Vowed (12 page)

I check on the children’s birthday dates compared to when they were taken.

Roberto and Rachel were taken two years ago. Roberto just before 1 May; Rachel disappeared on 19 July. The next disappearance was Joanie on the night of 30 July.

Then there’s a gap and it starts again this year. End of January with Christopher Singh and then just before Easter is Jerome King.

The dates are interesting as they are all just before a major pagan holiday.

Roberto’s before May Day or Beltane. Then Rachel at Midsummer. Then Joanie just before Lammas, which is Harvest time.

The gap is interesting and I wonder why he didn’t continue last year. Next is Christopher Singh at the end of January, skipping Midwinter but in time for one of the equinoxes in February.
The final one to be taken is Jerome King, at Easter or Ostara.

So perhaps he skipped May Day, Midsummer and Lammas this year, because he already had the children somewhere . . . returning to take someone at Halloween, or Samhain, as it’s called by
most pagans I’ve met.

I rummage around the living room and come up with a ratty book on the wheel of the pagan year and check out the dates. So our guy’s now missed out on Halloween too . . . which has
definitely thrown a spanner in the works because the next holiday is Yule, around Christmas time. If he’s collecting children for pagan festivals, his timings are out.

No. I write down the names and dates and realize he’s missed two months from the calendar – September (Mabon, the autumn equinox) and now Halloween or Samhain. I sit back in my seat
and wonder if he’ll next appear in December.

But why? Why the staggered way of taking the kids?

If he was planning to do a ritual then it would make sense that he’d take them all in one year. Not stagger them and miss out some significant dates entirely.

I stand up and pace around the living room. It makes no sense at all. The days have to mean something or rather, the times of year they were taken, surely? They aren’t even the opposites
of the eight points that the calendar forms. Argh, it is frustrating.

I check my watch and pick up my phone. It’s time to make a call.

‘Professor Thorpe, please. It’s Kit Blackhart.’

I pull up outside a smart house near the British Museum. The streets here are lined with trees shedding autumnal leaves on impressive imported German cars. My bike immediately
looks more disreputable, like a thug at a white-tie affair, and I grin as I feel all the security cameras twitch my way. Tucking my helmet under my arm, I walk up to the green door with its plain
knocker.

I rap it once and it opens almost immediately. A young student stands there, I forget his name, but he’s Professor Thorpe’s assistant and he recognizes me from my previous
visits.

‘Your colleague is here already,’ he says to me as he shows me in to the entrance hall. I glance around, enjoying the academic ambiance. It is still a little bit dusty, with the bust
of some Greek philosopher looking on disapprovingly and a coat-rack laden with coats and umbrellas in the corner.

‘Is he?’ I ask in surprise, wondering how Dante got here so fast. I rang him after I made the appointment to meet Professor Thorpe.

‘He’s waiting for you through here. Can I get you anything?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’

Dante stands up when we walk into the small waiting room. With the three of us the small room, a box room really, feels overcrowded. Add in the bookcase and the assistant’s desk, where he
now sits tapping at his keyboard, and the room is positively, breathlessly, small.

Dante smiles at me.

‘You look fresh,’ he says by way of greeting.

‘Thanks.’ I feel rubbish and suspect I look it. ‘Nice tie.’

We sit down next to one another and I fiddle with my bike keys after stowing my helmet beneath my chair.

‘You going to talk me through this before we go in?’ Dante asks me, keeping his voice low.

‘Not much to say really – the dates the kids were taken peripherally look as if they line up with the pagan wheel of the year. There are eight festivals: four major festivals and
four slightly less major, but all still important. Whoever is taking the kids seems to be doing it in a very haphazard way. Three between May Day, Midsummer and Lammas, or the first Harvest
festival. Those were the first, last year. This year we’ve got two, Christopher in February and Jerome in March. So Spring and Easter.’

Dante’s kept up with my hurried explanation and I’m impressed. He purses his lips and I notice he’s missed a bit when he shaved this morning. I lift my eyes to his, distracted.
I am so tired. And he smells so nice. ‘Are you thinking witches took them?’

‘No.’ I sigh and try to wake up. ‘And don’t ask me about Satanists either. They are far rarer than popular media would have you believe.’

