“I think it’s a fine, distinguished name,” Guy’s mother interjected, loyally.
Guy was momentarily becalmed, the wind taken from his sails. His eye fell on a photograph sitting in a silver frame on a rosewood side table. The picture had been taken at his mother and Wylie’s wedding. The newlyweds were both beaming at the camera, while in the background skulked Guy, looking considerably less pleased, unable even to fake a smile. He had been the proverbial spectre at the feast that day, a sullen gloomy presence, and remained rather proud of that.
The picture reinvigorated him, reminding him what he was here to do. “Wouldn’t you agree, though,” he said, “that things are starting to look a bit, well, apocalyptic these days? And nobody in power is doing very much to prevent it. The opposite, in fact.”
“Really, Guy!” his mother exclaimed. “What has got into you? Why are you coming out with all these absurd remarks?”
“No, no, Beatrice,” said Wylie with a placatory wave of the hand. “Let the boy speak. It’s the prerogative of youth to be able to say what’s on your mind, without filtering or fine-tuning it in any way.”
“But his tone... Your tone, Guy. It’s morbid and – and disrespectful.”
“I’d call it ‘challenging,’ myself,” said Wylie. “But again that’s a prerogative of youth – the willingness to confront authority and question orthodoxy. In what way apocalyptic, Guy?”
“Just generally,” Guy said. “In the sense of civilisation gradually breaking down. America and Russia at loggerheads, ready to destroy us all at the touch of a button. Terrorists on the loose. Pollution. The ecology. That Son of Sam killer in New York.”
“The Stonehouse affair,” someone chipped in, and there was a ripple of laughter as people recalled the corrupt former postmaster general, currently standing trial for fraud and embezzlement, who had clumsily faked his death a couple of years ago.
“Big Ben on the blink,” said someone else. “When will it bong again?”
“Jeremy Thorpe ousted,” said a third person. “What a pain in the arse he was – in more ways than one.”
Lots of laughter over that one.
“It’s not funny,” Guy protested. “Any of it. You lot can sit here all smug and self-satisfied, but then you’re okay; you’re old. You’ve had your fun. People my age, my generation, what sort of future have we got? None. Nothing but death and disaster to look forward to.”
“Guy, Guy, Guy,” chided Wylie. “It’s not as bad as all that. Granted, we’re going through a period of turmoil right now. But if you look at it in the long term, sub specie aeternitatis as the saying goes, ‘from the perspective of the eternal,’ this is just a blip. It could be argued that human history is one long litany of turmoil – countless struggles, one apparent apocalypse after another – yet we survive, we live on to fight another day. What seems like upheaval at present is in fact merely the latest in a series of upheavals. They come in waves, with lulls of peace in between. When you’re older, a little more seasoned, a little worldlier, then perhaps you’ll perceive that we’re nowhere nearer the end of civilisation than we’ve ever been.”
“Oh yeah?” Guy said hotly. Adrenaline and alcohol were conspiring to make him angrier and more reckless. “‘From the perspective of the eternal’? Who is this ‘eternal’? You?”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Guy, please,” said his mother, exasperated. “You’re making a fool of yourself.” To her neighbour, she confided, “He works at this strange bookshop. ‘Esoteric,’ I think is the word for it. The sort of clientele they get there! Heaven knows what effect it’s been having on him.”
“I mean,” said Guy to Wylie, “you can afford to take the long view, having been around since the year dot.”
“I may be no spring chicken, if that’s what you’re getting at, but nevertheless –”
“And it’s all part of your plan, isn’t it?” Guy said, interrupting him. “Your grand infernal scheme. It’s what you’ve been working towards all your life – creating Hell on earth. Whispering in the ears of kings and queens and the great and good. Influencing policy. Nudging mankind slowly and steadily closer to the brink. It’s all coming to a head, isn’t it? No wonder you can sit here in your mansion, with your paintings and your silver cutlery and your staff, and gloat. Everything’s just the way you want it.”
