The Great and Dangerous Read online

  The conference room was the operations hub, the inner sanctum watched over by the living portraits of the Overseers. To be called to this place was no small matter. I hadn’t set foot inside there since the Halloween invasion, and I didn’t fancy standing in the glare of those twelve solemn faces again.

  Besides, there were staff here, security guards known as Vigilants, who I was sure held a grudge against me for what I’d done that night. Working alone in receipts, I’d seen – or could’ve sworn I’d seen – Mum’s name on an incoming list. I’d stolen that list from the building, the most unforgivable thing an operative could do. As a result, our defences were thrown wide open, the enemy came roaring in, and seventeen staff were lost, taken body and soul. Could that be why I was here?

  Two Vigilants were posted outside the conference room now, rifles strapped across their grey-uniformed chests. They gave me lingering dark looks when I approached, and I sensed their trigger fingers itching, but they stood back to let me inside.

  The room was just as I remembered it, an immense hall of hewn stone walls with a log fire blazing in a cast iron fireplace. The elders, six to each side of the room, looked down from their portraits with ever-changing faces which faded in and out behind veils of curling mist. The conference table, smashed in two the last time I’d seen it, had been fully restored, and the crystal chandelier above it sent cascades of rainbow light through the air.

  At the far end of the room were three stained glass windows which framed a number of colourful battle scenes, fierce clashes between armoured warriors and demons in many forms, some reptilian, some feline, others in shadow-form, shifting between one shape and another.

  These historic scenes weren’t confined to the windows but covered the sculpted ceiling too, intricately detailed and slowly, subtly moving, vibrating from the horrors they showed. One scene in particular caught my eye. It looked familiar, very familiar, but I was distracted by a movement at the head of the table where a white-robed figure had just materialised.

  At first I thought one of the elders had stepped down from its portrait, but all twelve judgmental faces were looking down when I checked. The pale figure stood with its back towards me, holding in one hand something metallic that reflected the chandelier’s light. When it turned slowly around, I realised the object in its hand was a long-bladed scythe – but it was the sight of its face that turned my blood cold.

  It was the Reaper’s face, a pale grinning skull only partly shaded by the hood of its garment. Dull orbs of light shone deep inside its hollow eye sockets, the bared teeth clicked and chattered, and thunder crackled from its throat when it spoke.

  ‘You’re late, boy. You were called. Don’t you know what it means to be called?’

  I fell back, too alarmed to speak, my heart thudding between my ears.

  ‘Young man,’ the figure said, rounding the table towards me. ‘Young man, have you any idea why you were summoned?’

  I shook my head, heart in mouth. A flicker of lightning crossed the ceiling and fringed the scythe’s curved edge.

  ‘Then I’ll tell you,’ the figure said. ‘Some here say you’re a born helper. Some call you Wonder Boy. Others believe you’ve done more harm than good, stoking the enemy’s fires and stirring the agents of darkness into the foulest of moods. Have you considered the consequences of your actions, have you asked yourself where this will all lead?’

  ‘No. . .’ I couldn’t easily breathe, let alone speak. ‘Whatever I’ve done, I’m sorry. Don’t hold it against me, whoever you are.’

  ‘And who do you think I am?’

  The figure had moved nearer, within touching distance. Now it leaned nearer still until I felt its breath on my cheek.

  ‘Don’t know,’ I said, but I knew I was about to find out.

  The Reaper threw back its hood, lifted a bony-fingered hand to its face and with a slap and a squelch peeled the skull mask clean off. With another flurry it cast the robes aside, revealing another figure in its place – swarthy and silver-toothed, dressed in ragged black clothing and knee-high boots. To this outfit, which I knew so well, he’d added a wide-brimmed black hat worn at a tilt, which made me think less of a pirate, more of a gunslinger.

  ‘Gotcha!’ he said, creasing with laughter.

  ‘You!’

  ‘One of these days you won’t be so easily fooled, Ben Harvester, and then how will I amuse myself?’

  The Overseers certainly weren’t amused, some looking on dolefully while others clucked their tongues.

  ‘Mr October, I thought you were gone,’ I said. ‘Retired or dead. I thought. . .’

