The Demi-Monde: 55th Day of Winter, 1004
The afterglow of Seidr ritual and of Lilithian worship is found in the WhoDoo magic practised by the mambos of NoirVille. Being so heavily suffused by Lilithian folklore, WhoDoo magic is a strongly sexual magic. Mambos (and all of the most powerful practitioners of WhoDoo are female) believe that the interregnum dividing the Spirit World from the Demi-Monde is most readily traversed when the body and the soul conjoin at orgasm. To the WhoDoo mambo at the point of orgasm all things magical are possible because that is the moment when they commune, albeit briefly, with ABBA, or as the WhoDooists know him, the Great Lord Bondye.
– Religions of the Demi-Monde: Otto Weininger, University of Berlin Publications
‘So waddya fink, Wanker? Fucking big, innit?’
For once in his life Burlesque Bandstand was guilty of under-statement. The hounfo wasn’t big, it was huge. When Vanka had designed it never for the life of him had he thought it would turn out to be so monumental. It was one thing, he had discovered, to put measurements down on a piece of paper but it was quite another to see those measurements conjured up in wood and steel. Black and menacing, the hounfo took up over half of Dashwood Manor’s massive ballroom, the floor area of which must have measured a hundred feet by fifty. It was the biggest piece of flim-flam the Demi-Monde had ever seen.
‘Yeah, it’s big all right.’
‘Sumwun wos saying they thought it wos the biggest illusion thingy ever built in the Demi-Monde.’
‘How many times have I got to tell you, Burlesque, not to say it’s an illusion? It’s a hounfo, a temple dedicated to the practising of WhoDoo magic. I don’t want it called an illusion.’
‘Yeah, all right, Wanker. No need to get yer knickers in a twist. Only me an’ yous and, ov course, Miss Ella know it’s an illusion…’ a withering look from Vanka, ‘… a hounfo. The lads who built it didn’t ‘ave a clue wot it is, ‘cept, that is, for Alf and Sid an’ they’ve got to know ‘cos they’re working the levers. But go on, tell us wot yous fink, Wanker. Me and the lads ain’t done bad, ‘ave we?’
In Vanka’s judgement Burlesque and his gang of workmen had done very well indeed. In the space of a day they’d built something quite remarkable. But then, he supposed, the half-million guineas Ella had promised Burlesque for his help in freeing the Daemon bought a lot of enthusiasm.
The hounfo was made up of two forty-foot-long, ten-foot-high wooden walls arranged in a ‘V’ shape, with the widest, open part of the delta formed by the walls extending from one side of the ballroom to the other and the delta’s point almost touching the furthest end of the ballroom, where the room’s windows looked out onto the Manor’s grounds. It was within the open space enclosed by the arrowed walls of the hounfo that that evening’s seance would be performed.
‘No, you’ve done a good job, Burlesque: I’m impressed.’
Burlesque beamed. ‘But do you fink it’ll fool the nobs?’
‘It might,’ was all Vanka could bring himself to say.
He knew he was right to be cautious. Despite the strange emblems and decorations that Ella had had daubed over the hounfo and the black netting covering the walls it was still just a piece of stage magic writ large. He had the feeling that any illusionist worth his salt would see through the flim-flam in an instant. And Aleister Crowley was a master magician. All Vanka could hope was that its sheer immensity would persuade Crowley that it was simply too big to be just a prop in a vanishing act.
He began a slow walk around the structure, pushing and shoving at the walls as he went, testing them for strength. ‘I never thought it would look this big,’ he admitted, ‘or this strange.’
He gave the hounfo a kick. The walls were so heavy – it had taken five steamers to deliver all the timber used in its construction – that it didn’t even vibrate when he booted it. But was it enough to fool Crowley?
If Crowley should suspect for an instant…
There had already been one heart-stopping moment when Crowley and Archie Clement had come snooping around earlier that afternoon, but fortunately that had been before the hounfo had been fully erected. After that Vanka had made bloody damned sure that the ballroom door was locked and he had spread the rumour that anyone who came near it before the seance would be cursed by the mambo Laveau. There had been no more snoopers.
Vanka rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, it might just do. And all this WhoDoo mumbo-jumbo Ella’s tricked the place out in is a distraction.’ He nodded towards the cabbalistic designs painted over the black walls of the hounfo. ‘And, of course, it’ll be evening and we’ll have the lights turned low.’
‘Miss Ella tells me she’s planning to ‘ave a couple of braziers at the sides of the ballroom burning stuff that gives off a lot of smoke.’
‘That’s good thinking. Lots of smoke and mirrors, that’s what we need.’ Vanka stopped alongside the gate that was hinged midway along the right-hand wall of the hounfo. ‘If you would close the left-hand gate, Burlesque, I want to check that the gates meet in the middle.’
The two of them pulled the gates closed, Vanka surprised by how easily the ten-foot-tall gates swung on their hinges. They met perfectly, enclosing the pointed part of the WhoDoo temple from midway along the hounfo’s walls. Now Burlesque stood in the triangular space formed on the inside of the gates and Vanka stood on the outside, but even with the gates closed they could see each other clearly through the gaps between the thick wooden bars. What had Ella said? The gates reminded her of a gigantic version of the picket fence that had surrounded her grandmother’s front yard. Vanka had trouble imagining a district where there was so much space that ordinary people could have gardens.
They reopened the gates and set them back ready for the evening’s performance. Vanka gave the hounfo a final pat and stepped back to admire the construction. ‘Yeah, I think it’ll do, Burlesque. It’s big enough to awe even the most dubious of cynics and clever enough to fox even the most hardened of disbelievers, including, I hope, Aleister Crowley. We’ll put the altar as far in as we can, right back hard against the pointed end of the temple.’ He glanced around the room yet again making sure that, except for him, Burlesque and Ella, the ballroom was empty. ‘That’ll make the vanishing easier.’
