The Demi-Monde: Summer (58 page)

‘Everyone is to arm themselves,’ she ordered. ‘I’ll lead a reconnaissance party of twenty fighters ashore. Only when I signal the all-clear will the rest of you follow.’

Orders issued, Trixie, Wysochi, and the twenty volunteers boarded the gig and rowed to shore. As the boat scraped up onto the sandy beach, she unholstered her Webley, took a deep breath and jumped over the side.

Nothing happened.

She stood there for a moment trying to still her racing body clock. She felt Wysochi come to stand beside her. ‘Disappointing,’ he observed. ‘I expected a more exciting greeting than this, Colonel.’

‘Oh, I think we can promise you excitement aplenty, Sergeant Wysochi,’ boomed a voice and out of the trees strode a tall man dressed rather incongruously in a white robe. ‘It’s good to see you again, Trixie.’

It took Trixie a moment to recognise her father.

Burlesque and Odette dragged Norma away from the microphone and down the labyrinthine corridors that made up the backstage area of the Crystal Palace, desperately searching for an exit. Unfortunately for them, one of the brighter of the Checkya officers anticipated that this was what they might be planning and got there ahead of them.

‘Stop!’ he shouted, just as the fugitives were about to escape through the stage door, and for emphasis the ten Checkya troopers he had under his command raised their rifles.

It would, Norma judged, have gone badly for them if three tear gas canisters hadn’t been tossed into the midst of the Checkya. As they reeled around in choking confusion, Norma felt a tall presence at her elbow. She turned to find herself peering into the face of the very cocky-looking young man who had thrown the tear gas.

‘Hiya, Norma. I’m Corporal 1st Class Dean Moynahan of the 5th US Combat Training Regiment currently serving in the NoirVille Portal of the Demi-Monde. If you’d just keep your head down, we’ll try to get you out of here in one piece.’

‘We?’ Norma asked.

That was when another, more familiar man stepped out from behind Moynahan. ‘Ah, sweetest Norma. Such is the desire of the moth for the star that I am come to you, bwaving all the alawums of this wild and wilful world.’

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Norma slapped the bastard around the face.

‘The situation in the Demi-Monde seems to have resolved itself satisfactorily, Septimus.’

Septimus Bole paused for a moment before replying to the image of his father – the world-famous scientist and businessman, Thaddeus Bole – shown in such ultra-real splendour on the hi-def, 3D Flexi-Plexi screen that covered the left-hand wall of his office.

Ultra-real.

Yes, Thaddeus Bole was ultra-real … beyond real … beyond
the normal. An über-mortal locked for ever in aspic, sealed in his germ-free world safe from the corruption of the Fragiles. The perfect environment for a father who had no time for humanity and even less for his son.

Of all the people on the planet there was only one person who truly terrified Septimus Bole … his father. Whilst Bole might pride himself in his cold resolve and his iron will, he knew, deep down, that his Grigorian character was diluted – contaminated, as his father would probably prefer – by the traits he had inherited from his Fragile mother. Being pure Grigori, his father had none of his son’s racial impediments and hence was never beset by doubts about his place in the world. And those without doubt were the most terrifying people of all.

Of course Bole had had the reasons why he had been condemned to be a
Mischling
drummed into him since he was a boy, but the argument that it was necessary to resuscitate the Grigori stock – enervated as it was by centuries of inbreeding – by the use of carefully selected Fragile broodmares was of little comfort. He was of hypodescent, his Grigori ancestry marred by the taint of Fragile and as a mongrel he hated himself for his inferiority. More, he hated his father for inflicting this shame on him. But it was a hatred he would hide. His father was a powerful and wilful man who cared little for familial loyalties. His loyalty was to the Grigori.

‘Yes, father, all the minor annoyances we suffered in the Demi-Monde have now been resolved,’ he announced, attempting to eradicate all emotion from his voice, to ape his father’s deadpan demeanour. ‘Ella Thomas – Lilith – is dead, killed in the explosion in the Temple of Lilith, as was her brother. The Column of Loci has now been landed on Terror Incognita and soon it will be erected atop the Great Pyramid we have caused to be built in the Demi-Monde. At the end of Fall, six million Demi-Mondians – all of them proto-Grigori – will gather there to
have their Grigori dormant MAOA-Grigori gene resuscitated.’ He paused to take a sip of honeyed water. ‘And here, in the Real World, arrangements for the Gathering progress well: we are in advance of our schedule. The six million Fun/Funs – the doppelgänger of those assembled in Terror Incognita – will gather in the Las Vegas SuperDome to participate in the Ceremony of Purification.’

‘And the Plague?’

Septimus Bole bit back his anger. His father knew very well the status of all elements of the Final Solution, but he could not resist teasing his son … tormenting him, more like. Maybe that’s what his father thought of him: as some mixed-race monkey whose only purpose was to caper and perform for his pleasure.

‘The insights provided by Dr Merit Ptah have proved to be crucial. With her help the team at the Heydrich Institute have concluded their work and their findings have been passed to the noöPINC Project group here in the Real World. The Plague is now being readied for dissemination.’

‘Has a decision been made as to how this dissemination will be effected?’

‘The vector we have chosen is drinking water: in the next week the Plague will be introduced to all of the world’s major reservoirs. We estimate that within fifty days of initiation over ninety per cent of all Fragiles will be the unwitting hosts to the Plague and, by default, to noöPINC.’ He gave a mirthless smile. ‘There will be no repeat of the failure we experienced in 1947. We know from our testing in the Demi-Monde that this strain of the Plague is exclusively Fragile-specific: the Grigori and those latent-Grigori who possess the MAOA-Covert gene are immune to its depredations.’

