Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch [41]
‘All of this will be much easier to explain once you’ve mastered your first spell,’ he said. ‘I believe you could get a good two hours of practice in before afternoon tea.’
I slunk off in the direction of the lab.
I dreamed that I was sharing my bed with Lesley May and Beverley Brook, both lithe and naked on either side of me, but it wasn’t nearly as erotic as it should have been because I didn’t dare embrace one for fear that I’d mortally offend the other. I had just devised a strategy to get my arms around both at the same time when Beverley sank her teeth into my wrist and I woke with a terrible cramp in my right arm.
It was bad enough to make me fall out of bed and thrash around being uselessly stoic for a good two minutes. There’s nothing like excruciating pain for waking you up, so once it was clear I wasn’t going back to sleep I left my room and went looking for a snack. The basement of the Folly was a warren of rooms left over from when it boasted dozens of staff but I knew that the back stairs bottomed out next to the kitchen. Not wanting to disturb Molly, I padded down the steps as quietly as I could but as I reached the basement, I saw that the kitchen lights were on. As I got closer I heard Toby growl, then bark and then there was a strange rhythmic hissing sound. A good copper knows when not to announce his presence, so I crept to the kitchen door and peered in.
Molly, still dressed in her maid’s outfit, was perched on the edge of the scarred oak table that dominated one side of the kitchen. Beside her on the table was a beige ceramic mixing bowl and sitting, some three metres in front of her, was Toby. Since the door was behind her shoulder Molly didn’t see me watching as she dipped her hand into the mixing bowl and lifted out a cube of chopped meat – raw enough to be dripping.
Toby barked with excitement as Molly teased him with the meat for a moment before sending it flying towards him with an expert flick of her wrist. Toby did an impressive jump from a sitting position and caught the meat in mid-air. At the sight of Toby chewing industriously while turning tight little circles, Molly began to laugh – the rhythmic hissing sound I’d heard earlier.
Molly picked up another cube of meat and waved it at Toby, who did a little dance of doggy anticipation. This time Molly faked him out, hissing at his confused twirling and then, when she was sure he was watching, popping the bloody piece of meat in her own mouth. Toby barked crossly but Molly stuck out an unnaturally long and prehensile tongue at him.
I must have gasped or shifted my weight because Molly leaped off the table and spun to face me. Eyes wide, mouth open to reveal sharp pointed teeth and blood, bright red against her pale skin, dribbling down her chin. Then she clamped her hand over her mouth and with a look of startled shame ran silently from the kitchen. Toby gave me an irritated growl.
‘It’s not my fault,’ I told him. ‘I just wanted a snack.’
I don’t know what he was complaining about; he got the rest of the bowl of meat – I got a glass of water.
Action at a Distance
A part from the cramp and a definite improvement in the strength of my grip, my efforts to create my own werelight were frustrating. Every other morning Nightingale would demonstrate the spell, and I’d spend up to four hours a day opening my hand in a meaningful manner. Fortunately I got a break three weeks into February, when Lesley May and I were due to give evidence against Celia Munroe, the perpetrator of the Leicester Square cinema assault.
That morning we both dutifully turned up in our uniforms – magistrates like their constables to be in uniform – at the requisite time of ten o’clock, in the firm and certain knowledge that the case would be delayed at least until two. As forward-thinking and ambitious constables, we’d brought our own reading material; Lesley had the latest Blackstone’s Police Investigator’s Manual and I had Horace Pitman’s Legends of the Thames Valley, published in 1897.
City of Westminster Magistrates