The Demi-Monde: 90th Day of Winter, 1004 – Spring Eve
Operation Hoodwink: The ultimate success of Operation Barbarossa and of the Final Solution turns on the usurping of the nuJu-controlled financial power of the Rialto Bourse. Item One: Vice-Leader Comrade Beria is to undertake a black propaganda programme designed to deceive Doge Catherine-Sophia into believing that the objective of Operation Barbarossa is the invasion and subjugation of the Coven rather than the Quartier Chaud. Item Two: Efforts will be made to sponsor and promote the work of Robespierre and others in the Quartier Chaud sympathetic to the ForthRight to sever ties with Venice and to make political and religious alignment with the ForthRight. Item Three: Royalist cryptos within the ForthRight will be fed disinformation to be communicated to Venice. Item Four: Efforts will be made to ensure only weak/incompetent leaders take control of Rebel forces within the Warsaw Ghetto, this to minimise potential obstacles to the successful execution of Case White. Item Five: An Export Licence for the delivery of M4s to the Coven to be issued, the weapons to recompense for services rendered to the ForthRight by Empress Wu.
– minutes of the ExtraOrdinary PolitBuro meeting held under the guidance of the Great Leader on the 39th day of Winter, 1004 (copy to be withheld from Comrade Commissar Dashwood)
Norma had no idea how long she had been held in the cell. There were no windows so it was impossible for her to distinguish night from day. In fact, the only way she could mark the passage of time was by the trays of food that were periodically pushed under her cell door, but as all she was fed was fruit and water the meals soon merged into one. There was no breakfast, lunch or dinner in Wewelsburg Castle, there was only feeding time.
Now she was really stuck in the Demi-Monde. Now she was really one of the Kept.
By her best estimate, it was maybe a week since she and Ella Thomas had entered the sewers. She remembered going down into that stinking blackness, she remembered the brick smash -ing into her knee, she remembered being swept away, fighting for her life in those putrid rapids, but after that… nothing. The next memory she had was lying – cold, wet and exhausted – washed up on a mud bank at the side of the Rhine.
A couple of children had found her and then two burly men had carried her to a mean little hut and dumped her on a cot beside a pot-bellied stove to dry out. The Witchfinder had come the next day. She remembered him examining her – she still had the bruises where the bastard had poked and prodded her – and then he’d had her loaded into a closed steamer to transport her to Wewelsburg Castle. She knew the name of the place because the Witchfinder had taunted her for the whole of the hour-long drive, taunted her about the impossibility of being rescued from Wewelsburg Castle.
For days all she had to do was sleep, eat and listen to the rats scratching around in the darkness. Only once had her captors visited her, to strip her of all her studs and her earrings and make sketches of her tattoos, but even this they had done in total silence.
But today, she sensed, was going to be different. Today there seemed to be a frisson of excitement in the air. From what Norma guessed to be early morning she had heard people scurrying to and fro along the corridor outside her cell and the barking of orders.
Now, as she lay on her hard cot, she heard boot heels snapping on the flagstones as someone marched down the corridor towards her cell. The footsteps came to a halt at her door. She heard a key turn in the lock and then the creak of the door as it reluctantly opened on oil-hungry hinges. Her visitor entered the cell holding a lantern before him and Norma had to flinch away, shielding her eyes from the glare.
‘On your feet, Daemon.’ It was the Witchfinder, his voice hard and angry.
It took a real effort of will for Norma to sit up. She had given up hope of being saved, she had given up hope of ever getting back to the Real World.
‘Take her,’ the Witchfinder ordered. ‘I want her cleaned up and her hair dyed – and I mean all her hair – within two hours. She must be made presentable for His Holiness.’
Two women SS warders grabbed Norma, pulling her to her feet, then dragged her out of her cell and along the corridor to a small, cold bathroom decorated in surgically white tiles. There they tore off all her soiled clothes, forced her to stand under a scalding hot shower whilst she was washed and scrubbed and her hair bleached a platinum blonde colour.
When they had finished, the Witchfinder came to inspect the naked Norma. ‘She has no tail,’ he observed in a disappointed voice.
‘Daemons of her rank are subtle creatures, Witchfinder Major,’ answered one of the female guards, ‘able to ape the form of humans perfectly.’
A disappointed grunt from the Witchfinder. ‘She is very gaunt,’ he observed. ‘Perhaps a little too gaunt.’
‘Not gaunt, Witchfinder Major, healthily slim,’ replied the guard. ‘Her diet has been in full accordance with the principles of Living amp;More laid down by His Holiness Comrade Crowley. Since she came to Wewelsburg, she has been fed just fruit and filtered water. All bad humours and harmful toxins have been purged from her body. She is purified just as the Other, in ExterSteine, has been purified.’
The Other? ExterSteine?
‘Very well,’ said the Witchfinder. ‘Bring her to the steamer.’ From somewhere Norma conjured the strength to protest. ‘Look, pal, I ain’t going…’
She was silenced by a savage slap across her face. ‘Be quiet, Daemon, you are not to speak. If you utter one further word I will have you gagged. Remember, I know you for the trickster you are. You should understand that all have been forewarned to be on their guard lest you seek to subvert them with your unholy wiles and your silver tongue.’
Norma almost cried: she was so tired, so dispirited, so helpless that she was only a moment away from being broken. She was just so fed up with being in pain, being cold and being abused. All she wanted was to get out of the Demi-Monde and to go home.
But at least they let her retain her modesty, handing her an ankle-length sheath made of rough white cotton which she gratefully slipped over her body. Then they manacled her wrists behind her back and led her to a steamer standing puffing in the courtyard of the Castle. Well, not just a steamer but a veritable convoy of steamers. Crowley, it seemed, was taking no chances: he didn’t want there to be any risk of Norma being rescued again.
The Witchfinder called over the SS-major in command of the convoy. ‘You understand your orders, Comrade Major? Your men will provide an escort to the Hub and will then establish a cordon sanitaire around ExterSteine at a distance of one mile. Under no circumstances are you or any of your men to come closer than that, otherwise your somewhat uncouth psychic vibrations will interfere with the ritual to be conducted by His Holiness Comrade Crowley. Understand?’
The Major snapped a salute.
So she was going to have the pleasure of Crowley’s company again, presumably so that he could enact his Rite of Transference. The chances were in a few hours she would be dead. A strange calm descended on Norma: she determined to meet whatever fate had in store for her philosophically.
It was her first sight of daylight since she had entered the sewers an eternity ago and she was surprised by the glorious feeling of sunshine on her face. The last time she had been outside, the Demi-Monde had been in the grip of Winter, but now there was a definite feeling of Spring in the air. Unfortunately her enjoyment of the sunshine was short-lived. The Witchfinder gave her a hefty shove in the back to bundle her into the rear passenger cabin of the steamer and once she was seated he blindfolded her.
They drove for perhaps twenty minutes until finally, after bumping along what was obviously an unmade road, the steamer came to a halt and Norma was pushed outside. By the smell of her surroundings she knew that she was no longer in the city: the air smelt almost fresh, there wasn’t even a hint of the foul tang of overcrowded humanity that perfumed the Rookeries. She was in the countryside, which meant she was in the Hub. It was a suspicion reinforced when she heard birds singing. Birds didn’t sing in the Rookeries, they coughed.
As she was pushed roughly forward, she felt the cold of snow beneath her naked feet, but after a walk of ten minutes or so this was replaced by rough stone.
‘Climb,’ ordered the Witchfinder in her ear and Norma found herself stumbling up a long, steep stone staircase, so long that by the end of it her damaged knee ached like the devil and her breath was coming in pants. Then, with the wind cutting through the thin cotton of her dress, she was led across what she imagined to be a narrow wooden bridge.
With a touch on her goose-pimpled arm the Witchfinder brought her to a halt and removed the manacles from her wrists. ‘Welcome to ExterSteine, Daemon,’ boomed out a familiar voice.
It was Spring Eve: Freyja’s Night.
Tonight was the night upon which Crowley would perform his magic, when he would perform the Rite of Transference. And from what Ella had learnt from Trotsky and the IM Manual, the rite would be held at this mysterious place ExterSteine. If Ella was to save Norma Williams, then she had to do it before dawn: once the Rite of Transference was complete Ella wasn’t even sure there would be a Norma Williams left to rescue.
But getting to ExterSteine seemed an impossible task. Here she was stuck in the chaos of the Ghetto’s Industrial Zone with less than eight hours of the last night of Winter remaining. Just eight hours to save Norma Williams. There was however one ray of hope: the word was out that once Baron Dashwood’s mishmash of an army had been brought into some semblance of order then the attempted breakout of the Ghetto would go ahead. Presumably with the SS still confused by the Baron’s attack, there was a better chance of success, but having seen how weak and tired the WFA soldiers were it was difficult for Ella to be optimistic.
‘Tea?’
Ella looked up to find Vanka, an enamel mug of steaming tea in his hand, standing in front of her. ‘Our glorious leader Colonel Dashwood has decided, as it’s Spring Eve, to distribute the last of the tea rations. I had been hoping for Solution but Trixie Dashwood is a very austere commander who doesn’t want any of her soldiers drunk before the breakout.’ Vanka looked around at all the fighters crowded into the warehouse and shrugged. ‘Fuck knows why: I’d have thought that it was best we all died pissed.’
