Pandaemonium

by Christopher Brookmyre

  ‘There will be no war unless you create one. We’re the ones holding the door open, remember? The only barbarians at the gate are on our side of it.’

  ‘Ah, bullshit, Lucius,’ Havelock replies. There is frustration in his face, indicating that his concern is genuine. ‘You’ve seen as well as I what’s on both sides of the gate. What I’ve seen has given me serious grounds for worry about what would happen should ever the twain meet, and it’s my job to worry about that shit. Yes, we’re holding open a door: we’re holding open one tiny door so that we can gather us a little intel that just might come in handy if it turns out that meanwhile, on the other side, they’re getting ready to tear down the walls.’

  ‘You will learn nothing from this here today,’ Steinmeyer states calmly. ‘This is superstition and barbarism.’

  ‘This is cancer, Lucius. This is AIDS. Times ten. Times a thousand. This could be the greatest threat we’ve ever faced as a species. It’s the Black Death and you’re saying lay off being cruel to the goddamn rats. We cannot afford to be squeamish right now, and we definitely cannot afford men like you closing their minds to any possibility. What’s been discovered here alters our whole understanding of the nature of the universe: those are your own words. There’s nothing about this we can take for granted, so that’s some pretty fucking bad timing for you to abandon the scientific principle of observe-and-deduce.’

  ‘You abandoned all scientific principles when you brought in Tullian.’

  Havelock drops his voice again; looks like he bit back an initial reply, but this one, while quieter, is no less unequivocal in its import.

  ‘That wasn’t my call, but it ain’t my place to second-guess it, and I don’t get to pick sides. I’m on the side of the US Army - that’s my job. But I’ll say this much for Tullian: it ain’t him who’s backing away because he’s afraid of being proved wrong.’

  Steinmeyer gives the bitterest laugh.

  ‘Tullian’s not afraid of being proved wrong, because from his perspective, being proven wrong is conceptually impossible. I’d advise you to understand the danger inherent in that before it’s too late.’

  That’s his last word. Steinmeyer walks through the main door and into the mouth of the entryway where, heading towards the chamber, is an unmistakable silhouette. No radiation suit, no fatigues, no lab coat and no uniform can cast that shape: only flowing robes, gathered about the waist by a cummerbund. The words ‘speak of the devil’ flash into Merrick’s mind, but he dismisses them with an almost superstitious level of haste. We’re talking closer to the other end of that particular spectrum, and the phrase is not one anybody around here would utter with any degree of flippancy.

  The two men stop in the passageway; or rather, Cardinal Tullian stops, hands clasped, head slightly bowed in greeting. Steinmeyer makes like he’s going to storm past, ignoring him, then changes his mind and halts. They look at each other for a moment but exchange no words. Steinmeyer evidently changes his mind once more, swallowing whatever he had stopped to say, and continues his exit.

  Tullian watches him pass, waiting patiently should Steinmeyer decide he does wish to speak to him after all. He stays there until the physicist has turned the corner out of sight, before turning almost reluctantly and proceeding into the chamber.

  His entrance through the doorway elicits a mirror image of Havelock’s: the soldiers respond not at all, while the men in the yellow suits divide into two facing lines, each trio side by side, hands palmed, heads slightly bowed; the Vatican equivalent of ten-hut, Merrick guesses.

  The subject responds also to this new presence, though pinned by the neck brace, there is no way of seeing the entrance from flat back on the table. Its head strains, trying to turn, the forearms testing the fortitude of the bonds. Logic tells Merrick that this is simply a reaction to detecting the nearby movement that was prompted by the Cardinal’s arrival, but he nonetheless fails to find this explanation entirely satisfying or of any reassurance. He looks at the elongated nails, the parallel serrated saw-blades of teeth and again, in awestruck, frightened fascination, at what lies just above each temple.

  Then Merrick looks at Tullian, striding slowly across the chamber floor, and feels only relief. He has endured the frustration of impotence, the resentment of being subject to the rule and authority of other parties, other bodies. Now he understands he’s only been straining at the leash like the yappy little dog who knows deep down that it’s the leash that’s protecting him. It’s at this point that he admits he is more than happy that other people have control of what is going on here, people who know what they are dealing with. And he doesn’t mean the people with the big guns.

