Dougie heard her.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll flush him out,’ he called back.
They continued on. The walking pace was brisk. The turned right; St Mary le Strand was ahead of them. Finally they stopped outside the stone gateway that led into Somerset House.
Dougie led them through into the inner courtyard of this great Georgian riverside palace. It was a perfect spot for their purposes - in walking distance of Trafalgar Square, where Wilson had been last reliably sighted, but outside the London Army official cordon.
‘Take positions,’ said Dougie and the team began to peel off.
‘I’ll take the roof,’ said Seamus. He was trained as a sniper, and had spent some years as a Territorial. He was calm as always; nothing ever seemed to faze him.
‘I’ll take the other roof,’ said Shai, who had been practising at rifle ranges in the hope of joining SCO19 one day.
The others peeled off to their positions, briefed by Seamus and Taff, with the benefit of their military experience, and by Fillide, who had staged many ambushes in the old days. Ten minutes later, Somerset House was a kill-zone. Two Five Squad officers were in position on opposite roofs; eight of the others were inside upper storey windows, or concealed behind pillars or walls.
Fillide and Gina and Tom stayed in the courtyard with Dougie. Gina laid plastic explosive on the ground, bedding the semtex into paving stones then adding a micro-detonator that could be triggered electronically.
Andy Homerton and Catriona also stayed with Dougie. Andy was hefting a salt gun as if to the manner born. Cat was wearing a full Kevlar vest, making her look huger and blacker than ever. She carried a Heckler and Koch automatic rapid-fire rifle.
Dougie took out his police radio and patched into the military bandwidth. He broadcast his message:
‘Roslyn D’Onston from Dougie Randall, Roslyn from Dougie Randall. Come to the square that is a county, near to the boundary dragon. Repeat, come to the square that is a county. Roslyn, let’s end this –’
The signal was intercepted by some adept in the London Signals Corps; Dougie lost reception. Dougie could only hope that Wilson-dybbuk had heard the message, and would respond.
They waited.
It was now 4.00pm.
Chapter 26
‘Where are you going?’
Jacob and Sheila were in their room at the Excelsior, a sleazy hotel near King’s Cross. Jacob had taken Sheila to this place after rescuing her from the smoke house in Soho. It was the kind of dump where they ask no questions.
As they’d arrived, Jacob had winked at the concierge, to explain why he was in the company of a middle-aged woman who was smoked out of her brains and dressed as a whore. However it was clearly not considered a cause for concern.
That night they’d dined in their room, eating kebabs overflowing with lamb and salad, washed down with Coca Cola. Sheila had wept and Jacob had wept. And they pledged never to be separated again.
During the course of the next day, the Tuesday, they’d tried to return to normal. Jacob went shopping and bought some new clothes for his mother. He made all the wrong choices and she laughed at his stupidity and that was all good.
Then he showed her a newspaper clipping saying that Veda the five-headed demon child had been found and was being held by police, and was safe and unhurt. Sheila was reassured by that.
‘When can we see her?’
‘Not yet. Let’s give it time.’
‘Oh Jacob.’
They had lunch in the Costa’s next to King’s Cross. Ham and cheese panini for Sheila; tuna melt for Jacob. It was nice. A mother and son bonding experience. Jacob was feeling happy.
But then, on the Wednesday of that week, the news of the Trafalgar Square Massacre reached them. It was on all the e-berry channels; there was even an outdoor television in the station square broadcasting images of the battle. Sheila had been appalled. And Jacob had pretended to share her horror.
In reality he was delighted that all was going according to plan. Though the civilian death toll perturbed him.
‘I thought it was over,’ Sheila said.
‘Your part in it is over, Mum,’ Jacob told her gravely.
They had lunch that day in the Betjeman Pub inside St Pancras. She had a ploughman’s; he had an ale pie and chips. Jacob drank two pints of lager. Sheila had some large G & Ts, and she told wild stories of the old days with her and Alfredo. The telly was blaring out news of civil war but they ignored it. They went back to the hotel.
