Fall

by Rod Rees

  1:26

  The JAD

  The Demi-Monde: 13th Day of Fall, 1005

  1.18. When He had regained His state of ultimate Coolness, ABBA got to pondering that maybe it was His fault for making woeMen so sneaky, that maybe He had taken His eye off the ball when He had given Adam a partner. 1.19. So being big on compromise, ABBA created sheMen who were like neither Man nor woeMan but something in between, a calmer female spirit in a superior male body. As ABBA dug it, sheMen could take the female role in sex, being receptive to the entreaties of Men, but would operate without all the moaning and complaining that woeMen were so good at and wouldn’t need any flowers and chocolates or any of that other expensive romantic shit laid on them before they could be persuaded to put out.

  The HIM Book, Book of the Coming: Chapter 1, Verses 18–19

  Having been pretty bashed about by the nuJu mob, Josephine Baker was consigned to the Portal’s sickbay where she had stayed for a whole day, lost in sedated sleep. But now a very shaky-looking Josie had decided to rejoin the land of the living: she wandered into the Rec Room and plonked herself down beside Norma. A couple of cups of café au gore – the blood liberated by Burlesque from the same sickbay Josie had been occupying – and a hearty breakfast put the colour back in her cheeks.

  ‘So how are you feeling, Josie?’ asked Norma.

  ‘Better since I caught a few zees but I still gotta head that’s banging like I’ve been saucing too much on the much side.’ Josie gave Norma a crooked smile, the same wonderful smile Norma remembered from their meeting in Venice. Even with her head swathed in bandages, she still looked stylish. ‘My own dumb fault. I should have realised that Shades ain’t the flavour du jour with the nuJus. I beeped when I should have bopped.’ She looked over to Odette. ‘Gotta thank you and Burlesque for pulling my black ass outta there when you did. Without you I’d now be numbered amongst the missing. You did me a real solid and I won’t forget.’

  ‘’Eet was a pleasure, Josephine. You are our friend and friends, they ’elp each other, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess they do, but thanks anyway.’ She took a sip of her coffee. ‘So where is this place, Norma honey? Sure ain’t like any clip joint I’ve ever been in before.’

  ‘This is the Portal. It’s the place where Daemons like me enter the Demi-Monde.’

  ‘Far out.’ Josie took a look around her at the neoFights who had come in search of breakfast and, if Norma wasn’t mistaken, a glimpse of the Sensuous Shade in the flesh. And never one to disappoint, the robe Josie was wearing was on the shorter side of short and the tighter side of tight. She was sex on a stick.

  ‘Tell me, Josie, do you know what happened to Vanka and Ella?’

  Josie fidgeted awkwardly. ‘Both of those cats are now deep-sixed. Vanka helped the WhoDoo to defeat Lilith, the spirit that had taken control of Ella’s body, but the trouble was that her brother, Billy, a real crumbum, decided to make a personal appearance here in the Demi-Monde. Billy took control of Venice and announced that he was gonna sacrifice Ella on the last day of Summer in the Temple of Lilith. When he heard that, Vanka got real revved up and decided that he had to save her so he headed hot-foot to the Temple. He really loved the girl and I’m guessing that he and Ella were blitzed when the Temple blew.’

  ‘That’s terrible.’ It seemed impossible that Ella and Vanka Maykov could have been killed: people like them didn’t let themselves be killed.

  Her ruminations were interrupted by Burlesque. ‘Yus, it’s real terrible,’ he agreed, ‘’specially as that bugger Vanka still owed me money.’ His observation was rewarded by a whack from Odette.

  A silence fell as they all were lost for a moment in their sorrow. Finally, Josie spoke, trying to change the subject and lift the mood. ‘So all these uniformed cats are Daemons?’

  A distracted Norma nodded. ‘That’s right. But don’t let that worry you. They were really excited to have the famous Josephine Baker as a guest.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? Well, I can tell you there’s one cat who ain’t. If you take a gander towards the side of the room, you’ll see a cave-dweller who’s giving me some real reckless eyeballing. I’ve seen that look before and it belongs to cats who are all white and spite. There’s one Blank who ain’t happy to be sharing his space with a Shade.’