‘Then what?’

I shrug. ‘That’s why we’re here, talking to Professor Thorpe.’

‘What does he do?’

‘
She
is an expert in ancient pagan practices and a well-known historian and anthropologist.’

‘And you know her because . . . ?’

‘She helped me get rid of a particularly nasty household Roman spirit in St Albans.’ At his blank look I explain briefly. ‘The god decided that since his shrine was disturbed
by some gardeners working on a new development, the owners of the new house should pay him all kinds of respect. He terrorized them, killed their cat, broke stuff in the house. It was petty, dumb
stuff.’

‘It sounds like you should have called a priest,’ Dante says. ‘But of course that would have been silly because you handled it. Obviously.’

I sneer at him in an impressive display of insolence that would have Aiden nodding in approval. Just then Professor Thorpe pulls open her door to call us in. She is dressed elegantly in an
abstract tunic, leggings and knee-high boots.

‘Kit, darling girl. Come inside. And who is this?’ She presses a cool cheek against mine in a brief hug.

Imelda Thorpe is one of my favourite people in the world. Eccentric, intelligent and unorthodox, she always makes time for any of us when we need help. I think Jamie may have dated her at some
stage, I can’t be sure but something has given me that impression.

I introduce Dante by his name only (she has a scholar’s issues with any government agencies) and she smiles at him before inviting us into her office.

Her office is considerably larger than the waiting room. Her walnut desk sits in front of a wide window overlooking a small private park. The office is lined with books, floor to ceiling,
crammed higgledy-piggledy onto the shelves. They vie for space with knick-knacks she’s picked up from all around the world on various visits to far-flung places. I don’t look directly
at the weird little owls that were given to her by an archaeologist in San Salvador. They give me the creeps, with their staring eyes and permanently startled expressions. I know – it’s
weird – don’t ask me why, they just do. Owls and rats just freak me out. They are my kryptonite.

I sit in my usual chair, the one to the right and Dante takes the other visitor’s seat.

Imelda hovers near us, her various bangles jingling as she clasps her hands to her chest. The way she’s standing I’m worried she’s going to start singing but, no, she just
looks insanely happy.

‘Kit. Is he the one?’

‘The one what?’ I ask her, wondering what she is on about.

‘You know, the boy. From the Otherwhere. The prince?’

I look at her in surprise and then at Dante, who manages not to look too worried at being referred to as if he wasn’t present.

A jolt of electricity travels through me when I realize what she’s asking. I think about the dream I’ve had of the ruined palace and of Thorn’s unexpected appearance, the brief
conversation we had, about his hand touching me, pushing me out of harm’s way. A yearning I’m not ready to face opens inside me and I turn my attention firmly aside. I can’t
control the tremble in my voice and ignore the concerned expression on Dante’s face when I speak.

‘No. Do you mean Thorn? No. Thorn has gone away, Imelda. I don’t think we’ll see him again.’

Her mouth forms a little ‘oh’ of disappointment before she takes her seat. ‘Well, it would have been nice to meet him, you know? Just once. Or any of
them
,
really.’ She moves a few things around on her desk, getting herself back under control. Then she hovers a pen above a notepad again and nods to me. ‘Okay, I’m all ears, Kit. What
is this about, then?’

I tell Imelda about the screwed-up pagan calendar and my attempts to figure it out. I show her the dates and explain I initially thought the disappearances have something to do
with the cycles of the year. Someone could be sacrificing the children for prosperity or something, but I’m halfway through it when she starts shaking her head.

‘No. No, definitely not. Modern-day pagans would never steal children to sacrifice them. Even if they were unhinged, they would have to answer to their communities. Ethically and morally
this is wrong on so many levels.’ She gestures and her bangles tinkle wildly. ‘No. Just no.’

‘But what then?’ Dante asks her, speaking for the first time. ‘If this isn’t about witches and things, then what do you think it is?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know enough about the case at all. Do you have anything else with you?’

To my surprise Dante hands her a USB stick from his pocket. ‘What we were given is on there. I scanned everything in this morning when I got to the office.’

Imelda nods in approval. ‘He’s a clever one, Kit. Keep him around.’

