Better the Devil

by Mike Wild

  "Ravne, for God's sake."

  The consultant glanced at Farrow and Mary, and the remainder of the Dead of London. "Yes, of course," he said dismissively.

  "I don't know whether it's relevant but I saw something similar in Martinique back in '93," Verse rumbled. "They even gave the substance a name - Samedi's Skin. In that case it was a paste of corpse flesh reputed to bind the walking dead - the Palo Mayombe - directly to the controlling intelligence of the witch doctor who reanimated them." He paused. "Interesting thing was, Samedi's Skin was activated by fire."

  Brand shuffled uncomfortably, not only because what Verse said reminded him of the kiln, but because the similarity between Samedi's Skin and the fate of Farrow's people was impossible to ignore.

  "So the witch doctor had total control over his puppets?" Hannah asked.

  "Over his army," Verse said meaningfully.

  Ravne nodded. "A binding, yes that would make sense. The use of such a device might preclude the need for the use of individual golem names."

  "They have individual names?" Ness asked. "Wha' - like Archibald?"

  "Is he joking again?"

  "No, this time I don't think he is."

  Brand explained. "It is not possible to simply form a golem and then expect it to do the bidding of its master. Once formed, it must be activated by the speaking of a name attached to the golem, often cited examples of which are Adam and Emet - Adam being, of course, the first man, and Emet the word for truth. But the names aren't chosen at random because they must contain within them the means to deactivate the golem when its tasks are done."

  "Some golem names were written on parchment and attached to the golem's forehead, others secured within a medallion hung around its neck," Ravne helped out. "In such cases deactivating them was a simple matter of removing these articles from their bodies."

  "But in other cases," Brand went on, "the names were actually physically inscribed in the golem's flesh, and of course couldn't be simply removed. Instead, they had to be changed. Thus, erasing the character aleph from Adam produced the word dam, meaning blood, and the removal of eyin from emet the word met, meaning death."

  "Maybe they shoulda jus' carved an off-switch," Ness said. "Bu' seriously, are ye sayin' that Capek's usin' this skin shite because he doesnae know the golem names?"

  Brand nodded. "Or didn't have access to them. I saw no sign of names while at the site, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're not there. It could be that the original Konterman inscribed the names he'd chosen inside the golem, or beneath the tongues, secretive methods that were sometimes used."

  "Bu' woulnae the Konterman homunculus know wha' they...?" Ness began, and then stopped. "Nah wait - the original's memory woulda bin nicked afore this whole thing began, reet? The man hisself wouldnae ha' known."

  "Dohhh!" Hannah mouthed at the Scot pointedly. Then she frowned. "All of this still doesn't explain what Capek is after in the first place. I mean, I can understand why the Nazis wanted to flatten London, but what's Capek going to use the golem for - to make sure he gets served at last orders?"

  "Despotic rule... godhood... breaking into the Bank of England," Verse mused. "For a man who is already an established billionaire none of them makes much sense."

  "Unless you're in a Bond movie," Hannah said.

  "Unless you're in a Bond movie."

  Brand held up his hand. He remembered asking the same question - what the hell does he want a golem army for? - of John Dee inside the Dark Parliament, and the answer the alchemist had given.

  He does not, but they have become a means to his end.

  "It isn't Conrad Capek's intelligence that is going to be controlling the golem army," he said. "It's the intelligence that was freed during the accident of their creation - the Formless One."

  "The shite from the Eye?"

  Brand nodded. "Capek intends to use the golems as vessels to spread its influence throughout the capital. If he succeeds, the phenomenon that almost killed us at the Eye will encompass the whole of the city."

  "Oh Christ. Hundreds of thousands of people."

  "Not just people," Brand said, "anything and everything reduced to chaos and returned to the state of the unformed. London remapped as an empty wasteland."

  Verse let out a long, long breath. "But this still doesn't explain why..."

  "One hell of a mess for a wee accident o' mispronunciation, eh?" Ness said. And for some reason he began to dig in his pocket.

