Charlie is exactly as pleased to see Jon as Tim thought he would be. He attacks Jon in a huge bear hug and readily accepts the offer of ice cream. He wants to hear all about Jon’s trip, which, well, they all should have expected. Somehow, Jon manages to satisfy his curiosity without telling him about his research, or about being kidnapped.
“Will you take me with you next time?” Charlie asks as they’re walking back home. There’s not enough room for them to walk four abreast, so he’s holding Jon’s hand, swinging it back and forth as they walk just ahead of Tim and Martin. He’s almost skipping, half-turned so he can see Jon but also see the others.
“Next time?” Jon repeats.
“Next time you go on a trip. Can I come, too?”
Jon looks momentarily stuck, and Tim finds himself reaching for Martin’s hand. “We—we’ll see.”
Charlie’s face falls. “That means ‘no.’”
“That means ‘we have to make sure it’s okay with your grandmother for us to take you out of town,’” Jon corrects him. “And that you aren’t in school. And, depending on where we go, that you have a passport. But we’ll see. All right?”
Just like that, the smile blooms on Charlie’s face again. “Okay!”
Jon manages to redirect the conversation to school and books, and Charlie chatters for the remainder of the walk, only falling silent when they reach his door and his grandmother stands in the doorway and orders him inside. As usual, she addresses him clearly and deliberately by the wrong name, and Tim, still a bit raw from the revelations of the day, almost blows up at her before Martin stops him with a gentle hand to the arm and a shake of the head. Tim fumes, but he respects Martin enough to withdraw.
“Tim, it won’t be any help if you tell her off,” Martin says once they’re safely inside. “Especially if you yell at her. It won’t change how she treats Charlie, and honestly she’ll just take it out on him. Trust me.”
Jon, who’s been in the act of shrugging out of his jacket, freezes, and he and Tim exchange horrified looks. Jon opens his mouth, then shuts it and gestures for Tim to ask—which, Tim realizes, is sensible. Jon’s afraid of compelling an answer out of Martin, and if he doesn’t want to answer…
On the other hand, Tim doesn’t beat about the bush. “Did your mum hit you?”
Martin sighs heavily. He looks knackered. “Only once or twice. She didn’t need to, really. It usually cowed me enough when she just shouted.”
Tim wordlessly crosses the room to hug Martin just as Jon does the same.
It’s Martin’s turn to cook, so he fixes dinner while Jon tells them in more detail about his trip. Tim sincerely hopes that Julia Montauk and Trevor Herbert don’t actually turn up looking for Jon, especially since they have neither Daisy Tonner nor the Not-Them available to unleash on them, but mostly because he really doesn’t want Jon getting any more hurt. Martin’s hands are shaking and he drops something twice, which isn’t like him. At first, Tim thinks the story is scaring him, but by the end of dinner, he realizes that Martin is absolutely exhausted.
“Martin,” he says gently, “are you okay?”
“Hmm? Yeah, yeah. Just—” Martin waves a hand. “Bit tired. You know how it goes.”
“Have you been sleeping?” Jon asks. He glances at Tim, like he expects Martin to lie.
Martin has been sleeping, that’s the thing—and then it hits Tim. “You took two statements in a row this week. And Peter Lukas showed up. Then the tape…you’re overloaded.”
Immediately, Jon gets up and begins gathering the plates. “Go lie down,” he tells Martin. “We’ll clean up in here and join you in a minute.”
It’s got to be a measure of how tired he is that Martin complies right away. Tim puts away the leftovers while Jon puts the dishes in the sink to soak. He gives Tim a worried glance. “I’ll wash them in the morning, but you know our Martin, he won’t even try to rest until we’re there.”
Tim nods; he knows how Martin is all right.
They get the kitchen at least a little buttoned up, then head to the bedroom. Sure enough, Martin is still awake, but he is at least in bed, sitting with his back against the headboard and his arms on his knees, staring vacantly at the wall opposite him. He looks up and manages a smile when they come in. Tim automatically smiles back. The three of them settle down with Martin in the middle this time, and apparently they’re all tired, because they drop off in a matter of minutes despite it being barely dark.
