Death Bringer

  “You’d be surprised how often we hear the ‘he was already dead’ defence in our line of work. Or maybe you wouldn’t, I don’t know. The point is, Kenny, it’s not looking good for you. Maybe if you tell us everything you know, we can persuade our colleagues to go easy on you.”

  Kenny stared at the man, then looked over at the girl. “Who are you?”

  She returned his look, raised an eyebrow, but didn’t answer.

  “She’s here on work experience,” said Inspector Me. “Don’t you worry about her, Kenny. You just worry about yourself. What was your relationship with the corpse?”

  “Uh,” Kenny said, “I’m a journalist. He’s someone I’d interviewed a few times.”

  “About what?”

  “It’s… nothing. He is, or he was, a conspiracy nut, kind of.”

  “Conspiracies? You mean like government cover-ups, that sort of thing?”

  “No, not really. He was more…” Kenny sighed. “Listen, it’s a long story.”

  “I don’t have anywhere else to be,” said Inspector Me, and glanced back at the girl. “Do you?”

  “Yes, actually,” she said. “I have a christening to get to.”

  “Oh,” said Me. “Of course.” He turned back to Kenny. “So maybe if you talk really fast, you can explain it to us.”

  Kenny took a moment, deciding on the best way to avoid sounding like a lunatic. “Right,” he said. “For the past few years, I’ve been investigating some oddball stories. Nothing big, nothing major, but stories that get ignored because when you hear them, they sound insane. No newspaper is going to take this stuff seriously, so I can really only devote a small amount of time to them.

  “It started when I did a piece on urban legends. You have all your usual stuff, modern myths and burgeoning folklore, some funny, some horrible, some creepy, everything you’d expect to hear. But I started hearing new ones.”

  “Like what?”

  “Just rumours, snippets of stories. Someone saw a gunfight where people threw fire. Someone saw a man leap over a building, or a woman just disappear.”

  Inspector Me tilted his head. “So the modern urban legend is about superheroes?”

  “That’s what I was thinking, but now I’m not so sure. I’ve been hearing whispers about an entire subculture where this stuff goes on. Lynch said it’s everywhere, if you know what to look for.”

  “I see. And did Lynch claim to be such a superhero?”

  “Lynch? No. God, no. I mean, he wasn’t well, obviously. He had visions, he said. That’s what he called them, visions. He’d had them since he was a teenager. They scared the hell out of him. He was sent to psychiatrist after psychiatrist, given pill after pill, but nothing worked. He’d describe these visions to me and they seemed so vivid, so real. He couldn’t hold down a job, couldn’t maintain a relationship… He ended up homeless, drinking too much, muttering away to himself in doorways.”

  “And this,” Inspector Me said, “was your source?”

  “I know he sounds unreliable.”

  “Just a touch.”

  “But I stuck at it, listened to what he was saying. Eventually, I learned how to separate the ramblings from the… well, the facts, I suppose.”

  “What kinds of things did he see?” asked the girl.

  Kenny frowned. He didn’t really understand what gave a student on work experience the right to question him, but Inspector Me didn’t object, so Kenny reluctantly answered. “He saw the apocalypse,” he said. “He saw a few of them, to be honest. The first one concerned these Dark Gods, the Faceless Ones, whatever he called them. Someone banished them eons ago, nobody knows who, and they’ve been trying to get back ever since. When he was seventeen, Lynch had a vision in which they returned. He saw millions dead. Cities levelled. He saw the world break apart. He kept having these visions, and every time it would be some new aspect, some new viewpoint from which to watch the world end. He was convinced we were all going to die one night, a little under three years ago. He said these things, these god-creatures, would emerge through a glowing yellow door between realities. Of course no one would listen to him. And then the night came when the world was going to end… and it didn’t. And the visions stopped.”

  “I love stories with a happy ending,” Inspector Me said.

  “It wasn’t over, not for Lynch. More visions came to him. He predicted the Insanity Virus, you know.”

