Excellent.
‘But vot of zhe snakes zhis voman is holding, Professeur? Vot is zheir significance?’
‘My own opinion, Your Excellency,’ began de Nostredame, sounding a damned sight more confident than Kondratieff guessed he actually felt, ‘is that the image on Face Six shows the Messiah disentangling the two helixical strands of the Living as represented by the snakes. It represents her ability to disentwine and then reassemble the most fundamental component of life itself.’
‘Interesting. Unt vot of zhe rather mysterious algorithmic inscription shown beneath zhe image of zhe Messiah?’
‘As it stands, the “family-tree” design remains undeciphered. One possible interpretation is that it mirrors the work of a modern day scientist named Gregor Mendel, who is now in the employ of the Empress Wu, and who has published a study he has made of plant hybridisation with especial reference to the plant of the common pea or Pisum sativum variety. This demonstrates that certain characteristics of the original, parent plants are present in their offspring without any blending or averaging of the original, parental characteristics. These principles of inherited characteristics may be illustrated in a quite satisfactory manner by an algorithm very, very similar to the one shown on the Column.’
The Doge chuckled. ‘Are you zuggesting, de Nostredame, zhat zhis wonderful heirloom from deepest antiquity vos wrought by zhe Pre-Folk to preserve zhe zecrets of how to more zatisfactorily grow peas?’
De Nostredame ignored the laughter from around the room. ‘No,’ he protested, ‘Mendel’s principles may be applied more generally. They govern all aspects of heredity in flora and in fauna.’
‘But vhy vould zuch information be contained on a sculpture zelebrating zhe coming of zhe Messiah? No, in zhis matter, de Nostredame, you are in error. Zhis design has, I think, more of an astrological significance rather zhan vun associated mit breeding unt fertility.’ The Doge gave another yawn. ‘I think I have heard unt zeen enough …’
‘I have a question,’ said the Marquis de Sade quietly.
The Doge waved a hand to grant him permission to continue.
‘In Canto Three, Lilith is described as the “Dark Mistress of the Living”. May I ask, Professeur de Nostredame, if this confirms that Lilith was a Shade?’
Bastard.
The most worrying thing was that the question hadn’t been posed in a flippant manner. Kondratieff had the uncomfortable feeling that de Sade suspected the truth.
Fortunately de Nostredame was sharp enough to deflect this potentially embarrassing question. ‘Not at all. As I have alluded, some of the phraseology used in the Old French is ambiguous. The word “dark” might be construed as both “wicked” or as “Shade”. However, on reflection, I am inclined to believe that “dark” refers to Lilith’s evil nature rather than her ethnicity. There is little evidence – except that stimulated by racial prejudice – to support the contention that Lilith was a Shade. If anything, the colour most strongly associated with her is red: she was, after all, the original “Scarlet Woman”.’ De Nostredame looked around the room. ‘Are there any other questions?’ he asked.
Suddenly the Doge rose to her feet. ‘No more questions. I have zeen unt heard enough.’ She turned to the Lady. ‘Not only has zhe Zizter Florence zeen zhat your aura is of a divine cast but now zhe lines on zhe Column support your claim to be zhe Messiah in a most remarkable fashion. It tells uz zhat zhe Messiah vill be female, zhat she vill be a Daemon, unt zhat she vill portend a time of miracles. You are indeed zhe Messiah, younk lady, of zhat zhere can be no doubt. I vill be honoured to support your claim of Messiahship in front of zhe Council of Ten.’
Excellent.
‘Unt now you must come mit me, to reside in my palace. A convent is no place for zhe True Messiah.’
27
The Convent of the Sacred and
All-Seeing Order of Visual Virgins: Venice
The Demi-Monde: 27th Day of Spring, 1005
The use of garlic and silver as apotropes – devices designed to dissuade and to dispel spirits and daemons of the night – although most common in the Quartier Chaud – is a practice seen throughout the Demi-Monde. WhoDoo mambos employ them to guard against the most evil of loas, the Grigori; Visual Virgins have them to hand in their convents to protect against vampyres, whilst the ImPuritans of the Quartier Chaud display them on their household shrines to dissuade revenants – those who return – from entering their homes.