She took the scalding hot mug carefully in both hands. ‘Thanks, Vanka. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘My pleasure.’ He sat down beside her. ‘Penny for them. You’ve been sitting lost in thought for nigh on ten minutes.’
‘I’m just wondering how I can get to ExterSteine.’
‘Oh, not again. I thought…’
‘Please, Vanka, I’ve got to rescue Norma: it’s what I was sent to the Demi-Monde to do.’
He held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Okay, but I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself: the first thing we’ve got to do is get out of the Ghetto alive. Do that and then we can start worrying about rescuing Norma-I’m-a-shrew-Williams.’
‘What do you think are our chances?’
‘Of getting out of the Ghetto? The same chance we’ve got of rescuing Norma Williams: piss-poor. With the reinforcements the Baron’s brought in there’re about six or seven thousand WFA stuck here in the Industrial Zone and Clement has about five times that number of SS StormTroopers surrounding us. My guess is that in the confusion a couple of hundred of us might slip through, but no more. But then as long as you and I are numbered amongst the living, who gives a damn?’
Ella looked around the warehouse where she was sitting, casting an eye over all the young WFA fighters clustered there going through their final preparations in advance of the breakout: cleaning their rifles, checking their ammunition, doing the thousand and one things that soldiers do to take their minds off the slaughter to come.
They all looked so young.
‘They’ve asked me to perform a blessing before the fighting starts,’ she said quietly.
Vanka laughed. ‘Why not? You’re the one who performs miracles, Ella, you’re the one who opens impenetrable Boundary Layers and suchlike. Maybe they should ask you to perform another miracle. Maybe you could make them all bulletproof?’
‘Don’t be silly, Vanka,’ Ella protested, but as always she found his refusal to take anything seriously hugely comforting. ‘I just find all this blessing business odd.’
‘Odd for Ella Thomas perhaps, but you’re not Ella Thomas any more, are you? Now you’re the Lady IMmanual, ABBA’s right-hand woman.’
The unfortunate thing was that what he said was true. Since the Miracle of the Beyond people had been treating her differently. Everywhere she went in the cramped enclave of the WFA’s final redoubt the fighters saluted her as she passed; when she walked into a room the conversation immediately ceased and everybody stood and bowed reverently.
Ella was no longer ‘the Shade’ or ‘the Daemon’. Now she had a new name, one that was whispered in worshipful tones. Now she was the Lady IMmanual. Now she was the Spirit who had led the people of Warsaw to the Promised Land, the Holy Woman who had parted the Boundary, the Divine Saviour sent by ABBA to save His Children.
Now she was the Messiah.
Those who believed in her and her ability to perform miracles had a new sign, one that she saw daubed on walls everywhere in the Ghetto, the same sign that a great many of the fighters had embroidered after the letters WFA on their armbands. It was the sign of the inverted ‘V’ – a lambda sign, – supposedly signifying the drawing back of the veil that cloaked the Beyond. And those who wore the symbol called themselves IMmanualists.
It was an indication of how rapidly IMmanualism had swept through the ranks of the WFA that of the three hundred fighters gathered in the warehouse almost all wore the sign. For Ella all this attention and reverence was at best mildly amusing and at worst hugely embarrassing, but, she mused, if it brought comfort to people what was the harm in it?
‘So you think I should bless them, Vanka?’
Another uncaring shrug. He took out his watch to check the time. ‘There’s only an hour to midnight, so I don’t think we’ve got enough time for you to play Lady IMmanual and piss about blessing people, which is just as well because I don’t think Colonel Dashwood would approve. And anyway, what I’m more worried about is who’s going to bless you? I think you’re in more danger than any of these kids.’
‘How so?’
Vanka edged a little closer. ‘Because these kids will only have the SS trying to kill them: you’re going to have the SS and Trixie Dashwood trying to off you.’
She could not hide her surprise. ‘What?’
‘The trouble with you, Ella,’ he said quietly, ‘is that you always want to see the good in people. With me it’s different: I see them for the shitbags they really are. I eavesdropped on a conversation between Trixie and that tame gorilla of hers, Wysochi. They’re planning to kill you during the breakout.’
‘Kill me? Are you sure?’
He nodded. ‘Believe me, that’s what they’re plotting. People V like Trixie Dashwood don’t like rivals.’
‘Rival? I’m not Trixie Dashwood’s rival!’
‘Shh!’ He put a finger to his lips. ‘Keep it quiet. And for your information, yes, you are a rival – for her fighters’ allegiance. When half the WFA is wearing the Sign of the Lady IMmanual on their sleeve then Trixie knows she’s got competition, and believe me, the last thing the commander of an army wants is to be second-guessed by a religious icon.’
‘Come on, Vanka, Trixie Dashwood and I have been through a lot together: she knows I’d do nothing to undermine her authority.’
‘Oh yeah? That’s not how she sees all this business about democracy you were spouting. And now you’re Lady IMmanual – the Messiah – people are starting to listen to you. I’ve heard mutterings in the ranks that the fighters think it should be you who’s leading them, not her, and that must have gone down like a lead balloon with Trixie the Terrible. And she’s a devil when it comes to purging opposition: there’s something of a Heydrich about that young lady.’
‘Now you’re going too far, Vanka. Trixie’s fighting Heydrich.’
‘Yeah, and she’s fighting fire with fire. She hates the SS and the UnFunDaMentalists almost as much as Heydrich hates Poles and nuJus and that sort of hatred distorts the soul. I thought when her father returned from the grave that it might have had a calming effect on little Trixie but from what I hear she’s as hate-filled as ever. Shooting that poor sod Wozniak…’ He shook his head. ‘She enjoys killing a tad too much for my liking.’
‘Oh, come on, Vanka.’
‘Don’t “oh, come on, Vanka” me. You didn’t see her reaction when she read one of the pamphlets young Penn over there produced.’ He glanced in the direction of a tall, thin fighter who was sitting in a corner of the warehouse scribbling in a notebook. ‘That twerp is the worst of all the bloody IMmanualists. You know he’s writing down every word you say as though it’s the word of the Spirits.’
‘Oh, William’s harmless enough.’
‘Harmless!’ Vanka nearly gagged. ‘His little pamphlet giving an account of the Miracle of the Beyond and recording your Sermon on the Boundary nearly caused Trixie Dashwood to bust her stays. She hates you, Ella.’
Much as Ella wanted to deny it, she knew deep down that Vanka was right: Trixie did hate her… hated her enough to kill her. And that was why, since the parting of the Boundary Layer, Trixie had been avoiding her, instinctively staying far enough away from Ella so she couldn’t be read.
‘So what’s to do, Vanka?’
‘The WFA is going to try to break out of the Ghetto at midnight. I’ve a feeling in my water that during the fighting it’s planned that you succumb to lead poisoning.’ He pulled out his Colt revolver and checked that it was fully loaded. ‘So it’s probably time we made ourselves scarce. We need to keep a very low profile until the fighting starts and then head for the long grass.’
‘But what about the Twelve? They won’t leave me.’
‘Oh, those idiots.’ Vanka stole a look at the twelve men and women who had elected themselves as Ella’s personal bodyguard – the Twelve, they called themselves – and who were now seated in a phalanx around her, just out of earshot. ‘Let’s take them with us. They may be following you around like a bunch of lovesick puppy dogs but they’re good fighters.’
‘But then how will we get to ExterSteine?’
‘Bloody ExterSteine. Bloody Norma Williams. I wish you’d forget about saving that bitch. But if you must, I’ve got an idea…’
He was interrupted as Rivets scuttled up and began to speak breathlessly. ‘Someone’s coming, Vanka. I think it’s that big bastard Wysochi you told me to keep an eye out for.’
Vanka took Ella by the arm and led her towards the rear exit of the warehouse. ‘Time to go. I think Trixiebell Dashwood is intent on doing some early Spring cleaning.’
‘She’s gone,’ Wysochi whispered in Trixie’s ear when he reported back. ‘I should have known that fly bastard Maykov would have anticipated what was going to happen. Shall I send out men to look for her?’
Trixie shook her head. ‘No, we’ll deal with this matter later.’ She smiled guilelessly at the five officers who now made up her Military Council. It didn’t do for commanders to discuss the assassination of rivals in front of their officers: it was bad for morale. ‘We have learnt that the SS have infiltrated cryptos into the WFA charged with the assassination of the Lady IMmanual.’ The use of the Shade’s ridiculous honorific caught in her craw. ‘We believe that the most vicious and dangerous of these cryptos is the Russian who calls himself Vanka Maykov. Maykov has persuaded the Lady IMmanual that she is in danger and that only he can help her escape the Ghetto. In reality he is intent on leading her to a trap set by the SS. Sergeant Wysochi was to have taken the Lady IMmanual into protective custody but that slippery rascal was too quick for us.’
‘Then we must send out search parties.’
