Drake (12 page)

“Worried about me how, sir?”

“All those books you've been taking out,” he said. “So-called magic. Aleister Crowley, all that crap.”

I sighed.
Of course, he's a scientist. An old, pickled one maybe, but a scientist all the same. Of course he doesn't approve.

Of course he didn't, but not at all for the reasons that I had been expecting.

“It's all bollocks,” he said. “It's a load of watered down, mistranslated and mangled shit, mixed with wishful thinking and makebelieve. You're doing it all bloody wrong, boy.”

“She, um, told you that, sir?”

“Who? What, oh, you mean Sandra? Sheila, whoever she is? God no, she wouldn't know a hex from a handbag.” He snorted with laughter and drained his pint. “God bless her, I'm fucking her you know. Well, I haven't been capable for years, between you and me, but you know what I mean.”

He waggled his tongue disgustingly at me, and informed me that it was my round. I suppressed a shudder but went to the bar anyway to get him yet another pint. Student funds being what they were, I got myself a lime and soda. I wasn't much of a drinker in those days anyway, for obvious reasons. I'd spent my whole life determined not to turn into my old man.

I ought to have just left him to it, I knew I should, but he'd caught my attention by then. I'd heard a lot of slurring and bluster and innuendo from him, but I'd also heard
you're doing it wrong
and that had caught my attention more than I really cared to admit even to myself. There was something here I didn't quite understand yet, but it was more than a little bit interesting. It was certainly worth turning a blind eye to his drunkenness to hear what else he might have to say. I took the drinks back to our table and sat staring expectantly at him.

“Aren't we supposed to be going over your… your last paper or something?” he asked me. “I, um, I can't quite remember.”

“You were talking about my books,” I reminded him. “About magic, and what you think I'm doing wrong.”

“Oh God yes, hopeless,” he said. He swallowed half his pint in one go, and glared at me with bloodshot eyes. “Bloody hopeless.”

“In what way, sir?” I prompted when it looked like he wasn't going to say anything else.

“What? Oh, yes. Well it doesn't work, does it?”

“Well,” I said, feeling defensive and embarrassed all at once. “Well, I feel I'm making some good progress actually.”

“Towards what, a better understanding of your navel? Bullshit!”

“Well…” I said, preparing to defend the occult mysteries that I, at all of twenty years of age, was sure I was on the brink of mastering.

“What have you ever actually summoned?” Davidson interrupted me.

“Summoned?” I echoed, wondering if I'd heard him right. “Well, I've studied the Goetia of course, and Bardon's theories of evocation, but obviously they shouldn't be taken literally, so...”

Davidson was in the middle of gulping his beer, and my statement made him laugh so hard he almost choked on it. A vile mixture of beer and snot trickled out of his nostrils. He wiped it away with a nicotine-stained finger and grinned at me.

“Come back to my rooms with me,” he said. “There's someone I want you to meet.”

Now drunk or not I was fairly sure he wasn't going to try and stick his hand down my trousers like Jim's rowing coach had to him last term, however much he reminded me of Uncle Monty out of whatever that film was called. Besides, with the state he was in I was even more sure I could just knock him on his arse and leg it if he did. I nodded.

“All right,” I said.

He led me somewhat unsteadily out of the pub, resting one hand on my arm for support. It was a long, slightly uncomfortable walk back to his flat, what with him having to stop and cough and wheeze or talk incoherent bollocks every ten minutes or so, but we got there in the end. I remember hoping nobody I knew had seen me with him. He shut the door behind us, and grinned at me.

“Come through,” he said, gesturing to a door at the end of the hall. “Come into my study, and I'll explain everything.”

“Thank you,” I said politely. “Who are we meeting, again?”

“What,” he said. “What, not who. It.”

He opened the door, and I gaped in astonishment. The study was filled with all manner of occult paraphernalia, things I never would have believed he owned if I hadn't seen them with my own eyes. At the far end of the room there was a huge piece of ancient-looking wood standing on a pair of trestles, and on top of it was some sort of hideous statue bound with tiny chains.

“Come here and feed me you useless old cunt!” it screamed.

