Behind them drove a baker’s dozen of armoured personnel carriers, lighter but still formidable, bristling with heavy machine guns crewed by gunners crouched behind hardened plastic shields.
After those came the rear guard, comprised of dozens of lightly armoured jeeps, a few still bearing scorch marks from their tours of duty in Iraq and China.
Last of all in this slow remorseless convoy was a light-weight M77 field howitzer, its barrel waving as it bumped upon the tarmac, pulled by an artillery tractor, steered by a brown-skinned soldier smoking an incense cigar and wearing a baseball cap. Massed ranks of infantry trudged on either side of this caravan of armoured vehicles, all wearing the black and brown disruptive pattern uniforms of the Combined Forces London Army. The newly designed camouflage design for close quarters city warfare.
Crowds of bemused or amused or awestruck East End locals were watching this cavalcade of military might from pavements and balconies and window vantage points. There was no traffic today between Whitechapel Road and Brick Lane, just the slow procession of army vehicles and walking warriors on their way to combat.
All these troops wore Kevlar plates beneath their uniforms: wafer thin but strong enough to deflect a bite from a hell hound or a spear thrown by a Royal Demon. Most wore fist-claws that allowed them to engage in hand-to-hand combat if necessary. All were karate-ka at tenth dan grade or above. Though in truth, hand to hand combat was a rarity and strictly against military SOP. The use of overwhelming medium to long distance force was the prevailing military doctrine these days.
Yet some soldiers still liked to get in there and ruck.
Most of the infantry carried M4 5.56 assault rifles strapped over their shoulders; though some opted for the Minimi, the weapon of choice for the SAS. All these weapons were loaded with armour penetrating silver shells wadded with incense. Each soldier also carried batches of 40mm fragmentation grenades in their flak jackets, designed to splinter into hundreds of explosive thrice-blessed shards on impacting their target. Many wore paired Glock semi-automatic pistols rigged on crossed gunbelts, cowboy style.
Two pairs of human soldiers were hefting SA7 Grail surface to air missile launchers on their shoulders, like stepladders, to be used in the event of a massed aerial demonic attack.
In the middle of the convoy marched a platoon of thirty soldiers who wore the more traditional desert camouflage emblematic of the British Army. These were members of the London Overseas Regiment, or LOR. More commonly known as the ‘Barmy Army’. Their role was to fight in wars in other countries on a Parliament-authorised mercenary contract, supplemented with troops from the other CFLA Regiments on an ad hoc basis.
Brigadier Wilson was the commanding officer of the advancing army. He was being driven by his adjutant in an open jeep. Wilson was a silver-haired taut-stomached foul-mouthed motherfucker of a man who commanded fear even from those soldiers who had been damned and sent to hell prior to joining the LA.
A huddle of pensioners were gathered at the corner of Bentley Street, carrying London flags with a blue river design and a dragon encircled in the middle; offering their support for the forthcoming carnage. One old lady with frizzy grey hair shouted out, in a voice as clear as Bow Bells: ‘Fuck that hell bastard over, boys!’
On hearing this, a young squaddie grinned and gave her a thumbs up. His pals joined in. Within moments, the thumbs-up signal rippled around the ranks as a Mexican wave.
‘That’s right, rip the heart out of that murdering fucking golem!’ the grey-haired lady, buoyed up by her success, yelled.
A young mother also watched, braced with one hand against the handle of a pram inside which her baby slept, with a toddler on reins secured to the wrist of the other arm. The sandy-haired toddler was yanking excitedly on his reins in an effort to get closer, like a dog trying to break its lead to chase squirrels.
‘Glory, glory, London Needs You, glory!’ shouted the young mother, and a squaddie raised his thumb to her.
This new thumbs-up rippled along the ranks, in another Mexican wave.
The convoy was in Newstead Road now, marching past Bethnal Green Police Station. A tall man with big hands stood on the pavement outside the station, and watched them pass.
It was Dougie Randall.
Dougie raised a hand in acknowledgement of his allies and colleagues in the London Army; a squaddie waved back.
The hand gesture rippled along the line; they had it down to a T, these lads.
