The Demi-Monde: Winter (23 page)

‘I can tell you where Kurt Vangler’s body is buried.’

That little statement turned out to be a real show-stopper. All the remaining colour drained from Burlesque’s face. He was so distressed that he spilt his drink. ‘Shit: ‘ow the ‘ell did yous do that? Fuck me gently, you really is a physicalist ain’t yous?’ He shook his head in bewilderment and emptied the remaining, unspilt Solution down his throat in one loud gulp. This done, Burlesque looked nervously around, checking that there was no one eavesdropping on their conversation, then gave Ella a very hard and very dangerous look. ‘Keep yer voice down, will you? An’ let me tell you sumfink, Miss Thomas, yous wanna be careful, cos knowin’ fings like that can get yous scragged.’

Vanka edged protectively closer to Ella. ‘And you should remember, Burlesque, that us knowing things like that can also get you hanged. Just think, if either Miss Thomas or I were ever to get a surprise visit from the Checkya, what interesting information we could give them in exchange for a reduced sentence.’

From the look on his face that was the last thing Burlesque wanted to think about.

‘That also goes for your talking to your buddy the Witchfinder about things you shouldn’t,’ warned Ella.

This provoked an even deeper scowl.

‘And that’s why it’s so lucky that we’re all such good friends,’ Vanka added with a smile. ‘Now where’s the money you owe us?’

‘Wot money?’

‘Money for the gig and for our expenses.’

‘Wot bleedin’ expenses?’

‘Never you mind, but they’re less than the expenses you’ll incur if I tell Kurt Vangler’s father where his son is buried.’

‘Fuck. Okay, ‘ow much?’

‘For tonight’s performance? Ten guineas plus another ten for expenses.’

If there was one thing that Burlesque hated doing it was parting with money, but the determined glint in Vanka’s eye decided him to pay up. Slowly and reluctantly he counted out nineteen guineas.

‘The deal was for twenty,’ observed Vanka.

‘I ‘ad to deduct a guinea for the curtain the young lady ‘ere used as part ov ‘er costume.’

‘I also know where you disappear to on a Sunday afternoon when your wife thinks you’re counting stock,’ said Ella quietly.

Burlesque quickly decided to add another golden guinea to the pile in front of Vanka. ‘You know, Wanker,’ he mused idly, ‘once word of ‘ow talented this young lady is gets out, you’re – we’re – gonna be able to charge a fortune to attend wun ov your sorries. You knows wot yous wants?’

‘More money to perform in this shithole?’ suggested Vanka.

‘Nah, yous wanna manager, that’s wot yous want.’

And Ella had a horrible feeling just who Burlesque was going to suggest as the ideal candidate for that role.

Into the pre-Containment Demi-Monde came a woman – sometimes cited as being a Shade – called Lilith who was skilled in the dark arts of Vanir magic, Seidr. Lilith used her powers to journey to the furthest reaches of Yggdrasil (also called the Tree of Knowledge) to secure occult powers denied to the Pre-Folk by ABBA. There – at the very edge of Space and Time – Lilith met Loki (also called Satan, and the Trickster) who was so intoxicated by her sexual charms that he revealed to her the Secrets of the Living. Upon her return to the Demi-Monde, Lilith used her new-found powers to stir the base passions of the Pre-Folk to a frenzy, whereupon they lost all sense of racial propriety and wantonly engaged in the sin of miscegenation. Intermingling the seeds of the Pre-Folk and of the UnderMentionables, Lilith employed her occult powers to remodel and remake the people of the Demi-Monde, thus precipitating the Fall.

– talk given by Professeur Michel de Nostredame: Minutes of the Tenth Annual Congress Regarding the Myths and Oral Traditions of the Pre-Confinement Demi-Monde, 1003

Despite all her best efforts Ella could find neither hide nor hair of Norma Williams. She was fast coming to the conclusion that
her mission was a wild goose chase. But in the end, in a roundabout way, Norma Williams found Ella.

That particular lunchtime, two days after her first séance, Ella was sitting in the Prancing Pig, enjoying – if that was the correct word – the dubious food on offer. The Pig wasn’t a particularly salubrious pub but as it was popular with the lascars and the Shades – she hated herself for lapsing into Rookerie-speak – who crewed the barges that plied up and down the Thames, Ella’s skin colour didn’t seem quite so out of the ordinary. Nevertheless she still wore her leather gloves and a broad-brimmed bonnet with a – fortunately – very fashionable veil draped over her face. The veil made eating her sausages a nightmare but anything was better than being noticed by the Checkya.

