The Journey Begins
For hours they travelled the London streets in silence, not really having much to say to each other: Mrs. Vole had said ‘drive,’ and that is what mattered, and that is what Boris Gant did. As the day sank away and ushered in the night, the old woman still said nothing. Eventually they needed gas, stopped, refilled their tank and got a bag of chips (which was shared by all), and continued driving as the quiet became expansive and the background hum of city chitchat faded — moving behind the doors of homes and of pubs and of nighttime haunts — until Boris felt speech the skill was story-stuff, a practice from long ago, and its occasional practitioners charlatans, no more credible than a whistler misrepresenting the notes of a popular song. Soon, the odd company ran out of chips, and nothing to say.
“What are we doing?” Vivian asked; it had an effect like shattering glass, Boris nearly hitting a post box.
Mrs. Vole sat with her fingers folded in her lap, seeming grandmotherly in way that suggested an oven full of pies, embodying the needed patience and time to bake. “Deciding what to do next, my dear” she said unhelpfully.
“You don’t have anything, do you.”
Mrs. Vole sighed. “No, I’m afraid not.”
It was then that Boris entered the conversation. “Well, let’s have a start, like this: What’s our best chance of not dying?”
He turned down an embankment and the car rocked slightly as he passed over a bump. “We’re being hunted by magical people and people alike. I’m afraid that I don’t see how there’s much we can do.” She didn’t add, but wait and die.
“Then why,” said Boris, “aren’t we already dead?”
Mrs. Vole considered the question. It was a good question — one which had lurked around the back of her mind for some time now. “I don’t know, mister Gant.”
“There is no profit in keeping us alive, is there?” asked Vivian. Mrs. Vole’s face became placid.
“I suppose there is one, small profitable reason.” The old woman hesitated. “They still haven’t discovered what they sent you to find out.”
In the fray and threat, Boris had forgotten the small dossier, which now seemed remarkably uninformed, and the purpose it had assigned. “Is it that important?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Then we could trade it for our lives, maybe?” said Vivian.
“Doubtful,” Boris said, “I think that option really never works out.” Then he thought of something else. “Mrs. Vole, hold on. You can do magic.” The bluntness of the statement took everyone by surprise.
“I had thought that apparent,” she said. “But, indeed, I am a sorceress.”
“Can’t you just hide us from their magic with your magic?”
“Not for particularly long,” she answered.
“Is there someone who can do it for particularly long?” asked Boris.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Vole, thoughtful. “My master can hide us.”
“Then hide us until we reach your master, whatever the hell that’s about,” Boris said, “and then he can help us the rest of the way.”
“She won’t do it,” Vivian said.
“Viv, shut it! Come on, what do you say?”
“Miss Bracht is right,” agreed the old woman, causing Boris’s new wellspring of confidence to dry up. “The risk of failure and them getting to him is too high.”
“The risk,” spat Boris, “is everything, if we don’t.” For several minutes, they all fumed, each for his or her own reasons.
“Actually,” said Mrs. Vole, once more breaking the quiet, “I think we have to go to him.” She studied the back of the drivers seat. “Or we must get Mrs. Bracht to him.”
Boris was lost, once again. “Why?”
“Because she defied the monster with a single touch.”
Vivian hid her injured hand. “I’m not doing that again.”
“No one’s asking you to, dear. We merely need to know why that worked, or at least some clue as to what that man was.”
Boris and Vivian both knew better than to ask questions, especially when things had finally started to go in their favor. The plan was settled upon, and all agreed:
They would go to find the master of Mrs. Vole.
Cloak; Dagger; Wizard
Hector listened, and the house whispered in bendy creaks and occasional scampers: they kept him awake, though the doorway’s dusty, plank-wood floor — his pillow and mattress —might have accomplished this unaided.
A noise like curtains swishing came, and he tracked it with his mind, not wanting to move and ruin the stillness he’d preserved while attempting sleep. The distance between him and the sound lessened with time and with each swish, until it passed him by.