Dougie was in awe of this army. He knew that the human soldiers of the CFLA and LOR were the crème de la crème. All tested in active service. All with bodies enhanced by spells, to make them tougher, faster and more enduring than any warriors of the past, including the Roman legions and the Mongol hordes. And the dead soldiers in the ranks were even tougher.
Dougie heard a sound and looked up and saw a flock of Apache attack helicopters nimbly darting around the blue sky, rotors chuntering, rows of Hellfire and Sidewinder missiles bristling like darts upon their hulls.
East London had been cordoned off and was a no-go area for non-residents. Martial law had been declared for the first time since 2014. Strict curfews were in operation, and those of a nervous disposition were being advised to stay indoors.
For there had been a sighting of the Killer Golem in Bromley-upon-Bow; and the entire East End was in lockdown.
Though he admired these troops, with a depth of feeling that dwarfed his other emotions, Dougie felt a pang of regret for what was happening here. The Army’s mass mobilisation meant the end of his authority. The end of police control of the streets. And Dougie knew that even if the golem sighting didn’t pan out, these soldiers would rip the demonic and damned districts of the East End apart in their search for the beast. It would be thorough and remorseless. And there were bound to be civilian casualties and fatalities.
Dougie felt impotent. He’d run out of tricks. His informants knew nothing. CCTV was no use. All the searches of the regular haunts of Gogarty and his many aliases had drawn a blank. The Beast of Hampstead, now identified as Jacob’s foster brother Mithrai, had been interrogated; but could not or would not speak. Sheila Whittaker and her foster children were still all missing, except for Thea (now confirmed as dead) and Mithrai.
It was the eighth of August 2024, more than a month since Ronnie Tindale had been murdered.
Dougie accepted that he – the greatest thieftaker in the Met - had been defeated. And even if the Army did find and kill the dybbuk, Dougie would still consider himself to be a failure. He had never felt so demoralised.
His only consolation was the murder squad tasked with finding the killer of Roy Hall had failed just as abysmally. It was now generally believed that Fillide had fled to the Ghetto of the Damned; but numerous searches had failed to locate her there. Shadowcasting had failed. Hell hounds would not enter there. Conventional policing was useless in a citadel ruled by the dead. The Ghetto remained a haven and Fillide remained free.
Good luck to the bitch, was Dougie’s unofficial view.
The tanks rolled past. The soldiers marched. The Apache helicopters chuntered above. The last of the jeeps trundled by. And then came the howitzer, its barrel wobbling cheekily as it tipped too hard over a speed bump.
Dougie walked to the rear of the station, where his car was parked, and drove it back to Limehouse. He re-parked there and went in through the back way, up the stairs, and into the Five Squad MIR.
He stood in the doorway and looked around at the bustling incident room.
‘Okay what have we got, team?’ he asked, quietly.
Catriona didn’t have to check: ‘Three murders last night, two rapes that have been passed to us by Peckham CID, and a ransom demand. Chinese businessman, captured by the Triads. Number Seven Squad were dealing but they’re overstretched and struggling and they’ve asked us to take it over.’
‘What are the murders?’
‘Gang shootings. Open and shut. CID can handle.’
‘Give ’em to me. A
nd the rapes. I know about the ransom demand, that’s a put-up job if ever I saw one. If there’s any Triad involvement I’m a Chinaman. Seven Squad can keep that, the lazy bastards. Let’s get to work.’
Sheila-dybbuk was pleased.
For three weeks Jacob had worked without pause, night and day, clearing the wrecked Assembly House of the old synagogue; then restoring the upper floors, replastering, painting, and installing stained glass windows in the old window frames. The results were impressive.
Jacob had a phenomenal capacity for manual labour. Indeed once or twice Sheila had had to tell him to take it easy because of Jacob’s tendency to over-do things. Like the time he scrubbed a graffiti-marked wall so vigorously he broke through to daylight.
His father had been the same, apparently. Sheila-dybbuk had read the story of the time the Prague golem was sent by his master to catch fish, and had emptied the entire river because he hadn’t been told when to stop.
Once the grunt work was done, Sheila-dybbuk hired an electrician to restore the wiring and install new circuits. Dim electric lights once more illumined the synagogue, creating a chiaroscuro of soft light and long shadows.