  ‘That’ll be the day,’ he said. ‘It takes more than a stray enemy fireball to keep old Dudley October down. But I must admit, it was touch and go there for a while.’

  ‘I can’t believe it’s you. I missed you. It’s so good to see you.’

  ‘Yes, I imagine it is.’ The silver tooth glinted. ‘Excuse the reaper costume, by the way. Thought I’d ring a few changes for the field but I fear that look is badly overstated. And the scythe – imagine how newly-departeds would feel, seeing that. They need comfort and guidance, not a danse macabre.’

  ‘Well, I prefer you this way,’ I said.

  ‘The old ones are the best, I suppose.’ He glanced at the portraits, then back at me. ‘As for the reason you were called here. Firstly, I thought – and my superiors here agreed – it would be best to break the news of my return to you in person rather than let you find out through idle gossip. Secondly, and more importantly, we felt the time was right to show you this.’

  I followed his look to the ceiling, to the battle portrayal I’d spotted before. It pictured a transparent, slimy-bodied being with a yawning mouth as large as its head, a Mawbreed caught in the act of eating itself. I had a sudden giddy feeling because I’d seen this happen with my own eyes. More than that, I’d made it happen, I’d turned the Mawbreed against themselves right here in this room.

  ‘Not particularly pretty,’ Mr October said. ‘Of course I was indisposed at the time so I never saw for myself what you’d achieved, but I heard about it – and my, how the staff in the clinic like to talk. But be assured of this, Ben. What you did that night has already become the stuff of our history. It’s a tremendous honour for one so young to make their mark here and to have it recorded in such a way.’

  Did one or more of the Overseers just smile? I couldn’t be sure, but the general mood radiating from the portraits felt like approval.

  ‘I . . . I don’t know what to say,’ I said.

  ‘Say nothing. There’s no time, anyway. We’re running late.’

  With a quick bow to the portraits, Mr October excused us from the conference room. The elderly faces were sinking back into mist as he escorted me out to the hallway past the two guards.

  ‘So how are things with you?’ Mr October said. ‘I’ve been hearing great stories about the work your team has done in my absence.’

  ‘Oh, things are fine,’ I said.

  ‘Feel free to elaborate. Then again, actions speak louder than words, don’t they, as we’ve just seen. How’s your dear mother?’

  ‘Doing well, I think. On holiday now.’

  ‘A much needed sabbatical. So much pain and sadness in her life these last few years. Keep a close eye on her when she returns, Ben.’

  ‘I will.’

  He didn’t need to explain. The enemy, the Lords of Sundown, set their sights on our loved ones as much as ourselves. Family and friends were our weaknesses as well as our strengths.

  ‘So what’s this talk about new enemy activity?’ I asked. ‘Joe Mort mentioned it, and Sukie told Becky. . .’

  ‘Rumours,’ Mr October said. ‘But behind most rumours there’s often a grain of truth. The enemy are never still, and our intelligence does suggest they’re stepping things up. I wasn’t speaking in jest before. Your good work has put them in a flutter.’

  We stopped at the waiting room door.

  ‘Girls?’ Mr October called
, peering inside. ‘Meeting’s over. Care to join us?’

  They looked up together. Becky’s face was a picture of surprised wonder while Lu’s greeting, a polite little nod, told me she’d known all along but had been sworn to secrecy. The four of us trooped up the hallway, past records, past dispatch. As we reached the receipts office a joyful shout went up inside.

  ‘Mr October!’

  Sukie looked up from the desk as we entered. Because of her telepathic skills she must have been among the first to know. She was in her middle teens and had a stormy appearance, all back-brushed hair and black clothing. A slight cast in her eye made her seem to be looking in two directions at once.

  ‘I’ve been dying to share the news,’ she said. ‘Hardest thing I’ve ever done, keeping it all to myself. It wasn’t the same without you.’

  ‘Good to see you too, Sukie. So how’s tonight’s schedule looking?’ Mr October said.

  ‘It’s all here.’

