Damnation

by Peter McLean

  “You’re all right love, let the boys sort it–”

  Trixie back-elbowed him in the face without even looking, dropping him on his arse in a puddle of spilled beer.

  I necked my other whisky and got up.

  “Leave us to it, boys,” I said. “The grownups are talking now.”

  They looked at me and I felt the Burned Man allow a few wisps of smoke to curl up from my fingertips. The lads backed away, muttering, then turned and fled. People were streaming out of the pub all around me now and I could hear the landlord on the phone to the police.

  Trixie was facing down the two mysterious hunters, her hands held low but ready. Whatever they were, she was obviously confident she could take them on unarmed if she had to.

  She’s always confident, the Burned Man sniggered. Proud, you might even call it.

  Shut up, I thought, but I knew it was right.

  Overconfidence had bitten Trixie in the arse once before, after all, and the end result of that had been fucking catastrophic. It had for me, anyway. That was how I had ended up possessed by the sodding Burned Man in the first place.

  “Blade of Heaven,” one of hunters said, the one in the overcoat.

  “You know me,” Trixie said. “I don’t know you.”

  “We are soldiers of the Fallen,” bomber jacket growled. “You can call me Mikael if you must have a name, bitch.”

  “And you can call me ma’am,” Trixie snarled as she pivoted on one foot and kicked him so hard he flew five feet through the air.

  He crashed into a recently vacated table and showered glasses and drink everywhere as the wood split beneath him from the impact. The other one took a cautious step towards Trixie and reached into his coat.

  Oh shit, I thought, expecting him to produce a shooter, or at least a weapon of some sort.

  Trixie tensed but his hand came out holding, of all things, a business card. He handed it to her with a short bow.

  “The Lord Adamus sends his respects, Angelus,” he said.

  * * *

  Of course we legged it pretty sharpish after that, before the Old Bill turned up. I felt a bit bad about the state we had left the pub in but then we hadn’t started the fight and at least no one was dead and nothing was actually on fire this time. That was pretty good going for us.

  “What the bloody hell,” I asked Trixie as we settled into a corner table in another pub a mile or two away, “was that all about?”

  She took the card out of her pocket and passed it to me.

  “Adam was saying hello,” she said.

  The last time Adam had said “hello” to me in that tone of voice he had tried to have me killed by an elderly Satanist and his telekinetic dead wife. I supposed we had got off lightly this time, all things considered.

  The card was thick and obviously expensive, a plain eggshell off-white with inky black script that simply said Adam with a telephone number underneath the name. I shrugged and gave it back to her. I was tempted to keep it so she didn’t call him but if I couldn’t trust Trixie then… well, of course I could trust Trixie. I knew that.

  “And those two laughing boys? Any idea what they were?”

  “Two of the Soulless,” she said, keeping her voice down. “Soldiers of the Fallen, they call themselves. They’re nothing much really in the great scheme of things. They tend to be a lot of show and bluster but not much to worry about unless there are an awful lot of them. They’re the spirits of the damned, of demon worshipers who made pacts of servitude in the afterlife in exchange for power and riches during their mortal lifetimes. That’s how they end up. Their demonic masters make use of them on Earth sometimes but they seldom give them much power in case they start to think they can break the terms of their pacts.”

  “Oh, right,” I said.

  That wasn’t exactly how it was explained in the grimoires. I knew of a couple of people who were in for a bit of a surprise when they finally kicked the bucket, that was for sure. All the same, I supposed it was better than burning in a lake of boiling acid for a thousand years or whatever.

  Diabolists go to Hell, Don.

  If Adam thought I was wearing a red aura for him he had another think coming. That wasn’t going to fucking happen, whether he liked it or not. At least, I sincerely fucking hoped not, but Trixie had worried the shit out of me all over again now.

  You damned yourself to do it.

  Fucking hell…

  “I think I played cards with one of them last year, at Wormwood’s place,” I went on. “A geezer called Antonio. I wondered then what he was.”

