Drake

by Peter McLean

  “You are,” she said, and nodded. “It’s been waiting a very, very long time for an owner like you, Don.”

  “Like me how?”

  “Someone so unlucky and so stupid they get themselves into a fix with someone powerful and learned enough to actually know the ritual. To get into a fix so bad that it can convince them the only solution is to lure the other person to Hell so it can get its hands on them,” she said. “Like you in that way, Don.”

  “Oh,” I said. I sneaked a look at Dave out of the corner of my eye. He was still gawping, but somehow all the fun had just gone out of that. I was feeling a little bit crushed right then, all things considered. I supposed it did explain what the Burned Man might have been doing with Davidson before me, although as far as I knew the only monster he had ever got in trouble with was the demon alcohol. “I, um, well… Shit. What the fuck do I do, then?”

  “The main thing is that you do not, under any circumstances, go through with the Burned Man’s plan,” Trixie said.

  I glared at her. “The main thing is that I don’t get torn to pieces by whatever horror show Wellington Phoenix is going to send after me,” I snapped. “That’s the main thing right now, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Oh Don,” she said, and smiled at me. She reached out and put her hand on mine. “As if I’d let that happen.”

  I turned my hand over to hold hers, feeling a sudden strange mixture of gratitude and hope. Also I have to admit I was really hoping Dave was still staring at us. He’d be sick with envy, and that put all the fun straight back into it.

  “Can you stop it from happening?” I asked her. “Phoenix is seriously heavy. I mean, he’s stronger without the Burned Man than I am with it.”

  “No he isn’t,” she said, “he’s just prepared to use different methods, that’s all.”

  “All the same,” I said. “It won’t just be…”

  I coughed. It had suddenly occurred to me that I wasn’t sure exactly how much of my business Trixie knew about. I had glossed over as many of the details as I could when I was telling her my story, and I really didn’t want her knowing more than she had to.

  “It won’t just be vorehounds or a couple of talonwraiths, no,” she said. “Or Furies, for that matter. It might even be something I’ll actually work up a sweat over, but no more than that.”

  She was certainly confident, I had to give her that. Proud might be another word for it. The Burned Man is proud too, a little voice in my head reminded me. You still don’t even know what she is.

  “Trixie,” I said, “can I ask you something?”

  I was still holding her hand, I realized, and I really, really didn’t want to let go. She didn’t seem to mind.

  “You can ask,” she said. “I can’t promise that I’ll answer.”

  I looked up and met her piercing blue gaze.

  “What are you?”

  She laughed, and slipped her hand out of mine. She picked up her cup and drained her coffee. I was starting to think she wasn’t going to tell me when she leaned forwards on her elbows, her hands curled around the empty cup, and smiled at me again.

  “You know what I am,” she said, her voice strangely gentle.

  I blinked at her. “I do?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You knew straight away, I know you did. In your heart, you knew.”

  I swallowed. There hasn’t been an angel on Earth for, oh, a good thousand years or so now, the Burned Man had told me. Forget about angels. Even before they went away, they didn’t have shiny white auras, or a forty a day fag habit, or an arse like that. She’s not an angel.

  I had taken the Burned Man at its word. All the same, that had been the first thing that crossed my mind. How in the world could she know that?

  “What about your aura?”

  “What about it?” she asked, her voice turning cold.

  “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, it shouldn’t be white like that,” I said. “It should be golden, like a halo in an old painting, and it isn’t. It’s… wrong.”

  Trixie’s jaw clenched in sudden fury. The cup exploded between her hands.

  “Never say that again,” she hissed. “Never!”

  She dropped the shards of broken pottery on the table and ran out of the café. The door slammed shut behind her.

  Big Dave snorted with laughter. “You’ve still got your way with the ladies then, Rosie.”

  Haven’t I just. I hurried after her.

  To my relief she hadn’t done one of her disappearing tricks this time. She was outside the grocers, just standing there in the pouring rain.

