by John Shirley
“Here, give it a rest. I’ve drunk enough alcohol to sterilize ten thousand liver transplants, mate,” Constantine said, trying hard not to slur his words. “And that’s on one good night.”
“And good night is what I bid you, sir. If the gods permit it, we will have further intercourse anon.”
“What’s that you say? Intercourse with a nun? I’m in, mate! Bring ’er on! Kinky bitches, nuns!”
Fallesco rolled his eyes, and made his leave. Constantine thought: Maybe he’s right, maybe I’ve already taken a bit too much. Talking rather brassy . . . Stuff’s strong, kind of like absinthe but far more so . . . Better watch meself. Better . . . get another.
He signaled the woman with the darting forked tongue, and she brought him another drink. He was vaguely aware that some of the courtiers were dancing, the King was casually copulating with a flaxen-haired pasty-faced girl—shapely, though she had a fake nose—as the queen smiled indulgently; the King appearing to have a conversation with Spurlick while he shagged the girl; and other courtiers were drifting off into the shadows behind the columns, where a flagrant pansexual cruising was going on. Constantine was more interested in his drink. But he did notice the queen was making eye contact with one of the black drummers. Shag me and I’ll get you out of those chains and into a luxury cell, her look seemed to say.
He took another long swallow of “the Emerald” and a pleasant wave of numbness carried a surge of dark purple neon hieroglyphics to Constantine so that he seemed to see the cryptic, mutedly fluttering strings of glowing symbols, tracking by like glimmering ticker tape, everywhere he looked; twining around the feasters’ faces, spiraling up the columns supporting the roof of the throne room, emanating from the big cluster of glowing crystals, big as a bonfire, in the middle of the floor.
This shit was stronger than he had supposed.
He felt himself carried back in memory, so that the present party was mingled with parties of the past: a night drunk and stoned at a sex club after a Mucous Membrane concert; an S&M club in California not so very long ago; two bimbos who’d come home with him in the punk rock era, with him and Sid Vicious but Sid had nodded out; a drunken party in Ireland, with the cops raiding it for the noise and ending up drinking with the rest of them, the drunk cops pinning a badge on him; a couple of girls in the bushes at a rock festival (was that one with the long straight brown hair a girl? He wasn’t sure, he’d been so fucked up); a Wiccan orgy within sight of Stonehenge; several drunk meter maids in the back room of a specialized pub in Chelsea; an Irish girl in Dublin, who’d insisted on . . .
Irish girls. Kit. He could see Kit now, her face taking ghostly shape in the glow from the crystal, looking at him pityingly.
“Sod off,” he muttered. “I don’t need your condescension, Kit. Bloody world’s probably coming to an end in a few days and you with it, so none of your judgmental bollocks mean anything . . .”
The drummers thumped; pipers threaded suggestive melodies through the drumbeats, the music seeming to crystallize into dancing figures in the smoke gathering overhead.
How’d the smoke get so thick? There were hookahs going around, the curious herbal smoke rising to coalesce, to shrug and swirl into the bodies of Hindu gods, Norse Valkyries, the face of the Green Man trying to tell him something . . .
“Would you like some?” asked a lady sitting beside him, a small hookah in her hands. She was a plump courtier, with all her features in more or less the right place, in contrast to some of the other inbred toffs stumbling about the room, her nose quite intact, long black hair falling in ringlets over her shoulders, making him think of Tchalai. He wished he had Tchalai’s counsel. But how she’d chide him now . . .
He found he had taken the hookah’s mouthpiece, was drawing in a great hit of the tarry, unfamiliar smoke. “What the devil is it?” he asked, the words coughing out with the smoke.
“Oh, we feed the bats certain mushrooms and certain herbs. We harvest and smoke their droppings . . .”
“What? I’m smoking bat shite?” He cackled, and somehow the idea was not unappealing. “Why not? Going ‘bat shit’ anyway.” He took another hit, and another drink, and time melted away . . . until it ceased to exist entirely.
12
WHAT SWEETER DRINK THAN THE BLOOD OF THE FAIRY?
