And If Thou Wilt, Forget

The ringing of his mobile phone jolted Tim out of what was admittedly not a sound sleep. The nightmare had been one of the more peaceful ones—wandering the Night Market only to discover a table full of framed pictures that proved, on closer inspection, to be the stretched-out skin of the faces of the people he loved wasn’t exactly pleasant, but at least it didn’t involve anything chasing him or attacking him or forcing him to do the skinning—but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been flailing about, which he could deduce from the fact that Gerry’s entire body weight lay across him, keeping him pinned to the mattress.

“Jesus Christ,” Gerry hissed from somewhere above him. A hand snaked towards the nightstand.

Tim slipped his arm under Gerry’s and grabbed the phone. “Sorry, Ger,” he murmured, thumbing the appropriate button to accept the call. “Stoker.”

Gerry slid off of Tim and spooned against his back, pressing a kiss to his bare shoulder, as Martin’s panicked voice came over the line. “Tim? Tim, it’s Martin.”

“Martin?” Tim blinked hard. The bedroom was still dark, and while there was only one window and they had decently thick curtains over it, it still caught the morning sun around the edges if the sky was remotely light. “What time is it?”

“Eleven thirty-seven.” Martin sounded suddenly contrite, but still panicky. “Sorry, sorry, I hope I didn’t—I-I mean, of course I woke you up, that’s stupid, I don’t—”

“Martin.” Tim closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He liked Martin, didn’t mind talking to him, and certainly it was difficult for him being trapped at the Institute while the rest of them got to go home, even if Jon was keeping longer and longer hours and kept coming in over the weekends. But it was late—or early depending on how you looked at it—he was still tired, and the faces in his nightmares were hard to shake, which was all combining to make him have trouble holding onto his patience. “Just spit it out, okay?”

“Sasha’s been attacked.”

Tim was upright before he was even aware he’d broken free of Gerry’s embrace, and he was only peripherally aware of a soft thud followed by the tick-tick-tick of claws on wood. “What?!”

Martin’s breath was coming in fits and starts; it sounded like he was hyperventilating. “I don’t, I don’t know—she turned up a bit ago and woke me up, I don’t even know how she got in, I-I thought the doors were locked, but she’s here, a-and she’s hurt, she was bleeding, I—”

“Okay, okay, hold on, slow down.” Tim swung his legs over the side of the bed and bunched the comforter up in his other hand. “Is she still there?”

“Y-yeah, yeah, she’s, I-I’m trying to find the first aid kit, but I—I don’t—”

“Martin, calm down, the first aid kit is in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet next to the computer desk. Make sure the doors are locked. I’m on my way. Did you call Jon?”

“No, I—I called you first, I—he, you know, he never gets any sleep and—”

“He’s the boss.” Tim felt for the light and snapped it on. A curse from behind him made him remember that Gerry was there, and he turned to throw him an apologetic glance. All he could see was the top of his head…on the far side of the bed. Oops. “He needs to know. Call him. I’ll be there as quick as I can. Do you need anything? What about Sasha?”

There was a brief pause and a faint rustle. “Um, she says she could use a coffee?”

Tim blinked, momentarily caught off guard by the request. Coffee? At midnight? He rallied as fast as he could. “Sure. I can do that. You?”

“N-no. No, I’m—I’m good.” Martin drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “Thanks for coming, Tim. I’m, I’m going to call Jon now.”

“You do that, Marto. See you soon.” Tim ended the call without further ado and let out a string of Italian hot enough to blister paint.

The mattress shifted behind him, and he turned to see Gerry haul himself over the edge of the bed. “Gertrude?”

“Sasha. Martin said she was attacked.”

Gerry mumbled a few French curses under his breath. “What happened?”

“I dunno. I’ve got to get over there.” Tim slid off the bed and got to his feet.

“Are you taking the dog?”

“Sasha’s afraid of dogs. I just have a feeling this is going to be an all hands on deck sort of situation.” Tim grabbed a shirt out of the laundry hamper and dragged it over his head, then kissed Gerry briefly. “Go back to sleep. I’ll see you when I get home.”

“Yeah, no, not happening, Stoker. I’m up now.” Gerry sighed and stood himself. “Call me when you leave. Or, you know, if there’s anything going on you need me to help with. And maybe put some trousers on?”

