Hell on Earth

by Philip Palmer

  ‘Those are utterly respectable middle class demon communities,’ said Shai, incredulously. ‘Those are the most law-abiding areas in all of London. If you drop a bloody aitch in one of those streets, some bugger will call CrimeStoppers. Why would it be hiding there? It makes no sense!’

  Dougie frowned. He said nothing.

  ‘Be that as it may,’ said Andy. ‘These are the areas where the London Army launched a series of dawn raids this morning.’ Cat flashed each in turn. ‘Shadwell. Bow. Stratford East. And the north side of Victoria Park. Early reports indicate that –’

  ‘Enough,’ said Dougie.

  ‘I’ve seen the footage,’ said Alliea Cartwright angrily. ‘It’s a fucking –’

  ‘Enough,’ said Dougie. ‘Please bear in mind that this is a police station, and not a left wing magazine. And I am not, trust me on this, Naomi Klein or George fucking Monbiot. Whatever the army does is their affair; but it IS our job to help them find this serial killing dybbuk. Which is an uphill struggle, since it now appears evident that the fucking army couldn’t find a fucking rain drop in a fucking thunderstorm, Shai, do not minute that.’

  ‘I’m not minuting any of this,’ said Shai, tensely.

  ‘Good man. Now today we are launching our own Dybbuk Hunt, taking advantage of new information available to us, and informed also by our awareness that the London Army would incur the scorn of a headless Irish chicken when it comes to this kind of police work. Please note by the way you will be receiving time and a half overtime for what will undoubtedly be a long and tiring day, and the first one to kill a dybbuk gets a pint on me.’

  ‘What’s the new information?’ Seamus Malone asked.

  ‘It’s –’ said Gina.

  ‘All in good time,’ Dougie interrupted.

  Gina shut herself up.

  Dougie paced, his way of clearing his head. ‘Up until now we have assumed, I’m talking LOI-6 now,’ said Dougie, ‘that the dybbuk is possessing this creature. Catriona, golem.’ Cat cued a slide of the golem known as Jacob: a Photofit drawn by the police artist from Jenny Sykes’ description. ‘Namely the Fedora-hatted killer of DC Ronnie Tindale. However, we also know that this self-same killer has given us a clue about the existence of the dybbuk, by carving it in Ronnie’s flesh. Why? Why would we do this if he IS the dybbuk? Is this Gogarty aka The Dybbuk taunting us?’

  ‘I have some thoughts on that,’ said Tom, slowly.

  ‘In a moment, young laddie. Now we all know the Gogarty sense of humour, which leaves a great deal to be desired, even by my dismal standards. So it wouldn’t be beyond him to leave clues to his police nemeses, or even to try to lead the –’

  ‘Like Roslyn,’ said Tom.

  ‘As Roslyn D’Onston did during the Ripper enquiry.’ Dougie conceded.

  ‘There was a famous letter, allegedly from -’

  ‘Who’s running this briefing, lad?’

  Tom blinked.

  ‘Or, alternatively,’ continued Dougie, ‘here’s a thought for you all, is the golem genuinely trying to help us?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tom answered.

  ‘Tom,’ Gina chided.

  ‘Our current information suggests that the golem is in fact trying to help us, as best it can,’ Dougie continued. ‘It is spellbound, but rebellious. And the real vessel for the dybbuk is this person.’

  Catriona clicked.

  A photograph of Sheila Whittaker appeared.

  There was a murmur.

  ‘She made us tea,’ Taff pointed out. ‘Me and Ronnie.’

  ‘And she sheltered Gogarty, against her will. And, surmise, before Gogarty died the dybbuk had already switched bodies. From fat bald man into this middle aged lady. Not into the golem.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Tom.

  Dougie sighed. And then thought for a while.

  ‘Tom’s raised a good point,’ said Alliea. ‘If I were a murdering dybbuk I’d want to be in the most powerful body I could find. The golem is pretty much invulnerable, bullets bounce off it.’

  ‘Whereas Sheila Whittaker,’ said Andy Homerton.

  ‘Is a mumsy old broad going through the menopause,’ said Seamus.

  Alliea withered him with a ‘you sexist prick’ stare. Seamus was unabashed.

