Dominion

by Peter McLean

  “I mean, have you brought… something? It must be quite small, if you have.”

  “Well no,” I said. “Not yet. I mean, I don’t even know what sort of working I’ll need to do until I’ve seen her.”

  “But I thought…” he started. “I mean to say, I heard you, well, that you…”

  The penny dropped with a thoroughly unpleasant clang.

  “Mr Page,” I said, “I’m not killing your wife for you.”

  The old bugger had been trying to see where I was hiding the gun I didn’t own, I was sure he was. He licked his lips with a nervous, wet-looking tongue.

  “I’m sorry, I thought that’s what you did,” he said.

  Oh for fucksake, how had I ever got myself into this?

  “I’m a magician,” I said, “not a murderer.”

  Well of course that wasn’t strictly true, by which I suppose I mean it was technically a straightout lie. I am a killer, but I kill gangsters and terrorists and black magicians, for other gangsters and terrorists and black magicians. Now and again I’ll do a job for some other people too, people I’ve always suspected work for the government, but that was beside the point. I’m not in the business of bumping off sweet little old ladies and that was all there was to it.

  What about innocent little boys? the nagging voice of guilt whispered in the back of my head. I told it to shut up.

  “Oh,” said Charlie. “I’m terribly sorry if I’ve wasted your time but… well, I’m really at my wits’ end. I didn’t know what else to do, you see. I can hardly take her to the doctor, can I?”

  I couldn’t really see why not, but I was there now and he was getting that pathetic look about him like he’d had in my office that afternoon. I didn’t want to have to watch him cry all over again.

  “Look,” I said, “just let me have a look at her. I’m sure I can think of something.”

  Charlie sighed and nodded, and got to his feet. He led me up the creaking stairs.

  “I keep her in the back bedroom,” he said.

  He opened the door for me and I stepped inside.

  Mrs Page was indeed little and old, a tiny birdlike woman in a heavy cotton nightgown sitting up in bed propped up on three pillows, but she didn’t look very sweet. She was almost bald for one thing, her remaining thin white hair sticking out in odd directions, and there was a long string of thick drool hanging out of the corner of her mouth. I had just opened my mouth to say something when a metal bedpan lifted off the floor all by itself.

  The bedpan hovered in the air for a moment then hurtled violently towards my head.

  I ducked back just in time and it slammed into the wall where I had been standing, hitting hard enough to take a big chunk out of the faded wallpaper and leave a crater in the plaster. Mrs Page shrieked like a banshee and the door cracked straight down the middle with a bang.

  I started to understand why Charlie Page couldn’t take her to the doctor’s like a normal person.

  Chapter 4

  I left pretty sharpish after that. I told Charlie again that I’d think of something and get back to him, but he didn’t look too hopeful. I didn’t really blame him, to be honest.

  I must admit I hadn’t given much thought to how I was going to get home again when I sent the taxi on its merry way. Charlie’s neighbourhood was too far off the beaten track to find any cruising cabs so I ended up having to catch a bus, of all things. The only thing I like less than the bus is walking. I sat on the upstairs deck with my hands stuffed in my coat pockets, staring out of the dark window and waiting for it to be over. I heard a shrill burst of laughter, two young girls hurrying up the stairs behind me.

  “…see that bleedin’ cat trying to get on the bus?”

  “Innit, I’m so tweeting that!”

  I like cats about as much as I like buses, and giggly teenage girls aren’t much higher up my list of enjoyable things.

  I got home eventually and found Trixie had already gone to bed. My bed. The sofabed she’d bought me to replace my old couch was comfy enough I supposed, but sleeping in my office every night was starting to get a bit old now. I looked round the office and sighed. The wall at the far end was a slightly different colour to the rest, where last year I’d had to dig a bullet out of it and repaint it to cover the stain left by the brains of a very unpleasant man who had tried to torture me to death. Oh yes, this room held so many happy memories for me, it was the ideal place to sleep every fucking night.

  I made myself a coffee and took it through to the workroom.

  “What’s up, smiler?” the Burned Man asked me.