‘I can’t wait to see the punters’ faces when yous an’ the Daemon disappear inna puff ov smoke.’
‘I wouldn’t hang around too long after we disappear, Burlesque. Chances are Heydrich will be a little bent out of shape when he finds his prize Daemon has done a runner.’
‘Don’t worry abart me, Vanka. Me an’ the Witchfinder are like that.’ He showed Vanka a pair of crossed fingers. ‘They ain’t never gonna believe that their mate Burlesque Bandstand ‘ad anyfink to do wiv it.’
Vanka kept his face as bland as he was able: he found Burlesque’s optimism almost unbelievably naive. ‘I hope you’re right, Burlesque, I hope you’re right.’ He gave the hounfo another pat. ‘You know, this will make an amazing swansong to the career of Vanka Maykov: Licensed Psychic.’
‘Wossa “swansong”, Wanker?’
‘Burlesque still hasn’t twigged just how pissed off Heydrich’s going to be,’ said Vanka as he came up alongside Ella. She was staring out of one of the windows at the rear of the ballroom, watching the SS troopers marching up and down in the garden.
‘Oh, don’t worry about Burlesque, Vanka, he’ll be all right. He’s done so much work for the Witchfinder he’s practically a member of the SS. They won’t punish one of their own for the Daemon disappearing. Anyway once I get to a Blood Bank he’ll have half a million guineas to compensate him for any aggravation they might give him.’
‘I just hope we survive to get to a Bank. To my mind making the Daemon disappear is the easy part: escaping through that gate is the real problem.’
Through the ballroom’s windows Ella could see what he meant. Neither she nor Vanka, even in their wildest imaginings, had anticipated that the Daemon would be quite so well protected. The gardens were crawling with black-uniformed SS troopers, these goons supplemented by a detachment of redcoated regular soldiers. And as the only exit to the outside world seemed to be via the very heavy and very heavily guarded gate they’d passed through when they’d arrived that morning, the inevitable conclusion Ella was coming to was that escaping with Norma Williams would not be easy.
Scratch ‘would not be easy’ and substitute ‘would be nigh on impossible’.
So it was little wonder that Vanka was so concerned. As he had so succinctly put it when he had first seen Dashwood Manor, Ella was giving him ‘a terrific chance to be the richest fucking dead man in the whole of the fucking Demi-Monde’.
Ella felt Vanka shuffle awkwardly.
‘We haven’t got a prayer, you know,’ he said in a conversational sort of way. ‘I thought the Daemon would be guarded, but this is ridiculous. It must be the presence of Heydrich that’s got them spooked. There’s a small army garrisoned here.’
‘We’re going to have surprise on our side, Vanka,’ she suggested encouragingly.
Vanka’s expression turned to one of disbelief. ‘Surprise, Ella? We could have total fucking bewilderment on our side for all the fucking difference it’s going to make. If this hounfo of mine works correctly and if we are able to wriggle through a window without being spotted we’ve still got to run fifty yards across a wide-open lawn that’s guarded by a hundred or so of the best troops in the ForthRight and if, by some miracle, we manage to do that’ – a nod towards the gate leading to the world beyond the Manor – ‘we’ve still got to find a way to vault over a fifteen-foot gate.’
Ella was determined to remain upbeat. ‘It’ll be dark by then.’
‘I don’t want to be a party pooper, Ella, and correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is that it’s fucking difficult to see in the dark. So difficult that I would give good odds on us all finding ourselves pitching arse over tit into one of the trenches these SS bastards have dug or getting entangled in the barbed wire these sods have been so enthusiastic about spreading around the garden.’
Ella had never heard Vanka so pessimistic and she found his mood affecting hers. ‘Do you think we should call it off?’
Vanka laughed ironically. ‘Nah. Life’s too short to pass up the opportunity to piss Crowley off as much as you intend to. Anyway, a million guineas is a million guineas. Don’t worry: something will turn up, it always does.’
Trixie left the morning room in a state of shock. She had started the day as a schoolgirl, the daughter of a high-ranking and highly respectable member of the Party, a girl who expected her life to proceed in a well-ordered and predictable manner. She looked to be ending it as a fugitive, with her father arrested for being a counter-revolutionary and a Royalist, and with her safety – even her continued existence – depending on a Polak who was an admitted spy and would-be assassin.
It was almost too much to bear.
It was as though she had wandered into a nightmare. Drained and bemused, all she felt like doing was sleeping and crying. When she reached the sanctuary of her bedroom the temptation to throw herself onto her bed and abandon herself to despair was almost overwhelming, but something stopped her. In that moment Lady Trixiebell Dashwood: schoolgirl and closet RaTionalist, mutated into Trixie Dashwood: resolute young woman.
With an act of will she took all her misery and all her heartbreak and sealed them up inside a ball of hate. It was Heydrich and the ForthRight who were intent on killing her and her father and she swore that she would have her revenge on them.
And those seeking revenge had no use for regret or remorse, no use in squandering time and energy on ‘if onlys’. Her old life was dead – gone – and if she was to have a new life then her first task was to survive. And to survive she had to be strong. She would never cry again.
She stood up straight and threw back her shoulders, then, with a determined nod to herself in the mirror, went to her wardrobe and pulled a box from the bottom shelf. Inside was the costume she had worn in the Academy’s 1003 Spring Eve drama production performed in celebration of the Party’s defeat of the Royalists during the Troubles. Entitled ‘Forward to Victory’, Trixie had played the villain of the piece – a Royalist soldier – and as such she’d had to wear a uniform. It had been the first time she had ever worn trousers and, despite the rather spiteful teasing she’d endured from the other girls, she had thought them eminently practical. And if ever she was in need of a costume that was both practical and a good disguise it was tonight.
