Nine Swords

London is one of the most watched cities on earth. CCTV and webcams sprout like technological fungus on poles and buildings; banal Facebook and Twitter uploads constantly reflect the city. The Templars have a system that can bring all this sprawling visual information together - FALSTAFF: (Filter And Locate Surveillance, Televisual And Found Footage). Very, very clever but still some poor Templar has to enter a time plus co-ordinates and then actually watch the stuff. And tonight, in an all-night marathon session, that poor Templar is Shirley “Mellified” Temp. She finds nothing tracking Floryn’s movements. Hang on though - what about hers?

Me drabbles have all dribbled away

Designer
Search
VoIP

Cough
Return
Security

stress
swimmingpool
Fysiotherapy

The headset was glowing white-hot and burning into Hayden Montag. He did not seem to notice.

“Please, excuse me, we are having some … er … difficulties with our newly installed VoIP system. We believe that it is the work of the revenant of one of our former switchboard operators who met with a …. ahem … sticky end”

“Quite literally” interjected Annabel Usher, as she gingerly wrestled the headset off with a pair of chemistry tongs and dunked it in a sink.

“She seems to take exception to most modern communication technology. Oh, the lost art of letter writing.”

“Yes, there was an … (cough) … incident where some of the seniors conducted time travel experiments on some of the juniors as part of their History lessons back in the 1920’s. The remaining limbs were returned to the parents and the losses were well within the usual wastage parameters per cohort. I believe they used the anima cage in the library as the nucleus of their … (ack) … research.”

That’s grimly interesting, thought Mellified, more evidence that a strong source of anima can act as some kind of time travel focus, but how does it relate to me?

Her new FALSTAFF search finds images of that carpet-tile coat only a few paltry times - all very close to the café where she had seen Floryn, all while she was there and all on Social Media.

One: framed in the finger V above a Japanese tourist’s head - a Twitter post.

Another: the coat sleeve caught in a shaky frame where the camera had gone off accidentally but was still posted to a law graduate’s Facebook page (Haven’t they got anything better to do?).

She stretches, yawns and is surprised to find that it is 10am. Time for breakfast - guess where?

“The mountains, the hills, the rocks, the stones, the pebbles, the soil and sand - they each remember you with their slow deep stories. They whisper as they under my bridge roll. In the bright flash of a star did you appear and dance within their beings, but, ah, so quickly. You return again and again. The names given by men change but you remain the always same.”

Mosul passes her a piece of granite that slips into her grasp like the hand of a lover. She’s immediately back under the Eiffel Tower, heart fluttering, “Je t’aime” wonderfully on her lips.

The stomach cavities were kept open using sticks, enabling a torch to be placed inside to illuminate the crude faces hacked right through the stomach wall. The intestines were piled in the centre of the room. She estimated 20 trick or treaters died in the cellar.

The sweeping globalisation of Halloween greatly increased the stress for all Templars on All Hallows Eve. Mellified blamed the Illuminati for this phenomenon - an opportunity for an increased profit slice of the pumpkin pie chart by selling plastic crap and sugary obesity snacks, while maximising the chance for something really nasty to slip through.