  "An accident?" Ravne said, sniffily. "That is highly unlikely. The Sefer Yetzirah and other tomes might cite varying methods for the creation of golems, but each is wholly dependent on a like and exact order of steps, and all are equally convoluted." His frown deepened as he dredged up long unused facts from his memory and tried to simplify them for the Scot. "To form a single golem limb, for example, requires the combination of specifically corresponding letters from the Sefer Yetzirah with every other letter of the Hebrew alphabet to form pairs. Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is then combined with every other letter before being conjoined and repeated alongside the first set of combinations, forming what is known as the Two Hundred and Twenty-one Gates. Now - what is important here is that the pronunciation of each conjugation and combination - particularly with regard to their vowel sounds - is exact, and that none of the vowel sounds matches that of the previous, or the whole process has to begin again." He paused. "This, remember, is for each limb. Are you with me so far, Mr. Ness?"

  Ness folded his arms and stared, hard, fully aware that Ravne was trying to better him. Ravne simply smiled.

  "Once each limb - including for these purposes the torso and head - has been successfully formed," he went on, "each letter of the alphabet must then be combined with each letter of the Tetragrammaton - in other words, YHVH - and each of the resulting pairings of letters repeated once more, but this time with every possible vowel sound included in the resultant recitation. If that wasn't enough for you, certain methodologies now require the combining in special permutations - exact once more - of the forty-two part name of God or, if one is feeling particularly bold, the seventy-two part version, one error in which is reputed to return upon the speaker an instant and agonising death. Then, of course, there are-"

  "Thas fine - yer can shut the fook up now," Ness said suddenly and threateningly. This time it was the Scot's turn to smile and Ravne's to fold his arms and stare hard.

  "In short, Mr. Ness," Ravne finished off, "your theory that someone could have accidentally conjoined a complex series of phrases capable of creating a specific and hitherto unknown result borders at best on the ignorant and at worst on the ludicrously insane."

  Ness nodded, ignoring the obvious jibe. "Well, ah'm glad yer got tha' out o' the way, yer self-important ponce, 'cause maybe now ye'll let me finish while yer take a breath. Fact is, ah knew it were no accident in the first place."

  Hannah scoffed. "Yeah, sure ya did."

  "Oh, ah'm serious, lassie." The Scotsman took a small photograph from his pocket. "Or di' yer think ah were jus' playin' wi' Capek's executive balls while yer were hackin' inta 'is machine?"

  Verse grabbed the photograph from his hand, looked at it and passed it round. "Why the hell didn't you say something earlier?"

  "Because ah don' know whether ye noticed but wi' you lo' it's a bi' difficult to get a fookin' word in edgeways."

  Brand had the photograph and stared at it in disbelief. The black and white image showed two workers posing with a stern and reluctant-looking man in front of their latest undertaking. Nothing unusual about that except that the other man was Emmanuel Konterman, and the undertaking was a golem. Other golems could be seen in shadow in the background, and the shot had clearly been taken inside The Clay Resource. It was even date-stamped: 1945.

  But these details were not what caught Brand's eye. Because one of the workers - the one on the right - was Conrad Capek.

  "Ah know wha' yer thinking'" Ness said, "but it ain't him a' all. Turn the photty over."<
br />
  Brand did. The subjects were named, in order.

  "Kristof Kapec," he read aloud. He frowned.

  "Conrad's daddy," Ness said, and the others all looked at him in surprise. Ness smiled. "S'pose y'all think all ah do at Exham is watch Duke movies," he said, "bu' sometimes ah like ta dig aroon' in old files as well. An' as soon as ah saw that name it rang a bell. Turns out our Mr. Kapec was one o' Malcolm Critchley's congregation the night the Great bastard of a Beast got a bullet through his ticker. In other words, he's a Satanist fruit n' nutcase."

  "He knew what he was doing all along," Hannah said. "Just like Critchley he wanted to return chaos to the world, and now Conrad's decided to carry on the family tradition."

