda hoping you’ve got more tricks up your sleeve than just typing ‘password’?”

“I am an IT manager!” he replied with a little huff.

Sharon shrugged, and made her way carefully across the floor towards the map. On the other side of the room, Miles called out, “More tea, anyone?”

“God, yes.”

“Yes, please!”

He bounded up and headed for the door. It closed behind him, and Sharon caught sight of Rhys’s expression as he looked up from the keyboard. “Hey,” she said, “he did offer to make the tea. It’s not like I actually told him to be a minion.”

Sharon scanned the map once more. Little red dots on a big piece of paper. She pulled out the file of newspaper clippings, checked a couple of dates, then looked up and ran her fingers over the map. A dot for the day of Darren’s disappearance was marked, and labelled, Archway. There was also a dot for the day that Yusef had vanished, carefully annotated. Dozens of other dots had no corresponding mention in the newspaper cuttings; but then, she suspected, they didn’t need one.

At the desk, Rhys muttered something, and hit Delete with unusual agitation. Keys clattered like falling rain beneath his fingers. Sharon watched, and Rhys, aware of her, began to turn red. The end of his nose twitched. His eyes were locked on the computer screen, but the swelling around his nostrils and eyelids grew manifest. Sharon fumbled automatically in her bag for a pack of tissues, having taken in recent weeks to having a reserve. He grabbed it from her even as one hand continued to type, and as the sneeze welled up to unstoppable proportions he exclaimed, “Aaaa… aaatchooo!” and slammed down on the Enter key.

The screen changed.

Sharon peered over Rhys’s shoulder. He’d been working in the command prompt, and, as she looked, a series of commands self-perpetuated down the screen. She caught a glimpse of…

“Incantation equals one?”

“Um, yes,” said Rhys, dabbing at his nose. “You could have said it equals true. But I always use this script because it’s easier when you need to…⁠”

“It was the ‘incantation’ part I’m querying, actually.”

“Oh! Sorry!… Well, the druids always said that words had power, see? And in the old days sometimes you’d write the words with special inks or on human skin or things like that, and then they really had power…⁠”

“Is ‘ew’ something shamans say?”

“Um, I don’t know. I don’t think druids say it, but then we have to become comfortable with organic fluids very early in the training process.”

Sharon’s face was a battlefield of warring curiosities. “Let’s talk about computers,” she said at length.

“Oh, yes! So, well, if words and books were sacred in the old days, then obviously now, what with magic evolving to suit the urban environment, binary data and server racks are becoming hubs of the new power. The trick,” Rhys sat up straighter, warming to his subject, “is to find a proxy rack with a suitable energy tag, obviously not situated too close to a fibre ley line because – well – we all know what would happen then” – Sharon tried a bit of sage nodding. It seemed her safest bet – “and then you route it back here and use it as a focus for the invocation which you implant at the base level to allow it to percolate and multiply, until finally…⁠”