They came to a halt in front of a heavy door, which de Sade opened, ushering Ella into the large, whitewashed laboratory beyond. The room was stiflingly hot – sauna-hot – and the reason wasn’t difficult to see. In the far corner of the laboratory bubbled and popped what looked to be a huge copper boiler, perhaps ten feet tall and maybe five feet or so in diameter, its outer edge decorated with serrated fins – probably, Ella decided, to help cool the thing down. Various pipes snaked out of the contraption to disappear off into the walls, and two black cables trailed from terminals set atop the device to drape themselves over the arms of the huge high-backed chair that stood in the middle of the room.
Ella found the chair more disturbing than anything; it reminded her of pictures she’d seen of electric chairs. A dreadful feeling of foreboding descended over her.
A man and a woman, both dressed in white laboratory coats, were standing beside the chair watching her. It was the man – ruddy-cheeked and wearing a wide smile that showed off his gapped teeth – who stepped forward to greet the arrivals. ‘Ah … Chief Inquisitor Donatien, I am delighted to meet you again.’ The two men shook hands and then the ruddy-cheeked item turned his attention to Ella. ‘And this, I presume, is the subject that First CitiZen Robespierre wishes examined.’
‘It is, Doctor. This is the Shade witch known as the Lady IMmanual.’
‘Excellent. And how old are you, young lady?’ asked the doctor.
‘Eighteen.’
‘Good. And you seem fit and healthy, too.’ He stepped nearer to Ella, pushing his face to within inches of hers, swamping her with the smell of engine oil and disinfectant that clung to him. He peered at her in the same way a farmer might assess a prize cow. ‘Do you suffer from any congenital weaknesses?’ he asked, and then added, ‘Apart from your obvious racial degeneracy, that is.’
Ella bristled. ‘No. And I do not regard my skin colour as an indication of any inferiority. Compared to the lighter skin of an Aryan intent on torture, I have a feeling it indicates quite the opposite.’
‘Hah! The girl has both intelligence and spirit, Chief Inquisitor, and as such will make a wonderfully resilient subject for our little experiment.’ He turned to his assistant. ‘I would be grateful, Miss Godwin, if you would unshackle the girl. I need to weigh her and then take a number of measurements.’
As the chains fell from her wrists, the doctor smiled at Ella. ‘You have a great deal of hair, young lady …’
They bundled Ella into the chair and used leather bands to strap her wrists and ankles, so that she was obliged to sit helpless while the doctor’s assistant shaved her scalp with a cut-throat razor.
Then, for the next half-hour, the doctor examined Ella. Peculiarly, he spent a great deal of time measuring her head, checking the angle of slope of her jaw and her forehead and, for a few truly horrible minutes, fondling her skull, fingering every bump and gully. Unfortunately, such was the thickness of the rubber gloves the doctor wore whilst he worked that PINC could give Ella no information about the man, but then PINC wasn’t the only one to be puzzled.
‘Most peculiar,’ mused the doctor as he stood back and eyed Ella carefully. ‘I would explain the aberrational results of my examination but I doubt whether one of your racial inferiority would be familiar with the science of phrenology?’
Oddly enough, Ella was familiar with it. As part of her psychology course back in the Real World she had written a paper regarding the influence of bogus science on the growth of racial prejudice. Phrenology – the theory that by examining the shape and size of an individual’s head, scientific conclusions could be drawn about their personality and intellect – had been one of the main topics she had discussed.
‘I don’t know it as a “science”,’ answered Ella, ‘rather I know it as a pseudo science. It’s just nonsense used to promote racist twaddle about certain people being inferior to others. As a medical technique, it was pronounced flawed many, many years ago.’
A frown crossed the doctor’s brow. ‘How can this be? Phrenology is a discipline at the very forefront of medical and scientific enquiry, therefore it is impossible for it to have been pronounced flawed “many, many years ago”.’ After a moment’s silence he began to nod slowly, and then gave Ella a complacent little smile. ‘Ah, I see, this is a ruse to render me intellectually off guard. Clever. It is a subtlety I never expected from one of your primitive provenance, but it is at one with the unusual findings I have made about you.’
