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  ‘Bit late for deliveries, isn’t it?’ I said, checking my phone for the time. ‘Or is it early?’

  He didn’t bother answering, just dumped a plastic basket of junk on the desk and thrust a device into my hand for an electronic signature. I rattled off a jagged scrawl and cast a glance to the basket. Inside, nestling among the usual assortment of umbrellas and mobile phones, was a brown leather briefcase.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘At a guess, I’d say a brown leather briefcase.’

  Well, ask the obvious.

  ‘Someone handed it in at Baker Street,’ he said.

  The front of the briefcase was adorned with a brass plate featuring a name.

  Vizael.

  ‘Are you sure it’s okay to bring this in here?’ I asked. ‘Shouldn’t the, you know, bomb squad have looked at it first?’

  To me, the name Vizael sounded—and please don’t judge me for saying this—a bit… Middle Eastern.

  ‘Fucked if I know,’ replied the delivery man, making no attempt to stifle a yawn. ‘Anyway, it’s your problem now.’

  He pushed through the exit, back into the downpour, and the door clicked shut behind him.

  Wonderful.

  I gingerly picked the basket up, carted it to the back office, and set it gently on my desk. With a click of my mouse, I booted up Sherlock and started logging the basket’s contents, picking around the mystery briefcase like a faddy eater dodging her greens, until eventually, the case was all that was left.

  Sighing, I swiped away some clutter on my desk. I pushed aside unopened letters, a couple of half-empty drink cans, and the deer skull whose eye socket I used as a pen holder (someone left it on the Northern Line a while back, and since they didn’t claim it in the allotted ninety days, I made it my own. Like I say: morbid). Having cleared a space for the briefcase, I laid it flat on my desk, lid-side up. Its leather was well worn and faded, but continued to survive in the way that expensive things often do. A pair of brass clasps held the case together, each of which sported a three-digit combination lock.

  I began to enter the item into the computer system:

  Item #Misc205AG629. Vintage brown leather briefcase. Identifying markings: Brass plate with name, VIZAEL. Brand: Unknown. Contents: Unknown.

  What was in that thing? A nail bomb? A laptop containing Top Secret files? Military launch codes? I had to know.

  I took a quick glance over my shoulder to check no one was watching—despite the fact that I was the only mug still in the office—then spun the brass wheels of the combination locks with my thumbs.

  Click Click.

  I didn’t even look to see which numbers I’d randomly arrived at, I was too distracted by the clasps simultaneously standing to attention.

  ‘What are the chances…?’ I muttered.

  I carefully lifted the lid.

  What I saw next came as a bit of a shocker.

  Inside the case, sat in a black velvet tray, was a weapon.

  Not a bomb, or a disassembled sniper’s rifle, but a knife. A dagger, like something you’d see in one of those Hobbit movies. The dagger’s blade was polished to a mirror finish, its handle wound with a length of purple leather, and its bottom bit—whatever that bit’s called—was a finely-cut gemstone the size of a baby’s fist.

  ‘Niiice,’ I gasped.

  It was a beautiful bit of craftsmanship, and I couldn’t help, but pick it up to test its weight.

  Along with mouthing off at my supervisor, that was the second huge mistake I made that day.

  The moment I picked up the dagger I knew something was wrong. The pain didn’t come right away, but only because it was so intense that it took a moment for my brain to register. When it did hit me, it almost knocked me flat.

  A burning sensation lit up my palm, white-hot and raw. It felt like sulphuric acid had been poured on my skin, stripping it down layer by layer, etching its way through fat, muscle and bone.

  I let go of the dagger and it tolled on the edge of my desk like a rung bell.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ I screamed, and filled a speech bubble with some more choice blasphemies.

  Clutching my wrist, I turned my wounded hand over to review the damage. There, in the dead centre of my palm was a brand: a perfect circle containing a big letter Z.

  ‘Motherfucker,’ I noted.

