The Cult of Unicorns (Penny White Book 2) Read online

  ‘Could you leave the computer on?’ he asked. ‘I’d like to do some work.’

  ‘Or catch up on Neighbours?’

  ‘Recommended viewing for understanding human culture,’ Morey told me.

  ‘It’s an Australian soap opera.’

  ‘So? You humans are all the same.’

  I suppressed a shudder as I left the house.

  As Peter had reminded me, I was behind on my Big Finish listening. So, as I drove to Gregory’s house, I listened to the Tenth Doctor and Donna bickering in the TARDIS and then falling out to a new adventure. I made a few mental notes to share with Peter at a meeting which did not involve abandoned unicorns or muddy corpses.

  Gregory was one of many clergy who only heated his study during winter days. I suppressed a shiver in his cold kitchen as he made us each a cup of tea, and I wrapped my hands around the mug as I sank into a chair in his study.

  ‘So,’ he asked, ‘how’s the parish?’

  I talked about sagging walls and crumbling congregations, old hymn books and arguments as to what time the Christmas Eve services should be held. ‘And no doubt it’ll be standing room only for the crib service. It always is.’

  ‘People are drawn to the church at Christmas. Nothing new there.’

  ‘I just wish I could convince them to come the rest of the year,’ I grumbled. ‘I’ve tried everything. Family services, reaching out to baptism families, flyers through the primary school. Nothing.’ I took a deep breath, and admitted, ‘Sometimes I feel like a failure.’

  ‘So do I,’ Gregory said, startling me. My spiritual director was in his late fifties, a long serving parish priest, and the last person I’d expect to agree with me. ‘We do need to remember that Jesus’ first disciples thought he had failed. Death on a cross was not what they had expected of him. But through the resurrection, God showed us that he measures success in very different terms than the world does.’

  I sighed. ‘I know, I know, we always say it’s not down to bums on pews. But it takes a certain number of younger bums to take forward the mission of the church.’

  ‘The mission of God,’ Gregory corrected. ‘Perhaps best not to confuse the two.’

  I shifted my gaze away from his eyes. ‘I have a unicorn in my back garden. We don’t know where the mother is.’

  ‘You’d still rather be full time Vicar General, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course I would.’ My mug was empty, and I placed it on the floor before rubbing my forehead. ‘But I wouldn’t run away to Lloegyr, even if I could. James needs me right now.’

  ‘And how is he?’

  ‘Still won’t talk to anyone.’ I felt my hands twisting together. ‘Peter’s offered a police chaplain, Bishop Nigel suggested a counsellor the diocese uses, but James says he’s fine.’

  ‘Perhaps he is?’

  I shook my head. ‘He watched a dragon kill a woman in front of him. His clothes were drenched in her blood. He’s not really eating and I’m worried.’

  ‘Has there been a funeral?’

  ‘Not yet. The trial is still being arranged, and Miranda didn’t have any next of kin. She’s still with a coroner in Lloegyr.’

  ‘That must be hard for James.’

  ‘Life is more like Deep Space Nine than Star Trek: The Next Generation.’ I could feel my spiritual director reaching deep for an extra measure of patience. ‘Problems don’t get wrapped up neatly at the end of a story. They carry on for a full season.’

  ‘And you can’t talk to him?’

  I moved in my seat. ‘I can’t be his priest.’

  Gregory said gently, ‘Perhaps all he really needs is his sister.’

  ‘I went into a dragon family’s longhouse to rescue him,’ I retorted. ‘I was there when he needed me.’

  His blue eyes merely rested on me. I found myself shifting again. When all else fails, divert your spiritual director by talking about God. ‘Prayer is going well. Morning Office with Morey and Clyde, and the Examen in the evening on my own.’

  ‘I'm very pleased to hear it,’ he said drily. ‘I wonder if God might have anything to say about your brother?’

  Unfortunately, spiritual directors are not always that easily diverted. ‘I pray for James every day, of course. And Morey, and Clyde, my parish, the bishops, and for peace and justice to break out everywhere.’

  ‘And while we wait for universal peace, please also take time to listen to what God might have to say in return.’

