‘I must destroy you.’
‘Then do it!’
De Sade pulled the trigger, the Colt bucked in his hand and the bullet flew true. What happened next astonished him. He had seen illusionists do a ‘bullet catch’ before, but this he had always ascribed to a feat of theatrical legerdemain, with the magician palming the bullet before it was loaded. Never could he have imagined that he would see the stunt done for real. But that was exactly what the Lady IMmanual did: she caught the bullet he had fired, out of the air. Oh, the act was accompanied by a grunt, and the momentum of the bullet as she grabbed it caused her to take a steadying step back, but that didn’t distract from the realisation that she had just accomplished the impossible.
Once she had recovered her poise and balance, she turned to smile at de Sade, who stood gawping at her in paralysed shock. ‘I see your aim has improved since you tried to blow my head off in the Maison d’Illusion and hit Zolotov instead.’
She tossed the bullet disdainfully aside, sending it rattling across the floor, and then advanced towards him. ‘This is your moment of destiny, de Sade: you must choose whether to pledge your life and your soul to me, or die.’
All de Sade could do was stand immobilised by fear. There was a power and a certainty about the girl that brooked no refusal. She truly was Lilith come again.
Finally he found his voice. ‘I will be betraying my own kind.’
‘Kill her!’ screamed a desperate Semiazaz as he tried to stagger to his feet.
The girl ignored the Grigori and and continued to advance toward de Sade. ‘But treachery is your forte, de Sade. Your choice is simple: to live as a traitor or to die. Choose.’
De Sade bowed his head.
‘Good, then we must move quickly. Your shot will have alerted the guards. You have, I presume, already killed the Doge.’
‘Yes … and Vanka Maykov is being hunted for her murder.’
‘My, you have been a busy boy. We will blame the Sister’s murder on Semiazaz here. And your disposing of this Grigori will make you the hero who saved the Lady IMmanual from an assassin sent by a bitter and envious Doge Catherine-Sophia.’
De Sade didn’t hesitate. He raised the pistol, took aim and blew a hole in Semiazaz’s head.
Somewhere in the Doge’s Palace, Venice
‘There!’ yelled the Signori di Notte, firing his pistol in Vanka’s direction. With bullets whizzing around his head, Vanka’s natural instinct for self-preservation kicked in, and he turned to hare back down the corridor in the opposite direction.
Ignoring his grief about Ella, ignoring his confusion as to why these fuckers should be firing at him, Vanka just put his head down and ran – and by his own estimation, given the correct inducement, he reckoned he could show anyone in the Demi-Monde a clean pair of heels. And as inducements went, flying bullets were right up there with the best of them.
The problem was that Vanka didn’t have a clue where he was running to. He had never been in the Doge’s Palace before, and hadn’t the remotest idea which way was ‘out’. All he could do was run as far and as fast as possible, but he had the awful feeling that tonight far and fast wasn’t going to cut it. He could hear police whistles sounding behind him, and a moment later an answering blast came from somewhere ahead. He veered to his right, heading down an almost identical corridor to the one he had just vacated.
And then, just when he seemed to be running out of options, a door to his left opened and he found himself staring at a gun being held by Josephine Baker.
‘Whaddya say to a holiday in the JAD, Vanka baby?’
Rue Doge Ninon d’Enclos, Paris
Norma prepared to die, but then, miraculously, two figures stepped out of the shadows and a pistol cracked. Zolotov buckled and sank to the ground.
‘My career seems to be centred on saving the Daemon Norma Williams from death at the hands of some of the Demi-Monde’s most repulsive nonFemmes.’ A chuckle. ‘But, then, according to HerEticalism, all nonFemmes are repulsive.’
Although it was dark and her rescuers were masked, Norma was still able to recognise the girl who had spoken. Her laugh was unmistakable. ‘Mata Hari? Is that you?’