“These are fine.” Tim slid into a pair of loafers and reached for the bedroom door. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

It took Tim a bit longer than he would have liked to find a place that was open this late at night and still sold coffee, but eventually he managed to find one. Apparently he paid more attention to Sasha’s coffee drinking habits than he thought, because he placed the order without having to think twice about it and was able to get out fairly quickly. As he drove the streets of London towards Chelsea and the Institute, he tried to get his thoughts in order. It wasn’t easy.

Martin had mentioned the first aid kit, which meant Sasha was likely hurt-hurt, in a very visible and yet presumably treatable way—yeah, he’d said she turned up bleeding. It also likely meant she wasn’t too badly hurt, or Martin, even as rattled as he clearly was, would’ve insisted on calling 999. That was good, actually, it ruled out a few of the worse Fears. If it was the Corruption, there was no reason for it to have waited so late, let alone for her to have come back to the Institute, so probably something had got her between work and now and she’d gone back seeking sanctuary. Probably wasn’t the Slaughter or the Flesh, almost certainly wasn’t the Desolation. Likely wasn’t the End or the Hunt, since neither of them would have had much interest in hurting her—maybe the Hunt if it had been trying to slow her down, or mark her out for later, but the balance of probability was on the side of it not, which was a good thing, really. The Vast and the Buried didn’t tend to make you bleed, not from what Tim had seen, and they were the Eye. The Web and the Lonely weren’t particularly physical, and the Web also wasn’t particularly subtle about its direct attacks…unless it wanted Sasha to go back to the Institute for some reason and manipulated some completely ordinary person into attacking her in a way that would drive her back to the Archives for at least the illusion of safety.

“Frith in a barn,” Tim muttered as he tapped on his brakes to avoid the lone other car out on the streets tonight. If he was being realistic, the likelihood of the Web manipulating events was actually extremely high. After all, Martin had been investigating what was very obviously a Web statement when he stumbled on Jane Prentiss, and there was no legitimate reason for her to be there; something must have drawn her, and the only possibility Tim could come up with was that the Web was involved. Gertrude had mentioned that the Web and the End were the only two Fears that really saw the future—the End because everything eventually died, the Web because it saw the patterns emerging on the tapestry of fate—and the Mother of Puppets had probably known that someone from the Institute would eventually come round to investigate Carlos Vittery’s death, and nudged Jane Prentiss to take up residence in the basement so she’d have a nice, juicy target to carry her back and invade the Archives. For whatever fucking reason. Maybe just to weaken the Archives enough that Tim, and by extension Gertrude when she got back from wherever she was, wouldn’t have enough left to stop the Web’s ritual when it eventually kicked off. Maybe just for shits and giggles.

Luckily, Tim reckoned that even if the Web could see the shape of the future, it wasn’t going to be a hundred percent on the finer details, and it wasn’t necessarily accurate either. Besides, he was Catholic; he didn’t believe in determinism. Events weren’t inevitable until they happened, and saying otherwise was a bullshit way of denying your culpability or responsibility for your own choices.

The point, he thought as he waited at a stoplight near the Thames, was that even if the Web had pushed something to attack Sasha, it wasn’t what had attacked her directly, and they’d need to be prepared. Which, really, left the Stranger or the Spiral, with an outside possibility of it being the Dark, or someone serving the Dark who’d wanted revenge. It had been over a year, though, and would it have gone for Sasha instead of Tim if it couldn’t find Gertrude? He doubted it. If the Dark was going to go after anyone, it would have attacked him when he was investigating Hither Green Cemetery—it would have followed him, not gone after someone completely uninvolved.

So. Stranger or Spiral. His money was on the former; he and Gerry were still investigating the Unknowing, and it didn’t seem to be coming up imminently, but if they’d poked too close to something it might have gone after one of the others to warn him off, or to lure Gertrude out of hiding if it thought she knew about them.

Only one way to find out. He pulled up to the curb in front of the Institute.

The side door was locked, which was good, since it meant Martin had calmed down enough to follow instructions. Tim clicked on his torch automatically once the door was shut behind him, locked it again, and headed across the floor as quickly as he safely could. The overhead lights weren’t on, but there was some light coming from near where the desks were. He assumed it was somebody on their computer until he got close enough to see Martin with a torch balanced carefully on its end, muttering to himself as he sorted through the contents of the first aid kit. His hair was a mess, he was shirtless, and his eyes, behind the glasses, were bloodshot, either with exhaustion or from crying.

He jumped and started up as Tim got closer, then relaxed a fraction. “Oh—Tim, it’s you.”

