by Rachel Green
“You needn’t be afraid of me,” it said. “I didn’t manoeuvre you all the way here to harm you. I wanted you to see what was going on.”
“Wait,” Julie said to her companions. “It’s an imp.”
“Of course I’m an imp. You wouldn’t really expect a demon to have the patience of a craftsman, would you? Of course not. Most people think I’m a demon, mind, they don’t know the difference.”
“Why?” Julie came closer. “Why did you bring us here?”
“He didn’t.” Felicia stepped forward, frowning. “We came to get this book you’ve been on about.”
“You can have it.” The imp pulled an eighteen inch square book from a three inch pocket. “He doesn’t need it any more. He copied everything into the thinking machine. All he needed was the activation sigil and he got hold of that today.”
“Who did?” Vixen stepped forward. She looked relaxed until you saw the tension her muscles were under.
“Hunt,” said the imp. “Or what used to be Hunt. He was fine until he started messing about with the portals in the tech wing. Now there’s not much of him left. He opened a gate to the Upper Planes and acted all surprised when a spirit ripped out half his soul and took up residence in the gap.” The imp shook his head. “Messy business.”
“What does he want with homunculi?” asked Julie. “Don’t they need to be fuelled by the caster’s spirit?”
“Not if you imbue them with a spirit of their own.” The imp held up a skull. It was carved with intricate, glowing sigils. “This is the first of them, he said he was going to sell them as domestic and industrial servants.”
“Is that it?” said Julie. “All this trouble to make a bit of money from magical slavery?”
“More than a bit.” The imp dropped to the floor in a clatter of hooves. “Think of the military applications. Soldiers that don’t need food or water. Soldiers that don’t sleep. Soldiers that don’t give up and go home to their sweethearts.”
“A man in control of an army like that could rule the world,” said Vixen.
“Exactly.” The imp smiled. “And Hunt can take control of every homunculi at any given moment. The world will be his.”
“But what would a spirit want with possession of Jim Hunt and control of the world. Spirits aren’t ambitious.”
“This one is,” said the imp. “This one wants a bridgehead into this plane, to incubate a new race of people in the living corpses of the ones already here.”
“A new race of people called…?” Fliss prompted.
“Oh, didn’t I say?” The imp smiled. “Wasps.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Julie posted the book safely through the letterbox of Alexandrian Gold, since she had no key and even Vixen was reluctant to try her hand at Harold’s supernatural alarm system, where a false move didn’t summon the police, so much as suck the marrow from your bones and give your brain a one-way ticket to the Seven Hells of Dementia. She might have tried even then, but her unique upbringing in a convent enabled her to recognize the sigil of the demon Ashtoreth on the lintel of the back door.
Had the effect not been terrifying, Felicia would have been amused at the reaction of the normally unflappable assassin. “Ashtoreth,” she said in a hushed voice when they were well out of earshot of the shop and Felicia dearly hoped the premises had not developed any. “I can understand consorting with demons but there are limits, even for the socially depraved like Harold Waterman.”
“Ashtoreth’s our security guy,” said Julie. “He drops in on the first Tuesday of every month if you want to meet him.”
“Not on your nelly.” Vixen hurried onward, not even slowing until they’d crossed the High Street.
“Well, well.” Felicia loped along beside her. “You don’t see an assassin running every day.”
“Nor will you ever again.” Valerie paused and looked at the werewolf through the paranormal-seeing lens she still wore over her eyeball. “I can see you,” she said. “I can see Julie and I can see Harold. At a pinch I can see Mister Jasfoup, though only when he actively wants me to. I can throw shuriken and still count them deadly at a hundred feet. I can cut you in two with a katana or give you a closer shave than a razor and I can slit the throat of a werewolf and stuff it full of garlic but I do not like demons one little bit.”
“I gathered.” Felicia walked along side her. “Why did you come to Laverstone?” she asked. “There are more magical creatures here than anywhere else in England.”
“I don’t mind the rest.” Vixen slowed, pulled down her hood and became Valerie again. “The other supernatural creatures have the good grace to die when I chop them into bits. Demons don’t. Nor angels, for that matter, though I’ve never had to fight an angel.”
“Angels are stinky,” said Felicia. “That whole business about the bow of burning gold? They’re not kidding. Hurts like a stubbed toe.”
Valerie winced in sympathy.
“’Course, it cauterises as it goes through, so you don’t have to worry about bleeding to death.” Felicia grinned. “Angels are a lot harder to deal with than demons, trust me. Demons go down much quicker.”
“She’s right,” said Julie. “I should know. I’ve been dating one for ages.”
“How does that work?” Valerie stopped and looked at her. In the streetlight, Julie looked far older than her years. “Aren’t you incompatible?”
“A little bit,” Julie shrugged and resumed walking. “There’s a basic incompatibility, selfish behavior, smoking in bed, gluttony.”
“I would never have put your Jasfoup down as a glutton,” said Felicia. “He’s thin as a bean.”
“No,” said Julie. “Gluttony. The personification of the deadly sin. She turned up one night and demanded he take her to a restaurant. She claimed he’d promised her a slap-up meal.”
“And had he?”