‘I am pleased you remember me,’ said the Suffer-O-Gette. ‘So much water has passed under the bridge since we last met that I had thought you might have forgotten the one who first befriended you here in the Demi-Monde. Now, Norma, I would be grateful if you would pull yourself and your blouse together, and then follow me to the boat I have moored beside the river.’
‘Why? Where are you taking me?’
‘To the Coven, of course. The Empress Wu has taken it into her head to examine the leader of the Normalists, and what the Empress Wu wants the Empress Wu generally gets.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t—’
It was the last thing Norma remembered, as the second Suffer-O-Gette lashed a blackjack down onto the back of her head.
Insane Prison, Rangoon
‘Prisoner Dashwood, are you awake?’ The disembodied voice came from beyond her cell door. But disembodied or not, it was a ridiculous question, thought Trixie; her interrogator’s arrival had been presaged by much crashing of steel-shod boots and shouting of orders. She would have had to be deaf not to have been roused by such a furore.
‘I’m awake.’
‘Prisoner Dashwood, I am Imperial Secretary, NoN Mao Zedong, emissary of Her Divine Majesty the Empress Wu.’ The NoN had a peculiar voice, high-pitched and sing-song, and a peculiar bouquet – an unpleasant mélange of flowery perfume and urine. Trixie found both distasteful. ‘Know this, you have been imprisoned for all of the Spring Season. So I ask, do you repent the insult you inflicted on Her Divine Majesty the Empress Wu?’
‘Insult?’
‘You drew a weapon in her presence and attempted to assassinate the emissary of Comrade Leader Reinhard Heydrich.’
‘Attempted?’
‘SS-Colonel Clement survived.’
Fuck! How could I have failed to kill the bastard? He’d been standing less than a dozen feet from me when I fired.
‘The only thing I repent is my lousy shooting.’
‘Have a care, Prisoner Dashwood, your life hangs by a thread.’
Trixie sat up on her cot and stared towards the slot in her cell door through which Mao was addressing her. From what she’d heard from the gossiping guards, the NoN was one of the most important people in the whole of the Coven, too important to be a death-warrant delivery boy. For the first time since she had been thrown in prison, Trixie felt a surge of hope.
This bastard wants something.
‘I have no fear of death. And I would be grateful if you would address me as “Colonel Dashwood”.’
‘Then, Colonel Dashwood, perhaps you fear the death of your Preferred Male – the one who goes by the name Wysochi?’
Fuck the threats. Now’s the time to go on the offensive.
‘Imperial Secretary Mao, let’s cut to the chase. Wysochi is a big boy and he can look after himself. So tell me, what do you want?’
‘The Coven has need of a commander for its army.’
‘You have Reverend Deputy Dark.’
‘The Reverend Deputy was killed today by one of the Vengeance Weapons employed by the ForthRight.’
‘And you want me to replace her?’
‘Your reputation as a commander goes before you. You have a fearsome ability on the battlefield, and you have bested the ForthRight before.’
By ABBA, things must be really bad if the Covenites have to swallow their pride and come to me for help.
‘So the Coven is at war with the ForthRight?’ After ninety days in solitary confinement, she had a lot of catching up to do.
‘It is.’
‘Have they invaded the Coven?’
‘Not yet.’
‘When?’
‘Soon.’
‘Do you have your army mobilised?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the WFA? Are my soldiers still alive
?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the men are still men?’
‘They have been held incommunicado, Colonel Dashwood, and hence it was not felt necessary to castrate them.’
‘I wish them freed. They are experienced fighters.’
‘That will not be possible. It is against the laws of HerEticalism for Femmes to fight alongside nonFemmes who are still ensnared by their untrammelled sexual inclinations.’
Trixie rolled over on her cot, so that her back was now presented towards Mao.
Silence. Let the dickless bastard stew.
‘You should be under no illusion, Colonel Dashwood, that if you decline this offer, you and the other members of the WFA will not be executed.’
It was a telling threat. Maybe it was time to give a little.
Without turning around, Trixie answered. ‘Okay, then listen to what I say very carefully, Imperial Secretary. I want to see Wysochi so he can tell me, personally, that all my fighters are safe.’
