Poison City (7 page)

I flip the page. The last entry reports that Adlivun – Inuit underworld spirits – are rising up above ground and stealing innocents, dragging them back to their underground cities. Apparently, this is the first time it’s happened in a hundred years. I don’t envy whoever it is in the Alaskan Bureau who has to venture beneath the ice to get their citizens back.

‘Hey – you see this notice about the Courts in London?’

Parker finishes off her coffee and nods. ‘Armitage says we might have to go for a visit. That our local faerie courts have been pestering her about it.’

I check the file again, but there’s no mention about the locals getting pissy. ‘Why?’

‘The London courts seem to think they’re in charge of
all
the fey. The locals don’t like the fact that they’re banding together. They think they’re leading up to some sort of challenge to the fey leadership. They want—’

‘All right,’ says a loud voice, ever so slightly tinged with the accent of the north of England. ‘Listen up, kiddies.’

I look up and see Armitage leaning on the second-floor balcony, staring down at us from what she calls her Pulpit. (A plastic milk crate.) She scowls at us with harsh grey eyes, waiting for the troops to settle down.

Armitage looks a bit like someone’s scary mother. (Take that as you will.) And she wears an old macintosh no matter the weather. Her eyes can twinkle with humour one second and turn to flint the next. And you really don’t want her shouting at you.

Not at all the type of person you imagine leading the country’s supernatural police force. But there you go. Appearances can be deceiving.

She finally waves a piece of paper in the air.

‘New memo from on high,’ she says. ‘Name change time.’

Everyone in the room gives a cheer and Russells, a plump guy who is the official liaison between us and ORCU, a good guy doing a job no one wants or likes, gets up and flips a white board around, revealing a list of names with betting odds scrawled next to them.

Here’s the thing. Delphic Division, and even ORCU to a certain extent, are an embarrassment to the government. They seem to take it as a personal affront that the supernatural actually exists, so take great pleasure in making life as difficult as possible for us. (The only reason nobody’s blabbed about us to the press is because Armitage casts binding spells on the entire parliament. She catches them every year at the Christmas party to renew the charm, the
one
time of the year they all actually attend parliament so as to get their share of the free food and drink.)

One of the petty ways parliament makes life difficult for us is that when we fill out requisition forms and expense reports for the guys who pay the wages and approve budgets, we’re not allowed to mention magic, wizardry, magicians, sorcerers or anything like that.

Only problem is, they don’t know
what
official language they want us to use. It changes every couple of weeks.

The first time we got a memo, they said we had to use the word hex instead of magic.

Which meant we were all . . . Hexers? Hex-people? None of us knew, so we sent a memo back to ask.

Silence. Then a week later another memo saying that we were now known as Augurs, and the term for what did was Augury.

Someone even higher up didn’t like that. A week later we got a new memo and were told to use Theosophist, and to call magic Theosophy.

Russells loved that. Said it made him feel official. I hated it. Sounded like a subject you’d study in college.

So Armitage, Parker and I sat down to come up with our own possibilities. I came up with Dwemer and Dwemercraft. (It’s Old English.) Parker hated it. She suggested mage, magus, or magi. I laughed in her face. No way was I going around calling myself a magus. I’d have to start wearing robes if I did.

Armitage wanted enchanter, but the head honchos responded with a resounding no, saying we weren’t in a Disney movie.

I gave up and left them to it, deciding to just call the power shinecraft. It fitted for me. Sort of suggestive but not up its own arse. And I just refer to all of us as conjurers.

But here we are in a new week with a new memo, which means a new official name. Armitage theatrically clears her throat.

‘The powers that be would like us all to know we are henceforth and forthwith to be referred to as . . .’

She draws it out. Too much reality television for her.

‘. . . As
mages
!’

Groans roll around the room, loudest from Parker. The only one who doesn’t groan is Simmons, a skinny guy who looks like he can hide behind a street light. He cheers loudly, which means he wins this month’s pool. Lucky bastard. I could have done with that money. ’Course, there wasn’t much chance my entry would have been picked. ‘Pretentious arse-baskets’ isn’t really a term I see the president of the country using. At least, not officially.

‘All right, all right. Settle down,’ says Armitage. ‘Start of a new week and all that. You’ve all got your case loads. Get to work. London?’ She looks in my direction. ‘My office.’

I heave myself up from my chair, ignoring the knowing looks from everyone who thinks I’m in trouble again. I throw a pencil at Simmons’ head as I pass. He ducks and gives me the finger.

I wish I could say all this was atypical of life at Delphic Division, but it isn’t. We once spent a whole week arguing about the colour of the paint for the fifteenth floor bathrooms. We split into two warring parties and eventually decided the winner with a day-long game of office Olympics.

I push the elevator button. A brass pointer ticks slowly down to the ground floor and the doors slide open. The elevator is one of those old-fashioned types and I yank the cage open and step inside, hitting the button for the top floor.

The elevator rises slowly, a muzak version of ‘I should be so lucky’ playing over tinny speakers. Armitage picks the music for the elevator, changing it every week. Before Kylie we had muzak versions of Rick Astley, Bananarama, and Led Zeppelin. She thinks it’s the funniest thing ever but nobody really knows why. We just go along with it.

The elevator bumps gently to a halt and I walk around the curve of the silo until I get to Armitage’s office. Two potted ferns flank a mahogany door bearing a brass plate with the words ‘Boss Lady’ etched into it.

I knock.

‘Come in, then!’ she snaps impatiently from inside. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Entering Armitage’s office is like stepping back in time. Everything is dark wood and leather, like a Victorian parlour. Bookshelves lined with ancient hardcovers (and one shelf of Mills & Boon). A massive leather-topped desk with a green-shaded lamp. Two high-backed reading chairs.

