Kazia’s giving me this uncertain look. I’ve got one hand to my throat; I wave her on with the other—
‘ . . . and obey me in all the things that I shall demand of thee,’ she chants. ‘Come thou peaceably, affably—’
I don’t think that’s on the cards. I’m still coughing.
‘Manifest that which I shall desire.’ She’s waving her wand in the air. ‘I conjure thee, O Azazel—’
Good: she’s said the name.
‘By the living and true God!’
In the silence, the only sound is the rat scurrying around his cage at my feet. The gloom has thickened, and Kazia is just a vague silhouette topped by the pale, moon-like, open-mouthed disc of her face.
‘How long is this going to take?’ That’s Lumpy.
The goatskin triangle has vanished into the smoke and I’m not even sure I’m facing the right way. I can still see the triangle at my feet. I shuffle a bit to my left.
‘Are you ready?’ I say into the darkness.
‘Yes,’ Kazia’s voice comes back from behind me.
I put a silver disc to my lips. ‘Behold—’ I break off, coughing desperately – and, I hope, convincingly.
‘You’ll have to do it,’ I croak. My voice really is drying up now. I’m shit scared. I may have bitten off more than I can chew.
‘Behold the pentacle of Solomon which I have brought into thy presence.’ Kazia’s voice sinks into the gloom like blood into sawdust. ‘I compel thee, O Azazel, by order of the great God: Adonai, Tetragrammaton, Jehovah. Come at once, without wile or falsehood, in the name of our Saviour Jesus Christ!’
Utter silence. Even the rat has stopped moving.
All I can see is darkness. And just as I’m thinking, oh hell! This isn’t going to work—
There’s a blinding flash of light, and a bolt of lightning punches a hole into the floor at the centre of the goatskin triangle. The smoke has gone from the studio as if God himself had descended to suck it in with a single, almighty breath.
But there’s no sign of God. No sign of anything holy.
For a minute the studio is illuminated by a dazzling white glare that wipes away any shadows and leaves everybody staring back at me like blindingly startled ghosts.
Next thing, there’s a nauseating stench of decay and a roar like an avalanche as the floor shakes and thousands, then millions of black flies come pouring out of the hole in the floor, filling the studio with a solid, swirling, glinting mass.
‘Stay in your circles!’ I scream. Not that anyone can hear me.
One fly buzzes irritatingly. A million scream: a high-pitched, wailing roar that drills into your head and turns your brain to jelly. I’ve got my hands over my ears, praying that the din will stop before I explode, when the whirling mass of insects clears for a moment and I see a black shape stumbling across the floor towards the door.
It’s human. Was human, anyway, when it left the safety of its circle and tried to make a run for it. Now it’s just a throbbing mass of insects that moves in a vaguely human way: shambling legs, stumpy waving arms, a huge misshapen head.
I whirl round, heart in mouth. Marvo can’t move, but what about Kazia? I almost faint with relief when I see that the circle where I put Hatchet Face is empty.
He was quite a tall man, but halfway to the door he’s suddenly less tall. I assume he’s gone down on his knees at the heart of the living cloud. If he’s screaming – and he has every reason to scream – I can’t hear it over the roar of the insects.
The twitching mound on the floor gets bigger and bigger as all the flies pile in.
Marvo has her eyes screwed tight shut. Kazia’s hands are clamped over her face. Lumpy watches with an expression of disgust. Vannutelli just stands in his circle, smiling grimly.
All the flies seem to have settled. The noise has softened to a throbbing hum and suddenly, amazingly, the studio is clear, still and silent.
‘Now what?’ That’s Vannutelli.
‘Make him transform.’ That’s Kazia.
‘What happened?’ That’s Lumpy.
I wait for Hatchet Face to chime in, but the shifting heap of insects seems to have nothing to say.
‘Frank?’ Marvo’s voice shakes.
‘Make him transform,’ Kazia says again.
‘I can’t.’ I’m lying. I can but I don’t want to. I want her to do the dirty work.
