The Four Realms (17 page)

That was the other reason to teleport to the meeting.
 
Whilst the effects always gave him a slight nausea, he didn't want to take the focus away from his results.
 
Tonight wasn't a night for being contentious.

Mr West noticed that Mr East was missing.
 
So perhaps the rumours were true?
 
He must admit he had mixed emotions about it.
 
He had anticipated Magellan to have doubts about his performance and make his colleagues check up on him.
 
However, he'd not expected anything to happen.
 
Mr East was a competent enough operative that reports of the Vampire Council burning down didn't seem to be an accident.
 
'Accident', such a Human word
.
 
There were no such things as accidents in Mr West's book, just poor data models.

But the fact remained that the Vampire Council building was no more, and if the rumours were to believed, Mr East as well.

He looked at Magellan across the room, trying to assess whether this was something he had engineered, or something that had gone wrong.
 
Was it the case that Magellan had ordered the Vampire Council burned down, or had something happened there?

That was what annoyed him most if he was honest.
 
He'd been efficient with his planning.
 
All major vampire strongholds hit within a four hour window.
 
Quick, effective, yet still no closer to the vampire that
may
have taken the notebook.

"So what progress have you made?" Magellan asked, his words venomous.
 
'You made'
-
interesting
, he was already distancing himself from West.
 
No matter, East's death, if that indeed had been his fate, had rattled Magellan.
 
West could see that, and he would exploit it.

"I'd like to know why you are burning down my crime scenes," West replied, casting a glance sideways to Mr North and South, "allegedly with my colleagues inside it."

He could see the reaction: the narrowing of the eyes, the pursing of the lips.
 
He loved how these bodies betrayed emotion.

"You have eradicated an entire race," Magellan responded.

West shrugged, "that's war for you.
 
It's an ugly business."

"And are we any closer to the notebook?"

"You tell me."

Something had happened at the Vampire Council, and all evidence had now burned away.
 
Maybe it was one of the stray vampires that his teams were now picking off.
 
But maybe it was something more.
 
He cursed himself for not searching the building properly but he was following hundreds of different leads, and he'd presumed the council building would still be standing twenty-four hours later.

But he felt it.
 
Somewhere deep down, in his human stomach, a knot that seemed to form, a pain that told him somehow that this was something he should follow.
 
Instinct, is that what they called it?

He looked at North and South.
 
Silent now.
 
Oh yes, the wind had been taken right out of their sails.

"Mr West," Magellan started, "I find your attitude... disingenuous."

West just shrugged.
 
Magellan had lost credibility in his eyes.

"I'm trying to do a job here," West replied curtly.
 
"And it's not being helped by your..." he searched his mind for a human word, "... goons here."

"That's it," snapped Magellan, "I'm reporting you to the Dictatoriat.
 
This has gone far enough."

West remained calm.

"By all means.
 
Perhaps you could explain why you felt it necessary to have Mr East check up on my work."

Magellan flushed.
 
He knew what West meant.

"I mean," West continued, determined to drive his point so there could be no doubt, "it wasn't my actions that caused his death.
 
Oh and let's not forget, Mr Magellan that as the senior officer, you sanctioned my course of action."

"I said I didn't approve."

Amazing, thought Mr West, how the voice exposed so much of one's thoughts.
 
That slight quiver indicating that Magellan was rattled.
 
Mr West couldn't help but smile.

"You were still the presiding officer.
 
Let's face it, I'm so low down the food chain, the Dictatoriat will probably just downgrade my fate, but you...” he tutted, “you they would make an example of."

Oh, Mr West
, he thought to himself,
how you have made some enemies here this evening
.
 
He'd have to watch his back.
 
The knives would no more be out than they were before, but they'd probably want to stab more viciously.
 
This pleased him.

Magellan was stunned into silence, realisation that what West had said was most likely true.
 
And North and South stood stunned by the interchange.
 
They were out their depth, confused and frightened by this level of chaos.
 
Bet you don't have a data model for this
, thought West.

Magellan looked at West and those eyes betrayed his helplessness.
 
Mr West didn't even need to fight.
 
He turned to Mr North and South.

"Mr North," he said.
 
"I want you to try and establish what happened at the Vampire Council.
 
Forensics, CCTV, people's YouTube videos, whatever it takes.
 
Mr South, you're to come with me and assist me in tracking down the remaining vampires.
 
One of them was at that body."

They both looked at Mr Magellan before returning their glance back to West.

"We're all in this together now," said West with a friendly smile.
 
"And I'm the one who is going to get us out of it."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - The Intruder

Maureen hadn't got very far with packing Ernest's books.
 
She didn't want to arouse suspicion by having the removal men turn up and find the cleaner hadn't done any work.
 
Besides it was as good a way to search for Ernest's notebook as anything.

They've probably already found it and taken it, she told herself.
 
But there might be other clues, another notebook or a diary, that might give her some indication of who murdered him.
 
Given that the wizards had entrusted the job of packing his books to an outsider, Maureen didn't think that they were taking the job of finding his killer very seriously.
 
That left her.

But the books were a distraction.
 
Most were in old Elvish and impossible to read, but some had some wonderful black and white illustrations that she lost a lot of time to.
 
