by Peter Oxley
“Kate,” grinned Andras. “What a pleasure to see you again.”
“Can’t say I feel the same,” I said. “You’ve got a right nerve coming ’ere.”
He jumped down and straightened his waistcoat and jacket. “Security seems somewhat light. I get the impression your soldier friends are all off gallivanting around looking for some devilishly handsome chap.”
“Very funny. You know I could just yell and you’d be clapped in irons faster than you can spit.”
“Of course. And then I’d break free and we can start this mummer’s farce all over.”
I sighed, keeping a firm grip on the teapot in case I needed to defend myself. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought it would be nice if we had a bit of a chat, without your soldier friends lowering the tone.”
“I’ll chat when you give us back Max.”
“Now, you see, that’s the thing.” He leaned back against the wall. “I believe we have common cause in that regard.”
“You don’t know where he is either, do you?”
Andras shook his head. “So… seeing as we both want the same thing, how about a friendly chat about how we can come to an arrangement?”
“Wait,” I said. “What do you want him for?”
He tapped a clawed finger on his nose. “All in good time.”
I snorted. Some people never change. “I’ll speak,” I said. “But I won’t help you; I’ll only speak to N’yotsu.”
“That’s what you’re doing.”
“No. I want to speak to just N’yotsu, not you.”
He laughed, a piercing, high-pitched sound that made me want to tear my ears off. “You don’t get it, do you? We are the same person: one and the same, indivisible, inseparable.”
“Not quite,” I said. “He managed it before, spat you out into a stone.”
He waggled a finger at me. “Ah. But I won’t be tricked into doing that again. Quite a prolonged way to commit suicide, and it very nearly worked. Nearly, but not quite.” He grinned proudly at me.
“Why are you back?” I asked, trying a different tack.
“It was that or die, and I’m not sure I’m quite ready to meet my maker just yet. As far as my people are concerned I’m an exile and an apostate, and we have some pretty vengeful gods. Meeting them is a nightmare I’d like to delay for as long as possible.”
“That’s not what I asked,” I said. “I meant, how did you come back?”
He held out his hands to either side. “Stone, plus me, equals…” He clapped his hands together. “Me!”
“This is hopeless,” I muttered.
“Aw, poor little Kate,” he said. “Language and thinking never were your strong points, were they?”
I felt the anger rising in me and started for the door. “If you came here just to insult me, then I’m off.”
“Now now, let’s not be too hasty,” he said, holding his hands up. “I’m sorry, I did not mean to hurt your feelings. I was trying to sympathise with you. To be honest, this whole thing with human feelings and emotions is something I’ve never really got the hang of. I’ll try harder to be nice.”
I stopped and stared at him. “So,” I said. “How did you get the stone? It was under lock and key, and the last time I saw N’yo— you, you weren’t able to stand, let alone trek across town and break into the Tower.”
“I had help,” he said.
“Go on. What kind of help?”
“Helpful help.”
“You’re wasting my time,” I said, turning towards the door again.
“It was the doctor,” he said. “Dr Smith. He said he could cure me. I agreed and… well, here I am.”
“But N’yotsu was always dead-set against being turned back into you,” I said.
“So he said. But deep down he was as terrified of death as I am, and behind all those brave words lay someone who would happily sacrifice his principles if it meant delaying an eternity of pain.”
“No,” I shook my head. “Not N’yotsu.”
“Then how do you account for my presence here?” He grinned. “Aha! You cannot!” He leaned back, satisfied.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s just say that you’re right and N’yotsu wanted to get the stone back. Why did the doctor want to help you?”
“He’s a doctor,” shrugged Andras. “That’s what they do: help people, cure them, make things better.”
“Yes, with medicine and tinctures and tonics. Not turning them into evil monsters.”
“I am a demon, not a monster.”
“Same difference.”
“To you maybe,” he sniffed. “I have feelings too, you know.”
I frowned at him. “You jokin’ with me?”
He grinned. “Do you not think I am a lot more fun like this? No more of that boring moping around, feeling guilty about everything.” He screwed up his face into a serious frown. “It is all my fault,” he said in a deep voice. “I must suffer my punishment, I deserve it. Boo hoo.”
“So you’re saying you feel no guilt for what you did?”
“Why should I? Things happened, most of the people affected are long gone.”
“Mainly because you killed them.”
He shrugged. “Mere semantics.”
I bit back my frustration. “Let’s go back to the doctor,” I said. “Who is he?”
“Dr Smith? Funny you should ask.” He hopped back up onto the wall and reached down the other side. “I suspected something towards the end. I knew he wasn’t just any ordinary doctor. He has some interesting criminal connections, that’s for sure. How else do you think he got me the stone? Other than that, he didn’t tell and I wasn’t really in any condition to ask. You ever heard the expression: ‘Never look a gift horse in the mouth’?”
“So you don’t know anything?” I asked, ignoring his question.
