A Madness of Angels: Or the Resurrection of Matthew Swift (10 page)

 

“Is this a sorcerer?” asked one man, who wore what I assumed was some sort of African tribal costume, despite his being as pale as snow in December, and ginger. His voice was like the last hum of a fading siren. “He looks like nothing.”

 

“You look like a twat in a dress, but you’re only a warlock despite it,” I retorted. I have never liked warlocks. They lack the intuition of a sorcerer and the academic aptitude or patience of your hard-working wizard. Instead, as a short cut to power, they align themselves with the ancient spirits of the city – Lady Neon, the Seven Sisters, the Beggar King, Fat Rat and so on – doing their will in exchange for a quick-fix magic trip. It’s a lazy, risky profession.

 

The horse-faced man made a snuffling noise that might have been a laugh, hastily repressed. The fortune-teller’s lips twitched, Dorie ate a handful of peanuts, Sinclair showed no reaction at all. Of the other two in the room, one was a woman in jeans, with skin the colour of roast coffee, and a tight black jacket which bulged in odd places; she looked like she was ready to set something on fire. The other, a large man in the vast trousers and jacket of someone who rode motorbikes and took it seriously, laughed so loud the glasses on the table shook.

 

The warlock in the tribal costume glared at him, and this just seemed to make the biker laugh even more, and exclaim through it, “Sinclair, have you found something interesting to talk about at last?”

 

“If you will…” Sinclair cut in, “Mr Swift is willing to help us with our mutual concern. I thought it wise for us all to meet and discuss in more depth exactly how we wish to remedy our collective problem, yes?”

 

“We’re going to kill the bastard,” offered the biker. “You OK with that, sorcerer?”

 

“Are we all talking about Robert Bakker?” I asked.

 

There was a series of grunts and nods around the room which I took to be yeses, along with Dorie’s cry of “Gotta dig the bottom of the bag!”

 

“And what do you all have against him?”

 

“What do
you
?” snapped the warlock.

 

“My reasons for getting involved,” I replied quickly, “are my own. I’d like to know yours.”

 

“So we tell you about ourselves, and you tell us nothing?”

 

I glared at the warlock. “Yep. Pretty much.”

 

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” crooned Sinclair. “This is a matter we can easily sort out. Mr Swift – you largely know my interest – I am concerned because I suspect Mr Bakker of being involved in a number of deaths, including, I believe, yours. Such things concern me, as a man who may be involved, yes? I’m sure you understand.”

 

“Are you police?” I asked.

 

“Good heavens, no, no, no, that wouldn’t do at all. I am, shall we say… affiliated to certain aspects of government, who are keen that, at all costs, order should be maintained. And here, I fear, I must say no more.”

 

“A spook,” added the biker dryly. “
X-Files
with cream tea.”

 

“And you?” I looked round the room. “Are you all enemies of Bakker?”

 

“You must understand,” soothed Sinclair, “things have changed.”

 

“How have they changed?”

 

“The Tower runs things now.”

 

I rolled my eyes, impatient. “Great. What is the Tower, what has changed, and what is Bakker’s role?”

 

“The Tower,” the fortune-teller cut in, “is an organisation of magicians, wizards, warlocks, witches and other practitioners of the art, and Bakker is their leader.”

 

“A union? Sounds like balls to me.”

 

“Oh, it’s very real,” sighed Mr Sinclair. “I believe they even have AGMs.”

 

“Why do you sound like you don’t like it?”

 

“Because what they cannot get, they take,” snapped the fortune-teller, “and they kill when they are not obeyed.”

 

“The magicians who are dead,” explained Sinclair gently, “all in some way crossed the Tower. As I think you did.”

 

“I’ve never heard of the Tower.”

 

“It grew up shortly after your death. They are gathering things – books, knowledge, ability, magicians, items, artefacts – they are accumulating power. I think you knew Bakker had this interest… perhaps was dabbling in certain things that shouldn’t be handled. I think that’s why you quarrelled.”

 

“You can think what you want,” I replied. “What is he dabbling in specifically?”

 

“Rumours,” said the warlock.

 

“Too many rumours for them all to be false,” corrected Sinclair. “Too many, in too close proximity. Experiments, Mr Swift. We believe Bakker is experimenting on magicians, on civilians, searching, that he is looking for something powerful – presumably, something dangerous, since he keeps its nature so secret from his staff, his servants and the community at large.”

