Breaking the Lore Read online

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Let’s get inside.’

  He pointed at the door.

  ‘You heard the human,’ shouted Arno.

  ‘Grab your things,’ called his mate. ‘Leave the barrow here, though.’

  ‘Why?’ said Paris. ‘What’s in it?’

  The little man looked up at him. ‘Dog food.’

  The dwarves bustled about, picking up a variety of sacks and carrier bags. Then they moved towards the station. Paris remained in the same spot for a moment, thinking. Would these dwarves have really come up with this idea themselves, when they didn’t even know what to ask for? Or could somebody have put them up to it? A well-spoken, educated elf, perhaps. He needed to speak to Tergil, as soon as the new arrivals had been sorted out. Yet another thing he wanted answers to. The elf’s gigantic ears were probably already burning. And if they weren’t? Well, Paris still held his lighter.

  10

  Paris set off through the station. He walked slowly, so the dwarves could keep up, looking round regularly to check he hadn’t lost any of them. They trailed along behind, chattering away and pointing at things they spotted in this apparently strange place. This, thought Paris, must be what it’s like leading a school trip. After all, most of them seemed about the height of seven-year-olds. That, however, was where the resemblance ended. In the well-lit corridors he managed to do some proper scrutiny, and they definitely didn’t have the build of kids. Dwarves – the men in particular – were solid, with shoulders almost as broad as his and chests like barrels. Probably ones made of iron. He appreciated their clothes better now too. The loose-fitting sleeveless shirts turned out to be normal, human, hooded sweatshirts, with the sleeves cut off. Adult size, or perhaps teenage. Children’s clothes, he assumed, wouldn’t fit over their torsos, but adult-size arms were too long. They’d get in the way of whatever physical exertions the dwarves did to build up their muscles. And what muscles. Although Paris figured his nose should be safe, he certainly didn’t fancy being punched anywhere that was within range.

  He headed towards the front of the building, away from the old holding cells where he’d left Tergil. The inspector wanted to hear the newcomers’ story before any comparing of notes could be done. This strategy always worked for suspects, so he felt quite sure it would work equally well for this mob. Whatever they were going to be considered as. He glanced down at the nearest little person, walking just behind him. The stocky man who’d interrupted Arno in the car park. The main group hung slightly further back and this guy seemed apart from them in several senses. All of the others appeared to be families with children. He was on his own. Good, Paris decided. Always easier to interrogate an individual than a crowd.

  Catching the dwarf’s eye, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

  ‘Lots of talking going on back there,’ he said. ‘They sound very interested in our station.’

  The dwarf shrugged. ‘We’ve never been in one of your buildings before. Seen inside some, through the windows and stuff, but never been in any.’

  ‘You must have buildings of your own, though?’

  ‘Not in Stockport. We live in the tunnels, see. Them ones where your folks used to go to get away from the bombs.’

  Paris frowned, puzzled. Then he worked it out.

  ‘The air raid shelters,’ he said. ‘Dug into the side of the hill. Made in preparation for the Second World War, I think. So what happened: you moved in when they got abandoned?’

  The dwarf grinned up at him through a thick black beard. ‘We been there long before you started digging. There’s loads of tunnels you ain’t never found.’

  Paris smiled back down at him, a smile to hide his thoughts. How many tunnels were there? And how many magical creatures?

  They reached the main office before he could ask any other questions. He pushed open the door and the world’s most unusual school outing spilled past him into the room. Although fewer people occupied the building at night, there were still plenty of officers in there. More than enough, Paris reckoned, to take on the dwarves in a “looking stunned” contest. At some point he’d doubtless have to explain the full situation to everyone. Not right now, though.

  ‘Listen up!’ he shouted to the gaping police officers. ‘We’ve got these, er, refugees. Emergency delivery. We need to make them comfortable. Griffiths – see if you can find somewhere for them to rest and put their stuff. Then get some tea on the go, will you? PC York, PC Fraser – over here. You’re going to help our new friends.’

