The Demi-Monde: Summer (4 page)

Now he was the second-most important person in the whole of Venice, outranked only by Her Most Reverend Excellency,
Doge IMmanual I. Now all these arrogant swine had to bend their knee to him.

When the death of Doge Catherine-Sophia had been announced there had never been any doubt as to who would ascend the throne: the people wouldn’t have accepted anyone other than the Lady IMmanual, not after the Miracle of the Canal. Recognising inevitability when they saw it, the Council of Ten had hurried through the paperwork and now, less than twelve hours after the death of the previous incumbent, Doge IMmanual was firmly in control of Venice.

De Sade turned and bowed to the new Doge, signalling that it was time for her to address the crowd.

The girl rose to her feet and stepped towards the front of the stage. In acknowledgement of the importance of the occasion she had chosen to wear a diaphanous silver robe that showed off her wonderful body –
all
her wonderful body – in a quite splendid fashion. She was an ineffably beautiful woman and one accomplished in the arts of fiduciary sex, so much so that her audience gazed at her enraptured, ensnared by her beauty.

‘All-powerful ABBA,’ Doge IMmanual called out in a firm and commanding voice, ‘I pray that you will give me the strength and the courage to guide the people of Venice and of the Demi-Monde to Rapture and to victory over the Beast. With this ring,’ and here she took a large golden ring from where it lay on a cushion offered to her by a pageboy and placed it on the middle finger of her left hand, ‘I wed the CitiZens of Venice to the Word of ABBA and to the Truth of IMmanualism.’

A choir of castrati began to trill away behind the Lady, which, de Sade decided, was, in retrospect, over-egging the ceremonial pudding.

‘Members of the Council of Ten, delegates of the Grand Assembly, Patricians of Venice, my lords, ladies and gentlemen, some of you doubted that I have been sent by ABBA to lead the
people of the Demi-Monde, but now let there be no doubt. You have asked for a miracle, and I have granted you a miracle. I pledged that Venice would be kept safe from the ravages of the ForthRight, and I have kept Venice safe. The time of doubt and dissension is over: I am the Messiah. Know that any defiance of the Word of ABBA and the teachings of IMmanualism is a device of the Beast by which he spreads mistrust and confusion. Such defiance can no longer be tolerated. Mark this: those who are not with me, body and soul, are my enemies.’ She looked around at her audience. ‘So I say to you that in this, the most uncertain of worlds, there is one precious certainty: the word of the Doge IMmanual. Follow me and I will bring you safe to Rapture.’

De Sade waited for the applause to die and to ensure that the Lady had finished her speechifying, then made an announcement of his own. ‘His Highness, Selim the Grim, Grand Vizier to the court of His HimPerial Majesty Shaka Zulu, comes to honour Doge IMmanual on the day of her coronation.’

And with that the great villain Selim strode into the hall, flanked by a veritable crowd of flunkies. He halted in the middle of the audience chamber. ‘Doge IMmanual, I bring greetings from His HimPerial Majesty Shaka Zulu.’

‘Welcome to my Court, Grand Vizier Selim, and please convey my felicitations to His HimPerial Majesty. But I would ask, has His Majesty considered the proposition I put to him through your good offices?’

There was a buzz of conversation around the hall, the fools in the Council having obviously not realised that Doge IMmanual had been preparing to take office for weeks. The ‘proposition’ she was talking about was the result of many hours of long – and very secret – negotiations between her and Selim that had followed their first meeting in the Galerie des Anciens.

‘I am commanded to convey to you word that the army of NoirVille is ready to stand shoulder to shoulder with the fighters of Venice in their struggle with the Beast, Reinhard Heydrich.

‘And in exchange I will deliver to NoirVille, by the last day of Summer, the secrets of how Aqua Benedicta is manufactured.’

There was another flurry of excited conversation. The formula for Aqua Benedicta was one of the nuJus’ most closely guarded secrets. Getting his hands on a supply of the anticoagulant was the only reason Shaka had agreed to the establishing of the nuJu home in NoirVille, as having exclusive access to the additive had made NoirVille pre-eminent in the Demi-Monde with regards to the trading of blood. If Doge IMmanual was to reveal the nuJus’ secret then Shaka would have no further use for them … she would be condemning the two million of them living in the JAD – the nuJu Autonomous District set in the middle of NoirVille – to death.