  ‘Psychology,’ affirmed Tom. ‘It’s all about - we have to get ahead of the curve, you see. Understanding the psychology of -’

  ‘Look son,’ said Dougie sharply. ‘I’ve been doing this since you used to drown your duck during bath time. Let me lead the investigation, eh?’

  ‘Yes, but you haven’t answered any of the key questions,’ said Tom brutally.

  ‘Let me do so,’ said Dougie. ‘The main key question, IMHO, is: why did the dybbuk leave us so many clues, all through this enquiry? Answer: it’s exponentially which means very fucking much more clever than we are, so if it didn’t leave clues we’d never have got anywhere near it, and that would be extremely boring for the damnèd fucking monster. It’s like a dad who allows his son to score goals in kickabout, and let me tell you, I am that dad. Hence, the dybbuk allowed Julia Penhall to escape with Gogarty’s name written on her arm. It wasn’t tricked or deceived, it let that happen. If it weren’t for those assorted ‘pity clues’, we wouldn’t have ever found Gogarty. So we’re outclassed. Outsmarted. All we can hope to do is clutch at the one straw we have – the fact the golem is now genuinely and very cunningly helping us. And that we do know, as Gina will soon explain.”

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Tom, after an awkward pause.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Dougie. ‘Cat?’

  Catriona clicked the next image.

  It showed a screengrab of Ronnie Tindale’s head being severed from its body. A shocking image, but it offered the best photographic image available of the golem. The torrent of blood had spattered the golem’s body to form a person-shaped outline, a damp crimson imprint of its invisible form. They could see it was tall, broad, and looming.

  ‘From this image, we can get some sense of the golem’s dimensions. It’s nine foot and a bit tall,’ summarised Andy Homerton. ‘About twenty-three stone at a guess. And strong, very strong indeed.’

  ‘Do we need to see this again?’ said Taff quietly.

  Cat killed the image.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Cat.

  ‘No worries,’ murmured Taff.

  ‘So by this new scenario, the golem should be regarded as friendly, not hostile,’ said Dougie.

  ‘I’ve got no problem with that,’ Taff lied.

  ‘And this is the face of our real enemy.’

  Catriona cued an image of Sheila Whittaker, in a big hat and a Monsoon floral dress, caught on CCTV at a wedding.

  ‘Middle-aged and matronly Sheila Whittaker is now the most evil creature on the planet. And so your orders are: Find, Identify, then Kill. Not just Sheila, but any and all members of her family who may be with her, and who are almost certainly working for the dybbuk.’

  Catriona typed up the Action: KILL WITHOUT WARNING ON CONTACT WITH ANY AND ALL TARGET NOMINALS, and followed that up with SHEILA WHITTAKER, JACOB GOLEM (golem, demon/damned, rabbi-created entity), VEDA (many-limbed multi-headed female demon), ALAZU (aerial demon, male, mute), TROY (baby, male, sentient, damned.) All the team received the data moments later on their e-berries, yellow-flagged.

  ‘She’s just a kid,’ said Taff. ‘The Asian girl, I mean, she’s the equivalent of an eight-year old. And the baby. I can’t kill a baby.’

  ‘The baby is ancient,’ rebuked Dougie. ‘Two hundred years old at least.’

  ‘Even so, it’s got the body of a baby. And the girl is just a girl. Are we killing children now?’

  ‘If necessary.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Taff conceded.

  ‘As I mentioned, we now have a new lead,’ said Dougie, ‘that indicates the dybbuk is residing in a synagogue. Possibly in East London, though it may in fact be anywhere in the capital.’

  ‘What’s the source of this information?’ asked Andy Homerton.


  ‘Don’t ask,’ Dougie advised.

  ‘I am asking,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘Dream,’ said Gina, wearily.

  ‘Dream,’ said Andy, typing it into his database. His typing slowed as he absorbed what he’d just been told.

  ‘Demons can enter dreams,’ Dougie explained. ‘And that appears to include golem-demons.’

  ‘So this information comes from a golem enslaved by a dybbuk, via a dream?’ Andy clarified.

  ‘Yes.’

  Catriona was typing too. She frowned. ‘I don’t have an Index category for that.’

  ‘Make a new one,’ Dougie suggested.

  ‘Ambush,’ said Taff.

  Dougie whirled, as always taken aback at Taff’s use of random words to capture attention.