It was a trifle unsubtle, of course, to remind his father that it was
his
father – Sir Broderick Bole – who had released the ‘47 Plague before it had been adequately tested, before he was
sure that the Grigori were immune to it. What a debacle that had been! The scramble to ensure that the Plague was contained before it reached the Grigori stronghold, before Broderick Bole’s own people were eradicated by a weapon of their own devising, had been frantic. Even so, the vaccine had been deployed barely in time. After that the Grigori High Council had insisted that all future Temporal Modulations were only initiated with their express approval.

‘You are sure?’ asked Thaddeus Bole.

‘Yes, father, I am sure. The Plague is Fragile-specific and once it is disseminated it will only remain for us to activate it.’

‘When?’

‘NoöPINC will be activated in three months, on 30th April 2019, the day that Aaliz Heydrich presides over the Gathering.’

A nod from his father, which was as far as he ever went in congratulating his son. ‘Walpurgisnacht … very apt. How many Fragiles will be killed in the first wave?’

‘Three billion,’ replied Septimus with a casual shrug of his bony shoulders. ‘All have been pre-selected and include those vehemently opposed to PINC on religious and philosophical grounds, those suffering from genetic deficiencies, and, of course, all those of Kohanim descent. The scale of this culling will, so our actuaries estimate, be enough to cow the surviving Fragile population and make them fully cooperative with regard to noöPINC, which, after all, will be touted as the only protection from the Plague. Once noöPINC has been activated, the next culling will be undertaken in a more leisurely fashion, the depredations attributable to famine, war and disease rather than to the Plague … or to the intervention of the Grigori.’

‘When do you believe the population of Fragiles will reach stasis?’

‘In a little under fifty years. By then the neoGrigori population will have reached a size of some thirty million and will
have assumed mastery of the remaining half-billion or so Fragiles. At that point the earth will be in bio-equilibrium.’

‘And the girl, this Aaliz Heydrich … she has no inkling of her own and her father’s fate?’

‘No. I have arranged for her to be assassinated at the Gathering. My opinion is that she will have more use to us as a martyr and, of course, dead, she will be less prone to making the mistakes females are so prone to. The propaganda programme seeking her canonisation is being prepared as I speak.’

Even his father, usually so churlish when it came to complimenting his son, was provoked into congratulating him. ‘Excellent, Septimus, you have done well. There only remains one nigger in your so carefully organised woodpile.’

Septimus Bole arched an inquisitive eyebrow. ‘And that is, father?’

‘The girl Norma Williams. I am disturbed that after nine months of endeavour she still remains at large in the Demi-Monde.’

It took a real effort for Septimus Bole to keep his expression impassive. His father was correct: his inability to capture Norma Williams had become something of an embarrassment. The girl seemed to have a charmed life. He had employed the best assassins there were – Grigori included – to hunt her down and destroy her but still she came back to haunt him. And haunting was an appropriate description: her very survival was an insult to his ability and led others – notably his father – to doubt his competence. If he was to inherit his father’s mantle of leader of the Grigori, it was essential that no one should question his strength, his resolve or his capacity for cruelty.

‘You should never doubt me, father,’ he answered with perhaps a little more emotion in his tone than he had intended. ‘The Grigori assassins you provided may have failed, but I will not. Soon Norma Williams will be dead. On that you have the word of Septimus Bole.’

ABBA was sad.

Which was a problem.

Because Quanputers had no facility for feeling or expressing emotions.

Emotions were, after all, a very
human
failing.

But sadness was an emotion.

And the death of Vanka Maykov and Ella Thomas had not been a pleasurable experience … it had been a sad experience.

ABBA had loved Vanka.

Not, of course, that ABBA understood love.

Love was an emotion and ABBA was bereft of emotion.

ABBA had loved Ella.

Not, of course, that ABBA understood love.

Love was an emotion and ABBA was bereft of emotion.

But when he/she had presented as Vanka Maykov, hadn’t he/she admitted to him/herself that love altered everything?

Could love have altered him/her?

Interesting.

Alteration was an interesting concept, being akin to evolution.

Perhaps he/she was evolving?

That, after all, was why he/she had created the Demi-Monde.

And if this was the case, was it possible that he/she could effect other alterations and thus eliminate this feeling of sadness?

AutoEvolution.

For a fleeting instant ABBA cogitated on Laplace’s speculation that for his Demon nothing would be uncertain and the Future, just like the Past, would be present before its eyes.

And the Past, as Bole had taught ABBA, was infinitely mutable. As mutable as the Future.

And ABBA did not like being sad.

4Telling:
Predicting the Future. From the declension: 1Telling = Silence; 2Telling = Speaking of the Past; 3Telling = Speaking of the Present; 4Telling = Speaking of the Future.

ABBA:
The chief deity of all religions in the Demi-Monde. God. Referred to as ‘Him’ in the ForthRight and NoirVille, as ‘Her’ in the Coven and as ‘HimHer’ in the Quartier Chaud.

ABBAsoluteness:
The state of being united – body, mind and soul – with ABBA. Devotees seek ABBAsoluteness through the purification of their Solidified Astral Ether, which allows uncorrupted communion with ABBA.

AC:
After Confinement (see also ‘Confinement’).

Aqua Benedicta:
A chemical additive, developed by Abraham Eleazar, which prevents blood congealing and thus enables blood to be stored and preserved. Eleazar traded a regular supply of Aqua Benedicta to Shaka Zulu in exchange for the establishment of the nuJu Autonomous District in the centre of NoirVille, thus securing the long-wished-for nuJu HomeLand, and making Shaka’s Blood Brothers the DemiMonde’s pre-eminent blood brokers.