“I think,” said Wylie, “that you are in danger of crossing a line, young Guy. A line you would be unwise to cross.” The amused twinkle was gone from his eyes. In its place was something sterner and flintier.
Guy steamrollered on, heedless, oblivious. “And somehow you want me to be part of it. You want to sucker me in. What happens if I drop my guard and give you the chance? You’ll take me up to ‘an exceeding high mountain’ and show me all the kingdoms of the world? You’ll try and tempt me with riches and power? And all you’ll ask in return is that I bow down and worship you? Is that it?”
“Guy!” snapped his mother.
“Guy,” Wylie growled, “you seem to have me confused with someone else. I am no angel, as I’d be the first to admit, but neither am I the opposite.”
Enough was enough, as far as Guy was concerned. He had had an elaborate stratagem mapped out. He had been intending to go out to the kitchen, tip the holy water into one of the water carafes, offer to top up everyone’s glass, make sure Wylie had some to drink, then wait to see what ensued. With the domestic staff catering to the guests’ every need, it would have been a difficult feat to pull off, but far from impossible.
Now, though, it was too late for such subterfuge. Only a blunt, full-frontal approach would work.
So he pulled the Cresta bottle from his pocket, uncapped it, and flung the contents across the table, straight into Wylie’s face.
To describe what followed as stunned silence would be a gross understatement. Everyone forgot to breathe for several seconds, too shocked even to think.
Alastor Wylie sat with water running down his face. His fringe was plastered to his forehead. His collar and shirtfront were soaked.
An appalled sob escaped Guy’s mother’s throat.
Guy, for his part, waited for the holy water to take effect. For Wylie’s skin to start to blister and bubble, as though splashed with sulphuric acid. For his human disguise to peel away, layer by melting layer. For the monster beneath – his true self – to emerge. For the Deceiver to appear at the head of the table, in all his Satanic majesty, so that everyone might see him and know him for what he was, as Guy saw him and knew him.
Slowly, with great care and deliberateness, Wylie began dabbing himself dry with a linen napkin.
Then, in a voice like low, distant thunder, he said to Guy, “You should leave now.”
Guy was dumbstruck. The transformation hadn’t happened. Was there something wrong with the holy water? Had he not prepared it correctly? Or could he have been mistaken all along about – ?
“I said,” Wylie rumbled, “you should leave.”
Quietly, falteringly, Guy got to his feet.
As he walked past his mother, she reached out a trembling hand to him.
He brushed it aside and continued out of the room.
HUMILIATION. FAILURE. PERPLEXITY. Resentment.
That was all he felt for months afterward. The emotions dogged him, one after another in a continual cycle.
How could he have been so wrong?
Was he wrong?
Or was Wylie – Satan – simply too powerful to be unmasked by a dousing with a few drops of sanctified H2O?
Whatever the explanation, Guy had no contact with his mother or her diabolical second husband for nearly a year. The world turned, life went on, and nothing got better.
And then everything, for Guy, got markedly worse.
1977
HE NEVER EVEN saw them coming.
They pounced one night as he was shambling drunkenly home from the pub. They swept him up from behind, shoved a hessian sack over his head, bound his wrists b
ehind his back, and bundled him into the boot of a car. One moment he was tootling along through the streets of Chelsea, minding his own business. The next, he was a captive, in a confined space, being driven who knew where.
The car bumped and juddered along for what felt like hours. What with the sack and the exhaust fumes, Guy was half-suffocated, not to mention completely terrified. The jolting seemed neverending. Where were they taking him? Who were they?
A horrendous thought struck him. They were Irish Republican terrorists. Of course.
Lately there had been a spate of high-profile kidnappings by IRA units: Lord and Lady Donoughmere, the Dutch businessman Tiede Herrema, and the German industrialist Thomas Niedermayer, to name but four. All those abductions had taken place in Ireland, but there was no reason why the kidnappers shouldn’t have expanded their sphere of operations to mainland Britain. The IRA were all over the country at present.