‘Agreed.’
I want a full briefing in one hour on the military situation vis-à-vis the ForthRight, and at dawn tomorrow I want the Covenite Army available for my inspection, and their officers ready to receive orders.’
‘Agreed.’
In the darkness Trixie struggled to contain a smile. She was going back to war, and this time she would smash the ForthRight.
‘And there is one other thing, Imperial NoN Mao: from now on it’s General Dashwood.’
THE EDDIC OF LOCI 6: THE SECRETS OF LILITH
PLATE 6
Epilogue
The Real World: 30 October 2018
Septimus Bole was weary. The contrary events in the Demi-Monde had sapped his strength. He had never imagined that Ella Thomas would be so damned durable … so damned lucky. The girl had survived four assassination attempts, dispatching the formidable Semiazaz in the process, and now it seemed she had turned de Sade, one of Bole’s most capable cryptos. And once she had assumed the Dogeship of Venice – an inevitability, in Bole’s estimation – she would pose a real and very dangerous threat to Heydrich and the ForthRight’s subjugation of the Demi-Monde … and, more importantly, to the success of the Final Solution.
The coumn had to be taken, it was, after all, the triggering mechanism for the Great Pyramid and in order to do that the girl had to be neutralised, and quickly. It was an indication of the urgency that Bole had had Billy Thomas, Ella Thomas’s twin brother, brought to ParaDigm’s research facility just outside Los Angeles. Direct action had failed, so now was the time for something a little more subtle.
He pressed a button to indicate that he was ready to receive his guest, and a moment later the boy was escorted into Bole’s office with both Baraqel and Sariel in close attendance. The boy’s behaviour was unpredictable and Bole was not in a mood to take any unwarranted risks.
Watching Billy Thomas lope into the room, Bole realised that this fool epitomised why it was so vital that the Fragile aspect of humanity be eradicated, that the Final Solution be carried through to completion. Although the boy was undoubtedly a Dark Charismatic – albeit a low-grade, γ–Class Singularity – his Grigorian inclinations had been confused and diluted by his Fragile aspect and this confusion was the chief cause for his self-destructive predisposition. Human kindness was deeply subversive, as it instilled doubt and doubt was the godfather of weakness. It was those who acted without doubt – as pure-blood Dark Charismatics did – who would inherit the earth.
Billy Thomas gave Bole an idiot grin and swung himself into the guest chair, but even seated, he radiated a feral energy: his eyes were never still, his crêpe-soled shoes frantically bouncing up and down on the floor and his fingers forever popping. Although he was tall and lanky like his sister, and his skin shade signalled the same Creole contamination, there were differences between the twins. Ella Thomas’s eyes sparkled with intelligence, while her brother’s twinkled with demonic delight. Billy Thomas was a street warrior, his attitudes and his ambitions blistered and brutalised by the need to survive and flourish in the drab, sad, pointless world he inhabited. He was the apotheosis of violentisation.
‘Yo, man, what’s happening? Whatcha doin’ pulling me off the street without so much as a by-yo-fuckin’-leave? What’s the deal, man?’ As he mouthed this gibberish, Billy Thomas looked around the room suspiciously, glancing nervously at the two Grigori standing guard behind him, his paranoia teasing at him like lice.
‘I am here to offer you a role in a computer simulation.’
Which was why he’d had him brought to Los Angeles: this was where the second – and very secret – Demi-Monde InterFace Unit was housed, well away from the prying eyes of the US military. It wouldn’t do for them to realise that the Demi-Monde wasn’t quite the sealed world Bole had portrayed it to be.
Billy Thomas pushed the bright orange fedora he was wearing further back on his head. ‘Ah c’mon, man, keep it real.’
‘Oh, I am keeping it very real, Mr Thomas, very real indeed. And I am prepared to pay you five million dollars for your services.’
‘No kiddin’? Well, lemme tell you, for that amount of money ah’d cap ma mother.’
