Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (read any book .TXT) 📗

“Trust me,” says Magpie, his expression sobering. “It will work.”

Lingering a few moments more, Adam sifts through his pockets until he finds a few errant notes. They are mostly dollars, but he leaves them anyway – an apology for the mess he has made.

On his way back to the car, Magpie stops beside a fountain. The fountain itself is still, but there’s a body of water beneath it, made shimmering by the silver and copper coins heaped at the base. A lot of people made wishes here, once, Adam thinks. Removing his coat and shoes, Magpie steps over the rim and wades through the water. Then, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, he fishes out handfuls of coins and heaps them on the fountain’s rim. When he deems there are enough, he emerges, and dries himself off using the edge of his coat.

“For the parking meter,” he explains, with a wink.

* * *

It is a warm night. One of the last warm nights of autumn, Adam thinks.

Magpie has parked up at an abandoned petrol station, and has balanced the rusted nozzle of a derelict pump in the fuel tank of his mossy car, his delight at the act echoing from the empty hills. Now, he is busy changing, pulling on a black turtleneck and black overcoat, with the headlights of the car gleaming in his silver crowns. Adam wanders through the petrol station to pass the time, enjoying the way that grasses and even a few small trees have sprouted up from the cracks in the concrete. The sky is cloudless overhead, but while the moon is a soft pale blur, there are barely any stars visible. Adam stands in the ruins of the car wash and wonders at the glow on the near horizon; it looks as if a bright city lies just over the hills.

“Take this,” says Magpie, handing over a wrecking bar.

Adam considers the twisted piece of metal. It seems small in his hand.

They set off, wading across the dry grasses gripping the hills. The trees they pass beneath cast long shadows that deepen the closer they draw to that glowing horizon, and what few stars there were above are gradually snuffed. When at last they mount the final hill, the intensity of light from the view beyond provokes an artificial twilight; the moon has become a yellow sun, and the sky is a bruised purple and blue. A kingdom of glowing glass lays before them, hundreds of greenhouses bright against the night. And up on the rise stands the greenhouse vault, spired and palatial and almost too dazzling to look at.

Without pause, Magpie descends the rocky slope and becomes a silhouette between the greenhouses. Adam follows, feeling uneasy. There should have been a fence, or a wall, or some kind of perimeter, he thinks, but he has yet to see any security at all. There is nobody visible patrolling the estate or the greenhouses. When he reaches the valley floor, he hunches down, trying to make himself smaller. The greenhouses give him so many faint shadows that they shift and multiply beneath him, and the heat emanating from the glass is so intense that he finds himself unfastening his coat against it. Magpie splashes through an oily sump pool, and Adam tenses, waiting for the noise to alert someone to their presence.

There is no response.

Parked outside the mansion are a handful of sleek, expensive-looking cars, gathered in the shadow of the yacht. The home’s stately windows are aglow, and shadows shift beyond them. “Looks like they’re having a party,” says Magpie, as he crunches across gravel. He leaves deep footprints in the flower beds as he tramples across the garden and around the edge of the vault. Ahead, the bulky yellow shapes of construction vehicles sit idle in the greenhouse’s glare, light reflecting from stacks of reinforced panes yet to be installed.

The construction site is still. Materials lie around on pallets, trenches yawn, and the great yellow trucks and diggers cast complex shadows across the torn ground. Yet there’s something about it all that increases Adam’s uneasiness. It feels like he’s back in Hollywood, watching a scene being filmed. The site feels like a film set – as if somebody has posed everything to make it seem like it really is a construction site, and not a collection of props.

Magpie doesn’t seem to notice. He continues without pause.

“There.” At the edge of the greenhouse, there is a long shard of glass that looks as if it might be loosened with enough pressure. Magpie flicks it with a finger and it rings like a wine glass being struck. “See if you can get that open.”

Kneeling down, Adam applies the wrecking bar. The glass slides aside.

“This is too easy,” he says.

“Do you think you can get through that gap?”

Adam turns, lowers the wrecking bar. “This is a trap.”

“Of course it is. I’m not stupid, Adam.”

“Then why are we here?”

Magpie’s smile fades. “They’re going to underestimate you,” he says, and the light of the greenhouse glints in his dark eyes. “They don’t know you like I know you.”

“You have a plan, then?”

“I have you.”

Adam weighs the wrecking bar again. It seems so small. But then he thinks about the rose again: waiting, just inside. Crawling through the gap, he enters the greenhouse. The heat hits him so abruptly that he takes a few moments to breathe, wiping away the sudden sweat on his brow and getting his bearings. He has emerged into a tangle of trees with tremendous palm leaves that drip moisture across him – this must be a tropical wing of the greenhouse.

Standing up beside him, Magpie takes a deep breath and grins his dangerous grin. “Exactly how I pictured it,” he says. “Come on, then. Take me to the rose.”

Pushing aside fan-like leaves, they emerge into a humid clearing, humming with insects. There are no paths, so Adam navigates from grove to grove, getting his bearings