  Gregory prayed for me, and instructed me to mediate on 1 Kings 19: 11-13. I wrote it down in my notebook, relieved that it was a short passage. One time he’d assigned me all of Psalm 119. I try to believe that I was given the psalm for the good of my soul, and not because I’d spent an entire hour analysing the approach Peter Capaldi had taken to his portrayal of the Twelfth Doctor.

  I waited until I was in my car before turning on my iPhone. There was a message for me from Peter. I played it. ‘Hi Penny, can you come to the morgue, the one on the Tuddington estate? It’s about the dead man we found at Wootton Fields.’

  I needed to go home to write a school assembly and to prepare for that evening’s Parochial Church Council meeting. But of course I dialled the home number and spoke after listening to my own answering machine message. ‘Hi, Morey, hope you’ve enjoyed your Australian soap opera. Can you meet me at the morgue at Tuddington? I’ll see you there.’

  Strictly speaking, I could have swung by the vicarage and picked Morey up. But the exercise would do him good. The decrease in the wild bird population was being matched by a corresponding increase in the weight around his belly. He needed to be in good shape if he wanted to court Taryn. She was both the fiercest and the fastest gryphon I’d ever seen.

  The morgue used by the Lloegyr Liaison Team of the Northamptonshire police department was a nondescript building on an industrial estate. The coroner, Russell Tops, knew me from a previous case involving a poisoned dragon. There was something different about him, but I couldn't quite work out what. ‘Your Associate is already inside,’ he informed me before insisting on seeing my ID. Then he took me through the multiple locked doors and into the main room.

  I zipped up my coat. It was colder inside than I’d remembered, and I patted my pockets for gloves. Peter was already standing next to a metal table, the two gryphons perched at one end. The dead man looked rather small on a surface built to accommodate even dragons.

  ‘Thanks Penny, Morey, for coming over,’ Peter said, rubbing his hands together. ‘I wanted both of you here while Russ explains his findings.’

  The coroner rubbed his eyes and cleared his throat. ‘Male in his mid-forties, reasonably fit, Manchester United tattoo on his left bicep.’

  ‘Well, there’s no accounting for taste,’ Morey said. ‘Rugby. Now there’s a real game.’

  ‘A bit of respect, please,’ Russell told him. ‘Death was caused by a sharp implement being thrust into the chest cavity. Damage to heart and severe loss of blood after the implement was removed.’ He stopped.

  ‘And?’ Peter prodded.

  ‘There was spontaneous healing around the wound. There’s only one weapon I can think of which could both cause this damage and undertake healing at the same time. The horn from a unicorn.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Morey and Taryn declared simultaneously, ears drawn back and tails whipping in dismay.

  ‘Unless someone else used the horn,’ Morey added thoughtfully.

  Taryn dipped her head. ‘Herds often preserve the horns of their ancestors.’

  Russell shook his head. ‘The angle and strength of thrust indicates an equine wielder. And I don’t think the victim tried to escape his fate.’

  ‘But, but, but unicorns don’t kill.’ I’d never heard Morey stammer before. ‘Duw a’n gwaredo. They’re our judges, our officials, they’re trusted by all the races on Lloegyr.’

  ‘Whoever killed this man,’ Taryn said, ‘it could not have been a unicorn.’

  Peter met my gaze. We held an
eyebrow conversation, both of us grimacing at each other over the heads of our Associates. I turned to the coroner. ‘Do you have photos from the crime scene in your office?’

  ‘On my computer, yes. The ground was rather wet, but indications are that the death happened elsewhere.’

  ‘Perhaps Morey and Taryn could have a look,’ Peter suggested. ‘With their greater knowledge of Lloegyr, they might come up with some alternatives to your theory.’

  For a moment I thought Russell would protest. But then he seemed to suddenly understand the looks we were throwing him. ‘Certainly. I’d welcome their input. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  The two gryphons followed him to a door set near one corner of the room. ‘That’s why I waited for you,’ Peter whispered to me. ‘You’ve met more unicorns than me. Are they really that incredible?’

  ‘Clyde’s taken to the filly.’

  ‘Clyde?’ Then Peter nodded. ‘Oh, that’s right, you gave that snail shark pup a name. I still think he’s far too dangerous to have in a home.’

