‘Bullshit. My duty is to myself. I survived the charge and have lived with it every single day since. Every night I ask myself: why me? Why did I live and the others, my brother even, die? There is no answer to that question and that’s only just where the pain starts. I can’t help you.’
‘You don’t have to speak,’ said the girl persistently, ‘but better for one old wound to open than a thousand new ones, eh?’
‘Don’t teach me morality, you little shit,’ I said, my voice rising.
It had the desired effect. She handed me a leaflet, took her boyfriend by the arm, and departed.
I closed my eyes. My heart was beating like the crump-crump-crump of the Russian field artillery. I didn’t hear the squad car pull up beside me.
‘Officer Next—?’ asked a cheery voice.
I turned and nodded gratefully, picked up my case and walked over. The officer in the car smiled at me. He had long dreadlocked hair and a pair of overly large dark glasses. His uniform was open at the collar in an uncharacteristically casual way for a SpecOps officer, and he wore a goodly amount of jewellery, also strictly against SpecOps guidelines.
‘Welcome to Swindon, Officer! The town where anything can happen and probably will!’
He smiled broadly and jerked a thumb towards the rear of the car.
‘Boot’s open.’
The boot contained a lot of iron stakes, several mallets, a large crucifix and a pick and shovel. There was also a musty smell, the smell of mould and the long dead—I hurriedly threw in my bag and slammed the boot lid down. I walked round to the passenger door and got in.
‘Shit–! ’ I cried out, suddenly noticing that in the back, pacing the rear seats behind a strong mesh screen, was a large Siberian wolf. The officer laughed loudly.
‘Take no notice of the pup, ma’am! Officer Next, I’d like you to meet Mr. Meakle. Mr. Meakle, this is Officer Next.’
He was talking about the wolf. I stared at the wolf, which stared back at me with an intensity that I found disconcerting. The officer laughed like a drain and pulled away with a lurch and a squeal of tyres. I had forgotten just how weird Swindon could be.
As we drove off, the Will-Speak machine came to an end, reciting the last part of its soliloquy to itself:
… Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass, that I might see my shadow, as I pass.
There was a clicking and whirring and then the mannequin stopped abruptly, lifeless again until the next coin.
‘Beautiful day,’ I commented once we were under way.
‘Every day is a beautiful day, Miss Next. The name’s Stoker—‘
He pulled out on to the Stratton by-pass.
‘—SpecOps 17: Vampire and Werewolf disposal operations. Suckers and biters, they call us. My friends call me Spike. You,’ he added with a broad grin, ‘can call me Spike.’
By way of explanation he tapped a mallet and stake that were clipped to the mesh partition.
‘What do they call you, Miss Next?’
‘Thursday.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Thursday.’
He proffered a huge hand that I shook gratefully. I liked him immediately. He leaned against the door pillar to get the best out of the cooling breeze and tapped a beat out on the steering wheel. A recent scratch on his neck oozed a small amount of blood.
‘You’re bleeding,’ I observed.
Spike wiped it away with his hand.
‘It’s nothing. He gave me a bit of a struggle—!’
I looked in the back seat again. The wolf was sitting down, scratching its ear with a hind leg.
‘—but I’m immunised against lycanthropy. Mr. Meakle just won’t take his medication. Will you, Mr. Meakle?’
The wolf pricked up its ears as the last vestige of the human within him remembered his name. He started to pant in the heat. Spike went on:
‘His neighbours called. All the cats in the neighbourhood had gone missing; I found him rummaging in the bins behind SmileyBurger. He’ll be in for treatment, morph back and be on the streets again by Friday. He has rights, they tell me. What’s your posting?’
‘I’m—ah—joining SpecOps 27.’
Spike laughed loudly again.
‘A LiteraTec!? Always nice to meet someone as underfunded as I am. Some good faces in that office. Your chief is Victor Analogy. Don’t be fooled by the grey hairs—he’s as sharp as a knife. The others are all Ai Ops. A bit shiny-arsed and a mite too smart for me, but there you go. Where am I taking you?’
‘The Finis Hotel.’
‘First time in Swindon?’
‘Sadly, no,’ I replied. ‘It’s my home-town. I was in the regular force here until ‘75. You?’
‘Welsh Border guard for ten years. I got into some darkness at Oswestry in ‘79 and discovered I had a talent for this kind of shit. I trannied here from Oxford when the two depots merged. You’re looking at the only Staker south of Leeds. I run my own office but it’s mighty lonesome. If you know anyone handy with a mallet—?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ I replied, wondering why anyone would consciously wish to fight the supreme powers of darkness for a basic SpecOps salary, ‘but if I come across anyone, I’ll let you know. What happened to Chesney? He ran the department when I was here last.’
A cloud crossed Spike’s usually bright features and he sighed deeply.
‘He was a good friend but he fell into shadows. Became a servant of the dark one. I had to hunt him down myself. The spike ‘n’ decap was the easy part. The tricky bit was having to tell his wife—she wasn’t exactly overjoyed.’
‘I guess I’d be a bit pissed off, too.’
‘Anyway,’ continued Spike, cheering up almost immediately, ‘you don’t have to tell me shit, but what is a good-looking SpecOps doing joining the Swindon LiteraTecs?’
‘I had a spot of bother in London.’
‘Ah,’ replied Spike knowingly.
‘I’m also looking for someone.’
‘Who?’
I looked over at him and made an instant judgment call. If I could trust anyone, I could trust Spike.
‘Hades.’
‘Acheron? Flatline, sister. The man’s toast. Crashed and burned on the four.’
‘So we’re led to believe. If you hear anything—?’
‘No problem, Thursday.’
‘And we can keep this between ourselves?’
He smiled.
‘After staking, secrets is what I do best.’
‘Hang on—‘
I had caught sight of a brightly coloured sports car in a secondhand car lot on the other side of the road. Spike slowed down.
‘What’s up?’
‘I—er—need a car. Can you drop me over there?’
Spike executed an illegal U-turn, causing the following car to brake violently and slew across the road. The driver started to hurl abuse until he saw that it was a SpecOps black & white, then wisely kept quiet and drove on. I retrieved my bag.
‘Thanks for the lift. I’ll see you about.’
‘Not if I see you first!’ said Spike. ‘I’ll see what I can dig up on your missing friend.’
‘I’d appreciate it. Thanks.’
‘Goodbye.’
‘So long.’
‘Cheerio,’ said a timid-sounding voice from the back. We both turned and looked into the rear of the car. Mr Meakle had changed back. A thin, rather pathetic-looking man was sitting in the back seat, completely naked and very muddy. His hands were clasped modestly over his genitals.
‘Mr. Meakle! Welcome back!’ said Spike, grinning broadly as he added in a scolding tone: ‘You didn’t take your tablets, did you?’
Mr. Meakle shook his head miserably.
I thanked Spike again. As he drove off I could see Mr. Meakle waving to me a bit stupidly through the rear window. Spike did another U-turn, causing a second car to brake hard, and was gone.
I stared at the sports car on the front row of the lot under a banner marked ‘Bargain’. There could be no mistake. The car was definitely the one that had appeared before me in my hospital room.