Wolf in Shadow-eARC

by John Lambshead

  “I begin to see,” Jameson said, thoughtfully. “Thank you, Dr Fairbold, you’ve been most helpful.”

  “One thing before you go,” Fairbold said. “Would you be interested in the parallel spell from the Papyrus of Ani, for closing the door to the Field of Reeds?”

  Jameson had a distinct feeling of déjà vu. Randolph chaired the meeting, Kendrics and Miss Arnoux squabbled, Karla gazed at the ceiling, and he got increasingly frustrated.

  “None of this makes any sense,” Miss Arnoux kept repeating. “No one would copy out an Egyptian spell to create a portal to the other world. Fairbold is right to say that it probably wouldn’t work, and why should anyone bother? There are other rituals that do work and are well understood.”

  “I suppose the fragment I found was copied from the Black Museum?” Jameson asked.

  “Fairbold’s assistant has been found in a pub car park in South London with a hatchet in his head,” Randolph said. “In the boot of a Ford Focus stolen from Essex.”

  “The Mitchell gang tying up the loose ends,” Jameson said.

  “Presumably, although the style of killing has also been the modus operandi for a gang of corrupt police running a murder incorporated out of Catford Nick. Maybe Frank Mitchell’s mob subcontracted to the Met. Mitchell himself and an Inspector Drudge have disappeared,” Randolph said. He smiled fondly at Jameson and Karla, or as near to the expression as he got.

  “Shternberg is The Worshipful Master of The Badford Lodge, so why don’t we ice him?” Jameson asked.

  “We have been through this,” Randolph said. “He has protection at the highest levels.”

  “He might have an accident or just disappear,” Jameson replied.

  “That thought had not escaped me,” Randolph replied, putting his hands together as if in prayer. “And I would not hesitate to sanction the kill, whatever the political fallout, if I was convinced it would solve matters, but would it?”

  “Well, we have to do something. Without Frankie’s intervention that last portal would have resulted in a mass killing. The sudden rise in entropy might have stabilized the hole in space-time, giving the Sith a permanent door into London,” Kendrics said.

  “I wouldn’t have used those precise terms, but Kendrics is correct,” Miss Arnoux replied, somewhat unwillingly.

  The room fell silent. Jameson poured himself a glass of water and took a sip. He didn’t really want it but it gave him something to do. He would have liked to pace up and down but he knew it irritated the hell out of Randolph.

  “Maybe we are looking at this from the wrong angle,” Jameson said. “What about motivation, as dear old ‘Ercule would put it? Let’s use our little grey cells. Why would anyone short of a raving lunatic want to let the Elves in?”

  “They think they will get power,” Kendrics replied, hesitantly.

  “Sith would share about as much power with a human as a hungry man would with a lamb curry,” Karla said, making one of her rare interjections.

  Jameson was addicted to curry, but Karla loathed the meal. She found all forms of human food disgusting but especially disliked heavily spiced dishes like curry, chili, or sofrito. He had often wondered whether that was the source of the old superstition that garlic would repel vampires.

  “Maybe we are looking at this all wrong,” Jameson said thoughtfully. “Maybe contact with the Sith was an accident caused by someone who didn’t have access to modern Western magic and was trying to achieve something else.”

  “Like what?” Randolph asked the obvious question.

  “If we knew that, we would be halfway home,” Jameson said. “Miss Arnoux, what were the main properties, perhaps I should say preoccupations, of Egyptian magic?”

  “How long have you got?” she replied. “Much of it was what we would call daemonic magic, to control or placate various gods and daemons. That is one reason we have lost knowledge of Egyptian magic rituals. The medieval Church had a downer on magic generally, even harmless healing spells, but daemonic magic really riled them.”

  She sighed.

  “Not that it mattered. Most of the ancient knowledge was already destroyed by then, the great fire in the Library of Alexandria, the burnings of magic scrolls ordered by the Emperor Augustus, and the Islamic conquests. The Church just flushed away the last remnants.”