  On the desk before her was a pistachio green Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter and two stacks of typed cards, one of which Sukie passed to Mr October. We always kept two sets, one for the field and one for filing, all carefully transcribed from the lists pumped out by the ancient Stern & Grimwald telegraph machine across the room.

  Whenever I entered this place – and I often worked long hours here – I became tense, willing the telegraph not to make a sound, not on my shift. When it did, often waking with a spark and a bang, the lists it spat out were significant. While the numbers explained how the soon-departed would go, the exact nature and cause of death, no one but the Overseers knew where the names came from. All we knew was that this cramped book-lined candlelit room was where they arrived.

  Mr October tweaked the hat back on his head and skipped through the cards one by one.

  ‘Oh my. That’s tragic. How awful. Oh dear. And there seem to be a few weather-related incidents tonight – falling trees, collapsed chimney. . . What’s all that about?’

  ‘Forecasts of a tornado,’ Sukie explained. ‘Could touch down anytime tonight or early morning.’

  ‘Then let’s look lively,’ Mr October said. ‘Sukie, would you mind taking these to Miss Webster in records and working a little overtime? I’ll keep Ben with me on the rounds.’

  ‘Be glad to.’ Sukie collected her cards and stood up at the desk. ‘Love the new hat, by the way,’ she told Mr October. ‘Reminds me of Jack Palance in Shane.’

  ‘Pick up the gun,’ Mr October growled, narrowing his eyes.

  Sukie laughed. ‘You’ve seen that film too.’

  I smiled, clueless as to what they were talking about.

  ‘It’s a Western,’ Sukie explained, reading my mind, and reading Mr October’s she said, ‘It’s in service.’

  ‘Lu, better go prepare the rickshaw,’ Mr October said.

  ‘It’s in service,’ Lu said, looking in confusion at Sukie. ‘There’s a loaner, a Mustang convertible around the corner on Duncan Street. I haven’t tried bringing it through the walls yet.’

  ‘Nice,’ Mr October said, ushering us out. ‘Back in the 1960s I drove a Mustang myself.’

  ‘Did you work for the Ministry then?’ Becky asked.

  ‘I’ve always worked for the Ministry,’ he answered mysteriously. ‘Frankly, I’d be unemployable anywhere else. But shall we begin? This first call on our list looks like a toughie.’

  6

  77772

  hat first call was a 77772, a complex case involving a black dog named Della, a boy named Alex, an Iceland delivery truck and two hundred and thirty-six cyclists who’d descended on central London with banners and loudhailers to reclaim the streets.

  ‘Give London back to Londoners!’ their red, white and blue banners proclaimed. ‘Motorists, on yer bikes!’ ‘Two wheels are better than four!’

  By three o’clock they’d brought the city centre traffic to a standstill, and with rush hour approaching, the gridlock would only get worse. The boy Alex, walking his dog east on the Strand towards Aldwych, slowed to watch the cars and buses trying to cut around the slow-moving blockade.

  The drivers were livid, jamming their horns and shaking their fists. Occasional gaps on the road ahead gave some an opportunity to cut around the protesters and into space. As they floored their accelerators, skirting the parade and bumping along the central reservation, the last wasp of the year was dying, spiralling down from a great height towards earth.

  How the wasp had survived so long in the biting climate was anyone’s guess. Usually by this time of year most queens were hibernating, the rest of their population gone for the season. Earlier today, this particular wasp had feasted on a spillage of fruit six blocks away outside a restaurant on Villiers Street, and the bellyful of overripe plum and peach flesh was now fermenting away inside it. This was one drunken wasp, as drunk as any wasp had ever been, staring down the barrel at the worst hangover of its life, mad as hell and looking for something to sting – just for the hell of it – before meeting its maker.

  It passed the Savoy Theatre, hovered a moment above a steak house door on the Strand’s south side, then crossed the street, bearing down on a taxi driver’s plump forearm as the driver reached out to adjust his off-side wing mirror. Sighting its reflection in the mirror a split second before it could strike, the driver batted the wasp away with a hairy hand.

  The wasp sighted something else across the street, a splash of bright yellow, and set sail for the colourful scarf wrapped around the neck of the boy named Alex.

