Ireland has more magical practitioners per capita than any other country in Europe, and nobody is one hundred percent sure why this is.
It may be genetic, though nobody has yet identified the gene for spellcasting. It might also be the country’s historical links to the Spirit Realms, which still manifest as gateways and - unfortunately - incursions. Or it could simply be our position at the edge of the continent.
As it flows about the place, magic sometimes likes to find and follow the edges of things, like an electrical current. This may also be why incursions tend to happen at the coast, at the summits of hills, or the bottoms of valleys.
I shook Buckley’s hand, wondering if he’d recognise me, but I didn’t see a glimmer in his eyes. My mind raced back over our previous meeting. I definitely had a different glamour at the time, and I was not sure if I had given him my real name. Wasn’t I using a phoney Garda ID? Did it matter? My Garda ID is under my actual name.
“A pleasure to meet you,” I said.
“Likewise,” he replied, still out of breath. “You’re here to close the sinkhole?”
“If all goes to plan,” I said.
“How will you do that?”
“Not sure yet,” I replied. “But we’ll have some time to study it and figure out a way before it becomes urgent.”
He scanned the beach warily. “And what if you don’t? What comes out?”
“The last sinkhole that went undetected was in Bulgaria back in 1956, I think.”
“Hungary,” said Weber.
“Was it? Oh. Well, it collapsed in on itself and released a horde of… I don’t even know how to describe them.”
“Schattenkreatur. Shadow creatures,” said Weber. “They would hide in shadows and kill you with coldness.”
“Nasty bastards,” I said. “Took years to track them all down.”
“Anyway,” Weber said to Buckley, “now you are warmed up, let us start your morning training.”
Buckley rolled his eyes and nodded to me before following Weber back to their van.
I was sitting and watching the water again when Cormac found me later.
“Did you see who Weber has in his van?” he asked, almost giddy.
“I did. This complicates things.”
“Did he see you? Did he recognise you?”
“Yes, and I don’t think so,” I said.
“You still think that guy from January was his future self?”
I considered the implications for a few minutes, then decided to throw caution to the wind. I indicated the bench next to me. “Take a seat. Let me get you all caught up.”
When I had finished the telling, I let Cormac sit and think about it for a while. Eventually he broke his silence with a simple, “Wow.”
“Yeup.”
“And Queen Mab confirmed it?”
“She did. But then she said she might be lying, in not so many words.”
“Fuuuck.”
“Yeup.”
“No wonder you’ve been preoccupied. I thought it was just Sam. Daniel was working with you on this?”
“He went out to speak to my dad, and was on his way back when he crashed.”
“Was he one of the seven innocent lives?”
I threw my hands up into the air. “I have no idea. Fae, man. Even their direct answers are just new riddles to solve.”
He waved his western-most hand. “We’re fairly close to White Clan territory. You feeling an urge to go knock Colm Galligan around and demand why he’s planning to send an assassin after the Magistrate?”
“Yes,” I said, figuring there was no point lying.
“Are you going to do it?”
“No.”
“Because you know it would serve no purpose? Or because we met his son, and he can probably kick your ass?”
“The former,” I said, knowing honesty had its limits.
“Good. The last month’s been tough enough with you gone. Can’t have you starting a Clan war or something and getting arrested.”
He spent the next few hours getting me caught up on the casework I missed, before a small boat appeared on the horizon, puttering towards the beach. Cormac shaded his eyes with one hand and squinted towards it.
“That’s Ronnie,” he said.
His eyes were better than mine. “Ronnie Watts?”
“It’s his boat at least.”
“Is every wizard in Ireland on their way here?”
“I hope so,” said Cormac as he stood. “We haven’t had a good get-together in a few years.”
It wasn’t just Ronnie Watts on the boat. He had brought Margaret Taylor with him. They anchored in the shallow water just beyond the surf-line, well up from the spot where we were expecting the sink-hole, and waded ashore. Murtagh and Containment remained clustered around the tent, but everyone else walked down to the water’s edge to greet them.
There was lots of hugging and mentions of “Uncle” and the catching-up of gossip. Ronnie Watts and Peggy Taylor were apparently a couple, twenty-year-age-difference be damned.
I watched for a while before I began to feel awkward, so I walked up the beach to where McGinnis and the Scene Team had arrived through the Midnight Door.
Murtagh stood like a sentinel on a low sand dune while McGinnis walked in a large circle around the site where we expected the Sinkhole. He carried a piece of wood in his hands, about seven feet long, with three lead weights hanging from it by short pieces of string. As he circled the site, his eyes darted from one weight to another.
“What is he measuring?” I asked Murtagh.
“I have no feckin’ idea.”
I watched for a few minutes more, before I began to feel out-of-place and went back through the Midnight Door.
The Records department of Archives had been without a permanent head for the last eight months, and we were all silently beginning to wonder if it needed one. Its two remaining members of staff seemed more than capable.