“What’s the King want to talk to me about?” Bosky asked nervously.
“That is no concern of yours; your only concern is to obey and pray the King finds you a worthy servant.”
The man looking dourly down on Bosky—he had introduced himself as “Lord Blung, the King’s seneschal”—was a tall, stooped man with a gray mustache that seemed to stream from his nostrils to extend several inches from the edge of his face, as if rockets had just flown up his nose; he wore a black robe sewn with silver images of the King and the Phosphor Palace and he carried a walking stick made from what appeared to be a woman’s arm that had been taxidermically preserved; its lower end was rounded off with ivory, capping the bone-end that stuck out; its upper end was her fingers, held open so that when he walked he could insert his fingers between hers, as if holding her hand. Magic must have been involved in its making as well as taxidermy, for the preserved fingers adjusted to his grip as he moved about, and sometimes one of the woman’s preserved fingers caressed his.
“How come I haven’t seen you before if you’re such a big nob hereabouts?” Bosky asked.
“I’m not sure what you mean by a nob, but you haven’t seen me before, boy, because I’ve been away on a mission for His Majesty.”
The drums thumped, the pipes skirled, and the man in the black robe tugged at one of his mustache tips and looked at the boy with unconcealed distaste. They were standing behind the screen set up in front of the thrones; the images on the screen, backlit by the glow of the big luminous, warming crystal in the center of the throne room, seemed to move: A painted figure intended to represent King Culley seemed to actually fly along in an aerial chariot borne by three harnessed harpies, sending lightning bolts down at running trolls, men, scuttling goat-men, enemies scurrying away below him.
“I was just looking for me mate,” Bosky said. “For Geoff. I turned my back and he wandered off with someone.”
“Your friend will be fine. He is the magician’s apprentice; the King has extended his protection to him. You must come with me to see His Majesty now.”
“But I don’t want to, you know, interfere with his party, like. I mean, he’s having a bit of a blowout, and uh . . .” Bosky gulped, knowing none of this was going to convince Blung.
“The King has had his breakfast and his morning copulation, and has had enough of the feast, which will continue without him, in his honor—and in the queen’s honor, of course.” Something about the way he added this last remark about the queen sounded as if he were indulging in a private irony. “Come this way.”
Bosky wanted to run. But the Captain of the guards was walking up, frowning, as if wondering what the delay was, hand on the hilt of his short sword. The look in the Captain’s eye convinced Bosky that running was not a good idea just now. Bosky had personally killed a number of the King’s demonic pets with his rifle, and he knew himself to be treading thin ice in the Phosphor Palace.
“Right, lead the way, Lord Bung,” said Bosky, trying to sound like he was merely having an exam at the dentist and if he didn’t like the dentist he might still cancel the appointment.
“It’s Blung! Just—come along.” Lord Blung led the way to the door behind the throne room that opened onto the corridor down which Lord Smithson took his final journey as a living man. The Captain of the guards came along, close behind Bosky, who could feel the pallid warrior’s gaze on the back of his neck.
The door was locked; Lord Blung had expected as much, and now he pounded on it with the lower end of his walking stick three times, one time, and then, after a pause, once more.
“I see you’re staring at my walking stick,” Blung said, with grim amusement. “It is my late wife
’s hand and arm. This way I can continue to hold her hand. I am a terribly sentimental man, in my way.” His voice showed all the sentiment of a coroner remarking on the caliber of a bullet as he dug it from a wound.
There came a ponderous clicking and the door swung open, unlocked from within, and they entered the corridor, where two more guards awaited. Bosky turned to glance back at the still-open door, thinking he ought to at least try to escape. He might dodge the Captain’s sword and run through the door before it shut, and then—
The door clanged shut, closed by no one visible. It went smugly clickity-clack as it locked. Bosky sighed in resignation.
They continued till they came to the library corridor where the King was waiting in one of the easy chairs. Beside him was a small table on which was a series of cutting tools on a black felt cloth; the tools were slim, and finely wrought of steel and diamond. They glinted with sharpness. On another, lower table was a crystal goblet, empty, and a crystalline beaker, also empty. Beside these vessels were two small vials of powder, one blue and one red.