‘What does she mean, “transform”?’ Vannutelli asks.
‘Demons don’t have a physical body, at least not as we understand it. They can manifest in any form – even in no form at all,’ I say.
I’ve seen that happen and it can be deeply confusing. You know there’s something there and you can almost see it, but you can’t get your head round it. In my third year at Saint Cyprian’s I managed to conjure up a Presence that manifested . . . well, I don’t really know what it was but it kept turning inside out on itself and sent my eyes into a spin. Luckily, Matthew was there to force it to transform into something sensible – if you can call a rhinoceros with a red umbrella sensible – and save me. I was seeing double for a week.
‘And this is not what you want?’ Vannutelli gestures towards the mass of insects, which are beginning to dart and buzz restlessly.
It can’t be long before it all kicks off again. And I still need Kazia to do her stuff.
‘For God’s sake, Frank!’ she hisses.
‘I can’t.’ I up-end all my herb sachets to show that they are empty. I hope I sound scared and confused.
‘I’ve used everything up. I didn’t have time—’
‘Then I’ll do it!’ Her wand’s in the air. Charlie’s herbs sizzle in her brazier.
‘In the name of God I command thee, O Azazel,’ she chants. ‘Adonai, Elohim, Tetragrammaton, Jehovah. Appear to me in fair human shape without deformity or deception—’ She plunges her wand deep into the fire. ‘Dissolve and be transformed!’
The active ingredient sizzling in her brazier – the one I neglected to tell her about – is the Judas’s heart. It’s an undistinguished-looking herb with hairy, almost grey leaves. But it’s powerful when you want to betray somebody.
Flames flicker along the length of her wand. She tries to hold onto it, but it’s too late. As she sucks her scorched fingertips, the wand turns to ash and collapses into the charcoal.
The flies have got the message. They’re in the air, whirling and roaring. A few burn up as they fly into the candles. The flames spread as the tornado spins: a moving column of fire that twists across the floor, sending everybody diving for what little safety their circles provide.
The strips of goatskin flap and scatter, then come together again around the bottom of the black column.
There’s nothing much left of Hatchet Face. A scattering of bones and flesh. A few trailing loops of offal. The tatters of his habit. Scraps of scalp with a few tufts of his tonsure attached.
I glance down at the cage at my feet. The rat looks up at me like it knows the sacrifice has been made and it’s dead relieved. It curls up and goes to sleep.
Out on the dance floor, though, it’s all go. The mass of flies has become a solid black column that spins faster and faster until suddenly, in a blaze of fire, it transforms into a glowing figure about seven feet tall, with goat’s horns and bright, golden eyes like a bird’s. And a feature that I haven’t seen him with before: a long forked tail that coils and snaps like a snake.
He’s not a pretty sight and, despite the tail, Kazia recognises him at once. She stutters, ‘That’s—’
‘Azazel.’ I smile.
‘But—’
‘Also known as Alastor.’
‘What’s happening?’ Vannutelli can just about control his voice.
‘He’s tricked us.’
Confession time: I have. Oops.
As a general rule, demons only need one facial expression: hellishly pissed off. But Alastor doesn’t look angry – just utterly freaked out, like he doesn’t know how he got here. He stares
around, eyes rolling wildly. His jaw hangs open, showing off a graveyardful of razor-sharp, yellow teeth that remind me, for a sad moment, of poor old Preston. No time to stroll down memory lane, though. Alastor spins round, like he’s heard something behind him, hauls his axe out of the belt that’s the only thing he’s wearing, takes an almighty swipe—
And cuts off his own tail.
The clang of the axe is drowned out by his piercing scream. Another weapon comes out of his belt: the metal hooks of his scourge rip through one of the columns. Lumps of stone burst into flames as they bounce across the floor.
‘What do you mean?’ Vannutelli yells over the din.
‘Tricked us how?’
Kazia gestures at Alastor. ‘That’s the demon I told you about. The one guarding Matthew!’
Alastor is out of his triangle, swinging away and mostly missing. This is one very confused demon.
