Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams by Damian Huntley

oubliettes of his mind, West was heartened by David’s bravado,
although his face did not portray even a hint of this. “David, I’ve
thought a lot about what I would say to you. There were some
questions I had, certainly, but for the most part, they have been
answered simply by seeing you. I think two questions will suffice.
Others may arise, but now, I need you to tell me two things.” David
nodded, slack jawed wonder, swinging slowly, allowing his feet to
trail in the mulch.
    “When you
received the phone call on march sixth, did the impostor tell you
what to do with any information you discovered about Arctum?”
    A lump caught
in the back of David’s throat, because of the word impostor, and
because this question had never been raised during his FBI
interviews. When he recovered from that thought, another occurred
to David immediately, “I don’t know you. For all I know, you’re
part of the investigation! I’m a government employee. Discussing my
predicament would involve divulging highly confidential
information.”
    West watched
David’s legs swing out in front of him, “David, assume, for
argument’s sake, that I know everything about your situation.
Assume that I’m privy to the fact that you’ve been pulled in for
questioning eight times in the past month, that you have been asked
the same questions repeatedly, and that you are not responsible for
any of the assassinations which took place on March tenth. Now,
within those parameters, tell me, what did the impostor ask you to
do with the information they requested.”
    David plowed
the mulch with the balls of his feet, leaning his upper arms in to
the chains. “They didn’t tell me what they wanted me to do with the
information.”
    “Now David,
tell me, what did you actually find on Arctum?”
    David brought
the swing to a stop, and stared into West’s eyes. He suddenly felt
sick to his stomach, as the true absurdity of his situation hit him
like a clown car. With less than four days to go till the meeting
of the EUC, and marooned as David had been, in a vacation house
with only a phone, he had found nothing about Arctum. He’d placed a
few phone calls to planning, code, and records offices in New York,
and he had actually called the building management company who were
responsible for the upkeep of Arctum’s massive office complex, but
he had soon resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to be
able to get anything solid. He was on vacation. He’d been pissed at
Carlton for even trying to call in a favor during his vacation
time.
    “You know!” He
could see it in West’s face, although nothing had changed there, no
emotion, not even eye movement, but it was there. “You know that I
didn’t find anything. How? Why haven’t they asked me this? What the
fuck is going on with my life?” David wiped his eyes with the back
of his hand, slipping forward on the swing seat so the chain dug
painfully into his armpit. West walked behind the swing set, and
started to push David gently, the palms of his hands landing
between David’s shoulder blades on the back swing, then launching
him away.
    “Your life Mr
Beach, has become inextricably entangled with the day to day
enterprises, industries, and affairs of angels and demons, the fey
and the foe, the gods and the monsters of this world.” He continued
to push David, his voice raising and lowering in pitch, as if the
words were a lullaby, “Agents Carmichael and McMahon occupy a world
within … an underworld, a subclass. You’ve written about these
things, and talked about them, but you have never even come close
to describing the true magnitude of that other world. You nurture a
fascination with conspiracy. I know, you read about the Templars,
the Freemasons, and the Illuminati, and you post your comments
about the moon landing, and JFK.” He pushed David a little harder,
stepping back to allow for the larger back swing, “Well here you
are, finally in the belly of the beast