  His misgivings evaporate as he realises his qualms were truly fear. He told himself he didn’t want to be working on this on someone else’s terms, but he can admit now that the prospect of working on it on his own terms would have been far worse. He is grateful, therefore, to defer to someone who knows the territory, someone who understands what he’s dealing with. Merrick would never have called himself a religious man, but they say everyone cries for intercession in the deepest darkness, and the darkness didn’t get any deeper than down in this place.

  There’s another guttural, idling ante-growl from the table. ECG and EEG show a slight rise, but Tullian isn’t in line of sight yet. There are spikes when he begins speaking, though; or declaiming might be the word.

  ‘In nomini patre, Trinitas, Sother, Messias, Emmanuel, Athanatos . . .’

  Merrick sees the neck muscles stretch as the subject tries to locate the source of the voice. There’s another spike on the monitors when finally it does, accompanied by an agitated growl: defensive, territorial, threatening.

  ‘Pentagna, Salvatror, Ischiros, principium et Finis,’ Tullian continues, moving closer still. Then from the folds of his robe he produces a crucifix, hanging on a chain around his neck, which he holds out at arm’s length, less than a metre from the end of the table.

  Tullian lets the crucifix fall, and from elsewhere in his robe produces a phial of clear fluid, which he holds out to one of the figures in yellow. He takes it in both hands and kneels in front of the Cardinal, presenting the phial above his bowed head. Tullian holds his hands apart, either side of the phial, and speaks, in English this time, his accent all but shorn of its American roots by its heightened register:

  ‘Let these waters be sanctified by the power, the agency and descent of the Holy Spirit; Let descend upon these waters the cleansing of the Three who are One, and endue them with the grace of redemption and the blessing of Jordan, that Satan may be crushed under our feet, that every evil counsel directed against us may be brought to naught, and that the Lord our God will free us from every attack and temptation of the enemy.’

  He gives another short blessing in Latin, while the kneeling man unstops the lid and hands him the phial. Tullian makes a pronounced, ceremonial sign of the cross with his right hand, blessing the subject. The eyes of the blessing’s recipient follow the hand intently, its fury either ebbing or temporarily spent. The blessing complete, Tullian transfers the phial to his right hand, and gives it an equally pronounced and equally ceremonial flick with his wrist, sending a spray of the holy water on to the subject.

  As soon as it hits that grey, crenulated skin, the monitors spike a new high and the chamber reverberates as Merrick finally gets to hear the roar he sensed those low grumblings warned of. It overloads the audio, reduces everything to crackling white noise, shakes Merrick like a sapling in a gale. The ferocity is paralysing, accompanied as it is by a writhing, shuddering frenzy against the braces and cuffs that gives a terrifying measure of just what physical power is being contained. Even the soldiers flinch, a ripple of human recoil passing along the stocks and barrels of all those tightly gripped weapons. The skin fizzes, bubbles and blisters along a three-foot arc where the water has streaked it, and once more all of the welds are given a mortal proving as the subject struggles desperately to free itself.

  This is when
he appreciates what stern stuff Tullian is made of; sterner than him, maybe than Steinmeyer too. Merrick has come up against his limitations, said ‘let this chalice pass from my lips’. Tullian is stronger than that. Merrick sees him shudder in the face of the roar, sees fright and horror in his eyes, and that makes him a stronger man still. Courage is not fearlessness. Courage is not even overcoming fear: it’s being able to operate, to carry out your duty, in the face of it, in the grip of it.

  Tullian sends a second arc of the holy water perpendicular to the first, describing a cross on the subject’s torso. The EEG spikes again while the ECG flatlines, but this is because both chest sensors have popped off in the flailing, screaming tumult, adding the urgent whine of the asystole alarm to the cacophony.

  And it gets suddenly worse. The subject . . .

  The subject.

  Come on. What is he trying to hide from himself? Who is he trying to kid any more? This is not a special effect. It is not a man in a latex mask. It is not even of this world, and he knows this for certain, as he has seen the portal it came through: one considerably more daunting than the mag-locked circular door.

