Chapter 1: "Call it magic, cut me into two, and with all your magic, I disappear from view" Magic, Coldplay

Frankfurt Airport, February 10^th

Caerys let out a breath she’d not realised she was holding as the border agent waved her through to collect her clutch from the tray. The floor was cold, and disturbingly slightly sticky, and she hurriedly slipped her shoes back on and grabbed the bag and assorted items from the tray, adjusting her glasses as she headed out onto the secure side concourse.

Slipping into an empty seat between a dozing woman who looked to be a South Sea Islander and an Asian businessman frantically hammering away at his lap-top with two rigid index fingers, she dipped into her bag and pulled out the tablet she’d bought the day before. She still wasn’t convinced the bank account Gabriel had set up for her was quite as lavish as it looked on the screen, but the numbers all added up when she checked. Again.

She’d never had money, at least not more than a few dollars to buy lunch a few times. This was real money - not the pretend pocket change of someone being kept on a tight leash, virtual money held secure where she, and only she, could waft it around with the wave of a card. It would have been a dizzying thought if she spent any time on it, but she swiped across and called up the news service she’d been downloading and flicked through her password details once it found the airport wifi.

The wonders of the internet quickly brought a copy of her home-town paper up, and she flicked through to the pictures from the funeral of a local businessman. She recognised a few of the faces; Elise, withered and dry, held up by Snake, and the cold-faced, harsh features of Ariadne by the coffin. It wasn’t a surprise that Ariadne had returned, with her father’s death, she’d been supervising some of her father’s work retrieving artifacts and relics since Lilith had declined her father’s invitations and gone to work for Marduk.

She’d oustripped Elise in power while Caerys was still a child, and the muttering around the house had it that Lilith had declined because Ariadne threatened to eclipse her as well.

As a child her father had referred to Ariadne as her ‘sister’, but she wasn’t his child really. She was a follower, albeit a powerful and capable one; Caerys and Eileen had come to the conclusion that Ariadne had designs on being her father’s consort, but Gilgamesh wasn’t the sort to share any sort of power; he didn’t take lovers, even, he used whores and cast them aside.

Caerys’ hand came up instinctively to the brand below her collarbone, but caught herself before she brushed the stiff flesh through her bulky sweater - it didn’t hold her any longer, at least in part because he was dead. She’d watch Gabriel channel lightning through him for what seemed like hours, equal parts horrified and disbelieving as he’d screamed, but at the end of it he’d definitely been dead.

Breaking herself out of her reverie she glanced up at the departure board to see that her gate had been called, so she gathered her small bag, slipped the tablet back into it, and set off along the concourse. As she got closer to her gate, surrounded by gates serving other US carriers, so she began to recognise more American accents, but she kept her head down and slipped into an end seat without making eye contact.

With the plane visible outside the window she began to second-guess herself, wondering if she was doing the right thing, and she dipped into the bag for the tablet again. The link on the main page of the newspaper site took her to the photographer’s page, she knew, and the headline there took her to a plea to the readership for information on the disappeared journalist, but also on the main story was a link to a follow-up article.

‘Pacific Holdings announces new CEO’ she read, again. She could almost recite it from memory now, certainly she knew the main beats. The old CEO, and major shareholder, had died, and some long-lost nephew had inherited the shares and appointed himself as the chairman. There wasn’t a picture, wasn’t even a name, but she knew for sure that in the eighteen years she’d spent in his house her father had never mentioned a nephew before.

But why should she care what happened? It wasn’t like she’d be recognised in his will, if he really did have one, and she didn’t want anything of his anyway. She had nothing back there to get; the only things of value that had ever been there were her mother’s book, tucked away in her hold luggage, her mother and Eileen, and they were both dead.

This is crazy! she thought, her sigh of irritation at herself drawing a little attention from the woman sat next to her, and she focussed on the tablet screen again, pretending it was a connection problem. Refreshing the page she saw that there was a new link, now, a further link to take her deeper down the nonsense rabbit-hole she was digging for herself.

