Sasha hadn’t been entirely sure what to expect, but she had to admit, she was curious about how the dynamics in the Archives would change with Jon’s return and the addition of Basira. Even before they left Elias’ office, she found herself formulating hypotheses and running scenarios in her head. Martin and Basira seemed to get on well enough, but that didn’t mean they’d be good coworkers. Same with Jon and Melanie, especially when the boss dynamic was factored in, even if that line got blurred in the Archives. Tim clearly didn’t think anyone should be working there at all, and Basira was hard to read. Then there was the matter of the statements. Would Jon want to go back to recording all of them, or at least all the real ones? And if he did, with what had been happening to Martin, how would that affect their relationship, working or otherwise?
As it turned out, she was completely off base on all counts.
Basira didn’t end up entering into the equation at all; since as far as she was concerned, her only role at the Institute was that of hostage, she passed her time sitting in a corner with a stack of books. Tim and Martin ignored her completely; Melanie occasionally asked a question, and occasionally got a halfhearted answer, but not much beyond that. Since Melanie had already been helping Jon, all his return meant was that she didn’t have to pretend to sneak around, and Jon slid back into the routine as though he’d never been away. He told Tim, Sasha, and Melanie that they weren’t required to keep recording any statements, much less the real ones, if they didn’t feel like they needed to; he and Martin had clearly had a separate discussion about them, though, because the possibility of him stopping was never broached, and on Wednesday he collected his stack of files to record as usual without comment.
And when it came to Jon and Martin’s relationship…well. For the most part, it was the same as always—out where everyone could see, anyway—but Sasha noticed Jon’s office door was propped open more often than not, so he had a clear view of the assistants grouped around their table, and that he frequently came out to talk with them about their research or findings. Inevitably, when he came out to do that, he perched on the corner of Martin’s desk, even if he was ostensibly talking to one of the others. And on Wednesday afternoon, she had poked her head in to check on Martin’s recording and found him and Jon sitting facing one another on the cot, Jon gently cradling Martin’s hand in his and a look of tender concentration on his face as he changed the dressing on his burn, Martin staring at Jon’s face with such a vulnerable expression that Sasha had to turn away.
Yeah, their relationship was doing just fine.
They were able to be a bit more open with what they were working on, now that Elias had “told” them about the Unknowing, but Sasha was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to know for sure about the other rituals. So by the time Friday afternoon rolled around, she assumed they were going to head to Cinnamon Rose Books in twos and threes and debrief. Whether they invited Basira or not was up in the air, but Sasha was betting on not. She didn’t seem particularly interested in all of the supernatural stuff, and Martin in particular had seemed really unhappy at the idea of her even working for the Institute. Sasha was looking forward to asking him about that.
About quarter to four, Melanie’s phone buzzed. Sasha assumed it was probably Gerry, since everyone else who might have tried to contact her was already in the Archives, but when Melanie looked at it, a funny look crossed her face. She hesitated, then tapped out a response before looking up at Sasha with a grin that was somewhere between cheesy and feral. “Hey, have you ever met Georgie Barker? From What the Ghost?”
Sasha blinked, a bit taken aback. “I talked to her on the phone once, when we were looking into your statement last year, but I’ve never met her. Why?”
“Want to? She’s suggested meeting up for drinks after work today. We could go and relax, make a girls’ night of it.” Melanie twisted around in her chair and leaned over the back to where Basira sat, immersed in Introduction to Alchemy. “How ‘bout you, Basira? Want to come out for drinks with us?”
There was a heartbeat of silence, then Basira said, quite simply but decidedly, “No.”
Melanie waited a minute, but that seemed to be it. She turned back to Sasha. “So! You and me and Georgie makes three?”
Sasha tried not to laugh. She could tell Melanie was in earnest—and she did enjoy spending time with her. They’d had fun at the movies the previous week, and then sitting at a pub until the wee small hours of the morning discussing the film, the book, and everything in between. And if Melanie considered Georgie a friend, and wanted Sasha to meet her, Sasha was all for it. “Yeah, okay. Sounds like a plan.”