Across from the King was another chair, of what looked to be petrified wood. On the arms of the chair were leather straps.
Now you’re for it, Bosky thought, his heart sinking, looking desperately around. Only thing to do is try to grab a sword, fight your way out of here someway. Better to get killed fighting than be tortured to death.
The King smiled and raised a hand to forestall him. “I perceive you’re about to bolt, or worse. It would do no good and isn’t necessary; there’s no need for you to be hurt. Ah, well . . . not much. You were staring at the restraint chair and it would make an alert, imaginative person understandably nervous. But there’s no need for anxiety. Simply give up a brimming goblet of your blood voluntarily and we will forget all about restraints.”
“A . . . goblet? You mean, like, for drinking from?”
The King and his seneschal shared a knowing chuckle.
“Boy,” Blung said, “you have misunderstood his Majesty’s nature . . . and his purpose.”
“I am not a vampire,” said the King, waving a hand indulgently. “Occasionally we get them down here. They like the ‘sunless’ part of the Sunless Realm, but I find them out, quickly enough, and dispatch them. No one is to feed off my people but . . . those I appoint. No. It is in the nature of a scientific experiment. Now.” He selected a slender cutting instrument, like a more elegant version of a surgeon’s scalpel, and took the goblet in his other hand. “If you will be so good . . .”
Bosky swallowed. The Captain watched him with narrowed eyes, hand on his sword.
Bosky had no choice.
He drew back his sleeve and offered up his arm.
“Turn your arm over, boy,” the King said, testing the edge of his scalpel.
Bosky did so, and winced when the King made a small slit in a vein on the back of his hand.
“Turn your hand again. Good . . .” The King filled the goblet with Bosky’s blood. It was just enough that Bosky could feel its absence. The King took the red vial and sprinkled some of its contents on the wound; it instantly ceased bleeding. Then he took the vial of blue powder and sprinkled a little into the cup of blood. A sparkling effervescence resulted; blue bubbles seethed in the crimson liquid. The bubbles gave off the smell of blood—or more precisely, essence of blood. Bosky’s nostrils twitched and his stomach clenched rebelliously.
The King raised the goblet to his lips and sniffed at it. “Yes. It’s genuine. Fairy blood! Diluted, but it is there. Ah. It is tempting. What sweeter drink than the blood of the fairy?” He grinned at Bosky. “But I would not waste it so.” He poured it into the beaker, then stood, taking the beaker in his hand. “I shall experiment . . .” He turned to Blung and explained: “I will apply the liquid to my skin, just before my daily treatment under the projector, and, if I am right, the intrinsic fairy properties will improve the rejuvenation process when I bathe in the purple ray.”
“I see! It is just possible!” Blung allowed.
“You have been wondering why I had you bring the boy yourself, Blung,” the King said. “Perhaps now you understand.”
Blung bowed. “I never doubted Your Majesty’s wisdom.”
The King turned to Bosky. “You see, Blung here has had experience with fairies. We specialize in capturing the unnatural creatures, the denizens of the Hidden World, in the Sunless Realm. He . . . performed some experiments on one of the treacherous rascals and found that the experiment led to a doubling of his own lifespan. Unfortunately it cost the fairy his life. Pity; it might have been of further use.”
Feeling queasy, Bosky stared at the blood as the seneschal bandaged his arm. “So . . .”
“So yes, we shall require a ‘donation’ from you at regular intervals,” the King said. Looking at Bosky’s body critically, he added, “We might want to increase your blood pressure, give you a special diet . . .”
“Has he the mark, Your Majesty?” Blung inquired.
“Scofield says he has, there, upon that hip. Boy, show him the mark.”
Bosky was feeling more and more like a beast poked and prodded after being fattened for someone else’s feast, but he exposed the mark, and Blung made an ahhh of appreciation.
