Synopsis: April 19, 2001: Libra recruits yet another waif into the imbued fold. This one, like all the others, has some surprises in store for our intrepid hero ...
It was actually not until April 19 that I finally got to meet this Sally girl I'd heard about. There was some sort of tragedy in her life, and she'd been unable to attend for an interview in the week running up to Easter.
It was a pleasant Thursday, beginning with a dawn chorus and the sun shining through my bedroom window. I record this, because I recall only one other detail about my day.
I'd gone back to waking up alone again.
Vestal and I had no sooner started our relationship than it had ended. A couple of one night stands, but nothing. No spark. Easter Monday was the last morning she and I got up out of the same bed. Afterwards, we both decided it would be mutually beneficial if we both just kept the relationship professional.
It wasn't too hard to settle into my old routine. Get up, feel my chin - I needed a shave - wash, shave, dress, comb hair; then breakfast downstairs in the kitchen, and into the car and off to work again.
I arrived at work at 8:30, my usual time. Arriving in the car park, I noticed in her parking space. I'd arranged to give her a decent paying job within the company, one she actually liked and which paid her very well. Finding positions for my colleagues and comrades in the hunt - Cleaner, Zeiss, Stickshift - was, in fact, the least I could do for them. I even had a vacancy set up for Martin, if Vagabond wanted it.
Miss Haversham was waiting for me at her desk in the vestibule when I got to my office. She wasn't alone. Miss Haversham nodded in the direction of the visitor as I entered the room.
The young woman sat in one of the visitors' chairs in the vestibule in front of the office. Her poise was erect, elegant. Her clothing was immaculate; her personal grooming, impeccable. Her long, blonde hair hung down her back, tied in a long, thick, tight ponytail more than a metre long that looked like it'd put towropes to shame.
Her face was calm, haughty yet with a slight tinge of nervousness around them. Her icy stare made her appear to be utterly formidable, a dragon lady despite her callow youth; but there was a pressing reason for the iciness of her gaze. It was evident, by her white cane and the way she remained unmoved by Miss Haversham's silent gesture, that she was, in fact, blind; her beautiful blue eyes sightless.
"Good morning, Mr Stewart," Miss Haversham said. "You have a visitor."
I opened the door to the office, letting sunlight spill across the room and onto the girl's face. I watched as the young woman stood, facing forwards, her hand extended. "Mister Stewart," she began, her voice cultured and restrained, "I am Miss Laird."
"Yes, of course," I replied, taking the hand gently. Her cold, slim fingers clutched my hand tightly. "Miss Sally Jayne Laird. Pleased to s - to meet you at long last."
A slight smile crossed Miss Laird's countenance a moment. I moved on. Turning to lead her into my office, I looked at Miss Haversham. "Tea, please," I said. "Would you like anything?" I asked Miss Laird.
"Er, no thank you," came the reply.
I retained my grip on her hand. "It's this way," I said. "Let me -"
Miss Laird removed her hand from mine, took up the white stick. "I can find my way with this," she said, not unkindly. "I'm not entirely helpless, you know …"
"How -" I began.
"I can feel the warmth from your office," Sally said. "It faces east. The sunlight."
I stepped back as she tapped the stick before her, and calmly walked into the room without hesitating or bumping into anything. Then I looked at Miss Haversham, shrugged and followed Sally into my office.
"Let's take the comfy seats," I said, redirecting her to the near corner of the room. Sally's stick beat the ground, tapped on the table; Sally navigated around the furniture and sat, erect and poised, on the curved visitors' sofa. I joined her, and we waited for Miss Haversham to arrive with the paperwork and the tea.
The tea was not long in forthcoming: and when Miss Haversham had left, I turned to face Sally.
"Very well, then," I said, "where should we begin?"
"I think," Sally replied, "with the day I discovered that I could see again."
"What?" I asked. "Where? How?"
Sally shook her head. "When, to start with. It was at least a month before I heard about you."
"Go ahead," I said. "Tell me about it."