  She grimaced, and Jameson suspected she was thinking of all the witches who had been tortured and killed by the clergy, but, being a professional, she kept to the point.

  “Many of the spells concerned the afterlife in the Otherworld, which, as you know was an Egyptian obsession.”

  “How about spells to affect the real world?” Jameson asked.

  “There was a variety of magic to protect individuals against magical or natural harm, like an attack by crocodiles, and, conversely, spells to harm an enemy. They even used what looks to us as voodoo-doll magic, pins and all.”

  Jameson shook his head. “Why go to a lot of trouble to hurt someone by magic when you can just put out a contract on them? It has to be something more grandiose, more all-encompassing to interest the likes of Shternberg.”

  “Some of the spells try to force a god to act. I recall a headache-cure spell that threatens to kill a sacred cow in the forecourt of the Temple of Hathor, the cow-goddess.”

  “And now we have aspirin,” Randolph said.

  “Yes, but some spells threaten sacrilege on a grand scale. Magic designed to cause truly cosmic disaster, such as plague, famine, or the Sun not rising. The magician would protect himself from divine retribution by using a form of words that blamed the god for the disaster, not himself. He had to avoid payback because such a powerful invocation worked by disrupting maat.”

  “Maat?” Randolph asked.

  “Maat was a goddess but also a concept, a kind of divine order of justice, truth, and harmony. Much of Egyptian religious magic involved strengthening maat.”

  “As above, so below,” Jameson said, quoting one of the seven principles of Hermeticism.

  “Quite!”

  “Fascinating as all this is—” Randolph’s tone indicated that he did not find it at all fascinating—“how does this get us further forward?”

  “I don’t know,” Jameson confessed, “but I do know that Shternberg is the key to all this, and I’m not going to get any answers sitting here.”

  He rose from his seat. “Come on, Karla, we have work.”

  Not all that far away, a second meeting was taking place in a less salubrious part of town; to wit, the saloon bar of the Black Swan public house. The assembled members were considering the same problem, albeit from a different angle. Frankie had flatly refused to let Max into her flat, however much he was paying so they met at the Swan.

  Gary had insisted on joining the sit-down to “look after the girls’ interests,” and, rather to Rhian’s surprise, Frankie had agreed with only a token protest. This was so astonishing, given Frankie’s current attitude to men, that Rhian was beginning to have dark suspicions about her boss and flatmate.

  “I don’t understand the motivation behind opening these portals to the Sith,” Frankie said, unconsciously echoing Jameson. “Cui bono, as Cicero so succinctly put it.”

  “What?” Rhian asked. From Gary’s expression he hadn’t a clue either.

  “Latin, honey, for ‘Who benefits.’ Cicero was . . .”

  “Stuff Cicero,” Max said firmly. “It beats me how you humans achieve anything given your endless prattle around the subject. I don’t give a toss who benefits or why. The point is that we came that close to disaster this time.”

  He held his hand up, thumb and forefinger almost touching, to indicate the thinness of their escape.

  “Thanks to Frankie and Rhian,” Gary said sharply.

  “They were paid,” Max said.

  “And humans will do anything for money or love,” Sefrina said huskily. “What will you do for love, handsome?”

  Sefrina was just as Rhian remembered her, a different designer outfit b
ut otherwise unchanged. She blasted sex appeal like radiation from an H-bomb. Frankie gave her a sour look.

  “We were fortunate. Max is right,” Frankie said. “We can’t hope to be lucky all the time. We need to stop this at source.”

  “Correct, which is why I’ve summoned you,” Max said.

  Frankie noticeably bristled at the word summoned. An infinitesimal grin to slid across Max’s face, unnoticed by everyone except Rhian. She glowered at him warningly and received a beaming smile in return.

  “I am surprised neither of you wondered how I knew where a portal would open in London,” Max said.

  “That’s hardly difficult,” Frankie replied, still peeved. “The psychic shock waves from an open door to the Otherworld spread out in a ripple and are easily detected by sensitives like The Commission’s Coven.”

  Rhian realised that Frankie had rather missed Max’s point.