This comment came from the newly promoted Captain Michalski, who was, much to Trixie’s disgust, the most fervently IMmanualistic of all of Trixie’s officers. This was a shame: she and Michalski might have been through some tough times together but unfortunately his religious conversion rendered him untrustworthy. When push came to shove, she wanted officers around her who knew only one commander: her. Michalski wouldn’t make it through to the morning, Wysochi would see to that.
‘We have no time, Captain Michalski, the breakout com -mences in less than thirty minutes. All our attention must be directed towards the preservation of the WFA as a fighting force.’ She looked sternly around the table. ‘We will concentrate our attack on Westgate. That’s where we’ll make our breakout. Once through there, we’ll head for the Anichkov Bridge, then over to the Coven. The Coven has confirmed that all WFA fighters will be given sanctuary in their Sector.’
‘If I might make an observation.’ Everyone in the room turned towards Baron Dashwood. ‘I have been thinking over the attack I made on the Reinhard Heydrich Railway Bridge…’
‘We have precious little time for idle discussions, Major.’
‘What I have to say will only take a moment, Colonel.’ There was a definite edge in her father’s voice and Trixie felt her hackles rise.
She hated it when he used that tone: she wasn’t a child any more. She was the senior officer here, not him. No one told her what to do any more. She took a deep breath, trying not to let her annoyance show. It had been a mistake to have put her father in command of a regiment: he presumed on his relationship with her too much. No other officer would have had the temerity to interrupt her like this.
‘Very well, Major, what is this observation of yours?’
‘I didn’t realise it at the time, but the train was heading in the wrong direction. It was travelling from Rodina to the Rookeries.’
‘So what?’
‘If the train was bringing munitions to support an attack on the Coven it should have been going the other way. I think Heydrich has hoodwinked us… has hoodwinked me, rather. Operation Barbarossa isn’t a plan to invade the Coven, it’s a plan to invade the Quartier Chaud. Heydrich must have known I was a Royalist all along: he was using me as part of his black propaganda campaign to confuse the Medis and Doge Catherine-Sophia. He didn’t want Venice getting wind of an impending attack so he’s been pretending that the Coven was his objective. All that nonsense in The Stormer about the ForthRight invading the Coven was just that: nonsense. Maybe that whole eavesdropping episode in the Manor was stage-managed. Maybe Beria knew that Dabrowski was a crypto.’
Trixie shook her head. ‘What difference does it make? So the ForthRight is making war on the Quartier Chaud rather than the Coven. The fact remains I’ve got seven thousand fighters who need to break out of the Ghetto and find sanctuary.’
‘Find sanctuary where?’
‘I told you. The Covenites have offered us-’
‘The Coven has signed a non-aggression pact with the ForthRight. I think we’re being led into a trap. That’s why our patrols have told us the SS are weakest towards Westgate. We’re being funnelled towards the Coven…’
‘Nonsense! Clement has made a tactical error, one that I am determined to exploit. Your supposition, Major, is based on the flimsiest of evidence, a single train going in the wrong direction. There might be a hundred reasons why that happened.’
‘But I am sure-’
‘Enough!’ Trixie spat out the word. ‘There is no more time for debate. You have your orders, Major Dashwood, I expect them to be carried out. Do you understand?’
For a moment their eyes locked. It was the Baron who lowered his gaze. ‘Yes, Colonel.’
Her hand still trembling with anger, Trixie raised her glass of Solution from the table. ‘Then all that remains, gentlemen, is to make a toast: to a free Warsaw and a free Demi-Monde. May the blessings of ABBA and of the Lady IMmanual be on you and your soldiers.’
Norma recognised the voice. It was Aleister Crowley, though the way his voice echoed and reverberated suggested they were standing in some sort of hall or cave.
‘I am so pleased, Daemon, that you could join us in our celebration of Freyja’s Night, to help us in the performing of the ritual that proclaims the coming of Spring.’
Norma’s blindfold was untied. Standing there, blinking in the gloom, she saw she was in a huge, pitch-dark cavern with burning tapers dotted around the wall for illumination. She shivered, but not through cold: the cavern was a terrifying place. It must, she decided, be made from Mantle-ite, which was why eerie green shadows skittered like spectres around the bare walls.
Norma had the impression that she had walked into the gullet of some huge serpent: the walls were decorated with murals of the most bestial kind, concocted from screaming reds and tormented yellows with huge snakes and dragons twirling and twisting in demented patterns. And as her eyes got used to the gloom, she saw that deeper into the cave the murals became increasingly frenzied, brighter and bolder colours depicting events from some forgotten mythology, the artwork primitive and savage, a primeval kaleidoscope.
It looked for all the world like a set from a horror movie, and the players were as loathsome as the set.
There were, as best she could judge, thirteen people gathered in the cavern and all of them – with the exception of Crowley – were dressed in deep purple robes with their faces hidden by quite hideous masks depicting various mythological animals. Well, she hoped they were mythological: the beasts that inhabited Terror Incognita were rumoured to be pretty monstrous.
Crowley took a step forward, allowing Norma to get a better look at him. In contrast to his adepts, the magician was unmasked and wore a long flowing robe coloured the darkest red and embroidered in gold with a myriad of runic symbols. Around his head was an inch-thick golden band with a gleaming red ruby at its centre.
‘Where am I?’ asked Norma, desperately trying to mask the quaver in her voice.
‘You are at ExterSteine, Daemon, perhaps the most magical of all places in the Demi-Monde. ExterSteine is a group of five tall pillars of Mantle-ite created when the Demi-Monde was young, before the Confinement. We are now atop Lilith’s Tower, the tallest of all the columns, where the Pre-Folk formed this cavern. It was here, or so mythology would have us believe, that Lilith performed her most vile and debased magic. But that was long ago: where you are standing, Daemon, is now UnFunDaMentalism’s holiest place.’
‘Why have you brought me here?’ She asked the question despite the fact that she had a pretty good idea already. Still, better to hear it from the horse’s mouth, as it were.
‘Every Quarter’s Eve I gather my innermost circle of adepts here to give thanks to the Spirits for the changing seasons. In the UnFunDaMentalist calendar the most important Quarter Eve is this one, the one which celebrates the movement of our world from the barren cold of Winter to the lush fertility of Spring.’ He pointed to a shuttered hole high up in the roof of the cavern. ‘The rays of the rising sun will pour through that opening tomorrow morning to signal the death of Winter and the birth of Spring.’
Totally non compos fucking mentis.
Crowley began to prowl around the floor of the cavern, pontificating as he went. ‘But tonight we do more than merely celebrate Spring Eve. Tonight we will push back the very boundaries of magic. Tonight, Daemon, we will perform the Rite of Transference, a rite never attempted before. The Lady Aaliz Heydrich will take possession of your body in the Real World and for the first time, a Demi-Mondian will manifest themselves physically and not just spiritually in the Real World. Tonight, we in the ForthRight will take our first step along the path that will lead to the Unification of the Two Worlds and the triumph of UnFunDaMentalism throughout the Kosmos.’
A twenty-four-carat screwball.
‘Well, if it’s all the same to you, I think I might pass.’
Crowley chuckled. ‘I am afraid that is not possible, Daemon; you have a leading role to play in the little drama we will be enacting tonight. Your cooperation is essential.’
‘Go screw yourself. I’m not cooperating while a prick like you tries to steal my body.’
He moved towards her. ‘The options you have, Daemon, are stark. You either cooperate in the performing of the Rite of Transference or you will be disposed of. If you refuse I will ensure that you die in the most painful and prolonged manner.’ His lips were so close to Norma’s ear that she could feel his sweet breath on her cheek. ‘I will have you drained of blood, drip by drip by drip. Do you understand?’
Out of the corner of her eye Norma caught a glimpse of the Witchfinder running his tongue over his fleshy lips.
Yeah, I understand, you mad bastard, and I’ve got a sneaking idea who would volunteer to do it.
Norma reluctantly acquiesced: anything was better than that piece of shit being given a free run of her body.
With a self-satisfied smirk of triumph, Crowley gestured to one of his adepts. ‘If you would ask the Lady Aaliz to join us.’
Aaliz, when she entered the cavern, looked entirely different in appearance from the clean-cut RightNix girl whom Norma had met at Dashwood Manor. Her blonde hair had been dyed a raven black. Her ears were circled with piercings, which, as far as Norma could see, were decorated with the studs taken from her own ears. And she now had a Celtic cross tattooed on her shoulder, the design copied from the one Norma sported.
To all intents and purposes, Aaliz Heydrich was now Norma Williams. And Norma realised that with her hair dyed blonde and her studs removed, she was now Aaliz Heydrich.
As she watched Aaliz Heydrich strut across the floor of the cavern, Norma experienced a weird out-of-body sensation. It was as though she were watching herself walk towards her. And that was when she noticed the weird difference between herself and Aaliz: Aaliz was her mirror image. Everything about her was reversed: they had inscribed the Celtic cross tattoo on Aaliz’s right shoulder rather than on the left. She could tell by the way Aaliz used her left hand to brush back an errant trail of hair that she favoured that hand: Norma would have used her right. Even the parting in her hair was to the right, while Norma’s was to the left.
Freaky.