Tim wakes up early from a nightmare that’s eerily reminiscent of the statement he took last week to find himself curled close to Martin, his face buried in the soft, warm skin at the back of his neck. As his eyes come into focus, for a moment, the scars glow their eerie yellow-green, and Tim has to look away. He starts to roll out of bed, only to be stopped with a gentle touch to his arm.
He looks back. Jon has reached over Martin for Tim. His head is half-raised from the pillow as he looks at Tim. Tim’s breath catches in his throat, because his eyes are still apparently firmly in Fear-O-Vision. Jon’s eyes, or what of them are visible through his long, dark lashes, glow a deep and vibrant green; the purple threads of the Web overlay his face, and on his bicep is what looks to Tim like a bright red handprint. The soft, sleepy smile on his lips is one hundred percent Jon, though. “Hey,” he murmurs.
“Hey,” Tim murmurs back. It’s impossible not to return the smile, even if it hurts. “Go back to sleep, Jon. It’s okay.”
“Don’t leave.” Jon’s smile melts off his face. “’S not safe.”
“I’m just going to the bathroom. I won’t leave,” Tim promises.
“’Kay.” Jon’s head drops back onto the pillow, and his fingers slide off of Tim’s arm. Tim wonders if he actually woke up at all or if that was done in his sleep.
He slips out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, braces himself against the sink, and stares at his face in the mirror. His eyes glow green, too—maybe not as intense as Jon’s, but still vivid—but what catches his attention is the left side of his chest. There’s a mark there, glowing like a neon sign on a rainy night—a bright indigo slash, almost a fissure, crossing in a jagged line directly over his heart. Like someone has tried to cut him open and drag it out.
Which, he supposes, it has. First Danny, then Jon being snatched off the street, then Martin and the Not-Diana…three times the Stranger has gone for someone Tim loves. Once it has succeeded. He vows anew that it won’t succeed again.
The statement pops into his head. The list Walter Sims saw, twenty-seven years ago. Tim’s not stupid. He’s figured it out. The names are in order of death, and his name is ahead of Jon’s and Martin’s, which means he’s going to go first. It’s not unexpected; he is almost three years older than they are, and even if that isn’t that big of an age gap, he’s still older and it’s natural he’ll die before they do. But he doesn’t think he’s going to have the luxury of dying of old age. He’s almost completely sure that the Unknowing is going to kill him, and that the reason the date of his death was obscured on that list is that the Unknowing isn’t a fixed date.
So be it. If he’s going to burn, he’ll burn bright, and he’ll take as many of them down as he can while he does.
He rubs a hand over his face and glances over his shoulder towards the bedroom where the men he loves—the men he’s willing to die to protect—are sleeping wrapped up in one another. He knows he can’t tell them how he feels about them now; he has no right to drop that on them and then leave them to deal with it forever. They’ll have…whatever they can get between now and the Unknowing. That will have to be enough.
He ought to go start breakfast, or make tea, or, hell, do some laundry or something. Anything to avoid going back to the bedroom. He ought to start cutting the cord now, setting up some distance. Make the break, because the longer he lets himself cling to them, the harder it’s going to be to let go, even though he knows he has to. And even if they don’t feel the same way about him that he does about them, they still care, and the last thing he wants is to make it harder on them when he does die.
Instead, he glares at his reflection until it goes back to normal, then returns to the bedroom and tries to wrap himself around both of them.
Somehow, he’s able to put it out of his mind for the rest of the weekend. They have exactly the weekend Jon asked for—a time to relax, to enjoy being in one another’s company. Saturday, after they all fully wake up, they collect Charlie and take him for a picnic by the Thames. Charlie is fascinated by the people rowing boats down the river; Martin offhandedly answers one of his questions, seemingly without thinking, and when pressed admits that he joined a rowing club as a way to pass the time after his mother went into a care home. It ends with them renting a boat and Martin rowing—he calls it “sculling”—them down the river. He even teaches them one of the shanties he learned as a boy so they can help him keep time with his strokes. Charlie’s got a good voice for his age.
Sunday they decide to go to one of the farmer’s markets set up in London rather than their usual grocery store run. Jon spots a used bookstore on their way and Tim and Martin indulge him, trailing after him while he roams happily through stacks of well-read tomes. Tim notices he avoids the more antiquarian sections, hesitates, and lets his focus relax, just slightly—just enough that he can see any of the marks that might be around. Fortunately, while the bookseller himself has red-orange striations dripping down his hands, none of the books appear to belong to any of the Fears.
