Phoenix Rising (6 page)

Behind him, Eliza Braun let out a hard exhale, expressing not very elegantly her dissatisfaction.

Well, she did manage to find and fix that rather annoying leak. Maybe that was a first step of sorts.

Reaching the black brick marking the end of the Archives, Wellington turned to his left toward a small stairwell.

“Oye, Welly!”

He turned back to Braun. She seemed more curious about the cast-iron door at the opposite end of the corridor.

“What's this?” She motioned to the secured hatch.

“That is restricted access. Director's eyes only.”

She turned back to him, and the crooked eyebrow made his stomach tighten. “Really? You mean, there's even a part of your domain you are barred from?”

“Your presence here drives home the fact that this is hardly my domain.” He took in a deep breath and glanced down the small staircase. Taking the spare lantern from the hook above him, Wellington beckoned to Braun. “Now instead of preoccupying yourself with where we are not allowed access, why not focus your pent-up zeal towards where we can go and where we are needed?”

Wellington turned back to the stone stairwell reaching even further down into the Archives, assured his charge would soon follow. The rough stone underfoot curved slightly, ending before a maw that surrendered nothing to the meager light cast from his small lantern. He reached into his pocket to find the matchbox, which he pushed open with a free finger. A few shakes later, the stick was in his palm.

“How are you managing?” she asked from behind him.

“I'm . . . managing . . .” He was now attempting to close the box while still cupping the free match and juggling the lantern. He had done this before. Many times. What was wrong with him today?

Braun gave a slight huff and clicked her tongue. “Oh for heaven's sake, Welly, I'm your assistant. The least you could do is give me something to assist you with!”

This would take some getting used to. “Ah, yes, of course, Agent Braun. If you would please hold the lantern?”

The lamp's side opened with a tiny creak, and from its flame the match sizzled to light. Wellington cupped the match and dropped it into a small reservoir at the top of the doorframe. A trail of fire ran along the top of the room's stone molding, casting its glow on brightly polished brass reflectors curving above it. Now the once black void was a warm gold room of brick, boxes, and half-empty shelves.

Braun smiled at the lighting device, giving a slight chuckle. “Oh this is very clever.”

“Yes, it is, but once a week, we will need to polish the brass, just to make sure we have adequate illumination. And then there is all the oil that sits in the gutter. Sometimes, being clever has its costs.”

“I suppose.” Braun brushed her hands together and looked at the various boxes, ledgers, and piles of paper stacked before them. “So, what are we looking at here, Books?”

“You described the Archives as the place where things are ‘catalogued, stored, and forgotten.' While I will still insist the Ministry could not function without our services, this is the part of the Archives that is most deserving of your eloquent description.”

“What?” Since their time together, this was the first time Braun seemed genuinely surprised. “These are ‘forgotten' cases?”

He sniffed, wishing he could deny her abrupt judgement. “For the lack of a better word, yes. These are cases the Ministry either lacks the resources to follow any longer, or considers at a dead end.”

Braun whispered, her eyes hopping from ledger to ledger, box to box. “How many of these forgotten cases are there?”

“I've never summoned up the courage to count them all, but I assure you, it's in the hundreds. We are talking of a ministry of Her Majesty's government that spans over half a century.” Wellington sighed. “And I have added five from this month alone. I want to believe not all of these cases are ‘forgotten.' Merely postponed.” He gave a chortle as he hung his lantern on a hook. “I am trying to come up with a name for this collection. I keep returning to ‘Cases of the Unknown.' ” He approached a stack of papers that reached from the floor, past his waist. “Or perhaps ‘Files of the Unexplained.' ”

“Files of the Unexplained, from the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences.” Braun pursed her lips, and then shook her head. “Doesn't quite roll off the tongue, Books.”

“No, it doesn't. Perhaps Dead End Cases, but that is about as promising as ‘Forgotten.' ”

Braun reached into the crate in front of Wellington and started pulling out files. “So, our job here is to do what with these exactly?”

He swiftly relieved her inexperienced hands of the open ledger and returned it to the crate. “We begin with the year first.”

For a moment, Braun didn't move. Then her furrowed brow relaxed as it dawned on her. “Oh, come off it, Welly . . .”

“We organise them. First it is by block of years, then the specific year, then date, and finally by investigating officer's last name.”

“You mean, we have all these outstanding cases,” Braun pulled the ledger she had been reading once more out of its crate, “and all we're going to do is organise them?”

“And this organisation will go a touch faster if you avoid thumbing through the evidence boxes,” Wellington quipped, once more relieving Braun of the book.

“You mean to tell me you, a libra—” Wellington raised an eyebrow at her. “—an
Archivist
, are not the least bit curious about why these cases are down here?” Braun looked around and snorted. “Why are they down here to begin with, and not up in Assignments?”

“Because Assignments is for active cases. As these cases are dead enders, they would not fair well in the sunlight. I happened to find this alcove, and recommended to Doctor Sound we use it for the unsolved cases on account of its dryness and lack of light.”

“So Doctor Sound knows the extent of how many cases are remaining open, and he's leaving them as such?”

Wellington slid the box to Braun and motioned over to the only bookcase that was not empty. “This goes on the bookcase marked 1891, under ‘T' if you please.”

The wood crate jerked out of his grasp and was thumped down on the indicated space. Wellington gave himself a silent accolade and hoisted the next box up to the thick table.

“So many cases,” Eliza muttered. “I wonder if the lads know . . .”

