Natasha but made no attempt actually to screw it into his eye.
“This specially treated lens can see through all illusions and reveal hidden traps. It can also show what’s happening in deepest dark and brightest light. It can even, theoretically, reveal the true nature of any given object or person though I haven’t actually tested that function under field conditions, as yet.” He considered Natasha thoughtfully. “What would I see, I wonder, if I were to look at you through this marvellous monocle, Natasha dear?”
“Don’t even think about it,” said Natasha. “Now, my turn.”
She started off by pulling two heavy punch daggers from the tops of her tall pink leather boots. The wide leaf-shaped blades had long oval holes in their centres.
“So when you thrust the blades deep into someone’s body, bits of their organs or intestines will fall through the holes and be trapped there,” Natasha explained. “When you pull the blades out again, the trapped body parts are pulled out with them. Note also the serrated edges, so the blades can cut through bone. I’ve never understood this modern fascination with flick-knives. Decorative, yes, but I want a blade that can do real damage.”
“Of course you do,” murmured Erik. “It’s never about the kill with you; it’s the suffering. And given the size of those knives, I could make a remark or two about compensation myself.”
“Don’t start with the elephant again,” said Natasha. She thrust the knives back into the concealed sheaths in her boots with a casualness that made Erik wince, and produced from a concealed holster a small but perfectly formed 9mm pistol, silver-plated, with real pearl handles.
“Mummy gave it to me on my thirteenth birthday,” Natasha said happily. “She had a feeling it might come in handy someday.”
“That’s boarding-school for you,” said Erik.
“Well, quite,” said Natasha, making the pistol disappear about her person. She pulled a small leather pouch from an inside pocket. “I had this made from the stretched and tanned testicles of an old lover,” she said casually. Opening the drawstrings carefully, she spilled out onto her hand a dull red withered object that Erik couldn’t identify at first. Natasha smiled. “This is the mummified heart of dear dead Daddy, gone and not missed in the least. Frankly, Mummy and I were somewhat surprised to find he actually had a heart when we opened him up. It’s been treated in many special ways, by the Seven Sisters of Stepney Underneath, and now I can use it to call up the dead and make them answer to me. Not for long, admittedly, and it’s a hard job getting anything useful out of them; but then, the dead always have their own agenda.”
“Do I smell cardamom?” said Erik.
“Well, we had to preserve it with something,” said Natasha.
Next up were two chicken legs, tied together with brass wire and several strands of human hair with complicated knots tied in them.
“I didn’t know you were bringing lunch,” said Erik.
“Don’t show your ignorance, you common little man,” said Natasha. “This is Old School voodoo, a powerful juju guaranteed to make a curse stick and fester, right down to the soul. You wouldn’t believe some of the elements that went into making this.”
“Were elephants involved?” said Erik, hopefully.
“Shut up.” Natasha put the chicken legs away and produced a small plastic phial full of liquid, in which floated a single silicon chip. “Now this is special,” Natasha said proudly. “This chip was programmed by a rogue technomancer and removed from a possessed computer. It’s floating in debased holy water, mixed with burned mandrake ashes to give it a bit of a kick. Use the right Words, and this little chip can override any computer within a mile and a half.”
“I thought they turned off all this station’s computers?” said Erik.
Natasha gave him her very best glare, put the chip in a bottle away, and took out her iPod. Erik looked at it.
“This iPod contains over two hundred pre-recorded spells and rituals!” said Natasha, a little more loudly than she’d intended. “A good agent needs to be prepared for all eventualities!”
“I think I’ll stick to my 375 Magnum and take my chances with the elephants,” said Erik.
Natasha sniffed loudly and put her iPod away. “I don’t need toys to succeed, unlike some people. I am a Class Ten telepath and a fully trained psychic assassin! I’m the one who got us in here, remember; broadcasting
“You really are getting a little loud, Natasha dear,” said Erik. “For the sake of peace and quiet, I will freely acknowledge that you have the best toys, this time. But I really don’t think we’re going to need them. JC and his team are good, but we’re better.”
“You didn’t spend enough time reading the briefing reports,” said Natasha, forcing her voice back down to a normal level. “I’ve been studying JC and what he’s accomplished with his team. They’ve come a long way in a short time. They’re sharp, they’re fast, and they come at you from unexpected directions. JC is quite possibly the best agent they’ve got working in the field at the moment. Taking him down isn’t going to be easy.”
Erik smirked and stabbed a podgy finger at her. “You fancy him! You do! He’s your special Institute friend!”
Natasha grabbed Erik’s finger and twisted it cruelly. He yelped and tried to pull free but couldn’t. Natasha smiled.
“You need to remember who’s in charge here, little man. I don’t need your help to take down JC and his team. If you make yourself a distraction or a liability, I will drop you in your tracks and go on without you. Understood?”
Erik nodded frantically, and Natasha released his finger. Erik nursed his throbbing hand against his chest. “You play rough, Natasha. I’ve always liked that about you.”
“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking,” said Natasha, “you’re a dead man.”
Erik smirked. “Good thing I augmented my brain, to make it immune to telepaths, then.”
“Don’t underestimate JC,” insisted Natasha. “He has skill and experience far beyond his years. He’s a prodigy and a marvel, and quite possibly the next Head of the Carnacki Institute. Why else do you think Vivienne was so eager to sign his death warrant? She knows competition when she sees it. Remember the Case of the Horse Invisible, last year? JC. Did you even read what he did last night, face-to-face with a primal-god thing? No; JC is a better field agent than we’ll ever be.” She smiled suddenly. “Which is what will make killing him so much fun.”
“This is a woman thing, isn’t it?” said Erik.
“I could just eat him up,” Natasha said dreamily. “I’m sure his ghost will prove to be particularly tasty.”
Erik said nothing. There were some things about his companion that freaked even him out.
They stood together at the top of the escalator, looking down. All was still, and quiet.
“Time to go to work,” Natasha said abruptly. “Time to ambush the good and virtuous, throw them down, and trample them underfoot.”
“I don’t know,” said Erik. “I’m getting a really bad feeling about this. Something bad has come to Oxford Circus. Something far worse than we’ll ever be. Don’t tell me you can’t feel it, too, oh mighty Class Ten.”
“Whatever it is, we can handle it,” said Natasha.
“Probably,” said Erik. “But why should we? Why not let JC and his people take the risks and soak up the punishment? Then we can move in afterwards, while they’re weakened and off guard, kill them, and take the captured prize for ourselves.”
“Every now and again you justify your presence as my partner,” said Natasha. “Set up your equipment, little man, and let’s take a peek at what our good friends and rivals are doing down there.”
“You’d be lost without me,” said Erik. “Heh-heh.”
He took off his back-pack and lowered it carefully to the ground, as though it contained something breakable and highly explosive. He untied the heavy restraining straps, one by one, and carefully lifted out his latest creation. It wasn’t in the least aesthetic, a brutally functional transparent cube containing rapidly moving parts, with a living cat’s head jammed on the top. Wires sprouted from shaved points on its skull. The cube was an intricate clock-work mechanism, in which all the swiftly moving pieces were made of solid light and shaped energy, blazing fiercely with more colours than the human eye could cope with. The movements alone could make your brain hurt if you looked at them too long, as they rotated through more than three spatial dimensions. The cube ticked and tocked, but not regularly. It raced and paused and speeded up again, like a clock driven mad by seeing too much of the wrong kind of Time. Erik had put a lot of work into crafting the world’s first far-seeing computer, and he was very proud of it.