  “Do you have to sound so cheerful?” I said. “Stupid old fart.”

  “I might be old, but I’m not fucking stupid,” it snapped.

  “Not you, I mean Charlie Page,” I said. “That old boy I told you about, remember? The one with the batty wife?”

  “Oh yeah, the one with no fucking money,” it said. “What about him?”

  “He thought I was just going to do her in for him,” I said.

  The Burned Man shrugged. “It’d be easiest,” it said. “Summon up a vorehound and send it round to see her, chomp chomp, job done. You get to collect your no fucking money and we can forget the whole stupid business.”

  “If we sent a vorehound I think she’d eat it,” I said.

  That made it look up. “Oh yeah? Why’s that then?”

  “She’s a telekine at the very least, maybe more, and I’m not sure it’s just dementia that’s wrong with her. She looked batshit crazy to me.”

  “Telekines are bloody dangerous,” it admitted. “What’d she throw at you, a chair or something?”

  “A bedpan,” I said.

  The Burned Man snorted laughter. “How very fucking apt,” it said.

  “Oh shut up. We need to do something about her, but I’m not just bumping her off. She can’t help it, after all.”

  “Maybe she can and doesn’t want to?”

  I shook my head. “Nah. She needs a doctor, but we’ll have to calm her down first before anyone can see her. I need some way to block her energy and stop her throwing things at people’s heads.”

  “That’s doable,” the Burned Man said. “I can make an amulet that will do that, but I’ll need some bits and pieces. You’ll have to go and see Wormwood.”

  “Well that’s always a pleasure,” I said. I thought about the sofabed, and the closed door of my bedroom. “Oh fuck it, I might as well do it now. I could use a drink before I turn in anyway.”

  * * *

  I rustled up another taxi and rode it to Wormwood’s club. That bloody one-eyed cat had been on the pavement outside again when I left, prowling up and down and making the place look even untidier than usual. The whole left side of its face around the missing eye was a horrible mass of greyish scar tissue. It probably had fleas, too. Horrible thing. I got in the taxi and forgot about it as we drove.

  The cab pulled up at the kerb and I walked into the alley, trailing one hand absently along the graffiti-covered brickwork as I went. It was starting to rain, and I could hear a siren dopplering mournfully in the distance. Somewhere a cat yowled and someone shouted something at someone else, too far away for me to hear the words. The alley smelled of stale urine and fresh puke.

  I remembered watching Aleto the Unresting slaughter a devourer right there in that alley. I shuddered at the memory. I had been to bed with her after all, and look how that had turned out. That had been the last shag I’d had, come to think of it. There ought to be a plaque up on the wall or something, I thought, one of those round blue ones they put up for tourists that say things like “Queen Victoria slept here, 1865”, that sort of thing. Something like “Don Drake finally realised he has shit taste in women, 2014”.

  I don’t know, since Debbie had left me for good, maybe just not shagging Trixie for evermore was my best bet. I sighed and headed for the door.

  Wormwood’s club isn’t open to the general public, of course. It isn’t even visible to the general public, c
ome to that. You can’t see it and if you didn’t know it was there, you’d never find it. I, on the other hand, had been there enough times before to know exactly where it was.

  I walked through the glamour that covered the front door, feeling the illusion twist around me like a cold, sticky spider’s web. I stepped into the plush little bar on the other side and looked around. Connie was looming at the bottom of the stairs in his giant tuxedo, his horns almost brushing the ceiling.

  “Evening, big lad,” I said, giving him a cheery wave.

  “Don!” he grinned. “I haven’t seen you in ages!”

  I can’t help but like Connie. He’s Wormwood’s minder and a nine foot-tall hulking brute of a demon. He’s bald as a coot and I’m not joking about the horns, but for all that he’d given me more than one good kicking in the past, I have to admit he’s one of the most affable people I’ve ever met.