‘Not your mother. I want you to persuade your sister to stop meddling with a particularly important project of mine.’
‘What you mean by “persuade”?’
‘Your sister is involved with the same virtual-reality simulation – the Demi-Monde – I wish you to participate in, but unfortunately she hasn’t been keeping to the script we gave her.’
‘That’s Ella for yo’, man. Always zigging when she should be zagging. That bitch’s got issues.’
‘Be that as it may, the upshot of her actions is that she’s endangering the Demi-Monde, a multi-billion-dollar project of vital importance to this nation’s security. She must be made to desist. She must be made to see reason.’
‘An’ if she don’t wanna see no reason?’
‘Then she must be eliminated.’
Billy Thomas gave an evil smile and drew back the side of the emerald-green drape jacket that Bole assumed was the uniform of the gutter class, revealing the chromed automatic pistol he had holstered under his armpit.
‘No probs, man, ah’m armed and dangerous. And for five million bucks ah’ll snap a cap into any cat’s cranium, even blood like Ella.’
Glossary 1
The Demi-Monde
4Telling:
Predicting the Future. From the declension: 1Telling = Silence; 2Telling = Speaking of the Past; 3Telling = Speaking of the Present; 4Telling = Speaking of the Future.
ABBA:
The chief deity of all religions in the Demi-Monde. God. Referred to as ‘Him’ in the ForthRight and NoirVille, as ‘Her’ in the Coven and as ‘Him/Her’ in the Quartier Chaud.
AC:
After Confinement (see also Confinement).
Aryan:
The racial bedrock of UnFunDaMentalism. The Aryan ideal is to be blond, blue-eyed and fair-skinned, the same physical profile as the Pre-Folk from whom the Aryan people are supposedly descended.
Auralism/Auralist:
A woman (there is no recorded incidence of any males possessing the power of Auralism) who is able to discern and interpret the halo surrounding a Demi-Mondian’s body. The most accomplished Auralists are the Visual Virgins of Venice.
Awful Tower, the:
The 350-metre-tall geodetic iron structure built in the heart of the Paris District of the Quartier Chaud to commemorate the signing of the Hub Treaty of 517, which marked the end of the Great War. Always contentious because of its phallic shape, the Tower divided aesthetic opinion, leading to it being generally referred to as the Awful Tower. A corrupted remembrance of the Real World name Eiffel Tower.
BC:
Before Confinement (see also Confinement).
BiAlects, the:
The second and probably later of the two MasterWorks of Confusionism, the BiAlects comprise nine books, the teachings enshrined within them relat
ing how the Master grappled with the Five FundaMental Questions of Life and the AfterLife.
Blood Hounder:
A half-human, half-animal creature developed by the SS specifically to track down Daemons.
Blood Standard:
The monetary system adopted on a Demi-Monde-wide basis by which the currencies issued by a Sector are convertible into pre-set quantities of blood.
body clock:
The means by which a Demi-Mondian body records the passage of time. The ticking that can be heard in the chest of all Demi-Mondians is the sound of a Demi-Mondian’s body clock. The NoirVillian sage and scientist Al-Asma’i has determined that the life of every Demi-Mondian is restricted to 2.2 billion ticks of the body clock.
Book of
The holiest book of the nuJus, which comprises 333
the Profits, the:
epistles written by the Profits.
Boundary Layer, the:
The impenetrable, transparent ‘wall’ which prevents Demi-Mondians leaving the Demi-Monde and entering the Great Beyond. UnFunDaMentalism officially defines the Boundary Layer as ‘a Selectively Permeable Magical Membrane’.
Checkya, the:
The secret police of the ForthRight, administered by Vice-Leader Lavrentii Beria. A corrupted remembrance of the Real World word Cheka.
CIA:
The Central Inquisitorial Agency, the Medi’s secret police answerable to Tomas de Torquemada. Inquisitors are also known as Quizzies.
CitiZen:
The official term for a citizen of the Quartier Chaud.
Clockwork Universe:
See Intelligent Design.
Code Noir:
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