I didn’t like the idea. It was true that what Luna and Variam were suggesting wasn’t actually all that big a step. I’d helped the Council out with investigations and police work before—if I was being honest, becoming a sanctioned auxiliary would just be a way of recognising what I’d effectively been doing anyway. But it did mean making the relationship official, and while it might not have been a big step in reality, it felt like one to me.
What it really came down to was the simple fact that I don’t like the Council. Maybe not all of them are bad—and I’ll admit, I know a lot more of the better ones than I used to—but I’ve got too many old grudges to forget easily. Every single time in my life that I’ve really needed help, the Council have left me in the lurch, and more than once they’ve been the reason I needed help in the first place.
“Look,” Luna said when I didn’t answer. “We’ve been at this for how long now? Six months? Maybe a bit more. And all we’ve really been doing is just reacting to what Richard’s done. Okay, we’ve been finding out what we can, but basically he does stuff, and we spy on it. We’re not going to win anything this way.”
“I know that,” I said. “But we’re the underdogs here. You know the kind of resources Richard can draw on. We can’t move against him directly.”
“So doesn’t that mean we need some more friends, then?” Variam said with a frown. “Otherwise, what happens when he gets around to us?”
“I still don’t want to deal with the Keepers.”
“That was what I said,” Variam pointed out. “You told me to join them anyway. Remember?”
That brought me up short. When I’d first met Variam a couple of years back, he’d been just as hostile towards the Keepers as I was. More, actually. But I’d managed to persuade him otherwise with . . .
. . . with pretty much the same arguments Luna and Variam were using now.
Luna and Variam were looking at me. I looked at Anne. So did Luna and Vari.
“Um,” Anne said. She looked a little troubled. “It’s not really my decision.”
“What do you think though?” Luna said.
“I . . .” Anne looked at me, hesitated. I didn’t say anything. Somehow I was hoping Anne would give me a reason to say no.
“I don’t trust the Keepers,” Anne said at last. I felt my heart lift slightly, but Anne kept going. “Especially the Order of the Star. So I wouldn’t blame you if you said no. But . . . it’s worked for Vari. And they don’t hate you as badly as they do me. If it could keep you and Luna alive . . . maybe it’s worth it.”
“We still don’t know that they’d say yes,” I said.
“So you’ll try it?” Luna said.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say you wouldn’t, either.”
I rolled my eyes, then paused. All three of them were looking at me. “What?”
“So?” Luna said.
“Slow down,” I said. “Even if I did agree—which I haven’t—we’ve got no place to start. It’s not like I can show up and ask for an application form.”
“That’s easy,” Luna said. “Just go to Caldera. You’ve worked with her enough times already, right?”
“We’re not exactly best friends.”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t hate you or anything,” Variam said. “Actually she kind of likes you.”
“And all you have to do is ask,” Luna said. “I mean, what do you lose if she says no?”
I tried to think of a good answer to that and didn’t have one. All of them were still watching me and I felt weirdly trapped.
“So are you—?” Luna began.
“All right! I’ll ask.”
Which was how, one week later, I found myself standing outside Keeper headquarters in Westminster.
The main Keeper HQ for all of Britain is just south of Victoria Street, in one of the little off-roads. That particular area of London has always felt to me as though it’s so full of history that it becomes commonplace—you can’t cross the street without passing something historical or architecturally significant. The actual headquarters is one of those big grand Victorian buildings, with pillars and carvings on the front, as well as statues of some goddess or other and a few of the more photogenic predatory animals.
Like a lot of old London buildings, the inside of Keeper HQ is a lot less impressive than the outside. The walls are covered in flaking paint that’s a similar colour to coffee mould, and the stairs and floors use that particularly horrible type of linoleum that got popular in the mid-twentieth century and for some reason has never quite gone away. I checked in at reception and got told to wait. There were half a dozen other people sitting on the chairs against the wall, and none of them seemed especially happy to be there. I sat down and crossed my legs.
Now that I thought about it, this was probably the first time I’d been to a Keeper facility voluntarily. All the other times that I’d been here or to one of their other stations, it had been because I’d been forced to. I’ve never been officially arrested, but in practice there isn’t very much difference between “you’re under arrest” and “you’re going to come here and answer our questions or we’ll make you.” It tends to colour one’s memories of a place. I didn’t have good associations with this building, and I wasn’t really looking forward to talking with Caldera. A small but definite part of me was hoping she’d say no and give me a reason to leave. After fifteen minutes an apprentice came and escorted me upstairs.
Once you get past reception, Keeper HQ gets a lot busier, filled with noise and people. The stairs and corridors are narrow and there are always people squeezing past, and there’s a clamour of typing and talking in the background. If you were dropped in the middle of it and didn’t know what to look for, you’d probably think it was a civil service building of some kind. Keepers don’t wear uniforms or carry weapons (they don’t need to), and to most people they just look like ordinary men and women. But if you do know what to look for, it’s not too hard to spot them. Keepers move differently from ordinary people; there’s a sort of unconscious power and arrogance in how they carry themselves. They have a different way of looking at you too—a quick once-over, sizing you up as a suspect. I didn’t let myself get visibly tense, but I’d be lying if I said I was comfortable. I might not be a suspect, but I didn’t belong here.
Caldera’s office was on the second floor. It was medium-sized, with two desks, two computers, some paperwork, Caldera, and another Keeper I didn’t know. Caldera gave me a glance, held up a hand, then turned back to the other guy. “I know what it says,” she was saying. “This isn’t a Section Three.”
“So you want to do what?” the other Keeper said. He was tall and athletic-looking, with blond hair. “Just let the guy go?”
“There’s sod-all we can charge him with.”
“Karla’s not going to be happy.”
“Fuck Karla,” Caldera said. “She wants this guy so badly, she can do it herself.”
“Or she’ll just take it out on us,” the man said, then held up his hands to forestall Caldera’s answer. “All right, all right. I’ll try and sell her.” He walked out, giving me a curious glance as he passed by.
“Hey, Verus.” Caldera typed something into her computer and blanked the screen, then waved me over. “Grab a seat.”
Caldera is a member of the Order of the Star, the division of the Keepers that enforces the Concord and national laws amongst adepts and mages. She’s an Englishwoman of thirty or so, shorter than me and a fair bit heavier, broad and stocky.
I first met Caldera about a year and a half ago. I was being chased around London by a bunch of adepts who wanted to kill me for something I’d done while still an apprentice, and Caldera had become involved because of the Richard connection. The whole thing ended badly for pretty much everyone concerned, but if there’d been one silver lining from my point of view, it had been the working relationship I’d developed with Caldera. I’d seen her a few more times since then, usually under similar (if slightly less dangerous) circumstances—I’d want some favour or a bit of information, she’d want something I could find out with my divination magic, and we’d figure out some sort of deal that gave us both what we wanted. We’d even had a couple of drinks together, from time to time. But we’d never quite made the jump from acquaintances to friends, and to be honest that was probably because of me—I could never quite forget the organisation she worked for.