Then, at 3.30pm on Wednesday the fourteenth of August, Jacob knew he had to go back to work.
‘I have to go out for a while,’ he told his mother casually.
‘Oh?’
‘Yes.’
‘On your own?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
‘I have things to do.’
Sheila tried to smile; but it didn’t work very well. ‘You’re going to find the dybbuk, aren’t you?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
A steely look came over her. ‘To kill him? Please tell me, you’re going to kill him?’ Sheila pleaded.
He didn’t answer. She stared at him for a long time.
She’d always been able to read his mind; he didn’t know how. It wasn’t telepathy, it was some kind of maternal empathy gene. ‘What the flipping heck have you done, Jacob?’ she said at length, coldly.
‘I made a promise.’
‘No. No.’ She screamed. ‘NO!’
‘I have to go, I have things to do,’ he repeated. ‘I made a promise. But you have money now. I gave you money. When I can get some fake ID for you, we’ll fix you up with another place to stay. But I have to be away for while.’
‘Please, stay. Stay with me!’
‘I’ll be back.’
‘Stay with me.’
‘You’re safe now.’
‘Please, Jacob. Stay!’
Sheila wept. For fourteen months she had been possessed by the spirit of the dybbuk. It had been a violation that never ended.
‘Mum, stop it.’
‘Don’t leave me.’
‘Mum, you’re my mum, you can’t cry.’
‘You can’t believe how –’
‘You’re safe. And now I have to go.’
‘Please - don’t -’
‘I have to.’
Sheila’s tears dried. She was hard faced and angry.
‘You’re going to help him, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because of a spell?’
‘No. I’m no longer spell-bound. I can – do whatever I want.’
‘Then why go to him?’
‘Because I made a deal.’
‘So you said. What kind of deal?’
‘For you and Veda to be safe.’
Sheila nodded. ‘And what does he get in return?’
Jacob knew that he had been wicked. Very wicked indeed, but there was no turning back now.
‘My loyalty. My fealty. My friendship.’ Jacob thought it through. ‘Metaphorically speaking, my soul.’
Sheila shook her head. She thought she’d hit rock bottom: now this.
‘I told you to set the cops on him,’ she said bitterly. ‘That’s why I told you to write the message –’
‘I did that, but it didn’t –’
‘ – on the body of that man.’
‘ – make a difference. The cops can’t defeat him, Mum. This creature is too powerful. Do you know who he really is?’
‘OF COURSE I FUCKING KNOW!’
The monster had lived in Sheila’s head for over a year; she knew all his secrets.
‘Calm down, calm down.’
‘Stay. Please. Stay.’
‘I can’t.’
‘There are troops on the streets. You’ll be shot.’
‘I can be shot but I can’t be killed. Besides, the street violence is nearly over. It’ll be war against Demon City soon.’
‘And then what?’
/>
Sheila looked at him. The blank stare of a mother about to lose a child.
‘Well, you see,’ Jacob explained, ‘if the dybbuk wins, it’ll mean the end of slavery for the hell kind. A new world order will emerge. No more warlocks. No more ghettos. No more spell binding. A world where the fittest may flourish. Where the best may thrive and the worst can, well, go fuck themselves, but at least they won’t be slaves. It will be Hell on Earth. That’s a dream worth dreaming, isn’t it?’
Sheila looked at her son with utter horror. ‘No.’
Chapter 27
Somerset House. 4.15pm, Wednesday the fourteenth of August. The blue sky was scarred with white contrails. The sounds of battle echoed like distant thunder.
Five Squad waited.
In winter, there was an ice rink in this courtyard. Now it was an huge empty square with fountains of water spurting from the ground in symmetrical grids: geysers erupting out of concrete.
At the far end of the courtyard there was an portico of four columns flanked by twin pilasters, surmounted by a green dome on a stuccoed rotunda. On all four sides of the inner courtyard there were high chimneyed reticulated brickwork walls.