He peeked, and discovered the silhouette of a man marked out by the street’s light, which came in from a broken old window. It must have been Holmes; the figure was too tall to be Arthur and too young to be Merlin. With Hector on the ground only one candidate remained, and he moved like a cat, noiselessly opening the door and slipping down the walk.
A few heartbeats later, Hector pursued him. He felt secure — after all, tucked about him were all those hidden, loaded guns.
~
Holmes was a lone figure, looking like the only person in all the world; but he wasn’t: there was Hector.
It was still dark outside, save the streetlights, and a weekday. Hector cursed himself; it was hard enough to blend in, be unnoticed, but it was only him and Holmes, who gave off a creepy vibe as it was, among the shadows and the roads.
Hector believed Holmes would turn around any second, catch him there, not so far away, dogging his steps. What would happen then was an unknown, and depended on why Holmes had gone out, whether he had wanted to be seen.
Given the circumstances, this stroll didn’t make sense. As he walked, Hector wondered over it all, his tired mind unable to twist or fabricate meaning from what was going on. Not a glimmer.
~
A few blocks later Holmes finally stopped walking, his entire body drooping sullenly, like an abandoned marionette. He stretched and sat on a nearby bench, which Hector made out in the dark.
“Come on then, Hector,” Holmes called out, cupping a hand to his mouth. Hector froze, his heartbeat racing. Instinctively, he reached for one of his guns, but held himself, letting his arm fall to his side. He made for the bench and sat down, hunching his broad shoulders forward and folding his hands in his lap.
“How’d you know?” he asked.
“The shadows ahead of me; your back against the lamps.”
“Could have been someone else,” said Hector, feeling foolish. The exhaustion was getting to him; his lids drooped.
“Not with leather soles,” came the reply.
“True enough. So, what are you doing?”
“Sitting on a park bench.” The answer was curt.
“You know what I mean.”
“I wanted to look outside, again,” Holmes said. “Actually, perhaps for the first time.” Hector rolled his eyes.
“Come on, you’ve been outside before.”
“Part of me has,” said Holmes, correcting him.
Hector yawned, getting a mouthful of humid air. “I’ve decided not to try and understand all… all this,” he gestured expansively, “yet.”
Holmes raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Me being here is an accident.” Hector blinked a few times, trying to placate his ever heavier eyelids. “One second, I’m doing my job, the next I just snap.” He looked up into the sky, barely making out a handful of stars. “I just couldn’t take it, you know? Low satisfaction, high mortality. Not for me.” The other man nodded appreciatively.
“So you thought joining up with your targets might gain you some margin of safety from your old employers.” It wasn’t a question.
“Exactly,” Hector said. “That’s exactly it.”
“Well, in your defense, you could not have known what you were getting into.”
Hector laughed. “No, I couldn’t. But I don’t care anymore.”
“Why?” asked Holmes.
“I think I stopped caring when they told me I couldn’t change jobs. They kill you, if you try to quit. I mean, where the hell was I supposed to go from there?”
“Hell, apparently.”
Hector let just one of his eyes close — a compromise of sorts. “See. No family, no prospects, nothing. Just, nothing.”
Holmes patted the muscle man on the back. “Chin up. You’ve won a fresh start. We’ve got a fresh start.”
“You’re right,” Hector said, rising. “I’m going to head back, you coming?” Holmes shook his head.
“No, I think I’ll stay out here and consider things for a while.”
“Okay, see you in a few,” said Hector, and, sleepily, he made his way back to the house, where he finally managed to rest.
But it wasn’t until both his eyes were shut and his groggy mind forgone that he finally managed to shake a strange sensation: Holmes’s eyes, drilling into his spine.
~
Moriarty Holmes watched Hector leave. When he became sure he was alone, he dropped his head into his hands and wept without tears - an intellectual’s weep, one of the mind.
Observing the night indeed. That idiot.
Parts of his mind rumbled with a maddening speed: deducing and calculating and feeling with shivering clarity; he wished it would slow. It almost hurt, and would, he knew, eventually.
Everything was so familiar, so real, but wrong. But where was Watson? Where was Moran? Each name stirred deep hatred within him, and deep love, the product of his two adversarial parts. Three parts, actually: Gregory’s memories linked with his own, which weren’t really memories — Conan Doyle’s fabrications. Magic was what he was. He didn’t feel particularly magical.