A bland press-release about stability and no significant changes in direction from the new CEO in the business pages, she closed the page just as the picture flashed up, and felt her heart clutch.

“It can’t be...” she whispered, and hurriedly reloaded the page, gnawing at her lip impatiently although it only took a few seconds.

Sure enough, as she’d thought, the familiar face of Gilgamesh was posted; the haircut was different, the stance was a little different, he looked thinner through the cheeks... Dying will do that to you she thought, and felt the tablet start to shake as she tried to get a solid grip with suddenly weak fingers.

“Are you alright, dear?” the woman next to her asked, leaning in gently.

“I’m fine.” Caerys assured her, keeping the shake out of her voice.

“The new Michaelson,” she nodded at the story. “I used to clean in his building in Seattle until he moved it to Portland. I hope this new one’s a nicer man than the old one, but it doesn’t look like that apple’s fallen far from the tree.”

“No.” Caerys agreed, closing the tablet as the flight was called. “No it doesn’t.”

Le Havre Hospital, February 10^th

Sophie draped her coat across the chair in the corner, sliding her bag onto the table as she slipped her driving shoes off and eased her feet into the soft plastic shoes she kept in the office. Despite not having been cleared to return to surgical operations, she had a pile of case notes in her in-tray, and she grabbed the top one as she turned back into the corridor towards the kitchen.

“Dr Barthez.” She looked up from the sparse information on the front of the notes to see one of the consultant oncologists leaving with his drink. “Good to see you back.”

“Thank you, Dr Jiminez,” she smiled, pleasantly. He was a notorious flirt, but also very openly living with one of the male nurses. “How are things over in the East Wing?”

“Strange,” he admitted, after a moment’s hesitation, glancing down the corridor behind her. “Management everywhere, all of a sudden.”

“Management?”

“I’m not sure if they’re clerical or clinical or something else, no real questions, no observations but they’re ... there. Watching.”

“Any idea what they’re looking for?”

“Dupont, in Emergency, he’s the only one that seems to have actually had to deal with them. He had a traffic accident victim come in late last week. Before she’d even been put into a bay these suits were there whisking her away.”

“To where?”

“No-one knows. No record of her leaving the hospital, but no record of her arriving, either. He queried it, and was told not to worry.”

“Which is sure to work, of course.”

“Naturally.”

“Any idea why that case?”

“Well, they say...” he cut off abruptly, walking away as though they’d not been talking, and Sophie turned to call him on it when she spotted Ramage at the far end of the corridor.

“Management.” she muttered to herself, and turned back to the kitchen. “So, why am I being sent a drug abuse case?” She wrapped the cover of the file around as she slipped a hand into the cupboared on autopilot, seeking the handle of one of the mugs.

“Recognise the signs?” Ramage’s voice came from the doorway, and Sophie realised she’d been stood unmoving for a moment, staring at the picture. The distended head was reminiscent of what she’d seen before, although the process appeared to have moved on; the grotesquely overdeveloped musculature was reduced to a more conventional human physique - still powerfully muscled, but more akin to a dancer or gymnast than a bodybuilder or a powerlifter. The reduced musulature revealed prominent spinal protrusions in a long-line down the back, more pronounced towards the cervical region where the upper-most bracketed the base of the distended occiptal bone, appearing to hinge with an extension of the mastoid or styloid process.

Did the others have that protruding processes? she wondered, looking back at the image for a moment. Was it hidden amongst the bulk? Is the mass difference a result of the sex difference?

“Dr?” Ramage pressed, and she looked back at him again.

“I’ve told you what I’ve seen,” she told him, curtly, “I’ve not had the chance to review these notes yet.”

“Perhaps your friends would recognise them?”

“I recognise ... maybe ... there are similarities, but there are maybe differences as well. I didn’t exactly have the chance to complete an examination last time.”

“Maybe someone else who’s seen them would be able to jog your memory.”