The place is a tip, though. Every available surface is covered with clutter: old reports, photographs, empty cigarette packets, fast food wrappers. The air is scented with cherry cigars and nectarines, her favourite fruit.

She’s busy peeling one now, plopping the skin into an overflowing ashtray.

‘I tried to call you last night. Your mailbox is so full I couldn’t leave a message.’ She frowns at me. ‘You know how annoying that is? All this bloody technology and I can’t get hold of you?’

‘Sorry.’ I was going to ask her why she didn’t just text me, but then I remember how hopeless she is at using her phone.

‘Well. You’re still alive, so I’m assuming it went well?’

I flopped down in one of the chairs. ‘I think “well” is a relative term. I survived.’

‘And Babalu-Aye?’

‘Gone. For now. I’m not going to be popular when he comes back, though.’

‘We’ll deal with that when the time comes. The bastard deserves everything he got. How did you do it?’

‘Shotgun in the face.’

‘Nice. And the kids?’

I shake my head. I hesitate, leaning forward in the chair. ‘He was selling their souls to an angel, Armitage. I saw it. The thing was . . . 
snorting
their souls. Like it was blow.’

Armitage blinks. The skin around her eyes tightens. ‘Those bloody angels. I
told
you, remember? Watch out for the ones who say they’re fighting for good. They’re the ones that’ll destroy a continent in the name of their god. Remember?’

I shrug. Armitage says a lot of stuff like that. She really hates the orisha. ‘I saved the last victim, though. And I blew up the angel.’

She blinks at me, her plump face wrinkling in thought. ‘You blew it up?’

‘Hand grenade.’

‘Hah! Serves the bugger right. Any idea which angel it was?’

I shake my head. ‘No glamour. The thing was as its god intended.’

‘Ooh, look at you! I’m slightly impressed, lad. Not many can face down an angel and survive.’

‘A
psychotic,
high as a
kite
angel.’

‘As you say. Well done. And . . . I hate to ask, but . . . ?’ She raises her eyebrows at me.

‘No official presence. But . . . like I said, I used a grenade. So I
did
blow up the hospital a bit. But the papers said something about a gas leak, so I think we’re in the clear.’

Armitage smiles with relief. ‘Good lad. Don’t want to give that arse Ranson any more ammo, eh? Best to keep these ones quiet.’

Keep these ones quiet. In other words, the ones we don’t really have enough evidence to convict. The ones we send me in to deal with. The heavy gun. The good boy who does what he’s told.

If I wasn’t using Armitage the same way she’s using me, I’d be a bit offended about these dark ops. But doing stuff off the books is the only way I can follow up my own investigations without the Division getting suspicious.

Armitage’s cell phone rings. She asked me to set the ring-tone for her so I set it to Queen’s ‘It’s a Kind of Magic’. She hates Queen, though. Every time she hears the phone it makes her face crease with annoyance.

‘Yes?’ she barks. ‘No. Yes. Where?’ Armitage makes urgent hand gestures at me, miming writing with a pen. I get up and find one on her desk. She scribbles something down on her hand then hangs up.

‘Come on, then, pet. The game’s afoot.’

‘Is it?’ I ask. ‘And what terrifying case awaits Mystery Inc. today?’

‘Murder,’ she says cheerily. ‘Murder most foul.’ She rubs her hands together. ‘But first, a bacon sarni.’

Chapter 4

Armitage drives her old Porsche along a dirt road while I try to log into GHOST – the Global and Home-based Occult and Supernatural Treasury – on my phone.

Our victim is a man called Jengo Dhlamini. Apparently, he’s been the local
ramanga
to a tribal chief out in the midlands for the past two years, and Armitage said the word like I should know what it means.

Which I don’t, but I’m not telling her that.

I stare out the window while I wait for a cell signal. Sugarcane rises to either side of us, green stalks vibrant against the blue sky. We leave a cloud of dust behind us as Armitage navigates the road, swearing furiously as she swerves from side to side in a futile attempt to avoid the massive potholes and tractor ruts in the hard-packed earth.

My phone whistles, informing me it’s managed to log into the database. I wipe the sweat from my brow – no air conditioner in this car – try to ignore my worsening headache, and type in the word RAMANGA.

An image appears. A pathetic-looking man, skinny, haunted. Something of the animal about him. I scroll down and browse through the entry.

Turns out a ramanga is a sort of low-key vampire. They’re known the world over, but here in Africa they generally work for the royal families out in the kraals. If the tribal leader gets cut, it’s the Ramanga’s job to lap up the blood so it doesn’t go to waste. If the Chief cut his hair, the Ramanga has to eat it. Toenail clippings? Down the hatch. A severed finger? Yum-yum.

They started out as ceremonial vampires. Just servants who used to make sure the royal offcuts didn’t fall into the wrong hands for use in black magic. But over the years, the ramanga tribe of vampires took over the position.

The local Chiefs seem to think having your own personal ramanga is a status symbol, but back in the city where the various tribes of vampires live, ramanga are considered the lowest of the low. Scavengers, really.

‘Who reported the murder?’ I ask.

‘Anonymous tip-off. Went to ORCU first. They want it themselves, but some lazy bugger in their outfit passed us the wink.’

‘Are ORCU there now?’

‘Probably. Pissing their scent all over the crime scene.’

Wonderful. There’s a seriously competitive vibe going on between ORCU and Delphic Division. Basically, what it boils down to is the fact that we’re cool, and they’re not. They hate us, but every single one of them is desperate to be called up to the Division.

I suppose they’ve got a right to be pissed off. We get all the real supernatural stuff while they’re stuck with muti murders and the like. They’re always trying to crack a real case before we do.

‘You know a ramanga is a vampire?’ I ask.

‘’Course I do. That reminds me. Better get on the horn to your boyfriend when we finish up at the scene.’