  “Trixie,” I called, hurrying over to her. “Look, I’m sorry, OK?”

  She turned to face me. She didn’t look angry any more. She looked upset instead and somehow that was so much worse. It was raining pretty hard as I said, but all the same I was sure there were tears on her cheeks. Damn but it was cold out there. I reached for her hand.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, letting my hand fall uselessly to my side. “I don’t understand, but I won’t, um, I won’t say anything like that again. I promise.”

  She nodded, but didn’t move. “All right,” she said.

  “Shall we go back in?” I suggested as freezing rain trickled through my hair and down the back of my collar.

  She shook her head. “Tell me about your fall,” she said.

  “Um,” I said. “I mean, I know what you’re getting at but that’s a story for over a beer or ten, you know what I mean? Not for when we’re standing on the pavement in a downpour.”

  “So let’s have a beer or ten then,” she said.

  Chapter Twelve

  We made it to the Rose and Crown in record time, both of us hunched down into our coats in companionable silence as the cold rain beat down on us. I ducked under the bedraggled hanging baskets and held the door open for her.

  “Thank you,” Trixie said as I followed her into the dimly lit burrow of beery smelling warmth. “Buy a girl a drink?”

  Well that was awkward, and something that I must admit I hadn’t even thought of until then.

  “I, um, I haven’t got any money,” I confessed, feeling about six inches tall.

  “Oh,” she said.

  She opened her handbag and pulled out a fat roll of twenty pound notes, wrapped up in a rubber band the way they came from the bank sometimes. I was just starting to hope she might slip me a couple when she pressed the whole lot into my hand.

  “I don’t mind paying,” she said, “but ladies don’t go to the bar. Gin and tonic please. I’ll find us a table.”

  I gaped at her, then at the roll of probably three grand or so that she had just given me, and then back at her again as she settled down at a corner table close to the log-effect gas fire in its implausible faux-Georgian surround. I shook my head in astonishment.

  There were a few people in already who I knew by sight, if not to speak to. I exchanged nods and pats on the shoulder as I made my way to the bar. “Hello Duchess,” I said.

  Shirley looked up and grinned at me. “Don, how are you duck?” she said. “Pint?”

  “Yeah, and a gin and tonic,” I said, nodding vaguely in Trixie’s direction. I thought about the fat wad in my pocket. “And a couple of whisky chasers.”

  Shirley glanced in the direction I’d indicated, and gave me a look somewhere between approval and flat out astonishment.

  “Well duck,” she said, “assuming that’s not being paid for, I’m impressed.”

  I shrugged. “She’s a friend,” I said.

  “I wish I had a gentleman friend who looked half that good,” Shirl laughed, and went to sort the drinks.

  I just about managed to carry the four mismatched glasses over to the table, and sat down opposite Trixie. I grinned at her. “So, how do you like the local?” I asked her.

  “It has a certain sort of charm,” Trixie said.

  I knew what she meant. The Rose and Crown was o
ne of those places where you could buy anything from a van load of Polish cigarettes to a stolen Maserati without anyone batting an eyelid. Most of the regulars were what were affectionately termed “characters” in the local parlance, which was a sort of friendly euphemism for “hardened criminals”.

  “This is nice,” I said as I sipped my pint.

  Trixie lifted her gin and tonic and looked at me over the glass.

  “Tell me about your fall,” she said again.

  I sighed. There really isn’t any such thing as a free drink, is there?

  I started to talk.

  * * *

  Davidson had knelt down in front of the hideous living statue and carefully unbuttoned his tweed waistcoat and wrinkled check shirt. I winced as the thing lunged at him with a snarl, its mouth stretching wide to display a row of glistening wet, needle-like teeth just before they plunged into the old man’s pale, horribly scarred chest.

  “Bloody hell!” I gasped, torn between horror and fascination. “What even is that?”

  “Don, my dear boy,” Davidson said, “this is the Burned Man.”

