Testimony of Children (Alice Gray Book 2)

14

These were harsh lessons. Not everything was about my personal drama, and not all vampires were like Thomas. The sooner I realised that the better I would do, with Stephen and Emily, and with the other creatures that were now a part of my world.

It didn't seem appropriate to offer sympathy to Emily. She didn't want it and I couldn't blame her. She didn't live her life as a victim, and she didn't want to be seen as one. I could respect that.

After a hasty shower, I quickly changed into the clothes that Emily had bought: black leggings and a long-sleeve black t-shirt. She'd left me her spare black leather jacket, and the gesture made me warmer than the coat ever could. I pulled on my leather boots and within twenty minutes I joined the others downstairs, ready for our research trip to the British Library.

We'd agreed to shift the focus of our research to finding a cure for Mary. Her distress and confusion were hard to live with, and I wanted to help smooth out those lines of worry on Stephen's face. If his theory was correct, things were only going to get worse for Mary as her life-force regained its strength.

The added incentive was that my own family was intimately involved in the case. We might uncover something that could explain the rift between the coven and the Grays. Anything that could bridge the gap between the disjointed histories that Alice Gray and Jennet Device played out in my dreams was a bonus at this point.

The building was a huge modern block construction built around a piazza. The showpiece was a massive sculpture of Isaac Newton. Dreary in the raincloud filled sky, the huge Newton peered down, severe and forbidding in the gloom. When we passed Antony Gormley's Planets, boulders with incised human forms, I had to work to get the image of them slowly uncurling out of my mind. Why the hell did a modern building have to have so many stone creatures?

I really hoped it wasn't an omen.

Stephen and Emily led the way to the rare book reading room. To my surprise we didn't stop here, instead continuing to the rear wall, where Stephen produced a key and led us into a small private chamber. A pile of old bound volumes and even older manuscripts sat on a trolley in the small room. On the table, foam wedges and page weights were set up next to a box of surgical gloves to prevent the oil from our hands transferring to the brittle paper.

This wasn't usual practice at the library. Catching Emily's eye, I gestured to the room.

"Let's just say they owed me a favour. Some chauvinistic old academics needed a lesson in manners when dealing with young librarians," Emily said, without so much of a hint of a smile.

"Don't assume they put us in here as a favour, they probably just wanted to protect the other readers," Stephen sniggered, bringing a rare smile to Emily's face.

"What are we looking at here?" I asked, eager to get my hands on the ancient looking tome that Emily was setting up.

"This material is from a special collection that belonged to Charles Dickens," Stephen explained.

"The author?" I asked, wondering where this was going. I really didn't need a lecture on nineteenth-century literature right now.

"Yes, he was fascinated by the supernatural, you've read A Christmas Carol, right? That's the tip of the iceberg. He amassed a huge collection of works throughout his lifetime. After his death, his colleague John Forster left Dickens's work and belongings to the V&A Museum in London. This particular part of the collection was immediately removed and placed in a larger archive relating to the paranormal housed here in the British Library. The collection is not public, and can't be found in any catalogue."

"We're relying on your discretion, Alice," Emily interrupted, spearing me with a serious eye. "You've got to understand, these materials contain classified information. They are the only documents in existence that describe the practice of blood magic. We can't risk them falling into the wrong hands."

"Ok, well how do you guys have access to it?"

It seemed a little convenient that Stephen and Emily were members of an exclusive group of people that not only were aware of this collection but could also access it. This was all a bit cloak and dagger for me – it'd be passwords and secret handshakes next.

"You don't think we're the only ones out there who are trying to keep the peace between the humans and the others do you?" Stephen asked. "Our DPA licence grants automatic access to the archives because the likelihood is that you will come up against those with powers beyond the scope of human weapons. Sometimes knowledge is all we have to fight with."

"Oh, that simple is it?"

This didn't sound cloak and dagger at all, rather bureaucratic in fact. Not at all what I was expecting when dealing with a hidden section of society made up of individuals with super powers.

"Alice, to gain a licence from the DPA, you have to undergo intensive physical and psychological evaluation, and then present a thesis on your chosen subject to the country's leading experts in paranormal affairs. No one individual has the capacity to know enough about the people that we work with, their abilities and histories, to do this job effectively. That's why this archive is so important, and why people like us have access to it," Stephen explained.

"Oh," was all I could come up with. Suddenly the magnitude of what I had got into was overwhelming.

"People like you, however, usually don't have access to the archive," Emily stated impersonally.

"People like me?"

Uh oh! Is Emily about to destroy the friendship budding between the unlikely trio?
Read on to find out!