Alchemist

by Peter James

  The traffic was light. Breathless, she stumbled for a couple of hundred yards, then in the distance she saw the yellow glow of a ‘For Hire’ sign. She threw herself out in front of the taxi, raising one hand and waving her handbag frantically. To her relief, the driver flashed his lights in recognition and swerved to a halt at the kerb.

  She clambered into the back, gulping air.

  ‘Where to?’

  She couldn’t think of anywhere. Her mind had gone into spasm. Where to? What the hell had she told Levine? Everything, the lot; her father; Conor; Hubert Wentworth.

  Where to? The police? Go to Scotland Yard? How many friends did Levine have? How wide was his influence? Had he ordered PC Brangwyn not to find anything when the local lads were investigating her break-in? Had he covered up over Jake Seals’ death?

  I don’t know if you are aware, Miss Bannerman, but it appears your colleague was intoxicated when he came to work. He had a blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit for driving.

  She looked urgently at the cab driver. She needed somewhere anonymous with a phone, had to speak to her father as fast as possible. ‘Heathrow Airport,’ she said. ‘Could you head out towards Heathrow?’

  ‘Which terminal do you want?’

  She hesitated. ‘I’ll let you know.’

  As the taxi turned away, a police car screamed past them, its siren wailing.

  ‘Must be a fire or a bomb or something,’ the cabbie said. ‘Down Fulham way; lot of activity going on.’

  Monty pressed her face against the rear window, watching the road behind for any sign that they were being followed. The traffic was still light and she could see nothing.

  As they headed up the ramp of the Hammersmith flyover, the lights of the Bendix Clinic clearly visible to the right, she asked the driver to find a pay phone. He turned off at the next roundabout and pulled up by a solitary booth outside a garage.

  She told him to wait, went into the booth and rang her father’s number. She let it ring for a good two minutes, willing him to answer. He was a light sleeper, and if he was at home it would wake him.

  Her anxiety deepening, she dialled the number of their laboratory; it was quite possible he was still there; she had known him, on many occasions, to work right through the night.

  Please pick up the phone, Daddy, she thought. Please.

  There was a click, followed by the sound of her own voice on the answering machine. She hung up and hurried back to the cab. ‘Where’s the nearest car rental place that would be open at this hour, do you know?’ she asked the driver.

  ‘Out at the airport, I should think. Avis, Hertz, someone like that. I know the Hertz one there’s twenty-four hours.’

  ‘OK, take me there,’ she said. ‘As quickly as you can.’

  94

  North London. 1953

  The spoon clattered from his mother’s metal hand on to the linoleum. Daniel, seated across the kitchen table from her, made no move to pick it up. Anyway, she was fiercely proud and did not want to be helped. God had handicapped her, and now He was giving her the strength to overcome the handicap. She had taken to likening herself to Job.

  Lifting objects from the floor was the hardest thing. The two metal hands were rigid, unarticulated, and a small object like a soup spoon was particularly difficult to prise off a flat surface.

  A lick of steam curled from her brown Windsor soup as she glared defiantly down at the spoon, then she ducked her head below the table, some stray wisps of hair, which was kept short now, tumbling forward. It gave Daniel immense satisfaction to watch his mother struggle. He listened to the racket as her hands scrabbled, waited for the clink, then the silence as she slowly raised the spoon, with studied concentration.

  He would let her get it halfway up, then he would use his power and she would drop it again. The spoon would clatter on to the linoleum in musical discord, and his mother would grimace. All Daniel needed to do was hold his concentration. Keep his mind tuned into her own, keep it focused, and he could play her, the way he did all the time now, like a hooked fish.

  Now!

  The spoon fell into the bowl, splashing scalding soup over her.

  ‘Owww! Damn, damnit!’ his mother cried out, soup dripping from her face. But, immediately, she laid a hand over her heart, pressing it into the pale blue strands of the cardigan she had knitted herself before the accident, and stared guiltily at the Bible beside her bowl. ‘Lord forgive me,’ she said. ‘Lord have mercy upon me.’ She leaned down again and, when she was out of sight, the smirk spread across her son’s face.

