Maxie’s Demon (22 page)

Me?

The bellowing
impact as the car revved back out of the ditch, smashing into the cops and spilling them this way and that across the road …

Me?

This wasn’t me. I’d never shivved anything more serious than a BMW’s window trim, and never wanted to. I didn’t care that much about avenging the past, just shaking free of it. But whoever was digging this
crap out of my mind wouldn’t let me. I felt as if I was literally entangled, like a swimmer drowning in weeds, thrashing and tearing at the slippery black coils around me. It was that bloody whip! Not leather, though; silky, glossy, more like plaited hair …

She bent over me, smiling slowly, and her eyes were very green. ‘I always thought it was me you liked the best,
mio Maxie
—’ The blackness
behind her was swirling and smoky, and her face seemed to fill the sky. Her hand touched my face, and it was rough and hot, like a claw.

The next moment I was wide awake and out of that bed. Under it, actually, shivering uncontrollably on the bare boards and whimpering. I had to make myself stop that, though. It was echoing eerily in the silver chamberpot.

Fear no evil intrusion, ha bloody ha!

It was dark now, the room full of heavy shadow, and only the faintest skyglow from the little window. Eventually I summoned up enough nerve to climb back up, pull the heavy counterpane over my head and collapse, groaning. About five minutes later something seized me by the shoulder, and I shot up with a yelp.

‘Awake, young
sir!’ said Kelley with brusque cheerfulness. I forced my gummy lids open
to glare at him. ‘Well slept, I trust! A day and a night, whole. But slugabed no more, we must be up and about our business. The Doctor is now agreed with me that since your first scrying so disconcerted you, I should question the angels on your behalf!’

He couldn’t resist springing that one on me. That was why he’d let me sleep; to work on Dee, at which he’d had years of experience. Now he thought
he had me. For a moment I felt totally despairing, but only a moment. Down there with the echo chamber I’d had some time to think, and I hadn’t forgotten it.

The brigands, or whoever else was digging up all those memories, had a purpose – maybe to make me more vulnerable mentally, maybe to make me hungry for revenge, so hungry I might just chip in with the brigands for the sake of that power.
It seemed they couldn’t find me here; maybe the Doctor’s precautions worked that much. So they were trying to corrupt me instead. All they’d done, though, was make me want to stop it happening again. My idea was spoiled; but maybe I could still improvise.

I pulled on Kelley’s robe, because it was warmer than my jacket, and the morning air was biting. Besides, it would probably annoy him. Downstairs
there was breakfast waiting, bread and buttered eggs and bacon. By rights, given the sanitation and so on, it ought to have been foul, but actually it tasted great, especially compared to my usual stale cornflakes. I wasn’t too hot on the mulled lager, flat, with spices, but sooner that than the water – sooner
anything
. What I really needed was coffee, Turkish-strength, in quantity, preferably
on a drip-feed. Dee spouted great heaps of gibberish about his philosophy – the Seven Ensigns of Creation and the Invocation of the Thirty Arts were the least of it. After the night I’d just had, I could cheerfully have invoked a couple of things myself, but I forced the most intelligent smile I could. I was going to need him on my side. Today, it seemed, we were going for the full Monty.

Kelley
was already bossing
the women about, clearing the great table of its heaps of books and scrolls and slates and parchment scraps, uncovering a hummock draped in an embroidered cloth. Dee patted it paternally. ‘The principle of the mirror is reflectivity. That is to say, it returns the onlooker’s sight upon himself, and that is very sound. For as Man the Microcosm is himself a glass, reflecting
the All, so all truths are within him. Beyond that, though, lies the principle of infinite distance, at which the
bona spirita
may be found, and for that both reflectivity and transparency be requisite. Psellus – did I not mention Psellus yestre’en? – now he sought to extend this principle, I believe, to the invoking of spirits aerial by the means of water in a wide-necked jar, which doth both
mirror and give sight. Master Paracelsus, though, makes interesting mention of the possibilities of crystal and jewels in his
Ars beryllistica
, and that recalled to me’ – he pulled off the cover with slow reverence – ‘the crystal orb of Master Roger Bacon.’