All six of them left at the same time, for once. Basira peeled off on her own, heading south with her head down and her hands jammed in her pockets. Sasha was a bit surprised that the boys came to the Underground station along with her and Melanie, but they were heading for a different train. Sasha and Melanie’s arrived first. As they stepped on, Martin waved and whistled a jaunty tune; Melanie half-hung out of the train, waved back, and whistled an entirely different tune in reply before hastily withdrawing as the doors closed on them.
“What was that all about?” Sasha asked, slightly amused, as Melanie took the seat next to her.
“Huh? Oh.” Melanie shrugged, but she looked slightly sheepish. “Whistle codes. Sometimes there are things we can’t talk about in public, and places are crowded and voices might not carry clearly, but a tune’s a tune, you know? Martin was whistling ‘You and Me and the Devil Makes Three,’ which means ‘let’s meet back up with Gerry later’, and I whistled back with ‘Strike the Bell’, which means we’ll meet up at eight bells.”
“Meaning eight o’clock?” Sasha lifted an eyebrow.
“In this case, yeah. Eight bells means the end of the watch period on sailing ships,” Melanie explained. “Watches are in four-hour chunks, except for the dog watches from four to six and six to eight, but the bell strikes every half-hour. So whatever time it is when we whistle ‘Strike the Bell’, we’ll meet up at the next end of 'watch’.”
“Huh.” Sasha studied Melanie thoughtfully. “You lot really have thought of everything.”
“We ought to have, after twenty years,” Melanie said, but she looked pleased with Sasha’s praise.
They reached their stop, and Sasha followed Melanie to a pub that looked substantially newer than the one Melanie usually preferred. It was also significantly more crowded. Melanie scanned the crowd, then nudged Sasha and led her over to a table where a very pretty woman with a denim jacket open over a What the Ghost t-shirt sat, tapping her finger idly on the tabletop. She looked up with a smile as they slid in. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Melanie smiled. It looked a little strained to Sasha’s eye. “Georgie, this is Sasha James, one of my coworkers. Sash, this is Georgie Barker, host of What the Ghost?”
“I think we talked last year,” Sasha offered, holding out her hand. “It’s good to finally meet you in person.”
“Oh, right, I remember you.” Georgie smiled and shook. “Good to meet you, too.”
A server came over and took their orders. Once they were alone, Georgie turned to Melanie. “Did your…family emergency sort itself out?”
Melanie nodded. “Yeah, lucky thing Martin wasn’t hurt too bad. Only a second-degree burn.”
Georgie’s eyes widened briefly. “How’d he manage that?”
“Hot candle wax. It’s just his hand. He’s healing up well enough.” Melanie waved a hand casually. “How’d your latest episode go?”
“Well enough. The actual meat of the episode came out fine. I…don’t think I really hit the right tone with the ad read, though,” Georgie confessed. “I’m going to lose this sponsor, I can feel it, but honestly…” She trailed off, her eyes narrowing at something over Sasha’s shoulder.
Sasha twisted her head and was a bit surprised to see Gerry talking to the server, after which he lifted three glasses off the tray and made his way towards them. Turning back around, she nudged Melanie. “Look who’s here.”
Melanie looked up and did a double-take as Gerry reached them. “Picking up part-time work, are we?”
“Shut up,” Gerry said amiably, setting down the glasses. “I was closer to here than Wapping when I got Martin’s text and figured I’d drop in.”
“And just who the hell are you?” Georgie demanded, her eyes cold.
Sasha was a bit taken aback by the intensity of Georgie’s reaction. She was even more surprised when Gerry’s face darkened as he looked at Georgie and took a half-step back. “Could ask you the same thing.”
“Ger, this is Georgina Barker, she’s a friend of mine,” Melanie intervened, frowning slightly. “Georgie, this is Gerard Keay, he’s—an old friend.”
Sasha caught the hesitation in Melanie’s voice, and she almost called her out for not referring to Gerry as my brother, but she bit her tongue. If Melanie didn’t want Georgie to know how close she was to Gerry, Sasha wasn’t going to be the one to spill those beans. Besides…she was curious about how this interaction would play out.
Georgie folded her arms over her chest. She didn’t look impressed. “Really. An old friend. How long have you known Melanie?”
