by Mike Carey
But under the circumstances, the follow-up hearing to determine whether or not Rafis sectioning should remain in force had been postponed sine die.
That means watch this space, Dr. Webb translated helpfully. You now have twenty-one days, Castor. If you dont come up with anything within that time, Im going to consult with Professor Mulbridge with a view to signing Ditko over into the care of the MOU at Paddington.
Watch your back, I suggested.
Missing my point, he swiveled to look behind him. We were standing in the main corridor of the Stanger, just outside Rafis cell, and the corridor was clear. Webb turned back to me, slightly annoyed, as if Id just played a silly practical joke.
I meant, I explained patiently, watch your back if you throw Rafi to Jenna-Jane. Because if you do that Im definitely going to break both of your arms and both of your legs.
Almost in disbelief, Webb looked at the two male nurses who were flanking him to either sidehis usual tragic chorus. I have witnesses, he said, who heard you make that threat.
Im sure their testimony will be invaluable, I agreed. But youll still be quadriplegic.
Maybe that was a tactless thing to say, but in many ways it was seeming like a long and fairly stressful day. And there was still the question of where I was going to sleep that night.
Juliet and I met up in the evening at a pavement café close to the refuge where she lives. She arrived late, without apology. One of the other residents had a problem with an abusive husband, she told me, and this guy had turned up out of the blue and tried to make his wife leave with him. So I had to step in and help.
What, you mean you ate him? I asked.
In front of everybody? No, of course not. I have to go on living there, Felix.
What, then?
She drank her espresso in a single swallow, wiped her lips with her hand. I showed the other women how to do it.
How to?
Impose their will on a man.
Ah. I fished for more, starting with what Juliet was best at. By employing their feminine wiles?
By employing their boots, mostly. And I think an empty bottle was used at one point.
Right, right. Violence, of course. The other thing that Juliet was best at.
There was something on her mind, I could see: something she found hard to say. I tried to make it easier for her.
Thanks for getting that werewolf off my back, I said. It always puts a crimp in my day if someone rips my spine out through my throat.
It was my pleasure, said Juliet, meaning it. I . . . She hesitated, feeling her way around social niceties that had no meaning for her. I should thank you, too. The thought that I rendered myself helplessthat I placed myself so entirely within Asmodeuss poweris very hard to bear. But you kept me safe, as far as you could. And you brought me back.
Brilliant improvisation, I said modestly. Include me in your memoirs. And in your will.
And in my vagina?
A large mouthful of café latte went the wrong way in best Hollywood comedy fashion: refusing to endorse the cliché by coughing and spluttering, I went red in the face and waited for the scalding stuff to go down.
Would I still have my soul afterwards? I asked her wheezily once the attack had subsided.
Juliet looked thoughtful. Probably, she said slowly. That depends, really, on how much self-control I could muster. At the very least it would have bite marks on it.
Whats life about if its not about taking risks? I opened my mouth to say yes, but Juliet was still speaking.
Well need to wait a while, though, she said. Tonight Im trying something new.
Something new? I repeated, struggling to keep the chagrin and frustration out of my voice. Youre way past your seventeen thousandth birthday, Juliet. Is there anything new?
She grinned. For most of that time, she reminded me, I came to earth only at the hest of magicians powerful enough or stupid enough to summon me. They used me either to satiate their own desiresin which case they died, whatever protections they tried to deployor to destroy their enemies, in which case other men died. But if the intention was to destroy a woman, then it was my cousins, the incubi, who were called upon. In all that time I was never sent against a woman. Or raised by one.
I suddenly saw where this was going.
Well, its mostly the same hormones in different concentrations, I said offhandedly. The bored tone took a supreme effort, though: I was getting a sinking feeling that started in my stomach, gathered momentum in my crotch, and kept on heading due south.
For me, Juliet said, its different. Or at least, I think it might be different. To enjoy lustpure lustwithout the impulse to hunt and kill and eat intervening . . .
How do you know it wont intervene? I asked, looking at my fingernails as if I were worried about how dirty they were.
I dont. But I think Id like to try.
All right, so try, I said desperately, but does it have to be right this very
What a lovely place, said a voice from behind me. As I turned, biting my tongue, Susan Book took a chair from one of the other tables and set it down in between the two of us. Its so nice to be able to eat right out on the street. So continental. Is there anything you like better, Mr. Castor?
I told her, insincerely, that there was nothing I liked better than eating on the street. I didnt add that I was probably going to be sleeping there, too.
She looked very much her old self again: shy and diffident and apologetic about a whole bunch of things that werent her fault. She told us about how her case was going, and how her solicitor thought he could get her sentence very substantially commuted on a plea of temporary insanity. It had been a riot, after all. Most of the people there were solid citizens who had no previous history.
No previous history, she repeated dreamily. When he said thatabout meI suddenly realized that he was right. I had no history of anything at all. No past, because Id never had the courage to go out and have a present.
And your religious beliefs? I asked. I know how that sounds: youll just have to believe me when I say the tone wasnt quite so snide as the words.
I still believe in God, she assured me earnestly. ButI dont think that I have a vocation for the church. Im going to go back to my old job, and try to live a little more in the world.
What was your old job? I asked.
I was a librarian in Stepney.
Ordinarily I wouldnt have touched a straight line like that for a free weekend in Las Vegas. But tonight didnt have an ordinary feel to it. Yeah, I agreed. Thats really going to
We should be moving, Juliet said.
She stood, and Susan followed suit, giving her a smile of radiant admiration.
Ill see you, Felix, Juliet said.
Sure.
Good night, Mr. Castor.
This time I just nodded. Mines not going to be half as good as yours, I thought gloomily.
They left, arm in arm. All along the pavement as far as I was able to keep them in sight, men walked into walls and into each other and almost under cars as they turned to watch.
They say that if you suffer in this life youll come back as something better in the next.
Im coming back as God.
Twenty-five
ISAW HER ONE MORE TIME, A FEW MONTHS LATER. NOT Juliet, I mean, Abbie.
I was coming home late from some night of debauchery in Farringdon. I think it was the night that Paul finally made it down to the Jerusalem and called in my marker, but maybe that was a different time altogether. Anyway, I found myself walking along Old Street at one in the morning, dead drunk and more or less at peace with the world.
A small, wild quartet of ghosts burst through a shop front ahead of me in
a storm of shrieks and giggles, saw me watching them and stopped. All of them were girls, ranging in age from ten to about sixteen. They tried to compose their faces, like living girls faced suddenly with a stern teacher or a scary headmaster, and like living girls they couldnt quite do it. One of them set the others off again and they fled, laughing like birds, across Golden Lane into a narrow alley between two office blocks. Three of them dissolved there into sudden, evanescent motes of light. Abbie lingered a moment, head bowed, as if fighting a brief battle with herself. I hoped she might look back so I could wave, but I guess she didnt want to be left behind. She picked up her steps and faded into the dark.
Not everyone gets the ending they deserve. Rafi deserves to have his evil twin ripped out and sent back to hell with firecrackers tied to his tail. Pen deserves Rafi. Father Gwillam deserves martyrdom. Someone up above or maybe down below deals out destinies without ever giving us a chance to watch the shuffle or cut the deck. Its not fair, but then nobody ever told us it was going to be.
I whispered her name like an incantation.
Abbie Jeffers.
Fanke.
Torrington.
Peace.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
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Document creation date: 5.10.2012
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Mike Carey
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