The Demi-Monde: 52nd Day of Winter, 1004
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 seance, 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.’
Crowley looked around the Prancing Pig in disgust. It wasn’t often, Vanka guessed, that someone of so elevated a rank came so close to the ForthRight’s blood poor: normally he would have his steamer’s armoured glass between him and the hoi polloi, but today he was seeing how the have-nots really lived. And despite Burlesque’s best efforts to tart the Pig up, the pub’s back room was still the epitome of poverty chic.
Raising a scented handkerchief to his nose, Crowley held a quiet conversation with Clement, then looked in their direction, threw off his golden cloak and walked across the pub. Immediately Vanka sprang to his feet, made the Party salute and recited ‘Two Nations Forged as One’.
Crowley didn’t even do Vanka the honour of returning the salute. ‘You are the psychic who presided over the seance where that scoundrel Morris was unmasked as a seller of fraudulent Psychic Indulgences?’ he asked, and indicated to one of the StormTroopers that he should be brought a chair.
Vanka’s courage nearly failed him, then with a great effort of will he answered in as casual a voice as his strangled guts would allow: ‘I am, Your Holiness.’
‘And this is the PsyChick, Marie Laveau?’
‘Yes, Your Holiness. She was instrumental in the unmasking of Morris.’
To Vanka’s astonishment he saw that – ABBA only knew how – Ella had managed to unbutton the top buttons of her bodice, revealing her long, slender and very tempting neck. As she was introduced she began to squirm around on her chair like a lovesick schoolgirl, wriggling her remarkable body in a really quite coquettish way. She giggled and simpered and if he hadn’t known her better, Vanka would have been positive that she was making a pass at His Holiness. His Holiness seemed to be of the same opinion.
What the Hel was she playing at?
‘You will instruct her to remove her veil,’ Crowley ordered with a decided catch in his voice.
Artfully, Ella did as she was told, throwing His Holiness several lascivious little glances when her beauty was revealed. She sat there looking simultaneously coy and vampish, batting her huge eyes and looking impossibly sexy. Vanka watched as conflicting emotions danced across Crowley’s face: there was revulsion at being in such close proximity to one of the races UnFunDaMentalism proclaimed to be little better than animals, and then there was lust. Shade or no, Ella was a beautiful woman, and even someone as racially myopic as Crowley appreciated beauty when he saw it.
Lust must have triumphed over revulsion because, amazingly, he demeaned himself to address Ella directly. ‘I am informed by Comrade Colonel Clement that you are in the ForthRight at the behest of Comrade Beria. Am I to presume that you are one of those Shade witches skilled in the WhoDoo arts?’
Ella bobbed in acknowledgement, managing to give her interrogator a disconcerting peek down the front of her bodice as she did so. When she answered, to Vanka’s surprise she adopted the cod-accent of a WhoDooist. ‘Ah am, Your Holiness, ah am de WhoDoo Queen Marie Laveau, de most powerful mambo in de whole of NoirVille. Ah am able to speak wit Papa Legba, de Lord of de CrossRoads, who guards de doorway dat divides de people of de Demi-Monde and de loa, de Spirits of my people. It is Papa Legba who has bestowed upon me mah powers of clairvoyance.’
To Vanka what Ella was spouting sounded like arrant nonsense but it certainly had an impact on Crowley. He sat down in his chair and the quite obscene expression on his face segued into one of respectful caution: something had certainly struck a chord with His Holiness. But he still seemed unconvinced. He turned back to Vanka. ‘I give you a chance to admit that the unmasking of Morris was accomplished through artifice. Admit that you exposed Morris’s villainy by means of trickery and legerdemain rather than by use of occult talents and I will be moved to be lenient.’
Bollocks.
‘Your Holiness, there was no artifice. Miss Laveau has the ability to read the thoughts of all those she touches. For corroboration of this you must speak with your man Tomlinson: he witnessed the seance.’
‘I have spoken to Tomlinson. He has been interviewed rigorously.’
Poor bugger.