  It was only about ten o’clock and the club itself wasn’t open yet, the thick red velvet rope still pulled across the bottom of the stairs behind where Connie was standing. The downstairs bar had maybe fifteen people in it, and they were mostly humans this early in the night. There was no one I recognised from the actual club, and I didn’t usually hang around in the bar. That was for mugs, by and large – anyone worth knowing had enough clout to get themselves invited upstairs where the gambling and the dealmaking got done. I vaguely remembered seeing a few of the faces before, but there was no one I really knew to speak to other than Connie himself. I got myself a beer and wandered over to chat to him.

  “How’ve you been?” I asked him.

  “Can’t complain,” he said. “I look after Mr Wormwood and he sees me all right, you know how it is. What about you – are you still seeing the Lady?”

  I could hear the capital letter in his voice, and I knew he meant Trixie. She’d made quite an impression on everyone the first time she’d been here.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well you know, not ‘seeing’ exactly. We’re friends.”

  “Me and Tasha are ‘friends’ now,” he said, giving me a slow wink that he probably thought was subtle.

  Tasha was one of the waitresses from the club upstairs, a pretty little demon with a cute tail. I’d quite fancied her myself at one point to be honest, but she was no Trixie. I sighed. No one was, that was the bloody problem.

  “Good for you, mate,” I said, and reached up to clap him on the shoulder. That seemed like the sort of thing he’d like. “Is the boss about?”

  Connie gave me a slightly dubious look. “She’s not with you, is she? The Lady, that is. I mean, you’re welcome Don, ‘course you are, but Mr Wormwood isn’t too keen on her, I’m afraid.”

  No I bet he isn’t.

  “Nah, it’s just me, mate.”

  “All right then,” Connie said. “As it’s just you. Go on, I’ll let you up early. Mr Wormwood won’t mind.”

  He lifted the rope up for me and I ducked under it and went on up.

  Wormwood was sitting in an armchair under the window, wearing an expensive-looking black suit. He was reading the Financial Times and smoking. He looked up as I came in, and from the look on his face I think he did mind actually but there you go. That was just his tough shit as far as I was concerned.

  “Evening, Wormwood,” I said.

  “We ain’t open yet,” he said. “But as it’s you, have a seat. Have a drink. It is just you, I take it?”

  “Yeah,” I said, helping myself to a chair and a generous single malt from the bottle on the table beside him.

  Wormwood did keep good whisky, I had to give him that much, I supposed. He was otherwise bloody horrible. He was short and sallow and grey and greasy, unshaven and unwashed and he stank of cigarettes and misery. Other people’s misery, to be fair. Wormwood was probably on the list of the top hundred richest people in London, or he would have been if he’d officially existed. Archdemons don’t, of course, but that didn’t seem to stop him living in Mayfair and being chauffeured around in a bloody great Rolls Royce. Lucky for him he at least looked like a human, albeit a particularly ugly one.

  “Good, good,” he said, visibly relaxing. “What can I do for you then? Cards?”

  “Ingredients,” I said.

  Ever since Debbie had left me under rather unpleasant circumstances I’d been without an alchemist, but Wormwood knew everyone. He was also terrified of Trixie, which was bloody handy. She had made him agree to keep me supplied with whatever bits and pieces I needed, and at a knockdown price too. I knew it was the cheap prices that really hurt Wormwood. He was a child of Mammon after all, and easily the most avaricious person I’ve ever met.

  “Oh, right,” he said. “What do you need then?”

  “A vial of tincture of mercury, a lodestone, two live toads and a hexring,” I said, reciting the shopping list the Burned Man had given me.

  Wormwood pulled a face. I think he did, anyway. With a face like his it was hard to tell.

  “A hexring ain’t going to be cheap, even with our little arrangement,” he said. “I mean, really not cheap.”

  “I don’t want to hear that, Wormwood,” I said. “You promised Trixie that–”

  “No no no,” he interrupted. “Let’s not get into another unfortunate misunderstanding here. I mean yeah, ‘course, if you need a hexring I can get it for you. Said I would, didn’t I? Thing is though Drake, I could do with a little favour myself. I was thinking we could work something out on the price is all. You help me out and I’ll do it below cost.”