  Trixie blinked at me.

  “Did you?”

  “Well yeah, I think so,” I said. “Same dark red aura, glowing red eyes. He was shit at Fates though.”

  “And you didn’t think to tell me at the time?”

  I shrugged. “He was just another mug punter,” I said. “I didn’t think it was important.”

  “Well it might have been,” she said, and took an irritated sip of her gin and tonic. “Don, you can’t know what’s important unless you tell me what’s happening.”

  Oh is that fucking right? the Burned Man sneered in my head. Cos I just got off the fucking banana boat did I, Blondie?

  I think Trixie was making a conscious effort to forget that the Burned Man was there inside me. I did that too sometimes, I had to admit. I looked up and met her eyes.

  “All right, you tell me something,” I said. “What did you mean when you said you loved me?”

  Trixie pinched the bridge of her nose between finger and thumb.

  “Not now, Don,” she said.

  “No fuck it, now,” I insisted.

  I was drunk enough to push my luck just that little bit too far.

  “No!” she snapped. “Not when I heard that thing speaking with your voice not half an hour ago.”

  “Trixie…” I started.

  “Not. Now. I’m going for a smoke.”

  She picked up her cigarette case and stalked out of the pub.

  Chapter Ten

  Of course that well and truly pissed on the mood, so we drank up and left after that. I have an absolute gift for fucking things up, I’m sad to say. If there’s a wrong thing to say you can pretty much guarantee that I’ll say it, and at exactly the worst moment too. We walked in uncomfortable silence all the way back to the apartment. I couldn’t bring myself to call it “home”.

  Home had been my office in nice familiar South London where everything made sense and I was, or had at least once been, my own man. I wasn’t any more, that was for damned sure. I was Menhit’s man now, or the Burned Man’s or Trixie’s or even Mazin’s for that matter. I was getting well and truly fucking sick of it all, I knew that much.

  I thought about my office, and wondered if it even still was mine. I hadn’t paid any rent for what, at least seven months now, after all. I dread to think what might have happened if Mr Chowdhury, my landlord, had decided to kick me out. What would he have made of all my stuff? I had some rather… well, eclectic things in that office, after all, even once you got past the grand summoning circle I had carved into the floorboards of the workroom. There was the dead fetish of the Burned Man for one of course, chained to its altar, not to mention a Blade of Unmaking and a hexring and a warpstone and various other bits and bobs best not mentioned tucked away in my cupboards. Oh bloody hell, I hadn’t even thought about that!

  I shot a sideways look at Trixie, at the grim set of her jaw and her tight-lipped expression, and decided that now probably wasn’t the best time to ask. I swear there’s some special after-school class that only girls go to where they get taught how to do that facial expression. I’ve never met a woman who couldn’t do “the face”, my own dear mother included, and I’ll bet damn good money you know exactly what I mean.

  I sighed. To say today hadn’t really gone to plan would be a fucking understatement. We were in our street now, only a few yards away from the steps up to our building. I reached out and put a hand on Trixie’s a
rm to stop her.

  “Look,” I said when she turned and glared at me, “I’m sorry, OK?”

  “You’re sorry,” she said in a flat voice. “You’re sorry you let that awful thing loose and you’re sorry you let it take you over, or you’re sorry I found out about it? What are you sorry for exactly, Don?”

  I winced. That was a good question, I had to admit. I wanted to lie of course, to say something sweet and glib that would win her around. I always want that because I’m lazy and it’s just fucking easier, but this time I already knew I was going to be out of luck before I even tried. I gave the truth a go instead.

  “All of it,” I confessed. “I mean, obviously I never wanted it to happen in the first place but… well, you know why it happened, and why I had to do what I did. And once it had happened… Yeah, I did hide it from you. I hid it as long and as hard as I could, Trixie, I admit that. I was ashamed, you understand? I knew how you felt about the Burned Man, and I knew how I felt about you, and…”

  I tailed off helplessly, standing there in the street still holding her arm. God but it was cold out there.

