Hope & Fury (Heroes & Demons Book 2)

Ruth was devastated. She sat in a perfectly pleasant if rather a small apartment, one bedroomed and clean. The living room was sparsely decorated with IKEA furniture, a two-seater cream sofa and similarly beige armchair. Black metal and glass TV stand holding a modest television and some of those ceramic balls on a plate – which just seemed like boring clutter. A series of books, Mary did love to read, beside them.

It was an open plan kitchen area that was cleaned down, serving also as a small dining space where she noted a space-saving four-seater table in which the chairs tucked neatly and geometrically perfectly underneath. A cheap standing lamp in the corner. No photographs of loved ones on the walls, only a few framed pieces of art. The kind that was everywhere or bought on a holiday to a Greek isle. Nothing too pretentious, nothing too garish.

Only it wasn’t a perfectly pleasant if rather a small apartment, it was the apartment which until several hours before they’d arrived Mary Sellers, now twenty years of age, shared with her flatmate. It may have been clear but it was no longer orderly. The cheap standing lamp lay on the ground, the bulb having survived smashing against the thin carpet. The cushions on the IKEA sofa were pulled apart, one had even torn, spewing white foam onto the black metal and glass TV stand. One of the framed pieces of art lay smashed on the floor, undoubtedly having been knocked off the wall.

Her stomach sat in a hard knot as she surveyed the scene.

DCI Mercer had filled her in on the way to the apartment, out by the Ladywell tram stop. After leaving home Mary had indeed moved in with John Sellers’ sister, Susan. She and her husband had allowed Mary to stay over the summer, however, on results day she’d been lucky enough to get her three As needed and started to study at the University of Manchester. She’d moved into student accommodation – apparently that God awful series of blocks near Piccadilly station which seemed to double as the local red-light district.

She’d almost slapped him in frustration at that part but had managed to remain restrained. She clasped her hands in her lap as he’d driven her through the evening rush hour traffic. No, she did not find a living on the streets he assured her – also adding that he knew professionally almost all the girls who were regularly picked up in that part of town – hastening to add he meant his profession, not theirs. She had in-fact taken a job at the local Bagel shop in the train station and worked there all the hours God sent that she wasn’t required to study.

She must have made some friends as in her second year she and Miss Kathryn Kirsh ended up signing up to a flat a little further outside the city – along the Eccles tram line where they could both afford it. The Eccles tram would go right through the station and allow her easy access to work while getting off at the St Peter’s Square stop would give her a good walk or bus ride down to the university. The price was affordable, especially with student loans and maintenance grants to help.

Ruth had taken in all this information calmly (for the most part), a growing sadness haunting over her. She knew the struggle, she knew pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. She also knew the endless nights of exhaustion you never thought would end, throbbing feet from being on them all day and the harsh realities of poverty. She knew she never wanted that life for Mary, even if it would have robbed her of the satisfaction of doing something completely for yourself. She wanted her to be free, to think about the things she loved to do, not suffer through the things she didn’t.

Of course, all that hope was before she pulled away. Before Ruth, in effect, walked out on her family herself.

Her confidences had been raised by the modern apartment building, it seemed clean and bright and filled with people. Somewhere safe, they’d even had to check in with the night-watchman and flash their credentials before he allowed them in. Something about the casual comment – ‘more of you’ before waving them through began to set her suspicions ablaze.

He swung into a parking space and after bringing her chair around and allowing her to quite gracefully make her way over, led her into one of the three gargantuan apartment blocks. The inside had been even nicer than she was expecting, the carpets and light fittings might have been cheap but they were clean, clear and well maintained.

They took the lift to the third floor, moved down the corridor to the apartment at the end. The detective’s demeanour changed at that moment, he slipped his Taser, tucked under his overcoat, from its moorings and started towards the slightly open door. She remained quiet, calm and deep down terrified. Thoughts raced through her head, possibilities – and yet her breathing never went above the normal rate.

He indicated she stay where she was and crept into the apartment. She, of course, ignored him completely and followed, her wheels silent against the carpet. No creak of floorboards or unoiled hinge, they silently entered the apartment in which she later sat waiting. The two bedroom doors were closed, the corridor was devoid of all but two pairs of shoes – one pair of trainers she recognised as Mary’s comfy home pair.

