“…seventeen stitches, and they were keeping him a couple days to watch for infection,” Martin concluded, twisting around to see the other occupants of the car. “He’s supposed to be getting discharged this morning, though, so he’ll likely be back in the office on Wednesday.”
Sasha snorted. “Not tomorrow?”
“He has to get another note from his doctor first, I’m sure.”
Tim had insisted on giving Martin a ride in to work that morning, and Martin had acquiesced, partly because the transit route between the bookshop and the Institute was bloody inconvenient and partly because it meant they could talk, however briefly, before going in. (It also meant he got to see the look on Tim’s face when Gerry walked into the kitchen half-asleep and wearing nothing but his underpants, and the look on Gerry’s face when he realized that Tim, whom Martin had not informed him was coming over, was ogling him.) They had stopped to pick Sasha up from the coffee shop she usually popped into, having seen no reason to change her routine just because she’d met an eldritch abomination there once, and Martin had spent the last few minutes telling her about Melanie’s phone call from Friday night.
“Did he call Elias?” Tim asked, his mouth twisting into a sneer as he said the man’s name that Martin had only rarely seen. “Or are you going to have to do that?”
Martin shrugged. “I talked to Melanie, not Jon, but I don’t doubt for a minute that either Jon called Elias or Elias already knows.”
Sasha sighed. “I am not looking forward to working for someone who can just…pry into all my secrets at any time. Even if he hasn’t done it already.”
“Says the person who’s hacked every employment record at the Institute.” Tim pulled into a parking space and threw the car into park with an unnecessarily hard jerk of the gearshift.
For just a second, Martin saw the hurt in Sasha’s eyes, but she covered it up quickly. He thought about letting it slide, then decided, on the balance, no. “Hey, Tim, not cool, okay? Just because she looked at mine and Jon’s doesn’t mean she looked at yours too. Or anyone else’s.”
“How did you know I’d looked at Jon’s?” Sasha blurted, obviously startled.
“You called him out for lying about his age on his birthday last year. I figured you’d either read his file and seen his actual birth date or stolen his wallet at some point.” Martin unfastened the safety belt, then reached for his bag. “As for Elias, I have something for that.”
“Is it a projectile or something pointy?” Tim asked.
That Martin chose to ignore; Tim was clearly in a mood. Instead, he pulled two small objects out of his bag and held them out to Tim and Sasha, balanced on the palm of his hand. “Voila. That’s French for ‘ta-da.’”
It did, at least, make Tim crack a smile, and Sasha give that giggle-snort laugh of hers she only made when you truly surprised amusement out of her. She plucked one of them from Martin’s hand and turned it over a couple of times. “What is it?”
“I think it’s technically called an apotropaia, but that’s a pain in the ass to spell, so ‘talisman’ works.” Martin handed the other one to Tim. They were simple, small bits of leather sewn together in a tiny envelope about the size of a matchbook. Martin had spent several evenings patiently tracing the lines Gerry had kindly drawn for him with needle and thread while repeating the same poem over and over, and they were honestly as good as they were going to get. “Basically it’s a protective charm. It’s not…great, and it won’t work if you’re in the same room as him or if he tries really, really hard to get into your head, but it’ll at least keep you safe from…casual browsing, I guess. He’ll have to really try to see what you’re thinking.”
“Do you have one?”
“I’ve got something a bit more permanent.” Martin chose not to mention that it hadn’t been something he’d voluntarily put on himself. “And I know how to…guard my mind, sort of. We’ll help you guys with that, too, but this is a sort of stopgap measure.”
Tim rubbed the leather between his thumb and forefinger. “Is there somewhere special we should put it?”
Martin shook his head. “Nowhere special, just somewhere you won’t lose it. Melanie used to keep hers on a chain around her neck. I’d pin mine to the inside of my shirt.”
Sasha tucked hers into the inner pocket of her jacket. “Remind me not to take this off today…I assume it won’t work if we deliberately provoke him. Or, well—it’s not specifically anti-Elias, right?”
“Yeah, it’s…think of it as mosquito repellent. It creates a layer of protection that keeps things from knowing you’re there if they don’t already know you’re there, but if you stick your hand in a mess of them chances are one’s going to bite you.”
