Chapter
Seventeen
After
checking in, Connor spent the morning in his functional but
nondescript hotel room, catching up with some paperwork, making
calls to both the Department and The O.A. He went out for lunch to a
small Italian restaurant in the city centre. The meal was average but
it helped kill a couple of hours. Connor hated waiting around. So,
back to the hotel he went, deciding to take a short nap, since he’d
been up so early.
Unfortunately
he returned to find a message waiting for him from the Department.
There was little of substance to the note, which once decrypted
revealed there had been some murders at a bookmakers which were
tangentially related to one of the occult gangland groups that had
been, years earlier, caught up in the Drumchapel possession case. The
name Alec Morton rang a vague bell but Connor could not recall much
about the man. The message was nothing important, just a note to keep
a heads-up while he was in town, even though the Department did have
a couple of local operatives. He guessed they weren’t particularly
well regarded.
He
dismissed the note but then decided to call Rupert Baird, owner of
the supposed Ghost Light, in order to introduce himself and nail down
the arrangements for the meeting. Baird wasn’t at work, hadn’t
been in for a few days according to his colleague who’d answered
his call. No one had heard from him apparently, nor was he picking up
his phone at home. The colleague joked that he’d probably taken an
impromptu holiday.
Connor
wasn’t so sure. After the call he was left with an uncanny
sensation creeping across his flesh. He hated that sensation, it was
usually an alarm bell that things were about to turn to shit. He
decided to go to the address provided and see if Baird was at home.
The kid at the front desk ordered him a taxi and he was fortunate
that it arrived quickly, just before the cold grey cloudy day changed
into the icy amber drenched night. The journey through the city, out
along the motorway and then north into the town of Milngavie and up
to the address.
The
front door was ajar, which was all Connor needed to conclude that
something had gone awry at the address. Immediately he felt dismay,
annoyance that this was not going to be a simple job. He walked up to
the door, pushed it open, took a deep breath. Stepping into the hall,
he spotted several blood-stained footprints scattered across the
carpet, different footprints, all leading from the room on the left.
He followed them back and opened the door, catching the smell in his
nose and throat before the horrible bloody mess registered in his
mind. It was nothing he had not witnessed before. The sight was never
the worst of it, it was always the smell, the thick noxious
atmosphere that exuded from such a slaughter. Rotting animal stench,
an aroma hard wired to revile humans.
The
culprit had been vigorous, playful even, which was not itself a sign
of the uncanny. Indeed in Luton, four years previously, the
Department had him investigate what was thought to be a demonic
possession, which turned out to be a psychotic kid who had no
interest in the supernatural, only in his complex erotophonophilia.
This, however was different, there was an almost clinical
fastidiousness about this flamboyant savagery, but what really got
Connor suspecting a paranormal actor was not something easily put
into words. An aura, perhaps, a hunch, experience, all these came
into play. He decided he’d better call the office.
He
put on gloves before he walked out of the room, spotted the phone in
the hall, lying atop a small rococo cabinet, old, well kept, perhaps
made by Henry Copeland or one of his lot. He picked up the receiver
dialled five numbers waited for the click and then dialled the
following five. Immediately the line was connected.
“Yeardley,
you got my message?” A plummy voice asked.
“Yes
Sir, you’re onto something. I think we’re dealing with a class
four intrusion.” Connor answered.
“Well
bugger.” Connor’s boss replied.
There
were ten classes in total, ranging from ten -relatively harmless
intrusions by mindless things like poltergeists- through to one which
were the most serious, potentially extinction level invasions. As far
as Connor knew, class one was merely a hypothetical. Class four was
serious enough though, “Immediate and long lasting negative
consequences on a national or global scale,” so the book said.
“Very well Connor, I’ll have a team ready within the hour. Did
you find the Ghost Light?”
“Not
yet.” Connor replied. “I’m at the recipient’s address now,
he’s been torn apart, no sign of the lamp, should I keep
searching?”
“No,
get out of there, wait outside, the hostile may still be there. Do
you have anything to tie it to the reports from earlier?”
“Not
yet, no.”
“Fair
enough. I’d wager it is linked though, we are still getting reports
from sources about the massacre at that bookmakers. Alec Morton
again, I swear when this is over we are going to have to have a
severe word or two with that scoundrel. Keep me informed.” The line
went dead.
Looking
out of the window, Connor saw it was raining and decided that there
was not much harm in continuing to forage around the premises.
Something, however, caught his eye. He wasn’t certain he’d seen
it correctly and so walked to the front door and opened it, staring
out into the street. Across the road from him, standing outside the
radius of the street-light’s glow but marginally visible was a
middle-aged auburn haired woman in a black plastic mac and a young
girl with blond hair who was wearing thick sunglasses. Both stood
under a black umbrella and seemed transfixed, staring directly at the
house. As if suddenly noticing him both walked across the road and up
to the fence.
“The
provenance of our visitor is as impossible to grasp as its motives,”
the child said, almost giggling. “nequaquam vacui, Mr Yearley, be
careful not to gaze into it too deeply.”
“What?”
Connor said, dumbfounded.
The
child and woman turned and walked away, disappearing behind the tall
hedgerow. Connor, perplexed by this encounter chased after them down
the driveway and out onto the road but they had gone. The long wet
street glistened from the lights above it, but there was no-one
there, nor the sound of footsteps, only the sounds of distant cars,
wooshing like waves against the shore. Connor felt a chill and knew
that this was going to get ugly.
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