  “The last I heard it wasn’t a virus,” said the girl. “It was a hallucinogen. They got the guys who did it.”

  Kenny laughed. “You actually believe that?”

  Inspector Me looked at him weirdly. “You don’t?”

  “It’s all a little convenient, isn’t it? As a Christmas prank, a radical group of anarchists drop a drug into the water supplies around the country – and then months later they come forward and admit to it? Anarchists, taking responsibility for their actions? That defeats the whole point of being an anarchist, doesn’t it? Do you know when the trial is? Do you know which prison they’re locked up in until it happens? Because I don’t.”

  Inspector Me sat back. “This sounds awfully like a conspiracy theory, Kenny. What do you think happened?”

  “I don’t know, but Lynch said it wasn’t anarchists that did this. He said it was little slices of darkness, flying around and infecting people.”

  To Kenny’s surprise, neither the Inspector nor the girl smirked.

  “Do you know how many people reported seeing strange things over those few days?” Kenny continued. “I’ve read dozens of reports. There was a nightclub in North County Dublin that was apparently swarmed by the things, but it wasn’t even reported in the local paper.”

  “Sounds like a bunch of people hallucinating to me,” said the girl.

  “Lynch didn’t think so. He had a vision of those things spreading out, infecting the world, making everyone do crazy things, kill each other, drop bombs…”

  “All right then,” said Me. “We have established that Lynch was psychologically disturbed, that he believed in a subculture of superheroes and evil gods. So why was he killed?”

  Kenny blinked. “Uh, he was robbed, wasn’t he?”

  “Was he?”

  “Wasn’t he? That’s what the… that’s what the guy said, the Guard, the one who spoke to me. He said it looked like a mugging.”

  “I see.”

  Kenny frowned. “You think it’s got something to do with his visions, don’t you?”

  “It’s a possibility,” said Me.

  “Why were you meeting him this morning?” the girl asked.

  “I’m sorry,” said Kenny, “I don’t mean to be rude, but why is she asking me questions? Why is she even here?”

  “Work experience,” said Me.

  “You accused me of murder. Do you make a habit of bringing schoolgirls into interview rooms with murder suspects?”

  Me waved a hand. “Oh, I was only joking about that. I don’t really think you murdered anyone. Unless you did, in which case I reserve the right to say that I knew it all along. But she asks a good question, Kenny. Why were you meeting him?”

  “For the past few months, he’d been having new visions, of shadows coming alive, of people dropping dead. His latest apocalypse.”

  “What did he say about it?”

  “Why is this important?”

  “Everything is important.”

  “But it’s not like he identified anyone. It’s not like he heard any names in his visions. He saw someone in a black robe, that’s it.”

  “Male or female?”

  “He couldn’t say.”

  “Did he happen to mention the Passage at all?”

  Kenny looked at him. There was something about the Inspector’s face that wasn’t quite right. As soon as Kenny noticed it, he looked away. His mother had taught him it was not polite to stare.

  “He didn’t use that word,” Kenny said. “But I’ve heard it from others. How did you hear about it?”

  “Who did you
hear it from?” asked the girl.

  “Others,” Kenny said irritably. “Three or four people, who had overheard it in pubs or alleyways or whatever. It sounds like the Rapture, to be honest.”

  The girl frowned. “What’s that?”

  “The Rapture,” Inspector Me said, “is a Christian belief in which God will collect the faithful and deliver them into Heaven. ‘And the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be raptured together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.’ Those found unworthy will be left here on earth with the rest of the sinners.”

  “The Passage sounds like that sort of deal,” Kenny said. “Mass salvation before the end of the world. Whether or not there’s any kind of a god at work behind it, I don’t know, but there usually is.”

  “Did Lynch give any kind of a time frame?” Me asked.

  “His visions were getting stronger and more frequent,” Kenny answered. “The way it worked in the past is that he’d have another six or seven days at this level of intensity, then the apocalypse wouldn’t happen and he’d be able to relax again.”

