Rook

as she got up off the couch. “Well, call me on my mobile if anything else happens.”
    “What’s up?” asked Shantay.
    “There’s a manifestation in Bath, and I have to go supervise.”
    “Oh, that sounds kind of interesting. Can I come?” asked Shantay.
    “I don’t see why not. Let’s roll,” she said. They then spent sevenminutes looking for the private lift, which Myfanwy explained away by saying she’d never used it before. It turned out to be behind a door that Myfanwy had assumed was a closet.
    The helicopter was thwupping impatiently on the roof, and a man in purple held the door open for them. They settled back comfortably in the leather seats and stared out the windows as the city glided down and away from them, like a vast albatross that has seen an interesting sardine. Myfanwy answered her ringing phone.
    “Thomas.”
    “Rook Thomas, this is Ingrid. Background information has started to come into the Rookery regarding the manifestation you’re headed toward. I’m zapping it to your phone now.”
    “Thanks,” said Myfanwy. She opened the message attachment and started to read it intently.

PHONE TRANSCRIPT FROM CITY OF BATH
EMERGENCY SERVICES, 01:35–01:37
     
    OPERATOR: Emergency Services.
CALLER: Yeah, hi. Look, I’m sorry to be calling so late, but it’s the house across the street. It’s what, one thirty in the morning? And they have all these funky purple lights flashing in their windows, without even closing their blinds, and there are people, like, moaning or chanting or yodeling or something, and I don’t really feel comfortable going over to complain. I mean, I can’t get to sleep and I have an exam tomorrow, and this whole thing is just so weird, you know?
O: Yes, we’ll send a car over to take care of it, just as soon as you give me your name and the address of the house you’re complaining about.
C: Oh, right. Um, I’m Rowena Lillywhite, I live in thirty-seven Bennett Street, and I’m complaining about the people in thirty-four Bennett Street.
O: Okay, Miss Lillywhite, I’m sending a car around now.
C: Thanks, I really appreciate it.

    (End of Transcript)
     
    Myfanwy searched through her memory for any references to purple light and weird yodeling/moaning/chanting. She’d spent a great deal of time reading through the purple binder and the Checquy records, but this didn’t ring any bells. She pushed down the first little niggling feelings that were swimming up into her mind. Feelings of chaos and panic.
    She snuck a look at Shantay to see if she’d noticed. Shantay was sitting calmly in her seat, checking messages on her phone. Myfanwy shook her head and breathed deeply. She could do this. She turned her attention back to the phone and scrolled down to the next message, which began with a note from Ingrid.
     
Rook Thomas, this is the working summary that Mahesh Poppat, the head of the Bath Situation Response Team, has written up. It’s cobbled together from a variety of sources, but it should give you some idea of the situation.
    1:55 a.m.—Constables O’Hara and Parker arrived at 34 Bennett St. They knocked, found the door open, and entered.
1:59 a.m.—Rowena Lillywhite called again, upset about the screams that had started issuing forth from her neighbor’s house. In the middle of her call, the screams stopped, and she told the dispatcher that the chanting had started up again.
2:02 a.m.—Richard Drake, the emergency services supervisor on duty, notified Alexander Jefferson, the Bath chief of police, that there was something “bizarre” going on. As per long-standing instructions, Jefferson contacted our Bath office, and the local team was mobilized.
     
     
    So that’s how it all works,
mused Myfanwy.
I wonder if every manifestation is begun with something atrocious happening to someone.
The next section appeared to be a hastily typed report by Mahesh Poppat. It was hard to be certain, but something about the report suggested a frantic concern that the Rook not be angry.
He was probably expecting Gestalt,
she thought.
Given that the last time I saw Gestalt get angry he tried to strangle the help, it’s probably a reasonable concern.
    Poppat described the precautions they had taken, sealing off the street, setting up a perimeter. He made a great many references to “standard operating procedure,” probably in an effort to forestall administrative strangulation. Things had proceeded typically until the Pawns sent into the house failed to emerge.