‘I take it your holy men have overcome their antipathy to NoirVille being aligned with a Sector ruled by a woman?’ Here she looked to the figure of His HimPerial Reverence the Grand Mufti Mohammed al-Mahdi, NoirVille’s holiest Man, skulking behind Selim, but he refused to meet her eyes, preferring that Selim spoke for him.

‘His HimPerial Majesty Shaka Zulu demanded that our priests go into conclave to consider this spiritual question. This they have done, and they have come to the sage conclusion that as you are the Messiah, you transcend gender and hence an alliance with Venice does not violate the tenets of HimPerialism.’

Very neat
, decided de Sade. According to them, the Doge IMmanual
wasn’t
a woeMan, but rather ABBA-made Solidified Astral Ether. He stole a glance at the Doge and struggled not to laugh. Standing there clad in her transparent robe, he had to marvel that any man – zadnik or otherwise – could summon
up sufficient intellectual or religious flexibility to deny that she was all woman.

Doge IMmanual nodded. ‘I am pleased to hear these words. I am a great admirer of His HimPerial Majesty Shaka Zulu, who has welded the disparate people of NoirVille into one tribe. Now, Venice and NoirVille must bring the
métèque
– the Outsiders – to heel. And in acknowledgement of his loyalty I, as the Messiah, will throw my cloak of invulnerability about his HimPis. They are now the chosen of ABBA.’

The Doge waved to a steward standing to one side of the chamber, who strode forward holding before him a golden sceptre surmounted by the entwined runes of
laguz
sinister and
laguz
dexter. ‘This sceptre is a symbol that the HimPis of NoirVille are under the protection of the Messiah and of ABBA. And soon they will march to victory in the Demi-Monde. Soon we will begin the Mfecane … the Crushing.’

Selim took the sceptre and knelt. ‘I accept this on behalf of NoirVille. The HimPis of NoirVille stand ready for your command.’

‘And what of the fugitive doge-icide, Vanka Maykov, the murderer of Doge Catherine-Sophia? Have you taken him yet? I understand he is attempting to enter the JAD.’

Maykov again
? Why, de Sade wondered, was the Doge so anxious about Maykov? The man’s capture and execution seemed to have an urgency his low status hardly warranted.

‘Agents of the HimPeril are searching for him even as we speak, Your Excellency.’

A scowl from the Doge. ‘I am displeased. Surely, for a ruler as powerful as Lord Shaka, finding one Blank is not difficult.’

By way of a reply the Grand Vizier gestured to one of his lieutenants, who ushered a tall and very broad-shouldered Shade boy forward.

‘Maykov will be found, Your Excellency. But, in atonement for the dilatoriness of the HimPeril, His HimPerial Majesty brings you your brother.’

The boy stepped into the halo of light cast by one of the great candelabras that lit the Sala and gave an arrogant wave of his hand. ‘Yo, Sis,’ he said. ‘Long time no see. Septimus Bole sends his regards, and says if yo’ don’t stop fucking around with miracles and shit then he’s gonna get real hot and heavy on yo’ ass.’

‘Billy?’ gasped a stunned Doge IMmanual.

A crack of a rifle, then …

Zing!

A bullet whizzed six inches or so beyond Vanka’s left ear, but he didn’t even flinch. He was too depressed to flinch. Flinching was for people who cared if they lived or died.

But some residual, autonomic instinct for self-preservation
persuaded him to crouch lower behind the gunwale of the steamboat that was chugging him across the Nile towards the sanctuary of the JAD. This same instinct provoked him to pull the collar of his mackintosh up to try – in a futile sort of way – to deflect the rain that was lashing down on him. Bang on the stroke of midnight on the first day of Summer the heavens had opened, the monsoon rains had come and they hadn’t stopped coming since. Not that Vanka cared. He was past caring.

He’d always scoffed at the plots of some of the soppier penny dreadfuls that related the anguish suffered when a true love was lost, but he wasn’t scoffing now. His soul was breaking.

Correction: broken.