  As casually as she could, Norma eased around in her chair to check out who Josie was talking about. Norma had seen him before; he was the quiet boy who seemed to spend his time trailing around after Corporal Massie. He was so quiet that Norma couldn’t remember ever having spoken to him so she had to rack her mind to try to remember his name. ‘I’d have thought you’d have gotten used to guys staring at you, Josie, but you don’t want to worry about Holy Holder … he’s harmless.’

  ‘An’ thick,’ added Burlesque. ‘’E ain’t smart enuff to piss ’imself even iffn ’is trousers were on fire.’

  Josie gave a shake of her head. ‘He might be thick, Burlesque, but that cat’s been eyefucking me in one weird way for the last ten minutes. Way I see it, this Holder item is wrapped up way too tight and my experience is that sooner or later cats like him go postal.’

  *

  Holder stole a glance across the Rec Room at Josephine Baker as she sat sipping her coffee. She was devilishly beautiful, but wasn’t that the way with all Hamite women? They were skilled in the arts of the flesh and in profane allurements. Josephine Baker was temptation personified, and gazing on her, Holder felt himself being captivated by her sleek, slender sensuality, imagining what it would be like to touch that perfect flesh …

  Holder started and shook his head to drive out these obscene thoughts. He muttered a prayer and brought the crucifix out from beneath his shirt to kiss it. He would not succumb to Satan’s blandishments, though it took a real effort of will to tear his gaze away from the girl’s legs so wonderfully – evilly! – displayed by her short robe.

  From the moment he had first seen this black succubus that morning, when she had come undulating down the corridor towards him, her delicious body rippling as she walked, he had known that his soul was in danger. And then she had glanced at him and as he stared into those huge brown eyes he felt her ensnaring his spirit, luring him away from Jesus, from the teachings of the Last Prophet, Frank Kenton.

  Desperate to purge his mind of these unclean remembrances, Holder whispered the Last Prophet’s Fifteenth nuCommandment: ‘You shall not know any Hamite carnally. There is no greater sin than the sin of Miscegenation driven by the Daemon Lucifer.’

  ‘What’s that you say, Holder?’ asked Massie. ‘You talking to yourself again?’

  Holder felt his face redden: he had forgotten that the unbeliever Massie was sitting across the table from him. ‘No, Corporal. I was praying.’

  ‘Then say one for me. Since the captain went AWOL, I think it’s going to take a fucking miracle for us to get out of this shithole.’ Massie stood up. ‘Anyway, Holder, you ready to rock and roll?’

  ‘Wha?’

  ‘Time for our patrol, Holder, time to go see what’s happening out in the JAD. So take your eyes off Josie’s tits and grab your bits.’

  *

  Holder skirted around a particularly rancid-looking pool of water. The half-light and the rubble made progress slow, especially now the rains had come, turning the smashed rubble into a sort of sticky, pasty dough that clung to his boots with a tenacity that threatened to pull them off. Every surface was coated by a thick grey slime and the massive craters caused by the Shade artillery were full of flat, smooth, oil-slicked water.

  Lost in thought, he trotted along behind Corporal Massie as they ducked and dived through the ruins of the JAD. He was listening to the voices that told him it was wrong – very, very wrong – for Sergeant Edelstein to have invited that Hamite whore Josephine Baker into the Portal. The Last Prophet, Frank Kenton, had taught that the Hamites were despicable in the sight of God, having fallen into the embrace of Satan.

  He closed his eyes. Frank Kenton was telling him
that the Portal had now become a cesspit of profanity and wickedness, a den of iniquity. The Portal and all the disciples of the daemons residing inside it had to be destroyed.

  ‘You okay, Holder? You look like shit.’ Massie’s words came to him from far away, drowned out by the voices. He felt his shoulder being shaken. ‘I said, you okay, Holder?’

  Holder opened his eyes. ‘Yeah, I’m okay, Sergeant. I think God has just spoken to me.’

  ‘No shit? Well, tell Him to keep his fucking voice down otherwise he’s gonna tip off the SS that we’re here and get our fucking heads blown off.’

  ‘We have brought the Whore of Babylon amongst us.’

  ‘Look, Holder, I don’t wanna rain on your parade, but this ain’t the time or the fucking place for Bible class.’