“That is because not even the wonders of magic can bring happiness,” whispered a voice. Moriarty leapt from the bench, twisting around, hands raised to defend himself. Standing behind him was Merlin.
“How did you sneak up on me?” He felt the irony, almost a full reversal of his and Hector’s positions just moments before.
In the streetlights, Merlin awarded the question a condescending smirk. “Magic. I am, if you’ll recall, a wizard.” He looked down, not meeting Moriarty’s eyes, suddenly grave. “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry this happened to you.” It appeared to be the truth.
“Me too,” said Moriarty Holmes. He thought about lashing out, striking the old fool to the ground. But he didn’t. “Your not sorry about what’s happened to me.” The bitterness seeped off him like smoke. “You’re sorry for Gregory.”
The silence was long and thick. “I don’t know any more, really.” This also seemed true.
Then, Moriarty said “Let me see your wrists.” The wizard pulled his sleeves down uncomfortably. “So, it’s true.”
“Truth is relative.”
“Who do you serve, Merlin?” The wizards lips frowned. “Is it the enemy? Someone else? It isn’t, Arthur, that is for certain.” More silence.
“I serve my order,” he answered, finally.
So, there was another player, as he’d suspected. “And what order is that?”
“One in which less than ten remain.”
“That’s still more than the confused three left to mine.”
“I’m here, fool. That’s worth a great deal!” Moriarty Holmes gave a laughing cough.
“Until someone tells you to otherwise. Isn’t that so?”
“I will serve Arthur with all my resource, power, and strength.”
“Is. That. So?” repeated Moriarty Holmes.
Merlin hesitated. “I suppose,” he admitted, “that I could, in theory, be recalled.”
“Fair weather friend.”
“You know nothing,” rasped Merlin, raising his voice.
“Oh, I see. You think I’m just going to follow along, like a good, stupid, organ grinder’s simian.”
“I said no such thing,” said Merlin.
“I said such a thing. I, who knows far more than nothing.”
“I’m sorry, I spoke in anger.”
“Can you give up your order?” Merlin looked horrified.
“What? No, that wouldn’t help anybody.”
“Why?”
“Because my order is what grants me the arcane arts. What use am I without them?” The man’s point was compelling.
“Then how can you be trusted?”
“Enough of this,” sighed Merlin; they weren’t getting anywhere. “Good evening, Mr. Holmes,” and he was gone as suddenly as he’d appeared.
Strike of the Deal; Flit of the Match
Inflicted Man
Hands cuffed, the shuffling of chains audible, attached to a stretcher, the Inflicted Man was rolled down a beige hallway, guards on either side of him, and behind, and in front. He was wearing a blindfold they’d wrapped around his face in the car. The procession halted.
He heard three short taps, and then “Come in.” A woman’s voice, succulent and languid.
He was moving again, then again stopped. The blindfold came off.
The light was harsh, blinding. Things resolved themselves.
He grinned. “Mrs. Morgose? Of all the people I expected to nab me up, you weren’t even on the list!” He spoke as if they had just bumped into each other on the street. “How are you? How’ve you been? Good? I’ve been good.”
“Be quiet,” said Morgose. Her hair was long, black, and straight. Her eyes were brown, but harsh red flecks that caught the light spiraled toward their pupils. She was young, beautiful, rich, powerful, and frightening. “I see my reputation has once again outrun me.”
She looked back down at some papers. “Aren’t you going to invite me to sit?”
Without looking up, she said, “Of course not.”
“Then why am I here if not to sit?” he grinned.
“You’re here because I need you for something.” She put the papers down, picking up a pen and marking something on one of the corners; and then down went the the pen. She folded her hands on the desk and looked straight into the Inflicted Man’s eyes.
“I think I’ll sit.”
“I think you’ll stay.”
“I think,” the Inflicted Man began, but whirled into action. He kicked out as hard as he could. If the straps had held his legs in place, he might have bruised them. The thick leather tore effortlessly.