  I shot an accusatory look at the dagger and crouched down to get a better look at the thing, lying innocently on the office floor. Wrapped around the weapon’s handle I found an embossed metal circle containing a symbol that matched the one burned into my palm.

  ‘Bastard.’

  I was in agony, but thankfully for me, I was also the designated first-aider for my floor, and knew exactly where to find the little green case with the white cross on it.

  I made it to the staff kitchen, found the box, and rifled through tape, gauze, disinfectant, and hydrogen peroxide, until finally I laid my hands on the burn cream. I unscrewed the top of the tube with my teeth and was about to squeeze it dry when I heard another buzz.

  The office intercom, again.

  I checked my watch. It was three in the morning now. I ran back into the office and saw the dagger lying on the industrial navy blue carpet, outside of its locked case.

  ‘Motherfucker,’ I reiterated.

  3

  I should have ignored it. Should have kept my head down and let the door carry on buzzing. So of course, I let curiosity got the better of me.

  The office wasn’t due to open for hours, and we’d already had our last delivery for the day. Who could possibly be calling at this hour?

  The door buzzed again; a long, shrill cry for attention.

  I jogged back to the kitchen, ran a tea towel under some cold water, and wrapped it twice around my hand. With that done, I headed off to Reception to see who’d come calling. On my way there, striding past my workstation, I snatched up the dagger with my bandage-slash-makeshift-oven-mitt, dropped it back into its briefcase, and snapped the lid shut before swiping at the combination locks until they looked suitably randomised.

  Moving behind the reception desk, I checked the monitor to see a man standing outside, braving the downpour in nothing more than a tailored suit. I squinted, but didn’t recognise him. The man was tall, broad-shouldered, and—even going by the pixellated picture provided by our ancient CCTV—a looker.

  I cleared my throat and answered the intercom. ‘Can I help you, sir?’

  He leaned in to the microphone to state his business. ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘is this Lost Property?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he said, apologetically. ‘Look, this is really embarrassing, but I left something on the tube tonight, and I have to get it back right away.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.

  ‘It’s a brown leather briefcase with a brass nameplate on the front,’ he replied, predictably. ‘It’s very valuable. I’m hoping someone might have handed it in.’ He rubbed at his head like life hurt. ‘I need it for work.’

  Really? What line of work was this guy in exactly? What kind of job required a gilded dagger with realistic flesh-melting action? I wondered if maybe he was in the movies, and the dagger was some kind of prop. That wouldn’t explain why it had made such a mess of my hand though I thought, squeezing my wrist in the hope that it might cut off the pain to my throbbing palm. Unless the dagger had a live battery inside and was wired up wrong or something. Oh, what did I know? I already told you I didn’t get the grades I needed for a second-rate university degree.

  I hit the intercom’s answer button again. ‘Can you stop by at nine when we open?’ I asked, then decided to offer the poor guy some hope. ‘I’ve a feeling we might be able to help you out if you do.’

  ‘Please,’ the man pleaded, rain whipping at his face. ‘I’m going to be in so much trouble with my boss if I don’t show up to work with this thing.’

  Sh
itty bosses, eh? I knew how that went.

  He spoke again. ‘Is there any way we can talk about this face-to-face? It’s tipping it down out here.’

  My finger hovered over the button for the front door. I had his briefcase for sure, it just seemed cruel to say no to him at that point. Him out there, soaking wet while I lorded it up in my fortress, bone-dry and hoarding about twenty-thousand umbrellas.

  Then again, I was there alone, in the middle of the night, and a stranger was trying to get in so he could reclaim a large, weird dagger.

  ‘I’m begging you,’ he said, looking like a very handsome drowned rat. ‘I really need to get that briefcase back. If I don’t, it’s my arse.’

  I prevaricated for a little longer then, against my better judgment, I stabbed the button to open the door.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ the man said as he dashed in from outside, leaving puddles in his wake.

  The door gasped shut behind him, closing on pneumatic hinges.

  Remembering my wounded hand, I thrust it into the pocket of my cardigan to disguise the burn. ‘You’ll have to be quick,’ I told him. ‘I really shouldn't be doing this.’