  ‘Don’t you see, Massie, that Josephine Baker is the Great Whore who is the helpmate of the AntiChrist … of Norma Williams?’

  ‘Josie Baker ain’t no whore, Holder. Just ’cos she does a dance number tits al fresco and makes you liable to die with a hard-on don’t make her a whore.’ Massie shrugged. ‘Not that I’d kick her outta bed even if she was.’

  ‘She is the Whore of Babylon.’

  ‘Bullshit. She’s just a tasty piece of ass. Anyway, there ain’t no place called Babylon in the Demi-Monde.’

  ‘We have been tricked into doing the devil’s work!’ Holder heard himself shouting at the top of his lungs. ‘If we do not fight the devil then we will be lost to Jesus and our immortal souls will be forfeit. We must destroy the Whore of Babylon who is Josephine Baker and we must destroy the AntiChrist who is Norma Williams.’

  ‘You’re outta your fucking mind.’

  These were the last words Massie ever uttered. Holder shot him through the head.

  *

  Holder felt good. Frank Kenton had told him he had done the right thing by killing that emissary of Satan, Massie. And once he was dead, it had been the work of a moment to unclasp the keys to the arsenal from Massie’s belt, mouth a short prayer over the man’s body and then hightail it back to the Portal.

  He knew he had to be real careful. He and Massie were only two hours into their four-hour patrol and his showing up at the Portal early without the corporal would mean that questions would be asked. Holder wasn’t good at answering questions … he got confused when people asked him questions. But God was on his side and neither Moynahan nor Edelstein were around so, seizing his chance, he scuttled down the stairs leading to the basement. He had the key in the lock of the arsenal’s door before he quite realised what he was doing. Pulling the door open, he stepped inside, switched on the lights and then stood paralysed, not having a clue just how to detonate all the munitions stockpiled in the room. But then Frank Kenton gave him inspiration and his eye fell on the Serpent.

  It took him ten minutes’ hard work to open the fireproof boxes containing the bullets and bombs and another five minutes to assemble and load the Serpent. Now he stood ready. He wiped a hand across his sweat-drenched brow, mouthed a prayer, took careful aim at the opened boxes and squeezed the trigger.

  *

  Norma was sitting with Josie in the Rec Room discussing lunch when the arsenal went bang. One moment she was chatting to Josie and the next she was grabbed by a hurricane of hot air and hurled across the table to land in a muddle hard against a vending machine. She must have blacked out, as the next thing she knew there was a deafening blast and a huge gout of flame spewed down the corridor. She was barely given enough time to register that – miraculously – she was still alive when she was sucked back across the table.

  Dazed, bruised and part deaf, she lay there for a moment not quite understanding what had happened. Then the fire alarms sounded and the sprinkler system kicked in.

  Revived by the water that torrented down on her, she levered herself back to her feet, thankful that nothing seemed to be broken. Sure, her boots were gone, her wrecked fatigues were charred to holes and she had bitten through her lip, but other than that, she was okay.

  ‘Shit, Norma, this is one fuck-up of a hidey-hole you found for yourself,’ said Josie as she hauled herself out from under a pile of chairs and gingerly stood up.

  Together the two girls tottered out into the corridor, where the burned husks of two bodies were waiting to greet them, Norma retching at the smell.

  There was a movement at the end of the corridor. ‘Are you all right, Norma?’ It was Moynahan.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. What happened?’

  ‘I think the arsenal exploded. Most of the blast was contained but some fool must have left the door open. We got the backdraft.’

  ‘How many?’ She trailed off, not quite sure what to call them. Victims? Casualties?

  ‘We’re not sure, but a few. Why don’t you get to the sickbay, have a medic check you over?’

  ‘No, I’m all right. I want to help.’

  *

  Norma made a quick count of the people gathered in the Rec Room. Other than her, there were sixteen survivors – five Dupes and eleven soldiers – and all of them looked battered and bemused.

  Moynahan moved to the front of the room. ‘Sergeant Edelstein was killed in the explosion so I guess that makes me officer-in-charge. I’ve appointed Odette Aroca here to be my number two. Any problems with that?’

  There weren’t, which was hardly surprising given that Moynahan and Odette were the two biggest people in the room.

