by Mike Carey
‘Maybe what you said,’ I mused. ‘The trail’s not fresh enough. Or maybe he’s just too deep. There could be Victorian sewers down there, fifty feet below the regular ones. Or Tube tunnels that were never documented, for that matter. We only know what someone decided to write down.’
Trudie didn’t answer. Since the argument at Pen’s she seemed to have drawn in on herself. She kept up the silence all the way into town, and while we were retreading the beat she’d walked for most of the morning. We ran into Etheridge and his partner – the woman Gil McClennan had referred to as Greaves – coming towards us along Kemble Street. Etheridge was his usual nervy, tic-ridden self, no better and no worse than when I’d seen him last, but Greaves was tired and disgruntled.
‘Nobody’s got a trace of anything,’ she said. ‘And we’ve walked every square foot of this area ten times over by now. If there was anything to find, we’d have found it. But Gil says we have to keep on going until the light fails.’
‘He’s very keen,’ I commented neutrally.
Greaves snorted derisively. ‘He’s shit-scared,’ she retorted. ‘This keeps his mind off it, doesn’t it?’
‘Off what?’ Trudie asked.
‘Off Super-Self. He’s got to go in tonight, and he doesn’t know how it’s going to pan out. Keeping himself busy is his way of dealing with it.’
I thought about the fight I’d had with McClennan the day before. Greaves might be right, but if Gil was scared, I suspected it wasn’t just for his own safety. He’d thrown that punch at me because he saw my off-the-cuff battle plan as putting his exorcists in danger. But then this morning he’d rejected my suggestion, which would have given him an easy out. He must be wondering now what he’d let himself and his team in for, and whether he was going to end the evening with blood – someone else’s blood, I mean – on his hands. He might be the first McClennan ever to fret on that score.
We kept on going to the end of the street, then did one more long trek up and down Kingsway. At that point Trudie announced she was going back to the MOU – back to her map. Maybe the fact that Asmodeus had been out of town would make a difference. There’d be new lines to draw now, with a jump discontinuity from the old ones because Asmodeus had nipped over to eastern Europe on his murderous little day trip. That time lapse might be enough to allow her to distinguish his present movements from older ones.
I was going to offer to go with her, but my phone rang and a glance at the display told me it was Caldessa. ‘I have to take this,’ I apologised to Trudie. She shrugged and backed off a few steps.
‘Hello?’ I said, turning my back on her.
‘Hello, dear heart,’ Caldessa said. ‘Good news. My friend Burgerman was able to help me with the internal workings of your dread device. It transpires that the drilling and pinning process is done by means of a computer these days – quelle surprise. Burgerman knows a man who makes them up in batches for the tourist dollar, from old chocolate boxes and jewel cases. He boggled a little at your specifications, but he was able to run off the cylinders in no time, and the combs are standard.’
‘So it’s all done?’ I demanded.
‘Not quite, but it will be by the time you get here. I’m just fitting everything into the case now.’
‘You’re the eighth wonder of the modern world, Caldessa,’ I said fervently.
‘Of the ancient world,’ she sighed, ‘unfortunately.’
I hung up and looked around for Trudie, but she was nowhere in sight. She must have got tired of waiting for me, or maybe she felt being on her own for a while would be an improvement on my company. I couldn’t fault her logic on that one.
I looked at the time and weighed up my options. I wanted to go back to Pen’s and make sure both she and Sue were still there and still safe. I wanted to check in with Nicky and see if he’d managed to get the dirt on Tlallik and Ket and Jetaniul. More than anything, I wanted to sleep, but you can do that when you’re dead, at least if your luck is in.
Before doing any of those things, I took the Tube out to Kensington and collected my order. Caldessa demonstrated its workings to me with pardonable pride.