Sally sighed. "It began in a little restaurant in town," she said. "James, my minder, and I were partaking of a little lunch in the Nightingale Rooms. Are you familiar with the place?"
"Am I ever," I replied. "The most expensive, and exclusive, place in town?"
"With excellent jazz bands," Sally replied. "I have been a member there of long standing."
"Naturally," I replied, trying to keep the awe out of my voice. "What happened? When did you get the gift?"
Sally shuddered. "The early afternoon scene was busy that day, as usual. There was something unusual in the air; I could sense it somehow, like an air of expectation. Something special was about to happen, and people were jumpy, nervous. Nothing specific, but there was a rumour that there was a visitor to town; a celebrity was staying in the nearby hotel, and there was every chance he would appear in the Nightingale Rooms for lunch."
"Celebrity?" I asked.
"Snaps Whitaker," Sally said. "Fantastic jazz virtuoso."
I nodded, uncomprehendingly, diplomatically and, of course, futilely.
"Your ignorance is showing," Sally said. "Snaps is big in town because here is where he began. He's huge in America, particularly New Orleans, but he's always called this part of England his home."
"What's his instrument?" I asked.
"The same as mine," Sally replied. "Piano."
Taken aback for a moment, I looked closely at Sally before pressing on. "Did the man appear, then?"
"Of course," Sally replied. "And James told me that he was quickly surrounded by his "court" of hangers on and camp followers. You understand."
I nodded, thinking of diplomats and ambassadors I'd been assigned to protect in the old days. Self - important windbags and pompous asses whose ineptitude and incompetence, fuelled by greed and petty selfishness, had always been the direct cause of the trouble from which people like me had to protect them.
"Yes," I replied. "I know the score."
"He took up a table, and suddenly James found that every waiter was ignoring him. Not just him. Nobody else could get a word in. Snaps Whitaker was at court, and there was only one person whose voice was being listened to." She humphed. "An annoyance."
"Do continue," I said.
"But then something unusual happened," Sally said. "Amid the general hubbub, there came a single snap of the fingers; a sound like that," she said, snapping her own fingers, the click sharp and bright in the otherwise empty office. "The room immediately fell silent. Conversations stopped. According to James, heads turned away from Snaps, and towards the entrance to the room.
"There, beside the maitre d', was someone new. Again, by James' account, this woman was the most incredible human being he had ever seen; tall, slim, elegant, dressed immaculately in an Italian - cut dress, with a broad rimmed hat. At least, I can vouch for the clothing; when the Heralds' Gift came to me, I finally saw what James was telling me for myself.
"It was apparent that Snaps Whitaker was used to getting his own way in the Nightingale Rooms, and apparently elsewhere. This woman's grand entrance was an outrage: someone had dared to interrupt his court, and he was having none of it. Apparently the only one not to have fallen under the spell of this woman, he stood, shrugging off people - literally, according to dear James - and turned to confront this intruder in his realm.
"And it was at that precise point that someone murmured into my ear the one word that changed my life.
"Witness."
"You received the Call from the Messengers," I said.
"And then some," Sally replied. "I blinked; my eyes began to water; there came a moment of intense, searing pain inside my head; and then, suddenly, I could see!"
"How?"
"I am not entirely certain," Sally said, "and after the initial experience, my sight only lasted the grand duration of around thirty minutes before it slipped away and I returned to the darkness once again. But in that time, it was as if not only was I now capable of seeing everything in that dark, windowless basement as if we were standing in a well lit room; more than that, everything was sharper than crystal, as though every sense in my body was fully awake and tingling.
"I could hear everyone breathing - except the woman. I could see the pupils of eyes opening and closing with the changing light - except the woman. I could see the flush of blood across Snaps' face, and a strange heat haze about him; I saw a similar heat haze about the woman, but her face registered no outward change, no flush of blood, no twitch of cheek muscle, no trace of expression, as though the animating force behind the face was not concerned about maintaining the full appearance of humanity.
