by John Luxton
He put it on the kitchen table and it was only whilst stowing away the groceries that he recalled he had not worn this overcoat since the day, a week ago now, when he had gone hunting for Lorna. He abandoned the baked beans and soup cans and went into the living to switch on his laptop. But when he plugged in the stick and clicked on the files, all he got was a screen full of program code. He turned off the machine and went back to the kitchen chores.
Chapter 8
BLOOD AND ECTOPLASM
Eddie Brocade knelt down and sniffed the top of Sergei’s head. The dead Russian smelt terrible; an overpowering stink of some low concoction, and worse overlaid with the fainter odor of another sweeter fragrance. To Eddie this was a sin beyond the one of merely wearing cheap and nasty cologne – it was commingled with another perfume indicating a series of grossly inharmonious perfume choices. Sickened he stood up and stepped back whilst the two leather-jacketed foot soldiers rolled up the carpet with Sergei within and took the whole bloody mess away.
As a young man Eddie had wanted to be a perfumier, but life and the inability to speak French fluently had pushed him down another road. He had however once worked at a men’s fragrance concession in a London department store, it had not lasted. Back then he was called Edward Spratt and had eventually changed his surname by deed-poll to Brocade in the belief that to be named after a pilchard could be nothing but a hindrance to a person wishing to be taken seriously in the fragrance industry, or any other.
He noticed that one of the ice thimbles that contained the absinthe shots that they had been drinking had not been accurately thrown into the ice bucket – it had melted into a fluorescent green puddle underneath the table. A mop and bucket had been used to sluice the tiled area on which the carpet had lain; he took it and used it to soak up the spillage, then got the elevator down to the basement to supervise the disposal of Sergei.
Halfway through the descent he became bored with the idea and brought the lift to a halt, before stepping out. The security guard took a step back as Eddie passed by; everybody knew him on this level because this was the Intelligence Operation of the Blake Organisation, his personal fiefdom where he had built up over many years the deep and distant tentacles of influence and control that the oranisation required. This area was the brain of the ‘vampire squid’, as the employees ironically referred to their workplace. He was here to see his latest protégé, the head of ‘special projects’, Agim Volte. Eddie stuck his head in an office door. Agim was speaking into his computer and so his visitor sat down across from him and waited.
“No, don’t copy me into anything – I want you to go and see the guy and tell him face to face. Get in his shit and explain how it works around here, and then come and tell me how you got on. Make the sale but leave no trail,” Agim said into the microphone of the headset he wore, which he then took off and placed on the desk before standing up and working his head side to side, like a boxer.
“Mister Brocade.”
He held out his hand.
“It’s Eddie,” said Eddie taking the proffered hand and then indicating that his protégé should sit back down.
“It’s your old girlfriend, the Z girl.”
“She was never my girlfriend, I just brought her over.”
Eddie waved his hand in a ‘whatever’ gesture.
“Well it’s not so much her, we can’t even find her, in fact. It’s her loser father, the policeman, he is sniffing around – anyway sort-it-the-fuck-out for me.”
He got up and stalked out; he had confidence in Agim despite knowing very little about him. He had, however, always impressed Eddie with his choice of aftershave.
That evening Agim left the Vertical Abyss at eight-thirty. The glass and titanium priapism, so named, was constructed in a spot and in a manner as to allow a straddling of alpha and beta, heaven and hell to some. How this was accomplished is a deep matter, suffice to say a conjuration had been performed and also it’s obverse. This had achieved a fracturing of the electromagnetic sheath that protects, corrects and cradles the light and dark channels through which all existence flows.
This building and its artificial meridian formed the centerpiece of the Blake Oranisation’s achievements. The architects had provided their Tower of Babel with points of entrance and exit for the many thousand of workers to use, but also hidden points of departure for those who worked in the shadows to expedite acts of gory espionage, and more. Depending on which door you took – it was either a step into the light or a grotesquely rendered facsimile where entropy ruled; the latter was the world that Agim chose, he had been here many times before.
Traffic was sparse in beta world; he crossed the River at Blackfriars Bridge and then followed the southern bank of the Thames all the way to Mortlake; it took a little over an hour. The reason for the light traffic was because in beta world fuel was rationed. Also checkpoints, that were set up at various locations in order to prevent flashpoints of dissent igniting with the associated looting and settling of gang vendettas, discouraged all but the most dedicated motorists from taking to the streets.
Agim knew that Eddie Brocade’s visit was a bad sign. It meant that a glitch of some kind had registered at the highest level of the Blake Organisation; that Lorna and her father were identified as an irritant blip on someone’s radar.
Agim was, in fact, desperate to see Lorna. He had kept away these last eighteen months, as he had burrowed deeper and risen higher within the oranisation, a sleeper in the matrix,
scheming to destroy the very behemoth he rode. And now, having ascended to such a lofty echelon, here he was being dispatched to report on and neutralize himself, and the resistance cell that he had founded - Ah, the irony, he though, turning into Powder Keg Alley and killing the engine.