Their names were June and Sarah and, as far as I know, they didn’t have a magical bone in their bodies, or any connection to the supernatural world. They started together sometime in the 1980s and were content to ride out their nice peaceful office jobs until retirement. June only worked three-and-a-half days a week, so she could look after her grandchildren.
But as I entered, work seemed to be piling up. The unused desk near the door was stacked high with folders and printouts.
“Hi, Victor,” said June, without looking up from her typing. “The Sir said you’d be joining us.”
“Welcome to Records,” added Sarah. “You can make a start there,” she said, pointing to the table of folders. “Anything in a red folder needs to be filled out or filed as soon as possible. Let me know if you have any questions.”
I sat at the desk and opened the first red folder. Overtime timesheets for Containment. I pulled another and flipped it open. Receipts for cleaning materials for the Scene Team. I sighed.
June and Sarah left promptly at 5pm. Before they left, they reminded me that Records didn’t get paid overtime. I replied with a tight grin, but stayed sitting at the desk.
I had nowhere else to go and nothing better to do as Sam was working late, so I grabbed a green folder from the bottom of the pile and leafed through it. It certainly made for more interesting reading than the timesheets and daily reports I had been working through.
It was a memo from the Department of Foreign Affairs. It said they were preparing their records for transfer to the National Archives at the end of the year, under the thirty-year rule, and found mention of a member of the O.S.I. on their reports. As was custom, they had sent the records to us, to see if the file could be released, or if anything needed to be suppressed or redacted.
The more I read through the report of the incident, the more curious I became. I went to the file cabinets that held employee records and rummaged through it until I found the one I wanted then returned to the desk to compare it to the DFA request. Side-by-side, I couldn’t see any overlap. I grabbed a few more files and compared them too, to be sure. I then realised it was almost 8pm. I drummed my fingers a few times, then bundled all the relevant folders together and made my way for the Midnight Door.
Back in Waterford, the circle of wizards had grown, literally. They were occupying a large ring of chairs and benches that had manifested themselves onto the beach, surrounding a bonfire. In addition to the wizards I had left earlier, I saw three more that I knew by sight but couldn’t identify.
“Cormac, Jim, could I have a word?” I said, trying and failing to be subtle.
They exchanged looks then rose and followed me back to the roadside, out of earshot from the rest.
I handed Cormac the green folder. “I found this request a few hours ago,” I said. “Big delegation from the government went over to Korea in 1992. Some big trade deal between the EU, or the EEC at the time, and an Asian trading bloc. They chartered a plane and spent five days in Seoul along with representatives of about fifteen other countries.”
Cormac nodded as he listened and scanned the file at the same time.
“They were ready to leave, but missed their gate window at the airport because they waited to pick up one passenger. They were delayed almost three hours waiting for Kathy Quinn.” I gestured to the thick bundle of photocopied paper held to the topsheet by a paperclip. “There were a lot of memos back and forth from important people demanding to know what happened.”
“I remember Kathy Quinn,” said Jim.
“I thought you might. She was Department Wizard before you.”
“Well, she was before Billy, who was before me,” he said. “In 1992, I was just some sweeper fresh on the Scene Team. What was she doing at a trade conference in Seoul?”
I shrugged and held up the other folders I had brought. “No idea. As far as I can tell, she wasn’t supposed to be there. The department didn’t authorise her travel, and had no interest in the conference.”
Cormac flicked through the photocopies of thirty-year-old memos. “So she had no business at the conference, but went away, and then made them wait three hours before they could come home? No wonder these people were mad.”
“That’s where things get a bit interesting,” I said. “She wasn’t on the outbound flight. The memos mention that; she made her own way there and then asked them to fly her home.”
“You think this is related to her murder?” Jim asked.
“Her murder?!” said Cormac, flipping through the file like he’d missed an important line of text.
“Yeah, she was found dead in her garden about eighteen months year later,” I said. “The Department investigated at the time, but only hit dead ends.”
“It’s the only unsolved murder of OSI personnel on the books,” said Jim.
“How’d she die?”
“She was shot,” I said.
Jim added, “With an iron bullet. Would have gone right through most protective wards.”
Cormac returned the DFA file and took the personnel file from me. “What was she like?” he asked Jim.
“Smelly,” said Jim, to surprised looks from both of us. “She smoked these awful cigarettes. Hand-rolled unfiltered yokes that stank out the whole office. The Magistrate eventually had to tell her to smoke them outside. You know the smoking bench? That was her work.”
The smoking bench wasn’t a bench, but the thick root of a chestnut tree growing at the edge of the Department grounds that crested a few feet above the surface of the soil before disappearing underground again. With the shade of the branches above, and the wall behind, it was a pleasant place to sit on a summer evening.
“Her work?” I asked.
“She either grew the root or found it underground and brought it up. She was good with living things. I’m not sure if I’d call it a Talent, but nobody was surprised when we heard she was found in her garden.”
“Was she married? Did she have kids?” Cormac asked, still leafing through the file.