And when Norma thought about it, she realised that the majority of Demi-Mondians were left-handed.
Crowley’s voice cut through her reverie. ‘Tomorrow, at dawn, the power of the Goddess of Fertility, Freyja, will claim the world from the frosted grip of Goddess Skadi. The blossoming of dawn’s light will signal the Goddess Freyja’s rise to dominance in the Demi-Monde and the rebirth of the world. And when this light falls on the Lady Aaliz it will also signal her rebirth in the Spirit World.’ He turned to his gathered disciples. ‘Let us prepare.’
The Witchfinder stood behind Norma. She felt his scuffed fingers fidgeting at the bows that tied the straps of her dress, felt a tug as the bows were undone and felt the dress slipping from her shoulders, sighing to the ground to leave her standing naked.
Crowley eyed her slim, naked body hungrily.
She had read about the prurient, vile things Crowley – when he had been a black magician in the Real World – had persuaded his disciples to do to conjure Spirits, had read about the degenerate and bestial antics he and his supplicants got up to in the place he called the Abbey of Thelema. Her flesh crawled when she thought about the bastard so much as touching her.
She saw that Aaliz Heydrich had been similarly stripped. Now the two girls stood stark naked facing each other across the cavern. The Witchfinder didn’t know where to look first.
‘You, Daemon,’ announced Crowley, ‘will be adorned with the Runes of Power and the incantations that will demand the Spirits manifest themselves.’
For the next half-hour Norma was obliged to stand stock-still as Crowley’s adepts daubed designs and emblems over her naked body, culminating in the draughting of the sign of the Valknut on her forehead. When she looked up, she found that Aaliz Heydrich’s body had been similarly decorated.
Crowley circled the two naked girls, examining his disciples’ handiwork. ‘You should know, Daemon, that all magic is about harnessing Man’s natural power through the application of the magician’s will. Will-power is the essence of all magic. Through the sublimation of your natural powers to my will, I will be able to direct and order the Spirits. But where is this natural power of Man most evident? The answer lies in the sexual appetites of Men and Women. Sexual lust is the natural companion of magic: wed sex and magic and a psychic engine of vast occult potency is created.’
Crowley must have seen the look of mounting horror that dressed Norma’s face. He chuckled. ‘Do not be alarmed, Daemon, I am not suggesting that you participate in a sexual ritual. Far from it: with both you and the Lady Aaliz being pure in body you exert a huge attraction to the Spirit World. Your beauty, your purity and your latent, unexpressed sexual appetites, Daemon, will stimulate my adepts to heights of sexual desire, and thus stimulated they will generate all the sexual energy necessary to bind the Demi-Monde with the Spirit World.’ He clapped his hands in triumph. ‘But first we must have the Sacrifice of Blood.’
Crockett puffed contentedly on his clay pipe. ‘Did Miss Trixiebell listen, Major?’ he asked from his perch on a crate in the warehouse that Baron Dashwood’s regiment had made its home.
‘No.’
‘So what are we going to do, Sir?’
Baron Dashwood was torn. He was an officer and a gentleman so his first instinct was to do what he was ordered to do by his commanding officer. That his commanding officer was also his daughter made the prospect of ignoring those orders even more difficult. But he was certain that the WFA were being led into a trap and whilst he had a responsibility to Trixie and the WFA he also had a responsibility to the two hundred men under his command.
It was a difficult, an impossible decision, and unfortunately it was one he had to make quickly: there were only fifteen minutes left until the breakout began. He looked around at the men huddled in the warehouse – many of them the Poles he had freed from the work camp. He couldn’t betray these men: he couldn’t allow them to be needlessly killed or captured by the SS.
He loved Trixie but…
The irritating thing was that it was his own arrogance that had brought him to this: if he hadn’t assumed that Heydrich was just a vicious idiot then he would have realised that it was he who was being played for a fool, that it was he who was being played as a patsy. How Heydrich and his cronies must have laughed when he swallowed their charade about the ForthRight attacking the Coven. How they must have howled when they allowed him to escape from Dashwood Manor knowing that he would warn his Royalist friends in the Coven and in this way reinforce Heydrich’s little pantomime. How could he have been so stupid as to have underestimated them? How could he have forgotten how cunning these bastards were? But the game wasn’t over yet. Maybe they had underestimated him.
‘We’re not going to Westgate with the rest of the army,’ he said finally. ‘That’s what the SS want us to do. We’re going to get out through Southgate and then head east to the river and down into the Hub. Assemble the regiment, Captain Crockett. If we’re challenged by the SS we’ll tell them we’re an Anglo regiment being reassigned to the attack on the Quartier Chaud. Tell the men they’re only to fire as a last resort. We’ll escape the Ghetto using guile, not muscle.’
Crockett gave the Baron a salute. ‘Sounds like an excellent idea to me, Major, I always had a strange aversion to fighting to the last man.’
For Trixie the final battle of the Warsaw Uprising was the worst experience of her short military career. It was the one she came closest to losing.
Despite the reinforcements, despite the confusion caused in the SS ranks when her father had smashed his way into the Ghetto, despite the best efforts of her fighters, the breakout soon degenerated into chaos.
As the first of them vaulted the barricades shortly before twelve, Trixie knew that it would be a murderous night. Within seconds the battle had become a fire-racked confusion, and the fighters of the WFA were cut down in swaths as they desperately fought their way through the ruins of the city towards Westgate. The carnage was terrible and Trixie sensed that outnumbered and outgunned, they were doomed.
The weather saved them from complete annihilation. It was the last night of Winter and the season had obviously determined to go out with a flourish. The blizzard that swept through the Ghetto was as bad as any she had ever experienced, so bad that it was impossible to see more than a few yards ahead, to distinguish snow-covered friend from snow-covered foe. These last savage snows of Winter churned with the smoke from burning steamers and smouldering buildings to make the Ghetto a scene from Hel.
But even shrouded by the blizzard, the losses were terrible. After an hour of the bitterest fighting of the whole Uprising, only a battered remnant of the WFA smashed its way to Westgate. And there in the smoke- and snow-drenched darkness, the Poles and the SS grappled with each other in hate-filled fury, their firefight enveloping the gateway.
But in the end the sheer bloody-mindedness of the Poles triumphed and Trixie led her fighters out of the Ghetto.
The fighting provided the perfect cover of chaos and mayhem for Ella, Vanka and Rivets – together, of course, with Ella’s twelve dutiful disciples – to make their escape.
But rather than going towards the river as Ella had expected, Vanka headed for Middlegate. The reason was made clear thirty minutes later, when they were crouched by a barbed-wire fence that surrounded what looked like a flat, treeless playing field.
‘Where are we?’ whispered Ella as she scrolled through PINC.
Vanka was quicker with his answer. ‘Welcome to the John Hanning Speke Balloon-O-Drome, home to the First Aerial Detachment of the ForthRight Observation Corps.’
Ella peered out into the darkness that shrouded the Balloon-O-Drome. There, gently swaying in the breeze, she could just make out the bulbous form of a balloon. The penny dropped. ‘You mean us to fly to ExterSteine?’
Vanka nodded enthusiastically. ‘It’s the only way. Anyway, I’ve always wanted to go up in a balloon. We’re fifteen miles from ExterSteine and it’s only’ – he checked his watch – ‘five hours to dawn and as the wind shifts to the east between midnight and six in the morning it’s a perfect time. By my reckoning ExterSteine is almost due east, so all we’ll do is let the wind carry us in that direction until we see the standing stones and then let out the hydrogen from the balloon and…’
‘Crash?’
‘Sink gracefully to the ground,’ he corrected. ‘Look, Ella, I know it’s a pretty madcap sort of scheme but unless you can think of a better way of us getting to ExterSteine before dawn, this is all that’s on offer.’
‘It’s madness.’
‘You’re not frightened of heights, are you?’
‘It’s not the heights that frighten me, it’s the depths that come rushing up to greet you when you crash that I’ve always found discouraging.’
‘Don’t worry, Ella, flying can’t be that difficult.’
‘You’re not suggesting you’re going to fly it!’
‘Of course,’ answered Vanka casually. ‘Who else? Anyway, it’ll be fun!’
‘Fun? That’s a hydrogen balloon you’re talking about: one bullet and we’ll be toast.’
‘It’s night: no one will see us.’
‘What about the guards? They’re not just gonna let us waltz in and steal one of their balloons.’
‘Most of them will be drunk by now. It’s Spring Eve and everybody gets drunk on Spring Eve. And if there are any guards who aren’t drunk then your Disciples will settle them.’
Before Ella quite knew what was happening Vanka flourished a pair of wire-cutters, cut a hole in the fence and she was running behind him towards the balloon. All the guards protecting the Balloon-O-Drome must have been drunk as no one challenged them, or maybe none of them believed that anyone would be mad enough to steal a balloon. Closer to, the balloon looked enormous but very fragile. The canvas of the cover was stretched over a thin bamboo frame, and the basket that hung beneath was woven from what looked to be wholly inadequate wicker.
‘There isn’t room for more than two or three people in that basket. What are the rest of us going to do?’