I
woke with a start
, my head on my desk. Dreaming of poor old Davidson after all these years had left a sour taste in my mouth. He had been a wreck of a man towards the end.
Is that where I'm heading?
I couldn't help but ask myself the question, for all that I didn't really want to know the answer. I reached for the phone before I had a chance to change my mind. She picked up on the fifth ring.

“Debs, it's me,” I said.

She hung up so hard the bang made my ear hurt. I winced and redialled.

“Don't…” I said, and she hung up again.

“I didn't do it!” I shouted the third time, before she had a chance to react. There was deathly silence, but at least she hadn't hung up on me again. Yet. “It's Wormwood, he's gouging me, I haven't got any choice but I didn't do it, honest to God I didn't. It was some rich bloke, no one else, but he was already dead so I didn't…”

“Get fucked, Don,” she interrupted me. “You lied to me, you stole from me, and you're probably still lying to me now. Just get fucked, and don't call again.”

She hung up. I dialled again, and her machine picked up. I gave it up for a bad job.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered.

I went through to the kitchen to put the kettle on, and was just stirring boiling water onto cheap instant coffee when the phone rang. I ran back into the office and all but dived across the desk in my haste to pick it up.

“Debs?” I said.

“No,” said Wormwood. “It ain't.”

“Oh,” I said. “Oh, it's you.”

“Yeah, it's me, you cretin. Thought I'd give you a bell, seeing as you haven't bothered calling me. Again.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I was going to come over last night but, um…”

“Never mind,” he said. “That was some good work yesterday, Drake. Heart attack, nice one. No complications. How did you manage that then?”

“I, um,” I said, thinking frantically. I'd had nothing to do with it after all, and only a vague suspicion of what might have actually happened. “Um, you know. Professional secret.”

Wormwood snorted.

“Ponce,” he said. “Whatever, that's that out of the way and all to the good. Now then, I've got another little job for you.”

“What?” I said. “We're square now, yeah? We are
fucking
square.”

“No we ain't,” said Wormwood. “Remember that interest I told you about? It went up. A lot.”

I stared at the phone in my hand. He had to be kidding me, surely? Except I knew that Wormwood had no sense of humour whatsoever. I could already picture Connie kicking in the door of my office with a bonebreaking sledgehammer in his enormous hands. No, Wormwood didn't do kidding, not one little bit.

“What now?” I sighed.

“Don't take that snotty tone with me, you prick, this one's in your interest as much as mine,” he said. “There's a bit of a problem with that Scottish job.”

“What? That's done with.”

“No,” he said. “Apparently it ain't. Turns out that pair of bastards had some insurance. Dig out your laptop, I'll mail you the details.”

“Right. Right, OK. I, um, look. Look, it's going to be a problem if you want me to, um, you know, do another thing.”

“For fuck's sake Drake, no one's tapping your bloody phone,” Wormwood snapped. “Out with it.”

I wasn't so sure about that, after the probably-government work I had done in the past, but fuck it. They already knew more than enough about my business to bury me forever if they wanted to.

“My source has dried up,” I said, thinking of Debbie with a sick feeling in my stomach. “I can't get any ingredients at the moment.”

“Don't worry about that,” Wormwood said. “Like I said, this is in both our interests. I can get you anything you want, within reason. Just let me know what you need and I'll put it on your tab.”

I winced. Wormwood's idea of compound interest was scary enough as it was without him adding fresh debts to the running total, but I didn't really have a lot of choice. I had been going to Debbie for so long I didn't even know any other alchemists any more.

“Right,” I said. “Well, um, so you'll email me?”

“Already have,” said Wormwood. “Now bugger off and think it through, and let me know when you've figured out what you need. And Drake, don't fuck about on this one, understand? This is what you might call a little bit urgent.”

He hung up. I dropped the phone back onto its cradle and shoved my fingers through my hair with a sigh of despair. This was just never going to go away, was it? Wormwood pretty much owned my arse now, as far as I could see. I've known loan sharks, and how they operate, but I honestly never thought I'd end up letting myself get sucked into a situation like this.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered as I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and dug out my elderly laptop.