He clapped his hands and his assistant handed him a clipboard which held a sheet of paper thick with numbers. These the doctor studied for a few moments. ‘You know, Chief Inquisitor Donatien, when I was told my subject would be a Shade, I had anticipated finding evidence of the atavistic stigmata that Lombroso describes as typical of UnderMentionables. But in this girl I see no prognathous jawline, and her forehead is almost parallel to the vertical axis of her skull. This is most atypical of her race. You will also be interested to learn that the measurements of her skull’s latitudinal and longitudinal girth are all soundly in the upper quartile and, contrarily, point to her possessing a mind of superior size and performance.’ He shook his head, and then turned to Ella. ‘It would seem, young lady, that you are one of those recidivists who do not manifest the physical deformity of your race.’
‘Or it could be that your theories regarding racial profiles are just junk,’ Ella shot back. ‘Could it be, Doctor, that my race does not manifest your so-called physical deformities, because it is not deformed? You lambaste people because they appear different from your Aryan ideal, but you never pause to consider that it might be the Aryans themselves who are deformed … deformed spiritually.’
‘Foolish, stupid, UnderMentionable scum,’ sneered the doctor. ‘Well, we will see how argumentative you are after treatment.’ He nodded to his assistant, who placed an inch-wide steel circlet around Ella’s head. The circlet was already connected by the two wires to the machine bubbling and burping away in the corner of the room.
‘As I have already discussed with you, Chief Inquisitor, the device in the corner is an example of the newly invented Faraday Thermopile, a machine designed to convert heat energy into galvanicEnergy by the use of the thermocouples which radiate out from the engine’s central spine.’
The doctor used a pencil to tap the fins of the thermopile, which were now glowing red-hot. ‘A marvellous machine, is it not, Chief Inquisitor? It is my conjecture that the mind of a Demi-Mondian functions by the transmission of sparks of galvanicEnergy within the Solidified Astral Ether housed inside the cranium. By the application of the galvanicEnergy generated by this thermopile, I am able to interrupt this process, the amount of galvanicEnergy needed to commandeer a subject’s mental process being directly proportional to the subject’s intellectual capacity.’
With that the doctor began an intensive examination of the settings of the various valves and taps that decorated the surface of the machine. ‘Shall we make a start? For this particular experiment we will use the nomenclature “Mengele Experiment Forty-Seven” …’
‘You’re Josef Mengele?’ asked Ella, in a shaking voice.
A querulous frown from the doctor. ‘You know my name?’
‘Yes, I know who you are – and what you are. You’re the Angel of Death, the monster who killed all those poor people in Auschwitz.’
Mengele shook his head dismissively. ‘Ridiculous. I have no idea what you are talking about, young lady. I have never been referred to by such a melodramatic sobriquet, and I have never been to a place called Auschwitz.’ He turned back to his assistant. ‘We will begin on setting number two.’
Ella saw the lever being thrown.
And then her head exploded.
9
INDOCTRANS Headquarters, Fort Jackson
The Real World: 16 August 2018
The Lilithi were the priestesses of Lilith, dedicated to passing the knowledge and wisdom of the first Lilith down through the generations. Exclusively female, the Lilithi w
ere a species of woman physically and mentally superior to all other species of HumanKind: they were Homo perfectus, the apotheosis of life in the Demi-Monde. Indeed there is an opinion amongst experts that the Lilithi may not have belonged to the genus Homo. The Lilithi were perhaps more than human, being reputed to possess Atavistic Thought Inheritance, a mysterious ability named but never described.
Myths and Legends of the Demi-Monde:
Lucien Lévy-Brühl, Quartier Chaud Imprints
Bole sat alone in his office at INDOCTRANS, sipping a glass of warm honeyed water while trying to settle his mind and body after an unusually taxing week. Unfortunately, today Septimus Bole was not destined to achieve the tranquillity of spirit he craved: the emergency warning light flashing on his desk saw to that.
‘Bole,’ he intoned.
‘Professor Bole, this is Nurse Green at the storage facility. Doctor Andrews has just reported abnormalities with one of our biPsychs.’
‘Which one?’ It was an important question. Including Ella Thomas there were eighteen biPsychs stored in in the facility, seventeen belonging to the neoFights the US military believed to have been captured by ImPeril agents working for Shaka Zulu and held as prisoners in NoirVille. Bole suppressed a smile: it had always amused him how easily the military had swallowed this piece of fiction, but then, he supposed, they were only Fragiles.
