A Brotherhood of Crows.
Chapter 19

Zularna had been walking for about ten minutes when she came to a halt, faced with a sheer face of rock. She stopped, hesitated, and then took her phone out of her pocket. She had no signal here, but she could review the series of texts she had sent that morning from bed:

Me:

Hi’. I’ve thought about it. I’ll help you.

Elijah

I’m glad to hear that. Can you meet me this morning?

Me:

Yes, I can. How do I find you?

Elijah

Arthur’s Seat. Go to Salisbury Crags. Head east from South Quarry. Look for a lift.

And so she had set out, muffled against the chill wind, from Leith. She had walked down to the very end of the Royal Mile, skirted around the edge of Holyrood Park (a safe distance from the Palace itself - a minor royal was in residence, and the small army of security surrounding the place looked only too pleased to stop a lone woman walking) while the great mass on Arthur’s Seat loomed above her, gradually blocking out the sky with its craggy bulk. In the past it had been a popular hill walking venue, a place where every visitor and resident of the city would ascend at least once a year. One of her professors had told her that as a student, he and his cohort had climbed to the summit at dawn after graduation day, and had watched the sun rising over the Firth of Forth, their mortarboards discarded in a small cairn, a memorial to their studies. But then the war had started and the Commonwealth had needed a new factory to produce its great grey warships - steel from Glasgow was sent across the country, and a factory was built, straddling the summit. For years, sleek battleships, and shorter, stubbier dreadnaughts had launched from the factory’s hanger doors, the hum of their thauma drives becoming part of the cities background noise. And then, one day, the factory had ceased production: perhaps new facilities had been built, or the war had taken a turn for the better, and thus fewer warships were needed. For whatever reason, the factory doors had closed, and a high, barbed wire fence had been erected around the base of Arthur’s Seat, sealing it off from the outside world. There had been a small gap in that fence, and Zularna had slipped through it and now she found herself facing Salisbury Crags, with nowhere else to go.

The bare rocks offered no clue as to where to go next. “Look for a lift,” Elijah had written. Zularna looked about her and saw no sign of a lift, or any sign of any mechanical equipment at all. She frowned, and waved her phone around. There - a bar of signal. She wrote: sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ Find_Nøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Me:

I’m here. I can’t see the lift.

To her surprise, Elijah replied immediately.

It’s right ahead of you. Just go straight.

“Go straight?” she repeated, to no one. There was nothing ahead of her, only rock. She shifted the crossbow, folded down in the poster carrier slung over her back.

Me:

There’s nothing in front of me.

Elijah:

Yes there is. Just walked forward.

She looked at the rocks again, then back at her phone, then back at the rocks. Elijah, it seemed, was as insufferably oblique by text as he was in real life. Figures. Tentatively, she extended a hand. Her hand didn’t encounter solid rock - instead, it passed through. Hologram, she thought. An elaborate one too, realistic enough to look exactly like the surrounding cliff face. She took a deep breath, and walked into the cliff.

She found herself in a cool, metal shaft. Directly ahead of her was an old fashioned metal lift. She stepped into it, and pressed the sole button inside the carriage. Far above her, she heard the clanking of ancient gears beginning to turn, and felt the carriage shudder and shakes as it because to sluggishly carry her into the heart of the mountain.

After what felt like an age, the lift came to a halt, and she stepped out into a corridor, which was lit be stark strip lighting. She began to walk down it, her footsteps echoing around her, until she reached the end, a heavy oak door, which seemed out of place in the metallic corridor. The door was featureless save for a knocker, and above it, a sign, written in sharpie, that said:

Ask and you shall receive

Seek and you shall find

Knock, or you shall be shot through the letterbox.

“Cheerful,” she muttered, and knocked. She heard the sound of the knocker’s strike echoing behind the door, before it was thrust open with such force that she had to leap back.

“Look, Fabio, I told you, oreo and mozzarella pizza is not going to happen, stop trying to make it happen, it’s blasphemy I tell you, blasphemy!” bellowed the figure who opened the door, before seeing Zularna and adding. “Oh, sorry. I...wasn’t expecting you.”