I hated the thing. Me and technology don't really get on, as you might have gathered. Oh I can work it, but all the same I hate it and everything it stands for. Every time I turn the bloody thing on I long for the good old days of the Rolodex and the newspaper clipping. I mean, I was a kid in the Seventies when “the future” was going to be all flying atomic cars and holidays on the moon. What did we get instead? The internet, bag of shit that it is. Give me my flying car any day. I sighed and opened my emails.

Wormwood had written to me, true to his word. I read his email, then I read it again. I gaped. This was a fucking disaster, and one that I wasn't at all sure I knew how to survive.

W
ellington Phoenix was
a stone cold killer. He'd been in the business a hell of a lot longer than I had, and his reputation was sheer bloody poison. He must be over seventy by now but I still nearly shat myself when I saw his name in Wormwood's email. He was a physically huge man, a Nigerian with a big, booming voice and a pedigree that went back to before I was even born. I had met him once, maybe fifteen years ago, at the first professional gathering I had plucked up the courage to attend.

I had still been finding my feet then, working with the Burned Man and trying to figure out what I could do with the new-found power at my disposal. Phoenix had been the de facto star of that gathering, looming over everyone. He had been wearing a Savile Row suit, I remembered, and it had strained over his six foot eight, twenty-two stone bulk. He had been the keynote speaker. I remembered his speech as well. The things he hinted at had made my blood run cold.

The thing you have to understand is this. I was suddenly powerful then, as I saw it, with the newly acquired Burned Man in my possession. Wellington Phoenix was much, much more powerful than me all by himself. He loomed, he boomed, and he frightened the fucking life out of me. He was also, according to Wormwood, Vincent and Danny's insurance policy.

Wormwood's sources had discovered that Danny had made a pact on their behalf some years ago. Just before they started in on Wormwood's business interests, funnily enough. Anyway, there was a lot of legalese but the gist of it was that if anything untoward should happen to them, then Wellington Phoenix would come down on whoever did it like fifty tons of napalm. That would be me then, and after me it would be Wormwood.

“Fuck me, that's going to be a problem,” the Burned Man said when I explained the situation to it.

I nodded. “Innit just,” I said. “Any bright ideas?”

“Oh you know me, I'm usually full of bright ideas,” it said. “Not right now, though.”

“What?”

“This is Wellington motherfucking Phoenix,” the Burned Man spat. “You do grasp that, yes?”

I glared at it. Of all the times for it to show a yellow streak, this wasn't the right one.

“You put the power of Hell at my fingertips, remember?” I said. “And what do I do with it? Right now I hurl the whole fucking lot of it at Wellington fucking Phoenix. How's that suit you for ambition? Fuck what it costs, Wormwood's sorting the ingredients. I'll have that debate with him later. What can we get? What have you got that can take care of this?”

The Burned Man paused for a moment, and looked at me.

“Cost no object?” it said.

I shrugged. “If Phoenix toasts me he'll be going after Wormwood next, so I'm guessing not.”

“Well,” it said slowly. “There are… things. I mean, it can be done, yeah? Anything can be done, for a price.”

There was something about the look on its ugly burned little face that I really didn't like.

“Hang on a minute,” I said. “You're trying to pull the wool over my eyes, I know you are. What sort of a price are we talking about?”

“How many people are you prepared to kill?” it asked me.

“No,” I said at once. “No, fuck that. I'm talking about artefacts here, not fucking human sacrifice. Bones, toads, quicksilver and gold, a bit of demon blood maybe. Not… not that.”

It shrugged. “Well that's you bollocksed then,” it said. “That's you and your fucking lack of ambition again, that is. Do you honestly think Wellington Phoenix has those sort of scruples? You've got no idea what he can get his hands on.”

No, no I probably haven't.
“That's not the point,” I said. “I don't care what he's got. You see, I know what he
hasn't
got. He hasn't got
you
.”

The Burned Man basked in the praise. It was nothing if not proud, after all.

“It's true, that,” it said.

“Now, what can you get me
without
having to kill anyone?”

“Nothing that can face what Phoenix will bring to the party,” it said.

