Chapter 2 #2
I exhaled. This was extraordinary power indeed.
‘I will give you a demonstration,’ Montgomery told us. He delved into his pocket and pulled out a small linen pouch, carefully unfastened the drawstring and scattered the contents onto the wooden floor. Then he joined us at the back of the classroom.
‘Am I supposed to see something?’ Ruth asked.
Montgomery grinned. ‘Wait.’
There was no showy poof of smoke and no clap of thunder, but one minute we were gazing at the empty front of the classroom and the next we were staring with dropped jaws at a perfect simulacrum of Captain Montgomery.
I turned my head to check that the man himself was standing beside us as well as his doppelganger in front of us.
It wasn’t merely an echo of him: it was him.
‘Okay,’ Marie whispered. ‘It’s a good spell.’
The fake Montgomery’s mouth moved but no sound came out.
Ah: the spell only produced a visual echo, not an audible one.
I watched, thoroughly impressed if still nauseated.
Then Montgomery was replaced by images of all eight of us, one after the other, each making our vow.
A flash later and Montgomery’s facsimile was there again, silently addressing the class as a whole.
‘How far does the spell extend?’ Fetch Mayhew asked.
‘Six metres,’ Montgomery answered. ‘So there are considerable limitations.’
His image flickered and was replaced by the fleeting figure of a woman with a broom, likely a cleaner from earlier this morning.
‘As you see, there are no gaps in the echoes,’ Montgomery said. ‘If nobody was there, there will be nothing to see. It is not a CCTV camera, it only captures a living being that crosses the spell area. And it works backwards from the end to the beginning.’
We watched as Matty and Ralph appeared. Ralph, who was next to me, sucked in a sharp breath. A moment later, his double began to kiss Matty passionately.
‘You stayed behind after the last class for a snog?’ Ruth demanded. ‘You told me you were only comparing notes!’
Matty smiled, pleased with herself. Ralph, considerably more taciturn, looked at his shoes and coughed.
‘I think we shall stop it there,’ Montgomery said wisely. ‘I am sure you all get the idea.’ He strode up the front and scuffed away the remnants of the spell. The echo of Matty and Ralph’s clinch faded away.
For three whole seconds, the class remained silent then everyone exploded in a cacophony of noise.
‘A spell of this sort is an incredible invasion of privacy!’ Marie said.
‘It has marvellous possibilities,’ Mayhew argued.
Kevin nodded. ‘The crims don’t stand a chance.’
Alan, who almost never spoke out, cleared his throat. ‘Is that true, Captain?’
Montgomery sucked air through his teeth. ‘As I have already stated, the limitations are obvious. And anything revealed by the echo spell won’t stand up in a court of law – it is not admissible evidence.’
He smiled. ‘But it can certainly lead an investigator in the right direction.’ He clasped his hands together.
‘I have a sample for each of you that you may utilise during your fieldwork assignment. You may not find the echo spell of much use, given its fourteen-hour limit, but perhaps if you are clever you can still cast it in a way that will help.’
‘We only get one sample?’ I asked. I’d have liked several.
‘For now, yes. If you prove yourselves, and the MET decides that you are trustworthy, you may get access to more.’
‘No wonder they’ve been solving so many crimes lately,’ Ruth muttered.
Ralph took a more cynical approach; doubtless he was still smarting from the revelation of his affair with Matty. ‘It won’t last,’ he dismissed. ‘Even though we can’t breathe a word about the echo spell’s existence, people will still find out about it. They always do.’
I nodded. A simple masking spell would probably counter its effects, so no wonder the echo spell wasn’t admissible evidence; it would be easy to bypass, especially if you knew it existed.
Even so, I hastened up to the front to nab my sample pouch from Montgomery.
It could still prove useful, and if not useful then both sneaky and guilty fun.
‘Now,’ Montgomery said, once we’d settled down again, ‘you have already submitted your fieldwork proposals to me to indicate what you think needs to be investigated within your own communities. With some tweaks, I have approved all of these proposals.’ He bared his teeth in the semblance of a smile.
‘However, there is one change that will affect all of you that I have not yet told you about.’
A ripple of discomfort ran through the room and I eyed him warily. There was an edge of undisguised glee in his voice. He was definitely up to something.
‘You will not investigate your own proposals,’ he said.
‘You need to be properly tested, which means taking you out of your comfort zones.’ He grinned.