His feet pushed hard off the ground, toppling the stretcher backward into the guard behind him, crushing the man beneath.
The Inflicted Man might have had his head damaged by the fall, if all the other restraints, defying probability, had not also given way, allowing him to backwards summersault to his feet; he used the fallen guard’s larynx to support his entire weight as he righted himself.
There was a crack and gurgle.
The men on either side pointed their guns at him, flicking the safeties off, aiming, and pulled their respective triggers. Instead of an automatic burst of fire, there was a clicking. Both weapons had jammed.
While this went on the Inflicted Man leaned over, picked up the dying guard’s pistol, and pointed it at his first target: the man on the left.
He pulled the trigger.
When nothing happened, he tried flicking the safety. The next time, he put the man on the left down, permanently; the man on the right rushed toward him, heaving his gun to the side, but his foot caught on the fallen stretcher. Bang, bang. Two rounds in his head, and now this guard, like his compatriot, was also dead.
The final guard who had taken point looked to Morgose, who hadn’t even batted an eye. She waved him away.
He went, leaving the powerful woman and the homicidal, cannibalistic lunatic staring at one another.
“Now why won’t I kill you, exactly?” asked the Inflicted Man, waving his gun.
“Because it’s hard to shoot someone with a tree branch,” she replied. And as she said the words, his gun became a gun shaped tree branch.
“I see,” said the Inflicted Man, tossing the useless piece of wood onto one of the corpses. “May I sit?”
“If you must.” He sat.
“So, Morg, what’s the deal-ee-o?” Morgose shuddered at the name, but tolerated it.
“I want you to use your unique gifts to kill someone for me.” The Inflicted Man giggled.
“Okay, why would I do that for you?”
“Because I can give you what you want,” Morgose answered. Her lip curled invitingly.
The Inflicted Man thought for a moment. “But I don’t want anything.”
“What if I told you I could kill you,” said Morgose, “would you want that?” The Inflicted Man laughed.
“Can’t be done, Morg.”
Morgose threw a letter opener at his leg, it nicked the side of his pants and landed in the carpet.
“Jeez, what was that for?” said the Inflicted Man. Then he saw his knee. Where the pants were ripped was red. Blood was welling up.
His blood. He was bleeding. He was bleeding.
He put two fingers in and tasted it, just to be sure. He looked up at Morgose, the humor gone. His face was a dark cloud. “How?” he demanded.
“Because I am the only one who can kill you,” she said. “That’s all you need to know.” The Inflicted Man got up, angry, and smashed his hand down as hard as he could on the desk.
It felt like he had barely touched it. A feather landing. “Fine, I’ll do it,” he said, but there was something icy in his throat.
“Good, you’re on the next flight to London. Company jet, very nice.” The Inflicted Man didn’t respond.
“But let’s get one thing clear,” he said. “If I do my half, and you screw me, if you screw me, if you think about backing out, I am going to hunt you down; I am going to hunt you down and eat your brain out with a spoon through your eye sockets.” Morgose rolled her eyes.
“Yes, no need for the dramatics.” He glared. “Anyway,” she continued, “that goes without saying.”
Rendezvous
Arthur
Moriarty
For a second he thought he heard something, but decided he hadn’t.
Arthur slept in an unfamiliar cot, or tried to sleep. The rest of the round table meeting had been uneventful. All had agreed that too much had been done for a single night, yet as the young man laid awake, realizations slipping across him — magic-real, gunman-after-him, wizard-rickshaw — one thought, a particular image, kept recurring.
The eyes of Moriarty Holmes: one green and glimmering, the other a dead black, like pitch. His fingers darted among themselves, head oscillating back and forth, sometimes rapid, other times slow, as he thought in silence, never speaking a word.
Had Arthur really created him?
It had felt like all that the man was had funneled out of him, into the white-aproned lifeless vessel; yet Arthur knew nothing of Moriarty Holmes, only able to hold in his mind the vague imprint of a person, a brief overview of the whole, a snake and a falcon smashing against each other.
Another noise.
Arthur knew he had heard something then. He forced his eyes open. In the dark was a single, lively gleam leaning over him. “Hello, Arthur,” said a voice. He recognized it.
