Brotherhood of Shades

“Goodbye, Toby. Keep me informed, won’t you?” she asked.

“I will,” D’Scover said, “and thank you.”

He placed his fingertips on the screen and almost immediately Sister Goodman began to destabilise. Blue sparks danced around D’Scover’s fingertips as the Hotline began to take hold. Where Sister Goodman had once stood there now lingered a fading image, gradually breaking apart into millions of vivid violet fragments. They whirled in a bright mist that sparkled and glittered as it spiralled next to the desk. Then, with a fierce final crackle from D’Scover’s fingertips, the mist rushed into the screen and was gone.

D’Scover leaned back and rubbed his hands together, staring at the plan of the hospice until he saw the yellow dot that represented Sister Goodman once more walk the corridors.

A light tap on his door broke his concentration. “Come!” he called out. Emma opened the door and leaned into the room.

“I have Marcus Resnick on line four, sir. Do you want to talk to him?”

“Marcus?” D’Scover waved his diary open to the current date. “Blast, it is the sixteenth. I said that I was going to call him in today. Yes, thank you, Emma, you can put him through.”

A moment later the computer screen faded out to be replaced with an image. With his sallow skin, short and dirty black hair and, as always, looking as if he could use a good wash, Marcus looked nervous, but his already pale complexion seemed even more ghostly than usual.

“Are you ready to come in?” D’Scover asked abruptly.

“Yes, sir, but it won’t be a full Hotline, will it? Those things make me weak for days and, to be honest, I’m having a bit of trouble with my substance lately,” he whined.

“Very well, I shall just boost you via your CC so that we can talk without interruption. Could you Disperse, please, and I will pull you in?” D’Scover said.

Marcus nodded and closed his eyes, still holding his CC parallel with his face. The CC had taken over a century to develop, but it had been worth the wait. It allowed two-way communication over huge distances and could only be used by the spirit registered to do so. It Dispersed with its user and, if it came into the possession of a living person, just crumbled to dust in seconds and gave off a restriction charm so that the strange box was forgotten moments after it vanished. It was a device that had revolutionised the Brotherhood, and D’Scover regarded it as one of his finest works.

A flickering shape began to form in the room, and as D’Scover tapped a few more keys on the keyboard, it became clearer. Eventually a hologrammatic image of Marcus Resnick stood before D’Scover in the office.

“Hello, sir,” he said when his outline became clear enough.

“I shall get straight to the point.” D’Scover removed a file from the desk drawer and opened it in front of him. “I have had a number of complaints from other agents that they have seen you in their zones. Can you explain that to me?”

“I’ve had a bit of a drift problem. When I Disperse, I . . .”

“Do not give me that nonsense,” D’Scover interrupted. “Drift is never a problem on the scale you are claiming here. I am giving you the opportunity to explain; do not waste it.”

Marcus looked at his feet and thought for a while, plainly weighing up whether to tell the truth or not.

“I’m not happy where I am and I’ve been kind of looking for somewhere else to settle,” he muttered.

“Marcus, Marcus,” D’Scover sighed, “you know that reallocations are only done with the full consent of the Senior Council. You simply cannot just decide to go off somewhere else. What would happen to the Brotherhood if we all decided to drift off to wherever we pleased whenever we felt like it?”

“I don’t know,” Marcus mumbled.

“Chaos, that is what would happen, Marcus!” D’Scover flicked through the pages of Marcus’s file. “Why are you unhappy? South Kensington is one of the better locations in London, after all. Plenty of older buildings, a large concentration of Brotherhood agents, you are hardly lonely.”

“I was an RTA, a road traffic accident. My location is literally in the middle of the road. I hate it. It was tolerable here thirty years ago, but today the road is just so crowded and the noise is overwhelming and keeping out of sight is nigh impossible,” Marcus explained. “I just wanted to save the Brotherhood some work and figured if I could find a suitable location then I could apply for a reallocation with all the details complete.”

“Hmmm.” D’Scover did not look up, instead jotting some notes down as he spoke. “So you do not wish to leave the Brotherhood and take the Final Dispersal?”

“No, sir, I certainly don’t. I feel strongly about the Brotherhood and very much want to remain a part of it. I’m very loyal,” Marcus insisted.

“Hmmm, that is as maybe.” D’Scover looked up. “I have considered your case and am able to offer you a reallocation.”

“Really?” Marcus gasped. “That easy?”

“I guessed you were angling for one and so I submitted a request on your behalf last week and it has been approved. You have done some good work for the Brotherhood in the past and you have been a useful agent, if a little erratic, and that warrants some flexibility,” he replied.

“Great, I have a location in mind, over in Russell Square; it’d be just perfect for . . .” Marcus blurted.

