Thousand Strings
I'm tracking the third abusive father this week.
The Arcadia Movement does a brisk business, and concerning an organisation who regularly gives the Met the finger concerning family law and securities, this means a lot of money and competition. What with the regulations coming up fast, I had to scare up legal cases before the SIA act began.
Ghost Fog fluttered past my ear, whispering. Right now, Henry Walker was running towards Fenchurch Street. I'd chased him all the way from the Royal London Hospital onto Old Montague Street, and currently I was fast about to run out of breath and gaining on the heavyset bouncer.
We had left Old Montague Street, and I vaguely noted that he was dashing through the quad that separated the B108 from – I checked the signs – Wodeham Gardens.
Henry Walker screamed, and the quad, the trees and the grass and everything, came alive. A few passers-by milling about flinched, staring and screaming before running away. One enterprising bugger in a hoodie pulled his phone out. I mentally applauded him as I bent over, catching my breath.
Walker's screams were increasing, and even Hoodie-guy was freaking out. Behind me, the Cloudians chuckled, at home in this old, old city.
The iron railings around the quad shuddered from where Walker's weight had been thrown onto it, and as Hoodie-guy and I watched, a vine snaked out and pulled a sobbing Walker back to where the tall guy had been waiting to ambush him.
A stray rad-brown leaf had been mashed into purple and amber locks, and one amber eye gleamed as black-polished nails reached out and curled, and the vine obeyed, dragging Walker towards him as Poison Ivy might have summoned him. The lad was clad all in black; black shirt, black slacks, black loafers. The hand that was outstretched curled up, and fingers gave a snap. Walker sighed, before he went utterly still.
The amber eye looked away, searching about before they centred on me. Tsugare gave a small smile. "Erm... sorry for stealing your thunder?"
The poison ivy or poison oak, and the pea vines, are completely different, except that both require supports. After they find supports, they grow to curl around the support, flexible stems parasitic upon the stronger support to reach the sun. The vines tighten as they wind round and round, strings of a marionette frame...
For your information, there are eight royal parks in the City of London alone. That's not including the numerous garden squares, country parks, urban parks, commons, marshes, woodland, etc. That translates to a lot of green, open spaces, which is useful for traps. Unfortunately, this also means that urban renewal done in an impromptu manner such as Tsugare Misawa had elected was a bitch to clear with NSY.
DI Adair groaned once Walker had been handed over and secured. "Why am I the one stuck with this shit?"
I shrugged. "You're the Met liaison with the European Arcadia Movement. You tell me."
"Because the superintendent's an ass? Or why I keep at this position of liaison?" Adair muttered. "Stand up to one kid, and suddenly you're the buffer zone between the Met and an angry mob with monsters."
The unrest had continued for over a year since the disappearance of Setsuka Shimotsuki and Ryuusei Fudo. All efforts to search for them failed. Spirits had combed the earth for them, and Ryuusei's friend had even visited with Tsugare's youngest cousin six months ago, interrupting cases. The kid, Princeton, he had a gift, but I suspected that his gift also came with the common sense of a brain-damaged pigeon and destruction dogging his every footstep. At least Youkai had been able to keep up with him, because I was seriously considering defenestration the last time they were here.
Bottom line was, the outpost of the European Arcadia Movement, especially local and up in Edinburgh, were some of the most outspoken in favour of 'pre-emptive action'. Forget riot gas or tanks, without intervention the Fortress and the Bastille would have persuaded all of Europe's Psychics into a riot. Babies, the lot of them, once the Cold Queen wasn't around.
"Because right now, the charges are going to stick to Walker," I reasoned. "And because you might not approve of the Fortress folks, but they get things done. You got your evidence, right?"
"God help me, yes," Adair mumbled, but his eyes were wet. "You think Walker can make trial?"
"I can't speak for the Fortress," I added hastily.
"Then what good are you?" Adair snarled. "I need to know if it's safe to publish that we've caught the bastard, I don't want anyone to die because some kid Psychic died and the Movement wants blood, dammit."
I hesitated, before turning towards the black-clad shadow behind me, the one with amber eyes so different from my own blue ones. "Tsugare? I need some help here."
Tsugare stepped forward, and I could hear Adair holding his breath.
Here's the thing about Tsugare; he's beautiful. He's got the long, thin face. He's got the height of a model and the lean build of a swimmer. In the right light, dressing and make-up, Tsugare could, and have, passed for my wild girl. And the look in his amber eyes is that of someone who, when you need them, would turn all of their attention to you and won't stop until there's no more you can give, and continue to wring you dry long after they've left. I don't blame Adair; sometimes I wonder how the hell I managed to land this.