“Twenty years, give or take. And you?” Gerry mimicked Georgie’s pose.
Georgie didn’t answer his question. “It’s just that she’s never mentioned you before.”
“Right, because you’re such good friends she tells you everything,” Gerry shot back. “I can tell. At least I’ve heard of you. You’re the one that put her in Sarah Baldwin’s way.”
“Guys, I’m sitting right here,” Melanie said, sounding irritated. Both of them ignored her.
“I’m sorry, have you never introduced her to someone dangerous? Because you remind me of someone dangerous yourself.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“Guys,” Melanie repeated, a little more emphatically. Sasha touched her hand lightly, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“I think you should leave. Now.” Georgie’s scowl deepened.
“I think you should take a good, hard look at yourself and see how deep this thing goes, and if you’re really one to be making judgments,” Gerry said coldly. “But sure, I’m leaving. See you later, Melanie…assuming your friend here lets you.” With that, he turned on his heel and strode out of the pub.
Melanie thumped the table with the heel of her hand. “What the fuck was that all about?”
Georgie relaxed slightly, sat back in her seat, and downed about half of the Tom Collins Gerry had set in front of her. “Sorry, but you really don’t need friends like that.”
“Fucking hell, Georgie, I’ve known him since I was eight.” Melanie sounded extremely frustrated. “What the hell about him upset you so much?”
“Like I said…he reminds me of someone.” Georgie stared into her drink.
“Apparently you remind him of someone too.” Melanie snorted. “Can’t imagine who. I’ve met most of the same people he has.”
Sasha picked up her brandy Alexander, but didn’t take a sip yet. Casually, she asked, “How long have you been in London, Georgie?”
“Four years, give or take. Since the podcast really took off, enough that I could quit my day job, anyway.” Georgie still sounded a bit annoyed, but at least a bit less tense than before. “Why?”
Well, that ruled out Sasha’s first theory—that Georgie had recognized Gerry from news articles about his mother’s murder and the subsequent trial. It hadn’t exactly been a national item; there’d been a number of major world news stories happening around that time, and from what Sasha had dug up when they were doing that first investigation, there hadn’t been many articles outside of London and the more sensational tabloids. It also didn’t explain why Gerry seemed to think Georgie was dangerous, too.
She was gearing up to ask another question when it suddenly struck her that for all Georgie seemed to think Gerry was dangerous, she wasn’t showing any signs of fear. Anger, irritation, maybe a bit of protectiveness, sure, but she didn’t seem in the least bit afraid of Gerry, what he could do to her—or Melanie, or Sasha, or anyone else—or what might happen. Which could mean she was using dangerous in a different sense, but…
Several pieces fell into place, and Sasha set down her glass. “You’ve met something like him before,” she blurted.
Georgie looked up at Sasha with a slight frown. “Didn’t I just say that?”
“No, you said someone. I said something.” Sasha turned to Melanie and raised an eyebrow. “You get what I mean, right?”
“I—oh. Oh.” Melanie’s eyes widened. “Oh, fuck.” She turned to Georgie. “You’ve met monsters before.”
Georgie blinked. “Yeah?” she said, drawing out the word a bit, like she wasn’t sure why that was such a big deal.
Melanie cursed under her breath. Sasha leaned in eagerly. “What? When?”
“Not here,” Melanie said swiftly. “Not in public. We—shit, my place is ten minutes by Tube—”
“I live right down the block,” Georgie said, frowning. “If you want to…talk more privately. I can make better drinks at home. Or tea or something.”
“Yeah, sounds good.” Melanie downed her drink quickly—probably too quickly. “C’mon, let’s close out the tab and go.”
Sasha paid for their drinks, on the theory that if this led to a statement she could probably expense it back to the Institute, and hurried after Georgie and Melanie. The wind had died down a little since they’d entered the pub, but it was still overcast and cool, not that Sasha could tell from the speed they were walking. She almost had to run to keep up with them.