‘Three keys,’ she said, rotating the drab little wooden box in her hands. It hadn’t been painted or varnished, and unlike Burgerman’s enterprising friend, Caldessa hadn’t used a Victorian chocolate box or jewel case as her starting point; she’d just nailed six roughly sanded pieces of MDF together into a cube, cutting slatted holes into one of them to allow the thing to function. ‘But once they’re all wound up, you can turn it on and off with this toggle switch here. It doesn’t open, of course. And it doesn’t look like anything very much. But I assume function is more important than form, and it’s a lot sturdier than the regular kind.’
‘It’s perfect, Caldessa.’ I kissed her on the cheek, and she yelped because my stubble was more than usually obtrusive. ‘I’ll be in touch about that date, as soon as I’m done with this. I’ll even shave.’
‘You needn’t bother as far as that goes,’ Caldessa allowed. ‘Your louche charm is a selling point, Felix. A shave and a manicure would just make you look like a used-car salesman.’
She had a point. I never did scrub up more than halfway decent. I thanked her again and retired with some of my dignity still intact.
No answer from Pen’s house, or from Nicky either at the Gaumont or on his mobile. Fatigue was catching up on me with a vengeance now, and my eyes were doing that thing where they only stay open while you’re actually making them, and close by infinitesimal degrees whenever your attention slips.
It was only six thirty or so, more than five hours yet before I had to be at Super-Self to head Gil McClennan off from his Little Big Horn. I bowed to the inevitable, caught a Circle Line train running widdershins through South Ken, and put my head down for half an hour.
Well, half an hour was the plan. When sleep opened its black throat at my feet I lost my balance and pitched in head first, like a drugged honey cake into the gullet of Cerberus, and lulled by the motion of the train we both went rocking into the dark together.
It was a sleep that was almost deep enough to be dreamless: or at least the things that populated it were too primitive and unformed to resolve themselves into actual images or sounds. They were just inchoate feelings, made up of unease and familiarity in equal amounts. It was as though I was sliding down an endless helter skelter of déjà vus.
What woke me was the sound of the PA system at Moorgate reporting a good service on all lines. It’s like they say: there are lies, damned lies and London Underground service announcements.
I was groggy and crumpled and slumped into a corner of the seat. The first thing I realised was that I’d slept with my tin whistle jammed against my third rib, so that I winced in discomfort every time I breathed in. The second was that the man in the snow-white mac sitting opposite me, staring at me with an expression of distant, contemplative calm, was Father Thomas Gwillam.
‘Good evening, Castor,’ he said solemnly.
Evening? I looked at my watch. Half past nine. I’d slept for three hours. Still no need to panic, but this had to be my last turn on the merry-go-round.
‘Evening, Father,’ I muttered. ‘It’s been sixteen years or so since my last confession.’
Gwillam’s thin lips pursed slightly: he doesn’t like it when people make light of grave matters. His pale eyes blinked and then opened again slowly, like a cat’s. ‘I’ve been excommunicated,’ he reminded me. ‘I’m therefore no longer qualified to take confession. Your sins will have to remain on your conscience a while longer.’
I looked around me as I came awake properly, belatedly taking in the fact that Gwillam wasn’t alone. Two of his team – a very young woman and a man built even more solidly than Mr Dicks – stood to either side of me, close enough to intercept if I tried anything that smacked of lèse-majesté.
‘You’re playing a very dangerous game,’ Gwillam told me.
I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help myself; it
was just so obviously something he’d heard someone say in a Bond movie.
‘What do you suggest?’ I asked him. ‘Twister’s no good. I’m just not as supple as I used to be.’
‘You set this thing free in the first place, Castor. All the deaths that have resulted from that act are on your hands. And it’s your responsibility more than anyone’s to see that it’s destroyed before it can do any further harm.’
Anger crawled up my throat like bile. In spite of his two bodyguards – and I was under no illusions that the girl was at least as dangerous as the bruiser – I was tempted to lunge across the aisle and take a poke at him. One good whack on his self-satisfied snout: that would almost make up for being beaten into lumpy porridge immediately afterwards.
But I still had promises to keep.
‘It was your people who set him free, you fuckwit,’ I snarled instead. ‘I got him out of the Stanger, but your hit men opened his fucking door and let him walk right out. It’s on you as well as me.’