  ‘He’s too busy disembowelling pigeons to go after my fingers.’ I stared down the blue cloth covering the dead man, fighting back the impulse to expose his chest so I could see the wound for myself. ‘Besides, well, he’s interesting to have around. Did you know that he has a great singing voice? Not as good as Taryn’s, though.’

  ‘Taryn? She can sing?’

  I looked up at him. ‘Didn’t you know? She came first in her class at the Eisteddfod.’

  Peter shook his head. ‘We work together, but we have our separate lives. She doesn’t live with me, you know. She slips through the thin place in my lounge to go back to her family at night.’

  ‘Morey once said something to me about not being able to go back home. Some sort of falling out with his family.’

  ‘Do you know what about?’

  I smiled sadly. ‘Probably his marriage to Seren. No doubt they disapproved of him marrying a were-fox. Most of Lloegyr seems prejudiced against mixed race relationships.’

  Russell bustled back into the room. ‘I’ve left the gryphons at the computer. You’re quite right, we’ll be able to speak more freely without them.’ A long object wrapped in a black cloth was resting in his now gloved hands. He looked at each of us in turn, and then unwound the covering.

  I found my breath catching in my throat. Even detached from its owner, the unicorn horn glowed under the artificial lights. ‘And how,’ I found myself asking, ‘do you come to have that?’

  But the coroner was shaking his head, refusing to answer. He lifted it free, his hands wrapping around the intricate spirals. ‘I stand by what I said earlier. The entry wound was caused by a unicorn horn, and not by a horn wielded by some other being.’

  A flake of silver dropped from the horn and fluttered to the table. ‘Don’t,’ Russell said sharply as Peter reached out to it. ‘Never touch a horn with your bare hands. Even detached from a unicorn, the horn still has healing powers. And, interestingly, can open any lock. It came in very useful when I was accidentally trapped in here one evening.’

  Healing powers? Then it hit me. ‘Glasses,’ I said. ‘You used to wear thick glasses.’

  Russell grimaced. ‘I made the mistake of handling the horn without wearing gloves. Now I have perfect vision.’

  ‘That’s nothing to complain about,’ Peter commented.

  ‘The horn also reversed my vasectomy. And now my wife is expecting twins.’

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Russell’s cheeks reddened. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Our other two children are fourteen and eighteen. And they are not impressed. You know how it is, they think we’re too old to be having sex. They’re heartily embarrassed.’ Russell laid the horn down onto the table. ‘I think, when the horn is still attached, the unicorn is able to direct some of the healing energy. But the healing happens even if he or she is killing someone.’

  Peter had pulled a well ironed red handkerchief from his trouser pocket and was using it to scoop up the flake of horn. ‘And you’re certain no one else could have used a horn? To frame unicorns, for example?’

  ‘Not for the amount of healing around the wound. In my opinion, this was an attack by a unicorn.’

  ‘Which is why I asked you here.’ Peter smiled at me. ‘You’ve seen how people from Lloegyr are about unicorns. Well, you’ve got a filly to take home. When you take her back to her mother, maybe you could keep your eyes and ears open? The dam could be our prime suspect.’

  ‘You want me to ask some polite questions of a possibly murderous unicorn?’

  ‘Tact and diplomacy, Penny. Don’t they teach you that at vicar school?’

  ‘They try. But our role plays didn’t involve unicorns.’ I glanced at my wristwatch. ‘I’d better get home. How long do you think it’ll take to find the filly’s herd?’

  ‘The rat king network is pretty efficient.’ Peter pulled out his phone and wrote a text. ‘We keep several rats on hand at the station. I’ve just asked that you be told directly when they’ve found someone.’

  ‘Good.’ I turned to leave.

  ‘Penny?’ Peter’s voice called me back. ‘I’m free most evenings next week?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Wednesday evening. Seven o’clock. Come to my house, and we’ll see if you can survive my cooking.’

  Russell was grinning at us. ‘Careful with that,’ he warned as Peter stuffed the folded handkerchief into a trouser pocket. ‘Twins, remember?’

  Time, I decided, to make a tactful and diplomatic exit.

  Chapter Four

  Still no sign of a winged rat when Morey and I got home. The day had been mild, but I still felt some guilt as I pulled on a coat and went out into the back garden. The filly had, in the course of a day, already done a good job of trimming the grass.