The person in the doorway as not Elijah Avaron. He was a teenage boy, no older than seventeen, gangly and with that awkwardness that boys of his age possessed that seemed to make him all elbows. He wore cargo shorts, and an oversized hoodie that was clearly meant for a bigger man, and a significant portion of his face was hidden behind a long, unkempt fringe, which obscured one of his eyes. The other eye, the visible one, regarded Zularna with a blend of fascination and mania.

“Um, Hi,” said Zularna, “I’m looking for Elijah Avaron?”

The teenage boy’s single visible eye blinked at her, nonplussed. “You’re what now?”

“Elijah Avaron,” repeated Zularna, somewhat unnerved, “I’m looking for him?”

The boy considered it. “There are better people to look for.”

“I’m sorry?”

“There are better people to look for than Elijah Avaron,”.

“Um...are there?” said Zularna uncertainly, trying to work out of this was some bizarre test.

“Yeah, of course. Have you tried...looking for Godot?”

“Uh...no?”

“Fair, never shows up...what about, Jesus?”

“I’m Muslim,”

“Awkward, okay, what about..Bielefeld?”

“What?”

“It’s a city in Germany. Apparently doesn’t exist.”

“Right, okay, but the thing is -”

“Have you ever been to Bielefeld?”

“No but I have an appointment with -”

“Do you know anyone who lives in Bielefeld?”

“I don’t but that’s not what I’m here about -”

“Do,” continued the boy, really getting into his stride now, “you know anyone who’s ever been to Bielefeld?”

“Afraid not, but I really need to see Elijah Avaron?” said Zularna, politely but firmly.

The boy frowned. “We talking about the same guy - skinny bloke, big coat, beard that looks like his pubes got lost on their way back from a night out?”

“Well, it is quite pubey. Why do you ask?”

“Just being careful. Elijah doesn’t have many friends.”

“I’m not his friend.”

“Oh, in that case you can come on in,”

A bell rang in Zularna’s head. “You’re Tobias, right?”

The boy nodded. “That’s me.”

“Nice job with the contact lens.”

Tobias smiled approvingly. “You, madam, are a woman of taste.” he thrust out a hand, “Pleased to meet you.”

Zularna reached out to shake the proffered hand, but yanked her hand away when she saw that Tobias’s right arm, from elbow to finger tips, was on fire.

“Oh, fuck, sorry!” Tobias yanked his arm back and began waving it violently. “I was pissing about with pyromancy earlier, forgot about that. Come on in!”

He turned and began walking into the hallway, and Zularna, after a moment’s hesitation, followed him. The door opened into a short corridor, at the end of which was the old factory hanger bay. After so much time in enclosed spaces, it felt liberating to step into the vast expanses of the old warehouse. The space, several stories high, and almost a kilometre long, had once been filled with airships in various states of construction. Most of it was now empty, but around a quarter was filled with a haphazard collection of objects: against one wall, Zularna noted a sizable armoury, with various guns, rifles and projectile launchers hanging from hooks, ordered by size. In the middle of the space was what appeared to be a mock up of a city street: fake wooden houses, narrow alleyways and long ziplines. Spray painted, on the floor was a sign that read “Freerunning practise two hours a week!” underneath which was written “Parkour? More like ParkPHWOAR, amirite???” underneath which was written, “Go to bed, Tobias.” As Tobias, whose arm had now extinguished, led her deeper into the space, she saw what appeared to be a makeshift firing range, with bullet riddled mannequins clumped at one end. They passed as well a sizable greenhouse, filled with ripe fruit and vegetables.

“Do you guys grow all that?” she asked as they passed.

“Yep,” said Tobias, with a touch of pride. “Bit of an experiment on my part, blend of bioengineering and a touch of unnatural science - the crops grow and ripen in a couple of days. Make our own bread, too, and I’ve worked out a way to synthesise cheese. We basically haven’t bought food for a couple of years.”

That explains not needing money. “How long have you two lived here?”

“About three years,” he replied. They weaved past a series of large, suspicious shapes covered in dust sheets. “Not a bad place to live if you don’t mind the cold, or the company. Come on, Eli’s this way.”