  I led him to my desk and his eyes immediately fell on the briefcase. ‘That’s it,’ he exclaimed, his face lighting up.

  He went to make a grab for it, but I stepped in his way. ‘I have to see proof of ownership first,’ I explained.

  ‘It’s mine,’ he said. ‘It’s my case.’

  ‘You saying that isn’t really proof though, is it? For example, I could just say, I dunno, the shoes you’ve got on are mine.’

  ‘Well, they’re not.’

  ‘Exactly. I would never wear shoes like that, I’d look like an absolute clown. No offence.’

  ‘Some taken,’ he said, smiling ever so slightly.

  ‘Look, I do believe it’s your case,’ I said, ‘but I need confirmation. For the system. If you could just show me something with your name on it...’ I read off the case’s nameplate... ‘Mister Vizael.’

  It occurred to me then that his face wasn’t much of a match for his moniker. His supposed moniker anyway.

  For a moment, his features seemed to curdle, then he brightened suddenly. ‘Look, I don’t have my wallet on me right now,’ he said, his voice smooth as the hum of a new Ferrari, ‘but I’d be more than happy to stop by later with my details. For the system.’

  No wallet? Who walks around without a single piece of identifying information? A bank card, a driver’s licence, Christ, I’d have taken a Blockbuster card if he had one.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but I can’t let you make a claim without proper ID.’ I felt like a tool saying it, but I just didn’t trust the guy. Something about him was giving me the bad feels.

  He nodded sullenly then looked away for a moment. When he looked back, something incredible happened. And by “incredible”, I mean “bloody terrifying”.

  His eyes were two voids, a pair of black holes, bottomless, endless, drawing me in, sucking me beneath a dark tide. My blood ran cold and I felt my body go slack.

  ‘Give me the briefcase,’ he commanded, his voice thick and full of menace.

  Instinctively, I felt my fist leave the pocket of my cardigan and go to pass him the case. I didn’t want to, I tried to stop it, but I had no agency. It’s like I was no longer a participant in my own actions. I was a witness, a puppet, acting out his will.

  As I reached for the case, the wet tea towel wrapped around my hand came loose and flopped on to my desk.

  The man with the black eyes saw the brand on my palm and his face twisted into a snarl. ‘What is that?’ he growled, his eyes snapping back to normal.

  The pain in my hand disappeared suddenly as though I’d been shot with a tranquiliser, and when I looked at the brand again, I saw it glowing, the big Z lit up bright and blue.

  The man seized me by the wrist, his skin so icy cold that he almost gave me freezer burn. He pulled me closer and brought my hand to his face, studying the mark upon it.

  ‘That can’t be right,’ he said.

  I struggled to get away from him, but his grip was vice-like.

  Then something else happened.

  A new pattern appeared, not on me this time, but on him. A symbol decorated the man’s forehead, a glowing emblem in the shape of a letter J.

  Who was this guy? What was this guy? I felt a cold, crawling sensation on my scalp, like a trickle of ice water.

  The man scowled. ‘You’re no Nightstalker.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, mate. I’m Abbey, I just work here.’

  Snarling, he whipped me around and tossed me across my desk like I weighed nothing, sending stationery scattering in all directions.

  I landed hard on the other side of the desk in a crumpled heap, eyes blurred, stung with tears. The man laughed before collecting the leather briefcase and removing the dagger from inside. He held it up to examine its blade then looked to me, cowering on the floor.

  ‘What the hell were they thinking?’ he spat.

  He stalked towards me, pushing my heavy desk out of his way like he was sweeping aside a fold-up picnic table.

  Time seemed to slow down as a mad scramble of half-conceived plans presented themselves to me—call for help, dial 999, pull the fire alarm, go for your house keys and stab his eye out—but the plan that won over was the one that told me to get off the floor and head away from that man as quickly as possible.

