The Walking Man - 1

Every night, at midnight, the purple clouds come out to dance with the blushing sky… for those who have eyes to see them. You can tell who they are, if you’re in the know, they tend to stand out. Ever been in a crowd – say out on the town on a Friday night, or at a party – and you see those odd people who seem to have just… stopped; not talking, not dancing, maybe not moving at all. Often they’re in the crowd but somehow not of the crowd, there’s space around them in the crush, or they’re in that odd corner that no-one else likes to stand in. There’s a fair chance they can See. People usually feel uncomfortable with them, their personal space seems a bit bigger and it can make talking with them… awkward.

Most of them learn to hide it, or go somewhere private while it passes. But some, just don’t care, they’ll sit and watch and just lose themselves in the Sky Dance. Clover was like that. I knew, the instant I laid eyes on her, I knew she could See.

She was sitting outside a little bar in the Valley, a place called Dante’s, wearing faded designer jeans and a loose shirt in the heat. Sweat beaded the beer glass that rested on the rickety table in front of her and she was casually leaning back, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle, staring into nothing. Only not nothing, it was cloud time and I new exactly what she was looking at.

I squinted hard – I’ve been practicing my aura reading, but I’m still pretty crap at it – and saw some flashes of colour around her. Mostly it was greys and greens, which is rare, in the city.

“If you’re going to stare, then you’d better buy me a drink.”

I reflexively started walking to the bar and before I could think about it, I was returning with two bottles of pale ale. Damn. That was some strong mind-fuckery, I don’t go buying beers for strangers. I pulled out a seat.

“Are you sure you don’t want to let me drink in peace?”

I was ready for it this time and flipped the script in my head – verbal judo.

“Thanks for the invitation!” And I sat down.

She visibly swayed at that. So… good on offence, not so good on D.

“Ooh, nice one pretty boy,” she raised her beer to mine, “you do good head…work.”

I winced slightly, “Hey, truce, truce.”

She grinned mischievously and it suited her; made her narrow, pointed face look just a trifle wicked. It matched the twinkling blue eyes and pixie-cut honey blonde hair.

I raised my beer in reply, “Rodin Stubbs.”

“Clover Faulieft.”

She was telling the truth, I could see. Names are no big deal really – the whole name magic thing; it’s pretty easy to get around, and to make it work the caster has to make a link with the subject. Links work both ways. And you’re way more vulnerable as a caster than the subject, so it tends to backfire, often spectacularly. So now, it’s kind of like a handshake – see, I’m holding nothing back from you.

“So what’s a nice place like this doing round a guy like you?” she asked.

“I thought it was the man’s job to issue cheesy pick-up lines.”

“Yeah? Well you’re off your game then Pretty Boy.”

“Hey, I was just after a quiet night out, catching up with friends earlier, now topping it off with a couple of solo roadies. I mean… they were going to be solo, ‘til I caught sight of this odd girl vagueing out to the Sky Dance.”

She shrugged, “Fair cop.”

“So you new in town or what? Only this is my regular and I’d remember if I’d seen you before.”

“Oh, no man. Just haven’t been to this pub before. I normally drink across the River, on Southside.”

While we were talking she pulled a tobacco roll from her breast pocket and rolled a cigarette. She glanced at me as she rolled it, “I’d ask if you mind, but frankly I don’t give a damn.”

She lit up, and continued, “So what are you and your gaggle of friends doing out on a Wednesday night? Don’t you all have work tomorrow?”

“Nope, not if I don’t want. I’m a freelance journo.”

“No shit?”

“So how come you’re out mid-week then?”

“Yeah, I’m kinda freelance too.”

“Freelance what?” I asked.

“Oh, stuff… freelance stuff.”

Right. Stuff.

“So the journo gig,” she continued, “pay well does it? Well enough to just work when you want to?” She arched a knowing eyebrow and I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

“Well, not as such, no. I am, as it were, of independent means.”

She laughed, “Yeah I know man, just yankin’ ya chain. Your family keeps it on the down-low, but I’ve been around long enough to know the name Stubbs.”

Damn, damn, bloody damn. The family name was always there, always; floating over me, like some shadow on the floor.

A polite cough beside us, and a deep, slightly apologetic, but above all very large voice said, “Scuse me, but you can’t smoke in this area, even though it’s outside. Smoking section is out the back.”

Clover side-eyed me and winked, then turned to the bouncer. She waved her right hand across in front of him, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”

“Huh?”

“They can smoke here if they want to, it’s their business.”

“Ah what the hell, you guys can smoke here if you really want.”

“Thanks! Now move along.”

The slightly dazed bouncer wandered off.

“That never gets old.”

“You know it’s considered impolite though,” I remonstrated.

