Sky Pirates (12 page)

Patrice pondered the matter for a moment. “And you are sure this Summoner would be able to find her.”

Crowley inclined his head. “If he cannot find her, my dear fellow, then no one can.”

“Very well then, Mr. Crowley. I shall see your man this evening.”

“Ah, how marvelous.” Crowley beamed. “And please, call me Alec. All my friends do.” He held out a small black card with an address inscribed on it in red. “Mass is said at midnight, but you are welcome to join us for supper at the café from about ten o’ clock onward. Oh, the congregation will be so delighted to meet you. The dark forces will flow with such potency with a Shadow Master there.”

“Till this evening, Mr. Crowley,” Patrice said politely.

Crowley rose from his seat. “I look forward to it,” he said with a little wink, as Patrice escorted him to the door.

“Oh and one thing, Mr. Chevalier, do try to keep it discreet. We don’t want our little alliance to bear too much scrutiny too soon,” Crowley said with one more of his strange smiles that made Patrice feel stirrings in places where he really wasn’t supposed to.

Then Crowley was gone.

Patrice stared at the card in his hand and shook his head in disbelief. What a strange morning this had turned out to be.

The journey to Montmartre seemed to take forever. From the backseat of his new Rolls-Royce 20hp, Patrice watched the streetlamps pass in the misty gloom as Mr. Chunk negotiated the uneven cobbles. He had purchased the car for the princely sum of £650. The fact that one could buy a large house for the same money gave Patrice much pleasure. Which was just as well, for he was in short supply of pleasure at the moment.

He shivered in his coat. The night was cold and damp, and he was in no mood for pretend-occultist nonsense.

The prospect of sitting through one of Mr. Crowley’s masses was not filling him with any measure of delight, but as much as he hated to admit it, he needed help. So far, negotiating the politics of the Council had proven to be tricky. The other warlocks were still too stunned to take action, but it would only be a matter of time before they started plotting against him. He needed someone like Crowley to help him negotiate the pitfalls. And if it meant trawling the underbelly of Paris, then needs must.

“Are we there yet?” he asked Mr. Chunk, rather irritated.

“Not long now, sir,” Mr. Chunk said as he turned the car into a dark side street. “Boulevard de Clichy is just up ahead.”

The motor slowed as they pulled up outside a building with an elaborate doorway that resembled the head of some demonic creature surrounded by molten lava rock.
The doorway was the monster’s huge jaws, splayed wide between large fangs. They were outside the Café de l’Enfer. Hell.

“I suppose this must be the place,” Patrice said dryly.

“It’s the very address as it says on the card, sir,” Mr. Chunk replied as he opened the door for his master, seemingly oblivious to Patrice’s sarcasm.

“So it is,” Patrice said. He narrowly missed drenching his fine handmade leather boots in a puddle as he alighted from the car.

“Welcome to the gates of hell, monsieur,” the doorman said. He was dressed in a ridiculous red satin devil suit, complete with horns and pointy tail.

“I am a guest of Mr. Crowley’s,” he said as he handed over the little card.

The doorman nodded and stepped aside. Behind him was a smaller wooden door, hidden in the shadows. He knocked on the wood six times in rapid little bursts.

Patrice rolled his eyes. This was beyond the realm of ridiculous.

There was a shuffling sound before a small peephole opened in the door.

The doorman muttered a few words.

The peephole closed and he heard the slide of the latch and the door opened with a shudder.

“Enter and be damned,” the doorman said with a flourish as he ushered Patrice inside. Patrice just shook his head as he brushed past the man.
Crazy Bohemians
, he thought.

Inside was a little vestibule, lined with swathe upon swathe of purple velvet. Black candles flickered inside lanterns against the wall, and it took him a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

“Good evening. We have been expecting you, monsieur.” Before him stood a woman dressed in a hooded
cloak that covered her from head to toe. She had been waiting for him in the shadows.

She lifted a lantern from the wall and took a few steps along what seemed like a tunnel.
“Entrez, s’il vous plait,”
she said in soft tones.

Patrice hesitated.

