Read Online A Life Less Ordinary by Christopher Nuttall - Free Book Online Page B

being interested in both sexes, which might mean that his victims would always be female. Or perhaps I just wasn’t vile enough to comprehend their line of thought.
    “I’m sure the police would have noticed that after the third or fourth abduction,” I said, finally. I had never been too impressed with the police, yet anyone could have noticed that pattern. “Didn’t they think to search the place?”
    Master Revels shrugged and passed me another file. The police had noticed the pattern and requested – and received – warrants to investigate everyone who was even remotely connected to the museum. They’d searched the place from top to bottom, interrogated everyone who worked there and found nothing. Nothing relating to the investigation, that was; they’d found several stolen artworks, a missing handbag that had been reported lost in 1967 and discovered that one of the cleaners was supplementing his salary by selling drugs to local teenagers. They’d thought that they’d found their man until they discovered that he had an airtight alibi for most of the abductions. And, worst of all, they’d found no trace of the girls.
    “I see,” I said, finally. I felt a shiver running down my spine as I contemplated the girls and their possible fates. I knew that there were plenty of mundane horrors in the world, yet...this was something worse than a vampire or a werewolf. “I assume that we’re going to do something about it?”
    “You assume correctly,” Master Revels said, dryly. He finished skimming through the files, allowed me to read through the summaries quickly, and then stood up. “The police found nothing and there are signs that suggest that magic was somehow involved. The girls may have blundered into the magical world, but the pattern suggests otherwise; they have almost certainly been abducted. I think we’d better take a field trip to the museum.”
    I looked up, surprised. “There are people who abduct children from the mundane world?” I asked. “Why the hell would they want to do that?”
    “You don’t want to know,” Master Revels said, flatly. I stared at him until he nodded ruefully. “You can use humans as sacrificial offerings; the younger the better. There’s an entire world that is fond of abducting young women as slaves, although normally they prefer to take someone older and sexually mature. And then the elves have a habit of abducting children and leaving behind a Changeling in the nest.”
    He stood up. “Come on,” he said. “We’re off to see the museum.”
    Leaving the police station, it seemed, was harder than getting into it. A grim-looking policewoman searched me quickly and efficiently, before pushing me out to wait for Master Revels. The ghosts seemed to have realised that I could see them and started to cluster around me, leering into my face and dripping translucent blood on my clothes. I found myself stumbling backwards and I nearly fell over, just before the ghosts fled. Master Revels had emerged from his inspection, doing up his coat. I guessed the policeman had taken longer to search him.
    He said nothing as we walked back towards the Mound, leaving me to my thoughts. If the girls had been abducted, how could we help them? Could we not use magic to find them? Who would have taken them or why? I remembered the family of slaves I’d seen in the market and shuddered. Somehow, the thought of seeing Jenny, or Aisha, or any of the others being sold as slaves was inconceivable. Who would do such a thing? I remembered Master Revels and his warnings about elves; surely, even they wouldn’t take humans as slaves?
    I shook my head. Humanity’s long history is one of man being inhuman to man. If humans didn’t treat their fellow humans very well, how could we complain if other creatures treated themselves badly? How could we justify ourselves when we had so much of our own blood on our collective hands? I was still musing when we finally reached the museum and entered