  The awful little thing pulled its head back from Davidson’s chest and stared at me, obviously only just noticing I was there.

  “What’s that little pissant doing in here?” it demanded.

  “This is Donald Drake, one of my most promising students,” Davidson said. “I thought you might like to meet him.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  “He’s a seeker,” Davidson said. “A misguided one perhaps, but a seeker after truth all the same. The first I’ve found in a long time. There hasn’t been anyone remotely worthy since Macintosh, and I’m not getting any younger.”

  “You’re nearly dead,” the Burned Man said, with no trace of emotion, “and that Macintosser boy was a worthless piece of snot and you know it. Is this one going to be any better?”

  “Um,” I said, shifting from foot to foot and seriously considering just doing a runner right there and then. I’m still not completely sure to this day what kept me there in the cluttered, squalid little room, watching that monstrosity drink my professor’s blood. “Better at what?”

  “Magic,” the Burned Man hissed. “What can you do, boy?”

  “Um…” I said.

  I looked at it, then. I mean, I really looked at it. One of the things I had learned by then was the seeing of auras, and right then I saw this vile little thing in all its appalling glory. It was only about nine inches tall and it was chained to the table it stood on as well, but its aura was an immense cloud of poisonous black malice that made me want to piss myself. I could tell that this, whatever it was, was one hell of a lot more than it seemed.

  “Well?”

  “I can see you,” I said. “I know what you are.”

  It snorted. “Oh yeah? What the fuck am I then, you cocky little cunt?”

  “You’re a devil,” I said. “Or whatever you want to call yourself. You’re evil.”

  Oh, the moral assurance of being twenty years old! The Burned Man threw back its head and hooted with laughter.

  “You’re more fun than poor old Davidson, I’ll give you that much,” it said. “At least you’ve got a sense of humour.”

  “I’m not joking,” I said. “I can see it.”

  “What the fuck can you see?” it shot back. “Some colours in the air? Whoopee-fucking-doo for you. What do you actually understand? What do you want, boy? Why are you here?”

  “I…” I said, and stopped.

  This was the important question, I knew. I had no real idea what I was actually talking to, but I knew damn well I would probably never have another chance like this. Davidson was kneeling there in front of it in a sort of stupor, but he had obviously brought me here for a reason.

  “I want to know,” I said at last. “I want knowledge. Understanding.”

  “Read a book,” it snapped.

  “I’ve read all the fucking books,” I snapped right back at it, feeling like I was getting the measure of it now. “I want more than that.”

  “But not from me,” it said. “I’m evil apparently, whatever the fuck that means. What does it mean, boy?”

  “It means…” I started. “It means, you know, it means evil. How hard can it be?”

  “Very,” it said. “It can be very hard indeed. Define it.”

  “The extreme of immorality,” I said.

  “Dictionary definition, bullshit,” it said. “Think for yourself. What does it mean?”

  “Wilfully doing the things that are wrong,” I said.

  “Who defines what’s wrong?”

  “I… for who?” I said. I had been a university student for long enough by then to spot a trick question when I heard one. “The law does, for most people.”

  “That’s legality, not morality,” it said. “Very different thing, a lot of the time. Who defines morality?”

  “The church?” I ventured.

  “Which one?”

  Now that was a good question, I had to give it that. “Well every religion has its rules,” I said, “but they don’t all agree with each other.”

  “So who’s right?”

  “What? How the hell do I know?” I said. “I mean, if you’re Jewish or Muslim then you can eat beef but you can’t eat pork. If you’re a Hindu it’s the other way around, you know what I mean? How do I know which is right?”

  “You don’t,” it said, “any more than I do. All we can do is hope for the best. You want to learn, fine. Just don’t give me any moralistic bullshit with nothing to back it up, you understand me? If there’s things you won’t do then there we are, but we’ll cross those bridges when we come to them. Deal?”