‘Don’t worry about them,’ answered Vanka. ‘Rivets will come with us – he’s only little. The rest will be all right. They’re tough guys and they’ll make their way to the Quartier somehow. But I think they’d appreciate it if you said a few words of thanks before we go.’
‘How about a prayer?’ suggested Ella, only partly in jest.
Once out of the Ghetto, it was every man and woman for themselves. It was impossible for Trixie to control or to command the survivors of the WFA. So far as she could judge, the chance of their being able to fight through Odessa and St Petersburg to the Anichkov Bridge was very slim.
But the peculiar thing was that now, when they were at their most vulnerable, the SS threat had receded. There were still fire-fights going on all around the perimeter of the Ghetto, but not with quite the intensity of before. It seemed that – despite her father’s misgivings – their plan to escape through Westgate had worked: there were hardly any regular ForthRight Army soldiers defending the route south through Rodina to the Coven. But there was still a march of almost fifteen miles ahead of them and by the look of her soldiers that would be fifteen miles too far.
Wysochi provided the solution. Using a sharp tongue and a blunt boot, he drove the fighters up onto their feet and off searching for steamers. These he commandeered at the point of a rifle, and soon a veritable motorised regiment was puffing through the streets of Rodina, each steamer crammed full of fighters. It took them an hour to get to the Anichkov Bridge, and as the convoy wheezed to a halt by the side of the Volga River, she could see that now just the half-mile span of the bridge separated the WFA from the safety of Rangoon.
But as Trixie studied the bridge, her father’s observation began to trouble her. She had expected the whole length of the St Petersburg bank of the Volga to be alive with ForthRight assault troops as they prepared to attack the Coven, but it was virtually empty. Certainly, there was a sizeable force of SS defending the bridge, but that’s all they were doing: defending it. One thing for sure was they weren’t attacking the Coven.
‘Have you seen my father?’ she asked Wysochi.
‘No, though I’ve heard that he took his men east.’
East?
For a moment Trixie felt hurt… betrayed. How could her father have deserted her on tonight of all nights?
‘There’s no ForthRight Army waiting to attack, Sergeant.’
Wysochi shrugged. ‘The ForthRight have probably delayed the attack because of the weather. No one wants to advance into the teeth of a blizzard.’
Trixie nodded. It was a sensible explanation and better than her father’s idea that Heydrich had changed his mind and abandoned the attack on the Coven. Leaders like Heydrich didn’t change their mind; that smacked of weakness.
‘How many men do we have left?’ she asked.
‘Maybe a couple of thousand,’ Wysochi guessed. ‘It was hot work.’ He cocked an ear back towards St Petersburg. ‘And the SS aren’t far behind us.’ He was right: even with only one good ear she could hear SS steamers advancing towards them through the chilled silence of the night.
‘Can we force the bridge?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think we have any other choice, Colonel. And if we’re going to do it we should do it soon, otherwise we’re going to end up as meat in an SS sandwich.’
At a signal from Trixie, the remaining WFA fighters attacked the bridge and it was an attack that soon degenerated into mayhem. Later, all she could remember was ordering their steamers to smash through the barricades defending the bridge: the rest was just a blur of firing, fighting, yelling and cursing. The SS detachment stationed on the St Petersburg end of the bridge had obviously not expected to be attacked from the rear but they fought bravely and the cost of the victory was appalling.
When Trixie eventually arrived on the Coven side of the bridge, she was flanked by only a tattered and battered rump of the army of seven thousand men and women she’d led over the barricades just two hours before.
‘The Sacrifice of Blood?’
Crowley laughed at her concern. ‘Oh, don’t fret yourself, Daemon, your life isn’t to be forfeit. I just need a little of your blood to seal the psychic union between you and Lady Aaliz.’
He gestured to the Witchfinder, who moved forward with an evil-looking knife clasped in his hand.
‘Hold out the Daemon’s forearm,’ commanded Crowley.
‘No way!’
But there were too many of them to resist. They forced her right arm out and the Witchfinder ran the tip of his knife along it, slicing a six-inch cut in her pale flesh. Immediately blood began to run, collected in a gold goblet by an adept.
Face flushed with excitement, Crowley pointed to a small stage set in the centre of the cavern. ‘Bring the Daemon to the altar,’ he boomed, ‘and Lady Aaliz, if you would approach through the unformed part of the pentagon, being careful not to step on the rest of the design.’ He pointed to the pentagon painted on the floor of the cavern that surrounded the altar, indicating the one missing side. ‘Now, my Lady,’ said Crowley, ‘if you would please kneel in the direction from which the dawn light will enter our temple.’
The Lady Aaliz did as she was bade.
‘Have the Daemon kneel facing the Lady Aaliz.’
None too gently the Witchfinder forced Norma into the pentagon and pushed her down so that she was face to face with Aaliz, the girls forming human bookends to the altar. ‘Ah, the perfect yin and yang,’ mused Crowley. ‘The perfect antipodes: one blonde, the other dark.’
A trio of musicians seated at the very rear of the temple began to play, the music they conjured from their instruments cacophonous, disturbing and somehow alien.
In the corners of the cavern incense burners were lit and acrid red smoke began to drift through the temple. The smell that tugged at Norma’s nostrils made her head swim, and she began to feel strangely divorced from reality.
A priestess set a golden tray bearing two goblets – one containing Norma’s blood – on a stand to the side of the altar. Once the woman had retreated from the pentagon, Crowley turned to address his small audience. ‘The altar has been encased in this pentagon for two reasons: it seals the altar from the Demi-Monde, which makes it a more
… comfortable place for the Spirits to occupy, and secondly, it forms a magical barrier that safeguards onlookers from the occult forces our spells will release.’ He stooped down and with two swift swishes of a piece of chalk and a few muttered incantations closed the pentagon.
Satisfied, he moved to stand behind the altar, then spread his arms and called out, ‘I command ABBA, the deity that rules this, the Demi-Monde, to send the soul of Aaliz Heydrich to the Spirit World there to inhabit the body of Norma Williams.’ Crowley walked around the altar nine times waving an incense burner to and fro, wafting thick, acrid smoke over the two kneeling girls.
‘First, the Lady Aaliz must drink the blood of the Daemon and by doing so subjugate its will and its astral power.’ He offered the golden chalice to Aaliz, who, with obvious relish, drank down the thick, red liquid.
‘Now, Daemon, drink this.’ Crowley noted the look of revulsion on Norma’s face. ‘Do not worry, it is not blood. This is zelie, a potion made from the hallucinogenic plant called ayahuasca that grows in the Hubland: its use was much favoured by the shamans of Old Rodina. To this I have added the juice of boiled fly agaric mushrooms, to make a cocktail to unlock your mind from the hegemony of your will.’ Norma reluctantly downed the draught. The tart red liquid made her head spin.
‘Join hands,’ commanded Crowley and Norma unthinkingly stretched out her hands towards Aaliz, who intertwined her fingers around hers.
‘Let the Rite of Transference commence.’
The seven men and five women who made up Ella’s bodyguard gathered expectantly around the basket. She found the way they looked at her vaguely disconcerting: they really did believe they were in the presence of someone truly holy. The problem was she didn’t have a clue what to say to them. As she gazed into those trusting, imploring eyes, she wondered what she, little Ella Thomas from New York City, could say that would inspire these people, that would give them hope. She turned to the greatest speech-writers in history for inspiration.
Thank you Mrs Little and her English Lit class.
‘Friends, Demi-Mondians, countrymen, lend me your ears.’
Now a little from the greatest speechifier of them all, Winston Churchill.
‘We have seen joined the greatest battle in the history of the Demi-Monde. It is a battle between good and evil; between those who wish to be free and those who wish to enslave them; between those who would embrace understanding and tolerance and those whose philosophy is infused by hate. But it is a battle that must be won. It will not be an easy victory. We see stretching before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering. But we must be victorious. We must have victory. Victory at all costs – victory in spite of all terrors – victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival. And make no mistake, my friends, we now fight for our very survival.’
Though JFK wasn’t bad either.
‘Let the ForthRight know we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure this victory and the success of liberty and equality within the Demi-Monde. Let the ForthRight know we wish a new world order, one where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace is preserved.’
Not forgetting the inimitable Martin Luther King.
‘My friends: I have a dream that one day this world will live out the truth in the creed that all men and all women are created equal. I have a dream that even the ForthRight, with its vicious racists and a Leader whose lips drip with the bile of detestation and subjugation, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that one day people will be judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their souls.’
A little touch more of Churchillian rhetoric.
‘So I ask you to go forth and spread the message that all of the Demi-Monde must unite against the plague that is UnFunDaMentalism. Tell the people of the Demi-Monde that we must unite to wage war by land and by river. We must wage war with all our might and with all the strength ABBA has given us. We must wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. Tell them we must fight and we must be victorious.’
And round it off with a dash more Martin Luther King.
‘But be assured that one day the chimes of freedom will ring out through the Demi-Monde proclaiming the coming of a world where men and women, black and white, HerEtical and HimPerialist, will join hands as equals and as friends. That is my message. I pray to the Spirits to keep you safe and to give you the courage and the strength to face the trials to come.’
