The Witches of Chiswick

by Robert Rankin

  Somewhere another telephone rang and another receiver was lifted. And then a dark voice, a sinister voice; a darkly sinister voice said, “Count Otto Black.”

  “Your Highness,” said she whose breath smelled none too sweet. “Our enemy has hacked into our restricted files.”

  “And there you have it,” said Will to Gammon.

  “I almost do,” said Gammon. “Explain the last part again.”

  “The witches have formulated a spell,” said Tim. “Using their computer system. They intend to employ it on the last day of this year, when the clock strikes midnight.”

  “The witching hour,” said Gammon.

  “Exactly. What would be more appropriate?”

  “This spell will infect every piece of Victorian electro technology, anything linked to the Tesla broadcast power system. Everything. It will destroy everything. Wipe it out as if it had never existed. Every Tesla transmission tower. Every wonder created by Lord Babbage. Everything. Effectively erase it all from history. It’s a very serious spell. The most serious and potent spell ever formulated, in my opinion.”

  “The stroke of midnight,” said Gammon. “On the last night of the year.”

  “The last night of this year,” said Will. “This year 1899. It’s what we might call a Millennium Bug.”

  38

  “Surely, sir,” said Gammon. “It would be a Centennial Bug, not a Millennium Bug. The Millennium is not due for another hundred years.”

  “Millennium Bug sounds much more dramatic,” said Will.

  “Yes, sir, but it is technically incorrect.”

  “Just leave it,” said Will.

  “As you wish, sir. And so, can Mr Tim disable this Millennium Bug?”

  “Of course.” Tim plucked at his beard. “Given time, but I doubt very much whether it’s even programmed into their system yet. If it were me, I’d leave it until the very last minute before programming it in, in case there was someone like me thinking to sabotage it.”

  “Surely you’d want to test it,” said Will. “To make sure that it worked.”

  Tim shook his head. “This is a bit different from your everyday computer virus,” he said. “If it involves magic, and this is Big Magic, then I’ll bet it involves all manner of big things; alignments of the planets, a series of rituals, probably even a human sacrifice.”

  “You are joking, surely.”

  “Mr Tim is not joking,” said Gammon. “And there have already been five such sacrifices.”

  “What?” went Will.

  “The Ripper murders, sir. Surely you are aware of them.”

  Will made a thoughtful face.

  “Why are you scowling?” Tim asked.

  “I wasn’t scowling, I was making a thoughtful face.”

  “That’s not how you do it,” said Tim. “You do it like this.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Gammon.

  “Thank you, Gammon,” said Tim.

  “Stop this,” said Will. “It’s not funny and it’s not clever. You think that the Ripper murders were definitely human sacrifices?”

  “No doubt of it, sir. If you join up the sites of the murders on a map you will see that an inverted pentagram is formed.”

  “Yes,” said Will. “I know.”

  “But of course you would, sir. The Master informed me that you had agreed to take on the case. Any suspects?”

  Will sighed.

  “Quite so, sir,” said Gammon.

  “Tell you what,” said Tim. “I’ll crack on here, see what I can come up with. Why don’t you carry on with Gammon’s website? I’m looking forward to reading the answer to question six, ‘What is Gammon’s favourite proprietary brand of pork scratchings?’”

  “Good idea, sir,” said Gammon.

  “Not so good idea,” said Will.

  “I could get supper on,” said Gammon.

  “Good idea,” said Will. “I’ll help you.”

  “I’d rather that you didn’t, sir. I can manage quite well on my own. I’ve been years getting that kitchen exactly the way I want it.”

  “I’ll help you then, Tim.”

  “I can manage.” Tim rattled away at the keyboard. “Go and play in Rune’s study, or something.”

  “Oh all right. Lead the way to the lift, please, Gammon.”

  Gammon led the way.

  And while Tim busied himself at the keyboard and Gammon busied himself in the kitchen, Will, without anything in particular to busy himself with, loafed about in Rune’s study.