“Moriarty,” replied the tired young man, overcoming his initial surprise. “What are you doing?”
The single glittering iota studied him. “I need to speak with you.” The iota backed away - the man straightening, Arthur realized. “Would you mind if I sat?”
“Go ahead, I guess.” Arthur felt something settle down at the end of the cot, squeaking the old springs and dipping the surface inward. “What’s up?”
“Besides you, about forty or so things,” he answered. “But I won’t trouble you with most of them.” Arthur’s brow creased.
“Alright, what’s up that you are going to trouble me with?” Arthur began to wonder why Moriarty had come to speak only with him, alone.
“First, I wanted to ease your mind on a simple matter, then unease it on a more complex few.” The one glimmering eye oscillated in the night. Moriarty waited for Arthur to respond, he didn’t. “I’ve finished reading Sir Thomas Malory’s book,” he continued, “Le Morte D’Arthur.” Arthur hadn’t even though of reading the book. He reddened, feeling ashamed that an activity that important had been put off because of the tome’s size.
“Wait, you read it all,” Arthur said, “tonight?”
“In the last few hours.”
“How?”
“How do you draw breath, Arthur? How do you walk? I learn. I plan. I study. I conclude,” said the oscillating head, moving faster as he spoke. “It is the way of things.”
“Alright, and what did you find?”
“Do you speak French?” Arthur was startled by the randomness of the question.
“I studied Spanish.”
“Really? No Latin or Portuguese?”
“Hey, I work hard in my classes,” retorted Arthur, growing hot.
“I never said otherwise. In any case, have you considered the title of the book?” Arthur hadn’t, and Moriarty didn’t wait for a reply. “It means ‘The Death of Arthur.’”
The words hung in the air. “King Arthur didn’t die though. I mean, not until after a long reign,” Arthur managed to stutter the words out; Chill rode up his spine.
“Yes, but he dies at the hands of his enemies in the end.”
Arthur shook his head. “Why did you come in here to tell me this?”
“Because, boy, he dies as the result of grave betrayals.” Arthur thought quickly: Hector, Moriarty, Merlin. Who was there to betray him? He didn’t trust any of them, except Merlin, maybe, but…
“So you’re going to betray me? Now?” Arthur braced himself.
Moriarty laughed, a raspy chuckling sound. “Heavens no. I couldn’t if I wanted to.” Couldn’t?
“Why? Is that what you’ve come to reassure me about?”
“Astute of you,” he said. “Yes, these marks on my wrist are more than titles. They are shackles.”
“I didn’t ask you or anyone to do any of this!” Arthur shouted.
“Keep your voice down,” Moriarty hissed. “And I never said you did. I wouldn’t exist if not for you.” Arthur blinked hard, tears had started to come again.
“What do you mean then?”
The head’s oscillations slowed. “I mean that they are preventatives, Arthur. I could not hurt or betray you even if it were my fondest wish.” Arthur wondered if it was.
“How do you know this?” Arthur asked.
“I spoke with Merlin.” Again, Arthur was confused.
“Why didn’t Merlin tell me?” It would, after all, be something he’d like to know.
“You didn’t ask; in any case,” continued Moriarty, “I don’t trust him.”
“Merlin?”
“Yes, Merlin.”
“Why?”
“Ah,” said Moriarty. His head stopped moving, the gleam focused on Arthur’s position in the dark. “Now that is quite the question.” Arthur waited for an answer.
Nothing came.
“Okay, again, why?”
“Because before Merlin served Arthur, he served someone else,” said Moriarty. “And if he has the marks on his wrists, like myself, he will be hard pressed to betray this other person.” Arthur’s mouth was dry. He wondered how long it had been since he’d had anything to drink.
“So what?” said Arthur; but it was a futile gesture.
“So, he isn’t necessarily serving you.” With that Moriarty rose and the sound of steps came as he walked toward the door. Arthur was stunned. “Food for thought, Arthur,” he said, and went out the door, shutting it softly behind him.
Into Their Waiting Arms
Mrs. Vole’s emotional state was in shambles.