“You see, Your Majesty, how the upper and lower point of the star are the longer? This signifies—”
“Yes, yes, I know: air and water. The horizontal points are earth and fire. The four fundamental elements. So he has a greater connection to the spirits of air and water. Does it bear upon my methodology?”
“It does, perhaps, Your Majesty . . .” He spoke the rest in Latin and they conversed for a while in that language.
Bosky, after a time, took it on himself to ask, “Your, uh, Your Majesty? Just a question about all this . . .”
“Hm? Eh? Do you address me, child?”
“Um, yeah. Look here, you’re the King and I’ve got no say, but don’t you think it’s kind of wicked and . . . and evil to be harvesting blood from people, for something like that? I mean, kinda like weakening their health to increase yours?”
“Evil?” The King seemed to think the question droll. “You don’t mean to say you believe in good and evil? But of course you are young; compared to me, even Blung here is young. Do you know how old I am? Coming onto five centuries. In the extremely unlikely eventuality you live to even half my age, you shall inexorably surrender up all notions of supposed right and wrong, good and evil, child. Utter nonsense, all that. All that remains, once those illusions are gone, are satisfaction, survival, and the lack of those things. You either get what you require, or you do not. That’s all there is, boy. Take your cue from the voice of age, for with age comes wisdom, the wisdom of harsh truths.”
“Age don’t always bring wisdom,” Bosky said, thinking he’d be wiser, himself, to keep his mouth shut. “My granddad said some lose their . . . what did he call it . . . their ‘moral compass’ when they get older. He said they can forget things they used to know. So I’ve got to wonder, how much could you forget, over five hundred years? That’s a long time; you could forget a lot.”
The King opened his mouth to make a glib reply; then he blinked and something flickered in his eyes, something that Lord Blung and the Captain of the guards were astonished to see. It was doubt.
“I . . . rubbish!” He turned angrily away. “Blung, take this boy out of here, put him in a guarded apartment, in reasonable comfort but without freedom to move about till I tell you otherwise, and see he’s fed a good deal, a very great deal, of whatever food builds up the blood! I shall need as much blood from him as I can get and still keep him alive!”
“Very good, Your Majesty, My Lord and King.”
The Captain close on his heels, Bosky followed the seneschal out of the corridors. He was relieved when the door opened to let them into the throne room, but he seemed to hear the King saying over and over again:
I shall need as much blood from him as I can get and still keep him alive.
~
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br /> Constantine opened his eyes to find himself sprawled atop a naked woman, a rather plump one, who was snoring on a cot in a bleak, chilly cell carved of naked stone, her breath smelling of herb smoke and mead.
He climbed off her, got to his feet, tried blearily to take a step, and fell flat on his face. “Bloody Hell!” He realized he had his pants down around his ankles, and they’d tripped him. He was entirely dressed except for his pants and underwear being down. He turned over, pulled his pants up, and stood—and realized, as he closed his trousers, struggling to keep his feet, that he was still quite stoned and drunk.
And what was that nasty taste in his mouth? Then he was struck by a stomach-churning suspicion:
Bat shite.
The woman, the plump one with the hookah and the curly black hair, continued snoring, her mouth wide, wide open, the sound echoing about the bare chamber. An undernourished bluish light, and a very little warmth, came from a strip of luminous crystal flush with the floor.
Constantine glanced at his erstwhile sex partner and felt no desire to wake her. He thought for a moment the mead was making him see double, but no, in fact she did have a third breast growing just under her rib cage on her left side, a legacy of the genetic peculiarities of the palace’s denizens. He remembered encountering the third bosom before he’d lost consciousness; he’d liked it then. But now, asymmetrically out of place, blue-veined and drooping in its loneliness, it looked like an excrescence, and he felt only revulsion.
He took a deep breath, centering himself as much as he might, got some semblance of balance back, and headed for the door. There was no actual door, just a doorway. He walked through and found he was in a long, straight stone corridor, with the crystal strip running to right and left. On both sides were other little chambers, like the one he’d come from, all with doorless doors, and, he discovered, as he set off to the right, people either sleeping or desultorily shagging in them.