After she had finished speaking an unnatural silence descended on her audience. Then one of the twelve – the long, beanpole William Penn who had been so assiduously scribbling in his notebook as she had been talking – stood up. There were tears trickling down his cheeks. ‘We pledge, Lady IMmanual, that we will take your message to the Demi-Monde. We pledge that your message of democracy and the defiance of tyranny and injustice will be spread to all the Sectors. We pledge to work night and day to rally the Demi-Monde to defy the evil of the ForthRight and of UnFunDaMentalism. We pledge our undying loyalty and allegiance to our Saviour, the Lady IMmanual and the creed of IMmanualism.’
Bloody hell.
Then the twelve knelt before Ella, who, remembering what she had seen the televangelists do on TV, went around placing her hand on each of the bowed heads whilst intoning, ‘May ABBA be with you.’
At last Vanka intervened. ‘Well, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for everything. Best of luck with your preaching. Go forth with the blessing of the Lady IMmanual and all that. Yeah, go forth and multiply. Now we’ve got to be going.’ He hopped into the basket and held out a hand to Ella. ‘C’mon, then, time to go flying.’
Once his two passengers were safely in the balloon’s basket, Vanka nodded to William Penn. ‘If you would cast off the mooring ropes.’
There was a judder, a lurch and slowly the balloon began to rise.
‘What did you think, Vanka,’ she gasped as she watched the ground begin to slowly recede, ‘about what I said down there?’
‘I think if you carry on making speeches like that the IMmanualites will never let you leave the Demi-Monde.’ He beamed at her. ‘And if that’s the case, I might even be persuaded to become one myself.’
As Trixie walked to the Rangoon side of the Anichkov Bridge she saw a deputation standing waiting to greet her. Unconsciously she ran a hand through her sweat-drenched hair, trying to make herself just a little more presentable. She almost laughed: after what she had been through it was a ridiculous thing to worry about.
Two of the deputation stepped forward. The leading woman was tall and well-made, and despite the rather severe cut of the trouser suit she was wearing appeared elegant and quite feminine, thanks to the wonderful cascade of blonde hair that tumbled down to her waist.
‘I am Lady Lucrezia Borgia,’ she announced in a voice so refined that it bordered on the haughty, ‘First Deputy to her Imperial Highness Wu, Empress of all the lands known as the Demi-Monde.’
Another megalomaniac.
Trixie set her face to bland and saluted. ‘I am Colonel Trixiebell Dashwood, Commander of the Warsaw Free Army.’
‘Empress Wu sends her greetings to such a courageous soldier and offers you and your troops sanctuary in the Coven.’
‘I am very grateful, Madam First Deputy.’
‘Where is the one called the Lady IMmanual?’ The question came from the girl standing behind First Deputy Borgia, and in contrast to the First Deputy’s serenity, the second woman radiated impatience and petulance. She was clad from head to toe in combat gear and carried a repeating rifle slung over her shoulder. Trixie knew her instantly, knew her by her cropped brown hair, by her gleaming eyes that seemed to flash and sparkle as she spoke, and by Loki’s symbol, the large wooden cross hanging from her neck. This was the infamous Jeanne Dark, leader of the Suffer-O-Gettes, the scourge of HimPerialism, the enemy of UnFunDaMentalism, the Chief Witch of HerEticalism.
A few weeks ago Trixie would have made the sign of the Valknut to ward off the evil that Jeanne Dark represented for the natural order of things, but not now. Now all she saw was a rival and rivals weren’t something to be afraid of. Rivals were something to be eliminated.
‘I asked you a question.’
The sharpness in Jeanne Dark’s voice brought Trixie out of her reverie. No one – no one – spoke to her like that.
‘When you address me you will use my rank. I am Colonel Dashwood.’
‘Very well, Colonel Dashwood: where is the Lady IMmanual?’
‘The Lady IMmanual? She was lost. We believe she has been tricked by a man named Vanka Maykov into surrendering herself to the SS.’
‘Fuck,’ snarled the girl. ‘Now that, Colonel Dashwood, was a careless, costly mistake.’ With a snort of disgust she spun on her heel and marched back towards the end of the bridge. The look the First Deputy directed towards the witch’s retreating figure suggested there was little love lost between the two Covenites.
‘You must forgive my colleague, Reverend Deputy Dark,’ said First Deputy Borgia, ‘she is apt to be a little temperamental.’ She smiled diplomatically. ‘We have prepared accommodation for your fighters in a nearby barracks, but while they are resting the Empress Wu has commanded an audience with you.’
‘Now?’ Trixie looked down at her soiled and tattered combat overalls. ‘Perhaps I might be given a few minutes to-’
‘Empress Wu is very insistent that she meet you immediately. She is aware that you are a soldier and apt to be somewhat careless regarding your appearance. But your army’s presence on Coven soil has the most profound political implications, implications which must be urgently resolved.’
Trixie nodded: the Coven giving the WFA sanctuary must have sent Heydrich into a paroxysm of fury. ‘I wish Major Wysochi to accompany me.’
Wysochi grinned when he heard his instant promotion, but Trixie knew eyebrows would be raised if she insisted on having a mere sergeant as her second-in-command.
‘Is he your Preferred Male?’
‘Preferred Male?’
The First Deputy gave a condescending smile. ‘It is a Covenite term for the male a Femme allows to accompany her and provide her with certain physical comforts.’
She glanced at Wysochi, whose grin broadened. ‘Yes, Major Wysochi is my Preferred Male.’
‘Very well, but Preferred Male Wysochi should understand that he is to walk behind you and never address a Femme without being addressed first.’
The First Deputy turned and led Trixie and Wysochi from the bridge.
As the night floated past, Norma felt the air in the temple become heavier, almost syrupy. Sounds were muffled as though they were coming to her from far, far away. She felt distanced not just from the music but from reality. With every passing moment her world contracted. She seemed to be falling into herself.
As she and Aaliz Heydrich knelt face to face and hand in hand through the long night, she experienced a growing sensation that she was merging with the girl. It was almost as though she and Aaliz were beginning to inhabit the same body… the same consciousness… the same soul.
She saw a bead of sweat trickle from Aaliz’s brow and felt the identical one course over her own forehead.
In an apathetic sort of way Norma sensed the tempo of the ritual become more frenzied. The rhythm of the unrelenting music was becoming faster, the stench wafting from the incense burners more pungent, and the ululations and the cavortings of Crowley and his adepts more fervent. The cavern was heavy with magic, and inside the pentagon strange and nebulous forms manifested themselves.
Ghosts and spectres… the Intangible… floated… through the thickening air, their gossamer fingers drifting over… through Norma and Aaliz. The Spirits had come, and their coming announced that the moment of Transference was imminent. There would be no time for anyone to rescue her now.
From what she had seen of balloon rides on television, Ella had thought them to be tranquil, calm, almost beatific experiences, with the balloonists drifting high and silent in a sun-kissed sky. But as she quickly discovered, balloons were in fact noisy affairs, with the wicker basket and the cordage creaking and groaning, and the fabric of the balloon rippling and flapping in the wind.
The balloon stank too: the dubbing that waterproofed the canvas canopy had a rancid smell. And all the while the Winter blizzard that swooped around the basket pushed and pummelled the balloon, making it slip and slide through the air in an unsettling way, as though she were riding a pendulum. It was also bitterly cold floating around in the night sky, so cold that she was forced to duck down beneath the side of the basket to get away from the freezing wind.
She didn’t stay there long. The noise, the smell, the cold and the continual swaying of the basket in the air currents meant that they had barely floated a couple of miles from the Balloon-O-Drome before she was obliged to get back to her feet to retch over the side of the basket.
‘Good shot,’ observed Rivets. ‘There’s a coupla thousand of them ForthRight soldiers below us an’ now one of ‘em’s got a faceful of vomit.’
Ella wiped her mouth and then – cautiously, she hated the way the basket tipped when she shifted her weight – peered down to the ground below. In the darkness it was easy to see the lanterns the ForthRight Army had placed to light their way along the newly opened Hub spur of the Trans-ForthRight Railway. The flickering snake of trains coiled and twisted along the railway line that connected the ForthRight with Hub Bridge Number 4.
No… not Hub Bridge Number 4. They were advancing towards Hub Bridge Number 2!
A frown creased her brow: the ForthRight Army was going the wrong way. All the trains and the steamers and the marching soldiers were advancing in the direction of the Quartier Chaud.
‘The ForthRight’s attacking the Medis,’ she gasped and even as the words tumbled out of her mouth she realised that that was what she hadn’t been able to read in Crowley’s mind the last time they’d met. Somehow Crowley’s – Heydrich’s – duplicity had been hidden from her and PINC.
But how? And why?
Vanka shrugged. ‘Doesn’t surprise me: Heydrich’s a crafty sod. All that stuff he fed Baron Dashwood and Dabrowski was obviously moonshine. Probably just playing silly buggers to keep everybody off balance.’ He laughed. ‘The funny thing is that the non-aggression pact he signed with the Coven was probably genuine: it’ll go down in history as the only pact Heydrich ever honoured in his whole rotten life.’