‘BiPsych Thomas.’
Septimus Bole had never thought it possible to cover so damned quickly the ten floors from his office to the facility where the bodies of those Real Worlders active in the Demi-Monde – the biPsychs – were held. And once there, a breathless Bole headed straight for the monitoring station, where a very grim-faced Dr David Andrews, the medic in charge of biPsych storage, stood poring over computer read-outs.
‘Report,’ barked Bole.
‘It started ten minutes ago: first biPsych Thomas became agitated, and then her readings went all to hell.’
Bole glanced through the observation window toward the ranks of TIS-swathed bodies lined up on gurneys in the storage hall. Ella Thomas’s body was easy to spot, bucking and writhing as two nurses tried ineffectually to keep it still.
‘She’s still in the Demi-Monde?’
‘Yes, her body is still dormant.’
It didn’t look dormant. In Bole’s experience, dormant bodies didn’t spasm in quite the way this one did.
Taking a deep breath to help him maintain focus, Bole examined the dials scattered across the control panel. Andrews was right, the readings were all to hell. Her blood pressure had soared, her heart was pumping like a trip hammer, her REMs were off the dial, her body temperature had rocketed – and, most worryingly of all, the composition of her blood was wrong, and getting wronger by the minute.
‘What have you done to control the situation?’
‘We’ve pumped her full of DayRapturePlus, enough to sedate an elephant, but it’s done no good. There’s something happening in the Demi-Monde that’s causing her extreme agitation.’
Bole rechecked the dials, and could hardly believe what he was seeing. If the pressure readings coming from the straps tethering the girl’s wrists and ankles were correct, the force she was placing on them was almost double the maximum a human subject was considered capable of exerting. There could be only one explanation: the girl was mutating!
But that was impossible. It had to be impossible!
He had verified that, unlike all the other Dupes, Thomas didn’t carry the Grigori gene. And the alternative – that she was a latent Lilithi – was absurd. Anyway there was no electricity in the Quartier Chaud to provoke a mutation.
Bole froze. There was electricity in the Demi-Monde. He had allowed it in order to facilitate the work on the Plague, to provide Boyle, Cuvier and the other scientists working in the Institute with everything they needed to develop the ultimate eugenical weapon. But that had been a recent amendment and there was no way Faraday would have been able to disseminate the technology beyond the ForthRight so quickly. Or was there? He had told Beria to keep the knowledge of galvanicEnergy a secret, but Beria was a politician, and politicians would do anything to secure an advantage over their enemies.
From far away, Bole heard the voice of Dr Andrews talking to him. ‘As best we can make out, it seems that the Dupe of biPsych Thomas is being subjected to extreme electro-shock treatment. I’m having ABBA make estimates now.’ He tapped a computer display screen. ‘Jesus! ABBA’s saying that her Dupe is being subjected to shocks of over two hundred milliamperes. She should be burning by now.’ There was a warning ping from the control panel. ‘Ah, fuck, that’s her PINC flat-lining.’ Even as the words left the doctor’s mouth, several of the screens carrying data from Ella Thomas’s Dupe suddenly went blank.
Bole did his best to mask his annoyance; without PINC he wouldn’t be able to track the girl inside the Demi-Monde.
Dr Andrews turned and pressed his face hard against the observation window. ‘Why isn’t she dead? No human can stand that amount of abuse!’
The doctor was quite right: nobody human could withstand that level of shock. But then, Bole had a sneaking suspicion that Ella Thomas might no longer be human. As he watched her writhing on the gurney, he decided that the girl had been elevated from an irritant to a major danger.
She was now the worst enemy of the Dark Charismatics … of the Grigori. She was now one of the Lilithi.
Bole scuttled back to his office, dived into his chair, took a long calming breath and then turned towards the Flexi-Plexi.
‘ABBA, I wish to interrogate you regarding Section 51.’
‘Please insert your pass code, Septimus, and then provide me with three bioSignatures.’
Bole did as he was asked, simultaneously irritated by the delay caused by the security measures necessary to access this oh-so-secret area of ABBA’s database, and yet pleased that they meant no one else could interrogate the machine on the oh-so-delicate subject of Grigori and their by-blows, Dark Charasmatics.
‘Security checks are satisfactory, Septimus. I am now able to provide advice regarding Section 51 of my memory.’