Trying to Pin WhoDoo Down:
Colonel Percy Fawcett, Shangri-La Books
The woman who stood watching them was a giantess. She was far taller than any man Burlesque had ever seen, and some of the Lascars who had worked the docks in the Rookeries were colossally big men.
‘Fuck me gently, Burlesque,’ he heard Rivets whisper, ‘that’s a vampyre tart that is, like them wuns in Gregory the Grigori. That’s one fucking big woman.’ As understatements went, it was a corker.
On bare feet, the girl glided deeper into the room, and as she came closer to the halo cast by the gas lamp, Burlesque got a better look at her. By his estimation, she must have been almost six and a half feet in height – or almost a foot and a half taller than Rivets and a good six inches taller than Burlesque himself – and her broad, broad shoulders told him that she had strength to match her size. She shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet, as though preparing to spring, and in doing so flexed her body. From what Burlesque could see, she had a body well worth flexing, especially as all she was wearing was a bolero jacket and a pair of harem trousers made from red silk that glistened in the half-light.
‘Gor, clock the charms on that,’ observed an admiring Rivets, seemingly oblivious to the danger he and Burlesque were in.
Any further observations Rivets might have been inclined to make about the woman’s breasts died in his mouth as she drew a long and very sharp-looking knife from the wide belt that snaked around her trim waist. Automatically Burlesque reached for the pistol he had thrust down the back of his own belt, but before he had a chance to draw it, the woman struck.
There must have been over twelve feet separating her from Burlesque, but astonishingly she covered the distance in one leap. For one breathtaking instant Burlesque couldn’t believe what he was seeing. What she had done he knew to be humanly impossible. Nobody, be they man or woman – or even kangaroo – could jump as this woman had just done.
These reflections were abruptly and painfully curtailed as the woman slashed her blade towards him, the knife slicing towards his head at an unbelievable speed. Instinctively he flinched back out of range … almost out of range.
Just the tip of the razor-sharp blade caught his arm as he dodged, but it was enough to slice an incision in his jacket sleeve and cut into his biceps. With a yelp, he arched away but he knew he was finished. Time slowed. He saw the woman coil back the arm that held the knife for the killing stroke and he braced himself to receive it. But then his life was saved by Rivets.
Instead of stabbing Burlesque, the woman was forced to twist her blade to parry the blow from a large silver candlestick that Rivets had aimed at her head. If his blow had landed, the woman would have been knocked for six, but almost negligently she blocked the downward swing of the candlestick with her knife, and then reached out to grab Rivets by the neck. With one hand she lifted the boy from the ground, holding him at arm’s length while he twisted and squirmed, his feet a good foot clear of the carpet. Casually – too casually, as it turned out – she raised her knife to cut his throat.
Desperately Burlesque looked around for a weapon, but all he could see was the Chink urn that Rivets had dropped. Without a second’s thought, he picked it up and brought it crashing down on the vampyre’s head. It shattered, spilling the garlic powder it contained in a great choking cloud. By great good luck, Rivets had stolen one of the apotropes the Visial Virgins employed as protection against Grigori. The woman buckled, released her death grip on Rivets and sank to her hands and knees, gasping and retchin
g, her face already blotching into flaming red pustules.
Seeing her weak and helpless, Burlesque didn’t hesitate. He kicked her as hard as he could on the side of the head. Behemoth or not, she slumped unconscious onto the carpet, her breath coming in weak gasps.
‘Gor, fanks Burlesque, mate,’ panted Rivets, as he massaged his bruised neck. ‘I fort I was dead meat then, an’ no mistake. Wotta vicious cow.’ And, as if to emphasise the point, he slammed the toe of his hobnailed boot into the woman’s stomach.
Burlesque picked up the vampyre’s knife and handed it to Rivets. ‘Never mind all that. Cut down some of that curtain rope an’ tie ’er up. When she wakes up, she’s gonna be in a rare tear.’
‘Why not top her?’
Burlesque thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. ‘Nah, we can’t do that. She’s a bird, and anyway, toppin’ ’er might upset Odette.’
With a shrug Rivets moved to follow Burlesque’s orders, and within a minute he had the vampyre trussed up like a parcel for posting. Satisfied that she was now, as Rivets called it, whores de combat, Burlesque heeled across the room and cautiously poked his head out into the hallway. To his astonishment, the butler was still standing guard on the front door, shouting at Odette who was still banging at it from the outside. All Burlesque could imagine was that the noise the pair were kicking up had drowned the sound of the fracas that had just taken place in the library. He pulled out his pistol and pushed its muzzle against the side of the man’s head. ‘Ouvrez la porte,’ he ordered, and the butler did just as he was told.