Then there was the odd spell book in English, mostly acolyte stuff for when they were still learning to read the Elvish.
 
She picked up one book:
 
"An Acolyte's First Steps to Mana Manipulation" - why they couldn't call it magic was beyond Maureen.
 
This book seemed familiar, and she thought it resembled one of the old text books Ernest used to bring round when he was a child, until she flicked through, saw her own handwriting and realised that it was the very same.
 
He'd probably not returned it to the Friary for fear that someone might discover a girl had been looking at magic.
 
She laughed at this.

"I won't betray you now, Ernest," she said, and put it to one side with a view to taking it home and keeping it hidden.
 
She'd broken so many rules today that possession of a wizarding text really didn't even rank amongst them.

She smiled to herself as she reminisced on those old times.
 
She particularly remembered the jam sandwiches her mother used to make for them, the flavours still vivid in her mind.
 
Jam like no other, how she wished she'd asked her mother for the recipe before she passed.
 
How many things she wished she'd said to Ernest before he passed.
 
So many regrets.
 
She wiped away a tear rolling down her cheek, and returned to work.

It was a hot night - compared to her own realm, it was like a sauna - and so she had opened the upstairs windows.
 
But there was no draft to shift the stuffy air.
 
She mopped her brow and sat down in the armchair.
 
She'd now gone through, even if she hadn't packed, three quarters of the bookcases.
 
Yet still no notebook.

He must have had it with him, she concluded.
 
This was a waste of time and once again she questioned the madness of even being here, reason taking the forefront of her mind once again.
 
She'd finish packing the books and get out of here before the arrival of the removal men.
 
What time did the wizard say they were arriving?

As if in answer there was a knock on the door.
 
Maureen froze, before remembering that as "the cleaner" she was supposed to be here.
 
Perhaps the wizard had been wrong and the removal men were coming tonight?
 
That would be that, then, she told herself, they'd come and she'd have no more time to search.
 
In her exhausted state there was part of her that was a little glad.

Resolved that she had done everything she could, she made her way downstairs to the door.

"I'm afraid I haven't quite finished...” She started as she flung open the door, except ...
 
she looked left then right down the road, then down just to be sure ... there was no-one there.

"How odd," she said and closed the door.
 
Perhaps it was children playing Postman's knock or such like.
 
As long as it wasn't that awful Gnome asking for more money.

Maureen made her way into the kitchen to fetch herself a drink.
 
Her throat itched from the dust thrown up by the books, but she was in no position to criticise Ernest for his housekeeping.
 
When was the last time she dusted?
 
She couldn't remember.
 
More so, she couldn't see the point, it was just shifting it around so it could land someplace else.

She was relieved to find some tea bags in Ernest's cupboards.
 
At least she'd taught him to appreciate one thing from her realm.
 
The absence of a fridge meant that milk was kept in a covered pot on the side.
 
She sniffed it suspiciously.
 
It didn’t smell off, but Maureen decided to hedge her bets and just drink her tea black.

It wasn't a bad little place, Maureen thought, as she waited for the kettle to boil.
 
At least it was warm and things worked, unlike her own house.
 
Maybe the council would move her into a little place; they wouldn't just let a little old lady starve on the streets would they?
 
If it was something like this then she'd be quite pleased.
 
In some ways she'd be glad to see the back of her own home.
 
A little flat would be easier to heat and she wouldn't have to worry about people coming round if something did go wrong.
 
Perhaps she could go into Guildford when the snows had melted, speak to Citizen's Advice.
 
There was probably a list she needed to get on; there was always a list.

There was a noise upstairs and her thoughts immediately returned to the Gnome.
 
She was small enough that if she'd shimmied up the drainpipe she could have got in one of the open windows.

Maureen left the kettle boiling and rushed up the stairs, one hand on the handrail, the other on her knee to help her up, and she emerged upstairs, sweating and panting to find not a Gnome, but an elf.

She had blonde hair, and green slanted eyes that seemed to burrow right through you.
 
She was dressed in red, a tight fitting body suit that exposed enough cleavage to be feminine without looking slutty, and helped offset her thigh-high, red leather boots.
 
She was flicking through a book when Maureen first saw her, but put it down, pulled the hood back from her waist-long cloak so that her hair tumbled out onto her shoulders.

An elf, here, in Ernest's house.
 

The elf muttered something under her breath and a flaming dragon's head leapt forth, flying across the room toward Maureen.
 
In shock Maureen cried out, and immediately a wall of ice thrust up in front of her with a large crack.
 
The dragon's head crashed on it and dissolved into sparks.
 
The wall dissolved nearly as quickly as it had appeared.
 
Maureen wasn't sure what had happened.
 
Neither did the elf by the look of amazement on her face.
 
She looked at Maureen for a second, Maureen standing there helpless and alone, wondering what she might do next.
 
But the elf jumped onto the window ledge and out the window.
 
Maureen hurried to the window in time to see her running across Ernest's garden and vaulting the fence at the end.

Maureen collapsed into the armchair in shock at what had just happened.
 
The elf had tried to kill her, hadn't she?
 
That fireball had been aimed at her, there was no doubt about that, and would have killed her had it not been for the ice wall.

Maureen looked to the flowerpot beside her, a huge crack down one side, and watched as the flower planted within, withered and died.