“And if they did, Miss Braun, how would that help the Ministry?” Wellington retorted, taking a different tactic with the former field agent. Doctor Sound had told him this was an indefinite assignment for Braun, so perhaps distancing herself from “the lads” was in order. “The Ministry is a small, clandestine organisation with limited resources on call, in order to preserve our secrecy. No matter the superlative talents, abilities, or means we do make the most of at our disposal, some cases will simply not end in resolution. It is a fact, a fact we must come to terms with. And in the Archives, we must make certain the facts remain preserved until such a time when the Ministry can return their full attention to them.”

Braun opened one of the ledgers from the new box, searching for a year. The book snapped shut. “Welly, being in the Ministry, even down here in Archives, you had to pass Field Agent training.”

The strange knot he had felt in his stomach on seeing Braun contemplate the Archives' Restricted Access returned. “What of it?”

“So, you have the basics under your belt. With me working the details, we're fully capable.”

She couldn't possibly be serious. “Fully capable of . . . ?”

“Oh, come off it, Books, you know where I'm going with this.” She gave a wry grin and shrugged. “Why don't
we
take on these cases?”

She was serious.

“Because that is not our job, Miss Braun,” Wellington stated. “We have our orders and our responsibilities to the Ministry, and those orders and responsibilities do not include investigating these cases. Insubordination out in the field brought you to the Archives. Where do you think insubordination in the Archives leads you?”

Braun straightened up to her full height. Perhaps it was the amber luminescence of the alcove or Wellington's hunched posture over the evidence box, but the image of Eliza D. Braun took him aback. Her eyes narrowed with some sort of survivalist's glare, as if silently promising Wellington she would—without hesitation—remove any threat to her position, no matter what that position was, in the Ministry.

For the first time since her arrival, Wellington actually felt afraid.

“I am merely suggesting,” he continued after the awkward moment passed, “you reconsider whatever it is you are considering, because I believe if you did not care so much about your standing here in the Ministry, you would have told Doctor Sound to ‘shove off' on being assigned here.” He closed the ledger in his hands and swallowed, hoping the peculiar fear would abate. It didn't. “Second, Miss Braun, I do not wish to partake in any such behaviour that would complicate or jeopardise
my
position here.”

Returning his attention back inside the ledger he held, Books' eye fell on the date: May 7, 1893.
Hmm, a recent case
, he thought. His eye swept through the handwriting for a Case Primary. These notes were difficult to manoeuvre though, as the agent's handwriting seemed more like wild scrawlings and scribblings. The agent had been in a hurry, and from the frantic script he was determined to get the idea out of his mind before it were to slip away.

A clamor caused him to start, a tiny yelp echoing in the chamber. Wellington was now looking at Eliza Braun standing before him, her hands still holding on to a crate she had apparently lifted off the table. What remained of the box's bottom now covered parts of the table and Braun's feet; papers, ledgers, and pieces of evidence now strewn out before them.

“Chaos and mayhem comes naturally to you, don't they, Miss Braun?” he seethed.

She tossed the frame aside. “I was only trying to move it a bit closer, Welly. These two crates are—sorry,
were
—labeled with the same year. There are enough notes here to cover an entire quarter's worth of cases, but according to these boxes, it's all the same one.”

Braun's eyes narrowed slightly as she reached for a volume lying across her foot. Wellington's attention returned back to his own ledger. He took in the scent of aging paper, worn leather, and the chamber's illumination, and the medley of scents cleared his mind. He flipped the pages forward, the handwriting growing less and less intelligible.

At least, it was unintelligible to him. The sound of fluttering pages tore his attention away from his open book. It seemed Agent Braun was managing quite well with the calligraphy. She was tearing through the tome, her hands tempting the pages to rip themselves free of the volume's binding. She was not even trying to conceal her expression. From the way the light was suddenly catching her eyes she knew this handwriting intimately.

His eyes then switched from Braun's odd expression to a pendant swaying from a chain intertwined in her fingers.

“Miss Braun?” Her head shot up from the book's pages. “You recognise this handwriting?”

It may have been a trick of light but Wellington thought Braun did, in fact, shiver for a moment. She blinked her eyes tightly, and then with a deep breath her voice filled the chamber even though she spoke just above a whisper.

“The Case Primary here was Agent Harrison Thorne. My former partner.”

Wellington's head tipped to one side. “
Former
partner?” He considered her words for a moment before asking. “You mean, you blew him up?”

“Actually no,” she said, letting the jibe slide off her. “Harry is residing in Bedlam now.”

“You drove him mad?” Wellington said. “Why am I not surprised, Miss Braun?”

Again, she looked at him in that menacing manner. “You are on very dangerous ground, Books.”

He took a step back and returned his ledger to the table.

“This was a case he had undertaken on his own. Doctor Sound had ordered us off it in March. That's March of 1893.” She closed the ledger and motioned to the corner behind Wellington. “Fetch us a proper box, there's a good fellow.”

Wellington raised an eyebrow, but crossed the chamber to replace the former crate. As he returned to the review table, Braun continued. “The trail just ended for us. Well, for him. I was new to the Ministry and he had already been on this case for a time. His partner before me, Arlington I think his name was, had been working it with him initially. Workers were disappearing for spells, and then reappearing in . . . in the most horrific of manners.”

“How did I not hear of this case?”

“Because this was being covered by three teams at one time. Three different factories. Three gruesome sets of murders. Thorne was convinced they were interconnected, so he combined case notes. And that was why I replaced Arlington. From what Agent Thorne told me, Agent Arlington could not stomach it any longer.