“Yes, in sixteen-fifty-four. They were dating for a while.”
“That must have been awkward.”
“It was,” Julie grinned. “Then she saw what Jasfoup had poured all over my naked body and decided to stay.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t break up.” Felicia gave her a hug. “Someone like that in your lover’s past can’t be easy.”
“It isn’t.” Julie caught her sister’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “She has a really rough tongue. I had a rash for a week.”
Felicia laughed. “I really fell for that one,” she said.
“If you two have finished?” Valerie stood to one side, her face a mask of stoic resolve.
“Yeah. Sorry.” Julie looked up at her sister, her teeth clamped together and her lips turned down. She lowered her voice. “I forgot she was a…you know,” she hissed.
“A virgin? Yes.” Felicia grinned at the ex-nun. “Sorry love.”
“I’m still a Bride of Christ,” said Valerie. “I may not wear the habit any more and I may not belong to a convent, and I may be dishing up burgers instead of communion wafers, but you can’t get a divorce from God.”
“You can if you’re a demon.” Julie grinned. “Sorry. That was a low blow. No more sex talk, I promise.”
“Thank you.” Valerie looked at Felicia. “So where does Winston live, then, with his sister that wishes to marry a wasp spirit?”
“We go up Peppercorn Row,” said Julie. “That’ll take us to the back of his house.”
“And he’ll be happy to be woken up at half past four in the morning, will he?”
“Probably not, but would you really want to leave the news, that his best friend and future brother-in-law is a giant insect in disguise, until the morning?” Felicia shrugged. “I know I wouldn’t.”
“He’ll thank us for it in the end,” said Julie. “I hope we don’t have to tell Latitia, though. That’ll kill her. She really loves him.”
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“God knows why.” Felicia snorted, coughed and glanced at Valerie. “No offence.”
“None taken. He does.” Valerie pushed her backpack around to her back. “The quicker we get there, the quicker we can get home to our beds,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the end of Peppercorn.” She set off at a run, her long legs and honed muscles taking her faster than most.
Felicia grinned at Julie. “Last one there is a rotten egg,” she said, werewolf muscle coiling in her thighs. “We’ll wait for you.”
Julie watched her go. “It would serve you both right,” she said aloud, “if I went home and left the two of you to give Winston the bad news.”
“That wouldn’t really be fair, though, would it?”
The new voice was gruff and peppered with breaths like bruises on a battered wife.
“I wondered where you’d gone.” Julie held out her arm, crooked at the elbow and an imp dropped onto it, its hooves slipping on her firm skin. It clambered up to her shoulder and wrapped a scaly tail around her neck for balance. Similar in appearance to Keritel, Wrack was a little larger with a deeper chest and a green hue to its scales rather than the bronze hues of others.
“I was out with John,” said Wrack. “We went to Le Grande Déjeuner in New Orleans. They were having an all-you-can-eat buffet.”
Julie twisted her neck to force his claws to slip into a more comfortable position, and began to walk after her two companions. “Did they know they’d let two imps in?”
“No, it was a mortal affair.” Wrack chuckled. “They couldn’t see us.”
“Are you sure?” Julie stopped and, reaching an arm up, pulled Wracks head down level with her eyes. “All it takes is a single madman, a pregnant woman or some kid high on crystal meth or E and suddenly, you’re splashed across every newspaper in the world. It’s happened before.”
“I know, but that ended rather well.” Wrack grinned, a frightening prospect with his head upside-down. “They made it into a screen play and a couple of films and people started talking about the special effects and how dated they were.” He shrugged. “Before you knew it, we were cuddly creatures that no-one believed in. Ten minutes exposure led to twenty years of blessed non-belief for us.”
“Don’t count on it happening again.” Julie began walking again, gripping his tail with her left hand. Wrack found the gesture comforting. “They’ve got much better at CGI these days and you’ll be truly horrifying on screen.”
“I will?” Wrack phrased his next question carefully. “Would I…”
“Not you personally,” Julie gave his tail a squeeze. “Imp-kind. People would start believing there really are demons living all around them, in the spaces between thought and deed.”
“That’s ridiculous though.” Wrack’s voice flattened as he picked his nose. “We live in little houses like everyone else.”
“It was a metaphor.” Julie looked up. “How many times have I told you to use a hanky?”
“Seventeen,” said Wrack. “But I still ain’t got one.”
“Never mind.” Julie turned a corner. “This is the street. Where are Felicia and Valerie?”
“In the shadows opposite number ten,” said Wrack. “They’d better be careful because there’s a portal not three feet away from them.”
“Is there?” Julie paused and strained her eyes in the gloom. “What sort of portal?”
“The sort that goes somewhere else,” said Wrack. “Or the sort that comes from somewhere else. I can’t tell.”
“Where somewhere else is more the point,” said Julie. She crept forward. “Fliss,” she hissed, mentally kicking herself for using a name that carried so far. “Valerie. Come here.”
“What?” Felicia whispered at a volume most would call confident. “I can smell the fear coming off you in waves. What’s the matter?”
“There’s a portal right by your left elbow,” Julie hissed. “Step toward me slowly. Valerie too.”