To my surprise, he nodded. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘It’s on me too. I don’t deny that. It’s the reason I’ve allowed you to operate as a free agent. I know what you’re trying to do. I don’t hold out any great hope that you’ll succeed, but the smallest chance that you might outweighs the risk that you’ll sabotage our own operation.’
He paused for a second, frowning at me. He tilted his head to one side to get a better angle on the only slightly faded bruises on my face, the ones left over from my first encounter with Asmodeus down in Brixton.
‘But we suspect that the demon has plans of his own in train,’ he said. ‘Plans that are already far advanced. So I’m swallowing my pride, Castor. I’m here to suggest that we work together to bring him down.’
‘No thanks,’ I said.
Gwillam didn’t seem surprised, but his eyes narrowed into a severe frown.
‘You’re making no progress alone. You’re flailing in the dark.’
I laughed again. ‘Gwillam, do you think I’m an idiot?’ I demanded. ‘You’re here because you’ve fired every shot in your locker and you didn’t hit a blind thing. You’re coming up empty. This is no-stone-unturned time, and I’m probably the last stone you got to. But you think offering to share will play better than asking if you can pick my brains for free.’
Gwillam’s expression didn’t change. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘Your cynicism demeans you, but it’s understandable, to some extent. It’s true that we haven’t run Asmodeus to ground, any more than you have, but we’ve succeeded in closing down his support system.’
‘The American satanists,’ I translated, and I took a certain pleasure in seeing in his face the surprise he tried to hide.
‘Exactly,’ Gwillam confirmed. ‘The remnants of Anton Fanke’s organisation, now completely eradicated. Whatever Asmodeus is doing, he’s been thrown back on his own resources. We have a window, and if we use it wisely – if we cooperate and pool our intelligence – we can bring him down.’
I shook my head firmly. ‘No,’ I said, ‘we can’t. Because that – bringing him down, I mean – is exactly where we part company. You want him dead; I just want him caught.’
‘I want the demon dead,’ Gwillam corrected me.
‘And you don’t care who else gets left in the dirt – or under it – along the way. I’ve seen you work, Gwillam. I chose Jenna-Jane Mulbridge as a partner over you – that ought to tell you a lot.’
‘Suppose I swore – on the book that I love – not to kill Ditko unless it’s absolutely unavoidable?’
‘You’re excommunicated. You’ve got nothing to lose now, have you?’
The train pulled into the next station, and Gwillam stood. The young woman turned her head to stare at him, but he moved his hand in an almost imperceptible horizontal gesture: No.
‘You can call me,’ he said. ‘A message left at the house in St Albans – where you tracked me down last time – will still reach me. Don’t let false pride lead you astray, Castor. You’re right that my word on this thing, even my sworn word, is worth nothing. I’ll break any promise and betray any trust, to cauterise this evil. But if your methods were a little more like mine, fewer people would have died. Consider. And when you reach the end of your own pathetic Calvary, let me know. My offer will still be open.’
He stepped down, followed by his two asymmetrical minders. Four stops to go before Paddington. I used the intervening time to get my head together and to try to shake off the lingering atmosphere of that fucking dream.
The estimable Mr Dicks was on duty at the front desk again, and his flatulent grunt as he pressed the gate release said louder than words that seeing me had made his day. I walked on by, whistling a slightly out-of-tune ‘Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrica’.
The place was dark and all but deserted. Another guard was checking windows in a desultory way, but I didn’t see anybody else around until I got up onto the second floor and noticed the faint glow coming from between the slatted blinds of Jenna-Jane’s office. I went by on tippy-toe, very keen not to alert her to my presence.
The map room was in darkness, but when I turned on the light I found that Trudie was there all the same. She’d been sitting in the dark, up to her knees in shredded paper. That at least explained where the map had gone, although not why.
She looked up and gave me a hollow-eyed stare. She looked as though she’d been crying, but she wasn’t crying now. Her fists were clenched, but the cat’s cradles normally wound round her knuckles trailed across the floor now like Pierrot’s sleeves, giving her a tragic air.