  I scrambled to my feet and ran, not knowing where I was going until I got there. Within moments I found myself in the staff toilets. I don’t know why, but somehow the idea of being in a place with lockable doors trumped the more intelligent notion that playing hide-and-seek in the bogs would mean backing myself into a dead end.

  Too late to turn back, I dashed into the farthest cubicle, threw the latch, and climbed on top of the toilet to hide my feet. Dumb, I know, but that’s the situation I put myself in.

  The outside door to the Ladies creaked open. Terrified, I held on to my breath and found myself entirely rethinking my liberal stance on gender-neutral bathrooms.

  Footsteps bounced off the cold ceramic walls. My skin prickled as the steps grew louder, the intruder doing nothing to disguise his presence. I was drenched in sweat, and my heartbeat rang in my ears, loud as a Keith Moon drum solo. I felt like I was stuck in a dream—an incredibly vivid dream—every detail painted just right, every character cast to perfection. Except I knew I was awake. I knew this was really happening.

  ‘This little piggy went to market,’ the man cackled, as he kicked open the nearest cubicle door and sent it crashing flat.

  ‘This little piggy stayed at home,’ he went on, as he put his foot through the next door along, edging ever closer to my cubicle.

  ‘This little piggy had roast beef,’ he roared, kicking down the neighbouring door.

  ‘And this little piggy,’ he said, pausing for effect, ‘...had none.’

  Eyes fixed on the gap at the bottom of the cubicle door, I saw his foot separate from the ground as he readied to make his kick, and that’s when I made my move. Pressing my back to the wall behind me, I kicked out the door as hard as I could, sending it the other way and smashing it into the intruder’s face.

  He howled in pain.

  I paused, open-mouthed, surprised by my own strength. I’d hit the door so hard it had come right off its hinges.

  Shocked, the man held a hand to his pulped nose, which streamed twin rivers of blood.

  ‘You little fu—’ he started, but before he could finish his thought, I smacked him in the face with a toilet brush, painting the red brown.

  Without giving him a chance to recover, I slid between his legs and took off.

  I ran for the way out this time, but when I got to the reception desk and found the button that opened the front door, I saw it had been ripped from its housing.

  I was stuck with this fucker. Trapped.

  I ran for the basement, hoping I could find somethin
g down there to defend myself with, but the intruder had me cut off.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he said, taking a goalkeeper’s stance.

  There was another way down though. He saw my eyes dart to it. The chute. The one we used to deliver logged items from the office floor to the building’s storage area.

  He ran for it, but I was closer, and quicker too.

  I jumped feet-first into the chute, which was only just big enough for my frame. Seriously, if I’d had a slice of Janet’s 40th birthday cake that day, I’d have wedged it.

  I banged down the chute, metal rushing by me in a blur until I landed in the padded basket at the bottom, which was thankfully parked where it ought to be.

  Looking up, I caught sight of the intruder leering wolfishly down the chute at me. He snarled, and as his lips shrank back from his teeth, I saw his canines sprout, long and sharp and impossible. I wasn’t stuck in this place with a psychotic, I was stuck here with a monster. A genuine monster!

  I didn’t stick around to find out what the hell was going on. Instead, I leapt out of the basket and sprinted off deeper into the storage area, trying to stop my brain from fixating on how preposterous this all was, and tasking it with keeping me alive.

  Passing between two towering metal racks, I scanned the shelves for something—anything—I could use as a weapon. I saw lost scooters, cellophane bags full of footballs, towers of shoe boxes, but nothing that would be any use in a fight.

  Then I saw the broadsword.

  Thank Christ for this lunatic city and its scatterbrained residents.

  I went to snatch the weapon off the shelf, but before I could lay my hands on it, I felt a familiar icy grip close around my wrist.

  The fanged intruder smiled and bony ridges rode up beneath his drawn skin, now white as freshly-poured milk. ‘This is where you die,’ he remarked, matter-of-factly.

  Dagger in hand, he stabbed the point of the blade in my direction. I batted him away and swerved aside just in time to avoid the thrust, and the knife embedded itself in the belly of a giant gorilla plush toy.