Devil Take The Hindmost

Chapter Eleven

"Who the hell are you?" Ty glowered at the red-headed man, his body language visibly relaxing from alert to tense and finally to relaxed as he judged the plump man before us to represent no imminent threat.

Though he was plainly younger than either Edge or me, probably in his late twenties, the newcomer was significantly shorter, and tubby of build. I reckoned if it came to it, I could take him, and that was really saying something.

"I go by many names. I am the Grand Master of the Sacred Theosophical Order of the Alban Thystle, though some refer to me simply as the Lorekeeper of the Scrolls. Others prefer to use one of my various nom de plumes; the Strathclyde Sage, Clydicus or Tha Truth. You may call me Widdershinz," he paused, stroking the thin wisps of hair emanating from his chin in the sparse mockery of a goatee as if waiting for some recognition.

"With a Z," he clarified after receiving no such acknowledgement from either of us.

"Alright, Frodo," Ty replied sarcastically, leaning exaggeratedly to peer behind Widdershinz as if looking for something. "Where's Gandalf?"

The Scotsman stared back at him, blinking ponderously with an expression of beatific lack of comprehension. He didn't seem to have taken any offence.

Somewhere in the dark corners of my memory scraped a subtle but unmistakable moving of mental furniture. It was a sensation not quite of ringing a bell, but more of the creak of a seldom opened trapdoor.

"How do you do this?" Ty looked at me, arching an eyebrow in mock surprise.

I knew what he meant.

Somewhere, in a parallel universe, resided a Satchmo Turner whose animal magnetism attracted a constant stream of wanton lingerie models with a penchant for out-of-shape private detectives. Back in this universe, my magnetism served up nothing but a collection of oddballs, each of whom was clearly madder than a shithouse rat.

"If I knew that, I wouldn't have met you!" I jibed back at him.

"Do you need the services of a detection agency?" I enquired of Widdershinz, filled with trepidation that the unusual figure might say yes, and we were in no economic position to refuse.

"No, as I said, ye need my help. Youse are in mortal peril."

I paused just long enough for Ty to roll his eyes multiple times.

"How so?" I asked.

"I've sent ye several missives, d'ye not read them? Unless they were intercepted as I feared they might..." Widdershinz's voice tailed off to become a mutter as he worked something over in conversation with himself. "... They have people everywhere, of course, but I didn't think it went this deep!"

"Please, you are in terrible danger!" he snapped back into the exchange with a disturbing change of demeanour. "I've come a long way from Glasgow to help youse, an' it's fair nippy oot here. Could we mebbe go inside? I'd like a cuppa and mebbe a wee dram, if ye've anything handy."

Everything about the situation, the behaviour and discussion so far screamed the answer to that question must be a resounding no.

Indeed, I heard Ty drawing breath to voice precisely that conclusion when I felt something I hadn't experienced for some time. It was an ineffable pressure somewhere between the trifecta of heart, lungs, and guts.

"Yes, of course," I said, recognizing a hunch when I felt one and gaining a tiny jolt of pleasure from Ty's half gasp, half groan in response.

*

"I suppose ye could say I'm a researcher, a chronicler of the arcane, the esoteric, the occult," Widdershinz pontificated with a steaming mug of tea in one hand and a sturdy bolt of damson brandy lurking at the bottom of a grimy glass in the other.