"The woman was a walking dead person; a spirit inhabiting a flawless corpse. Snaps was … something different. Alive, all too alive, but somehow different. I had the impression that he was not too pleasant a person; but that was not something I imputed from the sight I'd been blessed with, you understand: purely a personal opinion, based entirely on momentary observation."
"Face value judgement," I replied. "He looked more of a creep than she did."
"Inelegantly stated, but nevertheless true," Sally said.
"So what happened?" I asked.
"The woman crossed the room, silently, her footsteps making no sound at all. People approached her; she brushed past them, her merest contact sending people flying. There was pandemonium. People were screaming, trying to get away - half of Snaps' "personal bodyguards" came at her at once, and were merely thrown to one side like discarded toys - and James was beside himself with fear, for some unknown reason.
"Maybe he could actually see what this woman was, realised that she was a dead thing walking, a ghost made flesh, and it was too much for his mind to bear," Sally added. "He maintained that he was all right afterwards, but his memories were far from clouded, unlike those of many of the others who witnessed the event."
"How did this confrontation end?" I asked.
"I witnessed the event, as the woman approached Snaps Whitaker, seemingly ignoring his guards. Then suddenly Snaps took out a piece of costume jewellery - some sort of looped cross crusted with jewels - and waved it at the woman. The heat haze which had surrounded him a moment before seemed to leap suddenly from himself to the woman, enveloping her in hazy distortion. The woman screamed, stopped, dropped to one knee, but then got up and kept coming on.
"The strange thing is," Sally added, "at the time I did not give a thought to Snaps Whitaker, nor did I question how he had become so powerful a magician … because until the Heralds had shown he, through the Gift, of all the strange wonders of the world, I didn't even suspect that there was such a thing as magic at all.
"It is only afterwards that I speculated that at some point, Snaps may have done in New Orleans what Robert Johnson had once done; gone to a crossroads out in the countryside and sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for power."
I remained silent as Sally continued. "The heat haze seemed to be crystallising around this dead woman, who was clearly in pain: but she advanced, regardless, towards Snaps. She was relentless, Mr Stewart; relentless and remorseless. The heat haze effect damaged her, but did not destroy her. As I watched, she reached for Snaps and plunged her hand into his chest.
"I have been given a gift, Mr Stewart; and the first thing I saw with the gift was terror and visceral horror. I expected a miracle; instead, I witnessed a magician's beating heart being torn out of his chest by the hand of the woman whom he'd murdered as part of the magician's pact with the Devil."
"Did you deduce that from the incident?" I asked.
"The woman herself informed me of the missing facts," Sally replied, "just before her spirit departed her mortal remains for the second, and final, time.
"I suddenly realised that I'd received a confession from this woman for her sin of murder: had witnessed a case for her defence, and her case for the prosecution of Snaps Whitaker.
"Amid all the blood and the carnage of the Nightingale Rooms," Sally said, "I realised that I had been called upon to arbitrate in a most bizarre trial. A trial by combat. And I feel that the righteous case won."
"But both parties are now deceased," I said, shaking my head.
"Of course," Sally replied. "The Rooms are still closed to the public, even today. The police say it was a rather nasty incident; Snaps Whitaker suffered a fatal heart attack as a result of an unprovoked attack by a mystery assailant, who died as a result of the actions of some of his bodyguards, who have now been dismissed from service for their overzealous attitude. The whole establishment is in mourning for him, and the private funeral for Snaps is on Sunday. But I cannot, for one, shed any tears for him, if the woman's case is true."
I shook my head. "Astonishing," I said.
"James couldn't take what he'd seen," Sally said. "Last week, I discovered his body hanging by his necktie from the rafters. His suicide note explained everything to me. He had heard a voice from nowhere, telling him to behold. He had seen a dead woman walking, a real live black magician and a magical duel to the death; but he had frozen, unable or unwilling to act.