  “But he knew in advance,” she said, pointing at Max.

  “So he did,” Frankie replied. “How did you do that, daemon? Suckers aren’t magically sensitive.”

  “Show them one of your little toys, Sefrina,” Max said.

  She reached into her bag and produced a small electronic gadget with a dark face, which Rhian recognised immediately.

  “It’s a phone,” she said. “Just like the one you gave me.”

  “I buy them in bulk,” Max said.

  Rhian felt a little let down. She had assumed that he had bought her mobile especially for her.

  “Yes, it’s a mobile, but a rather special one. Sefrina here is rather special, even for one of our kind. She is more than usually vicious, treacherous, and self-centered but, she has one astonishing skill that makes her worth tolerating. She possesses an astonishing rapport with human digital toys.”

  “Like Karla with Jameson’s Jaguar,” Frankie said.

  “Really, I didn’t know that,” Max said, casually.

  Frankie bit her lip, clearly regretting volunteering the information.

  “Sefrina talks to mobiles, and they listen and they learn, so when she’s finished they have new skills.”

  “Such as?” Frankie asked, taking the phone from Max’s hand.

  The phone snapped on to show a picture of a troll head with burning orange eyes.

  “Such as detecting the emanations from a forming portal, you stupid witch-whore,” said the troll thickly.

  His mouth twisted in the attempt to form intelligible words. Frankie dropped the phone and Sefrina laughed, a sound as light as the first delicate snows of winter dancing on a breeze. She picked up the mobile then leaned back, crossing her legs, slowly sliding one against the other.

  Gary’s eyes widened and he swallowed hard. Frankie shot him a “wait ‘til I get you on your own” look.

  “Give it a rest, Sefrina,” Max said wearily. “With two million men in London, why do you have to torment this one?”

  “Because it amuses me and because the witch thinks she owns him. That amuses me even more,” Sefrina said.

  Gary froze and Frankie turned pink, soliciting another of Sefrina’s tinkly laughs. It had always puzzled Rhian why Max showed an interest in her when he had this walking sex machine at home. Of course, she was always puzzled what any man saw in her. She never understood why James was so besotted. Stop! That was a forbidden thought. Fold it up and place it in a deep trunk in her subconscious.

  The wolf snarled gently, amused at her confusion. The wolf was rarely confused, seeing, wanting, and acting being a natural chain that cascaded without hesitation.

  “Sefrina has managed an upgrade,” Max said, clearly proud of remembering the technical term. “She can now teach . . .”

  “Program,” Sefrina said, “and infest, corrupt, contaminate and possess.”

  “Program,” Max repeated, sourly, “phones to detect the thaumaturgic power behind the spells.”

  “The source,” Frankie said.

  “Precisely,” Max beamed. “Scatter a handful of these around East London and we can pinpoint the source. So instead of closing each opening portal in turn until we eventually miss one, we kill the sorcerer and destroy his enchantment, thus ending the matter.”

  “Fine,” Rhian said, “but where do we come in?”

  “There’s a complication,” Max said.

  Frankie groaned. “Isn’t there always?”

  “To receive early warning of the spell powering up, the bewitched mobile phones must be placed in the London Otherworld. By that I mean the human-created parts of the London Otherworld.”

  “I begin to see,” Frankie said. “And you need humans to do the placing?”

  “Exactly,” Max beamed. “If Sefrina or I do it, our perceptions of the Otherworld will inhibit proper placement. Humans are powering the spell, so only humans can properly detect it.”

  “I suppose that follows hermetic logic,” Frankie said, slowly. “How many mobiles require placing for accurate triangulation?”

  “Five to six should suffice,” Max replied. “The phones will be programed with a guidance spell so they will take you where they need to go.”

  “Why can’t you just tell us in advance and let me sort out the travel arrangements?” Frankie asked.

  “Perception again,” Max replied. “A mobile is essentially a human device.”

  Frankie nodded. “So we will be going in blind. Hardly ideal, but I suppose Rhian and I can manage that.”