“Are you interested in what I know, Mr Ramage, or these poor unfortunates?” she flipped the folder closed one-handed with a practiced gesture and dropped it onto the round table as she finally pulled a cup down. “Or are you just using this as a pretense to try to see if there’s something I haven’t told you about the other two? Maybe spur me into getting back in contact on the secret phone you’re no doubt convinced that I have.”

“I’ve no reason to think that you have a burner phone, Doctor ... may I call you Sophie?”

“Dr Barthez will have to do.” she sniffed, pouring herself a small cup of the syrupy coffee that had likely been strengthening in the jug for a while. She pointed past Ramage’s hip to the small fridge, and he stepped back to let her remove a carton of the UHT milk. “I presume you’ve checked my office extensively to be confident of that.”

“My agenc...” he began to deny, but she cut him off.

“My home? My grandparents home?” He paused a moment, and shrugged.

“It’s likely that someone has checked,” he conceded, after a moment. “With the easy availability of the internet these days, anonymous communication is so much easier than trying to hide a phone.”

“So this is more about these other two than whatever has been done to these?”

“We’ve seen a number of people displaying these ... deformities,” he gestured towards the closed folder.

“Alterations.” she corrected him. “These aren’t something ‘wrong’, these are selected for.”

“They do appear consistent to a number of cases,” he acknowledged, and Sophie filed that away.

“They are only superficially similar to the ones that I saw before,” she pointed out, and he nodded.

“We’ve come across three distinct varieties. These,” he pointed to the folder, “heavier, more hunched, ape-like versions, even larger, grey-skinned brutes.”

“Well, if you’d like my professional opinion as a neurologist,” she picked her cup up and slipped past him towards the door as he reached for the folder, “I’ll either need EEGs, fMRI or a physical sample of a brain.” she noted.

“You can’t be more general than brain physiology and activity?” he asked, following her along the corridor. She stopped at the lift, pressing the call button with a practiced elbow, both hands wrapped around the warm mug in the cold corridor.

“I can,” she admitted, “but why should I?”

“We’re trying to keep this to as few people as possible.”

“Who is ‘we’, Mr Ramage? You are trying to keep this quiet; I’m just trying to keep this away from me.” The lift arrived and she took a quick look to see that it was empty before taking a half-step backwards to just inside. “I’m sure you’re not going to my floor.” She didn’t give him space to enter and stared at him as he considered whether to push his luck and get in the lift with her.

Years of medical work had schooled her face to a careful neutrality, vital when trying to keep patients and their families calm as they awaited news, and she put it to good use as her thumping heart pushed the hilt of Camael’s knife against the heel of her hand. She didn’t dare leave it in the office or at home, couldn’t afford to risk leaving it where it might be found, even if whomever found it had no idea what it was.

Ramage cut his losses and turned away as the doors started to judderingly creak shut, and Sophie counted to ten after the lift started moving before she let out a shuddering breath, confident she had at least a few moments peace.

Her mind whirred, an impossibly long lists of necessary tasks growing longer and longer; call her parents, retrieve Christophe, find somewhere safe to hide the knife ... but despite herself she found her thoughts returning to what Ramage had said about the altered forms they’d come across.

Admiral Donner’s grotesque creations were probably the heavier examples he’d referred to, there had been enough corpses of those left behind from Gabriel’s work to practically guarantee the authorities had at least one. The larger might be the trolls, or might be the strangely elongated ‘gargoyle’s they’d come across.

And she wondered, as she returned to her office, if she just hadn’t seen enough of them, or if she was alone in realising that these new forms were female, whereas the others she’d seen had all seemed to be male.

Albuqa, Yemen, February 12^th

Historically, patience had been more than simply one of Gabriel’s strengths, it had been a talent that bordered on something marvellous. In his SRS days he’d spent four days covered in a shallow layer of sand sipping water and ignoring the grumbling of his empty stomach as an improvised stronghold was erected thirty feet from where he was dug in to highlight a drone target.

