After the blast at the Tate, Margaret had agreed on time off, but Blake wanted to complete his part of the display, and working alongside Catherine wasn't so difficult. He turned away from the flat and headed for Bar-Barian. Alcohol was the best way he knew to quiet his mind and dull the pain of his injuries.
A couple of drinks to take the edge off.
He walked into the bar, its familiarity a comfort. He didn't have to pretend here, because he was surrounded by people like himself. People who found truth and solace in drink.
"Usual?"
Blake nodded and Seb the barman poured two shots of tequila and grabbed a bottle of Becks from the fridge. Blake downed the shots, letting the golden nectar seep through him, bringing a calm he could reach no other way. He sipped at the beer, checking out the after-work crowd who gathered in Soho to find love for the night, acceptance in the arms of a stranger. Drinking alone in his flat meant that he had a problem, but here he was just one face in a party that went on at all hours in this part of London.
After another couple of shots, Blake sensed the heaviness that would let him slip into dreamless sleep. He wandered home slowly, the few blocks taking longer than usual as he lingered, watching the faces of the passersby. This was the floating part of being happily drunk, a wellbeing that buoyed the spirit.
Maybe he should call Jamie, Blake thought. Maybe she would come over and they would be together. Or he could call Catherine for something altogether less complicated.
He shook his head as he pushed the key into the lock on the front door. Probably best to go to sleep. He walked up the stairs, his steps heavy.
Then stopped at the top of the stairs. Something was wrong.
The door to his flat was open a few inches. Someone was here. The drunken sensations subsided as Blake focused. He clutched his keys in his hand, pushing one through his fingers to use as a weapon if needed.
He pushed open the door.
The man from the museum sat on his bed holding the Galdrabók in his strong hands. It was open to a page of Icelandic spells, the man's lips moving as he read them quietly.
He looked up at Blake, his eyes the color of northern oceans that would freeze a man to death in seconds. The scar across his nose was deep, the flesh livid around the edges. He was a stranger, but once again Blake saw a hint of his father in those features.
Blake stood in the doorway, ready to run.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. "Who are you?"
"I've been wanting to read this book again for a long time," the man said, with a slight Scandinavian accent. "Your father stole it from us many years ago."
Blake knew he should give it to the man and let him leave, but he felt a strange possessiveness for it, a need to keep it under his bed like a talisman. His father had used the book and Blake was curious as to whether he could use it himself.
"You don't look much like him." The man smiled, baring teeth that had been filed in the way of the Vikings. "But then I heard Magnus married as far from the north as he could."
"Who are you?" Blake asked again.
"Your uncle," the man said. "Allfrid Olofsson. One of your northern kin."
He held out a hand to Blake, holding it there, waiting. His other hand rested on the Galdrabók, claiming it.
After a moment, Blake reached out with gloved hands and shook. Allfrid looked down at the gloves.
"You have the sight, then."
His words were matter of fact and Blake reeled at the implication. It was the first time that anyone had been so accepting of his gift, treating it as mundane.
"What do you know of it?" he asked, coming into the room now and shutting the door. Allfrid was a threat, of that he was sure, but he also wanted to know more.
"You come from an ancient line of seers," Allfrid said. "But your father wanted none of it. He was scared of the visions and what was demanded of those who could renew the pact with the gods."
Blake sat down heavily in his desk chair.
"My father had visions too?"
Betrayal washed over him. The years of beating, the curses, the claim that Satan had entered him. All were just a way for his father to deny his own gift.
"He was one of the strongest among us," Allfrid said. "At least when we were young. But he left before he understood the true meaning or how to control it."
Blake looked at Allfrid, the words sparking something within.
"Yes, boy." Allfrid understood the look. "You
can
control it. You don't need those gloves if you know how to separate the visions in your mind from reality. You've never been taught the right way."
Blake pulled the gloves from his hands, revealing the crisscross scars underneath.
Allfrid shook his head in resignation. "Your father?"
Blake nodded. "He tried to beat the curse from me. And yet he kept the Galdrabók and used it to draw people to him. Even my mother, I suppose."
"We all have to manage our addictions," Allfrid said. His piercing gaze rocked Blake to the core, as if he could see the alcohol wrapped around his soul. "It's a struggle we each walk alone." He traced a finger over the pages of the book. "But this can help you, as can your family."
He thrust the book towards Blake.
"Read me through it, I know you can do this. Let me show you the north."
Blake hesitated. He had read his father through the book and witnessed a human sacrifice that left him retching and weak. Was he safe in this room, in a city so far from that wilderness?
He sensed a hard edge to Allfrid, a blade's breadth away from savagery, but here in the city it remained cloaked. If he opened his mind to the man, would he be able to return?
But curiosity drove him on. This was the first time anyone had explained his visions as an integral part of him, and now he knew he wasn't alone.
Blake put his hand on the book and closed his eyes.
There was no sinking through the layers of memory this time. There was a pure jolt of energy and he gasped with the cold. Blake opened his eyes to find himself standing in freshly fallen snow surrounded by birch trees. The tinkling of a stream pervaded the glade and a light rain fell on his exposed skin. Above the trees he could see mountaintops.
Blake inhaled deeply. The air was fresh and clean, filling his lungs as a sense of freedom expanded within him. There was nothing of human manufacture in sight, the sounds and smells only spoke of what had been here for millennia.
There was a crunch in the snow behind him and Blake turned to see Allfrid smiling at him.