It’s a nice, relaxing weekend, exactly what all of them need. Tim is admittedly less than enthusiastic about going back to work on Monday, but he figures he needs the reality check. He needs to remember that there’s no happy ending here. Not for him, anyway. He can’t stay in the cozy little domestic haven he’s built with Martin and Jon, pretending that’s what life has in store for him.
Sasha and Melanie both appear to have had good weekends as well. Melanie will only say that she “had a date” and refuses to elaborate, but Sasha enthusiastically tells them all about how she and Basira—whom she’s apparently become quite close to—have been setting up space in her flat for her uncle.
“By the way,” Sasha adds, pointing at Jon, “Basira says she and Daisy will help.”
Jon looks confused. “Help?”
“With the Unknowing. With…whatever the plan ends up being. You know, if we need a little extra muscle or expertise we don’t have or something.”
“O-oh. Right. Right.” Jon swallows hard. “We’d best go check out Gertrude’s storage unit, I suppose.”
“All of us?” Melanie asks.
“No…no, someone ought to stay here. Provide a distraction. I don’t want Elias knowing more than he has to.” Jon says this quietly and quickly.
“I’ll stay,” Tim says.
All four of the others look at him, startled. Tim tries not to look embarrassed or defensive. After a moment, Jon says, “I—I was rather hoping you’d come with us. After all, this is largely…this affects you far more than the rest of us. I’d like you to be at the forefront of the planning.”
“All the more reason I should stay here,” Tim says. “Elias knows about Danny. He’s got to. He knows how bad I want to take out the Unknowing. Which means that if I stay here…he’ll be less likely to think that’s what you’re off dealing with. I can be a distraction. I’m good at that.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Sasha offers. “Two heads are better than one.”
Jon looks unhappy, but takes a deep breath. “Right, okay. Melanie, you coming with us, then?”
“Yeah, sounds like a party.”
“Right.” Jon exhales. “We shouldn’t be too terribly long. If we’re not back by lunchtime—”
“Text Melanie and ask if she needs help hiding your body. Right.” Sasha winks. “It’s fine, Jon. We’ll see you when you get back.”
Jon smiles, reluctantly. “Right.” He squeezes Tim’s shoulder briefly, then heads to the door. Martin touches his arm and gives him a slightly worried look, then trails after him, Melanie stomping alongside him.
Sasha watches them go, then turns to Tim. “So, want to go set fire to the break room?”
Tim has no idea if Sasha is joking or not, but he shrugs. “Sure. I’m always down for a little light arson.”
The break room isn’t as crowded as it will be later on in the day, but there are enough people that ignition without detection is going to be difficult. Tim holds the door for Manal, who’s rushing out and looking a bit harried, salutes Rosie as she holds the powdered creamer up to the light suspiciously, and saunters over to the counter. Lacking any other reason to be there, he’s going to make a cup of coffee and either wait for a good opportunity or wait for Sasha to figure out how to start her fire unobserved.
There are already two people at the coffee pot, clearly in no hurry to be about their jobs. Scott, a Researcher who started the same week Tim did, leans casually against the counter with his mug in hands while chatting with someone Tim remembers seeing in the library the last time he was up there. Tim ignores them, mostly, as he fishes around in the cupboard for a mug…until he catches Jon’s name.
“—honestly don’t know why he bothered coming back,” Scott is saying, sounding derisive. “Not like he’s going to be here much longer.”
Tim whirls around. “What did you say?”
“Oh, come on, Tim,” Scott scoffs. “You work for the guy—well, when he bothers to come into the office anymore. How long’s he been gone this time? A month?”
“Two weeks,” Tim says tightly. “He was on a business trip.”
“Is that what he told you? Please. He probably fucked off to another country and left you all to deal with the chaos. Did he come back and complain about you messing up his precious system?”
“I was there when Elias sent him on the trip,” Tim bites off, setting a mug on the counter with a thump. “I know where he was, Scott.”
Scott’s eyebrows lift, and the curl of his lip gets more pronounced. “Oh. That explains it.”
Tim stares at Scott. “Explains what?”