  “There is the matter of their fee,” Gary said.

  “Ah, yes, shall we say five hun—” Frankie said.

  “Thousand pounds a phone,” Gary said.

  “What are you, their agent?” Max asked.

  “Precisely,” Gary said, in imitation of Max.

  Rhian sat back and waited for the explosion, but Frankie accepted Gary taking over like a lamb. Maybe the woman was learning when it was in her interests to keep quiet, or maybe . . . Rhian’s eyes narrowed at the other possible reason for Frankie’s sudden meekness.

  Sefrina laughed loudly, throwing her head back.

  “It seems you have competition for control of your little pets, Max,” she said.

  Back at his flat, Jameson selected Mahler on his player. Something about Mahler helped him think. The contrasts in the musician’s work were astonishing. His music jumped from child-like to a complexity that defied rational analysis, from discord to sweet harmony, from key to key, even from loud to soft. Such juxtapositions inspired Jameson to make counterintuitive leaps of logic over insufficient or contradictory data. Mahler helped him to the truth.

  Karla wandered in from the bathroom. She dried her hair on a towel that was her only covering. She was not exactly assisting his concentration.

  “Yuk, German music,” she said.

  “Austrian-Jewish, actually,” Jameson said, loftily.

  Karla gave him a “whatever” pout and glanced at the player. It immediately selected Florence + the Machine. The lyrics of “Kissed with a Fist” filled his apartment over the harsh edge of electric guitars.

  You hit me once

  I hit you back

  You gave a kick

  I gave a slap.

  He hit the mute on his remote control. It was not so much that he disliked Florence as that she did not inspire thought.

  “You could sit quietly and read poetry,” he suggested, hopefully.

  She examined him as if to check whether he had finally succumbed to senility.

  “You haven’t been out for a while,” he said.

  “Trying to get rid of me,” she replied.

  “Yes,” he responded, truthfully.

  “I haven’t been out on my own recently,” Karla said reflectively. “Don’t wait up.”

  She dressed in their bedroom and left without saying goodbye. “Goodbye” was a fairly meaningless convention to a daemon who lived almost entirely in the present. He gratefully switched Mahler back on and tried not to think of how Karla might be amusing herself in the London night.

  Jameson piled his fil
es on the coffee table and poured himself a scotch, another essential tool for inspirational thought. With a sigh, he started going through the documents from Fowler covering what little was known to officialdom about Shternberg’s life. He tried a technique that had worked from him before. He related the bald facts of the case to his perception of the individual’s psychology.

  Daemons, like Karla, tended to have straightforward motivations. They were so simple as to be almost useless at predicting their behavior. She did whatever amused her at the time with little care for consequences. Her behavior was whimsical and haphazard, responding to each new input and emotion that crossed her mind.

  Humans, on the other hand, were complex, with long-term planned goals that made their behavior rational. A rational behavior was a predictable behavior, provided, and this was the rub, one understood the subject’s goals and the world picture underpinning their rationality.

  So what were the keys to Shternberg’s mindset? He was clever, certainly sociopathic, and probably psychopathic, a vain man who recognized no boundaries to his actions or objectives. He had no conscience or constraining code to advise him when he was going too far. Such a man was often spectacularly successful. Ultimately they crashed in flames, often taking many unfortunates with them.

  What was Shternberg’s ultimate goal? Almost certainly power—money would be merely a tool for acquiring power. That made him different from many corporate fat cats to whom power was a tool to increase their personal wealth. Power was why the man had arranged a knighthood, not because it got him a better table in fashionable restaurants or prettier totty on his arm. Knighthoods opened doors along the corridors of power. No doubt a peerage would follow in the fullness in time, oiled by a few more campaign contributions.

  Something struck Jameson about Shternberg’s knighthood, some half-remembered memory. He checked back through the files to confirm his recollection. Shternberg’s honor had been for services to education. Now why did Shternberg give a tinker’s fart about education? Shternberg had endowed Whitechapel University with a substantial grant to research economic psychology, whatever the hell that was.