She shrugged, “I’m not making him go throw himself in front of a car or something – and you know there’s some who would.”

“Yeah, you want to make sure it never ends up like that too.”

“Jeez, for someone with the last name Stubbs you sure are a straighty-one-eighty.”

“It’s just a name,” I said defensively, “it’s not everything.”

“Sure, sure. And a rose by any other name, hey Romeo.”

I sniffed, “Anyway, it’s supposed to be the left hand.”

“Huh”

“Obi-wan – he uses his left hand.”

She snorted a laugh and drained the last of her beer in a long pull, slapped the empty bottle back on the table and dropped her cigarette stub into it.

“I wanna dance. Come inside with me Pretty Boy?”

“Yeah,” I said, giving her the once up and down, “all right.” No mind-fuckery needed there what-so-ever.

What can I say… the girl could dance. I took up dancing five years ago on the advice of both my boxing coach and my swords master. And I’m pretty damned good at it. But Clover was just on another level, I mean she moved like smoke and water and made it look like whiskey and sex. Dancing with her would probably be banned by most major religions while the rest would declare it a veneration of God.

Anyway, I was doing my best to keep up, and having an absolute ball of a time, but after half an hour thrashing around I was just blown. My shirt was stuck to my body with sweat and my chest was heaving. She grinned at me.

“Time for a drink?”

I nodded, breathlessly, and we threaded our way off the dance floor to the bar. I had a water. She had a double whiskey, neat.

“Should we head back outside?” l had to almost yell over the music.

She shook her head and pointed to an empty table, whose occupants had chosen that moment to leave. How remarkably serendipitous. We moseyed over and she casually swung an arm round my shoulders.

We set our drinks down and I turned to speak with her again, when everything shattered. I don’t mean the glasses and the windows and the bottles. I mean everything. Fragments of light and noise swirled around me, sound cut in and out randomly like bad radio reception. My arms felt immensely heavy and rubbery, while I couldn’t move my legs at all. I clung to the table which, though bolted down, seemed to be bucking and tossing like a boat in a storm. The few particles of sense and reason I retained noted everyone else in the bar falling, struggling to stand, or flopping about on the floor like fish. Clover stumbled and clung to me, buffeted by the same waves. I heard her voice, stretched and distorted into a ludicrous parody.

“Tiiimmme bommmmmbbbb.”

Time bomb? Damn those infernal bloody dwarfs. I wish they’d piss off back to the netherworlds and take their infernal bloody contraptions with them. Oh. Wait. If someone’s dropped a time bomb, then they want to incapacitate the crowd. And they’d only do that because…

Two burly men, dressed all in black and wearing bulky backpacks, walked easily through the writhing, flopping mess of people. I watched the bouncer we’d met before approach them, his left hand tightly clutching some device that evidently protected him from the worst of the time bomb’s effects. Without breaking stride, the taller of the two men pulled an extendable baton and whipped it across the bouncer’s face. He followed with a swift, vicious blow to the thigh, then a third, overhand strike to the collar bone. I heard the crack of bone and the bouncer dropped and curled in pain. The black clad pair stepped over him and advanced on me and Clover.

She tried to run; made it about three steps before stumbling to her hands and knees. The two thugs stopped and leant down to grab her. I clung to the table watching them – they didn’t even spare me a glance. Clover, from where she was on all fours, launched one foot back and up towards her nearest assailant. It was a good kick and landed on his midriff with a meaty thud. If I’d been on the receiving end it would have put me on the deck. He, however, just rocked back a pace with a loud “oof”, then stepped forward again. The other man flicked out his baton and pointed it at her. But she wasn’t in the mood for taking a hint.

Frantically she scrabbled and scrambled across the floor away from them. Through the swirling lights and noise and colour, I saw the men step over, one to each side of her. Their movements were workmanlike, almost bored. Clover tried to spin around, sitting up to face one, but that left her back exposed to the other. He simply reached down, grabbed her by the collar and roughly dragged her backwards.

Finally my arms stopped feeling like rubber weights. I grabbed Clover’s whiskey glass aimed as best I could, and hurled it at the nearest man. His back was to me, and, by pure chance, the glass smashed into the back of his head. He stiffened and looked around; I went back to holding my table, as if I was entirely incapacitated and had never even contemplated moving. He glanced at me then turned away. What the hell had I been thinking? There’s no way I could take on two men like these at the best of times, let alone in the middle of a time bomb maelstrom.

Eventually he gave up searching and turned back to Clover. He helped his partner flip her over, and kneeled on her back, holding her head down, and they tied her wrists and ankles. Then he slung her over one shoulder, and carried her out. It was brutally quick and efficient once they got hold of her.