Georgie turned out to live in a basement flat in a surprisingly well-kept building, consisting of a kitchen, a sitting room, a bath, and three bedrooms, one of which had been transformed into a studio. The walls were painted light blue, the carpet was an inoffensive beige, and the sofa was a dark green that had seen better days. A low bookshelf bristled with soppy romance novels mingled with books on hauntings and the paranormal, most of which Sasha had read. There were a couple art prints hanging on the wall and a framed photograph of an older couple sitting on top of the bookshelf. There was also a radiator, and curled up on top of said radiator was an extremely fat grey cat. As Georgie shut the door, the cat stirred, yawned, and stretched, revealing that its front paws were both white and had thumbs.
“Who’s this?” Sasha asked, bending down to let the cat sniff her hand. It butted its head against her fingers, obviously wanting to be scratched. Sasha obliged, secretly delighted—she loved cats, and most of the other ones she interacted with on a regular basis were largely indifferent to her or would rather play than cuddle.
“That’s the Admiral. He’s a lazy old man.” Georgie carried on to the kitchen. “What’s your pleasure?”
“Anything with gin,” Melanie said, sounding a bit distracted. Sasha looked up to see her rummaging through her pockets. “Damn…Georgie, do you have a tape recorder we could borrow?”
“A tape recorder?” Georgie repeated, looking over her shoulder with a puzzled frown. “Why?”
“Look, whatever you’re about to tell us—whatever you encountered or ran into or whatever—that’s the sort of thing we deal with at the Institute. It’s what we do, take people’s statements and, and research them or whatever.” Melanie pulled out a cassette tape and frowned at it, turning it over several times. “This one’s probably blank…anyway, we need to record it so we can add it to the Archives.”
Georgie’s frown deepened. “You know, there’s this nifty app on phones these days that records stuff. Or, you know, I have an entire studio of podcast equipment. Recording audio is kind of what I do.”
“For some reason, none of the…real statements will go on digital recordings,” Sasha said, straightening up. The Admiral mewed his displeasure and pawed at her leg. “Claws away, cat. We have to use the tape recorders. If we try to digitally record your statement, it’ll just come out as gibberish.”
“I’ve never had a problem with that.”
“You’ve never recorded a podcast about anything like this,” Melanie said positively. “So. Tape recorder?”
Georgie stood motionless for about five seconds. Finally, she said, “I’ve got one in the studio.”
“Should we set up a ward?” Sasha asked Melanie quietly, as Georgie went to fetch the recorder.
Melanie shook her head. “No need. The statements don’t really draw the Fears they’re about. Probably. Technically. Most likely.”
“Yeah, but they do draw the Eye.”
“You’re…not wrong. However, unless you’re developing Archivist-level powers, we’re probably going to need a little help from the Eye to get a coherent statement.”
Sasha shrugged. “I’ve never tried.”
Georgie came back in and handed Melanie a clunky greenish-grey shoebox recorder. Melanie popped the tape she’d found in her pocket into it and pressed PLAY. Satisfied it was truly blank, she turned to Georgie. “Okay. Where do you want to do this?”
“Are you going to explain to me what ‘this’ is, exactly?” Georgie asked. “Because I have no clue.”
To her credit, Melanie looked embarrassed. “Oh. Right.”
Sasha didn’t want to interfere, but she thought it might help if she made a practical suggestion. “Why don’t we sit down? This might take a while.”
They ended up around the kitchen table, each of them with a gin and tonic with a lime twist—gin wasn’t Sasha’s favorite drink in the world, but she figured it couldn’t hurt. Melanie took a deep breath and pushed the tape recorder to the center of the table. She didn’t touch the RECORD button, though. “Right. What do you want to know? Other than…generally, what.”
Georgie looked from Melanie to Sasha and back. “You said the Magnus Institute…I know generally what it does, look into spooky things and whatnot. And I know they were asking about what you saw at Cambridge Military Hospital. And last week, you said that knowing anything about Information Sciences doesn’t matter all that much in the Archives.”
“I said it matters less than you think. I never said it didn’t matter.” Melanie huffed at her.
“Sorry. So…we’re talking about spooky bullshit, then.”
“More or less.” Melanie took a deep breath. “Okay. Simplest explanation. You said you’d met…monsters before.”
“Yeah?”
“Well…we kind of work for one.”