  He ran a finger, beringed with a circlet of varnished gristle (which a talisman salesman in Cairo had assured him was nothing less than the Holy foreskin of St Thomas, the very sight of which would strike fear into the most fearsome of witches), along the leathern spines of a row of antique tomes and plucked one out at random: The Autobiography of Casanova.

  Will sat himself down next to the fire and idly leafed through it. The book, a first edition, was actually autographed. Will whistled. This book alone would be worth a fortune in the twenty-third century. Rune had amassed a most remarkable collection.

  Will gazed at Casanova’s signature, a flamboyant piece of calligraphy, and at the date 1792. Will read the dedication above the signature.

  To Hugo Rune, who introduced me

  to the pleasures of the flesh.

  From your disciple,

  Giovanni Jacopo Casanova

  “What?” went Will. And he looked once more at the date. That couldn’t be true, could it? The inscription had to be a forgery. Will put the book aside, rose from his seat and selected another at random.

  I’m the Pope and You’re not! The life and merry times of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander the Sixth. 1492.

  Will read what was written on the flyleaf.

  For Hugo, who—

  “No!” went Will. And he struggled to pull an enormous tome from the bottom shelf. He laid it out upon the floor and opened it. The Domesday Book, signed in the hand of King William himself.

  To my dear friend Hugo,

  for all his help in putting this together.

  “No!” and Will pulled another one and then another.

  It couldn’t be true.

  It just couldn’t.

  Rune had to have forged these signatures.

  A bound manuscript of Shakespeare’s The Tempest bore the inscription: Thanks for the inspiration, Hugo.

  Will slammed it shut.

  “Ah,” said Gammon entering the study with a tray. “I see you are admiring the Master’s library sir. Five thousand volumes, and each with a personal dedication to the Master.”

  “It can’t be true,” Will shook his head and replaced The Tempest onto its shelf. “He couldn’t really have lived for hundreds and hundreds of years.”

  “And why would that be, then, sir?” Gammon placed the tray upon a padouk wood and ivory-mounted chess table, that had been a gift to Hugo Rune from Genghis Khan. “Muffins?” he asked.

  “Impossible,” said Will.

  “You haven’t tasted them yet, sir.”

  “Not the muffins. You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Sir,” said Gammon, “you stand before one of the most valuable book collections in the world. I believe that you must be aware that the Master was, how shall I put this, careful with money. Do you really believe that he would have amassed such a collection of priceless tomes and then defaced and devalued them by forging signatures and dedications into them?”

  Will made a very thoughtful face.

  “Good face, sir,” said Gammon. “And, as our American cousins might say, right back at ya!”

  “But I just can’t believe it.”

  “Sir.” Gammon buttered muffins. “I informed you and Mr Tim that I had been in the Master’s employ for nearly two hundred years. During this time I have kept diaries. Daily diaries. They are all in my room. Perhaps you might care to examine them. They might blunt the edge of your scepticism.”

  Will shook his head. And he sniffed the mu
ffins, took one up and munched upon it. “How old was he?” Will asked between munchings.

  “I really couldn’t say, sir. He once informed me that he was Christ’s thirteenth disciple – his spiritual adviser, in fact – but that he’d asked for his name to be left out of the New Testament for personal reasons.”

  “That’s rather unlikely, isn’t it?” Will finished his muffin and licked at his fingers.

  “How so, sir? His name does not appear in the New Testament, which rather proves the truth of his statement, I would have thought.”

  Will shook his head. “No,” he said.

  “Although,” Gammon glanced about the library shelves, “I’m sure there’s a first draft of the New Testament somewhere here. Written in Christ’s own hand and dedicated to—”

  “Stop it,” said Will. “I fear that my brain is about to explode.”