He sat in the van for a while listening to the engine ticking as it cooled down. He was, in an effort to remain anonymous, using an old tradesman’s vehicle for tonight’s sojourn; Pimlico Plumbers it said on the side in faded blue lettering. No one questions an honest workman going about his business – even if half of London was burning and the other half in semi-lockdown. After five minutes he walked briskly down the ancient pathway to the Thames; there were no joggers, cyclists or dog-walkers on the towpath as he stood and stared sightlessly across the river.
He was not foolish enough to think that he could approach Lorna directly, but he hoped that by just coming to this once familiar place, she would intuit his presence and find him within the Loa. He put his message into a capsule, sealed it and cast it into a tributary of the mystical stream of trans-dimensional energy that was the Loa.
Lorna, it is time, the final phase is imminent and we must position ourselves accordingly for the storm that is to come. Within the Loa, find me within the Loa.
As Agim retraced his steps he saw a figure leaning against the side of the van. Alerted to a potential danger his senses sharpened, he consciously relaxed his taut body and prepared to play the part of a slightly drunk plumber heading home after an after-work bevy with his mates. He was, however, fully prepared to strike low and hard if necessary. As he got closer the figure pushed away from the van and turned to face him.
“You can’t park here, mate. You’ll have to pay the lonesome.”
“Wassat?” answered Agim genuinely flummoxed.
“The fine, the lonesome pine, for your illegal vehicle here.”
Agim saw something move in the shadows by the churchyard wall; that did it. With his thumbnail his slid a micro switch on the key fob in his pocket. The van suddenly sprang to life, lights ablaze and klaxon sounding a metallic edged voice bellowed – step away from the vehicle and place your hands behind your head, step away – repeatedly. Meanwhile Agim hauled his department issued stun gun from his shoulder holster shouting:
“On your knees, gentlemen.”
He caught a glimpse of the lead hoodie’s neck tattoo as the non-compliant youth spun around and then legged it down the alley, his ‘assistant’ close behind. Agim switched off t
he racket and climbed into the cab, cursing under his breath: cover blown – let’s go home.
* * *
A mile down river Lorna was not picking up Agim’s message; she was fighting for her life. She had found a unique way to pay her way since she had fetched up in beta world: cage fighting. The sport of mixed martial arts was the single biggest sporting attraction – televised and avidly followed by the masses, with attendance of live events a popular pastime and women’s fights having equal billing.
They were still testing one another out; early in round-one her opponent – Chloe ‘Cold Fury’ Andretti – had attempted a take down but Lorna had used her own bodyweight to slam Chloe against the cage and then twisted free, so for now they traded kicks and punches – neither girl landing anything of particular consequence. Hardly much of a show for the crowd in the Babadrome this evening, but Lorna knew that Chloe was rated as being fast, strong and mean and that the fireworks would not be long in coming. Music - massive slabs of staccato synth and distorted guitar designed to urge the crowd into frenzy and the fighters into attempting something audacious – began to build, indicating that the end of the round was approaching and with it the commercial break where the sponsors aimed to recoup their costs. Both girls ended the round on their feet – breathless but unbloodied; they glared at one another theatrically and returned to their respective corners.
Chapter 9
BAPHOMET’S BUM
“Cornflour,” the detective said. “That’s the analysis, but then there’s this.”
He held up his phone and I saw the intricate feathering around the repeated criss-cross symbol, delineating the confluence of intersecting time-lines, the twin orgasm of collapsing vortices. I had seen similar designs before; they depicted, what is to some, a terrifying construct: a divine and profane symmetry.
“Something or nothing?” he asked.
“Very much something. Used to summon spirits from the Loa – it is a ceremonial design called a Vever. Used in Haitian voodoo – but also very similar to the sigils used to open and close the Tunnels of Set – that European occultists have been compiling and using for centuries,” I said, hoping that I was not diluting the detective’s attention.
He had tracked me down at the Institute; not too hard to do as I was on the website and my name plastered all over various research papers. It was my lunch hour and we were back on our bench, only this time I had a flask of pumpkin soup made by my Polish landlady. I had offered to share it with my lunch guest, but he declined. Nobody was flying kites today, only the odd dedicated jogger passed by, the cold wind and prospect of rain keeping most sensible folk indoors.
In fact Detective Z’s timing was impeccable; he called me just when it had occurred to me that he could help me with a looming and seemingly intractable problem: The well-meaning board of trustees of St Mary’s Church of the ancient parish of Mortlake had finally scraped together enough cash to renovate the church’s historic tower. I had arrived there the previous week to find half a dozen bone-headed scaffolders beginning to construct their steel matrix around the home of my ‘secret place’. This was a disaster – these tattooed monkeys would be climbing all over the place for at least three months and I could see no way of keeping them from happening upon the lost library and me. I could see the headlines in the local paper all too clearly – Lost Library of John Dee Found. My blood ran cold. The jig, as they say, would be well and truly up.
Before I could outline my ‘problem’ to Detective Z he asked me another question.
“The girls, there are four of them now.”
He rubbed the stubble on his jaw, looking troubled by the idea. Maybe he was thinking of Lorna, maybe not.