Crowley ran a finger idly along the edge of his mildewed teeth as he struggled with a decision. ‘I would like a demonstration of your PsyChick’s ability. I wish to be convinced of her talent as a clairvoyant.’
Now this should be interesting.
‘Then I must counsel you, Your Holiness, that to commune with the Spirit of another, the mambo Laveau must connect with them, flesh against flesh.’
Vanka saw the man’s eyes sparkle as his imagination kicked in. But excited or not at the thought of being flesh against flesh with the beautiful Ella, he still hesitated. It was Ella who – literally – took matters into her own hands. She used a finger to push a wisp of hair back from her face and then began, very theatrically, to strip her leather gloves – slowly, oh so slowly – finger by finger from her hands. It was one of the most erotic acts Vanka had ever seen performed and its effect on the men in the room was electric: every eye was fixed on her. The girl was a born show-woman.
This done, she stretched out her naked hands to Crowley, inviting him to take them in his. Like a man in a trance, he did as he was bade. Immediately Vanka stood up and positioned himself behind Ella, lifting his hands and placing one on each side of her head, his fingertips touching her brows. She let out a low moan. ‘Mah, mah, ah am in communion wit a most powerful soul. Hum, hum, Your Holiness, sah, yous a strong, strong houngan, full of mucho de vitality and de manly essences. Wooo-whee… yous make mah little heart go pit-apat.’
Brilliant.
‘Mambo Laveau,’ crooned Vanka, ‘I command you to journey to the Other Side, to commune with the Spirit World. Are you ready to do this?’
‘Yeeesss, ah is.’
Ella began slowly to roll her head. Gradually the tempo of the rolling increased and as her head rolled so too did the volume of the low moan she was emitting. Suddenly she slumped back in her chair and began to shake, her body quivering in a most extraordinarily exciting fashion. Vanka tore his attention away from the girl’s trembling bosom and back to the job in hand.
‘I am here.’
Even Vanka was startled by the voice that Ella managed to find within her. There was nothing cod-NoirVillian about this accent: it was perfectly enunciated Anglo spoken in an amazingly deep voice. It was certainly not the sort of voice that one would believe could emanate from a girl, even one as tall as Ella. It drew astonished gasps from the SS guards, and out of the corner of his eye Vanka saw Clement raise a grubby hand to make the protective sign of the Valknut across his chest.
‘Who calls me from across the Abyss?’ groaned Ella. ‘Who is the one who disturbs the peace and tranquillity of Aiwass?’
From his long experience in running seances Vanka knew that no matter what happened, no matter how confused events became, no matter what surprises presented themselves, it was vital for the psychic to remain aloof and confident throughout. But even Vanka couldn’t prevent his eyes widening when he heard what Ella said: where the girl was conjuring all this nonsense from he had no idea.
But his reaction was as nothing compared to the effect her words had on Crowley. Even as the name Aiwass was uttered it seemed that the mask of arrogance that decked his face crumbled.
‘Aiwass?’ he muttered.
Again Ella rolled her head but now when she spoke it was as though the words were being unwillingly wrung out of her, as though the uttering of each reluctant syllable was a trial. ‘Yeeeess. I am Aiwass: Minister to Hoor-par-kraat, Keeper of the Great Seal of Horus the Child, and Guardian Angel to those who seek to take up the burden of Truth. I am the One Who Sees.’
‘What do you see?’ asked Crowley in a hoarse voice.
‘That Which Is Yet to Come.’ There was a silence as Ella seemed to struggle with the Spirit possessing her. ‘Who calls Aiwass from the Realm of Shadows?’
‘I call you,’ came the stuttered reply. ‘Aleister Crowley calls you.’