  “Above the fireplace there,” said Gammon, “hangs the very sword that cleaved the head from John the Baptist. The Master was not present on the night of that tragedy, or he would no doubt have prevented it. He did however later have, I believe it is called, a fling with Salome. She gave him the sword as a souvenir.”

  “Enough,” said Will.

  “Another muffin?” asked Gammon.

  “No! Yes!” Will took another muffin and returned to his fireside chair.

  “Sir,” said Gammon. “Sir, I know everything about you. Everything. I was in constant communication with the Master during all of your time here. I know, for instance, that you imbibed a drug called Retro.”

  “Yes,” said Will. “I did. What about it?”

  “This chemical released the memories of your ancestors that were previously locked away in your brain, am I correct?”

  “You are,” said Will.

  “Then surely the Master’s memories were unlocked to you. The countless years of his remarkable existence.”

  “No,” said Will. “I recall the memories as far back as Captain Starling, father of Colonel Starling who should have piloted the moonship today and whose present whereabouts are unknown to me.”

  “Captain Starling was the Master’s son, although he never knew it. And the Master allowed his own son to die, saving Her Majesty the Queen (God bless Her).”

  “All right,” said Will. “I understand what you are saying. But this is fantastic stuff. Unbelievable stuff.”

  “Sir, but for the Master, have you ever met and spoken to any of your ancestors?”

  “No,” said Will, and he rose and helped himself to another muffin. “I wanted to, of course, but Rune advised me against it. He said it might be dangerous for them.”

  “And so indeed it might be, it certainly proved disastrous for the Master.”

  “You’re not suggesting that it is my fault that he was murdered?”

  “Well, sir, I—” But Gammon’s words were brought short by the ringing of the front doorbell.

  “I wonder who that might be?” wondered Gammon.

  “If Tim were here,” said Will, “he’d probably make the suggestion that it was the postman with a cheque for your back wages.”

  “Do you think it might be, sir?”

  “Stranger things have happened,” said Will. “To me, in the last half an hour, for instance.”

  “Then if you’ll pardon me, I shall answer the door.”

  “And I’ll have just one more muffin.”

  Gammon shuffled from the study and Will wolfed down the final muffin and gave his fingers a final thorough licking.

  Will heard the sound of the front door being opened and then soon after being closed again.

  And then Gammon returned to the study.

  “Most strange, sir,” said he. “I opened the door, but there was no one there. Children playing Knock Down Ginger, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps,” said Will. “Are there any more muffins?”

  Gammon cast a rheumy eye over the empty platter. “I see that you have eaten Mr Tim’s muffins also,” said he.

  “Have to keep my strength up,” said Will. “Witch-finding is a hungry business.”

  “Quite so, sir.”

  And then the doorbell rang once more.

  “Shall I ignore it this time?” Gammon asked.

  “Never mind,” said Will. “I’ll go.”

  “Oh no, sir, that wouldn’t do. Protocol must always be observed. There’s no telling where things might lead if the Master of the house was to answer his own front door.”

  “It’s no big deal,” said Will.

  “The precise meaning of that phrase alludes me,” said Gammon. “But I gather the gist. And trust to what I say, sir. One thing leads to another. A decline in standards would lead to chaos. Women being given the vote. The prohibition of opium. Even, God forbid, the decriminalisation of sodomy. Not to mention frotteurism.”

  “Frotteurism?” said Will.

  “I told you not to mention that.”[29]

  “Answer the door then, Gammon.”

  And Gammon went to answer the door.

  And once more Will heard the front door open.

  But this time he also heard a voice.

  He heard the voice of Gammon ask, “How might I help you, sir?”

  And then Will heard another voice, a voice that he recognised, and a voice that he also feared.

  It was a deeply-timbred voice of the Germanic persuasion. It said, “William Starling? Where is William Starling?”

  Will who had been seated once more, now leapt up to his feet and drew both his pistols from their holsters.

  “No, sir,” came the voice of Gammon from the hall. “You will have to make an appointment. I cannot allow you admission without a prior appointment. Protocol must always—”

  And then there was a thumping sound and Gammon said no more.