Tim tucked the one Martin had given him into his wallet, which he then returned to his back pocket. Martin figured it was better than nothing. “Right. In we go, then.”
The Archives didn’t look any different than they had before Jane Prentiss had attacked, really. The shelves still bristled with files in all sorts of disarray, a few neat folders still sat on the assistants’ desks, and the bulletin board still hung slightly crooked. The only real difference Martin could spot was that the window in the door leading to the document storage room had been scrubbed sparkling clean.
“Took Tim the better part of a day,” Sasha said, following Martin’s gaze. “The cleaning crew Elias hired did a decent enough job in here, once the repairs were done, but we gave it an extra scrub-down the first day we were back, just to be sure.”
“Thanks, Sash.” Martin unslung his bag and began setting up for the morning.
He was surprised at how easily he was able to slip back into the routine after the time he’d spent away—logging into his laptop, asking Sasha about her weekend, glancing at the files on his desk to see what he needed to prepare for. The only change from usual was that Tim took his mug out of his hands and went to make tea for all of them without a word.
Sasha watched him go. “I don’t think he’s handling this well.”
“He found a dead body in a hidden tunnel underneath his workplace, spent two hours getting grilled by the police over it, and then had to go back to work like nothing happened,” Martin pointed out. “That would be a lot for anyone to handle. Has he talked to you about it?”
“N-no. No, he hasn’t.” Sasha hesitated, then dropped her voice. “Has he…told you about Danny?”
Martin shook his head. His stomach lurched unpleasantly, and something in his mind itched, which made him hold up a hand. “Don’t tell me, please. Don’t…”
Sasha’s eyes widened in understanding. “No, I won’t. Sorry, I shouldn’t have…” She swallowed. “I just—I think maybe that’s all coming up, too.”
“If he won’t talk to you about it—” Martin bit off the rest of the sentence. Instinct told him that bringing up Gerry anywhere in the Institute—cluing Elias in that he was still alive, or alive again, or whatever Gerry’s status was—would be a very bad idea. “I’d ask, but I don’t know how much that would…help.”
“I…oh.” Sasha winced. “I’ll…try talking to him later this week. I wasn’t pushing, honestly.”
“I think right about now, Tim needs a little push.”
Tim came back in with their mugs of tea just as the clock in the corner of Martin’s computer flipped over to 8:00. In the same instant, the phone on Tim’s desk rang. He took the time to set the mugs on everyone’s desks before picking it up on the seventh ring. “Archives, Stoker speaking.” He listened for a moment, face impassive, then simply said, “Right,” before hanging up.
Martin didn’t need any kind of special powers to guess who had been on the other end. “Elias?”
“Yup.” Tim drew out the Y and popped the P like someone launching a rubber band off the end of his thumb. “Wants to see us in his office, immediately.”
Sasha sighed and took a deep swig of her coffee. “I knew I should’ve ordered a double. Let’s get this over with.”
Rosie was in her usual place, typing away on her computer. She’d dyed her hair again in the last few weeks, from a brassy gold to a vibrant merlot, and there were silver ribbons woven through the braids wrapped around the crown of her head. She looked up and offered Martin a warm smile and a cheery greeting, which he returned more than half mechanically before following Tim and Sasha into Elias’ office.
Elias was waiting for them, his hands folded on his desk and a pleasant smile plastered on his face. He, too, looked exactly the same as the last time Martin had seen him, except for the new and startling addition of a cloth patch, held on with a ribbon, covering his left eye. What was startling about it was less its presence than the fact that it was made of silk, and matched his tie.
“Ah. Martin. Welcome back.” Elias gestured to the three chairs in front of him. “Please, have a seat, all of you.” He waited for them to comply, then continued, “I appreciate you coming up first thing, but I feel the sooner we have this…discussion, the better. I’m sure Martin has already let you know that Jon will be out an extra day or two.”
“He mentioned it,” Sasha said with a glance at Martin. “Something about a stab wound?”
Martin nodded, and then suddenly decided to test the waters a little. “He told me what he told the paramedics—that he’d been surprised by a bum while out for a walk.”