‘I know you, Crowley!’ Ella uttered the name as a strangled scream. There was an immediate shuffling of feet as her SS audience backed away. ‘Behold,’ she gasped as her voice sank so low that it was no more than a whisper. ‘I am your Guardian Angel, sent to guide you on the path of Unification.’ Once again her voice mutated; now the vowels were clipped and ill-pronounced but powerful nevertheless, projecting the animal force of the woman to the corners of the room. ‘Oooooooh… I have been sent from the World Beyond to guide you and to teach you. Heed me. Follow me and I will show you the Way, show you the Way to enlightenment and to resurrection. I hold the keys to the doors which seal the Demi-Monde from the Spirit World.’ More head-rolling, which Vanka thought was a little excessive. ‘You, Aleister Crowley, are destined to lead the Chosen to the Ark of the Reborn, to guide the Children of the Second Coming.’
From somewhere to the side of the room there was a solemn ‘amen’: the SS audience was really getting into the spirit – the Spirits – of what was happening in the room. Ella’s voice rose higher and spittle glistened on her lips.
‘Reject asceticism, let what you will be the whole of the law. Do nothing that restricts you or confines you. Through your guidance, the Demi-Monde will merge with the Spirit World, with the World of Shadows. You have that power in your hand. You have the Spirit Maiden. You have the Daemon.’
‘The Daemon?’ uttered an incredulous Crowley.
‘Yeeeeessssss… the Daemon. You have her in your power but yet you do not know all her secrets. She remains mute and unyielding. She is the great enigma. But I, Aiwass, will help you. It is the will of the Spirits that you understand all. Ask your questions.’
‘What is the Daemon’s name?’
‘She calls herself… she calls herself… Norma.’
An astonished gasp from Crowley.
‘Beware: she is of the highest level. She sits at the left hand of Loki himself. Beware of this Daemon for she is a succubus, sent to trick and deceive. In the Spirit World she is known as Naamah and is one of the most powerful of all the Daemons. Guard her well, Crowley, but do not harm her lest her consort, the fearsome Daemon Asmodai, journeys from the Darkness to take revenge.’ Ella’s voice was now so low as to be almost inaudible. Vanka found himself having to lean forward to better hear what she said.
By the Spirits, she’s good.
‘I, Aiwass, have been sent to guide and protect you. I must commune with Naamah and I must make her cower before your wisdom and your strength. Then and only then will all her secrets be yours.’
‘What secrets?’
‘I know she is the daughter of a Daemon possessed of much power. He is a Daemon who calls himself “the President”. He is powerful, but know you this, Crowley, there are ways in which he can be made your servant, there are ways he can be made to do your bidding. We must tease these secrets from the Daemon… secrets that will allow you to control the Spirit World.’
‘What are these secrets?’ Crowley urged.
‘Ooooooh… the veil between the Spirit World and the Demi-Monde closes… my strength… fails… summon me… again…’ And with that Ella slumped forward across the table as though unconscious.
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant: always leave the mark gagging for more.
‘The Spirit Aiwass has gone, Your Holiness,’ said Vanka as he gently pulled Ella back into her seat. ‘It must have been a most potent Spirit the mambo Laveau was communing with to have drained her so quickly.’
‘Oh, it was, it was.’ Crowley slowly withdrew his hands from Ella’s grip. Then he too sat back in his chair, a look of stunned incredulity on his face. ‘That was remarkable, Mephisto. Your PsyChick is a woman of profound ability. I used all my powers to block her but still she penetrated my psychic defences.’
He twisted around on his chair and signalled that he wanted – needed – a drink. It took the downing of three large glasses of Solution before the colour returned to his cheeks and the confidence into his voice. ‘I wish your PsyChick to have a sitting with a Daemon.’
‘A Daemon?’ Even Vanka couldn’t keep a tremble of apprehension out of his voice. Daemons were meant to be terrible, hideous things that came to the Demi-Monde from out of the darkest depths of Hel.
‘We have captured a particularly powerful Daemon and I wish to use the mambo Laveau’s powers to discover all the Daemon’s secrets and concealments.’
‘Then I must ask the mambo Laveau if she believes her powers to be sufficient to deal with such a mighty Spirit.’
Hearing her cue, Ella mumbled, ‘Water.’
