by Mike Carey
Paul raised his eyebrows as he pondered this. Cuts all over his face, he mused. Two broken fingers. Maybe a broken jaw. That shit on his chest looked like blisterslike he was catching fire from the inside.
But you know Im right. The fingers will reset themselves tonight. The jaw, too, if I actually broke it. The gouges and the burns will already have healed up: if you looked right now, there wouldnt be a damn thing to see. Rafis got a very healthy immune system. I guess its all the good food and exercise.
Paul gave me a slightly fish-eyed stare, checking to see if any of that second-rate irony was at his expense. Then he shook his head again, giving it up. That lady of yours, he said, after taking another deep drag on the cigar, shes a class act, Castor. About as big as a high-heel shoe, but she just went for Rafael back there like it was a fair fight. Went for Dr. Webb, too. He grinned wickedly. That was the highlight of the fucking day. Truth.
Yeah, Pen is one of a kind, I agreed. Shes not mine, though. I mean, shes just a friend. A whole lot of memories surged up from one of the less-frequented areas of my mind: I shoved them right back down again. Shesshe and Rafi used to betogether. When we were all at university, they wereI groped for a phrase that accurately defined Pen and Rafis relationship, but there wasnt onean item, I finished lamely. But it didnt last. Rafi was the flit-and-sip type.
We stood in silence for a few seconds.
He was my best friend, I said, aware of how bizarre and unhealthy all this sounded. Pens, too, both before and after the sweat-and-roses stuff. Everybody liked him. Youd like him, too, if you met him.
If I met him? Pauls intonation was pained.
You know what I mean.
Yeah, he admitted. I guess I do. Kind of. Ive always wanted to ask you, though. What exactly is that thing inside him?
Asmodeus. Hes a demon. A fucking big one, too. A lot of the literature on the subject says
The literature? Paul shook his head, wondering. What, like The Lancet? Scientific American?
Not exactly, no. Im talking about books written by carpet-chewing natural philosophers five hundred years ago. Grimoires. Magical textbooks. Anyway, they put Asmodeus close to the top of the infernal pecking order. Not someone you want to mess with. But Rafi did just that. He tried to summon Asmodeus about two years ago. I think he was looking to do some kind of Faust thing: buy a shitload of forbidden knowledge from before the world was made. It didnt work out that way, though. Somehow Asmodeus got into him and started to burn him up from the inside.
The words, banal and deadpan as they were, stirred up a series of disconnected impressions in my mindsome of the component parts of a night I still couldnt forget. Because of the way my mind works, it was mostly the sounds that stayed with me. Rafis breathing, harsh and shallow and with longer and longer gaps between the in breaths. The grating laughter that was coming from his throat, welling up like blood out of the night-black void that showed when his mouth gaped open. The endless mumble and hiss of boiling water: wed dumped Rafi into a bathtub full of ice because patches of his skin were going from red to black, but after about a minute the ice was water and the water was bubbling like a witchs cauldron.
You were there? Paul asked, soundingto put it politelya little skeptical. Its not just cops: everyone draws their lines in the sand, sooner or later, and once theyre drawn it takes a lot to shift them.
His girlfriend called me in the middle of the night. She heard him say my name, and it sounded like his own voice, not the voice of the thing inside him, so she found my number in the back of his diary. By the time I got there, it looked like I might already be too late, but I tried anyway.
Tried what, exactly.
I played him a tune.
He nodded. Id already told him over a couple of beers what it is I do for a living, and how I do it. You see, I went on, reluctantly, I was assuming it was a human spirit inside him. A ghost. Id never even met a demon back then. So I listened for a human spirit, and when I found it I started to play it out of him. Then about ten minutes in, I realized that what Id dredged up was Rafis own soul. I was dispossessing him from his bodyfinishing what Asmodeus had started.
I tried to undo the damage Id already done. I switched keys in mid-tune, played the opposite of what my instincts were telling me to play, in the hope that I could pull Rafi back into his own flesh. And it sort of worked.
Sort of?
I nodded bleakly. Yeah, sort of. I stuck Rafi back together againand at the same time I stuck Asmodeus to Rafi, which wasnt part of the plan. Theyve been trapped in there together ever since. Thats why Asmodeus tends to leave me alone, most of the timehe knows hes going to need me sooner or later if hes ever going to get free again. Hes just waiting for me to figure out how to do it. I scowled, fingering one of the bruises on my shoulder. Dont know what the hell went wrong tonight. He knew who I was, but for once he didnt seem to give a fuck. In fact, he really seemed happy to be getting a crack at me. Like he hadnt expected it.