Elias’ single uncovered eye gazed at Martin intently, but there was no little press of static—he wasn’t even trying to slip through Martin’s defenses. “And do you believe him?”
“I believe that that’s what he told the paramedics.” Martin stared Elias down like he had nothing to lose. If he wanted things out in the open, he was going to have to bring them out.
The standoff probably lasted no more than a second or two, but it felt like hours before Elias smiled slightly. The smile wasn’t condescending or patronizing or cruelly triumphant; Martin would have preferred any of those. Instead it was sly, almost conspiratorial—a smile that said we’re in on this together, you and I. It made Martin feel even dirtier than the phone call on Friday had.
“I think we understand each other,” Elias said, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers. “Whatever Jon ran into that caused his injury, it has a supernatural explanation. And for whatever reason, Jon wishes to keep that information from you.”
Tim started angrily, but Martin shook his head. “No, he’s right, Tim. Jon—you know how he gets. He, he probably thinks if he doesn’t tell us what he’s doing or what he’s looking into, it’ll keep us safe.” He paused, then added slowly, “And…you know, we did just find out Gertrude Robinson was murdered, and not by supernatural means. Jon’s probably worried he’ll be next.”
Sasha’s eyes widened a touch dramatically. “You don’t think he thinks one of us did it, do you?”
“I don’t think so.” Martin let a bit of uncertainty into his voice. “But I think he’s playing his cards close to his chest for now.”
“We’re not letting him get away with that,” Tim growled.
“Of course not,” Elias said. “However…I think it best, for now anyway, if Jon considers Jane Prentiss and…whatever he encountered in Sheffield…to be isolated incidents. Genuine supernatural encounters, by all means, but not connected.”
“But you think they are?” Sasha looked back and forth from Elias to Martin.
“They are,” Martin said, quietly but firmly. “ Remember I told you there was more going on than just a worm infestation? It’s…there’s a lot more out there than you know. And a lot of it is connected. Worse, it’s going to be after the Archivist.”
Elias nodded. “Martin can fill you in on whatever details you wish later—although I strongly suggest you not discuss them in front of Jon. However, I feel it is important that you know, at the very least, the broad strokes of the matter.”
Martin held his tongue through the ensuing explanation. Tim and Sasha played their parts beautifully, asking leading questions to get Elias to confess to more than he’d planned on while concealing how much they knew. Elias was surprisingly honest, although Martin knew exactly how much he was holding back. He also could see all the tiny, tempting little threads he was leaving hanging—threads that Sasha, at the very least, would absolutely start pulling on if he hadn’t already given her a baseline of knowledge.
At last, Elias turned to Martin. “As I said, Martin, you can fill in whatever details about this…situation you feel are necessary later, but remember that too much knowledge can be just as dangerous as too little. And I strongly advise you not to mention any of this to Jon until you’re certain he’s strong enough to handle it.”
The hair on the back of Martin’s neck stood on end. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Martin. Surely you realize that Jon is developing…abilities. And the closer he draws to…our master, the more powerful those abilities will become. But if you tell him too quickly, we both know he will push himself beyond his limits before he’s ready. And that could easily destroy him.”
Martin swallowed the bile that rose into his throat at the words our master, and he also swallowed the urge to protest that Jon would be safer if he knew what he was doing. Elias wasn’t entirely wrong, and anyway, the less he thought Jon knew, the better. “F-fine. Fine. But…you know Jon. He’s going to push himself anyway. I can’t—we can’t just leave him to his own devices. Paranoid or not, we’ll need to keep close to him.”
“Of course,” Elias agreed easily—too easily, Martin thought. He wondered if Elias was encouraging them to hover in hopes it would drive Jon’s paranoia up, make him suspicious that they were watching him too much. “In fact…here.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a key—a large, solid, old-fashioned key, black cast iron with surprisingly little rust on its body. He placed it on the desk. “This is the key to the trapdoor leading to the tunnels. I have no doubt that if left to his own devices, Jon would have stolen this and begun exploring them on his own—in fact, I’m not certain he hasn’t already.” He paused, but as Martin did not refute him, he went on. “I suggest one of you gives it to him, perhaps offers to accompany him in his…explorations. Whether he takes you up on it or not, at least you’ll know he’s down there, and you can keep an…eye on him.”