  Ness beamed at her. "Aye, ya demented dyke. So maybe now yer'll realise ah'm not jus' an ugly face." He looked at the others. "Yer wanted a reason why?" he declared. "Ah'll gi' ye a reason why - Capek is a fookin' madman."

  Mary Henderson spoke up for the first time, but the questions she asked were the most important ones of all. "So how can we stop Capek and the golems? What are we going to do?"

  "Fight," Brand said simply. "At least to buy us time."

  "Time? Time for what?"

  Brand frowned. "There was something else I was told by the Dark Parliament, something I haven't mentioned yet. They told me that apart from the seals Konterman placed above the golem site, he also placed other safeguards that could be activated should the seals be breached: four of them, located across London. He called them the Cardinals."

  "So wha' the hell are we waitin' for?" Ness asked. "Let's go turn 'em on!"

  "Ah," said Brand. "A small problem. I haven't got the faintest idea what or where they are."

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Cardinals, Brand thought. Animal, vegetable or mineral? Or maybe none of the above. Or maybe he was just overcomplicating the issue and they were exactly what they sounded like: men in big hats.

  Absolutely. Men in big hats who'd just been standing around since 1945 waiting for the clay-coloured shit to hit the fan.

  He wondered if they were in the phone book, but if so, would they be under men, or big, or hats? Or, indeed, cardinals?

  Find out under 018-018-GOLEM. Sponsors of The Day London Died.

  Brand sighed. Why the hell the Dark Parliament couldn't simply have told him what and where they were he didn't know - all Dee had done was spout some excuse about having to maintain the balance. Brand had taken this to mean that this would either give him an unfair advantage over the bad guys, or it was something that for some reason he had to work out for himself... or they just didn't know. Maybe, in fact, the Dark Parliament wasn't quite so omniscient as it liked to think.

  Perhaps that, too, was part of the balance.

  At any rate, Ravne was on the case. The arcane consultant had recruited the aid of their newfound friends to utilise their reanimate seer abilities in an attempt to identify the four cardinals. Ravne had confided to him that something down here was affecting their abilities ,but hoped that together - as a gestalt - the Dead of London might produce a result. Brand watched the group, sitting in a circle, their faces contorted in obvious pain as they strained to see the otherwise unseen. He watched Ravne, too, faintly disturbed by the way the man looked at them, treated them, as if they were nothing more to him than specimens in a Petri dish, there to be poked and prodded to produce a desired result. The only one he seemed to have any kind of respect for was the old woman, Meg.

  But they were all people, dammit. Marcus, Ian, Mary, Rose and the rest... all people.

  Just like his mysterious helper back at Exham.

  He was definitely going to have to ask Ravne about him.

  When, that was, they weren't preparing for the battle of their lives.

  Cardinals aside, it had already been decided that if they were going to have a chance against the golems - and the growth of the Formless One - three main objectives would have to be aimed for. Firstly, attempt to destroy as many golems as possible before they could reach the surface, and secondly, try to keep those who made it through as contained as possible once they had - in other words, restrict the coming chaos to as small an area of London as they could. The third of the objectives was more of a contingency plan - but one that Brand was personally putting his hope in - namely, the discovery, assuming one existed and that there was a record of it anywhere - of the deactivation word that Konterman had prepared for his golems back in '45. There wasn't any guarantee that simply speaking the word would actually work, but there were precedents, and considering the alternatives it was certainly worth a try.

  The fact was, the first of the two objectives were fine in theory, but in practice no one had the faintest idea how they would fare. The enemy was a golem army after all, and a single one of these creatures had defended an entire quarter of the city of Prague. Worse, neither he nor any of the others could even guess at how the presence of the Formless One's controlling intelligence might enhance their destructive power.

  Basically, against such foes, they were woefully unequipped.

  The state of affairs was reflected in the faces of Ness, Chapter and Verse as they returned from a recce into the tunnel network. Although fired, the golems hadn't yet mobilised, and the threesome had taken advantage of the calm before the storm to identify how they would reach the surface when they inevitably did. Apparently there were three tunnels - which Ness had codenamed Tom, Dick and Harry - and these they had rigged with adapted versions of the Dead of London's traps as best they could. But while pits and snares and spikes might have worked against the hunters - and one ripper - how lethal would they be against what were effectively walking statues?