  Sergeant Griffiths set off, experienced enough to do what he’d been told even if he didn’t understand why. The two young officers– one male, one female – approached the inspector. The woman constable stared down at the mass of new arrivals, then back up at Paris.

  ‘Sir?’ she said. ‘Help them with what?’

  ‘Whatever they need. For starters, with reaching the toilet.’

  Paris had overheard several of the dwarves’ conversations on the way in. And not all had been about things they’d spotted.

  The group began piling their bags in a heap. Some of the adults approached the two constables, children in tow. The others milled around, chatting excitedly.

  Only one kept out of the hubbub. The one Paris had been talking to. He’d moved away from the rest slightly and sat himself down on a box of printer paper at the side of a desk. Paris watched him. This should be a good opportunity to get additional information. He sidled over to the loner and squatted down on his haunches.

  ‘Bit hectic,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to join in?’

  ‘No need,’ replied the dwarf. ‘I ain’t married. Got no little ’uns to look after. I’m keeping out the way until they’ve finished faffing.’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve managed to avoid kids myself. They can be hard work.’

  He extended a hand towards the visitor.

  ‘I’m Paris,’ he said, ‘as you know. Or sometimes people call me Parrots.’

  The dwarf shook his hand. Paris glanced down at fingers much smaller than his own, but strong enough to crush his without any effort whatsoever.

  ‘Eric. Eric Tubthumper. And sometimes people call me… Eric.’

  They both turned back to observe the activity going on in the room. The adult dwarves were talking to some of the police while pointing at exotic things such as electric lights. A few of them pulled pieces of fruit out of their bags to give to the youngsters. The children themselves bounced about like, well, children. Smaller and chunkier than any in Paris’s limited experience, yet every bit as lively and full of energy as his sister’s ones. Better behaved, though. And probably not quite such hard work. Well done, the little people.

  He looked back at the little person by his side. Time to continue the questioning.

  ‘There’s something confusing me,’ he said. ‘You’ve never been in a human building. But you’re all wearing human clothes.’

  ‘We never pinched them,’ said Eric defensively.

  Paris suppressed a grin. He didn’t think they had. Every cop he’d ever known believed in trusting your gut and going with what you felt to be right. Paris never did. It was a sentimental judgement with no logical evidence to back it up. But, if he ever did feel like following unverified instincts, this could be the moment. Being around these strange small people gave him a calm, warm sensation in the pit of his stomach. Although that might have been yesterday’s curry. He shook his head and smiled.

  ‘Nobody’s saying you did. I just wondered how you got them.’

  Eric relaxed.

  ‘We find stuff,’ he said. ‘Stuff you lot don’t want no more. We go out at night to look for it.’

  Paris pondered. Out at night with the drunks and the yobs. No wonder they’d learnt to move without being spotted.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Sounds sensible. And now you’ve got our clothes, you decided to try for our protection. What made you think of that?’

  Eric shuffled his position on the box of paper. It possibly wasn’t the world’s m
ost comfortable seat.

  ‘We hear all kinds of things,’ he said. ‘When we’re out in the dark finding stuff. Two of your folks were talking about some other country, ages ago. And we didn’t hear it proper anyhow, did we? Poetical Alsatian sounded a bit stupid, but none of us knew any better. Wouldn’t know what a political asylum was if I tripped over it.’

  Paris mused. What is a political asylum? Eric had obviously never seen the House of Commons.

  ‘So what do you reckon it means?’ he asked.

  ‘We hope,’ replied Eric slowly, ‘it means you’ll guard us from whoever’s after us. Is that right?’

  Paris studied the little man’s expectant, clueless face. Maybe Tergil hadn’t given them the idea after all. Maybe they’d come up with this half-baked plan entirely on their own. And maybe he could still use it to find out things for himself.

  ‘More or less,’ he said. ‘But what makes you think whoever’s after you won’t come after us too?’

  The dwarf stared blankly at him. ‘Why would the Vanethria be bothered about humans?’

