Arthur Enrights.

I don’t know what it was that made me start to resent Samuel. It only took a word of suspicion from Enright for me to doubt him. I must already have had the doubts, unformed. The confidence of his arrival, the force of his insistence, like he was the proof of destiny. His stories of bold adventures, dressed for the part. I don’t trust that friendship of a common purpose, like the camaraderie of tourists stuck together. It’s a superficial loyalty, worn thin by shifts in circumstance. I thought Samuel was a player, positioning himself close to my father’s books against the chance that magic will return, because none of them can believe it’s gone forever. It’s inconceivable to them that the world they knew has gone, so they’re all still trapped in its politics. They’re all still vying for a dead society – but not Samuel, it turns out.

We waited round the corner from Enright’s, not only till he left at eight, but until Angela had texted to confirm his arrival at The Red Deer. Samuel has equipment for this kind deal. “This used to be part of my trade.” He explained, revealing a compartment in the back of his car, full of crowbars, rope, torches, and allsorts. He took a telescopic ladder and a lump hammer, ran up to Enright’s house, climbed up against the front wall, smashed the alarm box off the wall in two blows and descended, collapsing the ladder again in seconds. I could hear the alarm’s control box inside, squealing. Samuel led me back to the car, where the alarm inside was barely a birdsong.
“Thankfully we don’t have snow tonight.” Samuel said, coughing and spitting on the grass verge as he swapped his gear round.
“I thought you went into other dimensions to wrestle demons.” The professionalism of the operation caught me unawares.
“I’ve done that precisely twice. If you listened to me you’d know that. Most of the abuses of demonic powers are committed by stupid men in locked houses.”

No one had twitched their curtains in the neighbourhood, so we went back up to the house. Having dealt with the main alarm, I looked around for a rock to put through the window, but Samuel had switched to subtlety and took out a set of lock picks. In a minute we were inside, in the hallway, lights on, and Samuel took the fuse out of the alarm controls to stop them wailing. It was possible that this set up was linked to the police for an automatic call out, but it was unlikely any once-magician would involve themselves in the systems of real life.

There was nothing in the main rooms, where Enright held his resurrection party. They’d been returned to domestic use. The kitchen was small, functional and free of anything magical. The back door out of it led into a garden with a long lawn and flowerbeds, just perfect for hiding a chunk of stone. I texted Angela to let her know we were inside, to make her feel more involved. There was nothing in his office either. Most of his books – magic or otherwise – were still boxed up, leaving the shelves bare.
“Don’t you think that’s odd?” I asked. “If he has his powers back, wouldn’t he be using these?”
“Some of them are out.” Samuel picked one up from Enright’s desk. It was similar to the nonsense books in my father’s study – purple bound, meaning royal magic. I counted up the boxes: even allowing for every box being full I reckoned a collection one tenth the size of my father’s. We searched the drawers of the desk and then through the boxes, finding nothing. As in the other rooms, I held the iron pyrite close to everything we searched and then scanned the walls with it, hoping for a secret compartment. If Sebastian was right, the veins of the pebble ought to glow if the castle stone is in the same room.

Upstairs there was nothing unusual either. We found a room set up for Reeves, with a guard’s chair outside to protect his ego. Enright’s room had twin beds, one made, one stripped. I never did find out about Enright’s wife. Another guest room had twin beds, and then Arthur junior’s room came last. There were no toys, no posters, no sign of a childhood – just clothes and furniture. I’d had moments of envy when I saw this boy knew truly who his father was, sharing in his work, but there weren’t even any school books – he was utterly friendless. He was at the gathering while I stood in his room, with nobody talking to him.

Samuel checked the attic, and came back down disappointed. While I waited, the noises of the house, the clunks of its central heating, imitated footsteps downstairs.
“What did you expect to find?” I said, a little smugly. “What are you afraid he’s doing?”
“You’ll have heard the saying, power corrupts.” Samuel led the way back downstairs.
“I’ve seen nothing from Arthur Enright but good intentions and positive action.”
“Nor have I, but that doesn’t mean we’ve seen an honest man.”
“There’s nothing here.” I span around the living room, arms wide. “You came looking for something diabolical and there’s nothing here.” I meant to go on and say except for your own paranoia. I almost asked him to move out tonight, but I held on for him to drive me home. I was sobered by the disappointment of finding nothing.