Now, though, he realised why it had been so easy - he hadn’t cared. None of it really mattered to him, the only thing he’d had any interest in at that time had been being a good soldier. Even what they’d been fighting for wasn’t really important to him; they’d been ‘liberating’ - it wasn’t clear if it was the nation or the people or the resources, and he’d not cared either way so long as his mission report showed that he’d complied with the objectives.

This mission, though, was actually important. Not to distant governments, not to a secretive adoptive parent with their own secrets and agendas, and certainly not to the local populace. It mattered to him, personally, and that was something new.

Something behind him in the “coffee-house” changed, a difference in the atmosphere, and he focussed his thoughts as he tapped the counter with his folded napkin to signal another drink. The half-empty bottles on the shelf blocked the detail, but he could make out a dark-clothed figure making their way across the room towards him even as he caught the sound of two tables close to the exit hurriedly leaving.

“You’re persistent.” Neutral accent, a vague hint of something Eastern European sliding under Americanised English. Gabriel didn’t believe any of it.

“So I’ve been told.” He acknowledged, without turning - he could see enough in the reflection to spot the sudden move of an attack, and he was sure that he’d lose clarity in the time it took to turn around. “Would you like a drink?”

“What are you having?”

“Coffee.” he pointed as the tiny cup of thick black liquid arrived.

“You’re actually drinking the coffee?”

“Well, it is a coffee-house.”

“Of course it is.” A tanned, calloused hand tapped on the bar next to him and the stool slid out smoothly. “And you are ‘a health and safety professional interested in expanding into new regions’.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what it said on my travel documents, yes.”

“But you are also, are you not, the ‘IT consultant in the region to discuss a software installation’?”

“Not this time, that was three years ago.”

“Career change?”

“No, different emphasis on the same thing, the IT product I sell is a health and safety management system.”

“Of course.”

“I can demonstrate if you’d like.” Gabriel turned, having finished slowly stirring a small dollop of honey into his coffee. “I’m sure someone with your extensive organisation knows how difficult it is to achieve a reliable safety culture across a geographically, politically and religiously diverse workforce, Mr Absolom.”

“I’m sure it’s excellent.” Absolom acknowledged, eyes narrowing very slightly as he recognised the name. “It doesn’t explain some of the more ... esoteric enquiries that you’ve been making regarding our operations, though.”

“Ah, yes, the transport logistics questions.”

“Portals, Mr Donner.” Absolom clarified, slowly rotating his own coffee on the counter.

“I’m given to understand they’re calling me ‘Galahad’.” Gabriel smiled, with a snort of derisive laughter, as he lifted his cup.

“So I’ve heard.” Absolom acknowledged. “And then you were also the military contractor investigating the disposition of certain aid supplies in South Sudan last year.”

“No, not at all.” Gabriel corrected. “The supplies were supposed to be in South Sudan, I was investigating their disposition in the Emirates.”

“Of course, of course. Did you find the details you were looking for?”

“I learnt, yes, but then what I was looking for last year isn’t what I’m looking for now.”

“And what is it that you’re looking for now?” Gabriel turned to look him in the eye, pushing the empty coffee cup out of reach.

“I’m looking to learn about accessing portals.” Absolom blinked, once, his head pulling back a little in surprise.

“Portals? I don’t...” he began to deny any knowledge, and Gabriel slowly held up a hand to forestall him

“Mr Absolom, you know my adoptive father’s identity, you know by now that I’m not on speaking terms with Gilgamesh...”

“Did you really kill him?”

“And Marduk.” Gabriel nodded. “And Camael.”

“So.”

“So please don’t pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about. I went back to Sudan and looked again at the explanation of disappearing supplies. In light of what I’d learnt, I went to Kalba’ to follow up the other end of the story and found the staging area.”

“Air transport.” Absolom countered.

