Poison City (19 page)

‘Gideon. Gideon Tau.’

A pause. Then the phone line goes dead.

‘Son of a whore!’

I dial again. It rings and rings, until finally Becca answers.

‘What?’

‘Becca. Listen, you have to get out of the house.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’re in danger. Some people know your connection to me. They . . . they want to use you to make me do something.’

‘Tau, I can’t deal with this now. Tomorrow—’

‘No! Not tomorrow. I’ve pissed them off and they know about you. Do you understand? If you stay there you will die. I’m not kidding. You and your boyfriend. Get the fuck out of there. Go to a hotel or something.’

A pause. ‘You haven’t changed, have you? Still the reason people get hurt.’

‘Yeah, really not the fucking time for this, Becca. Just promise me you’ll go.’

She sighs. ‘Fine.’

The phone goes dead. I tap it against my chin and stare up at the ceiling.

‘You’re a lucky bastard, you know that?’ says the dog.

I look down. He’s sitting in his bed beneath my desk. ‘I don’t feel lucky.’

‘Then you’re an idiot as well. You just walked into a vampire nesting ship, shot Lilith with a water pistol filled with holy water, and you got away to talk about it. So yeah, I’d say you’re a pretty lucky guy.’

I thought about this. I can’t help a little weary grin. ‘Yeah. It
will
look good in my memoirs, won’t it?’

I examine Armitage’s token beneath the desk lamp. What did she find so interesting about it? There are no identifying marks, nothing that says what it is. It’s so old it’s been worn smooth of any writing.

I frown, holding it close to the light, tilting it this way and that. Is that a line? Barely visible? I’m not sure. I nudge the dog with my foot and hold the coin out.

‘Sniff this.’

The dog obliges, then puts his head down and closes his eyes.

I nudge him again.

‘Do that one more time and you lose your toes.’

I snatch my foot back. ‘Sorry. But did you smell anything on the coin?’

‘Desperation. Sadness. Fear. And that’s just from it sitting in your pocket.’

‘Yeah, laugh it up, fuzzball. Anything else?’

The dog sighs. ‘Hope. Relief. But those two are buried under the desperation. And I don’t mean yours.’

I stare at the coin, rubbing my thumb over it. I can feel slight indentations. I have a thought, and head over to the office scanner. I put the coin onto the scanning bed and scan both sides into the PC at 300 dpi, then I open up the image in Photoshop.

I push the contrast way up, then fiddle with the brightness and saturation levels.

I sit back and stare at the monitor.

A picture has been revealed, outlined in harsh black and white lines.

It’s a symbol. A tree.

I run it through GHOST’s image search and it brings up a hit.

I read the entry with growing excitement. The tree is the symbol of
Tiurakh
, the orisha of treasure and hoarding. Wealth and success. His place of worship is at the foot of a tall tree.

I follow the hyperlinks embedded in his name and find out he runs a bit of a pawn shop empire crossed with a safety deposit business. He looks after people’s property in return for a hefty fee. The tokens from Jengo and Armitage are chits used to reclaim the items left with him.

I do a bit more reading and discover that Tiurakh operates out of a tower block in Pinetown, about twenty kays from our current location.

Is that what happened? Did Jengo store his soul with Tiurakh?

More to the point. Did
Armitage
?

Something occurs to me and I pull up the crime scene photographs from Armitage’s house. I scroll through them until I get to the one where she wrote
Tau
in her blood.

Except, now I’m looking at it, I can see it doesn’t say Tau. It’s
Tiu
. She was writing Tiurakh in an untidy scrawl, but died after the first three letters. Anders saw Tau because that’s what he wanted to see.

I frown. Even if they did store their souls with Tiurakh how does that help? Can we talk to the souls? Communicate with them? Lilith must think so. Why else would she want to know where the ramanga’s soul is?

I clear the search bar in GHOST and look up the entries on souls, removal of, communicating with, survival of. Anything that will help with figuring all this out.

There are multiple entries on communicating with ethereal entities and souls. I brew myself some coffee and start to click through them. First up is your basic astral projection. Going into a trance state and leaving your body behind while your consciousness floats around the astral plain. I don’t fancy that. I can’t even still my mind long enough to meditate. Plus, it doesn’t say
how
you communicate with a soul once you’ve managed to project.

Next option is drugs. Peyote cacti, mushrooms, acid, that kind of thing. Again, not my thing. I was the guy who was never allowed drugs back in college. My friends said I was too tightly wound. They were worried what would happen if my inhibitions suddenly vanished. They were probably right.

The next entries are about experiments going on with brainwave stimulation using audio waves, pushing the brain into trance states. The page links to articles on EEG, brainwaves, neural oscillators, wave spikes, that kind of thing. Too much info. Next page.

Ah. The good old-fashioned Ouija board.

To be honest that appeals to me the most. The UK version of the Division – the Ministry – grew out of some secret society called the Invisible Order back in Victorian times. They have whole rooms devoted to Ouija boards. The Victorians knew their stuff when it came to ghosts and the spirit world. Maybe I can get in touch with them to see if they could help out.

But then I click on something that makes me straighten up and concentrate.

Creating a revenant. Or bringing someone back from the dead.

A revenant isn’t like a zombie. It’s someone who comes back to life, but who still has their consciousness and soul intact and doesn’t have that pesky craving for human flesh.

I lean back and stare at the ceiling. Can I do that to Armitage? Bring her back? She won’t like it. Hell, who would? But she’s the only link I have with Cally’s killer.

Sorry, Armitage. I need you back here.

