Page 22 of The Society of Unknowable Objects
“You’re good at this shit,” Weir had told him once, visiting Owen in his apartment. Weir had been smoking, which annoyed Owen, but he hadn’t said anything about it. Weir was paying for the apartment, after all. “You like it, don’t you?” Weir had said, grinning around the cigarette like he had just revealed some deep dark secret.
“Of course I like it,” Owen had admitted freely.
Weir had nodded to himself, sucking on the cigarette. He had looked around for somewhere to tap out the ash and had decided to use the kitchen sink. Owen had bristled inwardly, knowing the kitchen would smell of tobacco for days and that in turn would make him think of his childhood and his father. But he said nothing.
He had preferred Weir to his commanders in the army as it had seemed to Owen that Weir had come from a background much more like his own—a small house in some rough estate in one of the working-class parts of Britain; Weir had fought his way up, just as Owen had. When Owen had killed Weir eighteen months later, he hadn’t taken any pleasure in it. Owen had killed Weir because by that point in his life he had discovered that magic existed in the world, and his own magical item had revealed to him Weir’s plans to get rid of him first.
***
After leaving the meeting room in Hong Kong, Owen retraced his steps to the elevators. The man who had been manning the reception desk when Owen had arrived was tied up in the small office through the door behind the desk. He had offered no resistance when Owen had pulled the gun on him, lifting his hands in surrender and allowing Owen to usher him back into the small, windowless room. Owen had placed him face down on the floor, his wrists and ankles bound with cable ties and a gag around his mouth. The man would still be there, starting to feel the ache in the muscles of his shoulders. Owen thought about questioning him, seeing what he knew about the red-haired woman, but the longer he stayed the more likely it was that someone would find the dead body in the meeting room. He focussed his attention on the guest book. Only one visitor had signed into the offices in the last few hours.
“Magda Sparks,” Owen said. “Now I have your name, Magda Sparks from London.”
He tore the page from the book—just to make sure nobody could follow his trail—and scrunched it into his pocket. Then he dropped the woman’s phone into a bin behind the reception desk, knowing he didn’t need it. Magda Sparks was an unusual name. She’d be easy to find, even in a big city like London.
Owen strolled to the elevator and pressed the button to call it. As he waited for it to arrive, he thought again about what the woman had said—whatMagdahad said—before throwing herself off the building.
“The Society of Unknowable Objects,” he murmured.
He would have to find Magda Sparks and learn all about the Society. Maybe it would be the answer he had been looking for.
Interlude
The Resurrection of Imelda Sparks (2017)
There was pain before there was anything else.
The first something out of the nothing was the awareness of pain, an agony that was everything.
Then Imelda felt great pressure all over her, the sensation of being pushed forcefully and painfully into a small space, her soul being compressed back into reality. It was a torture that seemed endless, and she suffered alone in the nothing.
Next there came the push, as if she were being forced up against a thick plastic sheet that was stretching and resisting, but she kept pushing (because it washerthat was pushing, it was her body, now forming and desperate to be alive), and at a point the resistance gave way and there was light and cold and solidity and sound.
Imelda lay, her senses scattered like a school of fish under attack, racing in different directions through the darkness. But gradually, slowly, her mind formed itself back into a shape, into sense. She opened her eyes and dazzled her brain with light, forcing her eyelids shut onceagain. She grunted and that sound was a bolt of electricity through her mind, scattering her thoughts once more. She heard a gasp that was her own breath and she realised that she was breathing, and also that she hadnotbeen breathing before that. Darkness uncoiled deep within her stomach, telling her a truth she didn’t yet understand. And there was something else, a fundamentalwrongnessin her core, a sense that something was not right within her.
She opened her eyes and saw a featureless grey sky in the distance high above. There was cold, Imelda realised, a chill on her skin from a caressing breeze, and a chill seeping into her bones through her back and her hips. She was lying down, and she became aware of the scratching discomfort of an uneven surface beneath her, sharp edges poking into her. She turned her head away from the sky and saw pebbles and stones. She was on some sort of shoreline that was curving away from her, splitting an expanse of dark green trees and flat grey water. The trees were shimmering lazily in the breeze, but everything else was still.
A crunching sound disturbed the silence. Imelda turned her head and saw a man stumbling backwards and away from her, eyes wide, great white saucers in a tanned face. He seemed horrified by her, but she couldn’t work out why that would be.
Imelda’s mind grasped for answers but found nothing, as if she were scrabbling around in a dark and unfamiliar room. She sat up with a grunt and saw her own skinny legs sticking out in front of her, naked and white. Beyond her feet was an expanse of still water, trees in the distance similar to those behind her. It was a lake of some kind, in a forest. Besides the man with the wide eyes, she saw no other signs of life, no other people or vehicles, no boats on the water, and Imelda had the immediate sense that she was somewhere remote, somewhere lonely.
More crunching. The man was still moving away from her.
“Wait!” she called, as the man started scampering towards the tree line. “Please! Help me!”
The man slowed and then stopped, turning his face over his shoulder to stare back at her.
“Where am I?” she asked. She looked down at herself again andsaw that she was entirely naked, it wasn’t just her legs. Oddly, she felt no shame, no discomfort at her nakedness in front of this strange man. “Why am I naked?”
The man hesitated, glancing towards the depths of the forest and then back at Imelda, his fingers fidgeting by his side. He was wearing old blue jeans that were torn around the hems, loose threads of denim trailing behind him, and a faded black Metallica T-shirt beneath a long brown overcoat. He was carrying a canvas bag on his shoulder, and that bag had a flower cross-stitched into the fabric.
Magda!
The thought was a brief burst of warming sunlight in this cold, grey world.
“Help me, please?” Imelda pleaded, pushing herself to her feet. Her legs felt unsteady, and her head spun momentarily as she stood.
The man made a decision and started walking towards her. He moved as if she were a dangerous animal that might pounce at any time, his pace slowing as he drew near. Imelda watched, studying his face. His eyes kept flicking up to hers and then away again, as if he was nervous to hold eye contact.