At the far wall of the hanger bay, they found Elijah. He was hunched over a workbench, working something with a shriving stone. He was dressed much more casually than when she had last seen him; torn jeans, bare feet, a tank top. His hair was tied back in a bun, and he had a pair of goggles pulled down over his eyes. Zularna noted that his forearms were bare, and his hip holster was empty. On the workbench in front of him, the revolver’s cylinder open and empty, and next to it, one of his gauntlets. The other was in his hand, and she saw that the katai blade was extended, and it was this he was grinded against the shriving stone, sharpening the blade.

“Ooooh Eli,” Tobias bellowed in a sing-song voice, “Your young lady is here.”

Elijah stopped sharpening the katai and pulled the goggles off his face. His tired eyes glared at Tobias. “She’s not my young lady,” he glanced at Zularna, “You’re not my young lady, hand on, won’t be a mo…”

He sheathed the katai, and then strapped one, and then the other gauntlet onto his forearms, tightening them in place with leather straps. They ran from elbow down to the bottom of his fingers on the top of his arm, and ended at the end of the palm on the bottom. Up close, she could see that in the palm of each gauntlet was a thin cylinder with a button, angled towards the thumb. With the gauntlets tightened, he flexed his arms, and then pressed both buttons, caused the Katais to extend from their sheathe with a metallic hiss. His twisted both arms, checking the movement of each blade, and then pressed the buttons again, causing the blades to snap back. Satisfied, he plucked a still burning rollie from the workbench and took a deep drag.

“Thanks for coming down,” he said to Zularna, exhaling smoke through his nostrils. “Can I offer you something? Tea? Coffee?”

“Coffee would be nice,” said Zularna. As she spoke, Elijah picked up a small derringer pistol from the workbench, slotted into a track on the inside of his left gauntlet. He doubled tapped the left gauntlet button, causing the pistol to shoot down the track and into his palm.

“Sure. Tobias, mind putting the kettle on?”

“Sure. Do you mind shaving?”

“We have a guest, Tobias,” said Elijah, a tad tersely.

“Exactly, should have shaved.” Tobias shot back.

“Kettle, Tobias,”

“What’s the magic word?”

“Expelliarmus?”

“Close enough,” said Tobias, and scuttled off.

Elijah scooped up his revolver and motioned for Zularna to follow him. “Sorry about Tobias,”

“He’s actually rather charming,” she replied, falling into step behind him, as he led her up a spiral staircase behind the workstation.

“It wears off. Come on, this way.”

At the top of the stairs, they reached a long room with a kitchenette at the end, where Tobias was busily boiling the kettle. At the other end of the room were a series of battered leather sofas, and the centre of the space was occupied by an enormous dining table, covered by a sheet. Around the room above them ran a mezzanine floor, and Zularna noted that each wall on that upper floor was occupied by a bookcase, rammed with thick volumes.

“So this is where you call home,” she said, as Elijah flopped down on one of the sofas.

“Yep,” Elijah was sliding bullets into the revolver’s cylinder as he spoke, his long fingers pushing each bullet into a chamber and pressing it home with his thumb. “Home sweet home.”

Tobias came over with a coffee pot and three mugs, and poured steamy black coffee into each. “So you’re here to help us with our investigation then,”

Zularna nodded. “You said you wanted me to read the past of a dead thing.”

Tobias frowned. “Read the past?”

“It’s her skill,” said Elijah, sipping his coffee, and puffing on the dregs of his rolie. “She’s an inverted clairvoyant.”

Zularna shot him a look. “Odd way of describing me. How’d you come up with that name?”

Elijah met her gaze over his steaming mug. He blinked, and for a fraction of a second seemed to fade, and then was back again. “I’m just good at naming things.”

“Which is why,” said Tobias, not noticing or not commenting on Elijah’s fade, “you want to call the ship ‘The Ship’.”

“Can you think of a better name?” Elijah retorted.

Zularna raised an eyebrow. “Ship?”