I scan the article, then put in a call to Parker. It rings for a long time before she picks up.

‘London? What the fuck? What time is it?’

‘Time for action!’

‘What?’

‘Sorry. Always wanted to say that. I need you back at Division.’

‘Can’t it wait till tomorrow?’

‘No. I know who’s behind the killings.’

‘Who?’ Her voice sounds more alert now.

‘Lilith. You know, from the bible? Well, not the actual bible. The Apocrypha.’

‘I know who Lilith is. You sure?’

‘Pretty sure. I was attacked by vampires tonight, ended up in a boat out in the middle of the ocean where I met her. It’s . . . complicated. Can you get over here?’

‘Why?’

‘Um . . . I want to resurrect Armitage as a revenant.’

‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘You got permission from Ranson?’

‘Of course! Wouldn’t be calling you otherwise.’

‘You know we need her soul, right?’

‘On my way to get it right this minute. Should be back in an hour.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yup.’

She sighs. ‘Fine. But don’t complain if I’m grumpy tomorrow, OK?’

‘Parker, you’re always grumpy. How am I supposed to tell the difference?’

She hangs up on me. I smile, grab the keys for one of the company cars, and head out to find Armitage’s soul. I nudge the dog gently and quickly pull my foot back. He opens one eye and glares at me.

‘The game’s afoot.’

The building that Tiurakh operates from is called The Towers, a twenty-three floor apartment building shaped like a three-pointed star. It’s been there for decades, dominating the Pinetown skyline, the only tower block in the entire city and impossible to miss. I’ve noted it every time I drive along the freeway, but I didn’t know Tiurakh used it as a warehouse.

I take the off-ramp and turn right, heading across the bridge. I follow the road around the Knowles shopping centre and onto a slip road that curves towards the residents’ parking lot. The boom is down and I don’t have a card, so I reverse and park by the side of the road.

The dog and I approach the glass door leading into the building. There’s a security guard sitting behind a little metal desk. I wonder how I’m going to get past him. I could try the Jedi mind trick I’ve been practising. It’s basically using your own strength of will and mild shinecraft to overpower the will of another. I’m not very good at it, though. My whole being reacts badly to that kind of violation. I think it hampers the effects if your heart’s not in it.

I knock on the door instead. The guard looks up and frowns. He makes shoo-ing motions and doesn’t move. Cheeky bastard.

‘Show him the chit,’ says the dog.

Good idea. I take the little token out and press it against the glass, knocking on the door again. The guard sighs and puts down the book he’s reading (
Fifty Shades of Grey,
I notice). He heaves himself out of his chair, acting as if I’ve just asked him to move a mountain for me.

He frowns at the token, then takes a keycard from his pocket and swipes it over the lock. The door opens but he doesn’t step aside to let us in.

-He’s an orisha,
- says the dog in my mind.
-Low level. Nothing impressive.-

Makes sense. If Tiurakh is operating from here he’s going to want a supernatural guarding his business.

‘Tiurakh in?’ I say.

‘You collecting?’

I hold the token up again. ‘What do you think?’

He chews his lip and finally steps aside, indicating one of the elevators. ‘Hold the token in front of the keypad.’

The elevator doors slide open as we approach. I wave the token around in the general area of the buttons. The doors slide closed and we start to rise.

Loud music bursts full blast from the speakers, making me leap about five feet into the air. ‘Jesus Christ!’

‘. . . Don’t fear the reaper . . .’

‘Nice song,’ mutters the dog. ‘Appropriate.’

‘Yeah.’ I straighten my clothes and watch the elevator numbers count upwards, all the way up to twenty-three, the top floor. Except it doesn’t stop there. It carries on up another floor.

The doors open into a huge circular room with small windows running in a band all the way around, the glass shielded by angled concrete ribs on the outside of the building. I step out of the elevator and turn in a slow circle, impressed despite myself.

The room is how I imagine Aladdin’s Cave must have looked. Gold and silver are strewn everywhere. Goblets, necklaces, trays, swords and shields with Celtic symbols engraved on them.

Huge cauldrons hold glittering emeralds and rubies. Persian rugs are tossed carelessly around. About a hundred tapestries hang on frames inside a wooden construction, each frame mounted on coasters that can be moved aside to view each one. Statues, some marble, some bronze, some, I think, gold, stand in random positions around the room, some of them clumped together so that it looks like I’ve just interrupted a party.

To my right are five full-length mirrors framed in antique wood.

There’s a person standing in the mirrors, the same guy in all five. He nods at me and smiles.

‘You Tiurakh?’ I ask.

‘I am the god of belongings, the orisha of objects, the valiant lord of
–
’.

‘Save it for the tourists.’

Tiurakh frowns. ‘Come on, man. I don’t get to do my schtick anymore.’

‘Not interested.’ I hold up the token. ‘Someone came in here yesterday, a deposit.’

‘I can’t give you whatever it is unless you are the depositee.’

‘Don’t talk crap. I’ve got the token.’

‘You might have stolen it.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘I don’t know that.’

‘But I do.’

‘Yeah, but . . . you know. Why should I believe you? You could have killed the owner.’

‘As it happens, she is dead. But I didn’t do it.’

‘You might have.’

‘I
didn’t
,’ I say, feeling my temper start to rise.

‘But you
might
have, is what I’m saying. Only the person who brought me the item can reclaim it. I have a reputation to uphold. I mean, look around. Some of this stuff has been with me for thousands of years.’

‘Yeah, I noticed. You ever think whoever brought it all here might not be coming back?’