  “I see,” she said, for all the help that was.

  “Um,” I said. “I, um…”

  Trixie leaned forwards and kissed me lightly on the forehead.

  “Thank you for being honest for once,” she said.

  She turned away and started walking towards the house again, leaving me almost too stunned to follow. I really didn’t understand her sometimes, not even a little bit. Ah well, a kiss was a hell of a lot better than the backhander I had been half expecting. It wouldn’t have been the first time she had belted me, after all.

  I shook the memory off and followed her up the steps to the front door. We went up to the apartment and Trixie let us in with a key I knew damn well I was never going to be allowed to have. I sighed as the door thudded closed and locked itself behind us. It was only about eight o’clock in the evening but I was drunk and tired and more than a bit shaken up, and I couldn’t even face the thought of eating.

  “I think I’m just going to turn in,” I said. “Night.”

  Trixie gave me an unreadable look

  “Yes, it is,” she said, and went into the sitting room.

  I sighed again and took myself off to bed.

  I did the bathroom thing and undressed for bed, feeling decidedly weird. I was hanging up a two thousand quid suit in a multi-million pound apartment in which I was effectively being kept prisoner by the woman I loved and a man who allegedly worked for me. I stood there naked in the bedroom and scrubbed my hands over my face, trying to make sense of things. I suppose my head was still fairly scrambled from all the smack I had done over the last six months, not to mention whatever the fuck Menhit had done to me to get me off the stuff, but all the same I felt like my grip on reality was getting too bloody shaky for comfort.

  What were the Soulless doing after us? I asked the Burned Man.

  I could almost feel it shrug.

  How the fuck do I know? it said. Probably what Blondie said, just saying hello on behalf of the Lord High Lucifucker.

  I snorted with laughter despite myself. I knew the Burned Man liked Adam even less than I did, but then it at least didn’t have to be scared of him. I really sort of did, all things considered.

  Yeah I guess, I thought as I got into bed. He’s never going to fucking leave me alone while I’m with Trixie, is he?

  Nope, the Burned Man said.

  It went quiet after that, which gave its parting statement a sense of awful finality.

  Well, there was that then. Lovely. I turned the light out and made myself go to sleep.

  * * *

  I woke up about midnight when Trixie got into bed beside me.

  I almost died. I was stark naked under the duvet for one thing, and I really hadn’t expected this to be the night she would decide to start sleeping with me again. Of course when I say “sleeping” that’s exactly what I mean, and nothing else. She had made that very clear one night last year.

  She was wearing a demure nightgown and I knew damn well that sleep was all she wanted, but apparently she wanted some company too.

  “Hi,” I said, too embarrassed by my nakedness to turn over to face her.

  “Shhhhh,” she said. “Go back to sleep. I was just lonely, that’s all.”

  Of course that was all, I knew that. I closed my eyes and willed myself back to sleep.

  Pillock, the Burned Man said, but I made myself ignore it.

  I drifted in and out, painfully aware of Trixie breathing beside me, of the warmth of her. I would only have to wriggle backwards an inch to have her backside pressed against mine. Which would, of course, have been a fucking stupid thing to do. I dozed, thinking about the Soulless and wondering what the fuck Adam thought he was playing at this time.

  Surely he knew Trixie would eat them alive? Of course he did, I realized – they were throwaway soldiers to him, nothing that mattered. He knew Trixie would walk through them the same way he had known I would take care of Charlie Page and his weird telekinetic dead wife. Of course I almost hadn’t, but I’d be buggered if I was ever going to let him know that. No, it seemed this was just how Adam did things. Feints and jousts and pointless, egocentric posturing. Fuck, but he really was a prick.

  I felt the Burned Man nodding in agreement with that sentiment, and sleep took me again.

  The next time I woke, the early pre-dawn light was filtering through the heavy drapes and Trixie was breathing deeply in her sleep beside me. I was lying on my back. My eyes flickered open, and I saw the bloody holes of the child’s eyes staring down into mine.