Pascal Leroy had never been tied to a chair in his life before, nor had he ever been in the presence of anybody who looked quite so crazy before. The fat man with the beard was one thing, but the shrunken boy who was striding about the room wearing an angry scowl, massaging his bruised neck and kicking furniture, was quite another. This one was a vicious little vandal, who had destroyed the Convent’s collection of silver plate by flattening them under his boot so that he could better squeeze them into the pockets of his oversized coat. But even worse, the dwarf kept giving Pascal the most unsettling of looks: he had the distinct feeling the bastard wanted to hurt him.
His peace of mind wasn’t helped by the sight of Mademoiselle Armaros lying unconscious on the floor. It seemed impossible to Pascal that these two nonentities had been able to defeat her. He had been assured that Mademoiselle Armaros was a formidable assassin: she was, after all, one of the Grigori. When he had agreed to let the woman into the Convent, in exchange for ten thousand guineas in consideration of his services, he had been told that she could not fail and that she would kill the Lady IMmanual easily and without fuss. All he had had to do was to wait until Machiavelli’s Signori di Notte had left the Convent to escort the Lady IMmanual to the Galerie, and then let Mademoiselle Armaros in through the back door. It should have been the easiest ten thousand guineas he had ever earned, but now, here she was, lying broken, bruised and bound on the library carpet.
These thoughts were put very firmly to the back of Pascal Leroy’s mind when the bearded man came to stand over him. ‘Où est Ella Thomas?’ the man asked.
Gamely, Pascal Leroy shook his head. ‘Je ne sais pas,’ he responded.
‘Où est la Dame IMmanual?’ the man persisted, a dangerous tone entering his voice.
‘Je ne sais pas.’
The bearded man shook his head dolefully. ‘Waddya fink, Rivets?’ he asked the midget.
The boy stopped his pacing about the room and turned to stare at Pascal. ‘I fink ’e just needs a bit ov persuading, that’s wot I fink, Burlesque.’ He flicked open a very dangerous-looking razor-knife and sauntered over to stand next to Pascal. Leaning down, he used the knife to slice the buttons from Pascal’s beautifully embroidered waistcoat. This done, he eased the two sides of it apart, and then cut through his braces. As the boy began to unbutton his trousers – Pascal’s eyes widening in horror as he did so – he began to talk in a soothing but infinitely threatening sort of way. ‘Wot I’m gonna do, Mon-sewer le Frog, is get yer willy art. Once I’ve done this, I’m gonna arsk you some questions an’ every time you say “Je ne sais pas” I’m gonna slice off an ’alf-inch of your cock. Twiggy-vous le chose? Comprenez?’
Aghast at what he thought he understood the boy to be saying – he could already feel his scrotum starting to shrivel in anticipation – all Pascal could do was nod desperately. ‘Monsieur, pleeze …’ he began, but his pleezes were stilled when the boy put a finger firmly to his lips and winked at him. Then, with a smile, he dug his hand into Pascal’s fly and hauled out his penis. It was as embarrassing as it was terrifying, especially when the French girl who had been screaming at him out on the doorstep came over to get a better look at his manhood.
‘C’est très petit,’ she opined, and Pascal coloured in mortification. He had always considered himself a fortissimo-class lover.
‘C’est vrais,’ agreed the one they called Burlesque.
‘An’ it’s gonna be a lot more petit when I’m done,’ added the boy. ‘I fink iffn I arsk more’n four questions we’re gonna run out ov cock to trim. Still … when I’ve run out of sausage, I can start on the sprouts. Vous gonna be a NoN, Mon-sewer.’
Pascal watched, fear stricken, as this Rivets person manoeuvred the tip of the knife until it was scratching at the juncture between his scrotum and his penis. His imagination ran riot. One flick of the boy’s wrist and the bastard would geld him. Almost crying with terror, Pascal desperately tried to still his shaking, worried that he might inadvertently lead to his own castration.
‘Roight, Mon-sewer le Frog, I fink you parlez le lingo Anglo pretty bien. Do you savvy avec beaucup de understanding?’