  Paris had steered the conversation exactly where he’d wanted to. Tergil made the same assertion earlier. Now to find out what it meant.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Why wouldn’t they be?’

  Eric looked at him as if Paris had asked the most stupid question in history. ‘See, you don’t do anything, do you? I mean, you can’t fly like a fairy. You can’t breathe fire like a dragon. You lot are, well, not very interesting.’

  Paris stared back at him.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘you’re telling me the human race is safe from attack by demons – because we’re boring?’

  ‘Yeah. But look on the bright side: if you weren’t boring, we wouldn’t have come to see you!’

  Paris sat back against the desk. This wasn’t quite the deep, meaningful explanation he’d been after. Good to know, yet somehow annoying too. A strange mixture of happiness and depression washed over him. It felt as if he’d discovered the best pub in Britain, the day before it would be demolished.

  Across the room he saw Griffiths come back into the office. The sergeant raised his hand as he called for attention, then asked everyone to pick up their things and follow him. The dwarves charged about, grabbing belongings and children.

  ‘Got to go,’ said Eric, clambering off the box. ‘Hope he’s found some better chairs. Bye.’

  He set off to join his companions. Paris gave a cursory wave, too stunned to ask any of the further questions which whirled round in his head. What made humanity too dull to be of interest? Why were dwarves exciting? And bloody elves?

  Superintendent Thorpe appeared at the edge of his vision. Paris looked up at her, although she did not return his gaze. She was watching the column of dwarves disappear through the big double doors, with an expression somewhere between confusion and irritation.

  ‘What in the world?’ she said.

  ‘More visitors,’ replied Paris. ‘Come to make our lives more exciting. Whoopee.’

  Thorpe peered down at him.

  ‘They’ll have to do that later,’ she said. ‘We’ve got another body. And you’re not going to believe this one.’

  11

  Paris crouched down in the middle of the road. Constable Monaghan and Sergeant Bonetti were standing next to him. On either side of the group stretched a row of cars, parked all the way along the street. And in front of them was what appeared to be the mystic world’s latest casualty.

  Constable Monaghan folded his arms.

  ‘So?’ he said. ‘What do you reckon?’

  The headlights of the officer’s patrol car shone out from several metres back. They merged with those of the second police vehicle, facing the scene from the other end of the road. The beams fought against the night-time as Paris peered downwards.

  ‘Far as I can tell,’ said the inspector, ‘there’s a man’s head and torso. And a horse’s body. Looks pretty much like a centaur to me.’

  Monaghan tutted. ‘Pretty much?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Paris. ‘I’d be more certain if the man’s torso and the horse’s body were, well, attached.’

  The possible magical creature lay on the ground in two distinct sections. To the left sprawled the upper half of a man, down to the waist. The chest and arms were covered in what appeared to be light armour, and his face was fixed in an expression of shock. To the right, a horse’s body, minus the head and neck. It wore no armour, and its expression was slightly harder to work out.

  ‘Sliced clean through somehow,’ said Paris. ‘He. Or it. Or they. Never had a chance, by the look of it.’

  ‘This is exactly how we found him,’ said Monaghan. ‘Like someone who’s tried to ride a stallion through a giant cheese wire. I’m thinking, “Serves him right. What kind of wally goes riding at midnight? Without a saddle!” But then we couldn’t find his legs. Or the horse’s head. So we thought…’

  His voice trailed off.

  Paris turned towards him.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said the inspector. ‘It probably is a centaur. Nothing surprises me these days. Must’ve been an impressive sight, too.’

  ‘Brilliant to see,’ said Bonetti. ‘Hard work to describe, though. Appearance? White male. Height? Seventeen hands.’

  Monaghan scratched his chin.

  ‘That’s why we rang the superintendent directly,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t sure if you or her would be up at this hour, but I guessed you’d want to know.’

  Monaghan and Daley had been first on scene when the dead fairy turned up. Less than forty-eight hours later, here they were again. It wasn’t a coincidence. They were still on the same shift pattern, one of only two cars patrolling this part of town at night. Those wonderful cutbacks again, thought Paris.