  ‘We’re still looking for your mother,’ I told her, daring to rest a hand on her silky smooth hide. She was definitely beautiful, but I had no intention of falling under the spell which seemed to affect everyone in Lloegyr.

  ‘Well, Rev.’ I quickly dropped my hand away from the unicorn as my neighbour, Albert, peered over our joint fence. ‘Nice to see you’ve finally done some work on the garden. Don’t know how you can bear to have it in that state.’

  ‘I don’t have a power complex about flowers,’ I told him. ‘It’s like dictatorship for inadequates.’

  ‘And don’t you go about quoting Doctor Who at me,’ he said sternly. I blinked in surprise and sudden respect. ‘Get yourself a gardener if you won’t keep it trim yourself.’

  Then he was gone again. I glanced up at the weak sunlight. ‘Do you want to come inside?’ I asked the filly. ‘I’m about to have lunch. I picked up some horse feed on the way home.’

  The unicorn followed me inside. I put a bowl of pellets and a bucket of water on the floor for her, then made myself a cheese sandwich.

  I was struggling with my sermon for Sunday when a rap at my study window made me peer over my computer screen. A rat was hovering outside, his wings a pink blur. I stood, pointed to my left, and went to the kitchen to unlock the back door. Then I ducked back into the hallway. ‘Morey!’ I shouted up the stairs. ‘We have a rat!’

  Morey dropped down from the upper landing. A moment later, James pounded down the stairs. And then Clyde was on the kitchen table, sitting next to Morey, and all of the household was assembled to hear the news from the rat.

  He had settled on the kitchen counter. I cleared my throat and thought quickly. ‘Most noble rat, we pray, that you give us your news today.’

  The rat flipped his wings onto his grey-brown back. Bright yellow eyes studied us for a moment. ‘Found for the filly is the one, who will be glad to have her home.’

  ‘And where are we to go, is that also what you know?’ Poetry has never been my strong point.

  ‘The thin place will be shown to you, so that together you may go through.’

  Morey spread his wings and bowed. ‘Noble rat, many thanks to you. May we
offer you a noble brew?’

  The long whiskers twitched. Then the accent changed, from Welsh tinged English to French-American English. ‘Any bourbon, s'il vous plait? Straight, no chaser.’

  ‘No bourbon,’ I said.

  ‘Plenty of single malt whisky, though,’ Morey added smoothly. ‘James, would you fetch the gentlerat a glass?’

  ‘My thanks. Message delivery is thirsty work.’ The rat sat down, his long pink tail flicking over his feet. ‘Let me drop this rhyming nonsense. Never used it back home.’

  ‘You’re from the States?’ James asked, pulling out a bottle of Glenmorangie.

  ‘Les Etats-Unis,’ I corrected. ‘In their world, the French took over the New World. All the way from the Arctic down to Mexico.’

  ‘And now you grace Lloegyr with your presence,’ Morey said.

  James slid the glass over the counter. The rat wrapped his forepaws around the tumbler, and took a deep sniff. Then, rising on his hind legs, he lowered his head inside and took a sip. ‘Hmm. Not bad.’

  I bit back a retort. Glenmorangie surely deserved much better than a ‘not bad.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Is Lloegyr very different from les Etats-Unis?’

  ‘Very. Much more interesting. Very few places good for crossing in my country.’

  I tried to keep my tone casual. ‘There are more thin places in Lloegyr?’

  ‘Oui, many more.’

  James glanced at me. ‘I thought you said these thin places formed where something bad happened.’

  ‘So they do,’ the rat confirmed. He took another pull of whisky. ‘But the thin place at small tragedy can be crossed. Much more difficult to go through a place of terrible destruction.’

  ‘The thin place at Ashtrew,’ I told James. ‘It’s linked to the Gunpowder Plot, and when you go through it’s like you can feel them being hung, drawn, and quartered. Can you imagine what a place of mass slaughter would feel like?’

  James paled. ‘Like Auschwitz? The gas ovens? The experiments?’

  ‘Also my home country is very empty. Great plains with bison and unicorns and were-wolves. Mountains of dragons and gryphons.’

  James frowned. ‘Did your lot also kill off the Indians?’