  The creature, then.

  No. Say it. Say it. No mere creature. No refuge in feigned ignorance. He can’t hide from what this is.

  The demon.

  The demon ceases its screams, holding its head up as far as the neck brace will allow, the better to look straight at Tullian. Its jagged mouth opens again, but delivers no base primal cry. Instead, it bellows forth a twisting, gravelly, punctuated issue like a grim parody of Tullian’s declamations. It stares at the Cardinal and snarls its venomous defiance. The language is unintelligible but all of its searing hatred is conveyed nonetheless.

  Tullian chants something else in Latin. Merrick catches the words ‘exorcizo’ and ‘exorcizata’. He has to raise his voice above the demon’s foul retort, the whine of the ECG alarm and the growing, pulsing hum of the machine.

  ‘. . . et ipsum inimicum eradicare et explantare valeas cum angelis suis apostaticis . . .’

  The demon goes limp for a moment, just long enough for Merrick to begin to believe that Tullian’s words have somehow quelled its dark spirit, until its rest is revealed as a mere gathering of strength before another assault. In its redoubled writhing, it pops a bolt on the band securing its left elbow. The band doesn’t come fully away, but thus loosened it will allow the creature more purchase on the clamp restraining its wrist.

  The men in yellow raise their shock batons, while the soldiers level their guns. Tullian waves them both off, raising his hands and gesturing them all to hold. He then reaches once more inside his robes and produces, this time, an intricately ornate dagger.

  ‘. . . per virtutem ejusdem Domini nostri Jesu Christ . . .’

  The demon sees it, watches Tullian raise both hands full height over his head.

  ‘. . . qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos et saeculum per ignem,’ he shouts, his voice rising to a roar of his own on the last words as he drives the blade down into the creature’s chest.

  Blood so black, so lightlessly black, sprays from the wound, spurting like a fountain as Tullian hauls the knife free and up again. The demon strains at the wrist clamp until its own flesh tears and more black fluid pools around the base of the metal loop.

  Tullian brings the knife down once more, still calling above the noise: ‘Deus, Agios, Resurrectio.’

  Again.

  ‘Aeternas, Creator, Redemptor.’

  Again.

  ‘Unitas, Summum bonum, Infinitas . . .’

  Again. Again. Again. Again.

  Until, with the creature unmoving but for ever-gentler twitches, silent but for a deflating moan of final breath through its throat and the splash of its jet blood upon the concrete floor, he desists, and breathlessly utters one last word of Latin:

  ‘Amen.’

  Transports of Delight

  I

  There is a smell of sulphur dioxide. It is stifling, engulfing, invading every breath of what was already stale air.

  ‘Biohazard detected. All personnel evacuate. This is not a drill. Repeat, biohazard detected. Alert! Alert! Alert!’

  Brimstone, they used to call it: the stench of Hell. Volcanic, something redolent of the bowels of the Earth. Certainly bowels and earth are the two things that leap to Adnan’s mind as his eyes threaten to water in the face of this olfactory assault.

  ‘Mother of Christ, that is evil,’ says Deso. ‘That is pure evil.’

  ‘It’s fuckin’ hellish,’ Marky agrees. ‘Jesus God.’

  ‘Seriously,’ Deso rejoins, ‘if a factory had produced that, the fuckin’ EU would have them shut doon for being in violation of aboot ten different environmental regulations.’

  ‘Ach, yous are all just jealous,’ says Beansy with a satisfied grin, wafting more guff from the seat of his toxic trousers with a near-regal wave of his hand. ‘There’s nane of your puny wee arseholes could generate a bouquet of such variety or potency. Come on, take it in, draw it all the way down and savour the sophistication. Mmm. I’m getting canal water, I’m getting burst bin bag in August, and ooh, a subtle top-note of Saltcoats beach at low tide. Exquisite. And there’s plenty more where that came from.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Beansy,’ Radar warns, ‘I’m telling you: if I smelt that comin’ oot of me, I’d be straight doon tae the nearest parasitology unit to make sure I didnae have a deid Komodo dragon up my Ronson.’