“We just got a skyskimmer,” said Tobias breezily. He had taken up a whole sofa to himself, popping his feet up on the battered arm, “It’s down in the hanger. I won it in a high stakes poker game. Great little thing, ex safari craft, got a net gun for catching animals alive.”

“You play poker?”

“He’s surprisingly good at it,” said Elijah. He ground down his cigarette and began to roll another. “The ship used to belong to Texas Doc,”

“Wait,” Zularna rounded on Tobias, “I’ve heard of him! Isn’t he the most famous card player in the world?”

“True dat,” replied Tobias, “But he has a tell.”

“What was it?”

“Simple: when he gets bad hand he throws all his card in the air and runs out the room screaming ‘oh for fucks sake! Me cards are a pile of wank!’ Once you know that, you can beat him in a hand or two.”

Zularna opened her mouth to question this, but then thought better of it. Instead, she turned to Elijah. “So what do you need from me.”

Elijah had pulled a slim phone from his pocket and had been tapping on it. He glanced up at her. “Tobias and I are looking into something, related to what happened in Waverly. We have one witness, but he’s dead. I need you to see if you can read him.”

“...Okay, where is he?”

“On the dining room table. Because someone has no sense of hygiene.” he added pointedly at Tobias. “Also, your hand’s on fire again.”

“What? Oh, fucking pyromancy!” Tobias dipped his flaming fingers into his coffee, “And also, which one of us did a whole autopsy? Hmm? Was it you? No, so there.”

He hopped up and darted over to the dining room table and began fiddling around under the sheet, muttering darkly.

“Okay, well, what are we waiting for?” asked Zularna.

“I’m expecting the guy who gave me the job to join us, via holo-link,” he waved the phone, “He should be able to speak to us...now, actually. Come on,” he set his coffee down and led her over to the table.

Elijah set the phone down on the edge of the table, and tapped a few more buttons. There was a faint hum, and the projector built into the device came to life. The holographic image of man emerged. He was seated on an invisible chair, fingers interlaced: He wore a drab grey suit, and on the edge of his long, thin nose sat a pair of tiny spectacles, over which he regarded Zularna, Elijah and Tobias. “Mr Avaron,” he said. His voice was soft, almost neutral. “So good of you the call me.”

“Doctor,” Elijah acknowledged the man with a nod, “Zularna, Tobias, this is Doctor Cruicus. Dr Cruicus, Zularna Munro, and Tobias Rainer.

“And why are these people here?” the hologram of Crucius said, ignoring the introduction.

“I’m...um…” Zularna searched for a way to describe her involvement, “I’m here to help,” she said weakly.

“Dr Crucius, ZOMG!” Tobias bounded over to the hologram and thrust out his hand, “Pleased to meet you, Tobias Rainer, sorry my hands on fire, but I was messing about with your work on pyromancy earlier, like, mate, I am your biggest, literally, biggest fan!”

The hologram of Crucius regarded Tobias balefully. “What is this street urchin doing here, Mr Avaron? And why is it trying to shake my hand?”

“Tobias,” said Zularna, gently, “You know you can’t shake hands with a hologram”

“An arsehologram,” muttered Elijah darkly, “Doctor, Tobias is my partner. In crime. Not romantically. That would be horrible. He’s also my friend, and definitely not an urchin. Though he does probably belong on the bottom of the sea.”

“Literally your biggest fan,” whispered Tobias, and gave Crucius a knowing wink.

Crucius sniffed disdainfully. “And the woman?”

“Is in the room, and doesn’t like being referred to in third person,” Zularna cut off Elijah before he could speak. “Which Dickens novel did you crawl out of?”

“I happen,” said Crucius, primly, “to be an eminent unnatural scientist, and the master of St Jude’s College, Cambridge.”

“That explains a lot,” muttered Zularna, “Posh twat.”

“Well, now that everyone’s met,” said Elijah, measuredly, “Perhaps we can get started. You read my report, Doctor?”

“I did,” replied Crucius, “Intriguing reading. Let’s go over what you have.”

“Sure. Tobias, perhaps you can start us off…?”

