The inside of the church was cold; Matt and Em’s breath fogged the air. Em stomped up and down, trying to drive some life to her toes. They had deposited Caravaggio on the beach with Guthrie, surprisingly without much fuss from either man, and grabbed a late meal before returning to HQ. Now it was just a question of keeping warm. Em was in leggings, boots, fingerless gloves and an Argyle sweater Jeannie had knitted for her birthday. She layered this over a T-shirt, plus an oversized cardigan she’d found in a closet in the living quarters upstairs. Matt’s hair was loose on his shoulders and damp from the sea air. He was dressed in a vintage Bob Dylan T-shirt, skinny black jeans, boots and a tartan blanket he’d rustled from Vaughn’s bedroom. His shades were on the top of his head, his eyes on full-tilt freaky.
‘I’ve a new assignment for you,’ said Vaughn, turning the screen of his laptop to face the twins. ‘According to a source, there was an incident at a shop just off the Strand involving this young man.’
Vaughn showed them a photo that looked like it had come from someone’s phone. The twins didn’t ask how his source had taken such a clear picture given that their own source was unconscious in a nineteenth-century Scottish landscape. The twins looked closely at the image.
‘The clerks in the store are being uncooperative, claiming the lad was never there, despite the fact that the police have footage of him running across the rooftops nearby.’
‘Did he steal something? People shoplift all the time,’ said Matt, looking at the photograph. ‘Why did they go all super SWAT on him?’
‘It’s wrong, but his colour probably made him an easy target,’ said Em with disgust.
‘I think it may have something to do with the jewel thieves who’ve been upsetting wealthy shoppers in the city centre,’ said Vaughn.
‘Still don’t get why this is Orion’s concern,’ said Matt.
‘Right after this incident, a phone call came in to our London headquarters from one of our sources in the field. My source said that the young man evaded capture by disappearing into a statue of Shakespeare in an explosion of light.’
‘That sounds like an Animare,’ said Em, clutching her mug of tea for warmth. Her gloves weren’t helping.
‘That’s what HQ thought at first,’ said Vaughn. ‘But he didn’t draw his way in. He altered reality with music. Specifically, with his voice. Which means he’s not an Animare, he’s a Conjuror.’
Em put her cup down and Matt shifted his chair forward as Vaughn opened a new screen, typed in a password and clicked through to the pages of an illuminated manuscript on Orion’s database of grimoires and other ancient documents.
‘This is a facsimile of Agrippa’s Compendium of Magic,’ he told the twins. ‘It’s one of only two manuscripts we’ve ever discovered that mention Conjurors, and trust me we have looked. We had assumed the supernatural line of Conjurors had died out during the African Diaspora, when the Atlantic slave trade seized and scattered African peoples.’
‘Conjurors are African?’ asked Matt.
‘What little we know suggests their origins are somewhere in the Middle East or the African continent,’ said Vaughn, ‘but we don’t have enough evidence to know more than that. Occasionally, one of Orion’s researchers will come across an image or reference, but that’s not happened in decades. I don’t think anyone’s even looking for them any more.’
Em leaned closer to read the Latin text beneath the image of an angelic-looking African youth playing a golden lyre.
‘“A Conjuror alone can lure demons to the underworld with his music,”’ she translated aloud.
Matt, who was not as fluent in Latin as Em, pointed at an illuminated quotation set off with whirls of what was likely gold leaf. ‘What does this one say?’
Em ran possible phrasing through her head. ‘“Only when the chord is true and the voice is clear will the Second Kingdom fall”,’ she said. ‘There’s a faded bit here too, with a few words missing, which says something about, “when the Camarilla rise, the fallen will walk the earth”.’
I’ve heard that word before, Matt. Camarilla.
Me too. Don’t say anything else in my head, Em. Vaughn’s too good.
‘What are you two buzzing back and forth about?’ said Vaughn, eyeing them.
‘Only that these phrases sound like an ancient apocalyptic prophecy,’ said Matt quickly. ‘And you know the problem with apocalyptic prophecies? For people like us, they’re a royal pain in the arse.’
Em grinned. Good save.
Vaughn burst out laughing.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘But if this young man really is a Conjuror, then he’s a rarity, and we have to bring him in for his own protection. I need you both to fade to London and take a closer look at the statue where he disappeared. If he is a Conjuror, the Council of Guardians must be informed immediately. Then someone with more experience in the field will be assigned to bring him in.’
Em and Matt both opened their mouths at the same time. Vaughn held up a warning hand.
‘If you want to be part of my Orion team, you need to learn to play with others. Don’t get too close to him or anyone else connected with the police investigation. Just investigate the scene and then report back. Understood?’
I’m thinking this is probably not a good time to tell him about Caravaggio.
You think?
‘Understood,’ the twins said in unison.
Vaughn clicked over to another screen on his computer. A map of the centre of London came up.
‘The statue is directly behind the National Gallery and the shop is in a quiet lane off the Strand. You can fade from our Vermeer here to another one in the National Gallery. Go to the shop. See if you can find out why its staff are not cooperating with the police. My gut tells me they know more than they’re saying.’
He pulled an accordion folder from a locked cabinet, tucked in an alcove below the Turner, in the north transept.
‘Can we inspirit them into cooperating?’ Em asked.
‘Use your powers sparingly,’ Vaughn advised, sifting through the folder’s contents. ‘As far as the Council is concerned, you’re probationary Orion agents only, which means you’re not supposed to take on cases without my close supervision. Do not let me down.’
He handed Em and Matt each an old-fashioned flip phone, an ID card, a credit card from the Bank of Scotland and a hundred pounds in cash.
‘This is ancient,’ said Matt, examining the phone.
‘It’s better than it looks. It has a direct line to Orion’s switchboard,’ Vaughn said. ‘And it takes decent pictures and video. Don’t use your iPhones for Orion business, they are too easily traced.’
Em picked up the ID card and read aloud, ‘“Orion Insurance Inc.” We’re insurance agents?’
‘Of course you are,’ said Vaughn. ‘We insure that Animare and their Guardians are protected from those who will do them harm.’
‘Wait a minute. You said that Orion has knowledge of only two ancient manuscripts mentioning Conjurors,’ said Matt. ‘If Agrippa’s Compendium of Magic is one of them, what’s the other?’
Vaughn rubbed his hand over his stubbled chin. ‘The other text with a reference is the Apocalypse of John.’
Em froze. ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ she said.
‘What?’ said Matt.
‘The Apocalypse of John,’ said Em, shivering despite all her layers, ‘is the original version of the bible’s Book of Revelation.’