by Rachel Green
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jim went straight to his secret laboratory. Most of the Magelight complex was secret, but his area was more secret still. It was a matter of priorities that the head scientist got the best pitches and Jim had always loved to have secret hideouts, ever since the den he and his brother had built when he was six.
This time last year he’d been a lathe operator at the steelworks without so much as a GCSE to his name. This year he was the head of a cutting edge technology firm and had a contract with something he didn’t even believe in.
He sat at his desk and took the book from its tissue-paper wrapping. It had only been a matter of time before he got this book. Whatever Steven Lowry had done with the original pages was moot, now Jim had a replacement. He’d watched the shop all day until the woman at the desk had left, leaving the imp in charge. She thought nobody knew, but Magelight had developed contact lenses that could see the supernatural years ago.
The imp she’d left in charge had not been the brightest of demons; easily persuaded by twists of logic and a bag of Imperial Mints. Demons craved the sugar, he was sure. Keritel was the same. Ask him for a bargain and he would drive copper nails through your soul. Sweeten the deal with a sachet of sugar and he was putty in Jim’s hands.
The book was exactly as it should be, every illustration exactly in place. He flipped to the activation diagram, not bothering to hide his squeal of delight at the perfectly preserved drawing. He carried it across to the laser scanner and transferred the image to the internal system; one click setting the etching process into motion.
“Keritel.” He called across the room and the demon appeared in the hemispherical ward.
“What?” it said, laying down a dremmeling tool. “You tell me I’ve only got a day to finish this then interrupt me. What am I supposed to do? Work all night?”
“Yes, if you have to. I’m paying you by the job, not the hour.”
“Ha de bloody ha.” The imp turned to face him. “I don’t work nights, not for mortals, anyway. I’m on Airforon, the twenty-sixth sigil. Is what you want to say more important than finishing?”
“Yes.” Jim squatted on his side of the circle for the second time in one day. “I’ve got the activation sigil. I can produce the prototype as soon as you finish the engraving.”
“Which I will do, as soon as you leave me be.” Keritel glanced across to the pile of bones. “Those are about ready too,” he said, at the lack of maggot activity. “Clean bones make clean spells.”
“Good.” Jim looked through the shimmering protection field. “How soon until you finish the engravings?”
“Only five to go now.” Keritel picked up the dremmel and grinned, his teeth meshing with one another so perfectly, it looked to Jim as if the demon had a continuous unbroken seam of ivory. “Power tools are a necromancer’s friend. I’m telling you, if they’d had these things in the old days Christianity would have taken a different route.”
Jim frowned. “What do you mean?”
Keritel ignored him for a full fifteen seconds as the dremmel whined through the first curve of the sigil, Ashtamhote. He powered it down and blew dust out of the inscribed line. “Look,” he said when he was satisfied. “This is necromancy, right?”
Jim nodded.
“So?” he said. “What’s it got to do with Christianity?”
“Everything!” The imp laughed, setting his tool down while he brushed a piece of floor clear of Jim-faced maggots. He sat cross-legged facing his summoner. “Look, necromancy has been going on ever since man first thought of an afterlife. The Egyptians talked to the spirits of the dead, as did the Incas, the Mayans and the Hebrews. It’s part of a culture’s religion whether they like it or not. Even Jesus freely admitted talking with the dead so it’s not like it was a secret.”
The imp fished under his loincloth and drew out a battered tobacco tin. “Not that they would admit to doing it.” He flipped open the tin to draw out a hand-rolled cigarette no fatter than a cocktail stick and put it between his lips. A box of matches provided the light and he drew in a lungful of smoke, holding it for several seconds while he studied Jim’s face.
He blew out the smoke, now a sickly green color after being contaminated by his lungs. “The thing is,” he said, “A proper spirit binding would take a master practitioner two or three years to inscribe a skull with the ostracae for the binding. That’s assuming he didn’t make a mistake that would ruin the whole project. Add to that the ritual to separate the spirit from the still living flesh and the hand-crafting of all the tools and it adds up to something done once every century, if that.”
Jim shifted to a more comfortable position. It was surprising what you could learn from a demon. “What ritual?” he asked. “It only took you a few seconds.”
“That’s because all I’m interested in are results,” said the imp. “I’m not playing to an audience that might decide I’m next if the ritual fails. Me, all I have to do is say the right words, stab him and catch the soul in a jar.” He nodded toward the self-sealing coffee jar. “And Bob’s your uncle.”
“What’s that got to do with power tools?”
“Everything.” The imp grinned. “It’s taken me two days to inscribe the sigils instead of two years and not a scratch out of place. If the old gits could have done it this fast they’d have had an army of spirit slaves. What need would there be to interpret the Bible, when you could ask the captured soul of John the Baptist what the young Jesus had for lunch? If early Christians had access to power tools they would have bound the spirits of everyone. The whole evolution of the church would have stagnated.”