She hauled herself into the black serge pants and strapped on the boots she wore when the RightNixes went on their ‘Winter Walks’ into the Hub. She completed her outfitting by donning a thick woollen sweater and an old, but very serviceable, shooting jacket. Then, having packed a small haversack with one or two precious pieces – under no circumstances was she leaving the wedding daguerreotype of her parents for the SS crows to pick over – a change of clothes and a purse of golden guineas, she settled down to wait for Captain Dabrowski.
And as she sat she wondered what her new life in the Warsaw Ghetto would be like. The comfortable, pampered life she had enjoyed in this house was over and a new one, a much harder one, was beginning. She didn’t know a lot about the Ghetto except that it was the sinkhole of the ForthRight: it was where all the unclean races – the Poles, the nuJus and, ugh, the Shades – were confined, where all the mongrels – the reviled mixlings – hid themselves, where the HerEticals, Royalists, RaTionalists, Suffer-O-Gettes, ImPuritans, HimPerialists and all the rest of the disaffected and the just plain lunatic had scuttled off to in an attempt to avoid the attention of the Checkya. It was a cesspit where all of the ForthRight’s shit was dumped.
It was most certainly not a place where a respectable young woman ventured. Trixie laughed: she wasn’t a respectable young woman any more. If she was captured she would be charged with Complicity in the Execution of Crimes Against the State and that would mean she forfeited all rights as a citizen of the ForthRight. She would be nonNix, just like Lillibeth Marlborough. But the difference between her and Lillibeth was that the Checkya had caught Lillibeth. And if there was one thing of which Trixie was certain, it was that the Checkya would never take her… not alive anyway.
The seance was scheduled for eight that evening.
Vanka checked his watch: there was less than an hour to showtime. As he strapped his mask over his face, he took a deep breath, trying to settle his jangling nerves.
He felt Ella snake her hand through his arm and when he turned towards her he found himself being given the broadest of reassuring smiles. He wasn’t reassured. He was beyond being reassured. But, by the Spirits, she was beautiful. He stopped himself. Surely, he wasn’t doing this because…
He shook his head: Vanka Maykov didn’t do love.
‘I like your mask, Vanka, very dashing. Do you like my makeup?’
‘You look lovely, Ella,’ he admitted. Even swathed in a neck-to-ankle, all-enveloping black cloak she looked lovely. Even with her face daubed with really quite outrageous stage make-up she looked lovely. Even wearing that strange half-mask she looked lovely.
‘There’s time for one final check,’ Ella said and kissed him on the cheek. The kiss and the sensation of that deliciously soft body pressed against his sent shivers of excitement coursing through him. He wished she’d stop doing that: whenever she kissed him he stopped thinking straight. In desperation Vanka turned his attention to the hounfo and, looking at it in the shadowed half-light of the ballroom, he began to believe that maybe, just maybe they could pull this stunt off.
Dressed in shadows and black netting, the hounfo looked ominous, just like Vanka imagined a temple dedicated to the celebrating of WhoDoo magic should. It was an effect enhanced by the lighting Ella had insisted on using: the ballroom’s gas candelabras were turned down to their lowest setting and limelights had been used to flood the bottom of the walls. It looked decidedly sinister and decidedly spooky.
Which, Vanka supposed, was the whole point.
The sound of loud and insistent hammering from the back of the hounfo brought Vanka out of his reverie. ‘Is everything all right back there, Burlesque?’ he shouted.
‘Yus,’ said Burlesque Bandstand as he appeared from behind the hounfo where he’d been making what he called ‘last-minute adjustments’, which appeared to necessitate him hitting things very hard with a big hammer. ‘Everyfing’s right as ninepence, Wanker. Straight as a die.’ He wiped his oil-blackened hands on the arse of his trousers and leered at Ella. ‘Nice mask, Miss Ella. Iffn you’re innerested I knows a coupla punters who’d pay good money for a bird who’ll dress up like that an’-’
‘Do you remember your instructions?’ interrupted Vanka.
‘Yus. ‘Cors I does. First Miss Ella shouts out “Lord Bondye ‘as come”, then I let off the bangers and Sid and Alf throw the levers. An’ then I just stand around lookin’ all innocent when the dust ‘as settled and they twig that you two ‘ave ‘ad it away on your toes wiv the Daemon.’ A frown crossed Burlesque’s brow, and his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Yous got the details ov my bank account in Venice all snug, ain’t cha, Miss Ella?’
‘I have, Burlesque, and as soon as I’m able I’ll transfer your money.’
Burlesque beamed.
‘Excellent,’ muttered Vanka.
The three of them stood for a couple of minutes in silent consideration of the hounfo and what they were about to do… to try to do. Their musings were interrupted by an unexpected visitor.
‘Most impressive,’ sneered a voice from the back of the ballroom.
All three of them jumped in surprise. The doors of the ballroom were locked: Vanka had seen Ella lock them behind her. No one was meant to be able to get into the ballroom.
But Aleister Crowley had.
Crowley, dressed in his ceremonial robes, appeared out of the darkness and gestured towards the hounfo. ‘I had no idea that WhoDoo hounfos were quite so profound.’
Disturbed though Vanka was by Crowley’s sudden material-isation, he didn’t miss a beat. ‘Good evening, Your Holiness. A hounfo of this size is needed because, as the subject for tonight’s seance is a Daemon, it is important that all the astral energy the mambo Laveau conjures is concentrated. That is the purpose of this hounfo: it better enables her to commune with the loa – the good Spirits – and so encourage them to possess her body. The loa are needed to aid her to dominate the Daemon’s will.’ As Crowley edged closer to the hounfo, Vanka could feel his heart starting to flutter. If he made too close an examination of their box of tricks, he would be sure to spot its none-too-subtle secrets. Vanka gave Ella a quick, anxious glance and then, remembering the rigmarole she had taught him about WhoDoo magic, he did his best to distract the man. ‘The hounfo also keeps out the djabs and the baka, the devils and the evil Spirits that are associated with Daemons,’ he said at a rush.
