Poison City (5 page)

I use the knife to slice one of its wings off.

The angel shrieks in pain and fury, whirling around. One of the remaining wings hits me and sends me tumbling to the floor. I push myself to my feet and run. I run like I’ve never run before, fishing around in my satchel as I do so.

My hand closes around what I’m looking for. An insurance policy. Something I ‘forgot’ to hand in to the evidence locker after one of my cases.

I pull it out. It’s a hand grenade, but I don’t know what’s inside it. Holy light, demon fire, swarms of flesh-eating locusts. Could be anything. Only thing is, if I use it, it’s going to bring me to the attention of the Accountants, people I
really
don’t want noticing me.

Hell, what does it matter? I’ve already broken the Covenant. The Accountants are going to be after my blood anyway. Might as well drag my life out as long as possible.

I keep running, heading for the front door. I can hear the angel following after me, but I’ve managed to pull ahead. I yank the safety pin on the grenade, holding the striker lever down. I wait till I’m only a couple of rooms from the front entrance then I drop the grenade behind me and keep on moving.

I make it through the reception area.

I’m in the open air atrium, passing the graffiti-covered columns, when the grenade explodes.

The detonation hits me in the back, throws me off my feet. I skid along the tiles, then scramble up and lurch through the wooden door, out onto the grass as the structure starts to collapse behind me. I run until I’m almost at the main gate, ducking and darting to avoid falling masonry.

I finally stop and turn around.

Stone and bricks are still pattering down around me. Black smoke billows up from a hole in the roof. As I watch, the outside walls buckle, those that weren’t blown outwards now collapsing in on themselves.

I frown. So . . . the grenade was just an
actual
grenade? That’s a bit anticlimactic. But at least it will have taken care of the angel. For a while. Long enough for me to get away.

Speaking of which, I should get out of here. I blink and look around. The dog is waiting by the gate. I trot over to join him.

‘You happy now?’ he asks.

‘Where’s the kid?’

‘Long gone. I wouldn’t worry. He seemed to know where he was going.’

I can hear sirens in the distance.

‘You want to hang around, get arrested for terrorism, or you reckon we make ourselves scarce?’ the dog asks.

I start walking. I feel as if my whole world has crumbled around me again. I got my hopes up. I knew I shouldn’t have.

Never expect anything. That way you can never be disappointed.

We cross the street, heading back to the Land Rover. Moses is standing there, staring at the black smoke billowing into the sky. I fish around in my wallet and take out a two hundred rand note. All I have on me. I pass it to Moses.

‘I wasn’t here.’

Moses tears his gaze away from the smoke.

‘What happened?’

‘Gas leak,’ I say. ‘Moses, I wasn’t here, OK?’

He looks at the money. Once again, he makes it disappear. ‘You weren’t here.’

‘Thanks.’

The dog hops into the passenger seat. I start the engine and pull out into the street, moving slowly around the cars that are stopping to rubberneck. Hopefully none of them saw us leave the grounds.

‘You should be happy. At least you saved the kid.’

I don’t answer. What’s to be happy about? If it wasn’t Babalu-Aye then I’m no closer to finding out what happened three years ago.

I sometimes think I’m dead and stuck in limbo, doomed to repeat the same cycle of hope and defeat over and over again until the end of time.

It would be no more than I deserve.

Chapter 3

Here’s the thing. Shinecraft is everywhere. Always has been. Always will be. And there are a thousand different ways to use it. To name a few: binding. Demon summoning. Cursing. Golemancy. Necromancy. Magical sigils. Warding. Divination. Tasseography. Oneiromancy. Scrying. Illusion. Vivimancy. Runes. Heka. Mind reading. Alchemy.

And there are more. All different ways of channelling a power that has always been there. Tools to achieve a specific goal, tools that change over time as tradition, folklore, history, and religion all leak into the collective unconsciousness and influence the ways in which shining is invoked.

I mean, in Africa alone the different methods of shining number in the triple figures. The methods change all the time, shifting between tribal families, between ethnicity, even between age groups. A fifty-year-old user might do what he calls ‘laying down tricks’, forming patterns and sigils in the dirt then spitting into them to activate the spell. When the target walks over the lines, he or she is cursed.

But a teenager who’s in the know might do the same thing with spray paint and graffiti, hiding the tricks in a piece. When his target walks past or looks at the art, the curse will activate.

It all comes down to what works for you. Shinecraft is like language, constantly evolving, never static, changing with the times.

In Delphic Division, we’re given a basic education that covers as much as possible. But the sheer amount of information amassed over the centuries means there’s no way we can learn it all.

Instead, we’re told to find what works for us, to specialize. The Division wants its agents to be masters of one, instead of dabblers in everything, and you’re encouraged to choose something that no other agent has picked. That way they have a wide spread of skills available to call on.

That was always my problem. My mind is too fickle. I’d pick something that looked like it had potential, something that suited me. But after a while I’d just lose interest. Either it didn’t work the way I wanted to, or I decided it wasn’t suitable to use in the field.

Take, for instance, calling on the ancestors.

I spent months training for that. Studying trance states, learning how to call up your bloodline, then bargaining with the ancestors, doing deals that would allow me to contact them in my hour of need, all that kind of stuff. But I eventually gave up because it just didn’t work the way I wanted it to.

Which is a polite way of saying it was hell. Calling the ancestors is like having disapproving parents standing behind you twenty-four seven, judging every single thing you do.