“His car’s always in the driveway.” Samuel said. “A double garage and it’s never used.” He ran through to the kitchen, into the corridor beyond and then pushed open the door to the garage.

Plastic sheets lay on the floor. A clean chainsaw and some wooden blocks lay on top of the sheeting. Samuel checked underneath, but found none of the ritual markings he’d been searching for. It was cold in there; a chest freezer hummed against one wall and the fluorescent light buzzed. Samuel walked the perimeter:-
“The doors have been screwed shut into the ground.”
I checked the iron pyrite, with no response still.
“Look. Come here.” Said Samuel. He’d opened the freezer. I put the stone back in my pocket and joined him. Arthur Enright’s naked body lay in the freezer, the colour stripped from him, dusted with ice, a maroon gash in his chest.
“Is it real?” I asked Samuel. He poked at one of Enright’s eyes with his gloved thumb.
“It’s a real body. Is it really Arthur Enright?”
“It looks like him.” It was otherworldly, but undoubtedly him.
“So does the man Angela’s looking at across town. Only one of them can be the actual man.”
I texted Angela is enright still there? My hand shaking, wanting to run.
“That’s the wound.” I said, stupidly only realising now. “That’s the wound that killed him when he came back from the dead.”
“Then this is the wound that killed him full stop.”
The message came back from Angela Yes. Russians talking now. Enright with Reeves and son.
I told her good. don’t leave alone. get taxi straight home now. “We should go.” I said.
“So this is how he rematerialised.” Samuel bent down to inspect the body. “What do you suppose he is, a twin?”
“We should go.” I felt like throwing up. Samuel was prodding the solid flesh.
“Or maybe he made a copy of himself with the stone. Maybe that’s all he could do with the last gasp of magic, and he was being honest all along.”
“It’s not honest is it.” I pulled Samuel away, to the door. “If he’s murdered someone.”
“I thought you said that Enright stabbed himself.”
I began to turn, to say that wasn’t the point, but then realised in the dark kitchen there was someone waiting for us.

Enright was stood, watching us calmly. I screamed, Samuel drew his sword, pushing me behind him.
“Are you going to call the police?” Asked Enright.
Samuel waited a second, then leapt for the back door, shoulder barging it, knocking the frame to splinters. As I ran after him I saw Enright hadn’t moved except to watch us. I expected to find him waiting by the car, but when I got there Samuel had it running already. Did he leave me behind? I believe he knew I was close behind him. As we drove off he coughed a big ball of blood onto his sleeve.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“Lungs. Not what they used to be. Do we go home?”
“We need to call the police.” We’d broken in, I couldn’t use the mobile.

We found Angela on West Street, failing to win a taxi and stood alone. She thanked us for coming to pick her up and stayed happy for less than a minute.
“But Enright’s in there.” She thumbed to her left. Samuel turned up towards The Red Deer and pulled over. “Did you call the police?”
“Yeah.” I’d chosen a payphone where I was also sure there was no CCTV close by.
“He’ll have moved the body by now. Won’t be difficult for him. Look!” Across the road Enright and his son stepped out of the pub and into their car. “I told you he never left.”
“There must have been three of them.” Samuel said.
“That we know of.” I wondered if he was making an army of himself, but we don’t even know where the copies of him have come from, or when they were made. They could pre-date Tuesday Midnight. I’m still convinced that I did see Enright come back from the dead that night – maybe the body in the freezer was a second attempt, but his powers had weakened. Out of the two surviving Enrights, is either of them the real father of his boy? Does he see more than one at a time? Have the copies rebelled against their creator? We don’t know anything and I’m supposed to wait until the morning, but I can’t sleep. I don’t know enough to tell if what I saw tonight was a dead body, or does it count as something else?