  “Seven days,” said Me.

  “Or thereabouts, yeah. How did you hear about the Passage?”

  “We’re detectives,” said Me. “We detect things.”

  “She’s a detective as well, is she?”

  “She’s a detective-in-training.”

  “Look, this is all very, very weird. Why are you focusing on rumours and urban legends? You haven’t even asked me any normal questions.”

  “Normal questions? Like what?”

  “Like, I don’t know, like if Lynch had any enemies.”

  “Did Lynch have any enemies?”

  “Well, not that I know of, no.”

  “Then there really was no point in me asking that, was there? Unless you wanted to distract me. You didn’t want to distract me, did you, Kenny?”

  “No, that’s not—”

  “Are you playing a game with me, Kenny?”

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  Inspector Me leaned forward. “Did you kill him?”

  “No!”

  “It’d be OK if you did.”

  Kenny recoiled, horrified. “How would that be OK?”

  “Well,” Me said, “maybe not OK, but understandable. Perhaps he said something that annoyed you. We’ve all been there, haven’t we?” He looked back at the girl. “Haven’t we?”

  “I’ve been there,” said the girl.

  “We’ve all been there,” said Me, looking at Kenny again. “We know how it goes. He says something that annoys you, you get angry, all of a sudden he’s lying dead and you’re wondering where did the time go.”

  “I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill anyone!”

  “Anyone? You mean there’s more?”

  “What?”

  Me sat back, tapped his chin with a gloved hand. “You know what, Kenny? I believe you. You have an honest face. You have honest ears. So who do you think killed him?”

  “I had thought it was just a mugging.”

  “And now?”

  “Now… I don’t know. Do you think someone killed him because of the Passage? Are there people out there who really believe in this stuff ?”

  “People are strange,” said the girl, then started humming a few bars from the song.

  “Did Lynch talk to anyone else about this?” Me asked. “Did he have any friends? Any family he still spoke to?”

  “No, no one.”

  “So he only talked about his visions to you?”

  Kenny hesitated.

  “He’s hesitating,” said the girl.

  “I see that,” said Me.

  “There’s an old woman,” Kenny said, “Bernadette something. Maguire, I think. She helps out at one of the shelters. She used to be a teacher, or something. She’s retired now, lives in the country somewhere. He talked to her. She hasn’t been around that much lately. I think she’s just too old. The first time I’d seen her in months was a few weeks ago. She was talking to Lynch.”

  “You think he told her about his visions?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “You think Bernadette Maguire killed him?”

  “Uh… no. She’s, like I said, she’s old.”

  “Old people can kill people too.”

  “I know, but…”

  “She could be a ninja.”

  “She’s not a ninja, for God’s sake. She’s somebody’s great-grandmother.”

  “I want you to think carefully about this, Kenny. Have you ever seen her with a sword?”

  “What?”

  “How about throwing stars?”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “Have you ever seen her dressed up as a ninja? That would have been my first clue.”

  The girl sucked in her cheeks so she wouldn’t laugh out loud.

  “What kind of cop are you?” Kenny asked, resolutely unamused.

  “I am the kind that is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery,” said Me.

  The door opened, and a boy with blond hair poked his head in. Kenny was so startled by the way the boy’s hair stood on end that he completely missed Inspector Me getting to his feet.

  “Thank you for your co-operation,” Me said, quickly following the girl out the door. “My colleague will be in to see you shortly.” Out in the corridor, the girl held the boy’s arm and reached for Inspector Me as he closed the door. It clicked shut, and all was suddenly quiet for a very brief moment.

  The door opened again. A middle-aged man walked in, carrying a notebook. Inspector Me and his two teenage students were gone.

  “Mr Dunne?” said the man. “My name is Detective Inspector Harris. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kenny said, a little doubtfully. “The other Inspector kept me busy.”

  Detective Inspector Harris smiled good-naturedly as he sat down. “Other Inspector?”

  “The one who just left.”