“With pleasure,” Tobias yanked the sheet off the table. A corpse lay there, covered only by a smaller sheet over its groin. It was pale, bloodless, and Zularna say the marks of a surgical Y incision on its torso. “I pulled an ID from dental records. This is the late Michael Summers, resident of Morningside, part time teacher, poet, lived a fairly quiet life for about forty five years, until he transformed into a horrible steel monster and tried to kill all three of us,”

“Wait,” interrupted Zularna, “That...he...is the thing that attacked us?”

Tobias nodded. “The very same. Autopsy turned up a few interesting things - cause of death for one - exsanguination.” he lifted up the corpses arm, and gestured to faint red marks that ran the length of the forearm. “Michael here is a suicide. Poor bugger.”

There was a silence as his words sank in.

“There’s more - his insides are a mess, to put it mildly. His skins has a ton of stretch marks and when I went in...well, his organs were all over the shop. As if his body had transformed hugely after death. And I found this, surgically implanted in his chest.”

From beside the corpse, Tobias drew out a diamond shaped object about the size of a fist. Zularna heard a sharp intake of breath from Elijah. “That’s...like the things on the guys who attacked us at the Rim.”

Tobias nodded grimly. “You’re half right. I managed to salvage one of those devices. Similar to what we have here, but a lot smaller, simpler. Now, watch this, oh, and you may want to stand back.”

Tobias placed the diamond device on the corpse’s chest. Zularna and Elijah stepped back, and watched as Tobias took from his pocket a small vial filled with a light blue substance and held it above the device. He counted softly to three, and then dropped it and ducked.

The vial shattered. With a snap, five strands burst out of the diamond device - wicked shoots of barbed wire, as if the device had sprouted limbs like some sort of hideous starfish. The barbed limbs thrashed about manically, lashing as if in pain, and then with a dull hum they slid back inside the device.

“That vial,” said Tobias, “Had a small amount of Chaos energy in it. Whatever that is, Chaos triggers it. Those tendrils? They latched onto poor Michael’s bones, into his muscles ...think of them like the strings of a puppet. That device there was controlling him, keeping him mobile after death, and the Chaos in that device itself was...well, changing him.” He paused. “Maybe Dr Crucius can shed a bit of light on this?”

Crucius, in hologram form, nodded softly. “I am familiar with this technology. It’s called a Chaos Drive. Not long after the discovery of thauma, and the advent of Unnatural Sciences, research was done into trying to harness Chaos as an energy source - I did some research into the issue myself, many years ago. It was hypothesised that such devices could reanimate dead tissue - it was proposed that Chaos Drives could, if you will, bring life back into paralysed limbs. This…” he gestured at the body of Michael, “suggests that someone has weaponised the technology. Mr Avaron, you said that you were attacked by ‘dead men’ at the Rim?”

Elijah nodded. He had lit another cigarette. “They were corpses, but walking corpses. The only way to stop them was to stab them in the chest where these...Chaos Drives were.”

“Indeed. Tobias’s analogy of a puppet strings is appropriate. These devices do not bring the dead back to life, but could, in theory, allow a corpse to be controlled, used like a marionette, if you will. However, such a device would need to be used be someone who was generating Chaos themselves, using their own life force…”

“Which would explain the man in the mask,” said Elijah, “When I stabbed the Chaos Drives, it caused him pain.”

“What happened to this man?” asked Crucius, “He could offer valuable answers.”

“Unlikely. He’s a bit dead,”

“Seems a theme with you guys,” muttered Zularna.

“One of the primary generators of Chaos energy is death,” said Crucius, “Theses devices.. They use death to prolong life...however, technology could be created which used the life of an individual as charge for Chaos Drives…” he glanced at the body on the table. “That other device, you say it was implanted under the skin? It is shame we cannot know what happened to Mr Summers before his death.”

“That,” said Elijah, “is where your wrong. Zularna?”

Zularna met his expectant gaze blankly. “What?”

“Well...you can read him.”

“I said I might be able to read him,” replied Zularna.

“Tell me, Miss Munro,” Crucius interlaced his fingers again, “What exactly is the nature of your...ability?”