“Why he gets so many privileges. Why he got that damned job in the first place. Sims is sure as hell no Archivist,” Scott says with a sneer. “And he practically gets away with murder down there, leaving you lot to take the fall, I’m sure…if there is any fall-out. But it all makes sense if he’s blowing Bouchard or—”
Tim hits him.
There’s no science behind it, no worrying about whether his thumb should be inside or outside his fist, no reaching for the forms he learned back in school where boxing was part of the curriculum. Just a sheer, forceful hook, straight from the shoulder to Scott’s jaw. The mug in his hand falls to the floor and shatters, sending hot coffee splashing all over the place, but Tim ignores it and launches himself at Scott.
A few people scream, others yell, and Scott tries to defend himself, but he’s no match for Tim, fueled by a combination of nervous tension and righteous anger. Scott fights back, but if he lands any blows, Tim can’t feel them. Chairs clatter, tables scrape, footsteps clatter, and several people are shouting suggestions about either who to fetch to stop this or what one of them should do to the other.
“You’re breaking my arm!” Scott screams, twisting about on his stomach and trying to shove Tim away with his feet.
“Only because I can’t reach your neck!” Tim shouts back.
“Break it up, break it up!” someone says gruffly from overhead. Somebody catches Tim’s fist when he pulls it back for another blow, someone else grabs him by the back of the shirt, and they drag him back from Scott, who scrambles away from him and manages to get to his hands and knees, breathing hard. Blood and coffee are smeared all over the floor of the break room; most of the former is still dripping from Scott’s face, but Tim is suddenly aware that his knuckles are torn and he can’t breathe out of his left nostril.
“What is going on in here?” The firm, crisp voice can only belong to Elias Bouchard, and Tim turns to see the man, crisp as usual in his well-pressed charcoal suit and narrow tie, looking at the mess of the break room and seeming faintly annoyed.
Scott snuffles and wipes his face with the back of his hand. Struggling to his feet, he points accusingly at Tim. “He attagged be!”
“Tim?” Elias turns his gaze onto Tim, one eyebrow raised.
Tim glares at Scott. “Damn right I did.”
Elias gives a long-suffering sigh. “Would anyone like to tell me why?”
A soft voice pipes up from somewhere in the direction of the coffee pot. “Mr. Tucker accused Jonathan Sims of sleeping his way to the top.”
The break room goes utterly still. A chill descends on the air. Elias stares unblinkingly at the library assistant Scott was talking to earlier, who is wide-eyed and looks like he can’t believe what he just said, but manages to meet Elias’s gaze anyway. Slowly, ever so slowly, Elias turns to look at Scott.
“Is that true?” he asks, every word falling with deadly precision.
Scott has gone white as a sheet. He opens his mouth and closes it several times, but Elias doesn’t give him the chance to speak. “My office. Now.” He turns to look at Tim, his expression stern. “Tim, go get that tended to, then go home. Take the rest of the day off.”
Tim doesn’t trust himself to speak. He simply nods.
Elias turns on his heel and strides out of the room after Scott, his soles unnaturally loud against the floor. The room stays silent for a long moment. Finally, Tim turns to look at the library assistant and says, a bit roughly, “Thanks.”
The assistant swallows and turns to look at him. “Sure. Uh—you need a hand?”
“I’ll get him to the clinic,” Sasha says, touching Tim’s elbow. “Thanks, though.”
The assistant nods, then turns and grabs a wad of paper towels off the rack. The noise in the break room starts up again, but subdued, as Sasha escorts Tim out of the room, cradling his right hand, which is beginning to throb with pain.
“Well,” she says at last as they exit the Institute. “That’s one way to cause a distraction.”
“Shut up, Sasha,” Tim says tiredly. He stops at the corner. “Look…you’d better get back to the Institute. In case the others call. I’m going to go to the clinic, and then I’m heading home. I promise.”
Sasha eyes him uncertainly, but either she reads his mind and knows he means it or she decides to take it on faith. “Okay. Just…take it easy, Tim. And please don’t get kidnapped or anything. I don’t want to have to explain that to Jon and Martin.” She hesitates, then kisses his cheek. “Also, that was so satisfying to watch. I’ve wanted someone to lay that dick out for years.”
Tim manages a laugh and makes his way down the block.