Finally a brass ner tamid – the lamp which represents the Holy Light – was restored to pride of place, suspended from a metal spur below the clock. It became the centrepiece of the Assembly Hall, amidst the synagogue’s gleaming white walls and wood-vaulted ceiling. The ner tamid was an antique - possibly sixteenth century – that had been hand-tooled by artisans in the Prague ghetto. It had been an expensive purchase but in Sheila-dybbuk’s view, it was well worth it.
The synagogue was once more a holy shrine. It glowed with light and was infused with ineffable beauty. And Sheila felt good. This felt like a homecoming for her; the sight of her restored synagogue with its shadowed pillars and golden glowing candles gave her a pang of nostalgia. For she – or rather her possessing dybbuk - had been the Rabbi at this place for nearly forty years, early in the twentieth century. And the synagogue occupied a very special place in her/his heart.
A CD played sounds of Jewish cantillation on a concealed sound system: an eerie and beautiful chanting that evoked a time when Yahweh was a power on Earth and the faithful were united in their belief in Him. It was nice music, and the dybbuk liked it a great deal. It was highly atmospheric too. It enhanced the synagogue’s almost tangible spirit of place.
All in all, Shelia-dybbuk considered this to be a highly suitable locale for her imminent Satanic rituals.
‘I’m done,’ said Jacob, stripped to the waist, bathed in moisture that was similar to sweat, and visibly exhausted. ‘Bloody knackered. Next time, buy an off the shelf synagogue.’
‘I wanted this synagogue,’ Sheila-dybbuk reproved him, hiding her amusement.
‘Yada yada yada. May I rest now?’
‘Yes Jacob, you may rest,’ said Sheila-dybbuk. And Jacob crashed to the ground. He didn’t sleep, he just plopped down on to his back and lay on the floor of the synagogue and didn’t move.
Sheila-dybbuk smiled.
The next day.
It was dawn on the Jewish Sabbath. Saturday the tenth of August, 2024.
The dybbuk-in-the-body-of-Sheila stood in the very centre of her holy place. The place of worship that had been so badly defiled by street gangs and rampaging atheists in the aftermath of the Occlusion, and now was resanctified. She was chanting sacred words in a language as old as time.
She was clad in a white druid’s gown rather than a Rabbi’s black robe. She raised up her arms; not to heaven, but to the dimension beyond the material realm. And she called out again in the Old Tongue. An echoing wolf’s-howl Response followed her dragon’s-roar Call.
Sheila-dybbuk was relieved that she was still able to talk between dimensions; it was a knack she feared she had lost.
She scratched a knife over her own arm and saw the blood flow. She dug deeper, gouging her flesh. The blood crawled on to the blade of her knife, controlled by her will, like soldier ants serving their Queen. She used the bloodied blade to draw a pentagram on the wooden floor in the focal point of the floor. And she began to chant again in the Old Tongue.
Jacob and Veda watched her.
The dybbuk had bound Veda to the wall of the synagogue with an imaginary chain. Even though, since she was spell-bound, she could hardly pose much of a danger.
Jacob had recovered from his deep sleep. He was squatting near his sister now, holding her hand in his, his giant body hunched down low. Sheila-dybbuk’s white robed body was lit only by the candles and the soft glow from the brass ner tamid lamp; her arm continued to drip blood on the wooden floors.
‘Calling for help?’ Jacob said to her anxiously.
‘Don’t interrupt,’ Sheila-dybbuk said.
She continued her chanting, syncopating it with the Hebrew cantillation; and felt a deep satisfaction that her plan to save the world was finally being birthed.
‘Jacob,’ Veda whispered.
‘Shh, shh, shh,’ Jacob said.
The chanting had lasted for more than twenty minutes. Jacob wondered if the dybbuk’s power might be weakened in some way by the massive effort this magic spell was clearly costing it. And so he thought about defying his binding spell, and grabbing Veda, and fleeing. But he didn’t.
After twenty-one minutes the rosy glow of the candles darkened and huge shadows leapt upon the walls. The air began to shimmer and scream. Shapes emerged. Shapes torn from nightmare; shapes of distorted creatures slouching in air or slithering through space, creatures of horror evoking horrors still to come.