“What happened in Waterloo, did you go?” I asked. I find direct questions are always best. He was a policeman and so understood this to be so.
He was shaking his head by now.
“I didn’t find her – but then I was late. Unforgivable really and I have been torturing myself ever since. Found this afterwards though, in my coat pocket.”
He held up a yellow memory stick.
“Oh, what’s on it?”
“Gibberish – I thought maybe you might want to take a look.”
I was much too distracted by my problem to give my attention to anything else. Tomorrow was Saturday and I planned to return to Mortlake to check on the progress of the workmen. I had some distant and desperate hope that Detective Z could somehow use his police powers to halt the renovation, make it all go away so that I could just get on with my research.
There was a gust of wind and a flurry of hail. The soup would have to wait.
“Are you free tomorrow?” I asked whilst standing up and turning up my coat collar to prevent the sharp particles of ice from attacking me; I had foolishly come out without a scarf. “I need to show you something in Mortlake.”
We arranged to meet at the same pub where I had first met Alan.
“It’s at the end of Tinder Box Alley,” I called out after the departing detective.
He had a cozy police vehicle to retreat to, parked nearby on double yellows with apparent impunity. I by contrast had a twenty-minute walk back to the Institute. It was only when I got back and was making a kerfuffle out of hanging my coat up by the radiator, in order to dry it off, that I found that I had inexplicably acquired the Detective’s memory stick, having held it unawares in my clenched right hand.
When I took a look, I too found the various folders to be full of incomprehensible data. After finally warming up and chowing down, courtesy of the pumpkin soup, I went down to the basement to see Lloyd – my tame IT guy.
“Yeah, I’ll take a look,” he said without taking his eyes away from the oversize monitor, it was the only source of illumination in the room.
“Where are all your staff?” I asked.
“Working off-site and Toby is at a developer’s conference,” he looked at me over his monitor. “I’ll be presenting there tomorrow.”
It was impossible to tell if he was thrilled or miffed by the prospect. Lloyd was a big guy, sporting a chinstrap beard and a ponytail, who liked to speculate about the imminent ‘data Armageddon’ after a couple of pints of ale. He was actually good company and probably the brightest person in the whole Institute.
It was three and a half hours later and I was packing up for the day when he called me.
“Come and take a look – you really need to see this,” was all he said.
As I approached the basement office that was known as the ‘IT Build Room’, where Lloyd and his cronies had their racks of equipment as well as the best coffee machine in the Institute, I could hear the wail of police sirens interspersed by muffled explosions. When I entered I saw Lloyd and Toby sitting side by side, each of them wrestling with complicated looking games controllers and following the action on the wall mounted monitor. It took a couple of minutes for my presence to register, which must have coincided with a lull in the action because I knew both of them to gaming addicts.
“It’s a massive multiplayer game,” said Lloyd.
“It’s a bit noughties but not bad,” added Toby.
“That is what is on the USB stick?” I asked, less than thrilled by the news.
“Yeah, it’s called – Nest of Loops,” said Lloyd, handing the yellow item back to me. “That’s it,” he shrugged. “I thought we knew them all but it’s new to us, we might just carry on playing for a bit, if that is alright, we’ve downloaded it..”
I knew they would probably carry on for half the night. I nodded my assent.
“Just install it on your machines C Drive and you will be good to go; I can do that for you, if you like,” said Lloyd.
A kind offer, he knew I was IT illiterate.
“But even though the action is a little low-tech, as I said, you will still need a graphics card and a faster processor.”
“Maybe later, and thanks for that,” I said, heading towards the door.
“See you later,” Toby called out to m
e as I left, then, obviously speaking to Lloyd he said, “Okaay, let’s get back to beta world.”
I stopped in my tracks.
Chapter 10
LOA IN THE DROME
Many people feared Eddie Brocade, far fewer feared Simon Magus; this was only because nobody knew who he was, such was the skill with which he had threaded his shadowy way between this place or that, this world or that world. They waited impatiently for the next fight to begin as they sat side by side in the second row of the Babadrome.
It was whispered by the staff back at the Vertical Abyss that Eddie Brocade and Simon Magus often travelled to beta world accompanied by a posse of armed motorcycle outriders. Entering the riot zones just for the sport of it, and bringing back trophies – prisoners, women, or sometimes just artworks - to the Vertical Abyss, where they disappeared from view.
Cage fighting was not their thing, women or no women. The spectator value of the first fight had been seriously undermined because the overriding strategies employed by the Kage Kandy were of the ‘lay and pray’ variety – both protagonists rolling around on the canvas and neither seeming capable of any fight winning initiatives. Thus, by the end, some members of the crowd were booing; despite the de rigueur scanty shorts and tops providing a distracting display of the female anatomy. It was on this occasion insufficient compensation for the appetites of the fight-hungry and predominately male crowd.
When Lorna and Chloe had entered the arena, each having made their way through the crowd before entering the steel cage, the crowd had perked up; both fighters had reputations as ‘female firecrackers’, as the commentator had enthusiastically described them.
“I prefer the other one,” commented Simon Magus, as the two women assumed the required stance.