“Hey.” Tim set Sasha’s coffee on the desk and leaned over to give Martin a hug.

Martin returned the embrace fiercely. Tim felt his fingers bunch up the back of his shirt, took note of the way he pressed himself close and the way he trembled faintly, and realized that he was still well and truly scared. He immediately shifted into Big Brother Mode without conscious thought. “It’s okay, it’s going to be okay. I’m here, you’re safe, Sasha’s safe, everyone’s safe. Where is she?”

“Jon’s office,” Martin mumbled, his face still buried in Tim’s shoulder. “She wanted to—to give him her statement. I, I just wanted to w-wait for you and…”

“Shh. It’s okay,” Tim said again. “I’m here. It’s going to be okay. You did good, Martin.”

“I did?” Martin looked up at him with huge wet eyes. He was almost pathetically eager for praise—no, reassurance, to know that he’d done the right thing, that he’d proved his worth. It made Tim think of Nott, from Unseen Academicals, anxiously asking if he had provided worth—and like Glenda, it made him want to beat the hell out of anyone who had ever made him believe he had to earn that.

“Yeah, you did,” he assured Martin, keeping his voice as low and soothing as he could. If he let on that he was angry, Martin might think he was angry at him, which would just make him angrier, at himself this time. “You kept your head, you called for backup, and you got Sasha taken care of. You did everything you were supposed to. This isn’t your fault.”

“I—I-I know, it’s just—”

“And she came back here,” Tim pointed out, cutting off Martin’s self-recriminations before they could really take hold. “Not to the hospital, not to my house or Jon’s, not even back to her house to rest and recuperate. She came here, where she knew you were, when she was hurt and scared and needing help. That’s something, yeah?”

Martin managed a small, weak smile. “Yeah—yeah, I guess. Thanks, Tim.”

“Sure.” Tim rumpled Martin’s hair affectionately before his brain fully caught up to the fact that this wasn’t actually Danny, then decided to just let it go, since Martin didn’t seem upset about it. In fact, his cheeks had gone faintly pink. “C’mon. Let’s go give Sasha her coffee…did she explain to you what was going on?”

“Not really. Just that she was okay, and she wanted a coffee, and she wanted to make a statement.”

Tim nodded and led Martin over to the Archivist’s office. The door was ever so slightly ajar, which Tim took as an invitation to enter without knocking.

The old fashioned lamp on Gertrude’s desk—Tim still couldn’t think of it as anything but—illuminated the room in a warm, almost cozy glow that belied the slight tension in the air. Jon, looking grim and exhausted, was just switching off the tape recorder, and Sasha sat opposite him looking uncomfortable and tense. Both of them looked up when Tim and Martin entered the room.

Tim zeroed in on Sasha. “Hey. Are you okay?”

He offered her both the coffee and a hug. Unsurprisingly, because she didn’t like looking weak in front of anyone but especially not anyone in the Archives, she only accepted the coffee. “I’m okay,” she said, in a voice that probably would have fooled anyone who hadn’t spent two years dragging Gerard Keay’s emotions to the forefront kicking and screaming. “It was just a scratch, really.”

Tim ran a practiced eye over Sasha. She was still wearing the dark green blouse and terracotta houndstooth check trousers she’d worn to work, but not the matching suit jacket, and the right shoulder was shredded, the torn place dark with dried blood. More than that, her clothes were wrinkled and grimy; her hands were relatively clean, but Tim had already seen the dirty wipes on Martin’s desk. “You look like you went a few rounds with something nasty.”

Sasha’s eyes strayed to the tape recorder on the desk. Tim shook his head before either she or Jon could say anything. “Not asking you to go over the whole thing again, just…what happened? Anything we need to worry about?”

“Yes,” Sasha said quietly. She looked up at Tim seriously over the rim of her coffee cup, and the gray-green eyes that, combined with her bright red hair, must’ve had her called Anne more than a few times in her childhood were faintly terrified, despite doing her best to hide it. “It’s a long story, but—well, I found Timothy Hodge.”

Martin sucked in a breath. “The one whose girlfriend got…attacked by Jane Prentiss?”

“Yes. She got to him, too. He was—a lot like you described Jane Prentiss as looking.” Sasha’s eyes flicked over to Martin briefly, then cut away almost instantly, like she was embarrassed by something. “I, he didn’t get me, or…well, I didn’t feel him get me, but there was a worm in my shoulder. Michael dug it out.”