The living space was lit already by the overhead light, illuminating what DCI Mercer would undoubtedly call a ‘scene’. Standing in the centre seemed a ghost, an image that Ruth imagined would go away with a blink. That only solidified the being and when turned, framed by light Ruth saw her eyes had played tricks on her.

It seemed for a second that Ruth was standing in the middle of her daughter’s living room, in a place she had never been before; only rolled back in time to some world in which Atlantis didn’t exist. The effect was merely an optical illusion.

The woman was indeed standing in the living area. Her dark raven hair, her features sharp and clear though her skin was far more pale and clear than even Ruth had imagined her own to be at that age. As for age, the woman appeared to be in her early forties. She wore a simple black suit, pressed and cleaned so that even the deliberate crease in her modest skirt seemed sharp enough to cut. Ruth indeed even admired her shoes, perfectly polished with just enough heel to be both extravagant and practical – enough, she would have argued in her days of multiple board meetings, to intimidate and nothing more.

There were slight differences, the woman wore a shade of lipstick a might too red for her tastes and her hair though a similar colour, keeping a slight wave while hers would always remain straight. Plus she must have been nearly twenty years her younger and only one woman could turn back time.

“Who are you?” Ruth found herself uncharacteristically blurting out.

The woman turned to regard them with a cool, calm, business-like demeanour. She reached into her pocket, tilting her head as DCI Mercer raised his Taser. A questioning look, he soon relented as she slowly pulled out her credentials.

“My name is Drake, I work for MOO.”

Ruth was for once stumped but something in the way DCI Mercer’s shoulders slumped and he lowered his Taser told he had heard of them.

“MOO?” she asked sceptically.

“Government, we figure,” he explained, “Now and then they show up, take over and we never hear anything else about it.” He regarded the woman in front of him, “Do you regularly trash people’s apartments? Is that a new directive?”

“Do you regularly bring civilians on potential ridealongs with you Detective Chief Inspector?” she threw back, slipping her credentials back into her jacket. “Especially the mothers of any potential victims or suspects?”

“You know who I am?” Ruth asked, feeling more disconcerted by the second.

“Yes, Miss Sellers, I do,” the woman, Drake, answered her, “Which is why I’m sorry to have to say this in front of you but the flat was like this when I arrived. Although I believe the roommate is on a cruise at the moment, your daughter was not here.”

“Are break-ins a normal matter for MOO?” she asked again, feeling the absurdity of the sentence more than she liked. “What are you even doing here?”

“I don’t know how the DCI here does it, but I’m not in the habit of discussing these things in front of members of the public,” Drake responded, throwing an intentionally shady glare at Mercer. “May I have a word with you detective? In the other room?”

With that, she brushed past in a cloud of surprisingly expensive feminine perfume and escorted the detective into the bedroom. Ruth moved into the centre of the living area, absorbing every detail in, feeling the weight of all the endless possibilities that held her down.

In many ways she didn’t care about any of it – about why a government agency gave a toss about one person missing from a flat, about the vaguely wary look Mercer got in his eyes. She didn’t care about the two intervening years, the hurt feelings, the anger – any of it. Her daughter, her baby, was gone. Might not be safe, probably wasn’t. Even without the insidious and influential spread of the New Order, she’d had enemies before, business rivals, ex-employees with a grudge. The more she allowed the potentials to wander in the more the guilt began to grow.

That Mary had been happy, that much seemed true. The flat was, despite disturbed, warm and cosy. She’d had a friend, the Kirsh girl, which was also good – she had not been alone for the intervening years. And she had continued to read, that was one thing Ruth was truly glad for. It had been a pursuit Mary had enjoyed throughout her childhood – even though Ruth had never had much time for the process as life had grown busier. She flicked vaguely through the stack of books and stopped when she reached the book on the top.

When DCI Mercer and Drake returned to the room announcing that they had to leave – the place was under MOO jurisdiction for reasons he couldn’t go into (but which she assumed he would later anyway) – she was secretly relieved. The clue she had spotted did not go unmissed by herself but would hopefully go missed by the snooping ‘Agent’ (or whatever titles they gave themselves, she hadn’t said in her introduction). She played the part of reluctant but gave in quickly enough so they could go.

DCI Mercer offered to drive her back but she said she would wait for her driver. He did not seem particularly affronted, the radio in his battered estate beeped quickly anyway and he was called away. She remained there for a little while, knowing that above the good agent would be watching carefully. Eventually, her driver arrived, the car whisked her away into the night – and she pushed the encounter to the back of her mind.

For now.