Zig at the front desk takes one look at him and waves him to the back. “You remember where to go, right? Where’s Martin?”
“Running errands with the boss. He doesn’t know about…” Tim gestures at himself and immediately regrets it when the movement jostles his hand. Damn, he broke a bone. “It’s nothing spooky this time, Zig. Just a fistfight.”
Zig looks skeptical, but nods. “Still. Best get that looked at.”
Dr. Early actually seems relieved Tim can accurately say what caused his injuries and that it isn’t usual Magnus Institute bullshit. He cleans up a few cuts Tim hasn’t noticed, assures him his nose isn’t broken, and sets his hand. Manipulating the broken bone causes a stab of pain that makes Tim’s vision flare for a moment, and when the blinding flash fades, the corners of the room and Dr. Early are all suffused in a green glow.
Great.
Tim leaves a few minutes later with his hand encased in a hot pink plaster cast and gets a thumbs-up and a grin from Zig, whose face and hands are striped with a mix of green and brown; his vision hasn’t settled, despite his best efforts, and he wonders idly when they fell afoul of the Buried. He returns the gesture as best he can and holds the door for a man who shuffles out, looking bone weary, and with wisps of indigo clinging to his shoulders.
“Thanks kindly,” the man says. “Bit of a shame, a guard not able to open a bloody door.”
“You’re a guard?” Tim asks politely.
“If I ain’t lost m’job, after last night.” The man rubs his shoulder, the one where the indigo glow is strongest. Tim clenches his jaw, trying to force the colors back. “Not a good look for a cemetery guard, is it, lettin’ someone get the drop on ‘em.”
A chill runs down Tim’s spine and he doesn’t know why. “What cemetery? What happened?”
“Roding Lane Cemetery. Been there nigh on fifteen years and nary an incident.” The man sighs heavily. “Then last night, I was doin’ rounds when I spotted some folks, bold as brass, diggin’ in one of the graves. Two big men and a woman. There was a coffin there with ‘em, so I reckoned as they were doing a burial, but after dark? I called out, and one of ‘em swung out at me with his shovel. Knocked me out good and proper. Didn’t come round for a couple hours.” He shakes his head sadly. “Proper shame. Proper shame. You hear of resurrection men and the like, but I thought those days were long past.”
Tim swallows hard. “Yeah. Did you recognize the people?”
“Nah, not as such. Remember seeing the van, though. I thought it odd. Most people bring bodies in a hearse, not a delivery van.”
The man heads off when they reach the corner with a friendly wave, but Tim’s head is buzzing. Two men and a woman, with a delivery van and a coffin, digging up a grave in the middle of the night and leaving the trace of the Stranger on a man who interrupts them? There’s only one possible explanation.
Orsinov, Breekon and Hope.
Tim should go home like he promised. He should go home and rest and…but he can’t. Not if getting this answer will mean a difference to Jon and Martin.
He turns and trudges towards the nearest Tube station instead.
Getting to Roding Lane Cemetery is a bit of a job, but Tim manages it. It’s relatively small, but it still might take him a while to find what he’s looking for. Taking a deep breath and slipping his good hand in his pocket to make sure his phone is actually there, he starts walking the rows. After a few minutes, he hears grunting and grumbling, punctuated by a metallic scraping, and instinctively knows it’s the sound of a shovel in dirt. Someone is either digging a grave…or filling one in.
He homes in on the sound and finds a weatherbeaten old man muttering to himself as he spades dirt into a hole. The man pauses and looks up at Tim with an unfriendly expression. “Here to gawk, are you?”
“Visiting family,” Tim lies easily. “Or trying to. Can’t quite remember where she’s buried.”
“Oh. Sorry.” The man relaxes a bit and goes back to what he’s doing. “Just got to fill in the hole, that’s all, sir, and I’ll be out of your hair. Hope this ain’t who you’re here to visit.”
Tim looks at the tombstone, and his stomach turns over. He really should have expected this. “Well…it was.”
“Oh.” Now the man looks uncomfortable. He hesitates, then sets the shovel aside. “I’ll…leave you to it, then, sir. Take some time. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
“Thanks.” The last thing Tim wants is to be left alone with a half-open grave, but that’s what he gets.
