The Demi-Monde: Summer

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by

Quercus
55 Baker Street
7th Floor, South Block
London
W1U 8EW

Copyright © 2013 by Rod Rees

Artwork copyright © 2013 by Nigel Robinson

The moral right of Rod Rees to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 84916 505 1 (HB)
ISBN 978 1 84916 506 8 (TPB)
ISBN 978 1 84916 663 8 (EBOOK)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

You can find this and many other great books at:
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Rod Rees has spent his life travelling throughout Africa, the Middle East, Bangladesh and Russia, and consequently found himself living in Qatar, Tehran and Moscow. He has built pharmaceutical factories in Dhaka, set up a satellite communication network in Moscow, and conceived and designed a jazz-themed hotel in the UK.

Now a full-time writer, Rod lives near Derby, England, with his wife Nelli and their two children.

Also by Rod Rees

The Demi Monde:

Winter

Spring

Report to the Grand Council

The Demi-Monde: The Novel

Prologue

Part One:     Summer Comes

Part Two:    The Forbidding Palace

Part Three:  The Column of Loci

Part Four:    The Battle for the Coven

Part Five:     The Séance and the Rise of Duke William

Part Six:       The Escape from the Forbidding City

Part Seven:   Victory in the Coven and in the ForthRight

Part Eight:     Lammas Eve

Epilogue 1

Epilogue 2

Glossary 1:   The Demi-Monde

Glossary 2:   The Real World

Appendix

1 November 2018

I have been asked to report regarding the difficulties currently being experienced with the Demi–Monde Project and the impact these difficulties might present vis–à–vis the achieving of the Final Solution.

As the Grand Council knows, using the world’s first quantum computer, ABBA, an engine of immense processing power, we have developed the Demi–Monde, the most sophisticated virtual world ever conceived. Recognising that such an ambitious undertaking would be extraordinarily difficult to conceal – especially as it involved the clandestine accessing of DNA data – we chose to disguise the Demi–Monde’s true purpose by persuading the US military to adopt the simulation as a training ground for their neoFights.

Using this subterfuge we have populated the Demi–Monde with thirty million digital duplicates of living people – Dupes – six million of whom possess the genetic signature identifying them as proto–Grigorian. In the five years since the initiation of the Demi–Monde Project these Dupes have been subject to intense conditioning, notably regarding their appetite for blood and their living in a high–stress environment. The final step in producing the desired level of genetic mutation will however require them to be exposed to a level of Cavoritic radiation similar in magnitude to that experienced during the meteor strike of 1795, and, as it has proved impossible to fabricate Cavorite in quantity in the Real World, to achieve this intensity it has been necessary to recreate this singular element virtually in the Demi–Monde. To this end a Cavorite (or Mantle–ite, as it is known in the Demi–Monde) reactor – the Great Pyramid – has been built in the region of the Demi–Monde known as Terror Incognita. Unfortunately the triggering device – the Column of Loci – designed to activate this reactor has been waylaid by the Dupe known as
Ella Thomas
.

Ella Thomas was introduced into the Demi–Monde ostensibly to rescue
Norma Williams
, the daughter of the US President, herself lured into the Demi–Monde to prevent the US military closing down the Project. To ensure this rescue mission failed, we made strenuous efforts to have a wholly ineffectual individual selected for the task, but as we have belatedly discovered, Thomas is a Lilithi, the most powerful and dangerous enemy of the Grigori. During her sojourn in the Demi–Monde the girl’s dormant Lilithian abilities were resuscitated, and thus empowered she has taken control of Venice, her intention now being to ally Venice with NoirVille (the vehemently misogynistic Afro-Arabic Sector of the Demi–Monde), such a move having the potential to fundamentally change the Demi–Monde’s politico–military status quo. But worse, Venice is also where the Column of Loci is being held, the upshot being that Ella Thomas (or Doge IMmanual as she is now known) has control of the Column, a wholly unacceptable situation.

(En passant, it should be noted that the one positive aspect of the rise of Ella Thomas is that her relationship with the Dupe known as
Vanka Maykov
, a glib Russian psychic, seems to be over. Maykov was seen as a disruptive influence in the Demi–Monde but now it appears he has been forced to flee to
the JAD
, the homeland of the Demi–Monde’s faux–Jewish diaspora, the nuJus.)

Compounding these difficulties, Norma Williams has also proven to be more capable than her Real World reputation had led us to expect. Aided and abetted by
Burlesque Bandstand
, an amoral petty criminal, and
Odette Aroca
, a truculent French dissident, she has been proselytising the virtues of non-violence and passive resistance, a philosophy known as Normalism. This has had an unsettling effect on the Dupes inhabiting the Demi–Monde, though now Williams has been abducted by Empress Wu and taken to
the Coven
(the rabidly feminist Sino–Japanese Sector of the Demi–Monde) it is hoped that her baleful influence has been terminated.

Finally, I must report my disappointment with Reinhard Heydrich, the PreLived Singularity (über–psychopath) seeded into the Demi–Monde to take control of the world on our behalf. Despite his early promise (his taking control of two of the Demi–Monde’s five Sectors to form the Anglo-Russian empire known as
the ForthRight
being a prime example), of late he has faltered. This is most marked in his failure to motivate the team of scientists we have provided him with to perfect the Plague weapon which is so vital to the
successful implementation of the Final Solution, an incompetence also signalled by his StormTroopers being discomfited by the rebel aristo
Trixie Dashwood
in the Battle for Warsaw. As Dashwood has now been appointed head of the Covenite army, it is hoped that Heydrich is more effective in his handling of her during the forthcoming invasion of the Coven by the ForthRight.

I acknowledge that a superficial perusal of the above could lead to the conclusion that the setbacks suffered by the Grigori have been many and grievous, but this is not the case. Progress in the Real World has been rapid.
Aaliz Heydrich
, the daughter of Reinhard Heydrich, has replaced Norma Williams here in the Real World, the Fun/Funs organisation she established goes from strength to strength, and arrangements for the Gathering, the bringing together of all the Fun/Fun members and their parents – the individuals the proto–Grigorian Dupes were based upon – in order that they might be genetically reprogrammed, are well in hand. And with respect to the situation in the Demi–Monde the Grand Council should be aware that I will be personally intervening in the affairs of that virtual world to ensure that remedial action is taken to resolve the minor reverses we have suffered. This being the case, I most strenuously request that the Grand Council does NOT see fit to order a Temporal Modulation to retro–remedy the situation: as we have learned to our cost, the finessing of Temporal Modulations is very difficult and it may be that rather than alleviating the situation it serves only to exacerbate it.