“Bummer,” said Jim. “Their loss, really.” He shifted closer. “Could you instruct a homunculus to inscribe the ostracae?”
“I like your thinking,” said Keritel. “You’d have an army of homunculi in no time at all.” He laughed to imagine it. “No.”
“No?” Jim scowled. “Why not?”
“Because it takes a lot of skill to do the engraving,” said the imp. “And before you ask, no, you couldn’t instruct your light machine to do it either.”
“Light machine?” Jim frowned and then nodded as realisation dawned. “You mean the laser etcher. Why not? That machine would be more precise than you with all the power tools in the world. It’s just a tool itself, if you want to look at it that way. It’s like me doing the inscribing using the laser as my engraving tool.”
“You think?” Keritel offered him a thin lipped smile. “If you could adhere to that point of view it might work. Shall we try it?”
“No.” Jim was suspicious. Why was the demon suddenly so co-operative? “Why have you changed your mind about it?”
“Oh! No reason.” Keritel allowed a chuckle to escape as he returned to the skull, tracing a claw across the groove he’d just etched and determining the next. He started up the dremmel again, the whine filling the room even through the magical barrier.
Jim waited, seething until the noise died once more.
“You laughed,” he said. “What aren’t you telling me? What’s the difference between a homunculus doing the carving and me programming a laser cutter?”
“Simple,” said the imp. “The homunculus has no spirit of his own to attach to the subject. I’ve had to invest a small portion of myself in this one. The binding spell is like the starter motor of a car; it needs a little bit of effort to get the rest of it running. He scrambled over to where Jim was sitting, ducking his head to avoid the dome of the circle. “I wouldn’t like to make too many of these,” he said. “My spirit would get stripped away until I became no better than the creatures I’m making. If you don’t mind that happening to you, go ahead and program your light machine.”
“I don’t think I will, thanks.” Jim thought about it. “What if I hire someone to do the job?”
“You’d have to pay
them an awful lot to sign away their souls,” said the imp. “They’d have to be trained as well. It’s not just the sigils, see, it’s the words of binding and manipulation that go along with them.”
“I see.” Jim bit his lip; a gesture of unconscious stress he’d adopted ever since his mother had left him in the remand home at seven years old. “There isn’t a simple manual they could follow then?”
“What! Inscribe this line, say these words, open the gate to the abyss and draw out a line of power? Not really.” Keritel sucked on the end of the dremmel. “I’ll have a think about it,” he said. “There must, logically, be a way of producing dozens of man-sized homunculi.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate it.” Jim stood up. “Is there anything you need? I have to get back to work.”
Keritel waddled back to the skull. “BLT with cheese?” he said. “I’m famished.”
“Food wasn’t in the contract,” Jim said over his shoulder.
“You can’t blame an imp for trying,” Keritel said. “You can’t blame a man for dying.”
“You can’t blame a dog for howling in the night,” said Jim, “but you can give him a good kicking all the same.”
“Great.” The imp picked up his tool and waved it at the mage. “That’s not in the contract either. I’d like to see the forfeit penalties.”
He watched Jim take the elevator upstairs again and returned to his work. The maggots had finished their flesh stripping and were beginning to pupate. He picked up a handful of the ones still wriggling and chewed them thoughtfully. “If he had a series of people giving blood and pressing a button to run the engraver…” Three more lines finished off the sigil and he pricked his thumb to run blood into the grooves. “He could even offer to pay them.”
Keritel shook his head as he twisted the skull in his hands, looking for the best place to inscribe the next sigil. “No,” he said aloud, shaking his head. “That wouldn’t work. He’d need to make them aware of the danger to their souls beforehand. Still,” Keritel smiled as he set the skull down again, the left jawbone uppermost to take the next sigil, “there are plenty of people who’d be willing to give that up for the price of a cup of tea or the winner of the two-thirty at Kempston.”
The air to his right shimmered and another imp appeared holding a foil-wrapped parcel. “How’s it going?” said the new arrival.
“Almost finished,” said Keritel. “Then I have a contract for that bloke in the big house.”
“Waterman?” The new arrival began to open the foil package. “I didn’t know he was in the market for another imp. He’s already got three of his own. They’re a cliquey lot, too. Won’t allow anyone in or out although my mum’s cousin knows the elder’s brood mate and she said there was a sister to the younger two.” He looked down. “Chicken and sweet corn do you?”
“Not Waterman, no.” Keritel reached across and took the sandwich. “I loathe chicken and sweet corn.”
“So do I.” The second imp took the second sandwich and bit into it. “Every single day I have chicken and sweet corn. Sometimes I try to swap them with other people I hate them so much, but what can I do?”
“Get her to make something else.”
“Who?” asked the imp. “I make these myself.”
Keritel laughed. “Eat up,” he said. “You can come with me to the Big House and I’ll introduce you to Mackenzie.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Winston pulled up at Pennie’s flat in a cloud of oily smoke and turned off the engine. He could almost hear the gasp of relief from the engine as the temperature dropped from boiling point with the distinctive tink, tink of cooling metal. He pushed open the door and got out and strode toward her flat without bothering to lock the car.