As they left, I abandoned my safe harbour, and struck out across the floor at a crawl, over to the bouncer. His eyes were glassy, and his breath shallow and rapid. Blood was seeping from a split over his right cheek, which was rapidly swelling – a broken cheekbone most likely, which I can tell you bloody hurts.

Checking his vital signs was about all I could do for him. I couldn’t roll him on his side, not with the broken collar bone as well, especially on my own while the world seemed to be spinning. Fortunately, a few minutes later the time bomb petered out. The world returned to normal with the added sound of multiple sirens approaching. Thankfully some of them were ambulances.

I stayed with the bouncer until the paramedics got to him. It took longer than I’d like; first the police had to run a quick clearance – including a time check to ensure there was no vestigial time energy that might surface. After that the medics had to work through assessing each of the prone victims, focusing particularly on the unconscious people. They worked their way systematically across the room and two casualties were evacuated as high priority. By the time they reached me and bouncer-boy, the police had locked down the site and cordoned it off. I didn’t think of that until I went to leave.

“Sir, no one is allowed out at this time, for your safety,” said one of the pair of constables stationed at the door. Through the open doorway I could see several more uniforms milling about in the controlled chaos that is a combined medical emergency and major crime scene.

“Sir, please step back from the door.”

I dutifully complied, turned back into the room and found a spot to get comfortable. It was going to be a while before they got through all the interviews. The big problem was that I’d been dancing with the victim just before she got mugged. Still, nothing I could do about that now; there was something else important I needed to sort out immediately, particularly if I was potentially going to be detained.

*U up?*

It took Rachel a couple of minutes to text back.

*Yeah y*

Bless her for being a night-owl.

*Need u to feed and walk Calvin*

*Y*

*Incident in town Have to talk to fuzz*

*Holy shit u at ds*

*Yeah*

*Wtf did u do?!*

*NOT ME* *Some sort of mugging*

“Why am I not fucking surprised,” said a weary voice above me.

Shit.

*Have to go talk later*

I pocketed my phone and looked up into the lined face of former inspector – now sergeant – Roger Dabrowski.

“You know, I was looking forward to an evening of dealing with drunks puking and pissing everywhere. But no, instead the fucking ineffable universe decides to slap me upside the head and I get to deal with… you.”

For a word comprising a single syllable and a diphthong he was able to fill it with a surprising amount of enmity, attributing it all the venom and vitriol of a three-page diatribe. “You,” he’d said, as if to rhyme with, “Evil devil-spawn form the deepest pits of hell.”

“Uh… hi Roj.”

He snorted. Just to be clear, Roger Dabrowski is a damned good copper; hard-working, thorough, mostly honest – his corruption only extends to accepting the free kebabs from the Patel brothers’ shop on the corner on a Friday night beat. In fact, he’s a little too honest for his own good. If he’d been a bit more corrupt and so ‘in’ with the ‘right’ crowd, they’d have made the whole issue blow over like some of the others did. His honesty is the reason he’s been busted back to sergeant. Well, when I say the reason, there may have been significant contributing factors…

“You and that bloody article last year.”

“Come on Roj, I was writing a puff piece for Christ’s sake. How was I to know it’d blow up into something real like that?”

He just shook his head in disgust then waved over another, younger officer.

“I really don’t want to deal with you myself,” he growled, then turned to the constable, “Edmondson, say hello to Mister Rodin Stubbs, author of that fine piece of journalistic enterprise, ‘What Colour is Blue’, and the reason our section is currently referred to, throughout the force, as The Blueberries. Get a statement out of him, then get him out of here… before he writes something.”

“Yes sir.”

Dabrowski; good copper, but still human. If he’d been a bit more focused he’d have taken the statement himself. Lucky he didn’t or I’d be dead by now.

Edmondson was young, inexperienced. He established my timeline and a basic sequence of events. I duly reported that I’d come alone for a few drinks, had a bit of a dance – on my own, stopped for a drink, also on my own. And then been smacked by a time bomb, like everyone else. Yeah, something was happening with a woman and a couple of scary looking blokes in black. After that I’d just been concerned with the bouncer and making sure he didn’t die – what else can I say officer, it all happened so fast and what with the time bomb and all…

The other thing about Edmondson, the really important thing, is that he didn’t have a Nazar amulet strung on his neck. I know Dabrowski does. I saw it once, and it’s not some cheap blue glass job from a wannabe Turkish stall either. It’s a copper piece, with a sizable sapphire in the middle, and, judging from it’s rough and ready construction, I’d say Dabrowski hand made it himself. So he wouldn’t have been susceptible to this…

“I’m sure that’s all you need, Edmondson.”

“Yes, thankyou Mister Stubbs, I’m sure that’s all I need. For now.”