Georgie blinked. “Oh. That’s…not good.” She paused. “Wait, didn’t you say Jon was your boss? Is he the monster?”
“Kind of,” Sasha said, at the same time as Melanie emphatically and angrily said, “No!”
Georgie looked between the two of them again. “One of you is lying.”
Sasha raised her hand. She wasn’t exactly lying—Jon was certainly beginning to turn into something less than human—but Martin was a hell of a lot further along on that path than Jon was, and she was smart enough to realize that there was a very hard line not to cross. Insinuating that Melanie’s brother—that either of Melanie’s brothers—was a monster was firmly on the other side of that line. “Not really lying, just…misspoke. Jon’s not the monster we work for. He’s closer to it than we are…technically…and it’s affecting him, but he’s not a monster.”
“So his boss is the monster.”
“The answer to that is closer to yes, but still technically no.” Melanie took a deep breath. “There are…there are things beyond the world. Not exactly gods, but powers or…something. We call them the Fears. They live outside our universe, but they’re trying to push in. Sometimes they come in the form of monsters. Other times they choose people to be their…we call them avatars. But they end up getting all these powers, and they start to lose some of their self. Sometimes all of it. It all depends on how hard they fight it.”
Georgie stared at Melanie. “And that’s what Jon is. And that…friend of yours that turned up at the pub?”
“I—yes.” Melanie sighed. “Different powers, though. The one that the Institute serves…so we all kind of serve it, really, Jon’s just the one getting spooky powers from it…we call it the Eye, or the Beholding, or the Ceaseless Watcher, or It Knows You, or…you get the idea. It’s knowledge, or the fear of being watched, of, of being observed. Jon, as the Archivist, can…make people tell him things. When he asks questions, people have to answer him. And the statements—people want to tell him about these things. All he has to do is say ‘tell me’ and they spill their guts. And he gets energy, kind of, from reading the statements, the real ones. I mean, it feeds off of him, too, but…it’s a whole…thing.”
Georgie snorted. “If that’s what the job is about, that explains why he got the job. He was always the one who pushed too far and asked smart-arse, awkward questions. I was always surprised he never got punched.”
Melanie’s eyes flashed, but all she said was, “I think that particular bit of luck’s run out.”
Sasha suppressed a smirk. The fact that Melanie had gone from clearly wanting to knock Jon’s teeth out to being one of his staunchest allies and defenders besides Martin would never cease to amuse her. She also noticed that Melanie hadn’t brought up the fact that Martin also had several of those abilities, and then some—Jon couldn’t see the Marks, as far as Sasha knew, and she’d never heard him suddenly drop into a trance and spill out information he almost certainly shouldn’t have known in that much detail. But she kept quiet about that. She was more interested in seeing how Melanie handled this.
“So, he discovered his boss was evil, making him kind of evil, and…what, just decided to take some time off?” Georgie drummed her fingers on the table for a moment.
“Well, no. There were a couple murders that got blamed on him. Officially, anyway. Nobody in the Archives thought he’d done it—nobody outside the police thought he’d done it—but still, he was suspect number one.”
“Huh. I assume that’s why I had the police asking after him, then.”
Melanie jerked back. “What?”
“It’s fine, I hadn’t heard from him since the breakup,” Georgie said, a piece of information that startled Sasha way more than the casual comment about the police. “Anyway, that makes sense, but you said your…friend was something different?”
“Okay, first of all, Gerry’s not just a friend, he’s practically my brother,” Melanie said, an edge to her voice. “He’s the one who taught me all this stuff, did his best to protect me from it. He’s fought for me—and for Martin—to keep us safe. What happened to him isn’t his fault.”
“Wait. Isn’t that the brother you told me died just before you did the Cambridge Military Hospital job?”
“Same one. He got brought back…well, technically his soul or, or echo or whatever, got bound into a gigantic book of skin, and then the book got burnt and he was accidentally set free and…he sort of made a deal with one of the powers without meaning to. Terminus. The End. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Death?”
“Yeah.”
Georgie sighed, sounding exasperated. “Great. I’ve been talking to another corpse.”