The three assistants looked at one another. Finally, Martin picked up the key, which felt surprisingly cold, and slipped it into his pocket. Elias beamed. “Good! Now, if there are no other questions…”
“Just one.” Something in Tim’s voice made Martin tense, and he looked over to see his friend leaning forward, scowling. “What would you say if I said I quit right now?”
“Tim,” Sasha gasped, the color draining from her face.
Elias didn’t bat an eyelash, or if he did, it was one hidden by the eyepatch. “You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
“Tim, I am being very literal. You cannot quit. You are bound to the Institute now, body and soul. The longer you’re away from it, the weaker you will become. I’m afraid an appointment to the Archives is one for life.” Elias rose. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another meeting in ten minutes. If you have any concerns that need my attention, please send a memo to Rosie and I will be down as soon as possible.”
It was as clear a dismissal as could be, and Martin gently hooked a hand under Tim’s elbow and steered him to the door.
“It’s good to have you back, Martin,” Rosie called, her eyes twinkling merrily as they passed her desk. “Don’t be a stranger.”
“How long has she had a crush on you?” Sasha whispered.
“Shut up.” Tim was being way too calm and docile and Martin was incredibly worried.
He was right to be. The second they were back in the Archives, Tim whirled on him. “Is he right?”
“Tim,” Sasha began.
“No, don’t.” Tim’s eyes almost burned holes in Martin’s. “Is he right? We’re trapped here?”
Martin hesitated. “He’s not as right as he thinks he is.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s—it’s not the Institute. It’s, well, it’s kind of the Eye, but—it’s like I told Jon the day of the attack. Upstairs, we could have walked away no harm done, but once we came down to the Archives…” Martin took a deep breath and decided to take a chance that Elias really did have a meeting and would be focusing on that rather than the three of them. “When I saw your Marks? The ones for the Eye were…they were like chains almost. And I couldn’t tell you where the lock was, if it was anywhere. So yeah, I think at this point we’re tied to the Archives themselves. O-or maybe it’s the Archivist. I dunno, Gertrude outlived all her assistants, so it’s not like there’s anyone around we could ask.”
Tim stared at Martin for a long moment. Abruptly, he turned on his heel and stalked off into the shelves. Martin exhaled heavily and sat down.
“He’ll be fine.” Sasha took her seat as well and downed a large swallow of her probably now cold coffee. “He’s not mad at you, Martin, you know that.”
“I know,” Martin said softly. “Still. I should have told you all sooner.”
“You did try. Like you said, you told Jon during the attack that you didn’t think any of us could walk away now. Not your fault we didn’t press you further on that.” Sasha opened her laptop. “I’ll take him to lunch later and try to get his head out of his ass. Meanwhile, let’s forge ourselves another yard of chain, shall we, Marley?”
Martin smiled slightly at the reference, and got to work.
Tim appeared calmer when he finally emerged from the stacks, but his eyes were slightly reddened and Martin didn’t bring it up. The three of them worked mostly in silence, almost like they’d done before, for the rest of the morning. Finally, lunchtime rolled around and Sasha convinced Tim to come with her.
“You’ll be okay alone, Marto?” Tim asked, sounding surprisingly reluctant as he got up.
Martin gave him a warm smile and a nod. “I’m fine. Brought lunch from home even, so you two take as long as you want. I can work through my lunch if I need to.”
Sasha winked at him before they headed out. Martin watched them go and then turned back to the files he was studying, hoping Tim came back in a better mood. Or at all. It would be just like him to decide to spontaneously take the afternoon off to test Elias’ assertion, or take the rest of the week off and go out of the country.
He was just considering taking five minutes to run to the break room for his sandwich when he heard a voice that, all things considered, he would rather not have heard. “Mr. Blackwood?”
Martin’s hand tightened around his pen, just for a second, before he looked up. He relaxed and hoped his relief didn’t show on his face when he saw that it was the police constable who’d come to get his and Jon’s statements after the attack, but not the detective who’d come with her at the time. “Oh—uh—Officer Hussein, right?”
“Call me Basira. I’m off-duty at the moment.” The officer, who was in plainclothes, looked around. “Where is everybody?”