  That, of course, was the other problem. The firing might have been designed to activate Capek's version of Samedi's Skin but, considering the raw material that made up the golems, it had most likely also had the side-effect of hardening them into a more durable form - stone golems.

  Or as Ness referred to them, brick shithouses.

  Ness had a problem with that.

  The same problem they all did.

  "We're gonna be bollocksed withou' heavier gear," he said.

  "For once, he's right," Verse concurred. "What peashooters we have are hardly going to make a dint in these things."

  "The big bastards don't even have any nuts to kick," Hannah added.

  "Then that," said a voice, "is where I might be able to help."

  The foursome turned towards the entrance to the chamber. A battered and bedraggled Jenny Simmons stood there, her clothes torn and covered in mud and dust, sunglasses skewed and cracked in one of the frames. Her body was smoking slightly, but whether that was due to a recent transformation back from Baarish-Shammon or the after-effects of the fiery pit was difficult to judge.

  Brand took a breath. Since his own "escape" from the construction site, he had to admit that he hadn't given the demoness a second thought, fully confident that she would turn up eventually like the bad penny she was. Now that he actually saw her again, he couldn't help but think that it was still his fiancée's body he was looking at, and he felt a wave of relief to see her.

  Any hopes he had of whatever remained of Jenny being similarly happy to see him were, however, quickly dashed.

  "Oh," she said flatly. "You're still alive."

  Brand prickled. "Yeah... thanks for the help back there."

  Jenny shrugged and blew him a kiss. "Survival of the fittest, lover. You ought to get to the gym more often. Besides, as I said, I bring good news."

  "Ye've found a Bazookas-R-Us, then?" Ness said, sarcastically.

  Jenny grinned so wide that Brand thought her mouth might start to leak infernal fire. "Actually, I have. A little something I stumbled through on my way out of the site." She gestured for the others to follow her into the tunnels and her eyes flared as Brand passed by. "You, you sad little anorak, are going to love this," she said.

  The demoness led them through the tunnels, back in the direction of the Cap
ek Construction under-ground perimeter. Brand had been wondering how she had made her exit from the pit and, as they progressed, his question was answered as signs of her passage became increasingly more evident. It seemed that, despite her smile at the time, the demoness had been a little bit miffed by the fact that someone had tried to roast her alive, and she hadn't so much escaped through the tunnels as made her own. Some of the holes that she had left behind were now neatly plugged by the bodies of those who had tried to stop her doing so.

  Brand turned away at the sight of them.

  Suffice to say that the Dead of London wouldn't need to worry about hunters anymore.

  It was what had been revealed by another of the holes, however, that the demoness had brought them to see. Right next to the perimeter walls - amputated and sealed off during their construction - was a dark corridor that by its similar decoration looked to be contemporary with the original Clay Resource site. This annexe had obviously been superfluous to Conrad Capek's needs, but Brand wondered whether the billionaire might have made an error of judgement in ignoring it.

  Faded red stencilling of an arrow and lettering on the wall of the corridor pointed the way to Department Q.

  Their own underground bunker, Brand thought? He had never been aware of one's existence but, of course, it made perfect sense that they should have one. After all, if the cabinet and the war office retreated underground during the conflict, then why not the group who, in their own unique way, had been as vital to the war effort as the others?

  Why, as Jenny had indicated, would such a place be a store for heavy weaponry? What kind of heavy weaponry would Department Q have needed?

  Ordnance-wise, Ness was the most knowledgeable amongst them, and so he and Brand entered the corridor while the others remained outside to protect their backs in the event of sudden golem activation. Brand was amazed as he followed the corridor, walking further than expected, and he realised that this wasn't simply an annexe to the Clay Resource site, but part of a network of tunnels that at one time must have connected most of the emergency subterrain. It was blocked off and forgotten now, though, and presumably had become so when the government had modernised its various bunkers during the 1970s.