It wasn’t as big as I’d expected; most of the height was an ornate stand, a sort of miniature table with a gold mount in the form of naked
swirling figures at the centre. And it wasn’t exactly clear, more like a light bottle green with a cloudy core. ‘Clarity has always been the problem,’ admitted Dee. ‘Rock crystal of sufficient purity is rare. But as fortune would have it, here in Prague is made some of the finest crystal glass anywhere, and I had them shape me several trial pieces before settling on a method and a formulae. Can
they manage better in your time?’

I hummed and
hawed tactfully. The average Gypsy Lee model looked better than this. ‘They can? All the more mystery why scrying is still not in common use. Now, Brother Edward and I shall carry out the rite, but do you watch and listen and assist us with your prayers.’

I put on my very best if-you-please-sir simper. ‘If it wouldn’t put you out, could I do something
too?’

Kelley’s geniality darkened. ‘We must have no more wild affrays, lest they offend our celestial mentors. That will endanger all our purposes.’

Butter wouldn’t melt, honestly. ‘Oh, I don’t mean take part or anything. Just sort of shadow the process – with the mirror again, maybe. I’d be more ready, this time. And I might experiment a little. I mean, for example, has anyone ever tried reflecting
the crystal in the mirror?’

Dee stared, a little taken aback. ‘I know not, upon my troth! Have we ever mirrored the crystal, Brother Edward?’

‘We have not,’ said Kelley shortly. ‘And better Master Maxie content himself with watching, than so mingle himself in matters he does not understand!’

‘Oh peace,
brother, peace,’ said Dee reprovingly. ‘You are too harsh. Was I not just as shocked at my
first true sighting? And so were you, as I recall!’

I’ll bet,
I thought.

‘Besides, his question is a good one. Aye, young sir, seek as you will, during our rite! Be not afraid, whatever may pass; for in the
Clavicula Solomonis
this is firmly declared the most licit of theurgy! Brother Edward?’

Kelley, dour-faced, lifted the crystal. Dee reverently oriented the little stand against what I realised
was a crude compass set in its centre, then spread out the scarlet cloth back over it, carefully arranging its gold-embroidered symbols. ‘Behold the
Sigillum Dei Aemeth!
These are the signs revealed unto me of the great archangels of the four quarters, for even they are subject to the power of the stone, in the hands of godly men! And those mighty ones I now invoke!’

I’d expected Kelley to be
the showman, but he wasn’t. He set the ball down carefully and sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers reverently. Dee was the one who did all the work, and very impressively. Why not? He believed in it. Just like Rudolph, he was doing most of the work himself.

Pretty well, too. The women draped a black silk robe over his shoulders, put his staff in his hand, set down the freshly wiped tablet
and chalk beside him, and retreated to the hearth, watching intently. Dee raised his hands over the table, spreading his arms wide, and launched into a spiel so elaborate I didn’t immediately realise it was a prayer, of sorts.

With his long beard streaming he looked like so much Cecil B. de Mille. His normally rather high voice seemed to sink about an octave, and rich, burry words positively
rolled out across the room. For the first time I heard what the King James Bible was supposed to sound like. He certainly wasn’t making any concessions, and yet I could understand it clearly. Had he and Kelley really been trying to sound halfway modern all this time – or had I been becoming attuned to them somehow? Maybe that was possible around the Spiral, too.

The prayer was
certainly pretty
flowery, not to mention interminable and full of gibberish Dee called ‘mystical names’, by which he was invoking God’s aid in a way that was more like issuing orders. Religious I’m not, but I somehow didn’t think God would only answer his secret Internet addresses, which is what these sounded like. Dee worked his way on to a whole slew of Good Angels. And he made the whole thing sound as petty legalistic
as a double-glazing contract.

‘… and by these mystic names of our God which have special command and potency upon thee, oh AIAOAI and OIIIT, I absolutely require and confidently desire you, individually and severally, to appear obediently to me, the said JOHN, peacefully, content and visible. And consenting to show yourself friendly to me, the aforesaid JOHN, that you agree to fulfil and complete
truly, perfectly, clearly, evidently and absolutely, all and each of my requests that concern and involve your skill in transformations, knowledge and power, such as are required and requested by me, the aforesaid JOHN, of each, some or all of you—’

There was
more of it. Oh God, there was more.

Much, much more, in English and Latin, while the fire burned down in the fireplace and the grey smoky
air invaded the room. All of it in the same bloody do-this, do-that vein. If I’d been God, which for some strange reason I’m not, I’d have given it the bird. And if angels have names like Keyboard Fault #33, I don’t want to know.