“None I ever met,” said Jim. “She struck me as career-focused. All shoulder pads and big hair. But I was pretty junior. We didn’t talk a lot. Murtagh probably remembers her better.”
Cormac closed the file. “It was 29 years ago. Just how old is Murtagh?”
Jim laughed. “I know, but I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”
Jim went back to the bonfire, while Cormac and I found Murtagh close to where we were expecting the sinkhole. He was studying the sand with his arms crossed and a worried expression on his face.
“Anything stirring?” I asked.
He pointed to a seemingly empty patch of sand and said, “Just wait. Watch.”
A few minutes passed with the three of us staring at the sand like idiots. Then, without warning, a small wind whipped some of it into a tall and thin vortex which lasted for a few seconds before settling back down. There was no other wind.
“Well, that’s ominous,” said Cormac.
“Any progress in coming up with a way to neutralise it?”
“A crapload of cold iron usually does the trick,” I said.
“Just as it opens, yeah. But getting that much iron to the centre of it when it’s this wide?” he said, making a sweeping gesture to indicate the scope of the problem.
“Helicopter? Construction crane?” asked Cormac.
“It’d be a bit hard getting a crane set up on this terrain, even on the road,” said Murtagh, diplomatically ignoring the other suggestion. But maybe one of those big mobile ones will work. I’ll need to make some calls.”
“Before you do,” I said, “I came across something unusual in Archives. You remember Kathy Quinn?”
Murtagh scratched his chin. “Yeah, I think so. Department Wizard a few years back? Murdered in her house, if I recall.”
“Her garden, yeah,” I said. “But there’s a notification here from the Department of Foreign Affairs, that says she was in Korea the year before she died. I’ve checked all the office files, and she wasn’t there on any official business.”
“North or South Korea?” Murtagh asked as he took the file from me.
“South,” I said. “Why would she have been in North Korea?”
“Why would she have been in Seoul?” Murtagh snorted, as he leafed through a page of the file. “Maybe she messed up a travelling circle and needed a lift home.”
“Is it possible she was doing some ‘off the books’ mission?” Cormac asked.
“Everything we do is ‘off the books’,” Murtagh replied. “But I remember she travelled a lot. Always off on one trip or another. When Billy took over from her, he’d already done so much filling-in for her, he didn’t need any training.”
“Billy was…?” Cormac asked.
“Billy Pearse. He was the Department Wizard for about five years. He got married and moved to Scotland,” Murtagh said.
“Did Kathy Quinn do her travelling by magical means?” I asked.
“Not that I know of. Just a frequent flyer.”
“How’d she afford that? I know how much the Department Wizard gets paid,” Cormac asked.
Murtagh shrugged. “Maybe the cost got to her, so she tried a travelling spell and ended up off-course. Lookit, this is hardly the strangest thing someone in the Department has done.”
“No,” I said, “you’re right. But there’s something about this that’s ringing bells in the back of my head.”
“You sure you want to be listening to those bells in your head right now? Maybe keep it down for the time being.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “But it never hurts to ask questions.”
He frowned. “I think we both know that’s not true.”
Cormac and I returned to the bonfire and joined the circle of practitioners. They were in full-on Reminiscing Mode, so I just said quietly and listened. Most of the stories told were about people who were long-dead or who I had never heard of. There was a large cooler box stocked with ice and various alcohol containers that depleted as the hours went on. After recent events and stresses, it felt nice to relax and allow the atmosphere of a group of friends to wash over me.
I was eventually roused by the beeping of my phone. I checked it to see a message from Sam, asking if everything was OK, and letting me know she was at the flat. I sent a short reply to say I was on my way, then stood to leave.
“Gentlemen and ladies,” I said, “it’s been a pleasure. I hope you’re all around for a few days, so we can do this again. But important matters call.”
“Oh, here,” said Jim to everyone. “Vic had a question for me earlier, and I wasn’t able to help. Perhaps one of you will remember.”
I tried to wave him into silence, but he continued.
“Anyone remember anything special about Seoul or South Korea in 1992? Any reason one of us would go there?”
The group fell silent, as they cast their collective minds back.
“Wasn’t that the year yer man did the conference on immortality?” asked one of the newcomers, eventually.
A spark ran around the group. There were nods of realization.
“Cho something?” Caroline asked.
“Choe Jae-Min,” said Ronnie Watts. “I remember because my brother worshipped the guy, growing up. Claimed he had unlocked the secret to eternal life.”
“He did, in a way,” said Jim.
“When was this conference?” I asked.
The first speaker shrugged. “1992, I remember, but I couldn’t tell you the dates. Probably their new year, though.”
“Thanks for the help,” I said. “But I need to run.” I pulled out my phone and did some googling as I went. The Lunar New Year in 1992 was February 4th. I juggled my phone and the various files. The date of the delayed flight was February 8th.
I had been hearing the rumours about Choe Jae-Min’s ill-fated ‘Immortality Conference’ for years. For someone selling the secret of how to live forever, a lot of people died. And the secrets taken away by the survivors was absolutely something worth killing over.
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