Hey guys – I'm sorry. I must have uploaded an old version of the document somehow and I hadn't seen that the skull's parts were missing. I sometimes add those in the end.
…
Quill:
Kate scowled at me. She leaned back in the chair with her arms crossed.
"No. The answer is no. I'll get the information about the guards but I'm not getting anywhere near Michaels. If I get caught asking about him, there's no doubt he will somehow gets it in his sick head that I like him or something. There's no saying what he'll do to me."
She took a sip of her café latte and delicately dabbed away her milk moustache with her napkin.
"I would never ask that of you. It's only if you happen to know something or if you overhear something by coincidence."
She sighed heavily. "Fine. I'll do it," she surrendered. That was easier than I'd expected.
"Now tell me more about your new flat," she demanded.
I showed her the Polaroids I'd taken when I had gotten the keys.
"You should have seen Lucy. She was absolutely brilliant." I smiled a bit to myself.
"God, your level of infatuation is positively nauseating. I'm going to vomit on your plate,"
"Doesn't matter. She told me she doesn't want anything to do with me like that. Seriously though. She was amazing."
Kate's only reaction was a slight raise of an eyebrow.
I showed her the original ad for the flat and the contract so she could see the price difference and told her about how it went down with Mrs Thompson.
"She always was a worthy opponent." Kate nodded at the end. "If you tell her I said that I'll tell her about that dog that was in love with you and wanted you to have his puppies."
I narrowed my eyes at her. "You wouldn't dare."
Her facial expression didn't change at all and I sighed in defeat.
"How are things at Fittes?" I asked her.
She frowned a bit. "I've heard some rumours, but I have no idea if it's true or not."
I leaned forward a bit, "Yes?"
"There's talk about the formation of a sort of night patrol. To support the night watch and organise them better."
"So, they're taking control of the night watch and getting a great big lot of informants in their pocket." I concluded.
She nodded. "They're also starting to train the older agents to assist the police now. They're expected to join the police as soon as they're done at the agency."
My eyebrows flew high, "Really?"
"I haven't been picked for any of it. I think they're keeping me a bit at arm's length. They can't fire me because I'm a brilliant agent –"
"And incredibly modest."
"Shut up. I'm perfect and they can't fire me, but on the other hand they also can't trust me because we're friends." She bit her lip.
"So, what – you don't want to be friends anymore?" I quirked an eyebrow at her.
"No, you moron. I'm just afraid that things will get complicated for me soon. Dangerous."
She started ripping small pieces off my napkin. "I'm worried that they'll ask me to spy on you. Gale came to see me yesterday. He apparently heard about your terrible break-in and wanted to send you a care package, if I could please give him your new address."
I paled a bit. "What did you tell him?"
She shrugged. "I told him that you don't tell me things anymore and that I didn't know."
I narrowed my eyes at her. "You're planning something." I leaned in over the table.
She smirked and leaned closer as well. "I'm planning on breaking up with you. Everyone and their great grandmother think we're together anyway. If we just stop seeing each other in public, no one will believe we're not still talking in private. But an ugly, messy break-up? That's going to give me freedom to tell Gale no to spying on you and it's going to put me above suspicion if it's bad enough."
I frowned. "Are you sure about this? You're putting yourself in deeper."
"I'm already in deep, Quill," she sighed. "two days ago, I saw Beatrice – she took over after you as medic. She was treating the new recruits that Gale had been training." She shook her head and looked down at the table. "How can I in good conscience be a part of that? We've been letting it happen right under our noses and just enjoying the benefits. It's time to stop and fight it. Otherwise, I don't think I'll be able to look in the mirror anymore and this make-up takes work," she joked with a small smile.
"Alright. we'll cook something up." I gave her hand a small squeeze before picking up my coffee and taking a sip.
She leaned back in her chair again. "I was thinking something about infidelity,"
I winced. "Really?"
She scoffed. "There have been heavy rumours about you and Carlyle. Especially since Jeffrey saw the two of you strolling around, holding hands on a romantic afternoon walk some days ago. He was exceptionally happy to be the one to inform me of that." She raised an eyebrow at me.
I cleared my throat. "That wasn't – we're friends," I objected.
She made a small snort. "How often do you hold hands with Lockwood? Or Bobby? Or even me?"
Any further objections died in my throat. I rubbed my face. "Alright, I don't. But there really isn't anything going on other than my own self torture," I sighed. "I'll need to talk to her about it. I know she doesn't exactly hang out with the Fittes crowd, but if she meets some of them at the furnaces or somewhere else, they might get nasty."