‘Therefore you will investigate each other’s suggested crimes.
You will all be partnered up and you will swap cases.
Only then can I judge what you have truly learned from this training. ’
Despite my sinking stomach, I knew it was a smart idea.
It was one thing to ask questions of your friends and neighbours and to look into a problem that you already understood inside out; it was something else to be thrown into the deep end in a section of Coldstream society that you didn’t understand.
I felt sorry for whoever ended up looking into Danksville graffiti – and I certainly wanted no part of Marie Wicker’s fraud investigation.
‘Do we get to choose our own partners?’ Marie asked.
Captain Montgomery had clearly been anticipating that question. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I have chosen for you.’
‘Then who—?’
‘You will be paired with Fetch Mayhew,’ he interrupted her. ‘It will be useful for you both to learn something more about how the different segments of your witch community work.’
‘What?’ Mayhew blustered.
‘Would you rather have someone other than a witch looking into council business?’ Montgomery enquired.
‘No, of course not!’
‘Well, then.’ He smiled beatifically. ‘Ruth, you will swap with Randolph. Matty, you will swap with Kevin.’
I looked at the only other person left: Alan, the silent vampire. Great. Just peachy.
‘That leaves Alan and Kit,’ Montgomery finished.
I spoke up, although I was certain it would be a wasted effort. ‘There are constraints against someone like me working with the vampire community,’ I began.
‘Cats like the night, don’t they, Ms McCafferty? And you like cats?’
Marie Wicker wasn’t the only one of my classmates to snigger. I ignored them. Cats aside, the vagaries of daytime versus night-time hours weren’t what concerned me.
‘Also,’ Montgomery added casually, ‘all usual geographical constraints have been temporarily lifted for the purposes of this exercise.’
I was surprised. Did Captain Wilberforce Montgomery know about the Understream, the underground network of tunnels that was hidden from almost all of Coldstream and forbidden to anyone but vampires? I’d only recently had their existence confirmed.
His expression gave away little and his attention was quickly diverted by Randolph, who was unhappy about the swap and wanted to complain.
‘Don’t worry,’ Alan said to me softly. ‘Captain Montgomery saw me yesterday to discuss his plans and to check with me first. As you have already visited us once in the past, you are the best person to do so again.’
Ah. He knew about the way I’d stumbled into the Understream when I’d been searching for Nicholas MacTire, and he was doing what he could to limit others finding out about the tunnels’ existence by suggesting to Montgomery that I would be an appropriate swap. Fair enough.
I gazed at him. ‘You don’t seem … unhappy with this turn of events,’ I said. The rest of the class continued to pout and bicker but Alan looked unperturbed.
‘I know this course wouldn’t exist without you. After all, it was you who suggested it to the good captain.’
‘Montgomery told you that?’
The vampire shrugged and nodded. ‘Besides, I like Danksville. I look forward to investigating whatever problem you deem important.’ He smiled. ‘Neither am I averse to cats.’ He appeared to be telling the truth.
Unfortunately, I was somewhat averse to vampires; I found them cold creatures.
I’d killed the last fanged bastard I’d come across – with good reason, of course – but in my opinion even the best vampires were heartless.
Their attitudes were a by-product of their long life span and living for centuries; sadly, compassion seemed to have a time limit.
Still, I felt a small thrill at the thought of spending more time in the Understream.
It might be a dubious honour but it was also an exciting one.
Captain Montgomery cleared his throat. ‘I will accept no further complaints. If you wish to complete this course and be granted leeway to act as a minor investigator within the confines of Coldstream, you will complete your assignment. You have the rest of the evening to share details of your cases and to discuss them with your partners. We will meet here in seven days’ time when I expect you to share your findings. That is all.’
I made myself a mug of strong tea using water from a nearby urn then settled into a corner next to Alan.
I took a few tentative sips and established that I was unlikely to burn my tongue given that the water was distastefully lukewarm, then watched the vampire reach into his rucksack and pull out a small bag containing a gloopy, dark-red substance. No prizes for guessing what it was.
‘Do you mind?’ he asked.
I waved a hand. ‘Not at all.’ The dietary habits of vampires were the least of my concerns where their kind was concerned – although I was somewhat surprised.
Most vamps preferred to take their blood in a more direct fashion, although using one’s fangs to pierce an artery was considered terribly gauche.