“Who’s Michael?” Martin and Tim asked in unison.

Sasha glanced at Jon, who was already rewinding the tape and pausing to play it briefly before rewinding again. Finally, he started playing it and let it play. Sasha’s voice, calm and rational and hanging onto the thin edge of panic, spooled out of it. “—figures below was…off, slightly. It looked too tall, the limbs and body were very thin and almost wavy, like they didn’t have any structure or bones to them. I couldn’t make out a face, but it was the hands that were the most bizarre. They seemed to be stretched and inflated by the distorted light, until they were almost the size of the rest of the torso. The fingers were long and stiff, and seemed to end in sharp points. It stood—”

Jon cut the tape off at that. Martin looked scared, and slightly as if he was about to be sick. Tim worried at his lower lip, but inside he was running scenarios. It was definitely some aspect of the Spiral, but what could it have had to do with Timothy Hodge? Aloud, he asked, “Where did you meet…him?”

“It. It was definitely an it.” Sasha took a sip of her coffee. “It was waiting for me outside my flat. And then again at my favorite café. And last night I met it at Hanwell Cemetery, and followed it to an abandoned pub in Azalea Close, and that’s where I found Timothy Hodge. He tried to attack me, but Michael just…watched.”

“How did you fight him off?” Martin blurted out.

“The fire extinguisher. As soon as the CO2 gas hit the worms, they all died.”

Tim frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Jon looked up at Tim, scowling, but he was obviously worried. “Why not? What do you know about these worms that makes you think the carbon dioxide shouldn’t have killed them?”

“Nothing, but why was there a CO2 extinguisher in a pub? Abandoned or otherwise? Those are only for electrical fires really, you can’t use them for cooking fires. It should’ve been a wet chemical extinguisher, or else the ABC powder ones that do everything but cooking fires.” Unconsciously, Tim spun the ring around his middle finger. “Or a water mist extinguisher, but shit, those are expensive.”

“How do you know that?” Jon persisted.

“Not long after Elias insisted on Mister Megabytes being installed, it caught fire,” Tim said. “I got it out, thankfully. I also suggested Gertrude put in a proposal to have the fire suppressant system in the Archives updated, but I don’t know if she got it in or not. Anyway, that’s what the smaller extinguisher in the supply closet is. The bigger one with the red band is just water.”

“Which won’t help. I’ll talk to Elias about that system, and if nothing else, I’ll see if we can get some extra extinguishers for the Archives.” Jon rubbed his forehead. “Sasha, are you sure you don’t want to take some time off to recuperate?”

Sasha hesitated, then nodded. “Actually, yeah, I think I will. I’m—I’m tired, and I don’t…I need a few days. Sorry, Jon.”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t willing to let you have it,” Jon said. “Take a week, and call me next Friday to discuss if you’re ready to come back. But…do be careful. If this…Michael knows where you live…”

“I’ll be careful.” Sasha sighed and took a deep swig of her coffee.

Martin worried at his lower lip. “Will you be okay to get home?”

“Yes, she will,” Tim said firmly. “Because I’m giving her a lift. No, don’t argue with me,” he added when Sasha opened her mouth to protest. “It’s late, it’s cold, the Tube isn’t running at this point, and you’ve already run into one thing that wants to kill you today.”

“It didn’t want to kill me. It said it wanted to help,” Sasha argued.

“I’m not talking about Michael, Sash.” Tim also didn’t buy for a minute that it wanted to help. Not out of the clear blue sky. Not without an agenda. “Whatever was left of Timothy Hodge might not have been all there, but it was aware enough to want you dead, so you’ll forgive me if I want to at least make sure you get home safe.” He turned to Jon. “How did you get here?”

“I drove.” Jon rubbed at his eyes under his glasses. “I—I think I might stay the night. If you don’t mind the company, Martin. I don’t think it’s a smart idea for me to drive right now, and I might as well stick around and get some work done in the morning.”

Tim had been on the verge of offering him a ride home as well, but he changed his mind. Martin needed company, even if it was the grumpy old cat masquerading as an archivist, and it probably would do Jon good too. “Right. I’ll bring donuts in the morning then. Ready, Sasha?”

“Yeah.” Sasha got to her feet and gave Jon and Martin a long, serious look. “Stay safe.”