  ‘Other than Edelstein, Middleton and Brownlee are dead and Corporal Massie and Holder are missing so I guess you could say that we’re down to the bare bones in terms of manpower. The explosion in the arsenal also destroyed our reserves of ammunition. All we’ve got left is what’s up here on the ground floor and what you’ve got in your pouches so I don’t have to tell you that that ain’t a lot. From now on we’ve got to make every shot and every grenade count. I’ve asked Percy Shelley to check with you after the meeting and to collect any spare ammo. Shelley’s going to be our quartermaster from here on in.’ Moynahan glanced down at the notes he had written on the back of his hand. ‘The other bad news is that the blast took out the stockroom and most of our food reserves so we’re now all on half-rations. Sister Maria is going to be responsible for making sure that everybody gets a fair share of what’s on offer.’

  ‘What caused the explosion?’ came a question from the back of the room.

  ‘We’re not sure. It could have been carelessness, it could have been sabotage. I don’t know and, frankly, I don’t care. I’m not going to spend time and effort on something we can’t do anything about.’

  ‘What about the Transfer Room? Was that damaged?’

  ‘Nope. I’ve had Corporal Harrison check it out and it seems fine. We still don’t have the transfer codes, but when we have …’ He paused and took another look at his notes. ‘I’m not standing here telling you that everything is jake. It ain’t. It’s gonna get real evil. Without superior firepower the only way we’re gonna survive is by fighting the badniks up close and personal. It ain’t gonna be easy and it ain’t gonna be fun, but if we stick together we can come through this.’

  Moynahan, Norma decided, was a Vanka-class bullshitter.

  1:27

  Terror Incognita

  The Demi-Monde: 50th Day of Fall, 1005

  It is estimated that sheMen constitute twenty per cent of the total male population of NoirVille. They have been classified as ‘transgender’, though many opt for full emasculation to ensure their journey into sheManHood is complete. The Church of HimPerialism teaches that for Men, sheMen are the preferred outlet for their sexual lusts, and with their being so few (relative to Men) their services are highly prized and lucrative. For poor NoirVillian Boys, a career as a sheMan is very attractive.

  A Fool’s Guide to HimPerialism: Selim the Grim, Bust Your Conk Publications

  They strung Colonel Sergei Trubetskoy and three of his officers up from a tall oak tree on the fiftieth day of Fall, the four of them sentenced to death for their failure to find Trixie
Dashwood and the other rebel fugitives. General Clement had been unmoved by the Colonel’s excuses that the girl must have left Terror Incognita because there was simply nowhere for her to hide … as the general said when he’d passed sentence, he didn’t have much use for a dumbass Colonel who couldn’t find his dick with both hands and the use of a compass.

  Andrew Roberts was too busy to attend Trubetskoy’s hanging: he had his own deadlines to meet. With some justifiable pride – and a great deal of relief – he watched the train chug up the newly commissioned rail track with the pontoon rolling behind it on a flatbed truck and come to a halt alongside the Pyramid. Having delivered the Column bang on schedule, it was a very happy Roberts who repaired to his tent with a bottle of vintage Solution to celebrate … and to pack. As he saw it, his mission was finished and he could now go for a well-earned vacation in a place as far away from that baleful bastard Archie Clement as the geography of the Demi-Monde allowed.

  His holiday planning proved to be premature. No sooner had he got himself comfortable on his bunk and was preparing to wrap himself around a bumper of Solution than his batman pushed his head through the tent’s flap. ‘Begging your pardon, Captain, but Comrade General Clement would like to see you.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now, sir.’

  As he scooted across the parade ground to Clement’s tent, Roberts found himself fretting about what the summons meant. Clement wasn’t famous for his generous disposition so that, presumably, militated against it being an audience when he would be rewarded for a job well done. But whilst the chances of him leaving Terror Incognita as Major Roberts were slim, that he had accomplished the delivery of the Column on time would – he hoped – save him from ending the day holding up six foot of best Terror Incognita topsoil.

  A rather perplexed Roberts presented himself at the general’s tent, a perplexity made more acute by the presence of His Holiness Aleister Crowley, the mage sitting in a corner with a dark cloud hovering around his head. ‘You sent for me, Comrade General.’