It was cold, unseasonably so. Yet a beautiful day all the same.
‘One more time: check your equipment,’ said Dougie into his radio. The team were linked by short range radio sets with riot squad issue headsets and microphones.
The members of Dougie’s army in their various locations adjusted their body armour and checked their guns and counted their stocks of ammo. Then they re-checked it all over again.
‘Let’s prep the spell again,’ said Tom to Dougie.
‘You go first,’ Dougie said.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Tom, into his radio mike.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Seamus Malone from the roof.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Taff, from the second floor window.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Lisa from the doorway near the front entranceway.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Gina, who was close to Dougie, in the courtyard, at the end nearest the portico.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Catriona, who was hunkered behind a stone balustrade.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Andy, who was behind the balustrade on the other side.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Lisa, from behind a ground floor wall.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Taff from his machine gun emplacement at the second floor window on the right flank of the building.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Fillide, inside the portico behind the stone pillars, ready to leap down and commence combat with sword and fists.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Shai Hussain who was on the roof on the opposite side to Seamus.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Hyun-Shik Moon and Alice Tunstall and Tony Williamson from their window vantage points, in overlapping refrains.
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ said Dougie. ‘And now, once more, people, with feeling.’
‘Hadi xurk ckurlllu,’ the fifteen members of Five Squad chorused over the radio link in unison. Their magical protection against dybbuk-possession.
They waited.
After a good while of waiting, Dougie and Gina sat down on the cold stone steps in front of the portico. Tom remained standing, propped up on his silver sword stick. His glamour was still off; he was a scarred brute ready for battle.
And still, they waited.
It reminded Dougie of the Battle of London. Not a good memory. He got up and paced for a while. That was annoying everyone, so he sat down once more.
Suddenly, Wilson was there. He strolled through the stone archway, alone. A great bull of a man with a shock of white hair on his head, clad in his military dress uniform with garish ribbons. A rifle in his hand. A sword in a scabbard upon his back.
Dougie got up off the step he’d been sitting on, his arse cold and numb, and walked towards Wilson. Gina walked behind him, rifle slung on her shoulders.
Tom stayed back, as instructed. The rest of the team kept out of sight, as much as they could.
Dougie and Wilson were on opposite ends of the grid of fountains. Wilson began to walk through the jets of water, deftly avoiding the spray, marching with the stick-backed precision of the thirty-years-of-service veteran soldier that his body was.
‘Hold your fire,’ said Dougie calmly, into his microphone.
‘I’ve got him in my sights,’ said Seamus, from the roof.
‘Hold your fire.’
‘Holding fire,’ said Taff from the second floor window.
‘Holding fire,’ whispered Lisa from the doorway at the side of the courtyard.
‘Gina,’ said Dougie, ‘finger off the detonator please.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I say so.’
Dougie stepped forward to meet the burly Brigadier, with Gina walking behind him.
Wilson emerged from out of the water fountains, still bone dry. He was close enough for Fillide to reach him with a flying jump from the portico. An Olympic world record busting distance, but well within her range.
‘Good to see you again, Dougie,’ Wilson said, a strange smile on his harshly lined features. Dougie realised the dybbuk was wearing a face that wasn’t accustomed to smiling.
Wilson was an imposing man. His bushy white eyebrows erupted from his brows with messy vigour. His voice was deep and booming and accustomed to being in authority. He had all the melodramatic authority of a Moses, or a Robert McKee.
‘We’ve never met,’ Dougie said.
‘Oh, yes we have.’
Dougie did in fact feel a strong sense of déjà vu. He could feel the Gogarty in this man who he had never encountered before. But it wasn’t Gogarty; it was the spirit that had existed in the Gogarty body.
‘How old are you?’ Dougie asked.
Wilson shrugged. Dougie noted there were thick white hairs in the other man’s nostrils; he also had a trace of white-haired five o’clock shadow, lending his face a grizzled aspect.