“May I?” Gabriel gestured towards his pack, sat at his feet, and after a moment’s consideration Absolom nodded. Gabriel slowly reached in and pulled out a tablet, placing it on the bar and holding his finger on the key to unlock it. “I also went in to your tunnel here in Albuqa...” the picture that flashed up on the screen showed a sloppily shored-up, carelessly hewn tunnel with a dirt floor harshly lit by sunlight filtering through a lush forest scene.

“How did you get in without being seen?” Absolom whispered, checking for a moment to be sure it really was his tunnel.

“I should ask you the same thing,” Gabriel countered, swiping across to the next picture of Absolom stood in his hotel room.

“Touche.”

“So.”

“So what?”

“The Portals, Absolom. Do you make them, or do you have some knack for finding them?”

“Why should I tell you? Gilgamesh and Marduk may be gone, maybe not, but that does not mean that there aren’t protoge’s waiting in the wings.”

“I’m not interested in replacing them in whatever game they were playing,” Gabriel assured him. “I’m only looking for one portal, to one place.”

“You surely don’t want to go to Azer-Halan?” Gabriel shook his head, obviously mystified.

“Where?” Absolom leant back, finally turning himself to face Gabriel squarely, and somewhere in the dark recesses of the coffee-house a few sighs of breath were released as guards relaxed.

“Ah, what did Marduk call it... ‘The Homeland’. You really don’t ... no, I can see that you don’t.” Gabriel shook his head again, reaching casually to tap his hand for another coffee; Absolom waved the offer away. “What do you know of our history?”

“Virtually nothing,” Gabriel acknowledged. “I know that Marduk and Gilgamesh have been competing for a few decades, sniping at one another without - until recently anyway - really mounting any meaningful challenges. I understand there was another - the Gorgon?” - Absolom nodded, once - “but that he was lost, believed dead some time ago. And there was yourself, who for reasons unknown decided to step away from it all. And then there’s recently been Camael emerging on the scene.”

“And you thought you could, what, threaten me into returning? Get me to tithe to you and support your claim in readiness?”

“Readiness for what? Tithing? Is that the sharing power thing?” Absolom nodded again, and Gabriel shook his head. “I dn’t want to replace them, I don’t want to continue ... they’re dead, and the world’s a better place for it.”

“Do you know why they were fighting?”

“Does anyone?”

“Of course. We all came from Azer-Halan centuries ago - this hasn’t been running for decades, Galahad, it’s been running for centuries. Azer-Halan is ... remote, it’s not a traversal that can be made easily. I was tasked with holding the portal, Gilgamesh and Marduk were to secure the bridgehead, Gorgon was to subdue the local populace; Solomon was our commander. We arrived, and the enemy was waiting.”

“The enemy?”

“That’s all we know them as; for as long as we’ve been here it’s nothing compared to how long it’s been since the enemy carved up the world.”

“You know how this sounds, right?” Gabriel asked, sipping at his coffee as it arrived.

“And yet you are here asking about teleportation portals?”

“True.” Gabriel acknowledged, replacing his cup on the bar. “The ambush?”

“Solomon was dead before we even noticed - I’m not sure if Gilgamesh and Marduk were lax or took the opportunity to remove competition, but either way they fought back. Most of the lesser troops were lost in the first few minutes, but we had the advantage of numbers - it turns out this isn’t an enemy stronghold, either, they’d only managed to send a small force to intercept us. We held out, but the focus for the portal was destroyed. Marduk and Gilgamesh argued about who was in charge, Gorgon didn’t. We had our task - prepare; some day the alignment would come, and we’d need to be ready.”

“So Marduk and Gilgamesh were, what, trying to build armies?”

“Originally, yes. I’m not sure which of them killed Gorgon, I did hear it was over a witch.”

“When was this?”

“Late 1970’s.”

“Red-head?”

“No idea, I wasn’t getting between them by then.”

“And Camael?”

“Now that’s a puzzle.” Absolom shrugged. “He’s acquired some talents from use somewhere along the line - I don’t know from whom, I don’t know if they’ve been tithed or if he’s stripped them - so he can utilise our powers, but he’s not one of us. He’s something else.”