He didn’t reach the red front door. Pennie came flying out of it as soon as he got within ten yards. If Winston was surprised by her throwing herself at him he didn’t show it.
“What’s up girl?” he asked.
“Oh, Winston!” Pennie buried her head against his chest, inhaling the twin scents of Strength body wash and antiseptic hand wash. “They ransacked my flat and broke everything but they didn’t get the papers and I found Steven’s identity tag and I think he’s dead because he won’t answer his phone and he always answers his phone, and what am I going to do?”
“Calm down.” Winston picked her up and peeled her arms away. “Take a deep breath and tell me about it a bit at a time, with pauses between the sentences.”
“They ransacked my flat.” Pennie gestured toward the open door. “They smashed everything up.”
“Who did?” Winston took hold of her arms above the elbows and searched her face as if the answer was written there. “Who ransacked your flat?”
“Them. Magelight. I don’t know.” Pennie began to cry, the tears filling her eyes making her look half her age and far more vulnerable than the usual super-confidant wonder woman she portrayed.
“It wouldn’t be Magelight, love,” Winston said, pulling her close. “Magelight are a scientific research firm. What would they want to go messing up your flat for?”
“Steven left me some papers,” said Pennie. She looked toward the road and sniffed. “Come indoors. I don’t want to talk about it out here. They might be listening.”
“Who?” Winston looked all around, but the image he had of men in black balaclavas with directional microphones was only in his head. He allowed himself to be led into the flat. Pennie shut the front door and went upstairs. He followed at a steadier pace, appreciating the framed watercolours and prints that adorned the walls.
“Bloody Hell,” he said when he reached the top. “You weren’t kidding about it being turned over, were you?”
“I told you.” Pennie jerked her head toward the kitchen. “I’ll make you a cup of tea. You came straight from work, didn’t you? I hope you didn’t get into trouble for leaving early.”
“I was due some flexi time,” he said, following her. He watched her put the kettle on, taking in the décor of a woman who hadn’t been single for very long. “This is Steven Lowry,” he said, picking up a framed photograph from the knick-knack shelf on the corner of the wall cabinet. “He works for Magelight. Is this your ex?”
“That’s right.” Pennie frowned. “How do you know him?”
“I’ve just put out a search for him,” said Winston. “I work at Magelight too.”
Pennie drew away from him. “You never said.”
“You never asked.”
“Did someone put you up to asking me out?”
“Don’t be daft.” Winston dusted off a chair and straddled it, resting his forearms on the back. “Why would anyone want to do that?”
“To find out about me.” Pennie shook her head and turned back to the kettle, setting out two mugs and dropping a tea bag in each. “I think it was them that did this,” she said again. “Steve gave me some papers to look after before he disappeared. Old papers, with formulae and symbols on them. They look more like magic spells than science. He wouldn’t tell me what they were for, but to keep an eye on them for him. Next thing I know my flat’s been turned over and his pass key is right here.”
“That’s bloody odd,” agreed Winston. The kettle boiled and he waited while she poured water in the cups, stirred and disposed of the bags. She added milk and sugar. “He hasn’t signed out of Magelight in three days. Four now.”
“How would you know?” Pennie asked. “What do you do up there?”
“I’m security,” Winston said. “Front desk. It beats working in the steel factory.”
“You have nothing to do with the research?”
“Me? I never even passed me GCSEs.”
“Or the secret experiments?”
“Didn’t even know there were any.”
“Or that new director they got. Dr. Hunt?”
“Not at all, no.” Pennie brought the teas to the little table and sat down. “You mean he had an accident and suddenly became intelligent? The exact reverse of what happens to everybody else when they bump their head?”
“That’s right.” Winston took the handle of the mug in one meaty paw and had a sip of the tea. “He says it must have shook something loose, something that was stopping his brain from working right. He’s engaged to my sister. They’re getting married on Saturday.” He put the tea down and winked. “Want to come to the wedding with me?”
“My Steven spent three years working for Magelight,” she said. “He had a doctorate in clinical pathology and another in viral anatomy. He spent fifteen years as a research scientist after he’d graduated and beat three hundred other people to the research job there. Then your retarded mate wanders in and takes over as Director.”
“Less of the ‘retard’,” said Winston. “He was a bit slow but as I said, he got better.”
“How did he jump from being ‘a bit slow’ to possessing enough knowledge to head up a major research facility?” Pennie asked. “I’ve got a master’s in Physics and I doubt I could get a job as a secretary there.”
“He was in the right place at the right time,” said Winston. “I can’t explain it. He’s a different person these days. It’s almost as if I don’t know him at all.”
“He was awful to Steve,” Pennie said. “The last director paid no attention to the scientists working for the company but this Jim Hunt makes him do the most menial tasks.”