He stares at the tombstone for a minute. It’s simple and tasteful, bearing a name, a pair of dates, and a Bible verse. Matthew 7:7: Ask, and it shall be given ye; seek, and ye shall find. It’s either her favorite verse or darkly ironic or someone’s idea of a joke, and Tim’s not prepared to bet one way or another.
He genuflects, a reflex from childhood, and looks down into the grave. The casket is still partially exposed, a cheap wooden affair, and he can see the cracks and splintering on its lid. They really did a number on it trying to break it open.
“Is she still in there?” he asks the gravedigger when the man comes back. “Or is the casket empty?”
“She’s still in there, sir.” The man looks uncomfortable. “Well…most of her. I don’t want to be…” He trails off.
Tim stands, brushing the dirt off his knee with his good hand, and slides his other hand into his jacket to keep from using it. “She was my partner’s grandmother. He’s a horror writer,” he adds, hastily inventing an excuse. “Trust me when I say, family or no, there’s nothing you can tell me worse than some of the things he’s concocted.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” The man looks around, then shuffles closer to Tim and whispers, “They took her skin, they did. At least we assume it was her. They had what was left on top of the casket, her clothes next to her. It were a right mess.”
“Did they call the police?”
“No, sir. No, sir. No bad publicity. They’d shut us down, sir, and where would the mourners be?” The man shakes his head vigorously. “No, no coppers. Won’t never catch them anyway.”
“No,” Tim murmurs, tracing the name on the stone. “No, I’d imagine not.”
He stops at the office for a few words, then heads home to think.
When Jon and Martin come home several hours later, Tim sits on the sofa with his stocking feet kicked up on the coffee table, his laptop propped on his knees and the playlist from the day they moved in softly playing through the sound system. He doesn’t bother to fake a smile for them; they know he’s glad to see them and he doesn’t need to pretend to be all right. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Jon comes over and touches his cheek gingerly. “Are you all right? Sasha told me—Tim, when I said we needed a distraction, I didn’t mean ‘start a fight in the break room.’”
“That wasn’t my plan. I didn’t really have one. Sasha wanted to set it on fire.” Tim resists the urge to lean into Jon’s hand.
“Let me see.” Martin sits down on Tim’s other side and reaches gently for the casted hand. Tim lets him have it and turn it over gently. The whole hand is immobilized past the wrist. “One of the metacarpals?”
“Yeah. Don’t ask me what part of his face I broke it on.”
“Are you hurting? Do you need some paracetamol? Tea?”
“I’m okay,” Tim assures him. “It looks worse than it is. And, hey, it worked, right?”
Jon sighs. “I’d rather it didn’t involve you needing medical treatment, but yes. We got in and out of Gertrude’s storage unit without issue.”
“So what was in there?”
“Apart from quite a lot of miscellaneous junk and the remains of the gorilla skin? A large quantity of plastic explosives. Apparently her plan to stop the Unknowing was the one that involves blowing it to hell.” Jon rubs a hand over his face. “I was hoping it would be safer, but…well, here we are. We’ll have a planning session later this week, when Sasha can get hold of Basira and we can maybe get Daisy involved, and work out the logistics. Of course, a lot of it’s going to be theoretical at this point. We still don’t know when they’re going to be doing this. It could be months, it could be weeks.”
Tim clears his throat. “I think it’s going to be soon.”
Martin runs a gentle hand through Tim’s hair; he resists the urge to lean into it like a cat. “Why don’t I like the way you said that?”
“What makes you think so, Tim?” Jon asks gently. His eyes are worried.
“They were waiting on a skin, right? They wanted the gorilla skin, then they wanted yours, and when they couldn’t do that…” Tim swallows. “When I was at the clinic, there was a man leaving—he had the mark of the Stranger on him, and he told me he was a night guard at a cemetery and he’d been attacked by a couple of people digging one up. I went to check it out—”
“Tim!” Jon and Martin exclaim in unison.
“I know, I know! I just—it felt important,” Tim says. “It was important. I thought from the beginning it sounded like Orsinov with Breekon and Hope, and then I got there. The gravedigger was just filling it in again, and he told me the body had been skinned, and…” He rests the fingertips of his casted hand on Martin’s leg gently. “I saw the tombstone. It was Gertrude’s. They’ve got an Archivist’s skin after all. Guys…I think they’re almost ready.”