Remarkably it was Archie Clement who played waiter. The sight of an SS colonel waiting on a Shade was one, Vanka decided, that would live with him for a very long time. Ella drained the glass and refreshed, she raised her head and stared in an unfocused sort of way at Crowley. ‘Oh my, yo set me de most mighty of challenges, Your Highness, sah. De Daemons have de great powers and to conquer dem ah must call on all de Spirits to aid me. Man, ah’ll have to call on de Great Lord Bondye to help me and to do dat, Your Holiness, ah must commune wit de Daemon in a hounfo, in a WhoDoo temple.’
‘Is there such a temple in the ForthRight?’
Stupid question. It was Crowley himself who had banned all churches in the ForthRight except those dedicated to the worship of UnFunDaMentalism.
‘No, sah, dere ain’t.’
‘Can this temple be built?’
‘Yes, Your Holiness, if ah am given a room big enough.’
‘Very well. In three days you will come to Dashwood Manor to perform a sitting with the Daemon.’
When Crowley and his SS entourage had swept out of the pub, Burlesque bustled back in and after cursing and swearing about the bottle of Solution that Crowley had drunk but not paid for, he had been at pains to tell Ella that the appearance of the SS had been nothing to do with him. He had obviously taken her warning to heart.
‘I know, Burlesque,’ Ella had reassured him, ‘I know.’
‘So wot did Crowley want?’
‘Crowley wants me to perform a seance at Dashwood Manor.’
‘Dashwood Manor? That’s wun ov them big ‘ouses in Kensington where all the nobs live. Gor, that’s great. I’ll be able to charge fifty guineas.’
‘The seance Crowley is talking about is to be performed before the Leader, Reinhard Heydrich.’ As statements went, Ella knew it was a real revelation. Vanka’s mouth flopped open in astonishment.
‘Heydrich?’ he gasped. ‘Are you sure? How do you know?’
‘I’m a clairvoyant, remember?’
Vanka shook his head, ‘No… not Heydrich… I’m not going anywhere near that fuck… no… bollocks to that.’
Burlesque, by contrast, was enthused. ‘Gor, that’s even greater, that is. The Leader, you say? That trick yous pulled on that Morris bloke musta really got the feathers flying in the Ministry an’ no mistake.’ Burlesque called over to a passing barmaid for a glass of Solution. ‘We’ll be able to arsk a fortune in fees.’
‘Are you fucking insane?’ snarled Vanka, abandoning his usually cool demeanour. ‘Perform a seance for Heydrich? If there’s even a hint of trickery then we’ll be arrested on the spot.’
Burlesque wasn’t listening. ‘Maybe I should ask a century, wot wiv it bin the Leader an’ all.’
‘I don’t care if they’re offering a thousand fucking guineas. I can’t spend it if I’m banged up in Wewelsburg Castle hanging from the ceiling by my scrotum, now can I?’ Vanka shook his head even more firmly. ‘No, I’m not doing it. I’ve one rule in my life and that’s to keep as much distance between myself and those fucking…’ His instinct for self-preservation kicked in: he gave a quick look around to make sure there was no one in the pub listening to what he was saying. ‘… lunatics who run the ForthRight as is humanly or, in their case, as is inhumanly possible.’ He shoved his half-finished glass of Solution across the table. It seemed his thirst had suddenly deserted him. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me I’ve got to get home urgently.’
‘Wot? But we’ve got fings to discuss, Wanker, like wot share ov the takings I’m getting. As your manager…’
‘Fuck your discussions, Burlesque, I’m going home to pack.’
‘Pack? Where yous goin’?’
‘A place called Somewhere-Else-In-The-Demi-Monde.’
‘Ah, don’t be like that, Wanker. I’d ’ave thought you’d ‘ave bin pleased.’ Burlesque took a stone-cold sausage off Ella’s plate and gave it a ruminative gnaw. ‘Iffn Miss Ella here can do the business wiv a Daemon, well, the sky’s the limit. We’ll be able to charge…’
‘Are you totally fucking crackers, Burlesque? Can you imagine the amount of shit we’re going to be in if our seance goes wrong in front of Comrade Leader Heydrich?’