“This way please.” She beckoned for him to follow.

Patrice followed her down the tunnel and down a set of stone steps.

“What is this place?” he asked his silent companion.

“Here there once stood an old nunnery, long buried under the city,” she replied. “We are all gathered in what used to be a chapel. You are late, monsieur. You were missed at the feast,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“I was unexpectedly detained,” Patrice said. It was the closest thing to an apology he would offer to a lowly servant.

They stepped through the narrow doorway and down another flight of smooth stone steps that led into the chapel.

“Please make yourself at home. May I take your coat?” she said.

Patrice blinked and coughed. The inside of the chapel was also lit with row upon row of candles, which made the space hot and airless. The rising smell of damp, unwashed bodies and acrid incense nearly knocked the breath out of him.

Through the haze, he could make out the shape of other attendees. They sat on narrow wooden benches, heads bowed, whispering to one another.

“
Mon Dieu
, what is that stink?” Patrice said to the woman. He pulled out his handkerchief and held it over his mouth and nose.

“The incense is henbane and mirkwood mixed with other herbs and substances. The fragrance pleases the Lord of Darkness and we seek to please him. You will
get used to it before long,” she said as she held out her hand to take his coat.

Patrice blinked the tears that the fumes had caused from the corners of his eyes.

“No, here is fine for me. I shall hang on to my things, if you don’t mind.” It would be wise to be in a position to make a rapid exit from this place—before death by suffocation set in.

The woman dropped her hand. “Suit yourself,” she said in a tone that was exceedingly rude for a servant. “We will begin in a few minutes,” she said over her shoulder as she disappeared down the aisle.

Patrice sat down on one of the narrow benches at the back and squinted into the gloom. At the front of the chapel an altar had been erected. It was covered with a cloth of black velvet, and a series of daggers, chalices, chains and other silver paraphernalia was laid out upon the fabric. The wooden pulpit was also painted black, and a cloth adorned with a red pentagram surrounding the head of a goat was draped over the front.

More thick, black candles dripped wax from the various chandeliers suspended from the rough roof. There was no mistaking what this place was. It was a sanctum dedicated to Baphomet: the Demon-ruler of the Underworld.

Patrice could not help but smile at Crowley’s brazenness. He had hidden his cult in plain sight: below a hell-themed cabaret club in the heart of Bohemian Paris.

He took a deep breath and instantly regretted it, because the stale air made him cough. The source of the intense smell came from a silver brazier that was situated next to the pulpit. It was oozing the foul sweet-smelling smoke in little tendrils.

The room swam before his eyes. The smoke made his head spin and he wondered whether the brazier contained something more than just mirkwood incense. He
suspected it did, for he was no stranger to the effects of opium and hashish.

In the front rows, the whispering of the other attendees grew more frantic and then, quite abruptly, died down to a hush.

The silence was broken by the sound of cymbals crashing, followed by the low hum of a chant. Patrice clutched his coat to his lap and shifted in his seat. The Black Mass had begun.

Two altar boys dressed in black robes entered from an unlit entrance at the front of the chapel. Each one carried a chafing dish held high.

Patrice blinked through the gloom at the tableaux that was forming. In fact, it took him a moment to realize that the altar boys were no children. They were in fact grown men, dwarf-size in stature. They chanted as they stepped along in a slow procession. Before the altar, they lit the chafing dishes with tapers. More pungent incense filled the chapel. The ladies seated in the front rows swooned and started loosening their laces in a most unseemly manner.

In the midst of all this undressing, the high priest stepped out before them. He was dressed in red satin robes embroidered with elaborate symbols. On his head he wore an animal skull with two large horns protruding from the forehead. In the center of the skull, a black pentagram was carved.

As the high priest reached the pulpit, he made eye contact with Patrice. It was Crowley.

“Arise, brother. Please join us. Don’t be shy, we are all here in the service of the Shadow,” Crowley beckoned for Patrice to approach.

Patrice sighed and rose. He stepped forward, leaving his coat on the seat behind him.

The imps picked up sets of cymbals from the altar and started bashing them together, causing quite a racket.

