Natural Born Angel (Immortal City 2)
“To use one term.” Minx coughed and placed the watch down on the glass display case. He looked at the detective. “I did not make your bomb, Mr Sylvester. You could investigate for some time and find no trace, I promise you that. There is a man, though. He might be interested in talking with you.”
“Who?” Sylvester asked.
“I can’t give you a name. All I can say is that, when the time is right, he may appear.”
“Do you always talk in riddles?”
“Not always. Just with policemen.” He grinned again.
Sylvester placed a card flat on the glass counter. “I’ll give you a couple of days. Then I’m coming back for you. With friends.”
Minx looked at the card, thumbing it in his hand. “It is funny to meet you this way, Mr Sylvester. At one point you were quite notorious down here, you know.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“True. Does time mean less for you than for the rest of us? Or have you . . . adapted since you lost your wings?”
Sylvester gritted his teeth, looking at the man standing amid the strewn stacks of clocks and gears. “I’d say it’s about the same. More or less.”
“Some of us may pity you. Others, not so much. Myself, I still haven’t decided.” Minx looked at Sylvester. “I hope you aren’t neglecting your other investigation.”
Sylvester raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Minx raised an eyebrow. “The homeless disappearances are concerning us. It’s not like the Angels to ‘slum’, as they say.”
“The Angels?” Sylvester said. And who was us? A strange feeling began to spread in Sylvester’s stomach.
Minx brushed off the question.
“Dig far enough and you can find some who may have witnessed something. If they can even be made to talk,” Minx said. “A man named Gerald Maze might be a good place to start.”
“Why are you helping me? I thought you hated police?”
“There are some things that can be hated more than even the police, Mr Sylvester. As hard as that may be to believe,” Minx said, grinning again. “The police are just the symptom of the larger sickness, Mr Sylvester, the institutions. But cracks are appearing. Demon sightings. The rise of the Godright girl, half-human, half-Angel.”
“Maddy.” Sylvester blinked at the name. “But how do you know all this, if you’re just a bo— ”
Just before he said the word bomb, a sudden bolt of realization struck Sylvester. His thoughts raced back and forth over details in his head. Were the bomb and homeless disappearances somehow related? But how?
“The disappearances, the growing unrest throughout the country, the strange occurrences across the world. The bomb. You yourself have been interested in London, St Pancras, I believe.” The nutty bombmaker smiled through his glasses.
“You think . . . these are all connected?” the detective said. The startling potential of a link between the events sent his detective mind into overtime. He struggled to comprehend it all, but the meaning still lay flickering just outside his understanding.
“The time of the Angels may be coming to a close, Mr Sylvester,” Minx said. “But then again, so may the time of the humans. It is foolish to take sides. Let the powerful destroy themselves, and then we can pick up the pieces after clearing away the garbage of this society.”
“The homeless aren’t just trash to be taken away,” Sylvester growled.
“You’re the one implying that, detective.” Minx grinned from behind his weird glasses.
Detective Sylvester noticed for the first time The Book of Angels sitting off to the side of a pile of old clocks. The apocryphal book with its famous prophecies didn’t seem likely reading for an anarchist who hated Angels. It was the kind of stuff the crackpots read from the corners while people quickly walked by, trying not to pay attention.
“Violence never solved anything.”
“I think you’re quite wrong there, Mr Sylvester. Quite wrong.” Minx coughed hard into his hand and wiped it on his apron, grinning again, his wild eyes peering through the lenses and loupes. Sylvester felt like taking a shower.
“Remember. I’m giving you seventy-two hours,” Sylvester said.
Putting his jacket on, Sylvester began walking towards the door.