  Will flattened himself against a bookcase, both pistols raised and cocked. “Barry,” he whispered. “Are you awake?”

  A gentle purring sound echoed in the rear recess of Will’s brain. Barry was still fast asleep.

  “Barry!” went Will, more urgently. “You’re supposed to be my Holy Guardian, who warns me when trouble is heading my way.”

  “Zzzzzzzzzzz,” went Barry.

  “Hopeless,” whispered Will. “But I can deal with this.”

  He peeped around the corner of the bookcase, and found himself staring into the dead black eyes of a terrific figure. It was a terrific figure identical in every detail to the ones that Will had formerly encountered in the future, so to speak. And it smelt equally as bad.

  “Ah,” went Will. “Ah … well … hello there.”

  “William Starling?” The mouth, a cruel hard line, corded with muscle, crooked into an evil leer.

  “You, er, just missed him,” said Will. “He left.”

  “Take me to him now.”

  “Can’t,” said Will. “Sorry.”

  “Then you die.”

  “Indeed, I do think not.” And Will fired a pistol at point blank range, right into the chest of the automaton.

  And back went he with the force of the blast, and fell onto a Herez carpet, which had been a present to Rune from Shah Jahan for designing the Taj Mahal.

  Will blew into the smoking barrel of his gun.

  “Job done,” said he.

  The terrific figure lay prone upon the carpet. It showed no signs of simulated life.

  “However,” said Will, “I have seen the movies too. And so it would be safer to be sure.” And he stepped forward, over the fallen figure, and emptied the contents of both his pistols into the helpless form.

  “And now the job is done,” said he. “And most efficiently too, if I do say myself.”

  And then Will called to Gammon. “Are you all right?” he called.

  And then Will was knocked from his feet.

  It came in fast, very fast, and through the closed French windows. Amidst a maelstrom of shattered glass and fragmenting timbers, another demonic, black-eyed and evil-smelling figure of terror burst forward and stru
ck Will from behind.

  Will tumbled over a William and Mary side table that had been a present to Hugo Rune from William and Mary, and joined the fallen automaton on the carpet.

  The second automaton hauled away the table and cast it across the study, bringing down one of the bookcases, smashing priceless artefacts, spoiling precious tomes.

  Will was down, but far from out. He leapt to his feet and, as the monstrous figure pressed forward for the kill, somersaulted over its head.

  The evil robot turned, snarled at Will.

  Will stood amidst the ruination. He thumbed his nose and did a bit of an Ali shuffle. “In your own time,” said Will and he beckoned his would-be assassin forward.

  And forward it came at the hurry up.

  It swung a left hand; Will parried it away.

  A right; Will parried this also.

  And then Will pivoted upon his heel, brought up his other leg in a blurry arc and kicked the thing of dread right in the gob.

  The thing of dread paused and readjusted its now lop-sided jaw. “Dimac,” it said. “The most deadly of all the martial arts.”

  “Best leave now,” advised Will. “Or I will be forced to punish you further.”

  “I have been programmed to destroy you,” said the evil automaton. “And I have also been programmed with the entire Dimac manual. And also those of Karate, Ninjitsu, Kung Fu and Baritso.”

  Will span once more upon his heel and kicked it once more in the face, and the black-eyed monster once more repositioned his jaw.

  “And macrame,” it added.

  “That’s not a martial art,” said Will.

  “It’s a hobby,” the thing replied. “I will knit a plant pot holder from your beard, as soon as I have torn your head from your shoulders.”

  “Who sent you?” Will asked.

  “That is no concern of yours. Prepare to die.”

  “I’m prepared,” said Will and he cracked his knuckles and knotted his fingers into fists. “But come on, before you kill me, what harm can there be in telling me?”

  “None,” said the automaton. “And I will confide this information to you, one second before you die.”