  “Hmm? Who was that, then?”

  “Detective Inspector Me.”

  “Detective Inspector You?”

  “No, Me. That’s his… He said that’s his name. You just passed him. He was with a girl on work experience and a boy with spiky hair.”

  Harris blinked at him. “I didn’t pass anyone, Mr Dunne, and I’m the only Detective Inspector on duty right now.”

  Kenny stared at him. “Then… then who the hell was I just speaking to?”

  Chapter 3

  The Christening

  alkyrie Cain cradled her little sister in her arms and hoped to God she’d get through the day without being splattered with regurgitated baby milk. She’d barely made it home from the police station in time to get changed, and one top had already been rendered unwearable before they’d even left the house. It had been a nice top, too. It had really gone with her jeans.

  “Please,” she whispered to little Alice, “do not throw up on me.”

  Alice watched her with big blue eyes, but wasn’t promising anything.

  Squinting slightly against the sun, Valkyrie glanced back into the church. Alice wasn’t the only one who had just been christened today, so the place was full of chatting, laughing families with camcorders, saving every gurgle and wail. She may have been biased, but it was Valkyrie’s sincere opinion that none of the other three babies were half as cute as her three-month-old sister. They just didn’t measure up where it counted. It was sad, really. Those babies had already lost the cuteness war and they wouldn’t even know it for years to come. A real tragedy.

  She looked down at her sister. “You don’t do much, do you? You’re fairly limited, as far as most things go. Mum says I have to keep talking to you, to get you used to my voice. So, well, I suppose I’ll keep talking. There are two of me, you know. There’s me, the real me, and then there’s my reflection. The reflection looks like me, and talks like me, and acts like me, but it isn’t me. It steps out of my mirror and goes to school and d
oes my homework and, yes, sometimes it babysits you. And I don’t like that. I don’t like leaving you in the care of something that has no emotions, but I’m a busy girl. Yes I am.

  “When you’re a bit older, we’re going to read you stories about princesses and wizards and magic, and we’re going to let you believe, for a few years, that some magic is real. And then, this is the sucky bit, we’re going to tell you that most magic isn’t real. We’re going to tell you that people can’t fly and they can’t turn each other into toads and that there are no magical, mystical monsters. Between you and me, though, that’s the big lie. There is magic, people can fly, there are monsters… I’m not sure about the turning each other into toads bit, though. But who’d want that anyway? That’d be gross.”

  Valkyrie started swaying the top half of her body slightly as she walked in a circle. “Who’s a cutie? Who’s a cutie? You are, that’s who. You’re a cutie. And who’s sounding pretty dim-witted right now? That’d be me, wouldn’t it? Yes, it would.”

  She looked down, saw the baby gazing up, and she laughed. “Oh God you’re adorable. I’d ask you to stay like this for ever but, you know, that’d be a little awkward. Especially when you’re old enough to go out on dates.

  “We have a weird family, do you know that? You’ve probably already noticed. Mum’s normal enough, in her own way. But when she gets talking to Dad, a different side to her comes out – an immensely silly side. He’s a bad influence on her, that’s what he is. Because our dad is an oddball. Mm-hmm. As odd as they come. Uncle Fergus is odd too, but not in a nice way. He’s just mean all the time. It’s a shame you never got to meet Gordon. You’d have liked Gordon. He was a cool uncle.” She kissed the baby’s cheek and kept her head down. “Want to know a secret?” she whispered. “Magic runs in our family. You might be magic. Someday you might be able to do all the things I can do. Someday you might have to take a new name, like I did. Or you might not. But I don’t know if I want that for you. Being normal isn’t so bad, once you’ve seen the other side. I know it wouldn’t be fair if I kept this from you, but I don’t want you getting hurt. Do you understand me? Something like that, it’d kill me.”

  The baby reached out, took a small handful of Valkyrie’s hair.

  “I’m glad we understand each other. For someone with such a small brain, you’re very smart, you know that?”