  Something about that poster-bright yellow stirred a rage in the wasp unlike any it had ever known. Its wings felt leaden, everything in its field of vision was swimming and turning double, but it fully intended to leave this world with a bang, not a whimper.

  Alex was straining two-handed at Della’s leash when the attack began. It was the last thing he expected, and at first he couldn’t imagine what the angry buzzing at his throat might be. He reacted instinctively, dropping the leash and flashing both hands at the aggressor, left then right.

  It was the moment Della the dog had been waiting for, a chance to stretch her legs and let rip. She’d had enough of plodding along at human pace, choking on her confounded collar. Solid muscle from nose to tail, part Staffordshire bull terrier, part whippet, she was made for running. As Alex dealt the wasp a glancing blow, sending it past the doorway of a digital photo print shop, Della took off into the street.

  She’d made it safely to the other side before the boy could open his lungs to call after her. By then the 77772 was in progress, and far across town in the receipts office at Pandemonium House the telegraph machine was chattering.

  The first motorist to see the dog coming was Eric Skiller, a fifty-year-old electrician on call to a block of flats in Plaistow where an overflowing bath had led to a power outage. Passing the procession, Eric noticed a fast-moving black shape cutting in from the left and immediately went for the brakes.

  The driver behind him, Jeremy Fenn, a freelance journalist leaving the city for the weekend, saw the brake lights in front too late. Pedestrians turned at the sound of the collision, loud as a bomb, as the aftershock rippled through both cars. While the journalist’s MG stalled and stopped, Eric Skiller’s blue Ford Transit jerked forward and kept going, the impact from the rear propelling it straight at the cyclists.

  Some of them saw him coming. Not many were able to steer clear. They’d been creeping along four and five abreast, and when the Transit shot towards them they all tried to take off in different directions at once. One collision led to another as the tangle of pedals and handlebars and arms and legs spread through the blockade. Somewhere between sixty and seventy were caught in the pile-up while two cyclists near the front managed to pedal away at full pelt to avoid it.

  These two were both on our list.

  One, Roger Finney, 26, smacked the side of an Iceland delivery truck that was travelling on a free-flowing westbound lane. The other, 28-year-old Timothy Matterson, disappeared straight under it. Wh
ile Alex picked his way across the street to re-attach Della’s leash and walk on, witnesses were yelling and running to help, but no one could help these two now.

  To avoid the gridlock, Lu had parked the Mustang on Bedford Street, colliding with a City of Westminster waste bin as she did. After Mr October made a quick change, becoming the grey-eyed empathiser I’d first met at Highgate, a limping old man who attended the most sensitive cases, we walked down to the Strand. Police and ambulance teams were already there, debating where and how to cordon off the scene. It wasn’t easy to tell where it began and ended.

  We checked the damage from a distance. Most of the protesters were unharmed, a few nursed cuts and grazes, but Matterson, the first on our list, was still jammed beneath the truck’s wheels with his tan-booted feet sticking out.

  ‘Very soon-departed,’ Mr October announced. ‘We’ll deal with this one first and catch the other at the hospital later.’

  Finney, who’d slammed side-on into the truck, was being loaded into an ambulance in front of us. He was still breathing when they drove him away, but according to his card he wouldn’t be for much longer.

  ‘So this is a 77772?’ Becky said. ‘Amazing how much the numbers tell you.’

  ‘Technically speaking, it’s two 77772s, or soon will be,’ said Mr October. ‘A very particular set of circumstances. If the restaurant staff hadn’t put out the crate of rotting fruit when they did. . . If the wasp hadn’t survived another few hours. . . If the boy hadn’t been walking his dog in that very spot at that time . . . it wouldn’t have been this way at all.’

  ‘But their numbers were up,’ I said.

  ‘True, there’s nothing anyone could’ve done about that. When someone’s number comes up, there’s no argument.’

  I thought about the chain of events as we stood among the lights and noise. Big Ben struck four-thirty as Timothy Matterson’s ghost rolled aside from the Iceland truck and stood to watch the ambulance workers extricating his body from under it. They didn’t know he’d gone yet. They didn’t know what we knew and they couldn’t see what we were seeing.