‘So Le Geyt can escape?’ Vannutelli doesn’t sound too pleased.
‘No, Alastor must still be there.’ Kazia turns to me, like she needs confirmation. ‘This has to be another manifestation—’
‘Does it matter?’ Vannutelli yells.
‘I don’t know!’
Vannutelli glares at me like he’s still running the show. ‘What are you trying to do?’
I give him my most irritating leer. He snarls and pulls the knife out of his belt. ‘I told you what would happen if you disobeyed me.’
‘Did you? Remind me . . .’
‘I said I’d kill her.’
‘If you’ve got a problem, kill me.’ I hold my arms out wide and stick my tongue out at him.
It’s funny how you get these guys who control half the world, and all you’ve got to do is wind them up and they go off like a jumping jack. Because Vannutelli’s out of his circle, red in the face, waving his knife . . .
But he’s gone for Marvo. He kicks her chair and sends her sliding out of her circle—
There’s a flash of spinning metal. Vannutelli is lying on the floor with an axe planted bang between his eyes.
Alastor reels across to him and, after several misses, sticks one taloned foot across his neck. The demon grabs the axe and pulls madly until it comes free, with a rush of blood, and he falls over on his back. He stares around glassily, then rolls over on top of Vannutelli and sucks his brains out.
‘What’s goin’ on?’
It’s a fair question, but Marvo’s caught Alastor’s attention. He’s on his feet. And he’s still got his axe—
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Cards in the Air
A CRUMPLED, FIRE-BLACKENED ten-quid note. Yellow and blue, folded in half. I pull my Gift object out of my pocket, but realise I don’t have time to use it.
Alastor is heading in Marvo’s direction . . .
I hear a roar of anger behind me and look round, just in time to see Dinny’s ropes fall loosely to the floor. He’s on his feet, hooks flailing, running at Alastor—
Who opens his mouth like a drawbridge and swallows him whole.
Dinny’s given me the chance I need. But I’m staring stupidly at the banknote. I can hear a voice whispering urgently inside my head. It’s my voice, reminding me that this is my Gift object. This is the charm that will save me from going post-peak.
No time to think. No time to remember my dad’s face as I grabbed the banknote off him and the flames consumed him. The banknote is in the brazier. It curls up and turns brown—
The thing about demons: they’re suckers for hard cash. As the paper catches fire, Alastor stumbles back from the very brink of Marvo’s circle with a stupid grin on his face.
But demons get through money fast. I’ve only got a moment—
I’m out of my circle, sliding Marvo back into safety. I dance round the outside of her circle, scraping the tip of my knife along the floor and screaming, ‘In the name of the most high!’
Alastor takes a wild swipe at me, but with his eyes still spinning in their sockets all he manages to do is take a chunk out of the floor.
‘In the name of the most high!’
Alastor’s coming at me again. I have a split second to form a desperate intention – which is answered as my dog flies out of its circle, barking madly, and leaps for his throat. It doesn’t even get waist high before it disappears in a burst of flames. But it’s earned me long enough to scream:
‘In the name of the most high!’
And I’m back in my own circle, running the knife round with one hand and madly sprinkling brandy into the brazier with the other.
The rat in the cage opens one eye, then goes back to sleep.
Lumpy isn’t taking it so well: he’s thrown up all over himself. Kazia just stands there open-mouthed. Marvo is kicking away, trying to turn herself and the chair round to see what she’s missing without leaving the protection of her circle.
The star of the show wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, but all he does is smear blood and stuff all over his face. He grins dementedly, and you really don’t want to know what’s stuck between his teeth. His long green tongue flicks out to lick away gore from between his eyebrows.
‘Feeling better?’ I ask.
He roars and takes a wild swipe at me with the scourge. I duck – not unreasonably, if you ask me. The whole building shakes like a steamboat has hit it. The hooks leave a series of bloody gashes in mid-air, above the line of my outer circle.
