Two pints of some local ale, not Henry’s normal drink of choice, but a drink was a drink and he needed one after everything that had gone on. The place had a cheery atmosphere, alcohol and the buzz of pointless conversations perfusing through the air in a way you only get in old pubs, no shouting louts or burping floozies to be found here.

“So,” Henry said. “What’s next?”

“No chit-chat?” Gabriel said.

“No chit-chat.”

“Alright then. Tomorrow you go and check in with Rosy, she'll set you up with a system to control the amount of magus you produce. Essentially, Inks have more of the stuff than their body can handle. Acts as some sort of radiation and kills you off if you let it accumulate,” Gabriel said casually.

“What the hell? Nice way to break the news softly on that one! I thought I only produced this stuff when I first got the power thingy. Isn’t that why you injected me with the, well, the stuff you injected me with?” Henry said.

“Yeah, the stuff that reduces the thingy,” Gabriel said with a smirk. “But it isn’t just when you first change. You are producing a lot less now than you were yesterday, but it still needs controlling.”

“Shouldn’t we be somewhere sorting this out?”

“I can’t imagine it will flare up for another few days, by which time, you'll have your injections.”

“Okay…” Henry said, “And I take it the government already know all about me?”

“Yep, they know every detail about your life now and, in exchange, will keep your identity a secret in connection with any of this. For your dad, they once had to cause a blackout at the BBC television centre to stop something being broadcast on the news. Good times.”

Every time Henry met Gabriel’s eye, they flashed a brilliant green. His irises becoming emeralds studded with onyx pupils, as leafy ink spread out in a pulse across his body. Like roots of a tree they thinned and spindled the further from his eyes they got, then, as soon as the transformation had come it was gone again, the ink lines receding with the colour from his eyes.

“What does it mean, what I see when I look at your eyes?” Henry said.

“Glad to see it’s coming naturally to you. I am a first order alternate, which means I have one of the five powers. My ability is to manipulate life energy which, I’m told, technically effects the energy held within living cells. All very complicated and I don’t need to know how it works in order to use it.”

“Neat, so I’m like an alternate detector?”

“That is one way of putting it. Guessing you’ll spot quite a few other alternates in here,” Gabriel said.

“I’ll take a look in a minute, but first, I want to know everything about my father and how he was killed. It’s been a day now, you must know what happened?”

There was the sound of glass shattering by the bar, resulting in the familiar sudden silence as people gaped and stared. Gabriel fixed his gaze on the young barmaid who had dropped the tray of bottles, either he thought she was cute or he was just avoiding answering the question.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Henry said.

Gabriel shot him a dirty look and finished his pint.

“I’m going to spend a penny and get some more drinks for us,” Gabriel said, walking away.

Run away, great tactic. Who was Henry kidding? He’d used that technique for years, avoiding social occasions like the plague. His anxiety was worse than loneliness, so he chose to avoid the stresses that filled his life. He kept that a secret, of course, nothing worse than people feeling sorry for you.