He was well trained, at least. The automatic response leaving himself a mind-gap to come back if he needed. But still so easy to work, now that we had a rapport.

“Do you know… what’s the name of the woman they took?”

He flipped through his note pad.

“We think it was a, Clover Faulieft.”

“That name seems a bit old fashioned, how old is she?”

“She’s 28 as of January 12th.”

“Really? It’s an odd name then, where is she from, do you have her address?”

“Best we can tell is over the River, in West End… wait, I can’t be telling you that!”

Not bad for a rookie, the academy must have upped the training on mind games. Still, he’d given me more than enough to start with. The police already knew her well enough to have her name and date of birth, and to know her from first pass witness descriptions. She wasn’t a regular here either, so they didn’t get the information from the bar staff. And “somewhere in West End,” meant no fixed address. Strange for West End; plenty of money around there, a mix of Old Money and Nouveau Riche. She hadn’t smelt like either. She was already involved in something then, something worth hiring two professionals to mug her and the purchase of a time bomb from the dwarfs.

Time for me to push off. Now, what I should do, what would be the sensible thing to do, would be go home, have a shower and go to bed. Forget all about Clover Faulieft and thugs dressed in black and police investigations. Unfortunately, the sensible option was off the table. Pretty soon, Dabrowski and The Blueberries would relise I’d spent a sizable chunk of the evening with Clover. Then they’d be coming to ask me rather more serious questions in the significantly more stringent environment of an interview room down the local nick. Coupled with their current negative attitude towards my recent journalistic efforts, that could get tiresome.

Secondly, and a rather more terrifying prospect, those gentlemen in black were probably already questioning Clover. They looked professional, so they’d start with what had been happening that evening, and it was more than likely they’d already heard the name Rodin Stubbs. It really wouldn’t matter if I’d known Clover for five years or five minutes, I’d be a person of disinterest, as in, a person whose interest should be strongly discouraged, in the most vehement terms. I’d rather find them before they found me.

And just to cap it all off, I felt that I should be helping Clover out of whatever jam she was in. Now don’t get me wrong; I don’t have some hero complex. Leaping on my white charger and galloping off to rescue the damsel in distress is definitely not my style, especially since Clover can clearly take care of herself, mostly. However, I do feel quite strongly that young women – heck women of any age really – should not be mugged and kidnapped, particularly not by thugs with such a damned cliched dress code.

So I did go home, but the longed-for shower and bed did not eventuate. Instead I had a few things to sort out. Calvin of course greeted me with the sensibly understated enthusiasm of all wire-haired terriers with an IQ over 140. He then followed me round mournfully as I sorted my gear out. He knows the routine of my trip preparations.

The weather-beaten backpack came out of the closet and seemingly random clothes were piled into it. The battered Akubra hat was pulled down from its customary nook by the bed. I pulled out the loose threshold board from my bedroom doorway; from the cavity below I retrieved a fat envelope of cash and a suspiciously authentic driver’s licence for one Mister David Hooper, a man who bore a striking resemblance to myself.

Interesting bloke this Mister Hooper. He has a UK passport – that went in my jacket’s inside pocket. He also has a permit to carry the six inch, dwarf-made wand that was secreted right at the bottom of the cache. When I pulled out the wand, Calvin lay down and gave a mournful sigh, his chin on the ground, and puppy eyes reproaching me.

“What? Oh come on, you love Rachel.”

He let out a noise halfway between a whine and a growl.

“So what if Mondrian’s there, you get on with her fine. Come to think of it, last time you were there, she let you use her as a pillow.” I saw just the slightest twitch of a tail trying not to wag. Busted! I know you’re hamming it up.

My phone pinged. It was Rachel answering my text.

*Ok to take C for a few days usual fee?*

I replied with a thumbs up, then sent a message with two tick marks: Over and Out. I thumbed the phone off then tucked it under my pillow, where searching police officers would easily find it. I pulled a new, unused phone from my bedside draw, already set with key contacts and a charger.

No. I’m not some secret super-spy. But living in this city – as I have to – with the name Stubbs is tricky. And if you’re not into playing their little games then you need to be able to fend for yourself, and that includes being able to clear out fast and disappear for a few days, or weeks. Usually it’s only until the smoke blows over from whatever stupidity has been perpetrated, but sometimes the passport gets a work out. Regardless though, I have to return to the city. You could say that… it’s in my blood.

So I put Rodin Stubbs away for now, and David Hooper opened his new phone, and dialled a number that wasn’t in the phone’s contact list, or any other contact list I’m aware of.

“Moshi moshi,”

“Frosty. It’s Dave. I need a place to crash. You clean?”

“Hai. I am.”

“See you in an hour.”

I gave Calvin a dog treat and one last pat, then I left.