  I squinted at him through the choking haze of cheap cigarette smoke. It always seemed strange to me that someone as rich as Wormwood didn’t smoke a better brand, but I suppose that was how he got to be so rich. He really didn’t like to actually spend his money, and I knew the words “below cost” must be almost causing him physical pain.

  “Oh yeah? That doesn’t sound like you, Wormwood.”

  I knew it was killing him to have to ask nicely. Wormwood was used to having people like me under his thumb, not the other way around. Of course he was only being nice to me because he was shit scared of Trixie, but that suited me just fine. Right now the boot was firmly on my foot and I intended to keep it that way.

  “Yeah well,” he said. “I owe some people a small favour, and they’ve just called it in.”

  “People?” I echoed. That didn’t sound too likely to me. “Actual people?”

  “Gnomes,” he corrected himself.

  I snorted. “Seriously?”

  “If you’re thinking of jolly little fuckers sitting around a pond with white beards and fishing rods you can fucking think again,” he snapped. “These are proper gnomes. Earth elementals, you understand me?”

  “Why the hell do you owe them a favour?” I asked. I didn’t really care, but he was squirming and seeing Wormwood squirm never got old.

  “They told me things, once. Things I needed to know at the time. They know all sorts of things, the gnomes do.”

  “I suppose they know how to dig holes,” I said. “Can’t imagine it’s much more than that.”

  “That’s because you’ve got the imagination of a dead dog,” Wormwood snapped. “They know things all right. Deep things.”

  “Deep bleedin’ holes,” I sniggered. “Oh all right, whatever, I’m only winding you up. The gnomes told you a Jackanory and now they want a little favour in return, I get the picture. And you want me to do it for you. I don’t suppose there’s any chance you could just pay them off?”

  Wormwood shook his head.

  “They work in favours, not money,” he said. “So I’m asking you to go down there and do them a favour from me in return. They’re a bit like the Chinese like that, all about the relationship. You ever done business with the Chinese, Drake?”

  I winced as I thought about a particularly nasty Triad guy I’d worked for once and could quite happily not ever see again in my life. I nodded. Now, I don’t know how much you know about doing business with the Chinese, but I’m going to take a guess at not much.
They have this thing called guanxi, which is a bit like networking and business relationships, but more so. It’s all very cultural and traditional and whatnot, but it pretty much comes down to “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”. If the gnomes were going to be like that, this could be interesting. Interesting in the Chinese sense.

  “That hexring had better be free for this, Wormwood, and you’ll still owe me one.”

  “It will be,” he said. “Thanks Don.”

  I nearly fell out of my seat. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Wormwood say thanks before, or call me by my first name for that matter. With hindsight, that’s when I should have started to smell a rat.

  “Right,” I said. “Right, well. Looks like we’ve got a deal then.”

  He nodded. “Good. I need to make some calls, set it up. Hang around, have a drink. We’ll be opening in a few minutes anyway. Play some cards if you want. Roulette, whatever.”

  I leaned back in my chair and poured myself another whisky while he shuffled off to his office. People started to trickle into the club after about half an hour, by which time I was starting to feel comfortably tipsy. Whisky always tastes better when it’s someone else’s, especially when it’s as good as the stuff Wormwood served. I didn’t feel like playing cards that night and I’m shit at roulette, so I just sat and drank whisky and leafed through Wormwood’s newspaper until he eventually came back.

  “Have your jabs and pack your passport, you’re going north of the river,” he told me. “One of the gnomes will meet you down the Tube. They’re down the Northern Line, in the deep tunnels. Be at Bank on the DLR concourse at nine sharp tomorrow night. That’s the deepest of the lot.”

  I noticed his left eye twitch as he said it. I nodded. I’m not exactly a Tube nerd, but even I knew that. The Docklands Light Railway platforms at Bank were a good hundred and thirty feet underground and they led to proper bored tunnels rather than the cut-and-cover that makes up most of the subterranean parts of the London Underground. That shit freaks some people out, I knew.

  “Not a fan of the Tube then, Wormwood?”