“I read the pasts of others. It’s sort of...inverted clairvoyance.” the new name for her abilities slipped from her mouth, oddly naturally. “Elijah thinks I might be able to see what happened to Michael before he…”

“I see,” Crucius expression was inscrutable as he eyed her over his tiny spectacles, “Can you read my past?”

She shook her head. “No, I need to be close to someone to do that,”

“Can you read the pasts of the people in the room?”

“Elijah..,” she hesitated, “Is complex. Tobias on the other hand….” she paused, and opened her mind to the dull rumble of memories, “...spent four hours last night Googling the phrase ‘does it still count as Netflix and chill if I don’t have a netflix subscription or a boyfriend.’ Seriously? Four hours?”

“I what, I how dare you - yeah that’s what I did with my Friday night,” Tobias admitted, deflated.

“Does it count?” mused Elijah.

“Go fuck yourself, pube beard.”

“Sounds like you need it more than me.”

“Nonsense. I had sex last night, if you really wanted to know.”

“Oh really. How was it?”

“Spiffing. Apart from the fact that I was alone.”

“Burn my eyes.”

“Fun as this is,” interrupted Zularna, “Do you want me to try and read your corpse or not?”

There a moment’s silence. Crucius sighed softly, and Zularna swore she heard him mumble “Whom have I employed?” She rolled her eyes and barged past Elijah and Tobias and strode over to the corpse of Michael Summers. It lay before her, still, cold, and dead. It occurred to her that this was the longest time she’d ever spent around a dead body. A strange thought for someone who spent much of her time killing (“You’re just a killer then,” said past Elijah in her mind, and she grimaced and shooed the thought away). Normally she did what needed to be done and go out of there before anyone showed up. Now, in the presence of what had once been Michael Summers, she felt intrusive - all the more so for what she was about to do.

She rolled up a sleeve and extended a hand towards the body. “Okay, well, here goes nothing…”

She pressed her palm, gently, against the corpse’s chest. Its coldness frightened her.

“Anything?” asked Tobias after a moment’s silence.

“No,” said Zularna, slowly, “Maybe I -!”

Be saved be saved by the creed! You only need believe! Hear the creed, and believe, Brothers!

Black wings battered her face like a rush of leaves. She saw sights and sounds - the sonorous tolling of a church bell, voices chanting in unknown, guttural language. She saw a hand - her hand - waving a leaflet at passers by in a rain drenched street. The creed! You can be saved, believe in the creed, and hear the Black Wings. Someone shoved her and she fell, to the pavement, the leaflets knocked from her hands - fucking god botherer, get out of the way, get that shit out of my face. Bless you brother, bless you, Black Wings Forgive, Black Wings never forget, Black Wings will soar and find you wherever go and Black Wings watch you always and black wings have black claws and you will die you will die you must die for a murder for murder for a murder of Crows -

She shrieked and fell, really fell this time. Dully, she was aware of arms breaking her fall, and distorted voices shouting - “Get the medkits, she’s fitting!” - and her world spin and shivered and twisted and then righted itself and she found herself half collapsed, with Elijah Avaron’s thin arms holding her weight.

“...Larna...Ularna...Zularna!” his voice became louder and louder, “Zularna, are you okay? Dammit, get that medkit, Tobias, now!”

She tried to speak but her mouth felt numb, as if it were no longer part of her body. “I….I...I’m fine...Fine. It’s okay...I’m fine.”

Tobias pulled up one of the dining chairs, and she collapsed into it. Woozy, nauseous. She saw Elijah, crouched on one knee in front of her, his hand on her neck, reading her pulse, and beyond him, the imperceptible hologram of Dr Crucius, still sitting, fingers interlaced, watching impassively.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, more firmly. “Fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Elijah withdrew his hand, “Your hearts racing...your pale and your eyes...they went white.”

Crucius coughed lightly. “What did you see, Miss Munro?”

“Christ’s Sake, Crucius, give her a moment -!”