“Oh, I know plenty. I know about worlds beyond your wildest imaginings, where fantastic creatures swim across skies of liquid fire. I know the secret of life and the meaning of death and what comes after. I also know how short and pathetic your lives are compared to mine.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No, not a threat, just an observation, a simple statement of fact.” He examined his fingers. “At the time I suspected that Dr Smith was not just a physician, although he didn’t confide in me who he really was or who he was working for. But I’m pretty sure that his main purpose was to get his hands on Maxwell rather than to liberate me. I was a side effect, a diversionary tactic, as it were. As much as it pains me to say so, although I am quite pleased with the end result.”
“Kind of figured that out for myself,” I said. “Tell me something useful: do you know where he took Max?” I asked.
“Not yet. But I now know who Dr Smith really is.” As casually as though he was picking up a couple of small sacks, he lifted two bodies from the other side of the wall and dumped them in the yard in front of me. They landed heavily and moaned slightly. “I believe you already know these individuals?”
“Spencer and Bart,” I said. “Funny how you two keep popping up.” They were two of the lowest of the low, small-time crooks I was unlucky enough to know back when I was working the streets. Those were the dark days after I ran away from home and before Max and Gus rescued me and gave me something to do which didn’t involve lying on my back and hating everyone, including myself. Spencer and Bart used to work as enforcers for Jason—my pimp—until he was taken out of business by N’yotsu. After that, they’d gone back to petty crime but with half an eye on making money from the demon invasion. Last time our paths had crossed, they’d kidnapped me and Gus and sold us out to a pack of demons in St Giles’. “I thought you two were banged up.”
“Got let out, didn’t we? Got ourselves pardoned,” grinned Spencer. He was a short, thin rat-like man with retreating hair and clothes that tried to be fashionable but failed thanks to their age and the fact that they were nearly rags. His partner was a huge bear of a man with
a rug on his chest peeking out through a stained vest, shovel-like hands being more fur than skin and a thick but patchy beard covering his face. Strangely, it was at his ears where the hair ended, making him look like he’d been born with his head on upside down.
“Pardoned? Who would do that?” I asked.
“Dunno. Some bloke in a suit. Everyone listened to him so we guessed he was a high-up toff or somethin'. Didn’t bother to check his credentials; just pleased to not be on a boat to the Colonies, that’s all.”
I spat on the floor. “Me, I’d have hung you.” I looked at Andras. “What’ve they got to do with all this?”
“Why, they were the ones who liberated the obsidian stone for me.”
“These two?” I laughed. “They could barely rob a chicken coop without mucking it up. There’s no chance they could break into the Tower!”
“We did,” said Bart. “It were all us. Ouch!” He glared at Spencer, who had elbowed him in his ribs.
Andras cleared his throat and Spencer paled. “Y-y-yes,” he stammered. “We did.”
Andras smiled triumphantly at me.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What have you done to them?” I asked.
“Just a little bit of persuasion. I simply encouraged them to be truthful.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “I know all about your tools of persuasion.”
“Oh, don’t get all moral with me. We don’t have time to be gentle with them.” He nudged Spencer with his boot. “Tell her what you told me.”
Spencer swallowed and then looked up at me. “It was us what did it, stole the stone thingy. But we went nowhere near the Crown Jewels or any of that stuff: we were told that would keep us out of real trouble.”
“Who told you?” I asked.
“The bloke what hired us. He helped get us in and did some sort of mumbo-jumbo to make sure no one knew we was there. We just walked in and out without no one seeing us. Weird like, but it was the easiest job we’ve ever done so there was no complaining. He promised he’d look after us.”
“Who is ‘he’ exactly?” I asked.
“Well, I say ‘he’, but it was a demon. He seemed normal at first, but I’m used to dealing with them types so I can tell.”
“What’d he look like?”
“Bit short, blondish hair, big nose, glasses, kind of weasel-like.”
I nodded. “Sounds like our doctor.”
“Yes!” said Spencer. “He said he was a doctor. Smith: he said his name was Smith. But the other demons called him something else. Carp, I think it was.”
“Carp? Like the fish?”
“Yeah, which I thought was odd as he didn’t look like no fish. At one point—and this is when I knew he was definitely a demon—he had these really big wings.”
“Big wings,” I said, as deadpan as I could while I wondered whether this was something he had seen or if he’d been on some of Gus’s drugs.
“Yeah, just for a moment.” He leaned forwards, speaking as though he was the biggest expert in the world. “The demons do that sometimes, when they’re tricking us to think they look like normals. It’s like they stop concentratin’ for a moment and you see a bit of what they really look like.”
“So did this… Carp… tell you what he wanted the stone for, or what his plan was?”
“I dunno,” he said.
I turned to Andras. “This make any sense to you?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“So you know this Carp he’s talking about?” I asked.
“It’s Gaap, not Carp, and yes I do know him. What is particularly annoying is that I did not recognise the low-born backstabber at the time. If I had, I would never have allowed him to help me.” He kicked the wall, knocking a ragged hole in the stone.
“I know that name,” I said. “He was the demon Josh summoned in Sheffield. That demon had wings when we first saw him.”
“That is correct. Gaap and I have associations going back many millennia. Back in my realm, it was he who was responsible for me being exiled to the Aether. But he’s a politician, an adviser. He only follows real power. As Solomon said, he always goes before four great and mighty Kings.”