Unfortunately Crowley didn’t seem to be of a mind to be distracted.
‘Is that important? Surely a mambo of Miss Laveau’s power won’t be troubled by evil Spirits?’ Crowley mused as he tested one of the gates.
Please…
It was Ella – or rather Ella in her role of Marie Laveau – who saved the day. ‘If any ov dem mischievous baka mount me, Yous Holiness,’ she said in a very dusky voice, ‘den dere ain’t no telling what will happen.’
Crowley paused in his examination of the hounfo and turned to look at Ella. ‘Mount you?’
Ella nodded. ‘Sure ting, Yous Holiness. Dat’s what it’s called when de bad baka take possession of a serviteur like me. But as ah’m up against a Daemon tonight ah need to conjure de Great Lord Bondye himself to help me and to do dat ah’ve gotta look mah best. De trouble with looking mah best is dat if a baka was to see me he might be liking a taste ov some ov what ah’ve got on offer. That’s why I need a hounfo to protect me.’
Crowley’s interest in the hounfo faltered: he eyed Ella carefully. ‘And what would happen if you were possessed by one of these baka?’
She dropped her eyes as though embarrassed. ‘Well, wit you being such a mighty mystic, Yous Holiness, yous know dat de most powerful incantations are made when dere is a lot of sexual energy in de air. Dat’s what ah’ve got to do tonight… rouse de desires of de Spirits.’
‘Why?’ asked Crowley, his voice having risen an octave or two.
Again the coy lowering of Ella’s gaze; the girl was such a tease. ‘WhoDoo magic is de magic ov sex. De union between de Spirit World and de Demi-Monde is best made when de body and de soul are conjoin at orgasm. To be a mambo you gotta search fo’ de constant, de unfailing, de eternal orgasm.’
Vanka pulled at his collar. By ABBA, it’s getting hot in here.
‘So yous see, Yous Holiness, iffn an evil baka was to take me… well, there’s no knowing what ah might do.’
‘And how do you intend to rouse the desires of the Spirits?’ There was more than a hint of excitement in Crowley’s voice.
Ella reached up and unhooked the tie that held her cloak. The cloak sighed to the floor, revealing Ella – or, more accurately, the mambo Marie Laveau – in all her glory.
The three men stood stock-still examining the vision of loveliness that stood before them. Vanka had seen such costumes when he’d been to some of the more risque revues in the Quartier Chaud but he’d never thought any woman in the ForthRight would be brave enough to wear one.
Ella’s costume was remarkable more for what it showed than for what it hid. The black chiffon material flowed over her long, stunning body like a dark mist. From what he could see in the half-light, the costume consisted of a loose dress gathered around Ella’s waist by a five-inch-thick black leather belt. That the chiffon was virtually transparent and that she seemed to be naked beneath it was unsettling enough, but the slits cut artfully into the dress meant that most of her legs and a considerable part of the rest of her body were uncovered. There was a lot of firm young flesh on display, flesh which Ella had decorated with strange symbols and images of snakes drawn in thick black ink.
The ephemeral fabric of the costume left no doubt as to the wonders concealed – partially concealed – beneath. For a moment Vanka wondered whether he should play the gentleman and avert his eyes.
Fuck that.
Crowley had no such reservations: he stepped closer in order to get a better look at Ella. ‘You are a remarkably beautiful woman, Miss Laveau,’ he oozed, his voice thick with lust, ‘and I can see why these baka of yours would try to possess you. You look positively… Lilithian.’
Lilith.
Crowley was right. When Vanka thought about it the way Ella was dressed did remind him of the pictures he’d seen of Lilith. Lilith was meant to have been the most powerful, the most evil woman who had ever walked the Demi-Monde and she’d been a Shade too. He wondered if Ella had adopted the guise of Lilith deliberately. That was when he remembered that she’d pretended to channel Lilith during their first seance.
Funny he’d never thought of it before.
Crowley edged nearer to Ella. ‘You confirm to me that your race, being more brutal and bestial than the Anglo-Slav people, is more closely in tune with the earthier appetites that DemiMondians are sometimes – unfortunately – prey to. And this pandering to these inclinations, as you so rightly say, is vital in the performance of magic. My own investigations have led me to the conclusion that magic is fuelled by sexual energy and I sense an enormous erotic potential in you, Miss Laveau.’ He stretched out a hand and drifted a finger across Ella’s right breast. ‘You have the Mann rune drawn here. Why?’
‘De Mann rune,’ breathed Ella, as Crowley’s fingers orbited her nipple, ‘is de sign ov sensual, erotic love and ov de wearer being one who indulges in de most dissolute sex. Tonight, to conjure de Great Lord Bondye, ah must show him ah am ready to pay for his services. And Great Lord Bondye always demands de use of mah body as payment.’
This Bondye’s no fool, decided Vanka.
Crowley swallowed hard. ‘Perhaps, after the performance, we might meet to discuss WhoDoo magic further?’
Ella curtsied. ‘Dat would be mah honour and mah pleasure, Your Holiness. A mambo like me is always ready to commune wit a powerful magician like yous.’
With that a very red-faced Crowley swept out of the ballroom.
When the door had shut behind him, Ella began to giggle. ‘By the Spirits, he had me worried there. He got a little too close to the hounfo for comfort.’ She giggled again. ‘But then it’s always so easy to distract men!’ She smiled at Vanka and Burlesque and gave them a twirl. ‘So guys, what do you think of my outfit?’
‘Nice tits,’ was Burlesque’s verdict.
The knock on the door of Trixie’s bedroom came just before eight o’clock. When she unlocked it and peeped outside she saw Captain Dabrowski standing there. He examined her.