‘Yeah, but fink abart it, Wanker: wot iffn it goes right! I can see the handbill now. “Burlesque Bandstand Entertainments proudly presents, by royal…”‘ He stopped. ‘Nah, I can’t use the word “royal”, the Party’s still twitchy.’ He paused to scratch his groin, presumably, Ella decided, searching for inspiration. ‘That’s it: “by Imperial Warrant: Wanker Maykov an’ the Amazing Miss Marie Laveau, the Demi-Monde’s Foremost Physicalists”. You’ll be a star, Wanker. Make a fortune we will: twenty guineas an ‘ead we could charge to attend wun ov your sorries, no problem.’
‘I’m not doing it.’
‘I think we should, Vanka.’
The two men turned to look at Ella. Men in the ForthRight weren’t accustomed to being interrupted by women, especially when they were discussing business.
‘Now yous talkin’ sense, Miss Thomas.’
‘Under no circumstances,’ Vanka continued to protest.
‘I need to, Vanka,’ insisted Ella. ‘It might be the only way I have of finding the friend of mine I was telling you about, the one who is missing.’
Vanka shot Ella a venomous look and when he answered his voice had a distinct edge to it. ‘No way. We’ve created far too big a stink as it is. The last thing you want to do is attract more attention. You start being paraded around in front of Heydrich and the Checkya will nab you for sure, and if they nab you, they’ll nab me.’
‘Is that your final word, Vanka?’ said Ella in an equally determined voice.
‘Damned right it is.’
‘Then I’ll do it without you,’ she said quietly.
The mouths of the two men flopped open. ‘You can’t do it without me,’ protested Vanka.
‘Oh, yessen she can,’ interjected Burlesque quickly. ‘I’ve seen ‘er. She don’t need yous, Wanker. I’ll get you a new assistant, Miss Thomas…’
Vanka glared at Burlesque, obviously angered by the abrupt way he’d been demoted from ‘star’ to ‘assistant’.
‘… maybe even a new frock. That old bit ov curtain ain’t suitable for a Star like wot yous will be.’
‘Wait a minute, Burlesque. Ella here is my assistant. This is my act.’
Burlesque shrugged his protests aside. ‘Times change, Wanker. Opportunities like wot this is don’t come around very often and when they does, they’ve gotta be grabbed wiv both ‘ands. Gor, I can see it now, Miss Thomas ‘ere playing the Palladium.’
Burlesque lapsed into a lucrative daydream, leaving Ella to deal with a scowling Vanka. ‘Vanka, it’s a great opportunity. We’ve got to do it. I need your showmanship, Vanka; I need you to work the audience.’
Vanka shook his head. ‘I can’t, Ella, there might be people there, people I don’t want to meet.’
The penny dropped: now Ella understood Vanka’s reluctance. ‘For the love of God… for the love of ABBA,’ she quickly corrected herself, ‘there are people I don’t want to meet either.’ Wasn’t that the truth: the prospect of being in the same room as Reinhard Heydrich certainly wasn’t flipping her bananas. ‘But that’s not a problem, Vanka. I’ve been thinking about how we could spice up our act and I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to be a bit more theatrical. You’re already been billed as Mephisto so no one will know your real name and if we come on stage wearing masks…’
‘Masks?’ asked Vanka incredulously. ‘Like they wear in the Quartier Chaud?’
‘Yes, that way no one will be able to recognise either of us.’
‘I like the idea of making your act a bit more theatrical,’ mused Burlesque. ‘We could ‘ave a coupla birds wiv really big charms wandering around in the…’
‘Shut up, Burlesque,’ snapped Ella, and to her amazement, that’s just what he did. ‘I need you, Vanka, I need you to help me design a trick so big that no one will ever imagine that it is a trick.’ Ella suddenly became aware that Burlesque was hanging on her every word. ‘I need you to help me design the temple, the hounfo.’