Don’t believe me? Here’s how it worked. We have two worlds. We call them Nightside and Dayside. We’re Dayside, obviously, and the other world is Night. So I’d put myself into a trance and call on the ancestors. The two worlds connect. (We can see this. You can’t.) Everything becomes misty, insubstantial. The two worlds overlay each other. Everything is a bit . . . off. Like reality is off-kilter. The buildings are all there, same as in the real world, just . . . different. The windows are skewed, the buildings themselves are too tall, too thin, or lean to the side. The sky changes between storm black to apocalyptic orange. It’s like you’re in a Tim Burton movie.

Oh, yeah, and there are all sorts of creatures wandering around. Nightside is their home. Where all the orisha and supers come from. So you can have ten-feet-long hyenas wandering the streets, or packs of roaming ghosts, or even a city full of biblical demons.

It’s always changing, so you never really know what to expect. There’s a rumour going around that someone has a map of Nightside, but I’m not sure I buy it. We’ve been looking, investigating the possibility, but haven’t turned up anything yet. We live in hope, though.

So . . . back to the ancestors. Say I’m in trouble. I need to use my shinecraft. It’s not like in the movies, where I just hold my hands up and spit electricity at my enemy.

So I ask for help. The worlds connect, and suddenly I’m surrounded by my ancestors, going all the way back a few thousand years, the older ones receding into the hazy distance. I ask them to give me a hand. Politely. (Have to be polite. They take offence really easily.)

And you know what they do next? They stand there and
argue
amongst themselves about whether they should even bother. Then, when they decide that yeah, OK, maybe they will help me out, it’s another discussion about exactly how much power I need. And all the while they’re criticizing my life choices, fashion sense, taste in books, and anything else that comes to mind.

Which, if you’re in an emergency situation, is not the best method of Shining.

So I gave that one up as a bad bet and haven’t decided on a new method yet. Not sure I ever will. I might just skim the top of all available methods, dip in to something that catches my eye then move on to the next. I mean, calling on the ancestors was a bust. And my tattoos . . . less said about those bastards the better. Christ knows what I might might saddle myself with next.

But what that means is I’m stuck with the bone wand (stop sniggering) that every member of Delphic Division is given when they join up. The wands are supposedly made from the bones of famous magicians. Armitage says mine is from the shin of John Dee.

It was Armitage who presented it to me in the first place. I remember the day well. I think she was drunk. She took it from a velvet case and gravely handed it over, then looked at me and said, ‘You’re a wizard, Harry,’ before doubling over with laughter.

Only thing is, we’re supposed to outgrow the wands after the first year, when we specialize. I still have mine after four. Which explains my reliance on the dog to help me out with Shining and protective wards.

See, as well as the wand, every magician at Division is assigned a spirit guide, something to help him navigate those first confusing months and years.

It’s kind of an initiation thing. You head down to the litter-strewn basement where an ancient stone circle has been relocated, cemented into the floor and sharing space with empty beer bottles and mouldering porn magazines.

You stand in the middle of the circle and the other conjurers at Delphic Division help open the gate to Nightside, and then in a ceremony not very magical at all, you’re assigned your guide.

When the gate opened for me I saw some tall, horned, glowing creature walking confidently towards me. This being was . . . filled with wisdom. I could
feel
it shining through the gate, touching me with these mystical tendrils of knowledge. I had no idea what it was. Demon. Babylonian god, trickster spirit. I didn’t care. Because I knew this thing was going to teach me everything.

Score
, I thought.
I’m gonna bag me one of the Big Boys.

Then what happens? The figure stumbles and falls to its knees, and I see the dog rip out its achilles tendon, cock his leg, piss in my spirit guide’s face, and limp though the gate into the basement.

‘All right, dipshit?’ he says, sitting down at my feet.

And that was that. Rules are, you get the first guide that comes to you, no returns.

So I was stuck with him.

I didn’t sleep well last night. The after-effects of using the tattoos left me feverish and ill, vomiting into a bucket until dawn eventually clambered into my room and told me to give up even trying to close my eyes.

Now, stuck in morning traffic as I make my way to work, I feel like I’ve got a bad case of the flu. Or the worst hangover ever. Queasy stomach. Throbbing head. Shaky limbs.

Whoever thought humans dabbling in magic was a good idea was a fucking moron. Our bodies are just not designed for it.

The Delphic Division headquarters are located in an abandoned cement factory bordering the N4 as you head out towards the old airport. It always reminds me of that place the bad guys hide out in at the end of the original Robocop. Grey concrete, huge chimneys, rusted metal lying everywhere, chain-link fences, and broken-down walls. A lovely place to work.

Of course, that’s all a carefully maintained facade, bolstered with glamour shinecraft powered by aether generators stacked up in the basement.

I peel out of the Monday morning traffic onto a seemingly incomplete off-ramp, descending into a tunnel that loops beneath the freeway and out onto a newly tarred road leading to reinforced metal gates. (Anyone glancing over from the freeway will see rusted gates hanging from their hinges.)

My car has an RFID chip hidden inside and the gates swing wide and allow me to enter without me even having to slow down.

Anyone trying to get in without authorization will hit the wards Eshu has built up around the premises. I’m told it’s like a million volts of electricity surging through your body while you’re being read bad poetry by love-sick teenagers. Not sure about that last bit, but I don’t really want to test it out.

I steer around the rear of the old factory, then down the ramp to the underground parking garage. I pull into my bay and switch the ignition off. I grip the steering wheel and stare at the yellow bollard in front of me.

Sitting here is a morning routine. Waiting while I try to slip into character. While I remember what it’s like to be me.

Sometimes it takes me five minutes, sometimes twenty.

Everyone wears a mask. To fit in. To hide the real person inside. Because, let’s face it. If we
didn’t
have masks, if we all saw who we
really
were beneath the facade, beneath society’s norms, and lies we tell ourselves, the human race would be extinct. We’d be too scared to leave the house.