Jacob knew that Sheila-dybbuk was conjuring up demons. And he began to fear that what he had suffered so far was not, as he had assumed, the worst of terrors. But merely the precursor to a greater terror still.
As time passed, the horrific shimmers became more discernible to the eye. And the smells associated with the shimmers became even more grossly rank. Unlikely spirits from Hell slipped through dimensions and appeared as bubbling, noxious air. Then as near-solid presences. Until the Hall of the synagogue was filled with a brewing fog of evil spirits on the cusp of being transmuted into corporeal form.
Jacob guessed the dybbuk was using the latent power of this holy site to channel its already formidable energies. It wasn’t a Hell Breach, as Jacob understood the term; it was a created leaky sieve between dimensions.
Veda meanwhile was still secured to the far wall of the synagogue by the imaginary chain, fastened to the real manacles around her wrists and ankles. As Sheila entered a state of ecstatic semi-coma, coronaed by spirit-shadows howling in high pitched tones, Veda began to wrestle with her chains. Tugging and weeping, desperately trying to yank herself free by the power of her slim arms, and the sheer force of her will.
Jacob marvelled at his sister’s strength of will in attempting this escape bid. He remembered that Alazu had been able to defy the dybbuk’s spell-binding; which proved the dybbuk was fallible, and that his powers were limited.
Jacob reached deep in himself and said silently, I defy thee I defy thee I defy thee.
And he tried to run over to Veda and help her escape; but he couldn’t. Jacob was still paralysed by the dybbuk’s spell. Obliged to watch helplessly as his kid sister fought for her freedom.
‘Veda!’
‘Shh,’ she told him sternly.
He shushed.
Veda continued to struggle. Then she gave a little bleat of delight. Jacob looked at her with surprise, and dawning joy.
She was smiling. She was actually smiling, on all five of her faces! Somehow she’d managed to squeeze one of her ten hands out of its manacle. She waved at Jacob with her freed hand, showing off her bleeding wrist with glee.
She had some power, did that little one!
Veda still had manacles on all her other hands, however; and both her feet were trapped too. But even so, Jacob wondered if there really was a chance she could break free.
Then Sheila-dybbuk’s eyes opened abruptly, and she looked at Ved
a, and instantly saw that one of her hands was unmanacled.
Sheila-dybbuk smiled, in her familiar reassuring way.
‘Oh very nice, my dear,’ Sheila-dybbuk said. ‘You are a clever little girl, aren’t you?’
Then Sheila-dybbuk spoke a strange word and a new manacle appeared on the child’s wrist. Veda howled with rage. Sheila-dybbuk yanked violently upon the imaginary chain. Veda was jerked off her feet, and she screamed. And the shoulder of her manacled arm stuck out oddly, clearly dislocated, as she lay sprawled upon the floor.
Veda began to cry.
Sheila-dybbuk yanked again, hard, and Veda went rolling over, like a hedgehog that has been kicked down a hill. She scrambled up on to her hands and knees and glared at Sheila, her face damp, spit and vomit dripping from all five of her mouths.
Sheila-dybbuk yanked again, tugging on air as if it were a metal chain; Veda was spun over once again. Another yank, then a sustained series of vicious tugs this time; and Veda was dragged across the floor at a terrible pace, bloodying her face and limbs on the hard stone.
After this, Sheila-dybbuk began pulling on different chains, like a puppetmaster giving a master-class in the techniques of puppet epilepsy. Sometimes Veda was yanked by the arm this way. Then by one foot that way. Then by another arm in another direction.
For nearly ten minutes, Veda was sent bouncing and flailing around on the hard wooden floor in a horrible parody of St Vitus’s dance.
Finally, Sheila-dybbuk stopped. Two of Veda’s arms were clearly broken and dislocated, and Veda had hit the wall so often that blood was pouring down three of her foreheads.
Sheila-dybbuk spun the non-existent chains in the air in a final flourish. Veda was yanked up into the air; then crashed back on to the stone floor again. The imaginary chain was around the child’s throat, tilting her head up painfully. Sheila-dybbuk mimed a pulling movement, and Veda began to choke.
Hell on Earth Page 78