‘Wot’s a hounfo? ’ asked a suddenly nervous Burlesque. ‘Is it expensive?’
An hour later Ella and Vanka – having left a half-pissed and very happy Burlesque asleep in the Pig – were sitting back in Vanka’s rooms.
Vanka had lapsed into a fretful silence as though he knew what he should do, but couldn’t bring himself to actually do it. It took half a bottle of Solution and nearly an hour’s worth of dark brooding before he pulled himself out of his mood. ‘Is this Daemon – the one Crowley was talking about – the one you want to take back to NoirVille?’ he asked.
There was no point in lying. ‘Yes, I got that much out of Crowley. He was a tough one to read and he blocked most of his mind off to me, but I found out about the Daemon and one or two other bits and pieces of useful information. The main thing though is that Crowley has given me a golden opportunity to rescue the Daemon.’
‘So come on, tell me: why is it so all-fired important that you abduct this Daemon? Are you mixed up with the Blood Brothers? Are they making you do this? Do they want the Daemon back in NoirVille so they can milk it of its blood?’
Ella sighed. ‘It’s too difficult to explain, Vanka. All I can tell you is it’s something I have to do; I have to help the Daemon escape Crowley and take her to NoirVille.’
‘I don’t like this, Ella. I think all this milking of Daemons is wrong.’
‘Vanka… please… you’ll just have to trust me: this has got nothing to do with stealing the Daemon’s blood. I don’t mean the Daemon any harm, quite the contrary in fact. But I do need your help to rescue her.’
Vanka shook his head. ‘It’s madness, you know. To kidnap a Daemon from under the nose of Heydrich is… madness. And even if you succeed, the SS will hunt you down.’
‘The Demi-Monde is a big place. And once I get to NoirVille I intend to disappear.’
Wasn’t that the truth?
‘Yeah, but anyone helping you will have to disappear too. They’ll need a new name, a new identity, a new home, a new life. To evade the SS will cost a lot of money. It’ll take a fortune in bribes and hush money.’
‘How much?’
He shrugged. ‘I dunno. Probably half a million guineas.’
‘Vanka, how would you like to earn a million guineas?’ enquired Ella quietly.
Vanka looked up from the doleful consideration of his near-empty glass of Solution. ‘A million guineas?’ He laughed. ‘No one’s got a million guineas. That’s more money than in all of the ForthRight.’
‘No it isn’t. The Ministry of Psychic Affairs has over fifteen million guineas to its credit in the Blood Bank in Berlin.’
‘You learnt that while you were holding Crowley’s hands, didn’t you?’ There was a distinct flavouring of admiration in Vanka’s voice.
‘Correct. I now know all the Ministry’s bank account details, all the passwords they use to access it… everything. I could clean out their account like that.’ She snapped her fingers.
‘Then why are you telling me this?’ asked Vanka suspiciously.
‘Why aren’t you down at the Bank now, making yourself a very rich woman?’
‘Because I need your help. I need your help to make that Daemon vanish from Dashwood Manor.’
‘A million guineas?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Just tell me why you put on that act with Crowley. Why did you vamp him?’
‘Crowley is suspicious of me so I acted out what he expected me to be: a pantomime WhoDoo mambo. It worked too: he just dismissed me as a brainless, oversexed Shade. And a man who’s thinking what it would be like to jump my bones ain’t thinking about the things he should be thinking about.’ She gave Vanka a grin. ‘I thought I vamped him pretty good: what do you think?’
‘I think you could… well, never mind what I think.’
For five minutes Vanka strode up and down the shabby room lost in thought. Finally he turned to Ella. ‘Okay, Miss Thomas, you’ve got a deal.’
Ella leapt up out of her chair, threw her arms around Vanka’s neck and pressed her lips firmly against his.
It was Vanka who broke away. He gave Ella a sideways look. ‘Remember, Ella, I’m only human.’
And that, Ella decided, was the big problem.