The Demi-Monde: Summer (57 page)

In Selim’s considered opinion, it was unseemly for a Man intent on maintaining his Cool ever to be seen hurrying. Tonight
though he had no option but to run the whole length of the Divine Way. He arrived at the gates of the Temple breathless and frantic, and certainly not in a frame of mind to be delayed by the two HimPeril agents who were on sentry duty.

‘Out of my way!’ he yelled. ‘Open the gates.’

‘Ah ain’t authorised to do dat. Ah am under strict orders from His HimPerial Reverence de Grand Mufti Mohammed al-Mahdi himself dat wunce de ceremony has commenced no wun, but no wun—’

The agent’s objections were cut short when Selim drove a dagger into his neck.

‘Get these fucking gates open!’ he screamed at the second guard, and the man, quite understandably, did as he was told.

With every eye in the place directed towards what was happening on the altar, Vanka knew it was now or never. He moved nearer to the Column, trying to find the courage to act.

And act he would have to do. Even as he watched, Doge William came to stand over Ella and then take up the long-bladed dagger he was offered by the Grand Mufti. This he raised high above his head, readying himself to make the awful thrust that would snuff out Ella’s life.

Without thinking Vanka hurled himself forward and shoulder-charged the Shade, sending him flying.

For a moment the Grand Mufti was too shocked to speak. The man currently struggling with Doge William had appeared out of nowhere and was now threatening to disrupt the entire ceremony.

He waved to two of his priests. ‘Seize the man! Protect the Doge. And you,’ here he pointed to the priest in charge of the
wheel controlling the Column, ‘lower the Column!’ Yes, the Column was the important thing: nothing must be allowed to prevent the Column unlocking the power of the Temple.

‘Stop!’ came a shout from the direction of the Temple’s entrance and when the Grand Mufti looked up he was amazed to see a very dishevelled Selim striding towards him. ‘The Column is a bomb. For ABBA’s sake don’t lower it. Save His HimPerial Majesty!’

The word ‘bomb’ had a magical effect on the four hundred people gathered in the Temple. In an instant panic rippled through the crowd and there was a shouting, screaming rush towards the Temple doors. The problem was that the doors opened
inwards
and the more people there were pushing against them, the more difficult it became for the guards to open them. It was a situation made all the more confused when HimPeril agents rushed towards Shaka Zulu intent on leading him to safety, smashing aside any who got in their way with their knobkerries. The crowd fought back, a brazier was tipped over and flames began to flicker around the wooden supports of the balcony. Panic gave way to a terror-stricken stampede.

It was the group of soldiers who had clambered on stage to stand guard on Norma who took the brunt of the rifle fire that smashed down from the balcony. And as they fell so the mood of the rest of the soldiers gathered in the hall changed. Enraged soldiers started to fire back at the Checkya riflemen, sending the dignitaries gathered on the balcony diving for cover, and when a Checkya detachment tried to force their way through the crowd by beating at the soldiers with their rifle butts, the soldiers beat back with chairs and bottles and anything else that came to hand. In an instant the Crystal Palace was reduced to a heaving cauldron of fighting men.

The Checkya squad von Sternberg had sent to turn off Norma’s microphone faced similar problems. The only place it was possible to do the turning off was in the booth next to the stage, a booth which had been commandeered by Burlesque and Odette, both of whom had armed themselves with large pistols.

‘Time to go, Odette, my luv,’ announced Burlesque and after trading a few shots with the Checkya the pair of them used the chaos to slip out of the sound booth, run up onto the stage, gather up Norma who was standing at the microphone appealing for calm, and race for the exit.

They almost made it.

Empress Borgia wasn’t sure what was happening. One moment she was watching the Naughty Nightingale and the next she was in the middle of a firefight with bullets whipping around her ears. She looked around to ask advice from the Great Leader, only to find him cowering on the floor.

‘What—’ she began but the bullet that hit her square between the eyes meant she never finished the question.

Selim barged his way through the crowd, cursing their cowardice, cursing the fact that he had spooked the audience by using the word ‘bomb’. But that didn’t matter; now all that mattered was that he prevent the Column being lowered. It was obvious to him that Kondratieff would have designed the bomb’s detonator to be activated by a surge of Mantle-ite energy. He had to keep the Column disconnected from the Temple.