“Um, Tim and Sasha are at lunch. Jon’s not back yet.”
Basira gave Martin a piercing look. He tried not to squirm. She might not have been like the detective, so tightly bound to the Hunt that Martin didn’t need his eyes to sense it, but she was still a cop and the plain fact of the matter was that most cops were at least Hunt-adjacent if they lasted in the job very long. “Thought Sims was supposed to be back today. That’s what Bouchard said.”
“He was, but he got himself stabbed by a bum over the weekend, so he’ll be out another day or two.” Martin thought about closing his laptop but decided that might make him look guilty. “Um, is there…anything I can help you with?”
Basira studied him. “I guess. You guys do…statements and stuff, right? Let people talk about stuff they’ve run into?”
Martin tensed as the faint prickle of static began building behind his eyes. He tried to sound normal. “Yeah, that’s…pretty much what we do. Is that what you want to do? Make a statement?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Basira tilted her head slightly. “Can you take it, or do I have to wait for Sims?”
“No, we can all take statements, it’s part of the job.” Martin did close his laptop this time and reached for the tape recorder he’d left sitting there, intending to transcribe Gerry’s statement at some point. “Um, tell you what, let’s—let’s go into the back here. It’s a little quieter, just in case someone comes down.”
“That happen often?”
“Some? Mostly it’s students doing research. Bit early in the term for that, though. And sometimes someone from Research will pop down to drop something off.” Martin stood and led Basira towards Document Storage. “Do you have a particular incident in mind you wanted to make your statement about?”
Basira shrugged. “Just kind of want to get it out in general. Mostly all happened since I got Sectioned.”
“Sectioned?”
“Section Thirty-One. That’s what we call it, being Sectioned. It’s…we get these, kind of weird cases? Stuff like you investigate here, only…criminal, not just spooky. There are only a few officers who handle them, and we have to sign that we won’t talk about it with people who don’t. Everybody knows the officers who work those cases, though.”
Martin had to admit, if only to himself, that he was intrigued.
Basira took the seat he directed her to and refused his offer of a cup of tea, then stared at the tape recorder when he switched it on, suddenly looking uncertain. “I really shouldn’t be talking about it on tape.”
“You came to us," Martin pointed out.
“Yeah, just…need to talk about it with someone, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
Basira stared at him intently. “I’m breaking the law by talking to you. You understand that?”
Martin nodded slowly. He almost said it wouldn’t be the first time he’d aided and abetted a crime, but he bit that back quickly—off-duty or not, she was still very much a cop, and one who’d dealt with some of the same bullshit the Magnus Institute investigated on an academic basis. Instead he said, “I think so. Some kind of non-disclosure agreement, right?”
“Pretty much.” Basira hesitated. “Do you need my real name?”
“No, we’ve had people give fake names before, or even make anonymous statements,” Martin assured her. “But from what you said, I kind of feel like it wouldn’t do a lot of good, you know? It’s not going to be too hard for people who know the situation to figure out it’s you who told us.” He hesitated. “Look, we take statements from people in your position all the time—you know, people who are talking about stuff they’ve signed agreements not to talk about. I can mark this ‘for internal use only’, and that means that it falls under our NDA, which is like crazy strict, like makes MI-6 look like an open book strict. Nobody outside the Institute is allowed to requisition it.”
Basira raised an eyebrow and folded her arms over her chest. “That’s the best you can do?”
“If you want this to be a formal statement, yeah, that’s the best I can do.” Martin leaned back in his seat and matched her posture. “If you’re that worried about your voice being recognized, I can get you one of our statement forms and you can write it out. One of us will make an audio copy later.”
“I’m not really big on writing. I’m more of a talker.” Basira relaxed, almost unconsciously.
Martin forced himself not to smirk, but inside, he was doing a triumphant dance. He’d never quite had Gerry’s charisma—or Tim’s, although there were professional courtesans without Tim’s charisma—so it was always a point of pride with him when he was able to win someone over. “Weird choice of job, then. Isn’t being a cop like eighty percent paperwork?”
“Not so much. Not since I became Section Thirty-One.”