I gritted my teeth in frustration. “Isn't there
anything
you can do?”

The Burned Man looked thoughtful for a moment. “That depends,” it said. “Are you feeling brave?”

Not particularly.
“I'll just have to be. What have you got in mind?”

“I…” it said, and started to cough.

“You what?”

It opened its mouth again, and coughed again, until it was almost choking. “Bugger!” it shouted.

I frowned. “What the hell's wrong with you?” I asked it. “You were about to tell me your grand plan. Come on, out with it.”

“I can't do that,” it said, and coughed again.

“What do you mean, you can't do that?” I said. “You can't tell me your own plan?”

“I… can't… say...” the Burned Man gasped between coughing fits. “There are limits to what I can do, bound and chained to your sodding altar.”

I gave it a sharp look. The Burned Man never said anything it didn't mean, and it usually didn't say anything useful at all unless you asked it a direct question.

“What?” I said. “That sounded like a hint.”

“There was a settlement on the Thames, where London stands now, long before the Romans came,” the Burned Man said. “I was bound before even then, bound by a magic you can't even begin to imagine, you little puke. So if there are things I can't say it's not because
you're
clever, you understand me?”

I nodded slowly. “You can't say, and it's because of someone, but not me,” I said. “So I have to guess?”

The Burned Man shrugged, and rattled its iron chains.

“You tell me,” it said.

“So,” I began, “if there's a limit to what you can do while you're bound, there might be less of a limit if you
weren't
bound – is that what you're getting at?”

“I couldn't possibly comment on idle speculation,” the Burned Man said. “I could tell you a little story, I suppose, if you're bored. Just to pass the time, you understand.”

I shrugged. This was getting obtuse, even for the Burned Man, but like I say, it never said anything without a reason. I had the distinct impression it was trying to get around something here, to slip through some loophole only it knew about.

“Go on then,” I said. “
Jackanory
time.”

“Back then,” it said, “in Tir Na Nog, before the waters made this land an island, there was an antler druid called Oisin who had the gift of summoning. Oisin had the words of binding, and the working of iron, and the power to take his pick of the archdemons of Hell to enslave to do his bidding on Earth. Oisin chose me and bound me into this fetish to serve him. On
Earth
. Do you see?”

I frowned at it. “You're saying this Oisin bound you on Earth,” I said, “but maybe you're
not
bound somewhere else, is that it?”

The Burned Man shrugged. “Is it?” it asked, and coughed again. “If a man asked a direct fucking question maybe I could answer it.”

“Is there somewhere where you're not bound?” I asked it.

“Yes,” it said.

Well fuck me sideways, that's a nasty thought.
“So,” I said, thinking out loud, “if we were there, and I could get Phoenix there as well, could you get rid of him for me?”

The Burned Man nodded. “I could,” it said.

“Forever?” I asked. “I don't mean send him to Spain for a week's bloody holiday, I mean smash him into atoms so he'll never bother anyone again, yeah?”

“Yup,” it said.

“So,” I said, “where is this place where you're not bound?”

“Hell,” it said.

N
ow I'm sorry
, but I didn't exactly leap at the opportunity to go to Hell. Not just any Hell either, but a Hell in which the Burned Man wasn't nine inches tall and chained up. I could still remember that growl. To say I smelled a rat was an understatement – I was practically gagging on the stink of it.

I was sitting at my desk, staring glumly out of the window. It was mid-afternoon by now and it was pouring outside, the rain streaking down the glass like tears.
They'll be my bloody tears if I'm not careful
, I thought
. I need a second opinion on this shit before I do anything rash.

“Meselandrarasatrixiel,” I said out loud. “Trixie, if you can hear me, I'd really like to talk to you.”

I almost regretted throwing away what I was still assuming had been her spying stone, but then I remembered that I hadn't had it with me when I called her the last time either. I had just screamed her name, and she had come. I'd been so bloody glad to see her that I hadn't really given that a lot of thought at the time. Having your hide flayed off by a Fury can be distracting like that, but now that I
did
give it some thought I found the idea a bit worrying. I mean, I can't summon squat without the Burned Man, but she had heard me anyway.
Was she watching me somehow, even without her little stone? Is she still watching me now?