‘You okay?’ I asked her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really.’ Her tone was hard, but brittle too – a catch at the back of it warning me to tread carefully.
‘I was going to ask you how it went,’ I said, indicating the torn fragments of map, ‘but I guess I’ve got my answer.’
‘He’s not back yet. Not in London, anyway. No new lines. Nothing to go on. Waste of time.’
I waited. If she wanted to tell me what had happened, she’d tell me. If she didn’t, asking about it might bring on a crisis we probably didn’t have time for. For something to do, I started to clear up some of the mess. Where the black lines had been too thickly overlaid on each other, becoming a single indecipherable mass, Trudie had at some point resorted to a silver Sharpie marker. The silver lines, their lustre deadened by the thick black tracery underneath, looked like day-old snail slime.
‘I took your advice,’ Trudie said in that same dangerous tone.
Down on one knee, my fists full of scraps like the guy who lays the trail on a paperchase, I looked up at her. Her red-rimmed eyes blinked once, twice, three times.
‘What advice was that?’
‘You said I should look in the basement here. If I wanted to know who I was working for.’
Okay. That explained a lot.
‘Those cell blocks are a logical extrapolation from a certain position,’ I said carefully. ‘I just wanted you to think about the implications of—’
‘I know what you wanted, Castor,’ Trudie growled. ‘I told you I’ve been down there. Tonight. About an hour ago. I’d have to be pretty fucking dense not to get it, wouldn’t I?’
A pause.
‘Look. Look at this,’ Trudie said. She held out her hand, which was shaking visibly. ‘An hour. It just won’t stop.’ She took a deep breath and stood. Her hand fell to her side again, the fingers flexing and clenching. ‘Principled resignations,’ she said, shaking her head sombrely. ‘They look really bad on your CV, don’t they? Nobody likes a quitter. Especially a holier-than-thou quitter.’
I took a step towards her, but the hand came up again like a shot, warding me off. She didn’t want any consolation that I could offer, even though it looked as though the tears were starting again.
‘You’re still wrong,’ she said, ‘and Mulbridge is still right. That’s the horror of it, Castor – that we have to turn ourselves into what she is if we want to survive. Hell is coming to Ea
rth, one piece at a time. Not the sky falling, but the ground opening up under our feet. There’s nowhere that’s safe to stand any more. If I walk out on this, it will just be because I’m a coward, like you.’
I didn’t argue. It wasn’t just her hands that were shaking, it was her whole body. She looked down at the trailing strings that dangled from her wrists, made a half-hearted gesture towards rewinding them, but then gave it up after the first two or three turns.
‘Will you?’ I asked her. ‘Walk out?’
Trudie shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘Not yet. Not until we’ve found Asmodeus and got him locked away again. After that . . . I’ll see how I feel.’
‘Then can I ask for your help with one other thing?’ I asked, keeping my tone studiously neutral.
‘What’s that?’
‘The Super-Self entity. Gil is scheduled to start his demolition run at midnight. I want to get in there first and see if I can take it down myself.’
Trudie stared at me, mystification rousing her for the first time from her own tortured thoughts. ‘Take it down?’ she repeated. ‘Last time it chewed us up and spat us out. Why should tonight be any different?’
‘Because tonight I’ve got a secret weapon,’ I said. ‘Inspired by you, actually. I liked what you did with the map – the way you pushed yourself out past your comfort zone and did the necessary. I think maybe I can do the same thing here. But I want an anchor in case things go Pete Tong on me. The two of us working together damped that thing down just enough so that we could walk out of Super-Self on our own four feet. That’s what I want you to do tonight: be my back-up, and give me some room to manoeuvre if it drops on me before I make my play.’
Trudie hesitated for a second, then shrugged. ‘Okay. Why not?’
‘Thanks. Is there anything else you need to do here?’
She surveyed the devastation she’d wrought and shook her head again. ‘No. I think I’m done.’