Neither of them spoke again as Tim led her across the Archives and out the door, then carefully locked it behind them before escorting her to his car. She seemed mildly surprised by it for some reason, but stayed silent as she climbed into the passenger seat and leaned her head against the window. Tim extracted her address from her, then set off across London.

He waited until they were maybe five minutes from her building before he finally broke the silence. “Now that it’s just us, nobody you need to impress, no one you need to b e strong for—are you okay?”

Sasha was silent a moment longer. Tim was just about ready to conclude she didn’t plan to answer when she said quietly, “I told him we should all quit.”

Tim glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She was picking at the cardboard sleeve on her coffee cup and staring at the dark streets beyond. For a moment, he considered calling her out with a deadpan you know Elias probably won’t just give you the Archivist position even if Jon does quit, but he decided against it. She was curiously vulnerable right then and he didn’t want to start a fight. “You reckon we should?” he asked instead.

“Yes.” Sasha exhaled heavily. “This isn’t a normal job, Tim. It’s…dangerous. I don’t know why you’re still doing it.”

Tim shrugged one shoulder. “’My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run and until he says otherwise I shall stay here.’”

Sasha blinked and looked away from the window. “What?”

“Is this your building?” Tim pulled up in front of the address she’d given him.

“Oh—yes.” Sasha turned in some confusion, then turned back to Tim. “Thanks. For the ride. For the coffee. For…coming.”

“Hey.” Tim gave her what he hoped was a winning smile. “You guys are my crew now. I’m not letting anything happen to you.”

“Thanks.” Sasha managed a smile in reply. “Look after them. I’ll—I’ll see you later.”

Tim watched her fumble with the seatbelt, then said quietly, “You’re not going to try and quit, are you?”

Sasha froze and looked up at him, then sighed and shook her head. “Too curious, I suppose.”

With that, she climbed out of the car and headed into the building.

Tim watched her go, then plucked his phone from the cup holder and dialed. Two rings, and then Gerry’s voice came in strong. “Hello?”

“Hey, babe, it’s me.”

“Tim, hey. Everything okay? Do you need me?”

“Always,” Tim teased. Gerry gave a protracted and exaggerated groan. “But I’m on my way back. Had to give Sasha a ride home. I’ll explain as best I can when I get there.”

When he arrived back at the flat, he found Gerry seated at the kitchen table with two steaming mugs of tea in front of him. Tim slid into his seat and accepted the tea thankfully, then dropped a hand to scratch Rowlf behind the ears. Gerry watched him for a moment. “So? What happened?”

“Best I can tell without listening to the actual statement, Sasha encountered some aspect of the Spiral.” Tim quickly recapped everything Sasha had said. “I didn’t want to listen to her statement in front of Jon, not when he just recorded it—he was exhausted enough, and you know the real ones have power and sometimes they take it from others in the listening—but I think I can piece the basics together about her encounter. I almost thought it might be that Distortion thing you told me about.”

Gerry hummed thoughtfully. “Could be. Ticks all the boxes, anyway.”

“Yeah, my only worry is that it calls itself Michael.” Tim sipped at his tea. “She was pretty adamant that it was an it, not a he, and I don’t think she believes that’s its real name. I don’t either.”

“I don’t see why not. Lots of avatars have names.”

“Because they were people first. The Distortion’s been around forever, you said, and it never had a name, did it?”

“No, not that I know of,” Gerry admitted. He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Well, if she’s going to be out for a few days, maybe it’s a good opportunity to look into her background.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “You think she knows it?”

“I think she knows someone called Michael,” Gerry said. “Maybe even a tall, blond one. It might be using a name and a face she remembers to get her to trust it.”

“It’s possible,” Tim admitted. “Might be why she’s so upset about it and so insistent it’s an it. I’ll look into it.” He stifled a yawn. “Not tonight, though.”

“No. You can wait until Monday.”

“I’m going into the Institute tomorrow. Jon’s spending the night, I want to keep an eye on him and Martin.” Tim laughed, which quickly turned into a yawn. “Maybe I’ll bring Rowlf this time.”

Rowlf’s tail thumped twice under the table. Gerry laughed. “I’d volunteer to go, too, but I don’t really think this is a good time. For now, though, let’s go back to bed. C’mon. Maybe you’re tired enough now that you’ll sleep without dreaming.”

“I’d like to dream. I’d just like to not have nightmares.” Tim got up and kissed Gerry quickly. “Let’s give it a go. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Stoker, never say that unless you really want to risk finding out.”