  Practise! the Magister Templi had commanded. Daniel obeyed. It was the summer holidays now and he was free all day, to work his rituals in his room. He was finding it easier to summon the power and to control it, but he was not sure where the limits lay. Today he intended to find out.

  Money. The Magister Templi had told him he would need masses of it to become a great magician. There was no problem; money would soon be on its way.

  He allowed his mother to pick up the spoon this time, and waited patiently as she cleaned it on her napkin, then immersed it in her bowl and raised the soup slowly and carefully towards her mouth. Timing was all. He judged it exactly, watching her edge the spoon towards her lips, saw her eyes focused on it. Peripheral vision. Had to make sure it appeared in her peripheral vision. Her lips parted, she blew on the soup.

  Now!

  He materialized the rat. A large brown rat that scrambled up the side of the sink, as if it had just emerged from the plug hole, then ran on to the draining board, and paused to survey the scene.

  The result was as Daniel had hoped. As she screamed, hot soup splattered on to her chin and inside the neck of her blouse. She stood up in panic, banging the edge of the table painfully with her knee and slopping soup from both their bowls on to the table.

  ‘Get it out!’ she screamed. ‘Get rid of it. It’s the Devil! Get it out of here!’

  The rat leapt to the floor and raced towards the pantry. His mother stood in the doorway, screaming hysterically. ‘Food! Get it out of there!’

  Daniel walked unhurriedly into the pantry and smiled to himself. The rat had vanished, simply because he had released the power that had caused it to materialize, but he said nothing, waiting patiently, biding his time.

  She called out: ‘Have you caught it? Are you all right, Daniel? Be careful, they carry rabies!’

  Daniel nonchalantly ate an iced bun off a tray prepared for the Church Ladies Committee meeting. Then another.

  ‘Don’t let it on the cakes I’ve baked!’ she screamed.

  Daniel finished his last mouthful and called out, ‘Come here, you bastard, come here, you little bastard!’ He ran out of the pantry.

  His mother’s eyes darted wildly around the kitchen. ‘Where is it, I can’t see it?’

  Daniel stopped and stared in mock bewilderment. ‘Must have escaped.’

  His mother stood near her pyramid rack of pots and he saw his chance. Concentrating hard, he caused the rack to shake; the pans rattled. She turned, half demented, then backed away.

  ‘Under there!’ she screamed.

  He dropped on to his knees and pretended to look under the rack. ‘Come on, little fellow, out you come.’

  ‘Is he there? Can you see him?’

  He conjured up a larger rat, sent it hurtling straight at his mother. She ran right out of the room and up the stairs bellowing in fear; he allowed the rat to get halfway up, then released his spell and watched it dematerialize into thin air.

  Power!

  The power was strong today.

  His mother’s bedroom door slammed shut.

  But the power was draining him. That was the problem, it exhausted him, sometimes left him completely shattered for days; the stronger the power, the more it took from him.

  Use it wisely, and it will serve you well all the days of your life and beyond into the eternal plane. Use it unwisely, and you unleash the most uncontrollable forces in the Universe. I
t is important to practise, to learn to harness the power, to moderate it and make it work for you. You have the gift of life and death, now. Satan does not bestow it lightly.

  Daniel used the power to think about the silver crucifix his mother wore around her neck. He concentrated hard. God had defeated Satan. The symbol of the crucifix was the symbol of God’s authority.

  Not any more.

  Yahweh!

  ‘DAAAAANNNNNNIIIEEEELLLLLLL!’

  The scream cut through the walls of the house. His mother’s bedroom door crashed open and she stumbled towards the top of the stairs, clawing her chest. ‘Daniel! Oh, God help me! It’s burning!’

  Smoke was pouring from her chest. He could see the distinctive cross-shaped burn appearing like a stencil in her cardigan. It was growing in size as he watched it, as he concentrated. The smouldering line spread outwards until it reached from shoulder to shoulder, upwards to the bare skin of her neck, then downwards to her navel. Thickening smoke rose, then flames jumped up through the smoke and her whole front became like a blazing Ku Klux Klan cross he had seen in a picture book.