Kate pursed her lips. "I know it's too much to ask of her."
"Knowing her, she'll probably go along with it anyway." I shrugged.
"I figured as much,"
I frowned at her. "How did you figure that?"
She gave me a weird look and shook her head. "I'll probably start crying randomly at work sometime around Wednesday and then maybe we could meet at a café for a fight Friday?" she suggested as if we were making a tennis appointment.
"And then we'll just talk on the phone from then on?" I pouted a little.
"My mum is a hairdresser. Do you have any idea how many wigs I have at home? I can go out in disguise like a proper secret agent," she waggled her eyebrows a bit.
I rolled my eyes. "Wear something red and we can pretend you're my cousin."
She made a face. "I can't even imagine myself as – as ginger," she whispered the last bit in mock horror.
I smirked. "Remind me again – what colour was your hair before you bleached it?"
I felt a small prick on the inside of my knee, and I knew she had a dagger pointed at my leg.
"Not a word, Quill," she sneered at me.
I gave her a wide grin and winked at her.
Then my face fell when I remembered someone else. "What do you think I should do about Bobby?"
She frowned a bit and sheathed the knife. Then she started ripping up her own napkin. "I don't know. We don't get to talk much these days. He's been put on another team. He's doing well though, he just got a promotion."
I blinked. "Wow. He hasn't mentioned it. Good for him."
"Yeah. He's quite proud," she said carefully.
"He's gloating, is he?"
She made a small giggle. "He's terrible,"
I smiled. "Little Bobby Vernon. I always knew he'd go far."
Lucy:
I rarely received flowers. I could count the number of times it had happened with one finger and that was more of a vegetable delivery than anything else.
This was a different calibre. I almost couldn't see the head of the man outside the door and what I could see was distorted because I could only see his face through the cellophane.
"Lucy Carlyle?"
"That's me," I answered automatically.
I had to close the door with my foot after he left because I needed both hands to take care of the flowers. They were all roses. I caught a look at myself in the mirror. There I was; a girl who someone had apparently sent flowers to. On purpose. I don't know why that was so significant to me. Maybe it was the idea that someone thought of me and had gone out of their way to make this gesture. Maybe it was because I for once felt like a girly girl. Girly girls got flowers and I found that I didn't entirely mind being a girly girl right at that singular moment.
"Lucy? Are you inside that bush or behind it?"
I ignored the skull as I came into the kitchen.
There was a peculiarly thick envelope tucked safely with the roses. I put them down on the kitchen table and fished it out of their plastic cage.
'Dearest Lucy
Thank you. I wish I had other words deep enough to describe my gratitude but unfortunately I can only come up with those two. Could you please tell Tony I have a job for him? I got a tip about a ghost in a flat. Something about some haunted windows? The client will be paying a handsome fee for this service and will be paying extra to have it done as soon as possible.
There's a note from me and the official application in this letter as well along with a cheque for the fee. You might recognise the haunted address.
Quill
PS: Don't tell Tony who the client is. It's a surprise and I want him to take money first, otherwise he won't.'
I smiled so widely that my cheeks started to hurt and shook my head at the letter.
"I'll barf if you don't wipe that sappy smile off your face. By Satan himself, that's disgusting."
I took out the other papers and felt my mouth go dry when I saw the cheque.
"Lockwood?" I called out with a squeaky voice.
He came into the kitchen and stopped short when he saw the large bouquet on the kitchen table.
He bit his lip and gave me a guarded look.
"That's from Quill, I take it?"
He shoved his hands in his pocket.
I cleared my throat. "There's a present for you too,"
I gave him the note, the application for the case and the cheque.
He snapped up the papers and I held my breath as his eyes quickly scanned the application with practiced ease. They fixed and widened when he reached the cheque.
His mouth went slack. "But this – what's this?"
I made a show out of examining the piece of paper.
"It would appear to be payment."
He wrinkled his nose at me. "This is forty thousand pounds. This is too fishy! What's the catch?" He waved the papers around a bit.
"That's a pretty penny. Is in exchange for your services?" the skull asked with false innocence and I showed it my middle finger.
I rolled my eyes. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Lockwood."
He scoffed and narrowed his eyes. "But what if it came from Troy?"
"Who's Troy?"
