Tales from the Triverse

Zealots: part 4

Late shift
On duty: DC Yannick Clarke & DC Lola Styles

London.
1973. July.

It had been too long since the SDC had visited the pub, Clarke had decided. Ordinarily he was quite happy not to socialise with his colleagues, tending to lurk by the bar even when he did. They were either too young, too annoying or too depressing. That was until the dynamic had shifted: Kaminski had gone to ground all year, Chakraborty too. Robin occasionally made an appearance but usually had her own things going on. DS Collins was tedious, while DS Shaw was dull and rarely on the same shifts as Clarke. Holland and Hobb were the only regulars, which was perhaps all anyone needed to know. And Styles had been distracted since coming back from Palinor.

He was jolted in his seat as the rickety bus, powered by a severely inadequate rickshaw engine, trundled through the streets of north-east London. The afternoon's heat was starting to dissipate, though the bus' interior remained stifling. If Clarke had been legitimately into any of the new religion mumbo jumbo, he'd have been put right off.

"How about the pub, Styles? We can see if the others are about end of play."

She turned her head from the window back towards him, as if only then remembering he was there. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. Depends how this goes."

"We''ll see," he said, not wanting to say much more within earshot of the bus' other passengers. "Looking forward to seeing what's at the end of this particular rainbow."

Styles returned to gazing out of the grease-stained window and Clarke took the opportunity to assess the case. Strange goings-on all over town, including apparent demonstrations of magic. A charismatic leader clearly looking to build his own cult. A clearly savvy bunch of core followers, who had managed to evade inquiries - until now. Kaminski had struck gold in Greenwich, leading them to a rendezvous that wasn't a wash-out. And now here they were, supposedly on course to visit the headquarters of the group.

What would happen next was hard to predict: either they had a fraud on their hands, in which matters would be simple and they could charge accordingly and put an end to the irritation, or they had a genuine use of magic in the wild in London. In which case everything was severely buggered. Clarke massaged his forehead with one hand, squeezing his eyes shut. To think that Max-Earth had enjoyed centuries more normality before the portals opened - on the one hand he was envious, on the other this was Clarke's normal. Two hundred years of Triverse madness.

It seemed for a time that the bus would entirely leave the boundaries of London, until it took a turning into an industrial storage area lined with anonymous warehouses. With creaking brakes it came to a halt and the driver ordered everyone out.

Styles and Clarke dutifully followed the other believers out onto the cracked tarmac, interrupted by ambitious plants pushing through from below. They were led to a nondescript warehouse and through the office door, into the large interior space. A stage of sorts was at one end, rows of chairs filling the rest of the space. A table of refreshments was pushed up against a wall, though there was no disguising the grey, metal shell of the building. There were already people there, milling about and chatting.

"This seem like a weird place to do this?" Lola asked, leaning towards Clarke conspiratorially.

"It's out of the way, but a little too out of the way."

Putting on her best smile, Lola approached one of the people who seemed to be running the event. They were wearing a uniform of sorts, as were a few others in the room. "Hi," she said to the woman, "how does this work?"

"Hi there! I'm Stephanie. What's your name?"

"Lola."

"Lola! What a beautiful name. Just relax, Lola, and Lord Myrodin will be on stage shortly. He'll explain everything."