“We would have helped you if you’d trusted us.” Doc turned and walked away, an angry clack from his bootheels. He was not a large man by any means, being of average height and very slender build. Yet, he had a presence that was commanding. His departure delivered a very clear message: Brogan’s defection had driven a wedge.
He shoved his hands in his coat pockets, dropping his gaze to his shoes. He’d known this assignment would mean he’d no longer be a comrade-in-arms with the Dreadfuls. He’d not expected to lose their friendship altogether, though.
“Sorry about that,” Fletcher said quietly.
“Is everyone that . . . disappointed in me?” Brogan asked.
“No one’s terribly happy about it.”
“Unhappy enough that they’ll not even want to gab with me if we cross paths?” Saints, that’d be a lonely way to live his life.
“I can’t say one way or the other. You’re the first of us to ever desert the group.” With Doc out of view and no one else hanging about, Fletcher pressed forward, speaking low and quick. “Please tell me it’s at least proving somewhat fruitful.”
Brogan made a minute gesture of uncertainty. “The job I have secured is at the shop I was told to look into, but I’ve not learned much yet. Mr. Sorokin apparently has very little interaction with his countrymen. There’s a story behind that, I’m certain of it, but I don’t know what it is yet. Even with that estrangement, he takes an interest in what’s happening with the ambassador.”
“Anything else?” Fletcher asked quickly and quietly.
“He hates writers.”
Fletcher winced. “How’d you get around that?”
“I’m using a false name: Ganor O’Donnell.”
Fletcher nodded in recognition. ’Twas a name Brogan had used before. “And you’ve not sorted too much about the Sorokin family yet, I’d wager.”
“I haven’t.” Brogan wished he had more information to pass along.
“It’s early days yet,” Fletcher said. “Keep at it.”
Brogan nodded.
Fletcher continued on his way, following Doc’s path. Brogan watched them go, his heart dropping into his shoes. He’d thought a few times that it’d be nice to see his DPS friends again and gab for a spell. Watching them approach, he’d felt a ray of sunlight he’d been missing. But the chance encounter had, instead, cast a shadow.
There was a rift between him and the only friends he’d made since coming to London, the friends he thought of as brothers. Even when all this was over, assuming his activities could be revealed to them, would he ever be truly welcomed back? It pained him that he didn’t know the answer.
by Brogan Donnelly
Day Two
Amos did not begin his investigative efforts until the day after being asked. He’d told William Sheenan that would be the case but hadn’t confessed that there was no reason for the delay. Truth be told, Amos simply wanted to seem quite in demand. A reputation was only as impactful as one made it, after all.
With an air of casual authority, he stepped into the expanse of the collection of death. From a scientific perspective, it was the very height of anthropologic intrigue. To one who possessed even a modicum of superstition, it was the very height of horror. Amos Cavey’s logical mind was never permitted to have greater say than what he considered his inferior tendency toward anxiety.
The museum was not empty, but neither was it bustling yet. This was the perfect opportunity for gathering clues. Amos had armed himself with a small notebook and a lead pencil sharpened to perfection. With both firmly in hand, he began a slow, pointed circuit of the first floor where the mammals were displayed, along with a few oddities from other corners of the animal kingdom. He chose to overlook how utterly sloppy a bit of work that was. He had been asked to solve a series of thefts, not teach the keepers the proper classification of species.
All seemed well around the largest displays. Nothing appeared amiss with the rhinoceros or American bison. He walked slowly around the open-air display of a walrus. All was well. A bit of dust hung about the zebra.
The wooden frame of the glass case surrounding the seals was a bit beaten up. The museum really ought to place their older cases in lesser visited corners of the room, not on full display such as this.
Mr. Carte had gone to such lengths to build the reputation of the Dead Zoo. Carelessness would only undermine it. Then again, so would knowledge of the thefts Amos had agreed to try to solve. He ought not be surprised to find other flaws beneath the veneer.
His investigation took him up the stairs to the second-
story balconies where the museum housed its display of birds and fish. Amos spotted a gap in the display of birds and made directly for it. Not seeing a placard indicating the specimen had been removed for repair or cleaning or such, he studied the spot more carefully.
As with the case that had once housed the now-missing rodents, this case containing the display of birds boasted a bit of injury, precisely what one would expect after someone had quickly and inexpertly used a tool of some sort to loosen the bindings. The scratches he saw were not scattered in every direction, as one would expect from the natural wear and tear of years of visitors, but concentrated, repetitive. Someone had removed this bird without the precision one would expect from the keepers of this odd zoo who valued their animal population.
A disconcertingly familiar sensation—that of being watched—tiptoed over him just as it had the day before. It set his neck hairs standing on end. He swallowed, but not without a little difficulty. There were far too many eyes in the museum, not all of them human, not all of them seeing, for some sensation of being observed not to be felt. He told himself it was merely a trick of the mind.
But his eyes fell upon a murder of magpies—made still by death—watching him. Seven. Seven magpies.
One for sorrow.
Two for joy.
Three for a girl.
Four for a boy.
He could not stop the rhyme from echoing in his thoughts.
Five for silver.
Six for gold.
Seven for a secret, never to be told.
Seven for a secret.
Amos pushed down the feeling of foreboding. He would not allow himself to be ridiculous.
William arrived at his side not a moment later, no doubt the real reason for Amos’s premonition. He had been observed by the man who had asked him to be there. With his logical nature firmly in charge once more, Amos felt himself far more on solid ground.
“You should know that this bird has also been pilfered,” Amos said. “The display shows the same subtle damage, the same pattern of gouging.”