Guy racked his brains to think why they might have chosen him. The only answer he could come up with was Alastor Wylie. He was Wylie’s stepson, and could be used for leverage on Wylie. Technically, at least. Someone evidently did not know how the relationship between him and Wylie stood. There was no love lost there.
Then again, Guy was still his mother’s son. The pressure could be put on her husband through her. She would not want to see Guy hurt or killed, even if Wylie couldn’t care less about him. Wylie would have to take her wishes into account when considering any ransom demands, which would probably be for political prisoners to be freed from jail. For her sake, he would be obliged to negotiate for Guy’s life.
To the best of Guy’s knowledge, the IRA had so far released all their kidnap victims unharmed. Wait. No, not all. Nothing had been heard of Neidermayer since he was taken outside his house in Belfast back in ’73. Nobody knew where he was, and it was widely assumed that after all this time he must be dead.
A renewed surge of fear made Guy’s stomach churn. He fought not to throw up. If he did, he would be stuck with his head in a bag full of his own puke for the foreseeable future.
He mastered his nausea, and was quite proud of himself for doing so.
Then the sound of the car’s tyres changed, going from the thrum of tarmac to the crunch of loose stones. A gravel driveway? Or an unmade road leading to a remote farmhouse or perhaps to a disused quarry?
A few more twists and turns, then the car braked to a halt. The engine died. The boot lid opened. Chilly night air rushed in. Guy was manhandled roughly out. He discerned people moving around him, three, maybe four of them.
“Listen,” he said. “Please listen. I don’t know who you are, but if you are who I think you are, you’ve got the wrong man. I mean, the right man, but for the wrong reasons. If you’re trying to get to Wylie, believe me, I’m not the one you want.”
Someone laughed, coarsely.
“I mean it,” Guy went on. “Wylie and me, we’re not related, not as such, and we don’t get on. I hate the man. Honestly, he’s everything I detest. I’m more on your side than I’d ever be on his. I know him. I know what he is. I don’t want anything to do with him.”
“Come on, sunshine.” Hands seized his upper arms, and he was steered along. “This way. Got somewhere nice and cosy waiting for you.”
The accent wasn’t Irish. It sounded Londoner, if anything. That was some small comfort. This was no IRA plot, at least.
“Steps ahead,” said the man. “Mind yourself.”
Guy shuffled up a short slight of stone stairs. He passed through an entranceway. The acoustics of their footfalls altered, taking on an indoor echo.
More walking. He heard a door being unlocked.
“Another set of stairs. Steep. Try not to trip.”
It was a descent this time. Smells of mould and mildew permeated through the sack. A cellar, most likely.
At the bottom, the hands let go. Guy deciding to give ingratiation one last try.
“Just tell me who you are,” he said. “Maybe we’ve got more in common than you think. Never mind who my stepfather is. I’m just an ordinary bloke. Power to the people, yeah?”
“That might have worked for Patty Hearst, mate,” said the kidnapper, “but you’re barking up the wrong tree here.” His colleagues sniggered. “Now, make yourself comfortable. It’s going to be a while before we come back for you. Don’t even think about taking that bag off your head. And if you need to piss... Well, I’d try and hold it, if I were you.”
With that, they left him.
The door slammed.
A key turned.
Guy was alone.
IT WAS A long night. Some of it Guy spent whimpering in misery. Some of it he spent in futile prayer. Mostly he just sat in a corner of the cellar, his mind running through all the ways this situation might play out. The majority of the scenarios ended with Wylie handing over a small fortune in ransom money or else persuading someone in government to grant the kidnappers whatever boon they asked for. A few of the scenarios, however, reached a less pleasant conclusion: Wylie refusing to help in any way, Guy’s cold body being found in a field or, worse still, never found at all. Perhaps parts of him would be sent through the post – a finger, an ear – like in the gangster films. God, please not. Not that.