  ‘Clarify, young man.’

  ‘If the source of our information is demonic, it may be malevolent,’ Taff clarified. ‘In fact, will be, or I’m a fucking Dutchman. Hence, it’s watch your arse time.

  ‘No!’ said Gina. ‘The golem is telling us the truth. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Taff. ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘I just am. It’s my instinct. My hunch.’

  ‘And I’m backing it,’ said Dougie, conclusively.

  Chapter 19

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Veda.

  ‘Let me explain it again,’ said Jacob, testily.

  ‘We’re running out of time,’ said Sheila-dybbuk. ‘The cops’ll be here any minute now.’ She stood near the door of the synagogue, using her anxious body language to chivvy him along.

  ‘Then I should come with you?’ said Veda, puzzled.

  Jacob shook his head. ‘That’s not the plan, my sweet. The cops are coming to rescue you. That’s the plan. And you have an important role to play. Remember?’ He sighed, big-brotherly. ‘We’re going to leave you here, in the cantor’s room, chained to the wall. And you have to pretend that the evil dybbuk left you here, and that you hate him and you’re really unhappy. Okay? Can you do that for me?’

  ‘Why am I pretending to pretend?’ Veda said stubbornly. ‘I do hate the evil dybbuk!’ She glared at Sheila-dybbuk who shrugged unrepentantly.

  ‘You know why.’ Jacob had already explained the strategy to her twice; he didn’t have the patience for a third repetition.

  ‘Hurry up, Jacob!’ said Sheila-dybbuk. ‘We really have to go.’

  Jacob gave his sister a kiss on all of her many cheeks.

  ‘I have to leave you. I love you, Veda, but I have a destiny. You’ll have a new home. Someone will look after you.’

  ‘I really don’t understand,’ said Veda, tearful.

  Jacob fumbled for self-control: failed to find it.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  He joined Sheila-dybbuk, cheeks damp. Behind him he heard Veda’s wails.

  ‘When are the cops actually due?’ Jacob asked.

  ‘Now!’ snapped Sheila-dybbuk. ‘Pretty much. Why do you always assume I’m lying? Any minute now. Soon!’

  ‘And what did you say to them?’ Jacob said.

  ‘I left a clue,’ Sheila-dybbuk said. ‘In Gina’s dream. An oblique clue. It won’t take them long to figure it out, they really are a bright bunch.’ And Sheila-dybbuk smiled.

  Jacob laughed at the dybbuk’s ingenuity. ‘What sort of clue?’

  ‘Oh, stuff. Jolson singing Mammy. A cantor, singing Sim Shalom.’

  ‘A musical clue!’

  ‘Pure vaudeville,’ Sheila-dybbuk conceded.

  Jacob picked up the brass ner tamid and tucked it under his arm. ‘Let’s go.’

  Jacob followed Sheila-dybbuk out of the candle-lit gloom of the temple. It was midday outside, and the light shocked his eyes. He blinked. The synagogue from the outside looked like a derelict warehouse, except for the stone above the lintel which read: 1667.

  Jacob could hear Veda shouting for help. His hearing was exceptionally acute, however; so he guessed no one else on the street was aware of her plaintive cries.

  Jacob hardened his heart. He’d done all he could for her.

  ‘I could murder a pint,’ said Sheila-dybbuk.

  ‘We have a mission.’

  ‘It can wait.’

  Jacob sighed. ‘Okay,’ he decided. ‘Let’s find a pub.’

  Skip back twenty four hours.

  Jacob raised a big hand and held it out. It was too big to shake, so Sheila-dybbuk did the touching knuckles thing. The boxer’s handshake.

  The spirits around them were still incorporeal and they were getting angry. Jacob was finding it hard to swallow because of all the incense in the air. Veda was whimpering, struggling to understand what had just happened. And she was in pain, so she popped two of her shoulders back into their sockets. Her injuries would soon heal but her state of utter confusion wasn’t passing.

  ‘Jacob what have you done?’ Veda whimpered.

  ‘Shh, little one. Trust me.’

  ‘Jacob. No. No!’

  ‘Shh.’

  Jacob and Sheila-dybbuk walked a few paces away from Veda.

  ‘Tell me what you intend,’ he instructed her.