He got to the wheel, shoved the priest guarding it aside then snatched up a discarded assegai and slammed the steel point into the cogs of the gear mechanism that raised and lowered
the Column, jamming it. Now no one would be able to lower the Column.

He’d done it! He’d saved Shaka Zulu!

His relief was short-lived. The guard he had manhandled, believing him to be another of the terrorists disrupting the ceremony, smashed his knobkerrie hard down on the Grand Vizier’s head, killing him instantly.

Drugged as she was, Ella was finding it difficult to think straight; it was as though her brain had been turned to mush and her body had been deprived of all its energy. She was content to lie on the altar and simply watch the world go by. Sure, she knew that her brother was intent on killing her, but really there wasn’t much she could be persuaded to do about it.

Vanka changed all that.

Vanka had popped out of nowhere and although he didn’t do a particularly good job of knocking over Billy – but then Vanka had never been great at anything that even hinted at violence – he was at least
trying
to rescue her. Vanka had always been there when she needed him … he had even been there when she
hadn’t
needed him. Vanka had never given up on her. And now it was her turn not to give up on him.

She looked up and saw that Billy had got back to his feet and recovered the knife he had been intent on using to kill her. It was a knife he now seemed determined to stick into an unarmed Vanka.

Summoning all her strength, Ella levered her protesting body off the altar and staggered towards the two men. She managed to blindside Billy, taking the chance to ram a fist hard into his stomach. Even Billy’s beautifully toned abdominals couldn’t protect him from an unexpected fist in the guts: he buckled over, his cheeks blew out and he dropped the knife. Ella stooped
down to take hold of the discarded weapon and moved to stand at Vanka’s side.

‘Vanka … it’s me, Ella,’ she shouted. ‘We’ve gotta get going.’

Vanka shook his head. ‘No, I’ve got to release the Column … it’s a bomb … I promised Kondratieff.’ He gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘I love you, Ella. You go … save yourself.’

Ella laughed. ‘Don’t be stupid, Vanka. I lost you once and I’m not going to lose you again. We’re going to go together. Release the Column, I’ll keep the bad guys off your back.’

Billy straightened up just thankful that Ella had punched him in the stomach and not the nuts. He looked over to the Column to see Ella defending the tall, rangy guy who had bowled him over and who was trying to work the wheel that lowered the Column. Grabbing a sword from a guard, Billy decided that now was the time for a little slice-and-dice action. He was sick to the back teeth of Ella raining on his parade. Now the bitch was going to pay.

It was an instinct for self-preservation that made Ella look around and then dodge the thrust of Billy’s sword. She raised her knife to parry his next lunge and for an instant steel locked with steel, the pair of them coming so close that Ella could smell the stench of hate on Billy and feel his sweet breath on her cheek. It was a trial of strength, each pushing at the other, trying to unbalance their opponent, testing who was the more powerful.

Finally she managed to break away, skipping back out of range of the thrust of Billy’s deadly blade.

‘Yo, bitch, yo’ ain’t never had the beating of me,’ Billy snarled and then he was at her, flicking his sword at her eyes.

As she tried to defend herself from the attack, Ella knew that one false step, one mistimed riposte and she would be finished. She felt heavy, sluggish … weak. With a shake of her head she tried to drive the torpor from her mind, tried to concentrate on the fight. In a few moments one of them would be dead and she was determined that it would not be her.

Billy circled her like a cat, always moving to the left away from Ella’s knife hand, his blade rotating slowly around, its savagely sharp point inscribing languid patterns in the air. Suddenly he darted forward, his sword moving like quicksilver as he tried to pierce Ella’s guard, moving so fast that all she could do was reel back, hewing as she went, hoping, praying, that it would be enough to parry the thrust.

It was, but only just – the tip of Billy’s blade sliced along her knife hand, the red-hot pain making her shriek in agony. Eyes flashing in triumph, Billy was on her, driving his sword at her guts, trying to end it. Ignoring the scalding pain of her hand, Ella hacked his blade away and then rammed her own knife forward, stabbing at Billy’s face. But Billy was too strong. Almost disdainfully he parried the stroke and then came at Ella again, his blade everywhere, forcing her to retreat towards the Column.