  Adnan’s eyes are streaming now, but it’s more from the laughter than from the fumes. He can’t see the screen on his DS, couldn’t concentrate anyway because he’s doubling over in his seat.

  Deso gets to his feet in the aisle and reaches towards the neat little hammer that’s fixed above the pane for breaking the coach’s windows in an emergency. Then he pretends to collapse before he can make it.

  Fizzy puts his hands to his cheeks and goes: ‘Nooooooooo!’

  Deso fucking loves this stuff. Everybody’s falling about, pishing themselves. It’s almost worth putting up with the smell of Beansy’s farts for the sake of the laughs and the carry-on. Almost.

  One row forward of Deso, Cameron gets to his feet, leaning across Ewan to slide open the vent panel above the window, and while he’s vertical, he reaches to the overhead shelf and cranks up the tunes a wee bit as well. Pretty decent portable speaker rig he’s got up there, just a shame it’s Cam’s iPod they’re attached to. Fucking emo stuff: it’s a wonder Cam never committed suicide or turned into a fucking vampire. Some of it’s all right, though: the one playing just now has a good stomp on it that makes an appropriate soundtrack for travel. Deso finds himself nodding his head to the rhythm, but he’s as much nodding in approval of the vent getting slid back, because he knows what that’s about. Oh yes indeed.

  Cameron takes a look down the front, checking none of the teachers are choosing this moment to cast a backwards glance over their responsibilities.

  Beansy is on to it as well. ‘Yo, wastoid,’ he shouts across the aisle. ‘You’re not blazin’ up in here.’

  Cameron shoots back a finger-on-lips gesture, eyes indicating the dangers lying towards the front and rear of the vehicle, though he’s grinning as he does so.

  ‘Tubby bastard’s probably just afraid we’ll blow a hole in the bus when we light up,’ says Ewan, ‘given the amount of gas he’s just pumped into the atmosphere.’

  Deso hears the strike of the match, sharp and distinct through the music, the engine and the babble of thirty-odd voices up and down the bus. It’s one of those sounds that school trained him to notice from any distance and to isolate within the widest spectrum of foreground volume. Some folk were like that with sweetie wrappers: they could hear you trying to secretly open a packet of Fruitella in your pocket from the other side of the playground, and they’d be in your face demanding: ‘Geez wan, gaunny, eh?’ before you’d slipped the first sleekit swedger between your lips. Deso had honed a different skill within two months of first year, his tuck-shop fu
nds proving insufficient to finance a nascent nicotine habit. If you wanted a drag, you had to cadge it from one of the older guys, and with so many eager gaping mouths coveting the same few fags, you had to be first on the scene to be in with a chance.

  He doesn’t smoke now, though; not fags anyway. Had to give it up halfway through first year when he made the football team. If you got caught having just one fly draw, you were out for good, no parole. He hasn’t puffed a cigarette since, but a wee bit of doobage now and again, that’s a different story. Not incompatible with midfield creativity either. Look at Russell Latapy: nobody was telling Deso he never liked a jay.

  Deso sees it getting passed from Ewan to Cam. It’s a well skinny wee doob, but that just shows Ewan knows his game. Very little smoke, crucial in reducing the chances of detection, and not just from the teachers. A far greater threat is the jay getting spotted by the inhabitants of the back row.

  Aye, some things don’t change. It’s fifth year, they’re not kids any more, but the big men have still laid claim to the back seats, same as they did in first year; same as they did in fucking primary school. It is inevitable that Kirk, Dazza and Rocks will clock the joint eventually, and Ewan knows passing it to them for a wee toke is like making a sacrifice to placate a potentially vengeful deity. However, the trick is to get it shared around the rest of them for a while first. If it ends up with Kirk too early, it won’t be coming back, and not out of greed, but power. The prick would hang on to it and smoke it right down to the roach purely to demonstrate that nobody had the balls to take it back off him. Fucking wank that he is.

  It’s only a few moments before there’s a more welcome smell drifting Deso’s way, dispersing the last traces of Beansy’s violation. Then a cupped hand thrusts back towards him through the gap between the seats and the window. Deso takes it more swiftly and gracefully than those relay guys ever manage at the Olympics, and pulls it to his lips. Oh yes.