  ‘You know what I want. I want to save the world,’ said Sheila-dybbuk. Her tone was sincere, and persuasive. Jacob believed the dybbuk to be insane. And yet -

  ‘As I have done before many times,’ Sheila-as-dybbuk said, ‘since I am, as you know, the unacknowledged saviour of mankind. But this time, I want you at my side.’

  ‘As your slave,’ said Jacob.

  ‘As my King.’

  Jacob blinked at that. ‘This is just more taunting, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t listen to him, Jacob,’ whispered Veda, over at the wall; catching some but not enough of their dialogue.

  ‘Hush,’ Jacob called to her. ‘Let me deal with this, sweetheart.’

  ‘It’s a genuine offer, Jacob,’ said Sheila-dybbuk softly. ‘You have a destiny.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Oh yes. You are unique.’ She smiled. A smile that promised everything. ‘Born of man, but not of woman. A demon soul in a clay body. You are, I swear to you, more powerful than a Royal Demon. More powerful than any other Hell creature in fact except for Lucifer. Whereas I - I am a warlock not a leader, and I need a lord to follow. That is my path, and my destiny. And I want that lord to be you.’

  Jacob was silent a moment. It seemed too good to be true.

  He would be the boss?

  ‘How do I know I can trust you?’ Jacob asked.

  ‘What are you doing, Jacob! You can’t be friends with that evil – SHIT!’ screamed Veda with all five mouths.

  Jacob forced himself to ignore his sister.

  Sheila-dybbuk patted Jacob’s arm, and smiled her most maternal smile. ‘There is no downside to this, Jacob. No hidden trick. Think about it. You will be King. At present you are – well – no more than dry mud. The difference will not be hard to spot.’

  Jacob thought. ‘No. The answer is no.’

  Sheila-dybbuk looked forlorn.

  ‘No to power?’

  Jacob shook his head.

  ‘You’ll have your own palace.’

  ‘Not interested.’

  ‘You’ll be rich.’

  ‘Money is nothing to me.’

  ‘You can make your people free.’

  Jacob snorted with scorn at that. ‘What people? I am one of only two of my species, and my father and I are not on speaking terms.’

  ‘I will bend the knee to you.’

  That got to Jacob.

  ‘Then do so,’ he said.

  Sheila-dybbuk went down on one knee. ‘My Liege,’ she said.

  ‘JACOB!!!’ Veda’s wails went unheeded.

  Jacob was bewildered, looking down at Sheila-dybbuk on one knee, head bowed. Her body speaking fluently in the language of obeisance. ‘You bend the knee to me?’

  Sheila-dybbuk looked up at him. ‘I do.’

  ‘You want me to wage war with you, against your enemies?’

  ‘Y
es.’

  ‘We’ll be friends?’

  ‘We are friends.’

  ‘But I will be your – master?’

  ‘Not my master. My King. There’s a difference.’ Sheila-dybbuk’s tone as she gazed up at him was calm, respectful, quietly deferential. ‘For I will serve you freely, my sovereign.’

  Jacob felt a shell-burst of inner confidence. He realised he had just been possessed by something. But not by a demon, or by the dybbuk. It was something else. Something that filled him with energy and self belief.

  Authority.

  ‘Then I accept.’

  Sheila-dybbuk smiled. She stood up again. Uncricked her knees. She still had to peer up at Jacob, though, because of his great height.

  ‘Watch this.’

  Sheila-dybbuk gestured with one hand at the bronze ner tamid that was hanging by a chain from the ceiling.

  As they watched, the chain untangled. The brass lamp shook free of its moorings and floated in air. It glided downwards. Sheila-dybbuk reached out and held it.

  She blew out the flame and unscrewed the lamp, so that the funnel into which the oil was poured was now open.

  ‘Et voilà,’ said Sheila-dybbuk.

  At that instant the ten thousand times ten thousand demons who were hovering in the gloomy air of the synagogue flocked like locusts; and they shrank before Jacob’s eyes. The miniscule swarm flew around and around in the incense-rich air; then gathered into a line, and swooped in single file into the opening of lamp. Until all were inside, and the bronze lamp echoed with the sound of buzzing demons.

  Sheila resealed the ner tamid.

  Jacob was awed. ‘So what is that? A demon bomb?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Sheila and smiled. ‘A demon army.’

  Skip forward again.