Pascal nodded: his understanding might not be ‘beaucup’ but it was enough for him to get the gist of what was being said. And anyway, whatever the words didn’t convey, the knife point his bollocks were balanced on was very eloquent in explaining.
‘Roight; question un. Où est Ella Thomas?’
No matter how much he valued his position within the Convent, Pascal Leroy was unwilling to become a NoN simply to protect his tenure. ‘The Marquis de Sade ’as taken ’er to the Galerie des Anciens, there to attend the presentation of an artefact most rare,’ he answered with as much reluctance as he dared.
‘Question ducks: when did she leave cette Convent?’
Pascal glanced at the clock ticking on the library’s mantelpiece. ‘Monsieur … I beg you …’ There was a tweak of the knife. ‘This afternoon; at two of the clock.’
‘Very good, Mon-sewer le Frog. Question troys: when will she an’ this de Sade item be comin’ back to the Convent?’
For a moment Pascal Leroy hesitated, then, prompted by an even more urgent jab of the knife’s point, he replied, ‘I do not know, Monsieur. I understand that she will afterwards be taken to the Doge’s Palace, for an assignation with the Doge.’
‘Fuck! We’re scuppered, Burlesque,’ said the boy, and a flash of anger flickered over his face. ‘We can’t ’ang around ’ere all night waiting for Miss Ella to show up. There might be more of them vampyre tarts skulking around.’
The bearded man – Burlesque? – seemed uncertain as to what to do next. It was the big woman, the one called Odette, who solved his dilemma. She had been shuffling through the papers on the desk and, obviously having found something of interest, beckoned Burlesque over. They whispered together for a moment and then Burlesque turned back to the dwarf with a smile on his face. ‘I don’t fink we’ll ’ave to wait, Rivets, me old cock.’ And with that, he scooped all the papers lying on the desk into a satchel he’d found handy. ‘That’s it, I think, we can vamoose now.’
‘Wot abart the Mon-sewer, ’ere?’ asked the boy.
Pascal had only the briefest glimpse of the candlestick the bearded bastard swung at his head before a rather painful darkness descended.
28
The Sala del Maggior Consiglio: Venice
The Demi-Monde: 28th Day
of Spring, 1005
There are many fascinating characters in the history of WhoDoo, but none more divisive than Marie Laveau. Born sometime around 800 AC, Marie Laveau is reputed to have been the reincarnation of Lilith, and hence to have been possessed of immense power both as a WhoDoo mambo and as a Seidrkona (a practitioner of Seidr magick). It is rumoured that Marie Laveau was assassinated by the Code Noir, who viewed her as the Beast, the manifestation of Loki here in the Demi-Monde.
Trying to Pin WhoDoo Down:
Colonel Percy Fawcett, Shangri-La Books
Even Vanka, distracted though he was by the audacity of what he was attempting, had to admit that the Sala del Maggior Consiglio, the great hall where the Council of Ten was meeting, was impressive. Adorned with wonderful artworks and swathed in gilt, the hall was a sight to behold, but what impressed Vanka most was that it was large enough to house the hordes of rich and powerful Venetians who had descended on the Palace to witness the testing of the Lady IMmanual’s Messiahship. This was obviously seen as a momentous occasion, an event which anyone who was anyone in Venice wanted to attend.
Vanka was delighted that it was so popular, as crowds meant lots of unfamiliar people, which, coupled with all the attendees being masked, meant the chances of him being recognised were reassuringly slim. And, of course, the pair of them being in possession of invitations to attend the Great Audience issued by the Doge herself meant that even the Signori di Notte – on full alert after the discovery of a Grigori assassin inside the Convent – were respectfully non-intrusive. That Burlesque had managed to find two invitations in the library of the Convent had been a terrific stroke of luck, lucky because it meant that Norma could come with him, and having a friend at his side he found peculiarly reassuring.
And their luck had held: the pair of them had entered the Sala unchallenged and now they found themselves standing wedged in the middle of the hall, compressed by bodies on every side, desperately trying to search out a breeze to relieve the hot, acrid atmosphere that suffused the room. It was so hot that after just five minutes in the Sala Vanka’s lime-green silk suit was stained dark with sweat and his curly hair hung limp about his shoulders.
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