 

“If that’s so, why aren’t you doing something?”

 

“Because Bakker’s a fucking sorcerer with enough money to buy Mayfair,
duh
,” intoned the warlock.

 

“You’re a charmer, aren’t you?”

 

“Look,” he said, angry now rather than just annoying. “Getting to him is like trying to get into Fort Knox with a fucking tin-opener!”

 

“There are other sorcerers…”

 

“No,” said Sinclair sharply. “There aren’t.”

 

“Don’t give me that.”

 

“You know that Dhawan is dead, and Akute. I didn’t mention deMaurier, MacKinnon, Samuels, Zheng…”

 

“I don’t believe this.”

 

“… and if they’re not dead, they’ve fled. Do you understand this, Matthew Swift? They’ve hidden, run away – people who oppose Bakker die. Do you think the litterbug just happened to turn up in Dulwich this morning? You must have been seen. It takes power to summon a creature like that; it was looking for
you
. If you are to oppose the Tower, Mr Swift, you need to do it discreetly. As we do now. You cannot simply charge in and hope to come away alive.”

 

I looked round the room. Embarrassed faces avoided my eyes. Even Dorie sat perfectly still on her chair, studying her bowl of peanuts. Finally I said, “All right. Let’s say, just for the moment, that I believe you. What exactly do you propose to do?”

 

There was an almost audible relaxation of breath. In her corner Dorie muttered, “Bug bug bug bug bug blue bug…”

 

The man with a horselike face stumbled, “We had a plan…”

 

“Fucking idiotic plan!” the warlock contributed.

 

“Moron,” snapped the fortune-teller.

 

“Fight!” said the motorbiker with a happy smile. “Go on, fight!”

 

The woman in the jeans said nothing, but looked more angry than ever before.

 

“Ladies, gentlemen,” soothed Sinclair. “Charlie, please?”

 

The one addressed as Charlie turned out to be Sinclair’s loyal shadow, he with his dark eyes and straight black hair. At the mention of his name, he produced from behind a sofa a slim black briefcase. He entered a pair of combination codes on the clasps, snapping them back with a press of a brass button, and carefully put the whole contents of the briefcase onto the table.

 

Pictures, words, columns, figures, diagrams, maps – all sprawled out at Sinclair’s fingertips as he arranged them across the table. “This,” he said, spreading his hands above it like it was spider’s silk that might drift away on a breeze, “is everything we know about the Tower: who runs it, how it works, how it stays alive.”

 

I waited for something more.

 

“Anyone who tries to approach Bakker directly – assuming they can find him – fails.” For a moment, his eyes were on the lady in jeans, whose scowl, if possible, deepened. “You must understand – he is not merely a dangerous practitioner of magic. He has wealth: his lawyers can protect him from the law, and should they fail to do so, he has a plane ready to take him out of the country, and money overseas. His reach is international, his friends are in the highest circles and can operate in the lowest gutter.”

 

“He’s always had power.”

 

“Yes, yes, of course,” murmured Sinclair. “But only recently has he exploited it so flagrantly. What we propose, then, is to remove as much as possible of the source of his power before we strike against him. We are not merely talking the odd curse here or there. We are talking about undermining his wealth, his reputation, his influence, removing his friends one at a time until there is nothing left, merely him, alone. Then, perhaps, he will be vulnerable, if such a thing is even possible any more.”

 

“You have a plan?”

 

“Everything,” he said, waving his hands over the documents, “everything is here. We will tear the Tower apart piece by piece.”

 

I studied the papers he’d spread in front of me. The room waited. I said, “Sounds like a shitty plan to me.”

 

“Sinclair, do we have to have shit-for-brains here?” growled the warlock. We felt flickering sapphire-blue anger.

 

“Mr Swift, you have an alternative? You think you can find Bakker by yourself, you think you can… undo whatever has happened here… without our help?” Mr Sinclair was still smiling, but his voice was the incantation of the bored priest administering funeral rites.

 

I shifted uncomfortably, looking down at the tumble of papers. “I will help you. But I will not kill Bakker unless it becomes necessary.”

 

“You are entitled to your wish.”

 

“What can I do?”

 

“Bakker has lieutenants, key people in running the Tower.”