I pretended to study the obsidian mirror while Dee droned on, tilting it this way and that. I did try mirroring the crystal a couple of times, but only very quickly.
Seeing anything more was just what I didn’t want. There was that buzzing in my ear again, but I carefully ignored it. Mostly I stole sly peeps at Jane Dee.

Kelley, too, was sitting there looking like a man about to drop off during the sermon. Suddenly, though, he began to twist and twitch uncomfortably. Who could blame him? But when it got worse I began to wonder if he’d picked up some of Rudolph’s
little passengers. Then his head lolled suddenly, his jaw dropped, and he let out a slow, anguished moan. If boredom had been his problem, I’d have sympathised; but somehow I didn’t think so. Dee let his prayers drop and stretched out his arms towards the groaning figure.

‘Speak, spirit! By the Divine names communicated unto us, I conjure thee! Show unto these, thy lesser brothers in the angelic
orders, all manner of things within the glass, that we may work out thy purpose, nor hold back aught of thy full meaning!’

Kelley’s eyes flicked open, wider than I’d ever seen them. Still moaning faintly, he hauled himself up, staring fixedly at the green glass ball. Dee leaned over towards me.

‘Now the spirit takes hold of him!’ he whispered excitedly. ‘And have you been vouchsafed any revelation,
thus far?’

I tilted the
mirror judiciously away from his wife, and confronted myself, all beak and scattered straw-coloured locks. It showed me one thing – in Kelley’s green-gold finery I looked a lot like an exotic parakeet. If that was a revelation, you could keep it.

And yet that dark mirror did add a sort of dreamlike quality to what it showed, especially round the edges where the flickering
firelight made it shiver. It showed me a different sort of face, though how different I couldn’t quite sort out. One thing, though – at least it didn’t have an expression like Kelley’s.

‘Something a bit strange. Nothing definite. What difference does the spirit make, anyhow?’

‘Ah, subtly questioned! What takes shape in the crystal, we can both see – aye, and you also, it seems. But only with
Brother Edward does it find its voice.’

It figured. I was quite prepared for what came next, and it was just as well. The voice came, not from Brother Edward but from the crystal, and it was dark and sepulchral, quite unlike his, but blurry and quavering.

‘ABNO!’
it declaimed, like a haunted speak-your-weight machine.
‘NAOCO! OCANM! SHAL!’

‘The great Angels of the Four Quarters!’ whispered
Dee gleefully. ‘They favour us with their counsel!’

‘Behold!’
cried the voice.
‘And harken!’

But what to, we
never did find out. The crystal ball burst out in a sudden shrill fluting, a whistling, warbling sound like some unearthly bird. Kelley stared, aghast, and well he might. It was a handy little number, ventriloquism; but I’d learned my set of tricks four centuries later than him.

That
was my cue. I leaped to my feet, but solemnly, as if answering some mighty command, and held the mirror up high, catching the firelight and reflecting it on to the crystal, awakening glittering rubies in the bubbled glass.

‘I hear, oh Radiant Ones!’ I cried. ‘Speak to me directly, I beg you!’

And the crystal spoke with a different voice, higher and eerier.

‘Yea, I am the Walrus! I am the Eggman!
Behold, verily, I am the Fool upon the Hill who seeth the sun in its going down and whose eyes behold the world in its turnings around!’

Dee gaped. ‘The what? The Fool – is not some such symbol in the Tarot? – I mean, I charge you, spirit, speak! Give us some earnest of what thou art and whence thou comest, of thy truth and goodness!’

‘Aye!’ roared Kelley, mysteriously restored to himself. ‘And
that thou art not a false and deceiving son of a – son of Abomination! Prove it, or be damned!’

‘I am the Man of a Thousand Voices speaking perfectly loud! Earnest shall I give thee of the truths I speak. Take up thy tablet, and write thereon, as I commandeth!’

Not bad. I was getting
the hang of this stuff. This was the nervous-making bit, though. If we’d had pencil and paper I would have been
safe enough, or even a modern chalk stick. That lump wasn’t quite long enough. Still, here goes.

‘On the face turned from all sight but thine, write any name thou willst, however secret, however holy, the most that has been revealed unto thee! Write it fair and with respect, and I shall tell it unto thee, straight!’