George snorted as he came up from the basement. "I will force feed you the Iliad at some point. And the Odyssey."
I huffed, a bit impatiently. "Is there a point?"
Lockwood quirked a smile. "Have you really never heard of the Trojan Horse?" he asked sceptically.
I could feel my jaw clenching and my cheeks warming. "Do I look like I do?"
"Alright," he chuckled and lifted his hands in a placating gesture. "I just thought the classics were taught at all schools."
I tapped my foot and looked down at the ring of tea my mug had made. "I didn't finish school though, did I?" I grumbled.
When I looked back up, George and Lockwood were having a silent argument with violent hand gestures, but they froze when they saw I had noticed them. Lockwood's face took on that pitying look again. The one with the gentle smile he used on clients who had recently lost a loved one or didn't have enough money to pay our fee.
God, I hated it. I felt like throwing the rest of my tea in his face.
"I'm sorry, Lucy, I didn't know."
George shuffled a bit. He cleaned his glasses three consecutive times. He only did that when he was in distress.
"I don't get it," he said eventually. "How? You seem smart enough. Stupidly impulsive at times, but still smart. Knowledgeable."
I chuckled and if it sounded a bit wet, no one mentioned it. That was the highest praise I had ever heard from George.
"I dunno," I shrugged a bit helplessly. "I just pick up on things here and there. And I do read, you know."
Lockwood looked at me strangely.
"I thought you knew," I told him. "I didn't put the papers in with my application,"
I put my hands on the table when I caught myself fidgeting with the hem of my shirt.
He bit his lip and looked down at his shoes. "I just figured that maybe you hadn't put it in because you were ashamed of the results," he shrugged. "You could be a brilliant agent without any sort of academic skill. I didn't want to judge you on something that wasn't actually relevant to what we do here. I didn't care if you could even read or write. You're an amazing agent and that's all I need to know."
He gave me a crooked smile and I gave him a grateful one in return. I didn't want to ruin it by pointing out that being an amazing agent wouldn't always be enough.
I rolled my eyes, "Anyway – You should probably give Quill a call about that job. Probably a good idea to cash the money before you misplace that cheque too."
He startled and remembered the slip of paper he was holding.
"Right. Yes. Good thinking, Lucy,"
He practically bounced in the direction of the offices.
I chuckled a bit and shook my head. I hoped it wouldn't backfire when he finally learned who the client was. Things were just starting to thaw between him and Quill, and I wouldn't want it to go bad again. On the other hand, I knew the company was struggling. We needed the money.
"You could do it now, you know," George interrupted my thoughts.
"Do what?"
He shrugged and took off his glasses. "You don't have to take the classes, just take the tests,"
"I don't know, George."
"No one has to know. I'll help you," he put the glasses back on and he looked at me with determination.
I lifted an eyebrow in scepticism. "You sure?"
"Positive. I'm actually quite curious about how well you'll do,"
Now he looked at me like I was one of his specimens, which in a way, I supposed I was.
"I'm rubbish at languages though. You might want to find someone else for that," he shrugged and started rummaging around the biscuit tins.
I smiled. "Deal. But don't tell Lockwood."
"Yes, because I'm known for my gossiping tendencies," he had the gall to roll his eyes at me.
I smirked "I don't know what you run around talking to Flo about."
His cheeks turned a bit pink. "Shut up. I'll find out something with the tests and I'll let you know,"
With that, he went to his room.
I shook my head. It was daunting, the idea of finishing school, even if it was just taking the tests. But it felt good. I was trying to come to terms with my mother's decision to cut me out of her life and I supposed this was a part of that. I was undoing her decision to take me out of school entirely.
Far most agents started working part time and did school part time too, graduating at about fourteen. Some, like Quill finished school at twelve before starting to work at an agency full time.
Others, like myself were pulled out of school entirely to work full time from the beginning. It was rare as it was also actually illegal. When the Problem started, it was barely a month before all Child Labour Laws had been abolished. In the Seventies however, too many children were illiterate, simply because they had never been to school, but had been sent to work instead. The government reformed the school system and issued a decree that all children had to attend school until they were at least twelve and had to finish with examinations. No home-schooling either. It was a fact that many of the families in the country were complaining about because they had traditions for home-schooling and because they often had many miles to the nearest school.