She had just pushed her disgusting plate of sausage and mash to one side when Vanka bustled in and tossed a thick envelope onto the table. ‘That’s a little thank-you present.’ He sat down and signalled the barmaid for a glass of Solution.

‘A thank-you for what?’ Ella opened the envelope to reveal a NoirVillian passport in the name of Marie Laveau complete with a ForthRight visitor’s visa stamped on the first page.

‘For getting me out of that jam with Morris the other night. If it wasn’t for you he’d have spotted me for sure, and then …’ He trailed off in uncomfortable consideration of how the ForthRight dealt with fraudulent psychics.

‘That’s very kind of you, Vanka.’

‘It’s nothing really, Burlesque’s ten guineas of expense money paid for it and what with Beria promoting his Festival of Friendship with NoirVille, there are so many Shades coming into the ForthRight that slipping one more visa through the system wasn’t that big a deal. Anyway it’ll help explain why you’re wearing a veil: all NoirVillian women wear veils when they’re out in public.’

‘Still, it’s very thoughtful of you.’ Before she quite realised what she was doing Ella had leant forward and kissed him on the cheek.

The reaction wasn’t at all what she expected from a man of the world like Vanka Maykov: he blushed!

For a moment she wondered if he was embarrassed by being kissed by a black girl in public, but from the way he was looking at her she didn’t think so. He raised his fingers to his cheek and touched the spot where Ella had kissed him, then stretched out a hand and gently eased back her veil. ‘Miss Thomas,’ he began in a very serious tone, ‘I should warn you that beautiful young ladies being so free with their affections might find themselves in danger of having those affections reciprocated.’

Their eyes met and Ella felt an oddly pleasant sensation welling up inside her. Oblivious to the crowds pressing around them, she leant forward.

She froze and her eyes widened in terror. ‘Oh, Vanka …’

Vanka spun around in his chair and felt fear trickle down his spine. Even as he watched, four large, black-uniformed and heavily armed SS StormTroopers led by a hard-faced captain barged into the Prancing Pig, two of the StormTroopers peeling off to stand guard on the back entrance to the pub. Then, with legs akimbo and automatic rifles held across their chests they stood glowering at the thirty or so men and women who made up the pub’s lunchtime clientele.

Vanka took a quick look around: there was no way out. They were trapped.

Maybe, he thought, it was just a routine raid but as those were usually conducted by the Militia – the ForthRight’s police force – this, he decided, was infinitely more serious than an ordinary shakedown. Some poor bastard was for the high jump.

His suspicions were confirmed when, at a signal from the captain, a small SS colonel, flanked by ten members of the SS-Ordo Templi Aryanis, strutted in through the door. The SSOrdo Templi Aryanis didn’t do ordinary or routine, they were the crack regiment that made up His Holiness Comrade Crowley’s own personal bodyguard. When Vanka saw that the SS colonel was no less than Archie Clement himself he knew something big was going down, although the adjective ‘big’ was difficult to use in connection with Archie Clement.

He was tiny.

The man the newspapers called ‘Crowley’s Hammer’ was an unprepossessing individual; he looked little more than a boy, not at all the Hero of the Revolution he was billed as. But if the legends about him were to be believed he was an extremely dangerous boy. For the Commander of the SS to be personally supervising a raid on the Prancing Pig meant they were hunting an Enemy of the State.

Vanka darted a look at Ella and his heart sank. He had an awful suspicion just who that Enemy of the State was.

Clement clapped his hands to signal that he wanted silence. ‘Ah am SS Colonel Archie Clement,’ he announced in a drawl of a voice. ‘This here establishment is now under the control of the SS-Ordo Templi Aryanis. You are asked to have your documents ready for inspection.’

‘I don’t care ‘oo the fuck are you, I ain’t finished me grub,’ came the drunken complaint from one of the pub’s patrons, a huge lascar bargee up from NoirVille.

There was a nod from Clement and one of his SS gangsters stepped forward, unclipped a long baton from his belt and proceeded to smash the man to the ground. He kept raining blows down on the bargee’s head until he had stopped twitching and lay silent and broken on the pub’s floor.

‘Does anyone else wanna make a comment?’ asked Clement.

No one said a word.

‘Good. Ah wish to have known to me the psychic who disports himself by the name of Mephisto.’