“No, it’s okay,” she gently but firmly pushed Elijah away from her. “I did see...something. I saw...wings. Black wings. Beating around me...like I was in the middle of a flock of birds...crows or ravens or...and there was a crowd. I was trying to give them leaflets...something religious...there were voices talking about creeds and believing and…” she trailed off.

Tobias pulled up two more chairs, one for Elijah and himself, and settled into one. “Black wings...crows...the thing...Michael...when he transformed he left a crow’s head on that body...and didn’t John the Baptist say that Brotherhood of Crows was a religious group?”

Elijah nodded grimly. “He did. A very rich, very discrete religious group...it sounded like some sort of death cult…”

Crucius clicked his tongue. “So the Brotherhood is a religious organisation...this is most intriguing…”

“What…” Zularna was still struggling to get her breath back, “What’s the Brotherhood of Crows?”

“It’s what links this all together,” replied Elijah. He began to roll another cigarette, his hands shaking slightly, “Micheal and what happened to him...the Chaos Drives...you and me...it’s what Crucius hired me to do in the first place...find out who are the Brotherhood of Crows.”

“Indeed,” said Crucius, “And the information you have gathered, though fragmentary, is beginning to form a picture.”

“So where do we go from here?” asked Tobias, “We got a dead body, some scary reanimating tech, a religious group which sounds delightful fun…”

Crucius shifted his weight, and adjusted his spectacles with a delicate move. “If,” he said, “The information we have is correct, and the Brotherhood of Crows is indeed a religious group...there would some record of them in the Ministry of Theological Justice. By law, all religions must be registered there. Miss Munro suggests she saw our late friend Michael Summers flyering for the group - there may be a front church, to protect the real identity of the Brotherhood.”

“Can you remember what was on the flyer?” Tobias asked Zularna.

“Some words and phrases, why?”

“Write em down for me. I can scour the holo, see if I can find them in any church literature. There are thousands of the bastard things, but I might come up with something.”

“Good idea,” said Elijah, “However, we’ve got a bigger problem: if the Brotherhood of Crows is what we think it is, and if there is information in the Ministry of Theological Justice, how do we get in?”

“There,” said Crucius, “I may be of some assistance.”

“How exactly? Aren’t you on some top secret mission on the other side of the earth?”

“Mr Avaron, you may recall when we first met I mentioned that I am advisor to Her Majesty’s government. As such, I have certain privileges, including access to the various ministries of state. I can get you inside the Ministry of Theological Justice,” he paused, “Besides, there is matter I’d very much like to discuss with the new minister himself. He and I have unfinished business.”

“Do you mean fisting?” asked Tobias. There was silence. “What? What? No one thought that? Because of the way he said unfinished business I thought he meant...I was trying to lighten the...oh fuck it, I’ll shut up.”

“Good man,” Elijah turned to Crucius, “If you have access to the Ministry, why don’t you find the information yourself?”

“I am known at the Ministry. For me to been seen examining the archives...it may attract undue attention. I do not think it is a huge leap of logic to assume that the masked man and his dead friends who attacked you at the Rim may have been connected to the Brotherhood in some way... I can certainly get you inside. I shall arrange a meeting with the Minister - that should give you a window of opportunity.”

“Okay, how soon can you get back from...wherever you are?”

“I can charter a shuttle and meet you in London tomorrow.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Zularna.

“You’ve done enough, Zularna,” said Elijah. “I don’t want to put you in harm’s way -”

“I said I’ll come with you. Whatever this is...I want to know what’s going on. Besides, if Tobias is going to stay here and try and identify the front church, you’ll need back up.”

He nodded. “Fair enough. We’ll meet you in London tomorrow, Dr Crucius,”

The other inclined his head in acknowledgment, “Indeed. I shall call you when I dock. Farewell.”

The hologram faded away. Elijah rose, snatched up the phone and stored it in his pocket.

“What do we do with the body?” asked Zularna.

“There’s some land outside the factory,” replied Elijah, “If Tobias has done all he can, I suppose we should bury it.”

“Agreed,” said Tobias. He rummaged around under the body for a second and then pulled out something damp and horrible looking. “Dunno about you two but this has given me a killer appetite. Pizza?”

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