‘Have you analysed the reaction of Ella Thomas to the stimuli she has been subjected to in the Demi-Monde?’
‘I have, Septimus.’
‘And what were your findings?’ prompted Bole testily, angry with himself for having asked a closed question in the first place. ABBA was very pedantic regarding such matters.
‘It would seem that Ella Thomas is possessed of a dormant inclination to Lilithianism, and that the excitements she has been subjected to in the Demi-Monde have woken these aspects.’
‘Why didn’t you advise me of Ella Thomas’s potential as a Lilithi when we were screening her?’
‘You will remember, Septimus, that the constraints imposed on the divulging of Section 51 data mean that I am unable to discuss, to acknowledge or to imply the existence of Grigori, of Dark Charismatics, of Lilithi or of Kohanim, unless specific security protocols have been executed. Your failure to do this when Ella Thomas was being evaluated for deployment in the Demi-Monde resulted in my inability to alert you regarding her proclivity towards Lilithianism.’
Bole snorted. ‘And the reason I did that was that all surviving Lilithians were meant to have died when Cavor’s research facility on Krakatoa exploded in 1883.’
Meant to …
‘I have examined the genealogical records of Ella Thomas, Septimus, and it would appear that she is a distant relation of Margaret Jekyll who, you will be aware, was herself Lilithian. It would seem that she passed her genetic idiosyncrasies down through her line to Ella Thomas.’
Margaret Jekyll, now there was a name to chill the blood of any Dark Charismatic. When the meteor had landed in 1795 and bathed those gathered in Bole Manor in its strange radiation, not only had Sir Augustus Bole mutated but also that witch, Hortense Steele. But rather than Bole’s Grigorian aspect, it had been the girl’s latent Lilithianism that the meteor had resuscitated, a trait she passed
down to her granddaughter, Margaret Steele … or as she had become, Margaret Jekyll, her full powers revived by that interfering wretch, Edward Hyde. It had been Margaret Jekyll that had almost done for the Grigori, it had been Margaret Jekyll who had destroyed the TiME facility on Krakatoa in 1883, sacrificing herself – and his ancestor, Cornelius Bole – in the process.
‘But Margaret Jekyll died childless, he protested. ‘The Lilithian strain died with her when Krakatoa exploded.’
‘Not so, Septimus. She had a daughter, Lily, who was raised by the Petrov family in Russia. Lily came to the USA to escape Stalin in 1923, changing her name to Thomas in the process. It was in this way that the Lilithian trait, attenuated to be sure, was passed down to Ella Thomas.’
Bole knew this was not a time to despair or to panic. He tried to clear his mind. The Lilithi might be the ancient enemy of the Grigori, but Ella Thomas was still only a girl. Or was she? What if there were others? ‘This Lilithian trait of Ella Thomas’, is it manifest in any others?’ he asked ABBA, fearful of what the answer might be.
Bole slumped back in his chair; the shadows of the past were once more falling over the present.
‘Unfortunately, Septimus, I have access to the DNA data relating to only 73.45 per cent of the world’s human population, therefore my answer must be balanced with certain caveats.’
‘Never mind the caveats, ABBA. Just tell me how many of these Lilithi are out there.’
‘Only one, Septimus. Ella Thomas is the last of the Lilithi.’
Bole smiled. Just one of them, and that one would soon be very, very dead. And then the line stretching back all those thousands of years to the first Lilith would be finally ended.
It was time for the Grigori to be deployed in the Demi-Monde.
10
The Bastille: Paris
The Demi-Monde: 13th Day of Spring, 1005
What can we glean from the scant historical records regarding the character of Lilith? That she was an erotic woman is a given: every religion describes her as a woman who used her beauty and her sexual wiles to beguile and to control her subjects and to bend her enemies to her will. Legend has it that Lilith was the greatest exponent of fiduciary sex ever to walk the Demi-Monde, able to enslave a man or woman with just a glance. Strangely though, there is not one account of her being in love – there is no grande passion in the life of Lilith – indeed she seems a somewhat frigid and aloof character. And this surmise is reinforced by the many tales of brutality associated with her: the manner in which she dispatched rivals is utterly cold-blooded. She was an unemotional, single-minded and fearsome shaper – re shaper – of HumanKind.
Rod Rees - [The Demi-Monde 02] Page 10