  I gasped, hardly daring to move as I realized it was squatting on the bed on top of me.

  “The fuck now?” I said.

  “I know you,” it said, a thin line of drool hanging from its ruined lips. “You’re the bad man.”

  Oh here we fucking went again. I really had had enough of this thing now, guilt or no guilt. Whatever it was, I had my shit pretty much back together again and I was about ready to give the little brat a spanking. It was time to put my life in order, I had told myself, and this looked like a bloody good place to start.

  “She’s the bad lady,” it whispered.

  I blinked at it. Well I supposed that was fucking new.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The bad lady,” it said again, and I swear to God it looked scared.

  This ghost or apparition or demon pretending to be a ghost or whatever the fuck it was, this thing that had grown hands like a talonwraith and tried to strangle me on the astral plane, saw Trixie lying asleep beside me and I swear it looked scared of her.

  “She’s the bad lady,” it whispered again, staring at her.

  Oh fuck this. Just fuck it, I’d had enough. We weren’t on the astral now.

  I summoned my Will and banished the horrible bloody thing as hard as I could. It screamed as it turned translucent, seeming to stretch and grow thinner as I forced it out of this plane. Nowhere left to hide. That meant I was back out in the open, and it was well and truly time to be myself again. I could do that.

  I’m back, motherfucker.

  The ghost quivered for a last moment and vanished, leaving a thin wail of anguish hanging in the air like an echo.

  I looked at Trixie but she was still sound asleep. I almost wondered if I was dreaming, but I needed to piss too badly for that. I slipped out of bed as quietly as I could and padded barefoot and naked to the bathroom to do my business. I thought about how I had banished the apparition, and how easy it had turned out to be without the deadly embrace of the heroin sucking the Will out of me.

  Yeah, I was back all right. And it felt good.

  When I came out of the bathroom again Trixie had her eyes open.

  “Everything all right?” she asked me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Um, call of nature.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  She turned over and seemed to be asleep again in seconds. I got
back into bed and lay there awake for what felt like a long time.

  She’s the bad lady. What the fuck had all that been about? I had killed the McRoths’ grandson before I even knew Trixie was alive, so how the hell did the ghost have the faintest idea who she was? Guilt by association with me, perhaps?

  Although now I came to think about it, I remembered that wasn’t strictly true. The first time I had seen Trixie had been the morning before the disastrous hit on Vincent and Danny McRoth, I reminded myself. That little fact had caught me out once before and I wasn’t going to let that happen again. All the same, so what? The McRoth kid hadn’t known her from a hole in the ground, which made me even more sure the apparition wasn’t the ghost it was pretending to be. So what the fuck was it?

  I had no idea, but I was damn sure it wasn’t a natural manifestation, and that meant some cunt had set it on me for a reason. All the same, I knew that lying there tying my head up in knots thinking about it wasn’t going to help. I sighed and turned on to my side, facing away from Trixie, and forced myself to go back to sleep.

  * * *

  When I woke up it was nearly lunchtime, and Trixie was gone. I wondered if I’d dreamed the whole thing. I thought maybe I had. I certainly hoped so. That horrible apparition chasing me was bad enough, without it suddenly seeming to know who Trixie was as well.

  It’s just your conscience talking, I told myself as I got up and headed towards the bathroom.

  Oh yeah? the Burned Man asked. Only I saw it too, and I haven’t got a fucking conscience.

  I sighed. Of course it hadn’t. Not even a little bit it hadn’t, but it had been seeing the apparition as well.

  So what is it then? I asked. I don’t think I believe in ghosts.

  Me neither, it said. It’s a thing though. A mean thing, well disguised by someone who knows what they’re doing. You watch yourself around it, Drake. I hope you got rid of it for good and all that time, but if it comes back again you fucking watch yourself. It’ll bite you if it gets the chance.

  Yeah, well no shit. I’d kind of already figured that much out for myself.