"This is only the beginning," he said. "But I wanted you to see the place I come to be at peace." He looked up to the mountain. "Your father and I climbed that peak as boys. Back then, he understood the power of the place. But he left and when you're far from nature, you lose touch with its strength."
Blake could hear his own heartbeat in the still of the glade. He could feel the pulse at his neck, his wrists, and he felt a connection to the earth here. He wanted to jump around in the snow, lie back in it and look up at the sky. It was far from the wild, dark places of the New Forest where he had grown up.
Allfrid cupped his hands around his mouth and called into the woods, a harsh sound, the words as raw as the land they stood in.
A few minutes later, faces appeared in the trees and figures crept through the wood, darting between the sheltered spaces. There were children amongst the group as well as older people and those Blake's own age.
One little girl peeked out from a tree close by, catching his eye. She giggled at him and Blake smiled back. He must look odd to them with his dark skin and city clothes. She took a step out into the snow, her hand held out to him in greeting.
As she came closer, Blake reached out to touch the girl's fingers.
A whoosh of cold wind swept snow into his face.
He gasped, opened his eyes, and he was back in the attic flat again. He grabbed the desk with both hands, trying to orient himself into the physical space again.
Allfrid laughed, shaking his head. "You need training, boy, if you're to use your gift properly."
"They could see me," Blake said, his voice shaky. "Those people, they could see me and touch me?"
"Our tribe live with closer ties to outer realms. What you see as a vision, others experience as part of their usual world. You differentiate but that's only because you haven't truly accepted that part of yourself. But every time you read, you take a step towards us. Each time you sink into memory, it also seeps into you. Beware of doing this without the proper training, boy. Come to us and I will show you."
Allfrid rose to his feet, the Galdrabók in his hands. "Now, I must go and I'm taking this." His head almost touched the ceiling in the tiny flat and he bent a little, the posture of a man who was always leaning over others. "The grimoire belongs with the family – but you are one of us."
He pulled a map from his pocket and handed it to Blake. It was marked by lines and runes, with a clear red X in a patch of green in northern Sweden. "The glade is marked. If you come to us, we can teach you of your gift and how to use the book." Allfrid looked out of the window, over the rooftops of London. "Or you can stay here, wearing those gloves to hold back the visions, using alcohol to deaden their power, wondering how you fit into the world." He looked down at Blake again. "It's your choice."
Allfrid turned and walked out of the flat without a backwards glance, leaving Blake sitting on a chair, shaken by the experience of the vision. He heard his uncle's footsteps tramp down the stairs and then the bang of the door onto the street.
Jamie pushed open the door to her tiny office and picked up the mail from the mat, juggling her coffee cup in the other hand. She wanted this space to keep her work separate from her personal life but once again, the two were mingling.
Perhaps work was life
, she thought. For some people at least. The need to work certainly drove her, and she never wanted to stop. Retirement seemed an outmoded concept from a different time and the day her brain checked out was the day she would stop working. But it was more than the love of the job that kept her going today. After Polly's death, she had lost purpose but there was a glimmer of hope that she might find it again in this community.
The news from Magda this morning had made Jamie determined to dig into the ownership records of the buildings in the Southwark area. Who would stand to gain from the destruction of the studio apartments and who would want the Kitchen closed? Ed was in a stable condition in hospital, but it seemed like the community was being attacked on all fronts.
She opened her laptop and began to search the council databases that held the area's property records. There were layers of holding companies but the trail would be there, Jamie was sure of it. She knew how to investigate into the directors and shareholders of companies from her days in the police and it was only a matter of patience to sift through the levels down to the originators. She sipped her coffee as she searched, copying and pasting lists of names, cross-checking against the Companies database that held the legal records for each UK entity.
After a couple of hours lost in data, Jamie had a broad sense of how many companies were vying for the valuable property in Southwark. Many were registered overseas, but there were names that tied them together. There was a crossover of interest between projects as varied as the Shard construction to Guy's and St Thomas' hospital development and renovation of some of the older warehouses. One name kept coming up: Vera Causa Limited.
Jamie did a quick search and discovered that the Latin words meant True Cause. She began to delve into what she could find about the company, quickly discovering that the shareholding lay in bearer shares. These were physical stock certificates where the owner didn't have to be registered in any way and dividends were disbursed to whoever held the shares. The setup was designed to hide ownership and legislation was currently being debated that would make it illegal. But for now, the owner of these bearer shares could stay hidden. Jamie frowned, taking a last sip of the now-cold coffee.
A sudden commotion and banging from the outer offices broke her concentration.
Jamie emerged from her office to find one of the other tenants shouting at a man in the hallway. The official wore a pinstriped suit, standing with back straight as he taped a notice on the door.
"My contract clearly says that the lease is six months," the tenant exclaimed, waving paperwork at him.
The suit handed a document to the gesticulating man.
"You missed the clause for pest control," he said. "Everyone needs to be out of here within the next two hours and then fumigation will commence. You won't have access for at least a week, but you'll be contacted when the building is available again."
The tenant continued raging, his protestations useless against immoveable bureaucracy.
Jamie ducked back inside her tiny office, packing up what little paperwork she had started to accumulate into her backpack. There was a nagging doubt in her mind about the timing of the pests and no evidence of them that she could see.
Walking downstairs ten minutes later, she stopped to read the notice from the landlord on the way out. The company name at the bottom was one of those that she had tied back to Vera Causa.