  ‘You should’ve rung me,’ he said.

  ‘Tried. Got no answer. That’s why I rang her, while Daley called it in.’

  Paris grunted. He’d switched his mobile off while he talked to Eric the dwarf, a conversation he still found hard to take in. Were humans really not interesting enough for magical creatures to bother with? He glanced down at the armoured, four-legged, fantastic creature on the ground. He had to admit, in comparison he did feel ever so slightly run-of-the-mill.

  ‘I was interviewing,’ he said. ‘Superintendent Thorpe told me right before your partner’s message arrived. Then everyone in the station sprang into action.’

  He paused, turning back towards the armoured corpse.

  ‘Not like our friend here. He won’t be springing anywhere. How the hell do you cut straight through a body like that?’

  ‘Boss,’ said Bonetti, ‘you sure it’s just the one carcass?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. If it’s a horseman, or a horse-man, we don’t know what sliced it into pieces.’ He stood up, facing the two officers. ‘We’ll need the lab boys to help us work it out. Plus the DNA results to tell us how many bodies we’ve actually got. Are Doc Williams’s crew on the way?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Monaghan. ‘And some more lights.’

  Paris looked up, past the constable. He turned towards the other side of the road. ‘Street lights are broken. Both sides of where we are. Must’ve been pitch black when it happened. Have we got any witnesses?’

  Monaghan pulled out his notebook. ‘First call came in at 00:54. Disturbance. Caller thought it was drunks. Me and Daley got told to check it out. Then it all kicked off, while we were on the way. Shouting, banging, the whole works. Sounded like a full-scale riot, apparently. Loads more calls. People looking out their windows and seeing a fight between – you ready for this? – men on horses versus a pack of monsters. Then a car window gets smashed. The alarm goes off. There’s some sort of purple flash and everyone scarpers.’ He pointed at the floor. ‘Everyone except him, obviously.’

  ‘No kidding.’

  The officer closed his notebook. ‘When we turn up, half the street’s out waving torches, making more noise than the fight! Lucky that Brown and Kennedy weren
’t long after us, so we started getting things back under control. But, as you can see, we’ve got dents and bashes in some of the cars, branches broken off trees, various pools of blood. Bit of a mess, really. No wonder people are concerned.’

  Paris looked around. It was an ordinary residential street full of ordinary three-bed semis. Ordinary people in dressing gowns peered over the parked cars, trying to get a better view of the extraordinary scene in the road. Three police officers were attempting to maintain a semblance of order. Paris smiled a wry smile. Thorpe wanted to keep things under wraps. She would need some damn big sheets of wrapping paper.

  ‘What happened after that?’ he asked.

  ‘You and Bonetti arrived,’ said Monaghan. ‘With him.’

  He waved his hand towards the other police car, twenty metres or so away. A short figure in a woolly hat was examining the road in front of it.

  ‘Who is he anyway?’

  Paris reeled off his prepared explanation.

  ‘That’s Doctor Tergil,’ he replied. ‘He’s an expert.’

  ‘We’ve got experts on centaurs?’

  ‘Sure. What do think you pay your taxes for? Now, you get back to helping Daley.’

  Monaghan nodded and set off. Bonetti took a step closer to Paris.

  ‘What is he doing here?’ he whispered. ‘Did you bring him just to upset him?’

  Paris fixed his eyes on the elf. He’d summoned Tergil from the holding cell and asked for his help. He hadn’t mentioned what the dwarf said. He’d said nothing about it when they were driving here, either. He was waiting for the right moment. This wasn’t it.

  ‘He is an expert,’ he said. ‘Or the closest we’ve got. Unfortunately.’

  This proved a source of some annoyance to Paris. He liked his experts to be knowledgeable, trustworthy and reliable. This one definitely did not meet all of the criteria.

  Tergil started to walk towards them, stepping carefully around the debris and body parts. Paris glanced at the people looking over the rows of cars.

  ‘Bonetti, go help with crowd control.’