“Wait,” I said. “Four Kings? Like what N’yotsu heard that demon say in Sheffield?”
“The very same. Asmoday, Abaddon, Bileth and Belial.” His face was now bright red with bottled-up fury.
“Still,” I said, “the fact that they’ve got you this upset just makes me want to like them more.”
He stared at me, those red eyes making me want to be anywhere but there. “Then you’re a damn fool. They are the driving force behind Almadel—my realm—and its efforts to conquer every other realm. If they succeed then your world will be destroyed forever, with what dregs remain of the human race reduced to slavery.”
I rubbed my head. “But you wanted them here before,” I said. “You said that you made the portals so you could bring your people through and make Hell on Earth. Those were your very words, I remember it clearly. What’s different now?”
“I am,” he said. “As I said to you earlier, I’m no longer wholly Andras nor N’yotsu: at least, not the creatures you knew. I am a hybrid of both, incorporating the experiences of both. You might not believe me but it’s true. And I have grown somewhat fond of this realm and its people over recent years, in spite of how you have treated me. Call it an infection, but one that I am reluctantly learning to embrace. In any case, I used to believe that by handing my kind the keys to this realm they would welcome me back with open arms. Having spoken to some of the demons who came through my portals, I now realise that I was sadly deluded.”
“They’ve cut you off!” I said. “They want you dead as much as they want us dead. But then why bring you back? Why not just let you fade away as N’yotsu, or cut you down when you were so weakened?”
“As much as it pains me to admit it, I was a useful distraction: a way of diverting you all while they got their hands on their prize. Namely Maxwell Potts, the genius who can accelerate the coming of the Fulcrum, show them exactly where it will emanate from and thus give them the portal they need to invade and overrun this realm. And there would be no honour in killing me when I was incapacitated; they would much prefer to strike me down in my prime, in full view of all, to act as an example.”
“So you’re going to help us?” I asked.
“I’m going to help me,” he said. “It just so happens that our interests coincide for the time being.”
“And when our interests stop coinciding?”
He smiled. “Now why would you spoil a perfectly lovely conversation with such thoughts?”
“So why are you telling me all this? Why bring these two filthy blackguards here?”
“I don’t have any more use for them but I thought you might enjoy putting them back behind bars or something. It’s possible that I’m getting soft in my old age: time was, I’d have stolen their souls and banished them to the pits of Hell, but…” he shrugged. “As for the information, I know that you and the two children in there are trying to piece together where Maxwell has gone. When you find out, you’ll need all the help you can get.” He leapt back onto the wall and then bowed. “I will be ready, willing and able to assist when the time comes, although you will need to be quick.”
“I’m still struggling with what’s in all this for you. Why not just let them invade us?”
“Augustus turned into a demon when he wasn’t supposed to. Maxwell was snatched away, and I have been restored to my former glory as an afterthought. Back in Sheffield, that sniffling scrote Gaap started shouting about the Four Kings. They are playing with my toys without asking for my permission, and that makes me very cross. I am also highly vindictive and jealous: the Four Kings and Gaap denied me my rightful place amongst my people a long time ago and I would take a great deal of pleasure in doing likewise to them here.” He dropped down the other side of the wall and out of sight.
I turned to Spencer and Bart. “You’re going
to stay here while I get some soldiers,” I said. “No trying to escape.”
“No fear,” said Spencer. “Just keep us away from that thing, all right?”
After making sure that Spencer and Bart were firmly under guard, I made my way back downstairs to Max’s lab. I opened the door to find Lexie and Joshua in excited conversation, standing in the middle of piles and piles of notes like giants in the middle of a paper town.
“Kate,” grinned Lexie. “I think we have something.”
“What?” I asked.
She grabbed my arm and led me into the middle of their mad organisation. “These are Max’s notes on Nonsuch.” She pointed at three thigh-high stacks leaning into each other.
“Yeah, so?” I asked. I’d lived through his obsession with that place.
“It’s all there,” she said.
“Good,” I said slowly. “Well done.” I looked round for some sort of useful clue.
“No, you don’t understand what I’m saying. It’s all here: he didn’t take any of this stuff. However there are other papers that at the time we thought were obscure and meaningless, but which are now missing.”
“Then that means…”
“Nonsuch was a dead-end,” she said, picking up a paper and waving it in front of me. “The initial readings we took from our visit there showed very little, but Maxwell persuaded us to carry on our workings as though there was something that would turn up.”
“But if he knew there was nothing there, why would he make you do that?”
“So that he could get us doing something useful but without giving us all the information on what the true target was,” said Joshua. “We think he was trying to distract us from his real intentions.”
“Which were?” I asked.
“Did he ever mention St Albans to you?” asked Lexie.
I rubbed my head. “Ages ago. Must be at least a few months. I got a load of maps and stuff for him, but that was the last I heard of it.”
“We still need to check,” she said, “but I think that might be a place worth checking.” She pointed to a couple of stray pieces of paper. “That’s all that’s left of his St Albans research; he must have taken the rest with him.”