‘Excellent. Maybe you’re not as stupid as I thought. The trousers are good and the boots look very practical.’ He handed her a cap. ‘If you would push your hair up under this, I think we will have a better chance of passing you off as a soldier.’
‘A soldier?’ asked Trixie as she quickly pinned her long hair up and covered it with the cap.
‘You’re very popular with my men, Miss Dashwood; they think you’re very good-looking. So to avoid you being recognised it’s best that we try to smuggle you out disguised as my batman. You’ll need this as well.’ The Captain handed Trixie a leather holster which, when she unbuckled its flap, she found to be holding a small Colt revolver.
‘I have no use for this,’ she announced.
‘This is no time for feminine niceties, Miss Trixie. You must learn to protect yourself.’
‘Oh, believe me, Captain, I understand that. It’s just that I have no use for such a small-calibre revolver.’ She pulled back her jacket to show the huge Mauser she had holstered on her belt. ‘When I shoot at the SS, Captain Dabrowski, I intend to kill them, not frighten them.’
‘Have you ever used a pistol before?’
With a deftness that belied her soft, delicate fingers Trixie pulled her revolver from its holster, snapped it open and checked that it was loaded. ‘Yes, I can fire a pistol, Captain. My father considers me quite the sharpshooter.’
‘Good. Just remember, if things go badly don’t hesitate to shoot. But if I were you, I’d be inclined to save the last bullet for myself. Now, if you’re ready…’
Vanka stood in front of the hounfo, waiting for the audience to arrive, desperately trying to calm himself, to still the trembling in his hands and stop himself conjuring up images of Checkya torture chambers. It was too late now for something to turn up. He was a dead man.
How could Vanka Maykov, the cat who always walked by himself, have got himself into such a dangerous muddle? It was all Ella’s fault. Everything had started to go wrong the moment she’d entered his life. He tried to stop thinking about her, to concentrate on the job in hand; the thought of her in that costume didn’t do anything for his peace of mind.
Ella.
Ella who was now crouched on the floor in the middle of the hounfo completely covered by her cloak. Boy, was the audience in for a surprise.
A wisp of acrid smoke tugged at his nostrils: it was a horrible smell that tickled at the back of his throat. Burlesque had lit the two braziers set up in the ballroom and heaped on dried leaves from a plant Ella called epimedium. Vanka had never heard of the stuff but it was making his head swim, as was the rhythm the drummers were beating out from up in the minstrels’ gallery. ABBA only knew where Burlesque had conjured these maniacs from but they were playing their drums VERY LOUDLY. Ella called the music – music? – she had written for them rada music and said it was a vital ingredient in WhoDoo rituals. Vanka had his own name for it.
He didn’t know how much longer he could handle this unrelenting assault on his senses. He gave his head a shake but couldn’t seem to drive away the fug that was clouding his mind and if ever there was a time to remain sharp-witted, this was it.
Suddenly the doors of the ballroom crashed open: their audience had arrived and it was an august audience at that. Even as he bowed his greeting, Vanka spotted Heydrich, Crowley, Clement, Beria…
Beria.
Foul up tonight and Beria would ensure that his days on the Demi-Monde were very short.
Very short but unbelievably fucking painful.
Striding arrogantly into the hall, Heydrich took the tall chair directly in front of the hounfo with Beria seated to his left and a slim and heavily veiled woman to his right. Next to Beria was Crowley, who was looking decidedly out of sorts, with Comrade Commissar Dashwood perched uncomfortably alongside. There were a couple of other dignitaries making up the rump of the audience but with one exception Vanka didn’t recognise any of these supernumeraries.
The exception was General Mikhail Dmitrievich Skobelev, unmistakable in his trademark white uniform and ridiculous whiskers.
Skobelev, commander of the ForthRight army and the man who had fought the Royalist Poles to a standstill at the Battle of Warsaw. The General was a living, breathing hero and, more importantly, the man who had come within an ace of killing Vanka, the man who had sworn to revenge his family for the insult Vanka had inflicted by bedding the General’s sister.
Of all the rotten fucking luck. Of all the people he hadn’t wanted attending the seance.
Vanka almost panicked and for a moment wondered whether he shouldn’t just grab Ella and run for it. Then he remembered that he was wearing a mask and managed to get control of himself. It was impossible for Skobelev to recognise him; the mask completely covered what was left of the bruise on the side of his face.
He stood up straight and made a signal to the percussionists pounding away in the minstrels’ gallery. The music stopped but unfortunately the hammering in Vanka’s head kept right on going. Taking a deep, calming breath, he strode forward to the front of the hounfo acutely aware that every stride he took brought him nearer to Skobelev. He was sure the bastard was studying him.
‘Comrade Leader… Comrade Vice-Leader… Your Holiness… comrades and ladies.’ He pitched his voice as low as he dared, hoping that Skobelev wouldn’t recognise it.
The bastard was studying him.
‘Tonight, the mambo Marie Laveau, the foremost practitioner of WhoDoo magic in all of NoirVille, will commune with a Daemon. She will use her occult power and her psychic wiles to dominate the Daemon’s will and bend it to her bidding.’
Skobelev leant forward in his chair trying to get a better look at Vanka. Automatically he edged back as far into the shadows as he dared.
‘Behind me you see a hounfo, a WhoDoo temple built especially for tonight’s performance. Using the hounfo, the mambo Laveau will entice the loa, the Spirits, into this the physical world. Then by her spells and her incantations and her feminine allures…’
That got a reaction…
‘… she will persuade the mightiest of these loa, Great Lord Bondye, to possess her. Only the Great Lord Bondye has the power to overcome the will of a Daemon. Once possessed by the Great Lord Bondye, no secret can be withheld from mambo Laveau.’