  ‘DAAAAANNNNNNIIIEEEELLLLLLL!’

  Her hair went up in a rush like arid hay. One whoosh, then a fierce crackling roar and it seemed her whole head was ablaze, hissing, whining, whistling, crunching. The flames spread down to her pleated skirt and her nylon stockings beneath.

  Then he rooted her to the spot.

  She stood at the top of the stairs, her arms outstretched as he fixed her there, like a hideous sacrifice on an altar. She could feel all the pain but she was incapable of moving an inch.

  Daniel’s nostrils filled with the smell of her burning clothes, the acrid smell of the wood, the stench of the nylons, and the sweet, roasting smell of her flesh.

  He had to concentrate harder than ever before, to keep her arms outstretched, to prevent her from charging down the stairs. He wanted her to stay like that, could make her stay like that, just had to remember the words he had been told, had to get the sequence right, had to remember how to draw down the power from his great god, Satan.

  The wallpaper was blistering, scorching, searing around his mother now. The bulb from the landing light above her head exploded from the heat, showering her with molten glass. Her flesh was blackening on her face, blistering, peeling off in places, but her eyes were still white, staring at him, screaming silently at him. He could read the words in her eyes.

  God Almighty’s wrath will come down on you for this, Daniel! God will be thy judge!

  Her shoes were burning now, and the carpet beneath them. Smoke leaked out of the walls and billowed around her.

  ‘Satan is my judge,’ he said quietly, and returned her stare. ‘Satan is my Lord and Master and always has been. Hail Satan!’

  A wind roared through the house, fanning the flames that now erupted all around her. The walls were burning, the ceiling; the inferno descended the staircase towards him, but he stood his ground, untouchable, holding her charring, blistering, bubbling torso in a hideous mockery of the crucifixion.

  There was a tremendous rending sound as the floor gave way and she plunged through the flames, out of sight. The house exploded and Daniel was catapulted backwards by the blast, hurtled through what was left of the front door and out into the garden.

  He lay on his back, stunned, as the windows blackened then burst, showering glass all around him, allowing flames to leap hungrily out of each of them into the cool evening air.

  Neighbours came running. Daniel felt gentle arms lifting him, carrying him backwards. He heard a kindly voice say: ‘Are you all right, son?’

  He nodded absently, watching the thick, black smoke that was spiralling out of every exit, thinking about his mother’s will which she had tucked away at the back of her wardrobe. She had left some money to a range of charities and some to her sister. But the main bulk of her estate she had left to the Church. Nothing to him.

  ‘There’s an ambulance on its way, be here in a moment. How did it happen? Did you see?’

  Daniel shook his head. ‘No, I was upstairs when I heard my mum screaming – she must have set fire to herself in the kitchen.’

  ‘At least you’re all right,’ someone else said to him. ‘You’re a brave chap, you’re going to be fine.’

  Daniel smiled. With the will destroyed, he would inherit everything. Every penny. He had very carefully checked the law. He was going to be very fine indeed. An identical house a few doors away had sold for good money only a couple of weeks ago. A brand new house built from the insurance money would sell for even more. Both his parents had been prudent with their savings, investments and insurance. Yes, he was going to have all the money he needed, and he had already planned his investment schemes to make that money grow.

  95

  Washington. 30 April, 1968

  She took him by the hand, her face whiter than he had ever seen it before, as white as the face of the clown at the circus on his birthday; except she wasn’t smiling, not at all. The skin of her face was tight with anxiety.

  ‘Daddy’s in trouble, we have to go to him right now,’ she said. Her voice was warbling, trembling, it sounded like it had been wrung out of her throat by a pair of coarse hands.

  Her long black hair was clipped to the sides of her head and some of the strands hung messily free. She wore a billowy white blouse clamped to her belly by a wide, studded belt. ‘He’s in real big trouble.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  Without letting go of her grip, she hauled him through the front door of their house in the tidy suburb, into the warm sunshine of the spring afternoon. As she pulled the door shut behind them she said, quietly, so he barely heard her: ‘Walpurgis.’