“I suppose that’s a good place to start.” Martin straightened up and adopted a professional tone. “Statement of Police Constable Basira Hussein regarding her time investigating…strange occurrences as part of Section Thirty-One. Statement taken direct from subject, nineteenth September 2016.” He nodded to her. “Statement begins.”
The familiar static settled against Martin’s skin as Basira began to talk. Her experiences were fairly mundane, as encounters with the Fourteen went, although Martin’s ears pricked up at the mention of the little red leather book found with her first case that had got her Sectioned—at last they had a name to put with that unpleasant fellow Gerry had had to kill in the end. He tried not to flinch when she mentioned Detective Tonner, but it made sense that she’d been Sectioned years before Basira had even joined the force if she was that ingrained in the Hunt. He also wasn’t particularly surprised that she only had two official examples; like she said, these things didn’t leave a lot of evidence. It was why it had always been so hard to prove things to Jon.
“So why is Gertrude’s body considered a para—a weird case?” Martin asked. “Or is it?”
“I mean, we’re investigating it as a murder because that’s what it is, but you guys are basically an automatic Section Thirty-One, so I’ve got almost no help on it,” Basira told him. “Maybe that’s why I wanted to make a statement, you know? I can’t talk to anybody about this stuff, and then I come here, and you’ve got all this…all these people’s experiences listened to and filed away. It’s…I don’t know. I’ve been meaning to come in ever since that callout.”
Martin made sympathetic noises. “So it’s just you and—Detective Tonner?”
“Yeah, but she’s CID. Which I suppose means it’s technically her problem, but she’s also the only detective who’s already sanctioned now, so she’s always busy. I tried making the argument that the murder didn’t seem to connect to any of your ‘paranormal business,’ at least not directly, but nope. I’ve got a shot corpse, three boxes of cassette tapes, and Daisy.”
“Cassette tapes?” Martin repeated. It was the first time he’d heard anything about that. “Like…like statement cassette tapes?”
Basira shrugged. “Maybe. They’ve all got weird labels on them I can’t make heads or tails out of. As far as I know, neither one of us has had time to listen to any of them.”
“Where did you find them? Up here?”
“No, with the body. She was just surrounded by them.”
“Huh.” Martin hadn’t realized Gertrude was recording the statements, but it made sense, he realized. The recorders wouldn’t have been there if she hadn’t been using them.
He leaned over and shut off the recording, since the actual statement was done. “Wonder what she was doing with them down there. O-or do you think—the person who killed her put them with her?”
“Dunno. Answers might be on those tapes.” Basira cocked her head at him thoughtfully. “You really think they might be statements?”
“I-I mean, I never really met her, but she didn’t seem like the type to have a bunch of punk rock tapes or anything.” Martin shrugged. “And you said they had weird labels…they’re probably statements. Jon called her filing system ‘pointlessly awkward’ and he’s not altogether wrong.”
Basira hesitated, glancing at the recorder, but she seemed satisfied it was off and leaned in a bit. “Listen…what if I try to bring you some?”
Martin paused. “What?”
“I mean, I can’t—it’s not like I’m going to be able to bring you a lot of them at once. Probably just one at a time, when I can smuggle them out—they’re technically evidence, you know? But if I bring them to you, you might be able to figure out better than I can why she had them. If they were just random tapes she was hoarding or if she had a purpose for having those specific tapes with her.” Basira gestured to Martin. “You know her system and all that. You can probably figure out if these were the only copies or if the written statements are still on the shelves, and that’s a start, at least. No one but you and me has to know I’m giving them to you.”
There was a catch in this—there had to be. No police officer would willingly just hand over evidence to someone, even if her logic was sound. Then again, she wasn’t as tightly bound in the Hunt as her partner, so maybe she just wasn’t all that loyal to the police either. Whatever the case, Martin had to admit that he was curious about those tapes. If Gertrude had taken them with her, and for a purpose…maybe they would help them to figure out how to stop the Unknowing. Maybe there was a clue in there somewhere.
“All right,” he said. “I won’t say anything to my coworkers about it.” A lie. He was definitely going to tell them. “And if I come up with anything, you’ll be the first to know.”
Basira nodded. “Great. I’ll get you the first one as soon as I can.” She stood up. “Now. How the hell do I get out of this place?”