Such was the intensity of Skobelev’s interest that Vanka decided to cut things short. He made a hurried bow and glanced towards Aleister Crowley. ‘Your Holiness, if you will bring forward the Daemon.’
Crowley grunted up out of his seat and clapped his hands. From the side of the room two SS guards used their batons to prod a young girl – slim, medium height with raven-black hair – forward, persuading her to limp across the polished wooden floor of the ballroom until she was standing in the middle of the hounfo facing the audience.
Vanka was a little disappointed. He had always imagined Daemons to be great hulking creatures with tails and horns, creatures who breathed fire and smelt of brimstone, but instead he was being presented with a rather nondescript and skinny girl.
Daemons obviously weren’t all they were cracked up to be.
Nondescript and skinny though the Daemon was, from the way it struggled with its guards it showed it was a feisty little piece. But its struggling didn’t last long: one of the guards gave it a backhand slap across the face that sent it spinning to the floor. For an instant the mask of defiance the Daemon wore slipped and Vanka saw a frightened girl beneath. Instinctively he stepped across the hounfo to take the creature by its arm and help it back up onto its feet. Unfortunately that necessitated stepping out of the shadows.
Seeing him in the limelight, Skobelev started forward in his seat like a dog scenting a rabbit. He beckoned to one of Crowley’s aides and began an animated discussion with the man. Vanka tried to keep calm.
After a moment’s hesitation the Daemon accepted his help but it obviously wasn’t happy about it: from the glare it gave Vanka he was certain that if its hands hadn’t been bound it would have tried to scratch his eyes out. He was also pleased it was gagged: his head was pounding and he wasn’t in the market for a lot of screaming and shouting. He gave a second signal to the musicians and immediately the drumming began again, but now it was slower, more ponderous and more ominous.
Vanka led the Daemon to the altar at the furthest end of the hounfo and indicated that it should lie on it. The Daemon tried to refuse but as Vanka pushed it forward he managed to get close enough to whisper in its ear. ‘We’re here to rescue you, so don’t struggle. Understand?’
The Daemon’s eyes widened and it gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Vanka moved back to the front of the hounfo. Skobelev was now whispering instructions to two Checkya guards.
He was saved by Ella. As the drumming gained in volume, Ella, hidden under the cloak, began to twitch.
The seance had begun.
When Ella’s mother had been alive, she had insisted on her daughter taking dancing lessons. But that was a long, long time ago. Now all Ella had to guide her in her WhoDoo dance was her own imagination, the remembrance of any number of music videos she had watched, the clips she had seen of Josephine Baker performing her danse sauvage and the beat of the drums. All this informed her that she should emerge from beneath her cloak slowly, sinuously, undulating her long supple body to the rhythm pounding through the ballroom. So, like some strange serpent sloughing off its skin, Ella wriggled off the cloak covering her, to emerge, spiralling and squirming, into the half-light. And as she emerged, she drew astonished gasps from the audience.
The astonishment might have been because she was black. She knew from her discussions with Vanka that for a black woman to perform before that architect of racial purity Reinhard Heydrich was simply unprecedented. When she had met the man – the Dupe – in Fort Jackson she had seen firsthand how Heydrich felt about blacks and she had come to understand that he had poisoned the ForthRight with this hate. She could feel the audience’s revulsion. The vibes she was experiencing told her that Heydrich and his crew didn’t just hate blacks, they abhorred them.
As she lissomed to her feet, stretching her arms up… up… up towards the ceiling high above her head, she wondered how intelligent, educated people, as those in her audience presumably were, could come to think like this. Maybe, as her mother had often told her, it was true that when people believe others are their inferiors all they do is demonstrate their concerns about their own inferiority. True or not, Ella couldn’t have made a bigger impression if she’d just stepped out of a flying saucer.
But Ella knew that it wasn’t simply that she was black that had disturbed the audience. What they found equally disturbing was her costume, or rather the near-naked body they could see under it. When she had been designing her outfit for tonight’s performance she had wanted it to be so shocking that her audience would forget everything else. The last thing she wanted was for them to wonder whether what they were witnessing was just a piece of magical theatre. And to do that she knew she would have to tantalise, to tease and show a lot of flesh.
Not that Ella had any concern about being near-naked: what she had an objection to was her nakedness being exploited by people like Burlesque Bandstand. But she was perfectly relaxed about exploiting it to her own ends. She knew she was a good-looking woman and had no compunction at all about using her sexuality to control men, to bend them to her will. And from what she could see of the expressions on the faces of the men watching her, she had them all in the palm of her hand. Especially Heydrich…
His eyes never left her. It might have been that he was entranced by her ephemeral costume – all the other men seemed to be – or by the salacious moves she was making, but it was more than that. It was as though Heydrich was trying to remember something. It was as if he recognised her, almost as though he remembered her from their meeting at Fort Jackson. But that was impossible. Well, she hoped that was impossible.
She let out a wail to signal that her soul was in torment and spun on her heels, turning her back on him, taking a moment to settle herself. She gave her ass a wiggle hoping that would distract him. The bastard certainly hadn’t seen that before.
The dance she had choreographed was difficult as it necessitated the pretence that she had an invisible partner, that she was dancing with the Great Lord Bondye. For five long minutes she danced, imbuing her body with ever more suggestive, ever more lascivious moves, drawing her audience’s eyes to her, demanding that they watch her and her alone.
And as she danced something remarkable seemed to happen. It was as though the Spirit of Lilith began to take hold of her. Now she wasn’t just dressed as Lilith: she actually was Lilith. She revelled in the power that her beauty and her eroticism gave her over her audience. She delighted in making her moves and her twists ever more wanton. She tantalised by snaking nearer to the limelights to let the light wash over her, revealing, for just a provocative instant, all the secrets of her body. She swayed and undulated across the floor allowing her figure to flicker and shimmer in and out of sight under her flimsy costume. She screamed and she moaned, she sang and she wailed.