  I stared at it. If I want to learn? I didn’t really understand exactly what was being offered to me here, but it was obviously a hell of a lot more than I was going to get out of any of the books I’d been able to get my hands on so far. Davidson seemed to come back to life about then, and he turned and grinned at me with blood running down his white, hairless old man’s chest.

  “Do it,” he said. “What have you got to lose?”

  I nodded.

  “Deal,” I said.

  * * *

  Trixie nodded. “So what happened?” she asked.

  We were about five drinks and chasers in by then, and I was fast coming to the humbling realization that she was going to drink me under the table if the night went on long enough. She was every bit as sober as she’d been when we first walked into the pub, whereas I really wasn’t. Five pints and whiskies wasn’t all that much for me, relatively speaking, but I’d done them in fairly quick succession and I hadn’t had a lot to eat that day. Anyway, all excuses aside, I have to admit I was starting to feel quite pissed.

  “Stuff happened,” I said. “Why are you so interested anyway? I feel like we’re comparing notes here, but you haven’t said a word about yourself.”

  “About myself?” Trixie said. “What do you mean?”

  “Well OK, don’t flip out on me again, yeah? I mean, Shirl’s a sweetheart and all that but she gets upset about broken glasses, you understand?”

  Trixie nodded and put her glass carefully back down on the table.

  “Tell me about your fall, you said,” I reminded her. “Funny way of putting it, if you ask me.”

  “I don’t understand,” Trixie said.

  I looked at her. She was sitting opposite me, fingering her cigarette case and obviously wondering how much longer she had to wait before she could nip outside for a fag without being impolite. She’d had at least three thousand quid in her handbag for no apparent reason. She wasn’t just beautiful, but sexy as well. She was a stone cold killer, and she was obviously proud of it. Her aura was wrong, whether she wanted it mentioned or not. She was, if anything the Burned Man had told me was true, not quite right as angels go. To put it mildly. And I had a nasty suspicion I might know why.

  I necked my whisky and took one hell of a chance.

  “You tell me abou
t your fall.”

  She gave me a look that made Debbie’s coldest glare seem warm and cosy by comparison.

  “What,” she said slowly, her hands curling into fists on the table top, “is that supposed to mean?”

  I shrugged. “Tell me,” I said again, “or my story’s over.”

  Trixie glared at me for a moment, then looked sharply away. She dashed a hand across her eyes, staring into the fire.

  “That’s a story for another drink or ten,” she said quietly.

  “Fine, I’ll get them in,” I said.

  “Fine,” she snapped back. “I’m going for a smoke.”

  I went to the bar and caught Shirley’s eye.

  “Same again pet,” I said. “One for yourself, if you like.”

  “Thank you darling,” she said as I gave her another twenty off Trixie’s roll. “She’s gone, you know.”

  “She’s just having a fag,” I said. “She’ll be back in a minute.”

  Shirley gave me a dubious look, but did our round all the same and took a double vodka and tonic for herself.

  “Cheers, duck,” she said.

  I carried the drinks back to our table and sat down. Trixie kept me waiting so long I started to think that maybe she had left after all, until she eventually came back inside and sat down across the table from me. Her shockingly blue eyes looked red and raw around the edges, as though she had been crying.

  “Right,” she said, before I had a chance to speak. “You get one thing straight. I am not a fallen angel, do you understand me? Don’t you ever say that I am.”

  “Um, OK,” I said. “So, um…”

  “Look,” she interrupted me, “I haven’t fallen and that’s that. I just… slipped a bit, that’s all.”

  “OK, OK,” I said, holding my hands up defensively in front of me. “So what does slipped a bit mean, exactly?”

  “Nothing that matters to you,” she said. “I’ve been following the Furies for so long it’s no wonder I’ve picked up a few Earthly habits. It doesn’t matter, the Furies are the important thing. To start with I thought you were just another unfortunate who’d attracted their vengeance, but the more I saw of you the more I realized you were a little bit different from most other mortals. And when I saw that you had the fetish of the Burned Man, well, obviously that changed everything.”