It must have been morning when his kidnappers finally returned. By now, Guy urgently needed to urinate. Last night’s pints had worked their way through his system and his bladder was groaning.
He communicated his need, and grudgingly a bucket was fetched. His wrists were untied. He knelt and relieved himself with gratitude.
He was given food. A roll and butter, a cup of milky tea. He was told he could lift the sack just far enough to expose his mouth. He ate and drank.
“Thank you,” he said, making it as heartfelt as he could.
“Got to keep body and soul together,” said the kidnapper, seemingly the one only of them designated to speak to him. “For now, at any rate.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll find out. Tonight.”
THEY HAD LEFT his hands unbound, so he began tentatively exploring his surroundings. Remembering the admonition against removing the sack, he groped his way around with arms outstretched like a child playing blind man’s bluff.
Yes, a cellar. A pretty big one. Brick walls. A number of large, empty wine racks. Several items of – ow, his shins! – discarded furniture and bric-a-brac.
His fingers accrued a fur of dust and cobweb.
Vaguely he had hoped to find a window, a trapdoor, some kind of aperture to the outside world, something he could force his way out through. No such luck.
He sat again. He wondered if his mother and Wylie had been informed he was missing yet. Probably the ransom note had already been delivered, the individual letters clipped from newspaper headlines and glued to a sheet of foolscap, as was traditional. Or it could just have been an anonymous phone call – telephone box, handkerchief over the receiver to disguise the speaker’s voice. “We have your stepson, Mr Wylie. Now listen very carefully...”
Wylie would play ball. Guy’s mother would see to that. She would never forgive her husband if he let her son die.
Then again, what did her opinion matter to Alastor Wylie? Guy still could not shake the conviction that Wylie was truly the Devil. His mother, by that token, was just a puppet in Wylie’s overall scheme, a mere pawn. Wylie didn’t love her, he was simply using her in order to get to her son. In which case, it would hardly matter to him if, grief-stricken and angered, she turned on him and rejected him. Indeed, if Guy was dead, Beatrice Wylie would no longer serve a purpose, as far as her husband was concerned. He would no doubt devise some way of getting rid of her – divorce or, worse, an arranged fatality of some sort, a car crash, a skiing accident, a mishap in the shower.
And yet, if Wylie wanted Guy so badly, if, as Satan, he was so keen to sink his hooks into him, surely he would never allow the kidnappers to get away with murdering him. No, he would use his infernal powers to rescue him, perh
aps sending in lesser demons disguised as SAS soldiers or antiterrorist police to retrieve him. That, yes, would work in Wylie’s favour. A grateful Guy, glad to be alive, would be indebted to him. Enough – or so Wylie might hope – to pledge him his undying loyalty.
In fact, what if Wylie had orchestrated this entire operation? What if he was the mastermind behind it? What if it was the next phase in his long-drawn-out siege on Guy Lucas’s soul?
That cast everything in a whole new light. All at once, Guy was the hero of the piece rather than the hapless victim.
He felt a flush of bravery. It was all about him now – his fortitude, his resolve, his obstinacy. Wylie would not get what he desired. No way. Guy would rather die.
HOURS LATER, MANY hours, he had no idea how many, the cellar door reopened.
“Right, my lad. Up you get. It’s time.”
“Time?” said Guy. “Time for what?”
“You’ll see. You’re a lucky fellow, you know.”
“Yeah, I really feel it.”
“Privileged, even,” the kidnapper said. “Not a lot of people have been granted the honour of taking part in what you’re about to take part in.”
“Which is what?”
“Patience, mate. Just for a few minutes more.”
Guy was led up out of the cellar. He was taken back through the hall, or whatever it was, the spacious echoing place. Back outdoors and down the stone steps – the front steps to a sizeable house, he reckoned, a mansion.
There was gravel underfoot, then lawn. No light was coming through the coarse weave of the sack. It must be night-time once more. He grass hissed softly when trodden on, as though wet with dew.
Pantheon 00 - Age of Godpunk Page 16