"A- And you are?" Adair managed to cough, flushing beetroot. I could see the edge of a nicotine patch where the cuff of his sleeve and his arm met.
"Tsugare Misawa," my partner in everything answered. "I'm Koichi's partner. I'm also a tested Class I V Psychic Duelist who served in an administrative and special capacity before leaving the Movement a year ago."
"Partner?" Adair's brow arched. "I didn't know... erm, it's fine, of course."
"It is," I agreed without much heat.
"From what I have gathered about the Walker case, it would have been classed as a 'neglect in ignorance' and therefore, usually not meriting ipso facto any retribution," Tsugare answered.
"Would have been?" Adair echoed.
"Until the Fortress found out about Mr Walker's attempted murder of his stepson via the cement boot," Tsugare added. "In that situation, we have every reason to believe that John Harrison was attempting to flee to the Fortress, and was taking his mother along with him. In that case, the Fortress would, indeed, attempt to re-educate Mr Walker."
A commotion, boots thumping against the floor before a sergeant poked her head in. "Sir?"
"Yes, Bellamy?"
"Sir, Walker's bitten his own tongue." Despite the grave news, Sergeant Bellamy barely looks concerned and more vindicated; her views on the Movement's effectiveness were rather well-known.
Adair turned puce, and then rounded on Tsugare. "I thought you said that they were going to 're-educate' him."
That face smoothed over, blanker than a marble statue. "They did. I had yet to comment on whether he would survive it."
"Screwdriver," I ordered once I reached the bar of the Rusty Nail. "And a Margarita for the lady."
Tsugare scowled as he took a seat. "You know I hate being referred to as that."
"You let a perp die in prison, you get names," I scowled back. Tsugare had needed mitts to be handled that first six months moving to London, but after a year he gave as good as he got. "You knew what they were going to do."
"All the Movements typically mete vengeance," Tsugare eyed me with the sole amber eye he revealed, the other eye hidden under a wealth of gold bangs. "You were part of the Fortress. You know this."
"That was before I saw the perps being hunted down like animals," I sighed tiredly into the vodka and orange juice before Tsugare sipped at his Margarita. "Tally-ho. Dammit, I can't live knowing that a father could be run down like that. You were there, you saw how he was screaming in pain."
"He knowingly involved his child, who knew mind-control, into a Ponzi scheme that would have cheated the city of Westminster and perhaps the Ministry of Defence," Tsugare shot back. "Aries had never had a choice in the matter. These things... we can't choose it."
Things like becoming a Psychic Duelist. It tends to happen to those who desire it least. Who are content with their own lives, content to have things as they are, don't have any particular desire to change. I've seen it in action. The ordinary, envy the extraordinary for power, for those things far beyond the easy access of most people, for the power to will creatures into being. The extraordinary, they envy the ordinary, passive and unsuspecting of the pains having power had given for their entire lives.
Some... they grow mad with it, either wish the power away or wish for more power, more will to lash out right back.
I took down another shot of the Screwdriver. "You let the agents from the Fortress to Walker, didn't you?"
"No," the answer was small, measured. Truthful. "Walker committed suicide. As he was told. As the idea was introduced."
I stopped drinking. "How?"
Tsugare nursed through his Margarita, and called for another. "Have you seen Inception?"
"Yeah..." I trailed off. "Wait. This is... a hint?"
"My powers work like that," Tsugare answered without preamble. "So long as the intent is facilitated, it becomes relatively simple to convince anyone. The will to live, of course, is a powerful device, but weighted against an all-consuming idea, its power is small. Mediocre."
The second empty glass joins the first. "Mediocrity is a terrible thing."
Sour breath stained my nostrils as Tsugare leaned forward, the sole visible eye intent. "Are you? Mediocre? Are you, Koichi?"
"I don't think I am," I slowly answered. "And neither are you. But this is not a reason to write off a life."
"Neither do I think so," Tsugare agreed, still giving a smile that dripped pure sex. "I did not write off a life, Koichi. He did it himself. I swear, he did it himself."
It terrifies me. That his power isn't botanokinesis so much as control. The idea of control. Of roots digging, manipulating the earth. Of creatures of the forest, theirs actions dictating that of the forest as a whole. Of marionette strings that are slowly seduced by vines, thy name is Tsugare Misawa.
As I leaned into the kiss of control, I found it freeing myself. That he is mad, or that he is extremely sane and mainly practical, that he is terrifying... I should report him. I still think I should. But I can't. If I do... I can't imagine what he would do.
Control. Parasite. Symbiotic.
I can't escape. And I can't think of myself if I do.
Yamamoto Koichi
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