“What sort of portal?” Felicia took a step forward. Julie beckoned her to move faster and she trotted toward them. She waited until she was standing next to her sister before looking back.
“Crap.”
The anomaly, visible only to those with the Sight, shimmered like petrol on the pool of blood from a suicide jumper. “Vix,” said Felicia. “Come away slowly. It’s right by you.”
“What is?” Valerie looked up, her eyes refocusing from whatever Heaven they’d been looking to in that moment.
“A portal.”
“I can’t see a portal.” The ex-nun looked round. “Just a minute. I dropped my seeing lens.”
“You can look at it from here,” Felicia said. “Come away right now.”
“I have another right here,” said Valerie. She reached down for her shoulder bag. “In the outside…”
There was the complete absence of a flash and the assassin vanished.
“Damn.” Julie looked at Wrack. “Where did she go?”
“How should I know?” The imp dug a pair of sharp claws into her skin. “I can’t see through a portal any more than you can.”
“No, but you could follow her.” Julie pulled his tail so that he lost his balance. Tiny hooves beat against her sternum.
“I’m not going into a stranger’s portal,” said the imp. “I could end up anywhere.”
“No you won’t.” Julie peeled him off as if he were a spider monkey and held him at arms length as she walked up the road. “You’ll go wherever Valerie went.”
“It might be somewhere unpleasant.” Wrack tried to open a gate of his own but Julie had a good grip on his arms. “What if she’s gone to the plane of noxious gases or something?”
“Then you’ll get her out again.” Julie paused at the portal. “Though I’ve never heard of a portal going anywhere that didn’t sustain enough life to open it in the first place. I’m far more concerned about it opening into the plane of Wasps.”
“Wasps?” Wrack paused in his struggling. “There is no plane of Wasps. What are you on about?”
Julie looked at Felicia and back to Wrack. “What do you mean?” she said. “We’ve just spoken to the imp working for Jim Hunt and he said that Hunt had been taken over by a wasp spirit with intent to colonise the mortal plane.”
Wrack stopped struggling and indicated he should be set down. “What absolute rot,” he said. “I don’t know who this imp you were talking to is, but it’s clear he’s not travelled as extensively as I have. Saying there’s a plane of wasps is like saying there’s a heaven for dead animals.”
“Isn’t there?” Felicia looked disappointed.
“No.” Wrack looked up at her. “And before you ask, there isn’t a Heaven for dogs either, so you’re screwed whichever way you look.” He glanced backward at the portal and coughed something into his hand. “If I don’t come back,” he said, “give this to John for me.”
“Of course,” said Julie, taking the marbled green object. “What is it?”
“My gall stone.” Wrack took a step backward and vanished.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Valerie felt herself falling and windmilled her arms, trying to regain balance. She had no idea why this failed to work, nor why she continued to fall despite having already travelled twice her height from the ground. She tried a back flip, pleased that it felt as if she had executed it perfectly despite continuing to fall and a complete inability to discern up from down. “It’s a portal,” she said aloud. “I wonder where it goes.”
‘Down’ became apparent all too soon when travel through the portal ceased to be travel rather abruptly, depositing her upon a hard floor faster than she could react, and gaining her skinned knees for the first time since she’d left the convent. She crouched in the semi-darkness, wary for an ambush but all was silent but for the humming of electrical equipment.
Satisfied there was no cause for immediate alarm, she stood. The moment she did, a heavy object slammed into her back, propelling her forward two steps before she caught her balance and whirled around.
Seeing nothing, she flailed with her fists and kicks, but her blows didn’t connect. Wary, she bent to her rucksack, glad she had been holding it when she went through the portal. She snagged another of the sight lenses and fitted it to her eye. A green bipedal figure like an upright crocodile swam into focus. She blinked several times, and the figure resolved. It seemed to be rubbing its elbow.
“An imp!” she said, pulling her hand back from what would be a killing blow on a mortal but would just as likely skin her knuckles on an imp. “Where did you come from?”
“The bus shelter in Peppercorn Row, same place as you.” Wrack sniffed and looked around. “I’m here to rescue you from wasps, apparently, not that they exist.”
“I’m glad about that.” Valerie looked around the area with the aid of the sight lens. At least it revealed no further surprises. “I can’t stand wasps. Of all God’s creatures, they have to be the most loathsome.”
“What, worse than intestinal worms?” said Wrack. “At least wasps eat aphids during the early part of the summer.”
“Tapeworms help you lose weight,” said Valerie. “I’ll take weight loss over aphids.”
“Can I put you down for vanity?” asked the imp.
“Put me down for whatever you like.” Valerie prowled the outskirts of the area. “If I’m at the optimum weight-to-muscle ratio I am more efficient in God’s eyes.”
“You think that, do you?” Wrack nodded politely. “Wanting to please Him Upstairs is also vanity, so it’s a win-win situation for me. Of course, being on the chunky side is being thankful for His bounty, so who am I to judge?”
“Who indeed, O Thankful One?” agreed Valerie. “There’s a door here.”
“That’s good to know.” The imp waddled forward, his hooves clattering on the concrete floor. “Open it up then, and let’s find the other end of that portal.”