“Trixie, I really do need some advice,” I said.

A siren whooped in the distance. The wind was really getting up out there, making the rain lash furiously against my window. Cars hissed past on the busy road below, throwing fantails of dirty water across the pavement. I sighed.
I guess not.

“And I wanted to say thank you for last night, obviously,” I said, as an afterthought. “It was really good of you to, you know, to come and rescue me like you did.”

My front door banged in the wind, and I heard footsteps on the stairs. I didn't know whether to be pleased or really, really worried when the acrid smell of Russian tobacco wafted into the room a moment before Trixie did.

“You're welcome,” she said. “Someone's got to look after you, you're hopeless at it.”

“And you should be soaking wet, and you're not,” I said. “That was careless of you.”

“Oh bother being wet,” she said. “I think we're a bit past you needing to think I actually came in from outside, aren't we?”

I sighed and looked at her.
A magic knight who fights Furies with a burning sword probably doesn't arrive on the bus, does she?
She certainly didn't look like she'd ever travelled on a bus in her life. In a Rolls Royce maybe, but never on public transport. She was wearing her long leather coat open over a dark skirt and jacket today, with black high-heeled shoes and a white silk blouse. She picked up a dirty coffee cup I'd left lying around and casually flicked her cigarette ash into it.

“I suppose we are,” I said.

“Good,” she said, and settled on the sofa. She crossed her legs and smiled at me, the cup cradled in one hand. “Now, I believe you said you wanted to talk to me.”

I nodded. I did, but should I, that was the question.
You don't think there's even the tiniest chance she might want something in return,
the Burned Man had said, but then the Burned Man wanted me to go to Hell, for fuck's sake. I still wasn't convinced I could trust Trixie, but I was getting less and less sure I could trust the Burned Man either. Whatever, I wasn't having this chat with her in here with only a cheap wooden door between us and the Burned Man's prying ears.

“Fancy a decent coffee?” I asked her. “Big Dave's will still be open.”

I shot a meaningful look at the door to my workroom, and she nodded. “I'd love one,” she said.

It was almost worth all the pain and grief of the last few days just to see the look on Big Dave's face when I walked in with Trixie at my side. He remembered her all right, and no mistake.

“Rosie?” he asked in open astonishment.

I winked at him. “Two coffees, there's a good lad,” I said.

Trixie sat down at a table in the corner by the window, as far out of Dave's hearing as she could get. Luckily there was no one else in there at that time in the afternoon.

I sat down opposite her and waited while Dave brought the coffees over.

“So,” she said, when he was safely out of the way, “what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

I sighed. “I, um, I don't even know where to start to be honest,” I said.

“At the beginning,” she said. “That's usually the best place.”

So I told her some of it. As little as I could get away with and still make sense, admittedly, but I told her about Wormwood and Connie, and Vincent and Danny, and Wellington Phoenix and most of all about the Burned Man's plan.

Trixie went white.

“No,” she said as soon as I'd finished. “No you can't, you
mustn't
. No, Don, absolutely not!”

I have to admit that was a bit more of a reaction than I'd been expecting. “Why not?”

“It's a trap,” she said at once. “A trick, to get you where that horrible thing wants you.”

The aroma of rodent was back and this time it was strong enough to drown out the smell of Dave's stale bacon, but now I wasn't even sure where it was coming from.
One of them is bullshitting me, that's for sure,
I thought.
Maybe even both of them.

“Why would it want me in Hell?”

“It doesn't, particularly. It just wants to be free,” Trixie said. “Above all else,
anything
else, it wants that.”

“It's never said,” I pointed out.

She shook her head. “It wouldn't,” she said. “It
can't,
thankfully, or some idiot would no doubt have freed it long before now. Whoever this Oisin was knew what he was doing, I'll give him that much, for all that he should never have done it in the first place. The fetish can't talk about freedom, it can't ask to be free, and it can never know the ritual needed to free it. But its real self can. It wants you in Hell so it can learn the words that will set it free.”