There was a long silence. I could see how a lot of this must strike Paul as total bullshit, even after what hed seen. It would have sounded ridiculous to me if I hadnt lived through it, if I hadnt lived through worse things since. All those things in heaven and earth that philosophy tries not to dream about.
Eventually he opened his mouth to say something, but we were interrupted by the sound of high heels on wet asphalt. Pen came out from the shadow of the building and headed over to us. I looked a question at her and she managed a weak smile.
Hes sleeping like a baby, she said.
Good, I answered. From past experience, he probably wont surface until sometime late morning. Whenever Asmodeus takes over like that, Rafi burns up a hell of a lot of energy all at once. The best thing we can do now is to let him sleep it off in his own good time.
Pen nodded, but I could see from her face that she didnt buy my time heals all wounds approach.
He never has, she said, taken over in quite that way. Asmodeus is cruel, and spiteful, and a little bit insane, but that She finished off the sentence with a shrug.
She was right, too. The berserker fit was a new one in my experience, and I couldnt see what the demon had to gain by it. In the past Asmodeus had told me he was playing a waiting game, in the knowledge that sooner or later Id figure out a way to undo whatever it was Id done and set him and Rafi free from each other. Tonight it seemed hed run out of patience and out of whatever demons have instead of sanity.
I tried to think of something vaguely reassuring to say, but Paul preempted me by throwing down his unfinished cigar, stamping it out, and stretching his shoulders like somebody warming up for a workout.
Gotta say good night to you people, he said. Im on until two a.m., and thats my break over. You take my advice, you should get some sleep yourselves. The both of you look wiped. He gave us a nod and headed back into the building.
Thanks again, I called to his retreating back.
No problem. Ill send in a bill.
I turned to Pen. That sounds like sense to me, I said. Unless youre up for some chicken vindaloo? The exotic delights of East Finchley are on our doorstep.
Pen shook her head.
Im meant to be going out, she said. With Dylan.
Dylan? Oh yeah, Dylan ForsterDr. Feelgood. Id sort of forgotten about him. The truth was, I kept on forgetting about him again every time Pen mentioned him. Id long ago abandoned any thoughts of rekindling whatever the two of us had had, but on some level it still disturbed me to think of her going out with someone else. She was part of a triangle whose other two corners were me and Rafi. I knew how unfair that was, and I hated myself for having any reservations when Pen tried to scrape up a little happiness for herself, so whenever she mentioned her
affluent, passionate, druid-in-training, Lexus-driving, trust-me-Im-a-doctor new boyfriend, I put a certain amount of effort into sounding more positive and enthusiastic than I felt.
Well, even better, I said now. Take your mind off this stuff for a few hours. Hope its something good.
I dont think he had anywhere particular in mind. He just said it was going to be a murderous day, and he absolutely had to see me at the end of it so thered be something to balance out all the shitty stuff. I told him I was going to see Rafi, and he said hed meet me afterwards.
She gave me a brief but fierce hug and climbed into the car.
Drop you somewhere? she asked, holding the door open for a moment so we could go on talking.
I mulled that one over, but not for very long. My mind was still crawling with the dread that Id felt when I saw the nurse lying crumpled on the floor of Rafis cell like yesterdays laundry. Right then I wanted to be out in the open for a little while, and by myself.
I shook my head. Thanks, but I think I need the walk, I said.
Then Ill see you tomorrow. She slammed the door, revved up, and pulled away, the Mondeo rocking a little on its wheelbase because it was getting on a bit now and the suspension was more or less shot.
The night was mine. Woot.
* * *
As it turned out, I needed more than just a walk. I spent the next few hours trying to shake off that sense of unease in a string of pubs and insomniac water holes from Finchley to Kings Cross and beyond. Somewhere along the way, chugalugging my fifth or sixth whisky on the rocks in some Irish-themed nowhere on Kentish Town Road, I realized that what I was feeling had nothing to do with what had happened at the Stanger. It was something in the air, hanging over the whole oblivious city like an ectoplasmic slagheap waiting to start its inexorable downhill slide.
I got back home sometime after three a.m. Pens place is off Turnpike Lane. Its big and old, built in a nameless fin de sičcle style thats even heavier than High Victorian, and its on the side of a hill so that the basement, where Pen lives, becomes ground level at the back of the house and gives out directly onto the garden. I checked for lights, as I always do: if shed still been up Id have gone and split a bottle or at least a glass with her. But everything was dark and silent. She was probably staying over with Dylan at his flat out in Pinnera sign of how besotted she must be, because the house was a lot more than just somewhere where she hung up her boots, it was also the seat of her own very personal religion, the place of her power, the cave where she was high priestess and sibyl in residence.