Alastor has gone purple all over and there’s smoke blowing out of his ears, nose and mouth. And, since he’s a demon, out of his arse of course. He’s off again, around the studio, twitching and lashing out like he’s seeing ghosts or something.
‘Frank!’ Marvo’s managed to push herself round where she can see the fun. ‘What’s up with him?’
Before I can open my mouth, she gets an answer of sorts. My door blows back on its hinges and a yard-wide river of searing red fire comes rolling in, right up to Alastor’s feet. A distant voice roars, ‘Come and get me, shit-head!’
Alastor’s confusion evaporates in an instant. His skin changes colour, first to silver, then to burnished gold. He examines his weapons. The axe goes back in his belt. He pulls out his triple dagger and tests the sharpness of the longer middle blade by poking the tip through his tongue. He gives the scourge a few experimental sweeps, cutting swathes of gore through the air. He turns to me and snarls gobs of fire. I put my sleeve over my face as I feel the cold blast. When I look again, Alastor is disappearing out of the door. The flames roll up like a carpet behind him.
‘Frank!’ That’s Marvo again. ‘What’ve you done?’
I didn’t plan any of this. I just gambled that if I threw all the cards up in the air they’d come down in a different order.
‘Shut up. Haven’t finished yet.’
There’s one card that still hasn’t landed. Alastor may have left the room, but he’s not out of the game.
Here’s how it’s supposed to work. You conjure up a demon and give him something useful to do. It’s stick and carrot. The stick is the power of magic and the divine names; the carrot is a small animal in a cage. When the demon’s done what he was supposed to, you dismiss him and sever the affinity that the summoning created, so he can’t come back and bite your head off.
What actually happened, though, is that Alastor snacked off Hatchet Face, Vannutelli and Dinny, then stormed off without even asking if I wanted him to bring me back a newspaper or a pint of milk.
Result? The affinity still exists and I’m in danger of spending the rest of my life – which promises to be very short – jumping every time something goes bump behind me.
‘Aglon, Tetragrammaton! I charge thee, Alastor, to return whence thou camest, without noise or disturbance.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Marvo mutters. ‘Some bloody chance!’
I’ve got my sword over my head. ‘Begone in the names of Adonai and Eloim. Begone in the names of Ariel and Jehovah—’
At this point in a dismissal, I’d normally pay the Presence his fee in
flesh and blood. I’m just going through the motions, but I may as well go through all of them. I open the cage, grab the startled rat and lob it out of the circle towards the east. It lands with a squeak in the smoking remains of the goatskin triangle and slides across the floor, its claws scrabbling desperately. It comes to a halt and jumps up on its back legs, staring around, twitching wildly.
‘Begone!’ I sweep the sword down, hoping – as the tip strikes sparks from the floor – for some sign.
Nothing. No bang. No blast of sulphur. Not even a damp fart or a handwritten note. Just the rat, scuttling up the leg of my trousers into my pocket.
I pull out my knife and start cutting my protective circles, one by one. A couple of minutes later, I’m outside, still in one piece and breathing successfully.
‘It’s safe,’ I say.
Kazia watches me coldly from inside her circle.
‘Suit yourself.’
I break Marvo’s circle and cut the ropes. She rolls away from the chair and just lies there with her shoulders shaking.
‘The word you’re looking for,’ I mutter, ‘is “thanks”.’
Bad idea. She jerks and kicks my legs out from under me. I hit the floor and my sword rattles away.
Marvo screams in agony. ‘Cramp!’ She makes a grab for her leg, but jerks back and clasps both hands to her head.
‘Don’t fight it—’
‘Piss off!’
‘Try to relax—’
Some hope. She’s on her back, banging her head on the floor and going, ‘Shit, shit, shit!’
And my sword? Lumpy has got it. I jump back as it whistles past my ear. ‘Hey, what’s your problem?’
No gratitude, some people. I duck as he takes another wild swipe at me. Where’s a demon when you want one?
Lumpy is really getting the hang of waving the sword around. I’m hopping backwards around the place, thinking I could make a run for it, out of the door, if only—
‘Get up, Marvo!’
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