Personally, I hadn't gone to school since I was eight. I don't know how my mum got away with it. At the time I had been happy to skip out on multiplication and division, but now, the glee had turned to disappointment. It wasn't every day I needed it, but it had been hard when I had been on my own. I had pushed through though, as I usually do, and I had managed. There was pride to be held in that, I told myself. It would be a serious issue once I couldn't be an agent anymore though.
There weren't many jobs to be had without any sort of schooling.
I was curious too. Although George was curious to see how good I supposedly was, I was curious to see how bad I would stink. But even if I barely passed the subjects, I would have that rubbish piece of paper like everyone else had.
The skull had been uncharactaristically silent through the exchange.
"You know, school's overrated. I never bothered to go myself."
I felt myself make a small smile. "Thank you, skull."
It didn't respond.
In the afternoon, Holly joined us for tea. The carrot cake she had brought was divine. I knew she was trying to sneak vegetables into our diet, but when it came with such a thick layer of cream cheese frosting, I could care less.
"One day you're going to be so fat they have to roll you down the stairs you know."
"Shut up," I told the skull through my mouthful of cake. I would not let it ruin this for me.
Lockwood stood to present the case to us. "I spoke to Quill and we're going tomorrow night. He told us to bring crowbars, so it's probably going to be a big Source. We'll see how it goes and if we can't take care of the Source, then we can identify it and deal with it the next day."
I struggled to keep my face straight at his enthusiasm. Instead, I kept my eyes focused on my cake. It really was delicious.
"George has already found information on the address from the archives; what does it say, George?"
"There isn't much. I had to go back all the way to 1890 when someone threw a bloke out of one of the windows. They never caught the one who did it, but the man was rumoured to be a part of several different criminal activities amongst others what I can only interpret as a prostitution ring. The term 'unholy' is used in abundance in the article."
"Sounds like my sort of people!" the skull exclaimed with glee.
George took off his glasses and rubbed them in slow circles as he usually did after a well-made presentation.
"Ah; a proper defenestration. Been a while since we had one of those," Lockwood mused fondly.
I didn't say anything out of fear of giving myself away.
"So, when are we going?" Holly asked. "Late afternoon?"
Lockwood nodded. "Quill wrote to come hungry. I assume he's bringing pizza or sandwiches."
"Sounds good to me." George smiled widely.
I snorted. "You say that now."
"What's that supposed to mean?" George frowned. "Is he a bad cook?"
"No, worse. He's a healthy one."
George cringed.
Lockwood scoffed. "That Bolognese I tasted was not healthy."
"That's because he made it for me," I smirked. "But be prepared to eat some whole-grain avocado-spinach-salmon ensemble."
"That sounds delicious!" Holly argued.
"Are we sure we don't want to kill this bitch anymore?"
I made a face at her. "I'm just saying that I'm bringing lots of biscuits just in case."
"Hear, hear!" Lockwood cheered and saluted me with his mug.
I stood and gave a small curtsey. "Now, I'm going downstairs to stab something. Anyone up for sparring?"
George wrinkled his nose and scratched his belly. "Maybe later?"
He always said, 'maybe later'. He never showed and we all knew it.
"Give me five minutes to clear the table and I'll be right with you." Holly offered and set about cleaning stuff up with a brisk pace.
"There's your chance! You can make it look like an accident!"
I went down the spiral stairs. I figured I would start with the throwing knives.
"Are you really still going on about killing Holly?"
"Please. I know she wants to get rid of me too."
I snorted. "She does not."
"She so does though. In fact, if I ever go missing again, she ought to be the first suspect!"
"Holly, would you say these roses are orange or peach?" I heard Lockwood wondering up in the kitchen.
"I don't know. Could call it a pale orange or a strong peach. Does it matter?" Holly chuckled. Her heels were clicking against the floor as she walked back and forth with plates and mugs.
"Oh, it matters. It matters a lot." Then he walked out of the kitchen. I heard his footsteps going up the stairs, and the distinct squeak of the door to Jessica's room as it opened and then shut.
George sighed and he too left to go to his room.
"Idiots, the lot of them," I heard Holly mumble fondly.
When I threw the first knife it was with a smile on my face.
…
Thank you so much for the amazing reviews! You guys are really sweet! I don't have a schedule as I'm horrible with deadlines and I just think that setting a deadline would stress me out. I just publish as I finish. Usually, I write and then I go through the chapter two or three times to work out the kinks and check for errors before publishing.
But I'm really happy that you guys are enjoying the story – it means the world to me.
Please keep leaving reviews and I'll keep leaving chapters!