And as she danced and ululated, so she edged closer and closer to Norma Williams who lay on the hounfo’s altar.
It was the first time Ella had seen Norma Williams in the flesh, though of course her picture had adorned the front covers of lots of gossip magazines. She didn’t disappoint. She was the epitome of the teenage rebel, all dyed hair, tattoos, piercings and an expression that seemed to suggest that she went through life with a bad smell under her nose. Even the bruise that covered half her face was a perfect complement to her whole demeanour.
Without for one moment pausing in her undulating, Ella began to circle the altar, wailing and screaming as though locked in a struggle with the Spirit who had come to possess her. Suddenly she collapsed to the floor, shaking and moaning.
That was Vanka’s cue. He made the sign to Burlesque, who was standing in the wings. Immediately the limelights were dimmed; now only the flickering candelabras illuminated the room, giving it a fragile, uncertain ambience.
Once again Vanka addressed the audience. ‘Comrade Leader… Comrade Vice-Leader… Your Holiness… comrades and ladies… this edifice’ – he waved his hands to indicate the tall walls of the hounfo – ‘is designed and constructed to confine and to concentrate the psychic waves which emanate when that most powerful of mediums the mambo Laveau communes with her subject. So powerful is the energy to be contained in this hounfo that, if the Spirits are willing, the mambo Laveau will merge with the Daemon and together they will journey to the Spirit World. This moment of merging will be signalled by a thunderclap and it will appear that the Daemon and the mambo Laveau have vanished. But, please, do not be alarmed: it is only that their physical presence in this realm of the flesh is cloaked by waves of psychic energy.’ Vanka turned towards Burlesque. ‘If you will close the gates to the hounfo.’
Ella watched as Alf and Sid shuffled across and pushed the gates of the hounfo shut, sealing Norma Williams, Vanka and herself inside. But though the gates were closed she knew that the three of them could still be seen through the bars. She waited until Vanka had come to stand behind her and the drumming from the trio in the minstrels’ gallery was as loud as it ever would be, then, confident that she wouldn’t be overheard, she leant forward and whispered to Norma. ‘Norma’ – the girl’s eyes started at the sound of her name – ‘my name is Ella Thomas, I’ve been sent here from the Real World to help you escape.’
She pulled the gag away from the girl’s mouth.
‘Escape? How?’ spluttered Norma.
‘In a few moments there will be a terrifically loud bang. As soon as you hear the explosion, I want you to get up and walk through the wall behind you.’
‘Walk through the wall?’
‘There’s a secret panel,’ advised Ella. ‘Once through the wall, you’ll see the window at the back of the ballroom. It’s been unlocked. We must climb through that and then make our way across the Manor’s grounds.’
‘That’s impossible. This place is crawling with soldiers.’
‘I’m sorry, Norma, but that’s the best we can do.’
Norma was quiet for a moment and then smiled a triumphant little smile. ‘I think I can do a little better than that.’
Ella stretched out her arms, began to make a loud keening noise and screamed out, ‘Lord Bondye has come!’ It was the signal to Burlesque to start the countdown.
Five.
Burlesque lit the fuse to the fireworks hidden in the walls of the hounfo.
Four.
Vanka released the catch securing the hidden door.
Three.
Sid and Alf took a firmer grip on the levers controlling the mirrors set in the bars of the gates.
Two.
Ella nodded to Norma to ready herself to move.
One.
BANG!
The fireworks exploded, sheathing the front of the hounfo in thick, cloying smoke. Immediately Burlesque’s men threw the levers and the mirrors hidden in each of the wooden bars of the gates snapped across. Now, she knew, all the audience would see when the smoke cleared was a reflection of the outside walls: to the audience it would appear that those inside had vanished. Confident now that they couldn’t be seen, Ella leapt to her feet, grabbed Norma by the arm, cut the girl’s bindings, and waited while Vanka scrabbled the concealed door open. As soon as he was through the door, Ella shoved Norma after him. Almost blinded by the acrid smoke from the fireworks, she was only just able to spot Vanka as he rushed to the back windows and threw one of them open.
‘Quickly, quickly, get out,’ he whispered, seizing Norma by the waist and almost tossing her out through the open window. A second later Ella found herself sprawling on top of the President’s daughter. She had a moment to appreciate that a chiffon costume wasn’t an ideal outfit to wear during a DemiMondian Winter before there was a grunt to her right and Vanka landed in a heap by her side. He ripped off his mask and gestured to the drive that snaked out into the night, disappearing in the direction of the main gate. ‘Come on, you two… this way… keep to the shadows by the wall…’
‘No!’ said Norma emphatically as she desperately tried to staunch the blood seeping from a cut on her arm. ‘Follow me,’ she ordered, and to Ella’s amazement, started to walk towards the front of the house.
‘What the fuck…’ whispered Vanka but before he could do anything to stop her, the girl had turned the corner, and, making no effort to hide herself from the guards patrolling the Manor’s grounds, sauntered up – hiding her limp as best she could – to the steam-limo parked puffing and panting at the bottom of the steps of the Manor.
‘You,’ she called out in an imperious voice to the steam-limo driver who was lounging against one of the columns enjoying a sly cigarette. ‘You. Come here.’
The man nearly passed out. He threw his cigarette away and scuttled over to the girl. ‘Why, yes, m’lady.’
Norma gave a contemptuous wave of her hand in the direction of the Leader’s steam-limo. ‘My father wishes me to return home early. I am to use his steam-limo.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that, my Lady Aaliz. My orders…’
Trixie stood to the side of the Manor, shrouded by shadows and thickly falling snow, and guarded by the bulky presence of Captain Dabrowski’s sergeant. It was so cold that Trixie was shivering under her thick woollen travelling cloak.
