‘I’ll stand.’
‘As you wish. But we have been in receipt of a new directive, Sebastian.’ She and Natalie both chortled at that. ‘And this has come right from the top. The very top of our organization. And you know all about the top, don’t you, Seb? The top floor and the highest executive level of our organization, which you were fortunate enough to have visited some six months ago. But it has come to our attention, and this is of the utmost urgency and importance, and one that will be treated with the strictest discretion by you, that a new opportunity has been put upon the table.’
‘Forget it. We’re done. We had an agreement. I wrote the book and that’s all—’
‘Alas, it is not for you, nor for me and my colleague, to make nor change the rules.’
‘You agreed—’
‘Circumstances can change. Agreements alter accordingly.’
‘No!’
‘Our leader’s keen interest in returning to public life continues.’
It was time for me to shake my hands in the air. ‘He’s dead. Gone. You know that. No matter what you believe, Hazzard is no more. No one is interested in him, or his ideas.’ I dropped my voice. ‘I mean . . . look where it leads. Any attempt to revive the API is futile, and you know it.’
‘Oh, really!’ said Natalie.
Wendy grinned with the satisfaction of being back in the ascendant. ‘He will never retire. He can’t, for one thing. But he is very keenly aware of your connections and your ability to act as a broker on our behalf. He is also keen to begin a more direct collaboration with a writer, who will—’
‘Forget it!’
‘Who will take on certain editorial duties organizing narrated material. But the final words will be his and his alone.’
‘No!’
‘Be seated!’ Wendy roared. Natalie jumped. ‘Do you not know to whom it is that you speak? Do you still doubt the reach of the organization that we represent?’
When Wendy had finished shouting at me, her body continued to tremble and she made several gasping noises from the back of her throat. Natalie even placed her hand upon her colleague’s shoulder, but Wendy shrugged it away with irritation. ‘I think it’s time for a story. I think a story is the best medium with which to express our new intent, and with which to seal an agreement for a new work.’
At that point, I remember holding onto the cabinet below the window, as I had begun to unconsciously back away, towards the balcony door.
This moving of the goalposts was not completely unexpected, despite every assurance that I had extracted from them during the previous six months. I had done all that I could to make them swear that their interest in me would never continue beyond one book, providing the book produced a sum commensurate with their expectations. They were broke and I had already exceeded their expectations.
If the book had not been commissioned, I would have given them my savings, because I had no choice. During the early hours of dawn, one morning half a year gone, in a ground-floor room at the Tor where they found me unconscious, they had also appeared to understand that a person could only endure so much of their master and his legacy. One night at the Tor had been sufficient for me. They must have seen that it would be unwise to push me any further in that direction. But the desperate care nothing but for their own desperation.
Characteristically, Wendy smiled with her mouth but not her eyes. ‘There is a passage, a stream, that you are aware of, Sebastian. A place through which he passes. And the very place in which our former members still gather, and where we too will make our own search, one day.’
‘Oh, yes, yes!’ Natalie suddenly exclaimed and clutched at Wendy’s hand as if this was something to look forward to.
Wendy relaxed into her seat. ‘A place where the search for the higher spheres, for the celestial light of the paradise belt, continues. And there, our mentor and guide, our leader, has drawn unto himself a collection of . . . how shall I put this? A host of malignant forms. And even in their unfortunate and most frightful condition . . .’
‘And how they suffer, how they still suffer, you cannot believe,’ Natalie said.
‘Our leader has considerable influence over how their activities are guided. Despite your disingenuous nature, I know that you have some awareness of what it is that I speak of. And so I would ask you to keep in mind the earthly name of one of the most unfortunate souls who has an associate membership in our current organization. His common name carried some notoriety for over a century, and the accounts of Thin Len’s crimes are lurid. He was an idiot, a sadistic imbecile, and a ruthless killer of children in his earthbound days.’