‘But what about the WFA? They’ve been offered sanctuary by the Coven.’
‘I don’t think you need worry too much about them: by the look of things there’s been some hard fighting in the Ghetto.’ He pointed to the smudge of flames that lit up the night in the direction of the Boundary. ‘No, I don’t think too many of the WFA are going to get out of that Hel-hole.’
Vanka was right: even from a height of – Ella guessed – two thousand feet and a distance of two or three miles, the sound of the armies fighting it out in the Ghetto was plainly audible.
Despite Vanka’s confidence that the east wind would drive them towards ExterSteine, progress was agonisingly slow. The balloon seemed caught in a vortex of wind, spinning indecisively over the Rhine where the Reinhard Heydrich Railway Bridge crossed the river, giving the three passengers a marvellous view of the frantic efforts of the railway engineers who were trying to clear the carcass of the train derailed by Baron Dashwood’s men.
At first their sedate progress didn’t trouble Ella, but as time slipped by and the balloon refused to move at anything more than the aeronautical equivalent of a snail’s pace she became increasingly anxious. Vanka was obviously as worried as she was: he began to drum his fingers on the side of the wicker basket.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘There’s so much snow on the top of the balloon that it’s slowing us down. I’m worried that if we aren’t on the ground by dawn the wind will shift to the south and that will take us towards the centre of the Demi-Monde.’ He passed Ella his telescope. ‘If you look to your right, you can just see Mare Incognitum.’
Ella peered through the snow-drenched night, and sure enough, glinting in the moonlight was a large lake – at least two miles across, by her estimation – set slap bang in the middle of the Demi-Monde. She checked PINC, but all the information it had was that the centre of the Hub was an undeveloped area off-limits to Demi-Mondians and allocated to ABBA for future cyber-development. Rather disturbingly PINC named this area Terror Incognita.
‘Is that a problem?’
‘I don’t know how long this balloon is going to stay airborne: I think we’ve got a leak. And the last thing I want to do is come down in Terror Incognita.’
‘Why’s it called Terror Incognita? What’s there to be terrified of?’
‘The Terror’s full ov monsters an’ lots ov ovver horrible fings-’ began Rivets.
‘No one knows,’ Vanka interrupted. ‘Explorers have crossed the Wheel River but none of them has ever come back. And this Winter the ForthRight sent in a regiment of SS to have a look around and they were lost too. All we really know about the place comes from the drawings Speke made during his balloon ascent last year.’
‘And that is?’
‘Not much. We know that it’s heavily forested and that it’s home for one of the Wonders of the Ancient Demi-Monde. You can just see the Great Pyramid now, it’s almost directly south.’
Ella swung the telescope around and examined the horizon. PINC had made no mention of any pyramid but there, nevertheless, illuminated by the moonlight was a structure that looked for all the world like Khufu’s Great Pyramid. But it wasn’t the eroded and corroded monument Ella remembered from her history books; this one was white, sharp-sided and pristine. She didn’t remember Khufu’s pyramid having a hexagonal platform at its very summit either.
How odd.
‘It’s glowing!’
‘Everything made out of Mantle-ite glows in the dark. In the dark it emits green stuff scientists called LunarAtion. It’s the same effect you saw in the sewers.’
As she moved the telescope around the central area of the Demi-Monde, she saw several huge pictures drawn on the ground around Mare Incognitum. From what she could make out there was a spider, a snake, a shark and what looked like a man, and each of them was a good two or three miles in length and, just like the pyramid, they glowed under the moonlight. ‘Wow! Those pictures are like the Nazca geoglyphs.’
‘Oh, you mean the Speke Etchings. Yeah, we didn’t even know they existed until a year ago. As they’re invisible from ground level they were undiscovered until Speke went up in his balloon.’
‘Who made them?’ She had to ask because according to PINC they didn’t exist.
‘No one knows.’
‘They’re amazing. I’d really love to see them up close.’
There was a ripping sound from above Ella’s head. She looked up to see that part of the balloon’s canvas had torn away.
‘It looks, Ella, as though you’re going to get your wish.’
That the Baron and his men got as far as they did without any trouble was down to the Poles: the Baron had never realised just how much cheek, how much chutzpah Poles had. They were the ones who shouted the ribald replies to the SS guards when they were challenged and the ones who laughed and joked as they marched along, deluding the SS into believing they were just reinforcements on their way to the front. By dint of the Poles’ impertinence and by not firing at anyone the Baron’s regiment made it safely through the Ghetto, out through Southgate, along Odessa’s Deribasovskaya Street, and across the new railway track. And that’s when things had gone wrong. Obviously the ForthRight military had been shaken by Cassidy’s train attack and their reaction had been to dramatically increase the number of soldiers guarding the railway line.
Unfortunately the sentry whom Cassidy tripped over was young, overeager and one of the few men in his company who wasn’t drunk. The boy had been cowering away from the blizzard in the lee of a water tower when Cassidy, frozen and not in a very accommodating mood, fell over him. The conversation that ensued was brief and noisy.
‘Who goes there?’ said the boy through chattering teeth.
‘Someone who’s not as stupid as you are, that’s for sure,’ snarled Cassidy as he hauled himself out of the snowdrift he’d been tumbled into. ‘Spirits damn it, boy, what are you doing hiding away like that?’
The boy, with a terrified look on his face, did his best to face Cassidy down. ‘I-I-I s-s-said who goes there?’
‘Why-why-why,’ Cassidy mimicked a little unkindly, ‘should I tell a f-f-fucking idiot like you anything?’
‘Be-be-because I’m guarding this water tower.’
‘Well, P-P-Private, I’m Sergeant B-B-Bob Cassidy of the First Anglo Rangers and me and my f-f-friends have been ordered to get our a-a-asses over to Hub Bridge Number Two to help with the attack there.’
Cassidy was betrayed by the want of a button. If his ragged greatcoat still had had some of its buttons it wouldn’t have flapped open in the wind to display his blue jacket, the one he had worn when he had been fighting on the Royalist side during the Troubles. The boy saw the jacket, his eyes boggled and then he made what would prove to be a fatal mistake.
‘Royalists!’ he screamed. ‘We’re under attack by Royalists!’ And then to compound his mistake, he fired his rifle. By the time Cassidy had smashed his rifle butt into the boy’s head the damage had been done. The alert rippled around the ForthRight troops stationed along the railway line.
‘Royalists to me,’ screamed the Baron. ‘Captain Crockett, we’re to advance at the double, due south.’
The look he got from Crockett was very articulate. He knew as well as the Baron what lay to the south.
‘That’s the direction where there are the fewest enemy,’ the Baron shouted by way of explanation. ‘We’ll get to the Wheel River and then …’
It was lucky for the Baron that the shooting began when it did, otherwise he would have been forced to explain to Crockett just what he did plan to do. And if he had explained he doubted that Crockett or indeed any of his regiment would have followed him. But by his estimation a probable death was preferable to a certain one and, after all, someone, sometime had to survive Terror Incognita. He just hoped it would be him.
Fortunately for the balloonists, the blizzard eased and the wind shifted back, driving them to the east and blowing them – unnoticed in the snow-filled darkness – a hundred feet over the campfires that marked the SS cordon around ExterSteine. When the wounded balloon finally expired, they came to rest, by Vanka’s estimation, about a half-mile to the west of ExterSteine. The landing was what Ella described as a ‘soft crash’: the basket hit the ground with a considerable bump but as the ground was covered with a thick layer of snow the impact was cushioned. The three of them emerged from the tangle of ropes and wreckage and pronounced themselves grateful that none had any broken limbs. Barely pausing for breath, they set off towards the five stone columns that made up ExterSteine and which could be seen glinting ahead of them in the dawn’s half-light.
Dawn.
As Ella looked to the east, she could see the unmistakable smudge of red light on the horizon signalling that dawn was imminent.
‘How long before sunup, Vanka?’ she whispered – sound travelled easily in the Hub – as she slid and slipped over the pristine snow of the Hubland.
‘Half an hour at the most.’
‘Not enough time.’
‘Maybe not to rescue Norma but maybe enough to stop the Rite of Transference.’
‘How do you figure that?’
‘I remember an article in The Stormer that described the rites Crowley performed to welcome the beginning of Spring. It said something about there being a window cut in the roof of the cavern set at the top of the tallest ExterSteine column and that it was through this window that the first light of the first day of Spring was directed. According to Crowley, this first light of Spring had great occult significance. Maybe if we can block the window we can stop the rite.’
They ran as hard as they could through the swirling snow and the faltering darkness, guided by the shimmering Mantle-ite columns, and as they came closer the other-worldliness of the structure became more apparent. ExterSteine was made up of five gigantic columns that stabbed like rigid fingers out from the middle of the flat, snow-dressed grassland that was the Hub, the Mantle-ite columns luminous in the darkness. Ella guessed the tallest column of the five – Lilith’s Column – stood over two hundred foot tall and was about a hundred foot in girth. Lights flickered at the summit.
A strange, eerie feeling washed over her.
She’d been here before. ‘
That’s where the Rite of Transference must be taking place,’ she called out. ‘That must be where Crowley conducts his rituals.’