“It is not up to you to choose the location, Marcus,” D’Scover interrupted. “You will be reallocated to the Natural History Museum. Not a great distance, but your new location will, however, be inside and that should please you somewhat. The building is of a suitable age and size to house multiple spirits. You will share the location with two other agents, one of whom is very senior, and two spirits who are tied to the building.”

“The spirits who are tied to the building are not agents and are not Brotherhood aware; see that it remains so,” D’Scover warned. “I will contact the senior agent in the museum and she will arrange a residential area for you within the building. She is very influential and has a connection with the Senior Council and so I suggest you listen very carefully to her advice and do nothing to antagonise her. All work conditions will remain the same; discretion is your watchword.”

“Yes, sir, absolutely,” Marcus answered, but he did not sound happy. “Sir, could I not just . . .”

“That will be all, Marcus,” D’Scover interrupted. “Your reallocation is immediate. I will be in touch.” He tapped the ESC key and Marcus was gone.

He added all of Marcus’s comments to his file and, folding all of the notes back into the folder, picked it up once more. He leaned out into the reception area where Emma sat at her desk as usual, flicking her gaze over the four active screens in front of her. These screens held details of agents the world over and needed constant monitoring as reports of spirit violation came in. Most spirits needed no assistance in passing over: three to mourn and they slipped into their Passing without a struggle. The unloved and ungrieved-for needed the Brotherhood to aid their passage and it was Emma – his ever-efficient secretary – who assigned agents to do just that.

Some spirits were destined to be trapped for ever in the place where they had died, regardless of how many people had grieved for them. These were the tragic spirits with unfinished business in the realm of the living. The Brotherhood usually left these alone to Disperse over time – unless they became problematical. On rare occasions, a trapped spirit caused trouble for the living and D’Scover, or a select few agents that he trusted, dealt with these cases. These reports had become fewer and fewer each decade, until recently.

Emma still prioritised any report of spirit disturbance, no matter how minor it appeared, as occasionally a spirit showed a particular sign of compatibility and could be recruited into the Brotherhood. Such sensitive spirits were rare, none had been found now for nearly a decade, but the search still went on. Recently Emma’s time had been taken up logging reports of disturbances and unauthorised hauntings.

“Emma,” D’Scover called. “I have given Marcus Resnick a reallocation to the Natural History Museum. Will you contact one of the agents inside and sort the details for me?”

“Certainly, sir,” she replied. “Will you be Dispersing now . . . or will Sister Goodman be visiting again? I just wondered . . .”

“I will be Dispersing very soon,” he interrupted, “but I would like a Code Red placed on my office to lock it down for at least six hours. I have some papers to work on and I do not want any interruptions. I will Disperse afterwards.”

“Yes, sir, not a problem.”

He turned back towards his office and Emma’s hand hovered over the panel in the desk that would apply the Code Red. Before he closed the door he turned back to face her.

“Emma, would you give me an honest answer about something?” he asked.

“If I can, sir, yes,” she replied.

“Do you trust her?” he asked. “Julie, I mean, the new secretary.”

“Well.” She shuffled uncomfortably in her seat. “I really don’t know her very well yet, but she was in a position of great trust before she died and the Senior Council feel that that trust should not have been damaged by her Passing,” Emma said. “She died a natural death of cancer after a short illness. There’s nothing in her file to suggest that she shouldn’t be trusted.”

“So you have read her complete file?” he queried. “I am not sure it is appropriate for you to read such documents. Do you read all files of this nature?”

“I’ve only read the files of all the people who have close access to you,” she reassured him. “It’s part of my job description to be aware of anything that may affect you or this department. Is there any specific concern that you have about Julie?”

“No, at least not yet,” D’Scover replied enigmatically and walked back into his office, allowing the Code Red to seal the door closed behind him.

Alone in the huge room again, he strode towards the icon of the Virgin Mary. He gazed at the gilt-framed image for a few minutes as if awaiting approval from the serene face on the blue-cloaked young woman. Breaking concentration, he raised his hands, palms facing upwards, and began to murmur in a low, indistinct voice. A steady hum began to fill the room and the air prickled with static electricity. Silver sparks began to appear around his hands, running over them in a seething, almost living, pattern – like tiny, dazzling insects. He turned his hands towards each other and pinched his fingertips closed, then, with a movement that looked as though he was trying to tear the air itself, he pulled them apart.

The silver mass collected in the space between his fingertips and started to form a shape in the air. D’Scover lowered his hands to his sides and waited for the shape to settle. Gradually the rain of sparks calmed into a silver haze that hung like a mirage in front of him. In the centre of the wavering haze there lay a key. It was the silver crescent that had been hanging round the neck of the Madonna in the painting and now it shimmered in the air in front of him. D’Scover held his hand under it and it dropped, ice-cold, into his palm. The key was so thin that it could only be seen straight on. From the edge it was still as two-dimensional as it had been in the painting and it looked as though it was no more than a brief wobble in the air, like a heat haze on a hot surface.