She stiffened her shoulders and in an act of will ordered herself to stop trembling: people would think she was frightened. She was a Dashwood and no one would accuse a Dashwood of ever being frightened, especially not this idiot of a sergeant. If an ordinary soldier could show no fear then neither would the daughter of a commissar.
But it was difficult not to be scared. Up until a few moments ago the whole evening had had a surreal quality. It had been as though she had been caught up in a dream – a nightmare, really – that what was happening to her wasn’t actually happening to her. But the Sergeant had brought her crashing down to earth: there was nothing dreamlike or whimsical about Sergeant Wysochi. He was a huge man, broad-shouldered and with hands like paddles. He also stank, possessing that wholly masculine odour conjured from the mixed smells of tobacco, Solution, sweat and leather.
Trixie hated him.
‘What’s happening?’ she whispered. ‘Where’s Captain Dabrowski?’
‘Shut up.’ As Trixie was fast discovering, Sergeant Wysochi was a man of few words and most of them curt and unpleasant.
There was a crunch of snow under a boot to Trixie’s left and Dabrowski, wearing a camouflaged dublonka and toting a repeating rifle, stepped out of the shadows. ‘The occultists are in the ballroom, Sergeant, so it’s any moment now. Are the men ready?’
‘Yes, Sir.’ It seemed that the Sergeant wasn’t any more garrulous with his captain.
‘And the bombs?’
Bombs?
‘Zajac is manning the detonator. As soon as he hears the shot he’ll blow the gates.’
By the pale moonlight Trixie saw the Captain work the bolt of his rifle, sliding a round into the breech. He flicked off the safety catch and gave Trixie a meaningful look. ‘You will do exactly as the Sergeant here tells you, Miss Trixie, nothing more and nothing less. That way you’ll survive. Understand?’
Trixie’s throat was suddenly so dry that all she could do was nod.
‘May ABBA be with us,’ muttered Dabrowski.
And then things really became surreal.
A window next to where they were standing was thrown open and a small figure fell through it onto the soft snow. Trixie jumped back in shock.
The Sergeant thrust out a strong arm and pushed Trixie protectively behind him. From behind Wysochi’s comforting bulk, she was amazed to see this first fugitive being followed in short order by two others, one of them a girl wearing not very much at all and the other a tall, long-haired man. The three of them began to sneak around the side of the building, and as they did so light from a lantern caught the face of the smallest of the three. It was the Daemon!
A wide-eyed Trixie watched the Daemon march around to the front of the house and began shouting orders.
With a silent signal to Captain Dabrowski, Sergeant Wysochi, with Trixie following him, began to creep after the three escapees. As they reached the corner of the Manor, Trixie could hear the Daemon speaking with the driver of Heydrich’s steamer, but before she quite realised what was happening, Sergeant Wysochi strode forward to take control of the situation.
For Ella, everything seemed to be coming unravelled.
As Norma began arguing the toss with the steamer driver, a red-jacketed sergeant came marching up.
‘Do as the Lady Aaliz…’
Lady Aaliz?
‘… orders, you fool, and jump to it,’ the Sergeant snarled as he turned to address Norma. ‘I have been asked to accompany you, m’lady. Your father ordered that I bring two men with me to act as escort.’ He nodded to the two soldiers standing in the darkness behind him.
Ella had to admire Norma Williams’s aplomb: she handled a situation that was fast descending into farce with a degree of imperturbability Ella had never seen equalled. ‘Very well, Sergeant, I suppose you can serve drinks,’ Norma sneered, ‘whilst I and my friends play bridge.’ This girl, Ella decided, was a Vanka-class bullshitter.
For a second the steam-limo’s driver was paralysed by confusion. It might have been that all of a sudden the Blood Hounders patrolling the grounds of the Manor began to howl or that he wasn’t used to being given orders by Poles, but whatever it was, this confusion cost him his life. Ella had never seen anybody killed before, but she had never imagined that murder was an act that could be performed with such cold-blooded efficiency. The enormous Sergeant conjured a long, vicious-looking knife out of nowhere and drove it straight through the driver’s throat forestalling any noise or protest he might have been inclined to make.
‘I’ll drive, Captain.’ Without waiting for a reply the Sergeant stepped over the still twitching body of the driver, hauled himself up into the steam-limo’s cabin and began to shift levers. Immediately the puffing of the steamer’s pistons increased in tempo.
‘Get in,’ the Captain ordered. They needed no second telling: Vanka bustled first Ella and then Norma into the passenger compartment and then dived in after them. They were joined an instant later by the Captain and a second soldier.
‘Are you ready, Sergeant?’ called out the Captain as he scrab-bled inside.
An answering grunt came from the Sergeant, who immediately pushed open one of the steamer’s windows and fired a single shot into the air. In reply there were two explosions. The first ripped open the large wooden shed that was serving as a temporary barracks for the SS garrison and the second – the larger one – smashed open the gates that guarded the Manor’s grounds.
The steamer gave a lurch and began to shudder forward, steam from its mighty cylinders enveloping the vehicle. It seemed to take an age for it to pick up speed. As the huge wheels crunched over the gravel, all Ella could hear through the armoured glass windows was the ringing of alarm bells and the yelling of running men. It was the Sergeant who seemed to know what to do: he leant out of the window and calmly shouted at the SS guards who were streaming out of the Manor, ‘Don’t shoot, you fools. I have the Leader’s daughter with me.’
As the steam-limo sailed unopposed around the Manor’s drive and out through the shattered gates, Ella sat back, stunned by the realisation that she had done it, she had rescued Norma Williams.
She had really, really done it!
She looked up to congratulate Vanka and was surprised to see him leaning out of one of the steamer’s windows giving the finger to a white-uniformed officer who had just emerged on the steps of the Manor.