‘Old enough.’
Dougie kept his posture relaxed. Status, status. It was all about playing it cool, till he made his move.
‘Snipers on the roof,’ said Wilson calmly.
‘With orders not to fire.’
‘Someone on the second floor too.’
‘Ditto.’
‘What’s your plan? You do have a plan, don’t you? You always –’ Wilson was trying to smile again. ‘ – have a plan.’
‘My plan is, do nothing. Let the London Army and the Grey-Beards kick your arse.’
‘But that’s not going to happen, is it?’
‘Why not?’ said Dougie, with just the fainest hint of anxiety.
‘The warlocks control this city, they keep it under control, but their powers are limited. I’ve stolen a large chunk of their army off them already. And they won’t stand a chance if the hell creatures were to rebel against them en masse.’
‘And why would they do that?’
‘Guess,’ taunted Wilson.
‘You mean - oh shit.’
Dougie gave it a moment; then he played his switch: ‘Then maybe we should take you out before the demons rebel. Hmm?’
Dougie let his eyes flick over Wilson’s shoulder.
Wilson turned. Framed at the entranceway to Somerset House were three big grey-bearded men wearing pin stripe suits, exuding rage.
Wilson shook his head, in dismay. ‘Damn.’
‘You thought we were going to have a friendly chat?’ Dougie snarled: a man unable to hide his delight at having put one over on the dybbuk.
‘I’d hoped so,’ Wilson said, drily.
‘I’m not that dumb. You’re trapped, dybbuk.’
The Grey-Beards walked closer. They began to chant.
‘Three warlocks against one,’ Wilson said.
‘There are more waiting outside.’
The Grey-Beards stopped moving closer. Most of the length of the courtyard separated
them from Wilson. And a ball of power was building up. It leapt, and spanned the gap between the Grey-Beards and Wilson like a ray of light. And when Wilson tried to move he could not. It was as if a ball of ectoplasm had enveloped the brown-and-black uniformed soldier; a phantom ball that was connected to a chain being held by the Grey-Beards. The chanting was audible even to Seamus and Shai, up on the roofs. There was an eerie rhythm to it; a syncopation; the words were not any human language.
Wilson screamed.
The chanting got louder.
Dougie was close enough to see the old soldier’s face contort in the effort of resisting the banishment spell.
‘If this works,’ said Wilson, in panicked tones, ‘my body will split in half - and my soul will be extirpated!’
‘That’s the idea.’
‘I can’t move, I can’t even talk. That’s part of the spell.’
‘You’re going to die, dybbuk.’
‘And yet it appears that I can talk,’ Wilson pointed out.
He relaxed his posture; there was no more strain, no pain. The ectoplasm still swirled around him but it was like early morning mist.
‘It’s just a spell,’ Wilson pointed out. ‘Spells don’t always work. Not against one such as I.’
Then Wilson swore in the Old Tongue.
A flash of light; the Grey-Beards were explosively gone. All that remained were three black circles on the concrete just in front of the entranceway to Somerset House.
Lisa was closest to the scene of the warlock slaying, squatting by the staircase that used to lead down to the Courtauld Gallery. She saw, with sinking pessimism, that the three Grey-Beards had been transmuted into slime with the aroma of barbecued flesh.
Wilson was smiling. Dougie was sweating. Gina was still riding shotgun, a few paces behind Dougie; but there was fear written on her face. Wilson saw it.
‘Three against one isn’t enough,’ Wilson pointed out to Dougie.
‘Fuck,’ said Dougie. He allowed alarm and panic to infect his body language; though he knew not to overdo it.
‘You see,’ Wilson said, in a voice pitched up, like a cry meant to travel from mountain summit to mountain summit, ‘I am older than any warlock in the city. And I know more magic than the rest of them put together. And I have supped the souls of hundreds of humans since the eighth of August one year ago when you killed my previous body. I am, in short, at the very top of my game. Furthermore - ’
Hell on Earth Page 88