As she made her way down the purple and teal hallway, friendly colors for the children, she caught herself staring at last week’s art projects. Her boys and girls had had a joy making them, and she’d lovingly taped their pictures onto the walls, all the while telling them how proud she was.
Now she passed that same hall, each lopsided house and discolored building haunting her steps.
Mrs. Vole shut her eyes tight, but the tears snuck past. Maybe she would see her kids again one day, when this was all over.
She could only blame herself, really. After all, her master had said that war was coming; that it would just be a matter of time.
Now, coming in a new unfamiliar march, war had arrived. This wasn’t a war of ideology or countries. This was a war being waged on her.
And she had nearly thrust her wards in the crossfire.
As she turned at the end of the hall, she heard scuffling and finally opened her eyes, which were still blurred with tears, her spectacles misty. Men in masks were what she saw, one of them balled up on the the ground, sucking in breath and clutching at his arm; broken, she guessed. Four of them pinned Boris down against the wall; another three had Vivian cornered by the exit. Oddly, the ones guarding her weren’t getting too close, which confused Mrs. Vole until she caught the glint of metal in the young woman’s hands.
She let herself wander over the scene, getting a feel for it. The conflict had chipped some of the red paint from Eve’s drawing of a squirrel, which the little angel had been particularly proud of. In addition, many others were being crumpled or damaged, especially where Boris was struggling wildly.
Apparently too preoccupied, no one had noticed the old woman with the stuffed paisley handbag. Good, she had surprise. Mrs. Vole noiselessly lowered the bag to the floor, freeing her hands. Delicately, she took off her glasses and hung them on the front of her shirt.
War was at the gates.
Vivian was the first to notice the old woman’s arrival. “Why are you just standing there?” Vivian cried, jabbing her knife at a man who’d tried to inch nearer.
Some of the men stole quick glances over their shoulders, but were too concerned with their work to care about Mrs. Vole.
What a terrible mistake. She raised her hands like a puppeteer, and in her mind’s eye she wasn’t wearing frilly clothes any more, but a green military uniform patched with a Union Jack on its sleeve.
Her head tilted so that her brow almost hid her eyes; she was too offended by the sight in front of her to continue watching.
Mrs. Vole spoke. “You think you can do just about anything, Uthor. Oh, how far you’ve come from your bedwetting days.”
The man on the floor looked up at the mention of Uthor. “I bear the mark of his highness, and you will give him his due respect.” Mrs. Vole sniffed. She hated lackeys.
Boris started freeing an arm, but his oppressors shifted in time to keep him held. “And who might you be?” asked Mrs. Vole.
“Sir Waites, The Landsman.” Vivian swung again, landing a glancing blow.
“Well then, sir Waites.” She raised her arms high, splaying out her palms and curling her fingers upward. “Allow me educate you about his highness’s limitations.” She balled them into fists and throttled the air.
All around the room came the sound of unpleasant cracking and gurgling accompanying the breaking of necks. Heads dangled at awkward angles. Bodies thrashed wildly; hands searched for their owner’s windpipes, hoping to clear whatever was stopping air from entering their lungs. The man on the floor, the only one to be spared, tossed his head back and forth in horror. Mrs. Vole twisted her hands more.
The four holding Boris slumped to the ground; so did the men guarding Vivian. Each and every one of them, dead.
Beneath his mask sir Waites’s eyes widened. Mrs. Vole moved toward him, and he tried to inch away. He failed, recoiling on the pain of his broken arm. Boris and Vivian wordlessly stared.
Aberdeen Vole loomed tall over sir Waites. He shut his eyes. She bent over him. “Please inform his highness that he’s chosen the wrong war.” He nodded, trying, and failing, to shield his face with his good arm. “Inform Uthor that Aberdeen Vole is coming,” she whispered. “And she intends to bring ruination down upon his head.” She exhaled and turned away. Sir Waites was breathing shallowly. “Miss Bracht, please get my bag. Mr. Gant, the car.”
They obeyed, and soon the three were speeding down the road.
After a while, Boris, without looking at her, asked “What the fuck was that?”