"He explained how he'd felt a Presence, guiding him, urging him to act; but he had been unable to. He'd then felt the Presence leave him, almost with an expression of disappointment, leaving his memory of the event clear in his mind, as if to punish him. Everyone else in the Nightingale Rooms who had not heard the voice was slowly losing all trace of the memory of the horror they'd witnessed, their minds already fogging over the details, rationalising away the strangeness and coming up with plausible, albeit false, explanations for what transpired. But that, for poor James, was not to be a luxury.
"James' last words in the note to me were a warning. Monsters, he realised, do exist. They are all too real. But he hesitated when he was called, and clearly he was not therefore chosen to be a recipient of the gift bestowed upon me. I had been shown the Light, and he had been thrown into shadows with the scales ripped from his eyes. He died," she explained, a tear forming in the corner of her eye, "because he feared that the roles had now been reversed." She looked to me. "I was now the sighted one, and he was blind."
I nodded, my expression sombre. "A painful tragedy," I replied. "I commiserate you on your loss."
"Thank you," Sally replied. "I am sorry I could not come sooner," she added. "I had to make all the arrangements for him. He was more than my minder, Mr Stewart; he was in love with me, the poor crazy fool, as I discovered when I had to go through his personal belongings."
"What happened?"
"He'd kept his writings a secret from me," Sally explained. "He reasoned I would not be able to read handwriting if it wasn't in Braille." She smiled. "I called upon the Heralds to bestow sight on me a second time when I was sorting out the belongings left behind for me by the solicitors. And it was by chance that my hand fell upon his old love letters; missives he had written, not intending to send them to me."
"How old was he when he died?"
"Thirty four," Sally said. "He had loved me for six years, since my late father had made him my butler and general valet on a retainer."
"And what will you do now?" I asked. "How can Herald Recruitments be of assistance?"
"I believe," Sally said, "that I need to seek out gainful employment of some kind."
"Herald business," I said. "You want to join the hunt."
Sally nodded. "If you will have me."
I smiled, reached out my hand to shake hers. Sally's hand remained on her lap; I realised my faux pas, and began to withdraw it.
Sally closed her eyes, concentrated a moment; when she opened them, she turned to face me. Her hand reached for mine, caught it, shook mine.
"You're using the sight now," I said. Sally nodded.
"It's a dangerous business," I admonished her. "The turnover is unbelievably high, judging by the postings my colleagues get from the front lines. You'll not be able to turn back."
"I couldn't turn back anyway," Sally replied. "I was past the point of no return from the moment I could see. The Heralds have given me a great gift, a blessing beyond measure. To be able to see has been one of my fondest wishes, and this gift has given me that wish. I am more than willing to accept the price."
"Very well, then," I said. "For what it's worth, welcome."
"Thank you," Sally said.
"I'll introduce you to the others later," I told her, getting up to go to my desk. "I have business to address, and I'll be meeting them for lunch about midday. If you like, I'd like you to stay and help, if you want to."
"I'd be delighted," Sally said.
"It's unpaid," I said. "Part of the business is completing your contract of employment with us. I'm afraid I may find it very difficult locating a placement for you, if you are blind …"
"That is irrelevant, anyway," Sally replied, with a wave of her hand. "A formality. I'm loaded from my Daddy's estate. I came here to join your hunting team, and did not expect anything else."
I paused getting into my seat, glanced up at her. Then I shrugged and sat down. Then a thought occurred to me.
"Oh," I said to her, "chances are, if you are going to interact with imbued hunters, you will need a handle; a nickname, to "anonymise" you on the Internet."
"Of course," Sally replied, smiling. "A codename. How wonderfully Sixties."
I couldn't help smiling. This woman may be nineteen, but she was no child. "Have you worked out what you want to be called?"
Sally paused a moment, frowning. "How about … Astraea?"
"The blind Roman Goddess of justice?" I asked. "Why her?"
"Actually," Sally replied, blushing, "it was the name of my mother's cat. Sharpest eyes in the house. She was a cat that didn't miss a thing."
By: Fiat Knox
Copyright © Fiat Knox, 2001