Was (Was #1)

2x01: Unknown crossroads in the mist

Part II: HAMARTIA

Episode 2x01: Unknown crossroads in the mist

London, December 13th, 2009

‘I think you owe us an explanation.’

Ring looked at him with a stern gaze, one that demanded answers, and demanded them now. Someone who didn’t know her would never have suspected in what foul mood she was, so calm and controlled she seemed, sitting on her chair with her hands neatly placed one over the other on her knees. Behind her, Van Cartier stood with his back on the wall, arms folded, a thoughtful expression on his face.

The three of them were alone in Echoes’s bare flat, where he had brought them the quick way, folding space in a hurry, which had left him with a pounding headache and trembling hands. He knew it was a bad idea even before attempting to cast that equaspell, but there was no way he would admit it out loud, least of all in front of his partners.

‘Do I really have to? I mean, right now?’ Echoes muttered, massaging his temples with the tip of his fingers.

‘Yes, you do. That, or you take us to that tunnel right now too for us to check by ourselves.’

One look at her told him she wasn’t joking. He’d better not ask about Paris tonight either.

‘Okay. You win. But I want some coffee first.’

‘Suit yourself. The pot’s on the table.’

She definitely had made sure everything was ready—that he wouldn’t be able to find excuses to delay even more. He poured himself a cup from the coffee-pot in front of him, and took a sip. The drink was almost scalding hot, but at this point, he was too tired to even care.

‘As you know, I cross-checked the TfL and hospital records this afternoon,’ he started, grimacing as the burning sensation still lingered on his tongue. ‘I got those two people. Well, I got a few others, too, but those were the closest matches. I wanted to learn more, so I called the cab central and tried to see if that guy’s was available.’

‘Names?’

‘And I got that woman on the line, and—’

‘Echoes, I want their names.’

A sigh. Really, this was going to be a long night, and he had to get up at seven to go to work, on top of all. Okay, eight and a half if I don’t have breakfast, and fold my way to the fifteenth floor’s bathroom.

‘Louisa Keynes and Lyle Karlowitz. Lyle’s the driver.’ Funny how after all that crap, those people he had not stayed with for more than one hour already felt like old acquaintances. Fire forged friends, anyone?

‘I figured that much, thank you. Go on.’

‘Well, I twisted probabilities a little, to get his cab and no other. I could only get him at twenty past nine. That’s why I was late.’

He went on talking, explaining as best as he could what had happened. Karlowitz’s erratic behaviour; the weird sensation his presence elicited, close to a mage’s; the phone call the driver had taken, the way he had completely lost it, driving on auto-pilot most of the time. Then that strange fog; finding Louisa Keynes on Byng Place; the strong attacks fuelled by raw entropy; the two silhouettes, one of whom wasn’t part of the physical world; Karlowitz’s heroic yet stupid stand-up, except that he had indeed withheld the attack without so much as a scratch, even though he stood outside of the protection algorithm’s area of effect at the time.

‘What I really don’t understand is what happened on Cavendish Square. I mean, seriously, how did it turn that way?’

‘Listen, Ewan.’