  ‘What’s Woppergeese?’

  ‘I knew something was going to happen. I said as much to your daddy. He should listen to me, you should listen to me, your momma knows things sometimes, OK?’

  ‘Are we going to see Woppergeese?’

  ‘We’re going to see Daddy.’

  She unlocked the passenger door of the battered Plymouth and bundled him in, then ran round the other side of the car, slid behind the wheel and twisted the key in the ignition. As he looked at her face, he saw beads of perspiration rolling down her forehead. She was frightened of something, terribly frightened, and the fear transmitted to him, making him afraid also.

  The engine rumbled, ticking over fast on choke, racing like a pulse; she backed into the quiet road, then floored the gas pedal. He felt the surge of acceleration press him back against the softly sprung vinyl seat, and watched the needle of the speedometer creep across the dial with a mixture of excitement and fear. His mom was usually a pretty slow driver, nervous of the road, but now she was driving more like his dad, one hand pressed on the horn and cursing everyone in her way.

  ‘We gonna see Woppergeese as well as Daddy?’

  ‘Woppergeese? What’s with these Woppergeese? Look, son, we’re going to see Daddy because Daddy’s in trouble.’

  ‘What trouble?’

  ‘Bad trouble.’

  ‘Why’s he in bad trouble?’

  ‘Because he’s a good man, and they don’t like him.’

  ‘Who’s they?’

  ‘Bad people.’

  He was silent only for a moment. ‘What sort of bad people, Mom?’

  ‘Evil. They do the Devil’s work. They’re pure evil.’

  ‘Why don’t they like Daddy?’

  A car with two elderly people was dawdling in front of them, blocking the road. She pushed the horn angrily, then answered, ‘Because he won’t do what they want him to do.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘They want him to be untrue to himself.’

  He pondered the remark, not really understanding what it meant, then he lurched forward in his seat, bracing himself with his hands against the dash as his mother chickened out of running a stop light ahead and brought the car slithering to a halt.

  He followed her anxious stare across the
wide boulevard, and up to the right.

  ‘Is that where Daddy works?’ he asked, looking at the ugly muddy brown high-rise.

  She said nothing. He eyed the building again. In fact it seemed to be two buildings, one growing out of the other. Then he looked back at his mother. He saw that she was muttering something under her breath. It sounded like she was praying.

  He felt a knot of tension deep in his gullet, growing every second. He had never seen her like this. She was terrified.

  The lights changed. She accelerated and slewed right into a large parking lot directly in front of the brown building. He saw a sign which said ‘Parking By Permit Only’, but his mother ignored that, skidded to a halt, jumped out and left the engine running.

  As he made to follow her, he heard a deep, soft crunch high above him. It was followed by a much sharper crack, like a gunshot. He saw his mother stop and her head whiplash upwards. Her eyes bulged and her hand went to her mouth. She made a tiny low moan.

  He looked where she was looking. A window was bulging outwards, like a balloon. It expanded further, then further, then suddenly exploded as if it were a down pillow that had been slit open. The air all around it filled with a dense cloud of feathers; as they slowly sprayed outwards, he could see in their midst a gigantic black bird.

  It zigzagged down, half flying, half plummeting like a shadow chasing itself, then struck the ground with a heavy thud. It made a terrible snapping sound only a few feet from where he stood. As it did so, its head jerked sharply and seemed to stare straight at him.

  The small boy stood, unable to move, his legs welded to the tarmac beneath him, oblivious to the shards of glass raining down. His head began to vibrate uncontrollably in shock. Then a high-pitched whine deep in his stomach rose like the wail of a siren into a piercing scream.

  ‘DAAAADDDDDDYYYYYYY!’

  96

  Wednesday 7 December, 1994

  It was ten to four in the morning when Monty drove her rented Vauxhall into her father’s driveway and saw immediately that his Toyota was not there.