 

“I know some. Guy Lee, San Khay, are they who you’re thinking of?”

 

“Also Harris Simmons, and Dana Mikeda.”

 

“Dana Mikeda?”

 

“You know her?” asked the warlock sharply.

 

“I… did. What’s her involvement?”

 

“I suppose, for the sake of saving time, I shall be crude. Protégée. Lover. One or the other, although perhaps it doesn’t do justice to the relationship.”

 

“How long has she been this way?”

 

“What way?”

 

“Protégée, lover, and all the other things you aren’t describing.”

 

He smiled, a rare flicker of amusement. “Approximately two years. You know her.” It wasn’t a question, and thus didn’t require an answer.

 

“You’re planning on killing them also?”

 

“If necessary.”

 

“You have an alternative?”

 

“Perhaps. If they can be useful.”

 

“I see. If there is…”

 

“Pustulant warts!” shrilled Dorie from her corner.

 

“For fuck’s sake,” groaned the warlock.

 

“Oh, well, bollocks to your brain,” she muttered.

 

We hesitated, looking up from the documents on the table to where she sat, arms folded, in the corner of the room.

 

“Swift?” asked Sinclair quietly, seeing our expression.

 

We looked round the room, suddenly uneasy.

 

“It’s nothing,” I said. “Nothing.”

 

“You’re a nit when not them, aren’t you?” Dorie muttered.

 

I stepped back from the table. I walked a few paces across the room towards her, hesitated just in front of the window, found my right hand shaking. “You know us,” we said, uncertainly.

 

“Heard you in the wire,” she said with a yellow-toothed grin. “‘Come be we and be free’, that’s your song, ain’t it, blue-eyes?”

 

“You have met us?”

 

“I like the dance you play,” she admitted. “But I wouldn’t stand where you do right now.”

 

“Why?” I asked.

 

“Fucking shadow on the wall,” she replied. “Duck!”

 

I ducked. I can respect formidable magical talent when I meet it, and Old Madam Dorie, the grey bag lady who smelt of curry powder and car fumes, had it in spades. She exuded skilful manipulation of primal forces just like her bags gave off the smell of mould, and if she’d said hop, I would have hopped. She, like my gran, had the look of a woman who talked to the pigeons; and in the city no one sees more than the pigeons.

 

I ducked, which is why the bullet from the sniper’s rifle shattered the skull of the horse-faced man, who’d just been standing, rather than mine.

 

“Banzai!” shrilled Dorie.

 

The lights went out in the room – and, more than that, the power went too. I could feel the sharp loss from the walls and ceiling as the fuses were pulled, somewhere below in the rest of the house. The darkness was intense, but only for a moment, as the orange-white glare from the street lamp outside came in through the curtains. I crawled across the floor towards the horse-faced man’s body, even as Dorie stood up and clapped her hands together with a cry of “Ratatatatatatat!”

 

Somewhere on the other side of the road, someone duly cocked a small mechanism in a big weapon, and opened fire. The bullets tore through the remnants of one window and shattered the other, peppering the rear wall and filling the room with white puffs of mortar dust. From the floor I saw Dorie scuttling out through a door, utterly unconcerned, while the corpse of the horse-faced man bounced and shook with the impact of every bullet. The line of fire puffed out the stuffing from the sofas, shattered wine glasses, sending a fine spray of red wine and crystal shards flying across the room, blasted pictures off the wall, smashed doors into splinters, ripped up curtains and punched through pillows. In the gloom I saw a pair of high-heeled feet belonging to the fortune-teller as she wriggled towards the hallway door, closely followed by the absurd robe of the warlock, while somewhere behind the remnants of the sofa, now almost reduced to a bare frame with rags hanging off it, I guessed were Sinclair, the biker and the sullen lady in jeans.

 

The ratatatatatat of the gun on the other side of the road stopped. In the sudden ringing silence I heard the wailing of car alarms, burglar alarms from the houses around, the screaming of people, the flapping of terrified pigeons, the running of feet. And the grinding mechanism of the lift, rising up from the ground floor.

 

I shouted, “They’re coming upstairs for us!”

 

“Bedroom,” came the shrill sound of the warlock. “There’s a fire escape.”

 

“If they’ve got any brains, they’ll come up that too,” muttered the fortune-teller.