Dante practically squirms in his seat at the approval and I roll my eyes at him. He’s like a puppy that is just aching to have its ears stroked.

She powers up a super sleek-looking laptop and I edge further away, not wanting to be the one to jinx the electronics. She plugs the USB in and spends some time looking through the papers.

‘I’m at a loss. If the children were taken in sequence, I would have, like you, thought it was to perform some kind of ritual. But there’s nothing here that makes sense at all.
No sign left of anyone entering the rooms or anything else taken. A few rooms were disturbed and all of them were high up . . . a cat burglar? Batman? I don’t know.’

‘Argh!’ I sit forward and press the heels of my palms into my eyes so that I see stars in the darkness. ‘Prof, I thought you were going to have the magic answers
here.’

‘Oh, funny, Kit, I never have the magic answers. I have
ideas
and
thoughts
but in this case, I’m not sure what to think.’

She stands up and goes over to her bookcase, running a finger along the various spines. She pulls out a thick paperback and I catch half a glimpse of a title:
Guide to England’s
Legends.

She flicks through the pages, going back and forth before shaking her head. ‘Nothing in this. I thought maybe it could be related to the area, but nothing’s popping here. What do you
know about the area?’

‘Uhm.’ Dante brings out his little notebook and I try to contain my surprise. He seems a bit smug and gives me the side-eye. ‘What? I can’t have done my own
research?’ he asks, before addressing us both. ‘Well, I did a quick search and Brixton is mentioned in the Domesday Book, called Brixiestan. This guy, a Saxon lord called Brixi, erected
a stone to mark the place where the hundred court was held. It was the local district and the court met to administer law and keep the peace.’ He snaps his little notebook shut.
‘That’s what I’ve got.’

I’m tempted to slow clap but Imelda holds up a finger. ‘That’s interesting.’ She makes a note on a notepad to her left. ‘Do you know anything else about this
chap?’

Dante reluctantly shakes his head and I flutter my hands. ‘Never even heard of the guy till now,’ I admit.

She stares at me for a few seconds, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. ‘When are you going back?’

‘Tonight, at seven.’

She checks her watch. ‘Call me in the morning, let me see what I can find out about this guy Brixi. I’ll also look into Brixton in general and see if anything pops.’

With that a very unsatisfactory meeting comes to an end but it was worth it for Imelda’s company alone. She hugs me fiercely and then her assistant sees us out.

‘How did you get here so fast?’ I ask Dante as we walk down the stairs. ‘Fly?’

‘Nope.’ He looks around and points. ‘Like you. By bike.’

‘Seriously? They don’t teach you about originality in Spook school?’

He looks exasperated but grins. ‘What? I had to BEG to get that baby. Isn’t she awesome?’

I cringe a bit at his use of the word
awesome
when I look over at the motorbike. ‘It’s a Kawasaki. And it’s green. Like Kermit green.’

‘Hey, don’t hate the green thing.’

I shake my head. ‘Just, if we’re going to travel together don’t make it look like we know one another, okay? My street cred would go down the drain.’

‘Oh ha ha, very funny.’ He waits for me to zip up my leather jacket and pull on my helmet. ‘Straight through to Brixton?’

I nod. ‘Go get your bike, let’s see if you can ride.’

Damn him, but he can actually ride. Not much better than me, but I give a few motorists near heart attacks and he keeps up for most of it. Now where did a nice boy like him
learn to ride a motorbike dirty?

We get to Brixton early and park near the market. I felt my phone vibrate on the way over so I pull it out to check on it while Dante parks his bit of Japanese machine.

The text is from Aiden and, like him, it wasn’t very elaborate but it was all spelled correctly.
Sorry about last night. Had to go out with Dad and we’re only back now. Want to
meet up?

I work the keypad and write back:
Maybe later. Talking to some people tonight. New case, working with a Spook for Suola. Long story.

Almost immediately I get a message back that reads:
SPOOK???!?!?!?! WTF???!?!? Be careful. Keep your sword handy. Don’t trust them.

His eloquence makes me laugh and Dante shoots me an enquiring look as he walks up.

‘What?’

‘Aiden. He seems alarmed.’ I flash the screen at him.