My room is up in the eaves, as far away from all that earth-mother stuff as I can get, which suits me fine. Apart from anything else, thats a lot of stairs for anyone to climb if they want to come and find me, and Ill usually hear them coming.
I barely managed to shrug out of my clothes, then I hit the bed and was asleep before I bounced.
I dont know about Rafi, but I sure as hell didnt see a lot of Sunday morning. I woke up at the lag end of lunchtime, bright sunlight cutting through the gap in my curtains like a maniac with a chainsaw. I had a furry mouth and a hangover that was as much psychological as physical. Or animistic, maybe: a hangover of the spirit. How the hell do you cure that? A hair of the god that bit you?
Still no sign of Pen. I breakfasted alone in the sun-bleached kitchen, feeling a slight sense of unreality. The night had seemed so dark, the weight of foreboding so real, it was odd and even a little aggravating that nothing had happened. I felt as though reality was impugning my gut instincts.
But if there was some severing sword suspended over London, it was pretty firmly attached, and probably conformed to all relevant EU safety standards. I prowled about the house all day like a hermit with hemorrhoids, waiting for that doom-drenched feeling to revisit me. But it didnt, and disaster didnt strike. In the end I was reduced to watching old episodes of Fawlty Towers on some cable channel, and I kept forgetting to laugh.
Pen rolled home early in the evening to find me in the basement, feeding strips of fresh sheeps liver to her two ravens, Edgar and Arthur. She was touched.
You didnt need to do that, Fix, she said, squeezing my handa mistake, since it was dripping with blood and oozy bits of tissue. They dont mind if Im a bit late. But thanks.
Im always afraid that if I dont keep them happy Im going to be set meal B, I groused. Theyre getting to be the size of bloody vultures.
She seemed tired, and not all that happy: normally she came back from dates with Dr. Feelgood walking on air, so I was solicitousand maybe a little curious.
How was your night? I asked, waggling my eyebrows suggestively.
She shrugged, gave a faint smile. Okay, she said. It was . . . yeah. It was okay.
I waited for clarification, and after meeting my eyes in silence for a moment or two she shrugged again. Dylan was really tired, she said. Hed had an awful shift, clearing up other peoples messes. He wasnt supposed to be on duty today, but he said he had to, just for an hour or soto check up on some of the work he did yesterday. He didnt trust the doctor who was supposed to take over from him. So I went shopping, over at Camden Market, and he joined me there for a late lunch.
Did you check in on Rafi?
Yeah. We went over there this afternoon. But he was still asleep.
Told you. Hell wake up right as rain.
She nodded glumlythen visibly brightened as another thought struck her. Dylan says he might be able to prescribe some stuff that will keep Asmodeus under for more of the time. He wants me to have a word with Webb about letting him in to give Rafi some tests.
I raised my eyebrows. Worth a try, I said. I thought you said he was a rag and bone man.
Bones and joints, she corrected, looking at me severely. But he interned in endocrinology.
She followed me as I walked through into her cramped, pie-slice-shaped bathroom and washed my bloody hands in the sink. I was trying to get away from another lecture about how wonderful Dylan isPens favorite theme for the past few weeksbut it wasnt going to be that easy.
Hes really sweet, she said. Youd think hed want to stay well away from Rafi, consideringyou knowwhat he means to me. But he just wants to make me happy.
Ask him for a blank prescription pad before it wears off, I suggested. She punched me in the shoulder and I took it like a man.
Id already learned the hard way that sarcastic comments about Dr. Feelgood met with terrible retribution. He was an odd guy for Pen to be dating, in some ways; she wasnt drawn to material things, and affluence normally struck her as a sign of spiritual malaise rather than anything to aspire to. But Dylans wealth and success and smoked silver Lexus were counterbalanced by the fact that he was an ovatea sort of junior officer in some druidical training system, learning to be one of natures high priests. That was how shed met himat some solstice-related knees-up on a windswept hill in Pembrokeshire. Pens own flavor of paganism didnt have ranks and hierarchies, but she liked it a lot that this well-to-do young doctor was groping toward spiritual truth rather than just worrying about his backswing. And he understood about Rafi, which most people flat-out dont.
Yeah, the guy was clearly a saint. It was probably just as well Id never met him: if opposites attract wed probably fall head over heels in love with each other and leave Pen out in the cold.
Are you feeling a sense of choking terror that you cant pin down to anything in particular? I asked her.
It might have seemed like an odd question in some circumstances, but coming from me Pen knows its like a doctor asking you if youve been off your food. She searched her mind. Its both capacious and somewhat idiosyncratically arranged, so it took a while. No, she said at last. Just the usual choking terrors, and I can pretty much account for those. Why, Fix?