At that point, as much as she wanted to see it play out, Sasha decided to intervene. Melanie was about to absolutely explode, and Sasha had noticed that Georgie still didn’t seem afraid by any of this. She could have been hiding it well, but Sasha really wanted to dig at it and see what was going on, what the limits of that were. “I think that’s a good place to start your statement, actually.”
“Right.” Georgie took a swig of her drink.
“Do you mind if we record this?”
“I suppose it can’t hurt.”
Sasha reached for the recorder, then noticed the button was already depressed. She didn’t call attention to that, though. “Okay. Want us to start you off?”
Georgie shrugged. “Sure. Go for it.”
“Great. Statement of Georgina Barker, regarding a conversation with a corpse. Statement recorded direct from subject, twenty-first April, 2017.” Sasha nodded. “Go ahead. Where did it start?”
“Balliol. It was my first year of university—I was still studying English back then.”
It took a fair bit of prompting on Sasha’s part—Melanie sat with her arms crossed over her chest and a mulish expression on her face—but she eventually managed to draw the sum and substance of the story out of Georgie. She recited the facts of the tale in a calm, emotionless voice that had Sasha completely fascinated. It explained a lot when she described the numbness she’d drifted through the next year in, but not everything.
“But you got your emotions back,” she noted. “Obviously.”
“All but one,” Georgie said slowly. “It’s weird, but—ever since then, I’ve never been able to feel afraid. I mean, I can still tell when a situation is dangerous—like today—and I understand the likelihood of harm, so I don’t take stupid risks. But actual fear?” She shook her head. “Simply not something I experience anymore. And I’ve never been able to tell if it was cauterized…or stolen.”
“Neither,” Melanie said shortly. “From what you described, it was meant to bring everyone to a state of existential dread. ‘The moment you die will feel exactly the same as this one’—you weren’t supposed to let that motivate you. It was supposed to render you paralytic, catatonic with despair. Shit, I bet that was someone’s go at a Terminus ritual—draw a big enough group of people waiting for death, Death’s going to come in, and maybe get enough power to break through and take over. I bet you disrupted it by surviving. And the only way you survived was by leaving your fear behind, like a rat’s tail caught in a trap. It’s gone, and it probably won’t grow back, but they didn’t want it. You left it.”
Sasha picked at the logic. It made as much sense as anything. “Well. That certainly explains a lot.”
“Thanks,” Georgie said dryly. “What do you mean by a Terminus ritual?”
Melanie glanced at her watch. “We should probably get going if we’re going to make it to the shop by eight.”
“Just a minute.” Sasha didn’t know why Melanie was so keen to keep knowledge from Georgie, why she was hiding so much, but it only felt fair to answer that question. “Most of the servants of these powers have plans for rituals to try and bring the powers into the world. Right now we’re trying to stop the Stranger from doing theirs, but we know there are others. We thought the End didn’t have one, but after what you just said, we’re not so sure anymore.”
“Hmm.” Georgie pursed her lips. “Okay. Sorry, I know you two have an appointment, and I don’t want your friend to think I’m keeping you against your will. Go ahead, we can catch up some other time. It was nice to meet you, Sasha.”
“You, too.” Sasha got to her feet and held out her hand; Georgie shook it. “C’mon, Melanie, let’s get a move on.”
“Sure.” Melanie stood, but she avoided Georgie’s eyes as she swiped up the recorder and popped out the tape. “Nice to see you again.”
Sasha gave the Admiral one last chin scritch, and then they were out the door.
Not until they were on the train did Sasha turn to Melanie and ask, “So what was that all about?”
“She’s an aphobe,” Melanie confessed. “She and Jon dated, that’s how they knew each other, and she said some things last week when we met up that basically made me realize the reason they broke up was because Jon’s asexual and she was trying to make him not be. Turns out I’m still mad about that.”
“That’s…probably fair. I didn’t know you liked him that much.”
“We’re too much alike. We would end up either best friends or at each other’s throats. And he’s dating my brother, so that’d be a dick move.” Melanie sighed and studied the tape. “When did you turn it on?”
“It was already on. I have no clue what’s on there.”
Melanie stared vacantly at the opposite wall of the train. “I guess we’ll find out in a bit.”
Sasha nodded. “I guess so.”