Vanka felt his spirits sag. To have justified such a high-ranking SS delegation coming in search of him meant that they wanted him very, very badly. Images of being tortured in some SS Hel-hole flashed before Vanka’s eyes but he shooed them away: he had to stay focused.

He gave Ella’s hand a surreptitious squeeze signalling that she should be silent. There was a chance they could bluff their way out: the only other person who knew that Vanka Maykov and Mephisto were one and the same person was Burlesque Bandstand.

At that moment Burlesque barged his way into the Pig looking even more florid-faced than usual. ‘Good afternoon, yer ‘ighnesses, Comrades … Sirs. I am delighted to ‘ave yous honour my establishment wiv your esteemed presence. As yous knows, Comrade Clement, I am always ready to do my duty for the ForthRight so iffn there’s anyfink you might require …’

Clement looked at Burlesque as he might look at something that had just been scraped from the sole of his shoe. ‘Ah’m searching for the psychic known as Mephisto.’

Now there was no chance of Vanka working a bluff. When it came to loyalty to friends, well, Burlesque didn’t have any friends.

‘Oh, in that case then you’ll want to speak to Wanker Maykov.’ Burlesque nodded Clement in their direction.

Bastard.

Clement strode across the room to stand by Vanka’s table. ‘Are you the psychic who performs under the name Mephisto?’ he snarled.

It was useless to deny it. ‘I am,’ said Vanka quietly. He slid his hand under the table and around the butt of the Cloverleaf he had in his belt. He detested violence, but if things got really bent out of shape …

Clement nodded towards Ella, his nostrils twitching as though he was offended by some unpleasant smell. ‘And this Shade: who is she?’ he sneered.

‘This is my PsyChick, Miss Marie Laveau.’

‘Ah didn’t think NoirVillian women were allowed to travel outside their Sector.’

‘She’s from the JAD.’

That was explanation enough: the nuJu Autonomous District was the only place in NoirVille where women were free of HimPerialism’s rabid misogyny.

A sniff from Clement. ‘Black scum ain’t welcome in the ForthRight.’

‘Miss Laveau has a visa to visit the ForthRight,’ interrupted Vanka, thanking the Spirits that Ella now had papers to support her nom de magie. ‘She is here as part of the cross-cultural exchange organised by Vice-Leader Beria to foster a better relationship between the ForthRight and NoirVille.’

Clement spat on the floor. ‘Ah don’t give a damn about Comrade Beria’s good works.’ He turned to the SS captain. ‘Clear the room: only the psychic Mephisto and the Shade girl are to remain.’

‘Wot abart me, yer ‘ighness?’ enquired a grovelling Burlesque.

‘Get out!’ A disgruntled Burlesque and his thirty customers were pushed and shoved out of the pub, leaving Vanka and Ella to the tender mercies of the SS. The pair of them sat waiting for almost ten minutes, sitting in splendid isolation in the centre of the deserted pub with only the silent and sullen SS StormTroopers for company. It all, to Vanka’s mind, seemed a
little odd. As he understood it, usually those arrested by the SS were simply manacled, dragged out to a steamer and then …

Well, there was never any ‘then’: people taken by the SS were never heard of again. Once they were inside the SS stronghold of Wewelsburg Castle their existence was over. They became nonNixes.

A thought struck him: the real oddity was that neither he nor Ella had actually been arrested. In fact Clement had been – by SS standards – remarkably restrained: he hadn’t hit Vanka once. And as he understood it the SS’s usual treatment of Shades – especially young, attractive female Shades like Ella – was a lot more physical than the scowls and the black looks Clement and his men were shooting at the girl.

They hadn’t even searched him.

No, their treatment of him and Ella had been almost respectful.

Strange.

The explanation for this softly-softly treatment came striding through the door of the pub a moment later, when His Holiness the Very Reverend Comrade Crowley swept into the Prancing Pig.

Oh, fuck, thought Vanka, anybody but him.

Crowley: the Demi-Monde’s pre-eminent expert on the occult and all things relating to the Spirit World. Crowley: the most exulted Prophet of UnFunDaMentalism. If there was one person who would be able to spot a scam or a phoney Psychic Practices Licence, it was Aleister Crowley.

Vanka used the opportunity afforded by the distraction Crowley’s entrance caused amongst the SS – he had never seen so much bowing and scraping in his life – to lean towards and whisper in Ella’s ear: ‘That’s Crowley. Call him “Your Holiness”. And be careful, he hates Shades.’