The Blade

Chapter 4

George's mother finished loading the dishwasher, poured herself a glass of red, and with a tired but contented sigh, settled onto the couch.  The TV was already on, as she liked the background noise—she still hadn't gotten used to how quiet the place was, now that George's sisters had gone off to university.

She channel-surfed, bemused as always by how there could be so many channels, yet so little to watch.  Finally, she settled on a news channel, only half-watching as she mentally catalogued a to-do list for the following day.  Marie liked to be organised.

The sound of a familiar name interrupted her train of thought and she switched her full attention to the newsreader.

"We now cross to our correspondent, live at the scene."

The image cut to a smartly dressed woman, standing outside a disturbingly recognisable cluster of buildings.  Multiple police-cars were parked around the complex, their flashing lights painting the setting in alternating hues of red and blue.

"Yes, thank-you Jim.  I'm standing outside the Norville Cheery Haven for Seniors, scene of what police are describing as a suspected terrorist attack.  Details are sketchy, however they have confirmed that there are multiple fatalities, among both the attackers and the residents of the home.  The names of the deceased have not been released and as yet, no terrorist organisations have claimed responsibility.  It is believed—"

Marie stared at the television in shock, before leaping to her feet, spilling wine all over herself in the process.  She hadn't gotten around to replacing her mobile after George had somehow managed to put it in the dishwasher, so she ran to the landline phone, only to discover that the handset was missing; it took her scrambled brain several seconds to remember that George had taken it to his bedroom.  Breathlessly, she made her way to his room, barging in without knocking.  She was momentarily surprised to find that her son wasn't there, but her primary concern was the telephone, which she spotted lying in the George-imprint on his bed.  Frantically, she grabbed the handset and dialled the nursing home—busy.  She disconnected and tried again.  Still busy.

She considered calling the police, but couldn't bear the thought of having to wade through multiple layers of reception and administration, just to probably be told exactly what she'd already heard on the news.

Frustrated, she made her way to the kitchen, replaced the handset in its cradle and after thinking for a moment, came to a decision.  She would go and see for herself.  "George!" she called.  "I'm going out for a while!"  There was no response, but this didn't come as any great surprise.  Wherever he was—bathroom, upstairs lounge, tinkering with his bike in the garage, mooning after that girl he was pretending not to be interested in—George was probably wearing headphones.  In any case, there was no point worrying him until she knew more.  She scrawled a quick note, stuck it to the fridge and grabbed her keys.  "I'm just going to check on Grandpa!" she shouted, on the off-chance that she might be heard.

"Oh, that won't be necessary."

Startled, Marie spun around.  A tall, lean man stood in the kitchen doorway, dressed from head to foot in black, his features hidden in the shadows of a hood.  She gasped, and took a step back.

The stranger advanced towards her, pushing back the hood as he did so.  He had what was ostensibly a perfectly ordinary face, possibly a little longer than average, with a prominent widow's peak. But otherwise, he looked fairly unremarkable.  In fact, it would probably be fair to say that his features bordered on good-looking.

Despite which, Marie knew she had never in her entire life seen a face quite so frightening.

The federal agent regarded Ronson with an expression that spoke volumes about precisely how highly he rated the capabilities of the Norville police force, in particular, and local police forces, in general.  That was fine by Ronson.  The more hopeless they thought he was, the sooner he could go home and start trying to forget all about the last few hours.  He'd never be able to look at a fork the same way again.

"What can you tell me about the getaway vehicles?"

Ronson blinked.  "Getaway vehicles?"

The agent sighed.  "Detective, witnesses report at least a dozen perps fleeing the scene, after the, ah...the incident.  Are you telling me they walked away from here?"

Ronson ran his hand through his meagre hair.  "Beats me.  There were no reports of vehicles.  We put out an APB, and I've had cars cruising the area, but so far they've turned up squat."

"What about dogs?"

"Huh?"

"Tracker dogs, Ronson.  Maybe you've heard of them?"

"Oh, yeah.  Nah, we haven't used dogs."

"Why the hell not?"

"Haven't got any."

The agent gave a humourless smile.  "Fortunately, we do."

"Trust me, lad.  You don't wanna go back there.  Why do you think the old man sent you away?"

"He didn't send me away!  He just told me to look in the..."  Realisation dawned on George.

"That's right.  And here you are.  Look, maybe you're worrying about nothing.  Maybe the old bugger didn't tell 'em where to go."

"Do you think that's likely?" asked George, hopefully.

"Well...let's see.  Weighing up all the options, considering the ins and outs, not to put too fine a point on it, taking into account—"

"Just tell me!" yelled George.

"Righto, righto.  Likely?  No.  Not if the evil bastards in question are the evil bastards I'm thinking of.  I mean, them bastards are evil."

George thought furiously.  I know!  I'll call and see if she's okay.  He pulled his phone from a pocket.  "Hey, I'm not getting any bars.  There are no bars here!  What the hell?"

Lob looked offended.  "No bars?  No bars, my tiny arse.  I've personally gotten legless at half a dozen bars, not ten miles from here.  Lad, I reckon that bar-finder of yours might be broken."

"Bar-finder?  It's a phone!  I want to call home, but I can't get a signal."

The little man gave him an appraising look.  "Mate, where exactly do you think you are?"

"I don't know!"  George gave his phone a shake.  "But pretty much everywhere's got phone coverage, these days."

"Everywhere in your world, maybe."

Slowly, George lowered his phone.  Despite the unrelenting weirdness of the last hour or two, despite the fact he was conversing with a man the size of a squirrel, despite the fact he was standing in a field that he had apparently traveled to via a magical trunk, it was the simple, mundane absence of a signal on his phone that finally brought home to him the unavoidable reality that extraordinarily strange things were undeniably afoot.

Focus.  Focus on what's important.  "Right, if I can't call her, I need to go back.  How do I do that?"

"Simple, mate.  Back in the box."