Amid the noise, Crowley started muttering all manner of profanities and blasphemies. He spoke them with such fluency that they blended together into something almost beautiful in its obscenity. The soliloquy was punctuated by the imps beside the pulpit who echoed the worst of the words in places.

The ladies in the front row were by now in a rather advanced state of undress. They cooed and sighed, quite content in their euphoria. A few of them were even sat back against their seats, with their eyes rolled back, breasts exposed, offered up to Baphomet, their master.

“We call forward the Summoner!” Crowley said, breaking off his soliloquy.

Another robed figure stepped forward and, for the first time, Patrice felt a shudder of apprehension. The man in the robe said nothing, but Patrice could feel the thrum of true Shadow power that emanated from somewhere deep within the folds of his hooded cloak.

“Is there someone here who would call upon the Darkness for assistance?” Crowley gave Patrice a meaningful look.

“Ahem. I do,” Patrice said. His voice cracked and he had to clear his throat, which was sticky and dry from the smoke.

“Have you brought us a relic?”

Patrice felt inside his breast pocket and pulled out a scrap of dark blue fabric that had been torn from the ceremonial robes Elle had worn that night in Constantinople when everything had changed. He had found the scrap of fabric in the rubble afterward and had carried it with him all this time as a bizarre keepsake. Of all the women who came and went through his life, Elle was the one constant. He could not be rid of her, no matter how he tried. And the strange thing was that he did not want to be rid of her either. Her presence was in his blood, a hunger that would not abate.

Crowley made an elaborate gesture indicating that Patrice should hand over the scrap of fabric to the Summoner.

Carefully, Patrice laid the scrap on the outstretched palm of the cloaked man before him.

“You seek the woman to whom this belongs?” the Summoner said.

“I do,” Patrice said.

The Summoner held the fabric to his face and inhaled deeply. Then he threw his head back and howled. It was an unnatural sound that grated the soul, pitched somewhere between nails scraping on chalkboard and a scream. Patrice felt his blood curdle, but somehow he managed to hang on to his composure.

The Summoner broke off his howl and for a moment there was nothing but complete silence in the chapel. The air became even hazier and then the ground trembled, making the items on the altar quiver and jingle.

From the floor a dark shadow rose up. At first, it was just an indiscernible black mist, but it grew and took shape until it resembled a rather dangerous-looking black dog.

“Arise whelp of Cerberus. Son of the Guardian of the Underworld!”

The outline of the dog seemed to be fighting with itself as it moved and morphed, folding over itself as it materialized before them. It sprouted two heads, each splitting in half to reveal two massive sets of jaws lined with terrible teeth.

The hound stared at the Summoner with no small measure of expectation in its eyes.

I have been summoned …

The voice of the creature rasped and wheezed inside Patrice’s mind.

The Summoner smiled and threw the scrap of fabric into the air.

The dog lifted its two heads and caught the fabric in one of its mouths. With a sharp snap of its jaws, it swallowed the strip of cloth.

“Find the woman who last wore that and bring her to me,” the Summoner commanded.

“Um, and she must be hurt as little as possible,” Patrice interjected.

There was a collective gasp from those assembled, and Patrice suddenly wondered if he had spoken out of turn.

The hound rose slowly and padded across the chapel to where Patrice stood frozen to the spot. It lifted its heads; endless seconds ticked by as it sniffed at Patrice, pressing its noses into his clothing.

Patrice did not move. He did not even dare to breathe. The hound was filled with a strange swirling power that felt very much like the darkness which swirled within his own body. The presence of another creature confined in the space of the chapel that drew its power from the same source as him made him want to claw and scratch at his skin, but he held himself in check, because those teeth looked incredibly sharp and the creature they belonged to looked as if it would not hesitate to use them.

The hound turned away from Patrice and inclined its heads slightly at the Summoner.

So it shall be done
, it whispered. Then it promptly disappeared out of the chapel doors in a trail of swirling blackness.

The chapel went silent for a few moments. The only sound that could be heard was the rapid breathing of some of the ladies.