‘Vanka,’ she shouted, ‘lower the Column … I can’t hold him any longer.’

Those were her last words before Billy rammed his sword into her stomach.

Vanka watched aghast as Ella crumpled to the ground, blood from the wound leaking over the Mantle-ite floor. That Ella was gone seemed impossible: it had been the thought of reclaiming Ella’s love that had kept him going … but now she was dead. The sense of loss drained him of all his strength: his senses
swam, he felt weak, he could hardly think, he could hardly breathe. Like a man in a trance, he tried to obey Ella’s last request. He grabbed the wheel and hauled on it, but it refused to budge. Thanks to Selim the mechanism was jammed fast.

But Kondratieff had 4Seen such a problem. Vanka had the key that would prime the firing mechanism hanging on a chain around his neck disguised as a crucifix.

Sweating and cursing, his bowels running to water, Vanka pulled the chain over his head and then scrabbled his fingers around the base of the Column searching for the keyhole. He found the one-inch slot disguised to look like a scar in the stonework and tried to fumble the crucifix into the lock, but he couldn’t, the sweat on his trembling fingers making them slip on the key. Doing his best to remain calm, he made a second attempt to place the key in the lock, but then Billy, sword in hand, materialised beside him, staring down at Vanka as he knelt beside the Column. He was a dead man. He had failed.

‘I don’t know who yo’ are, motherfucker, but I sure know
what
you are, and that’s dead.’ With that Billy Thomas drew back his arm ready to strike.

In that instant Vanka knew everything. Knew who he was and what he was. He also knew that it would be impossible for him to countenance the triumph of a Dark Charismatic like Billy Thomas. The man who had killed Ella could not be allowed to live.

‘Then let me introduce myself. I am ABBA,’ and with that he punched the hand holding the silver crucifix as hard as he was able into Billy’s groin.

Even as the boy crumpled screaming to the floor, Vanka turned back to the Column. Now his hand was rock-steady and he had no trouble in slipping the key into the lock. He twisted it twice and felt rather than heard the vial of acid that primed the detonator crack. The Column exploded. A hot, screaming
gale billowed through the Temple, distorting the walls, stressing the roof-beams, making the whole edifice groan and shudder. And as the avatar that was Vanka Maykov died, so he saw the future more clearly than he ever had. He smiled.

The sound of the explosion that came from the direction of the NoirVille Hub split the night, and the gout of flame that accompanied it turned darkness into red-tinged day.

And as Crowley watched, he knew the explosion signalled that the Lady IMmanual, Doge William
and
Shaka Zulu were dead. Now there was no one with the power to deny the triumph of UnFunDaMentalism. Now all that remained was to place the Column on top of the Great Pyramid.

Hardly able to contain his excitement, he stooped down to look through the observation port and watched as the coast of Terror Incognita edged closer.

‘Decouple propellers and run out anchors,’ he heard the Captain bellow.

This done, there was just the ripple of the river against the Monitor’s sides to disturb the silence.

‘I would be obliged, Captain, if you would signal to SS Colonel Clement that he is to land his troops. And in the mean time, we must busy ourselves with bringing the pontoon ashore.’

Orders given, Crowley stood for a moment gazing out at the dark mystery that was Terror Incognita. He would be the first man ever to conquer it, the first man ever to uncover its secrets, and by doing so he would ensure that UnFunDaMentalism was victorious not just in this world, but in each and every one of the Nine Worlds.

The Kosmos would be his.

The WarJunk
Wu
barely made landfall on Terror Incognita. It was shipping water through the great gouges ripped in its bow and if it hadn’t been for the crew’s valiant pumping the ship would have foundered in mid-river. But thankfully, almost with the last gasp of its boilers the WarJunk shuddered its way into a small bay on the west coast of Terror Incognita. Anchors deployed, Trixie and Wysochi went on deck to see what this strange land had in store for them. The bay was surrounded by tall trees – no nanoBites here, decided Trixie – which pushed right down to the water’s edge, and above them she could see the pinnacle of the Great Pyramid glowing in the moonlight. Terror Incognita was an eerie place: it was totally quiet, just the rustle of the leaves in the breeze invading the silence.