Vanka pointed to a staircase that wound around the column. ‘And that’s the way up.’
Ella could only think that the rite being performed by Crowley was so secret that he wanted as few people to witness it as possible and that was why there were no SS StormTroopers guarding the staircase. Indeed, all the Hubland stretching out around ExterSteine seemed deserted, the snow untarnished by footprints or steamer tracks.
Climbing the column was tough: the stairs were steep, the steps slippery with ice and snow, and the savage wind buffeted them every step of the way, but there was no time to pause for breath. As she climbed she couldn’t resist the temptation to drift her fingers over the runic inscriptions etched over the surface of the Mantle-ite column. And though the runes were written in the untranslatable Pre-Folk A and though even PINC couldn’t provide her with an interpretation of what the inscriptions said, she knew what was written there… knew that once she had spoken this strange language.
In Lilith | I, Loki, was reborn.
And reborn | Lilith scorned
ABBA’s harmony. | Through Lilith’s sorcery | the harmony was destroyed.
Harmony she said | is the iced touch of the ideal. | The dead hand the frozen soul | the unvoiced idea the unfurling | of the flower never blossoming.
To build | anew
Lilith | in her quiet fury razed. | This is the first truth.
To build | you must first destroy.
The ruined perfection of the Vanir erased.
She had no time to ponder on what was written: the dawn light that with every passing minute advanced over the eastern horizon urged her on. Time was short. Desperately she pushed her protesting body up the stairs until she arrived, breathless, panting and dizzy from her exertions, at the flat, circular top of the column that tilted towards the rising sun. She found herself standing on the summit of the world.
Ella hated heights and she had never been anywhere where her feeling of vertigo was so intense. The Demi-Monde stretching out below her seemed a very long way down and she was made to feel even more vulnerable by the way the wind whistled around her as she struggled to keep her footing on the slick Mantle-ite.
‘Over there,’ Vanka shouted over the howling gusts. ‘To the east. The shutters must be over there.’
Leaning into the wind, they pushed their way to the eastern side of the column. Vanka was right: a pair of great wooden shutters covered that side, facing towards the rapidly rising sun. There was a huge wooden lever next to them that presumably operated the shutters.
Why aren’t they guarded?
Vanka whipped his belt from around his waist. ‘If we tie this around the handles of the shutters that’ll stop them being opened!’
His explanation was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a revolver being cocked. They looked up to see Burlesque Bandstand – a much thinner-faced Burlesque Bandstand, it had to be said – wrapped in a dublonka, sitting with his legs dangling carelessly over the side of the column, and brandishing a purposeful-looking Webley pistol in their direction. By the light of the rising sun Ella could see there was a body of a dead SS StormTrooper beside him.
He raised the pistol and took careful aim at Vanka’s forehead.
‘‘Appy First ov Spring, Wanker, you bastard.’
Empress Wu was holding court in the Shwedagon Palace which dominated East Rangoon. After the cramped hustle and bustle of the Rookeries the huge gardens that surrounded the Palace came as a surprise to Trixie: she found it difficult to believe there could be anywhere in the Demi-Monde so profligate with space. It was as though she were walking through a place that was in the Demi-Monde but not of the Demi-Monde.
Once inside the Palace she was ushered briskly along the brilliantly decorated corridors until she was brought to a halt before two vast and richly embossed doors. First Deputy Borgia turned to her. ‘This is the Hall of the Great Dragon. Beyond these doors is seated the Sacred Presence of the Great Empress Wu. You will address the Great Empress as “Your Imperial Majesty”. You will approach the Great Empress Wu with your eyes averted: under no circumstances are you to gaze on her Divine Form directly. When you reach the black line inscribed across the floor of the hall you are to genuflect…’
‘Kneel? Colonels in the WFA don’t kneel to anyone.’
‘Please, Colonel, try to understand. This is Coven protocol, it cannot be changed.’
Oh yes it can, decided Trixie as she gave the First Deputy a nod of acceptance.
‘Under no circumstances are your knees, your hands or any other parts of your body to cross that line. You may answer the questions posed to you by Her Imperial Majesty but whilst you may answer her questions…’
‘Under no circumstances am I to address her directly,’ suggested Trixie peevishly. She was too tired for this nonsense.
‘Indeed. You may use your inferior Anglo tongue when making your replies: the Empress Wu is familiar and fluent in all of the primitive languages of the Demi-Monde.’ The First Deputy glanced disdainfully at Wysochi. ‘Your Preferred Male is not permitted to enter the Hall of the Great Dragon. Only Femmes and NoNs may gaze upon the Divine Form of the Empress.’
Instructions completed, the First Deputy made a sign to the two sentries guarding the entrance to the hall – both the guards were women, and both, Trixie noticed, were armed with brand new M4s – who hauled the doors open to reveal the vast hall beyond.
M4s…
Why would Heydrich have provided the Coven with M4s if he was about to make war on it?
Still pondering this, Trixie strode off across the beautifully inlaid teak floor towards the small woman she could see seated on a throne at the far side of the room.
By repute the Empress Wu was the most beautiful woman in the Demi-Monde, but as she was protected from any indiscreet peeking by drapes of sheer silk wafting in front of her Trixie was unable to confirm or deny the rumour.
She came to the black line the First Deputy had warned her about, and with just a moment’s hesitation dropped to her knees and bowed to the shadowed form of the Empress.
‘You are very young,’ observed a lilting, almost sing-song voice.
Trixie remained silent. In truth she didn’t quite know how to reply: she was young.
‘And very dirty.’
This too was correct. Looking down at her knees, Trixie could see that her filthy, matted trousers were leaving streaks of dirt on the immaculately polished floor.
‘But this, I suppose, is to be expected when one is confronted by a Femme so given to martial pursuits. I understand that you are a remarkably able soldier, Colonel Dashwood: is this true?’
There seemed to be little point in being modest. ‘Yes, Your Imperial Majesty, I have enjoyed some success in fighting the Anglos.’
‘But you are an Anglo yourself, are you not?’
‘I am, Your Majesty, but I have sworn to fight with the people of Warsaw against the tyranny of Reinhard Heydrich and UnFunDaMentalism.’
‘You have decidedly unForthRight views for one so young.’
‘My age does not, I believe, detract from the correctness of my opinions.’
‘Nor from the arrogance of your attitude, it would seem,’ came the testy response. ‘You should be aware that the Coven and the ForthRight are allies… friends.’
So her father had been right. Heydrich had deceived them.
Heydrich had deceived them so comprehensively that he had persuaded Trixie to lead her army into the hands of his ‘friend and ally’. She and the WFA were now at the mercy of the Coven.
A heavy silence fell on the hall. Finally the Empress spoke again. ‘I have consulted the iChing which advises that I should avoid war with the ForthRight, that I should not seek to tweak the tiger’s tail. This I believe is good advice: violence, in my opinion, is a poor substitute for the delicate deceits of diplomacy. But the price of peace is often a heavy one in that it involves the betrayal of those who trusted us.’ Again a silence and then a soft laugh. ‘Unfortunately betrayal and duplicity are indispensable parts of statecraft, and when one rules a nation or leads an army one quickly grows calluses on the soul, calluses that deaden finer feelings and dampen the pain engendered by betrayal. It is the express wish of Leader Heydrich that, as a token of the Coven’s friendship towards the ForthRight, we execute all members of the army you brought with you to the Coven and that we deliver you, in chains, into the custody of the ForthRight.’
No, you won’t.
As surreptitiously as she could, Trixie unbuttoned her tunic. The fools hadn’t searched her thoroughly enough – she had a small Colt holstered under her armpit. ‘That, Your Imperial Majesty, will only demonstrate to Heydrich that the Coven is weak and weakness is not a trait he admires.’
More silence. Trixie’s hand closed around the butt of the Colt.
‘An interesting point, but not persuasive.’ There was the tinkling of a small bell and immediately the doors to the hall swung open.
Resplendent in the immaculate black uniform of the SS-Ordo Templi Aryanis, Colonel Archie Clement strode into the hall.
Trixie knew that she was a dead woman.
How long they knelt there Norma didn’t – couldn’t – know: she’d spent the night encased in a magical bubble. Everything that happened outside the pentagon seemed distant, almost dreamlike. Even when Crowley and his adepts tore their gowns from one another and pranced around the cavern in a frenzied orgy of sexual indulgence it hardly touched on Norma’s consciousness. But now the music was louder and even more frenzied, the screams of Crowley and his adepts as they shouted out their spells and incantations more impassioned. She sensed the ritual was coming to its climax.
Suddenly the shutters set high in the roof crashed open, allowing a shaft of sunlight to stream through, down into the cavern. In that instant, Aaliz Heydrich was bathed in a halo of golden light and the runes painted on her body seemed to writhe and twist like living things. Her body began to tremble. A low moan escaped her lips. And then, with a terrible scream, she arched back and collapsed unconscious to the floor of the altar.
Norma felt herself tumbling into a dark nothingness, but just before she slid into unconsciousness she saw Crowley’s face, his mouth drawn back in the rictus of a smile.
The Rite of Transference was complete.