“Let me guess?” At the minute flicker in his eyes she continues. “The Black Chamber has always relied on non-human assets, hasn’t it? To a much greater extent than any of the European agencies. But now the great conjunction is beginning, and you’ve got a huge landmass to defend. You’ve also got a population who are geographically dispersed, many of whom subscribe to frankly implausible religious beliefs that will badly impair their ability to recognize the truth about what is happening. So you’ve got to find a solution to the religious lunatic problem—to people who will mistake the Black Chamber for Satan and his happy helpers—and to defending the United States. It’s only natural to look for the biggest stick. And that thing”—her gaze tracks towards the gate—“is the biggest stick that comes to hand. Am I right?”
Lockey stares at her, poker-faced. Which almost certainly means yes. Persephone presses on, playing for time and a momentary lapse of attention: “So this is a false flag operation. Schiller isn’t leading it, even if he thinks it’s all his idea; he’s just a useful dupe. If he succeeds, you stand to gain control of a truly monstrous weapon (and thin the herd of god-struck liabilities in the process); if he fails, the Black Chamber could deny all knowledge and responsibility, ask for help in hammering down the lid again if necessary. Trouble is, you still need a second elder of the blood in order to complete the awakening ceremony, don’t you? And the supply of elders from that particular wee free kirk is more or less a monopoly of the British government. So you trailed Schiller through London to get the Laundry’s attention, relying on Johnny’s background to ensure that we were sent to investigate—”
“Enough.” Lockey doesn’t look amused. “Eighty percent, Ms. Hazard. Such a shame—”
He begins to step sideways, out of line with the pistol at the back of her head. It’s the cue Persephone has been waiting for. She reaches backwards and jabs the burning Hand of Glory into her guard’s eye in one fluid motion, turns sideways as he shrieks. The pistol shot—twenty centimeters from her right ear—is a hot hammer blow against the side of her face. She continues her turn and brings her other hand up, grabs the slide of the automatic, then twists, using it as a lever to break the shooter’s grip. Jack stumbles, still shrieking, hands reflexively going to his face. The automatic discharges into the ceiling as she yanks it away, then shoves him backwards.
Off-balance and clutching his face, the hapless Jack—another of Schiller’s black-suited missionaries—stumbles towards the open gate. But he doesn’t stumble through it. He falls across it sideways, legs intersecting with the glowing edge of the portal at ankle level, shoulders and head hitting the side.
There is blood; lots of blood.
Persephone spins to bear on Lockey.
Lockey is diving for the revolver, which lies inconveniently close to the door to the church. Persephone is holding Jack’s pistol by the slide in one hand, the Hand of Glory in her other. Only one thing for it. She opens her mouth and shouts a word that will cost a year of her life, at least.
Time slows to a crawl around her. The air thickens to the consistency of jelly; light dims, sounds dull. Movement is sluggish, like swimming. Lockey hangs in the air, falling slowly as she lets go of the pistol she took from the hapless Jack, moves her hand to catch it by the butt as it drifts gently floorwards. Her other hand is abruptly heavy, gripped by pins and needles. She struggles to turn and aim one-handed through a period that feels like minutes but is probably a fraction of a second, then to squeeze the stiffened trigger mechanism.
The gun heaves against her hand, sparks and smoke billowing from it; she can see the bullet as it drills a hole through the turgid air towards Lockey’s head. His hand is centimeters away from the revolver as the cartridge case slowly wobbles free of the breech of her stolen pistol, drifting through the red glimmering twilight.
Time snaps back to normal and Lockey jerks, then is still.
Persephone takes a deep, whooping breath and shudders like a leaf from head to foot. Her left hand is numb and tingling; her right feels as if she’s taken a kick to the wrist; and her stomach feels light and sick with the memory of what she has uncovered. But she can’t stop now: if this isn’t a rogue operation within the Black Chamber, dissent among the Nazgûl with a gaslight scenario to confuse and bamboozle the intruders, reinforcements will be along very soon indeed.
She walks over to the equipment rack, identifies the cable feed under the gaffer tape from the altar in the church, and pulls the plug. There’s a fat spark and a quiet bang from inside the switch box. For good measure, she puts the pistol to the socket and shoots the terminals at close range. It’s risky, but less risky than chancing Schiller’s people to make a field expedient repair. Then she turns to face the portal to the Sleeper’s tomb, and swallows—because despite appearances, she is not fearless.
A MONTH LATER:
It’s a bright late-spring morning in London. I let myself into the New Annex via the unmarked door beside a closed high street chain store. I head upstairs towards my office—still hanging off the side of IT Facilities, after all these years—pausing to grab a mug of coffee and say “hi” to Rita on the front desk on my way in. I’m not putting things off, honest, it’s just that I expect the unexpected to happen today, and I’m bad at dealing with unknown unknowns while low on caffeine.
It’s a small office and I don’t have an outside window, but I do have a nice Aeron chair these days (downsizing elsewhere in the civil service has left us with a surplus of lightly used executive furniture) to go with the five-year-old Dell desktop with the padlocked-shut case and ancient light-bleeding seventeen-inch monitor that is apparently considered suitable for IT staff at my grade. I plonk myself down behind it and am just beginning to get my head around the scale of the sewage farm that is a month’s worth of missed committee meeting minutes when the door opens.
I glance up, surprised, and my guts turn to ice. My visitor is a tall, late-middle-aged man in a suit, and I’ve seen him three times before in my entire career. I don’t know what he’s called, he’s just the Senior Auditor, and if he takes an interest in you it is usually because something has gone very badly wrong.
“Uh, hello,” I say.
He looks at me over the rims of his half-moon spectacles and essays an avuncular smile that reminds me of my childhood dentist just before he reaches for the drill. “Good morning, Mr. Howard. Do you have a minute?”
“Uh,” I flail for words, then gesture at the solitary visitor’s chair. “Sure.” Too late, I realize that there’s a heap of unclassified literature clogging it up, the better to conceal the suspicious stains and the two rips from which protrude chunks of grubby yellow furniture foam. (I was meaning to replace it at the same time I snagged the Aeron, but got side-tracked…) I stand up hastily and grab for the paperwork, which retaliates by making a bid for freedom and sliding in a messy avalanche to the floor.
“Ah, security by obscurity.” The Senior Auditor perches on the edge of the chair and waves me back to my seat. “I gather you arrived home the day before yesterday. How are you feeling, Bob?”
The first name takes me by surprise, so much so that I start to stutter: “Oh, um, I’m f-fine, o-over the jet lag—” He’s watching me with sympathetic eyes, deep brown with pupils so huge and dark I feel as if I’m falling into them, down into a sea of stars—