He felt empty inside and even the effort to pull his waterproof around his shoulders was too much for his fretted spirits. He actually welcomed the chilled numbness the teeming rain was driving into his body … he just wished his mind could be numbed too.

He just wished he was dead.

Crack, crack
.

Zing, zing
.

Two more bullets whined overhead, seeking to oblige.

‘Dis am de last time ah do a gig fo’ dem Code Noir cats,’ moaned the Shade at the helm of the steamboat. ‘Ah don’t care how much foldin’ dem cats lay on yours truly, nuffing is worth de bad cats cappin’ a barrel full o’ buckshot up ma ass.’

Vanka stared at the man in an uninterested sort of way. He knew the Signori di Notte – Venice’s secret police – were after him, he just didn’t give a shit whether they caught him or not. Not after what had happened in Venice. He’d gone to the Doge’s Palace to plead with Ella, the woman he loved – what an admission that was for the fancy-free Vanka Maykov to make – to tell her that he wasn’t her enemy and that how she was acting was
wrong, but instead of the reconciliation he’d hoped for he had found her screwing a guy called Casanova. The sight of her using the man – and he had no doubt as to who was using who in that little tableau – was seared into his memory. It had drained his soul of all happiness.

Crack
.

Zing!

‘Hey, man,’ shouted the Shade, ‘’ow ’bout yo’ gettin’ up off yo’ sorry Blank ass an’ firing back at dem Signori di Notte bastards. Make wiv de dissuasive bang, bang, banging an’ such. Don’t yo’ dig dat it’s yos dey’re chasing?’

Vanka didn’t have the strength. He’d used up what little he had escaping from the Doge’s Palace and then, with the help of Josephine Baker, ducking and diving through the backstreets of Venice to the docks. That’s where the Code Noir had a boat – and a Shade captain mad enough to run the Nile – waiting to take him to NoirVille. Josephine had bundled him into the boat and had then tried to lure the pursuing bad guys away. Her ruse hadn’t worked.

The Shade spun around, hauled out his revolver and loosed off two hopeful shots at their pursuers, but given the way the boat was pitching around on the choppy waters of the Nile, Vanka judged the chance of him hitting something to be somewhere between zero and zip.

‘C’mon, man,’ the exasperated Shade yelled. ‘Pull yo’self together. De badniks am gettin’ awful close. Get yo’ iron out an’ make wiv de lead fusillade.’

Vanka just sat there lost in mournful introspection.

He loved Ella Thomas. She was his everything. Meeting her had given purpose to his whole worthless, directionless, cynical existence. Whilst he didn’t have much of a past – not one that he knew about, anyway – she had given him the hope that he might have a future. But now …

But now here he was back on the flee, running for his life. He gave a grimace: his life, as far as he could judge, was shit and he’d been served a double helping.

It had to be a double helping because he hadn’t just been
betrayed
by the woman he loved, she was now using all her power to have him killed. That’s why Josie had got him out of Venice so quickly and why she was so keen for him to make it to the safety of the JAD. Get to the JAD, she’d told him, and he’d have a place to hide. In the JAD he could keep low and wait for the heat to die down.

He was so lost in his despair that it hardly registered that the boat had come to a bobbing halt alongside a pier. They’d made it. Almost without thinking he stood up and stepped ashore.

Immediately the Shade floored the boat’s throttle and steered his steamboat off into the night, screaming, ‘Yo’ one crazy fucking Blank!’ as he went.

Crack, crack
.

Zing, zing!

Like a sleepwalker, Vanka climbed the slick steps to the jetty, ignoring the shots from the chasing Venetians and the bullets caroming off the stone walls. He should, he supposed, be grateful that they were such lousy shots, but somehow he couldn’t raise the energy. But deep down he knew he
had
to find the energy: he was, after all, accused of murdering Doge Catherine-Sophia and, as Josephine Baker had informed him, he did have both the Signori di Notte
and
the HimPeril – their NoirVillian counterparts – hunting him.

Crack, crack
.

Zing, zing!

Miraculously he got to the top of the steps without having his head blown off. Ever efficient, Josie had arranged to have a pedicab waiting for him, though the driver seemed less than enthused to be the target of so much hostile attention.