by Peter McLean
We sat in silence until Dave came back with Weasel’s breakfast and my coffee and fucked off behind his greasy counter again.
“Right,” I said. “What have you got?”
“Well,” Weasel said, his mouth full of bacon and eggs. “It’s this new lot I’ve found. The Initiates of the Melek Taus.”
“Of the fucking what?”
“It means the Peacock Angel, I think,” Weasel said. “That’s some sort of Yazidi demigod as far as I can make out. You know, from Iraq and all that, although I don’t think this bunch are exactly the genuine article. I don’t suppose it matters. What does matter, Mr Drake, is that some people using that name are organising. Against, you know. Him.”
“Adam,” I said, and Weasel flinched.
“Mr Drake,” he said quietly, “it doesn’t do to be using that name in public these days.”
“Really?” I said. I’m sorry but I couldn’t resist poking him just a bit. “I had him round my flat this morning.”
Weasel gaped at me. “That’s not funny, Mr Drake,” he said.
“It’s not meant to be,” I said. “I told you before, Weasel, these are the sort of people I hang around with. This is what I fucking do, you understand me? This is what you say you want to do.”
“But,” he said, and gaped some more. “But he’s…”
“Yeah, he is,” I said, “and I had him round my flat. Think about that for a moment, Weasel. Are you sure you still want to be my apprentice?”
Weasel nodded far too quickly. “Yeah,” he said. “Shit yes, I do Mr Drake.”
If I hadn’t already known he was utterly unsuitable that alone would have been enough to convince me. Ah well, there you go. As I said before, magic wasn’t for everyone. Weasel may or may not have had the ability, and I’m not convinced that he did, but in my book he sure as hell didn’t have the temperament. He was another Charlie Page in the making if ever I saw one, and we all know how that ended.
“Well, all right,” I said. “Cheers Weasel. You got a number for these boys?”
He had better than that, he had an address and an invitation.
“They’re looking forward to meeting you,” he said.
“You sure about this, Weasel?”
He nodded, his protruding lower lip glistening with spit. “Yeah, I’m sure. I wouldn’t lie to you, Mr Drake.”
* * *
The address Weasel gave me was in the leafy suburb of Totteridge, North London. I took a long, expensive cab ride up to the land of people who thought it was reasonable to spend the best part of a million quid on a three bedroom semi, staring listlessly out of the window as we went. I found myself wondering again exactly why I was still living in a squalid flat above a Bangladeshi grocers on a South London high street, and not coming up with a satisfactory answer other than that I was skint. Some of that was the Burned Man’s thinking, I knew, but I have to admit some of it was mine too. Surely Trixie would be happier living somewhere like this, with a nice bit of garden, a good few miles away from the constant wail of police sirens.
Blondie would be happier? Fucking seriously? I coughed into my fist and looked at the floor of the taxi, trying to shut the Burned Man out of my head. All the same, I had to admit it was right. She’s not your fucking missus, you cretin.
No she wasn’t, I knew that. Damn, I knew that all too well. I still wished she was though, all the same. I really, really did.
The cabbie finally pulled up outside the address I had given him and I paid the eyewatering fare. London is bigger than you think, and getting around it by taxi isn’t cheap. I got out into the early afternoon spring sunshine and looked at the house. It looked like all the others in the street, a smart 1950s semi-detached with a pair of nearly new BMWs on the drive and freshly mown grass in the front garden. All in all it hardly looked like a den of underground occult activity. I shrugged and walked up the path to ring the front doorbell.
The guy who answered was dusky skinned and bearded, not black or Asian but sort of Persian looking. Maybe Iraqi, like Weasel had said, but maybe not. He was wearing jeans and a black shirt, unbuttoned over a hairy chest with a thick gold chain around his neck. He gave me a blank look.
“I’m Don Drake,” I said, on the assumption that might mean something to him.
Apparently it did. He smiled widely and spread his hands as he gave me a short bow.
“Mr Drake,” he said. “Come in, come in. We have been waiting for you.”
I followed him into the house and he shut the heavy front door behind me with a solid thunk. He ushered me through into the front sitting room, and that’s when it all went to hell.
There were five of his mates waiting in there, and each one had a vorehound beside him.
“Oh fuck,” I said.
“Kill!” one of them shouted, and as one the vorehounds went for me.
Lots of things happened at once.
“Trixie!” I screamed, before I even really thought about it. “Help!”
At the same time I was stepping back, turning, pivoting on my heel and going burning hot and freezing cold all at once as the Burned Man forced its way to the front of my mind and simply took over. Flames erupted out of my hands and I hurled them at the lead vorehound, consuming it in a ball of blazing fire. It howled and burned, careering helplessly into its nearest fellow and setting that ablaze as well. A third hound slammed into my chest and sent me crashing back into the wall. I grabbed it around the throat with both hands, its foul breath blowing hot in my face and slaver flying from its jaws as it started to burn. I snarled back at it and it turned into a furry fireball in my hands. My hands were full now though and the other two were almost on me, baying with a killing fury.
Trixie came through the front window like a missile.
Broken glass exploded across the room around her as she landed on her feet, already attacking. Her blazing sword flashed once, twice, and the vorehounds collapsed in sprays of burning blood. I threw the smoking wreckage of the one in my hands into the fireplace and turned to face the men in the room.
“Initiates of Melek Taus my fucking arse,” I snarled, or the Burned Man did.
I wasn’t even sure which one of us was driving now, and I didn’t care. I’ve never been a tough guy, not ever in my life. I was always the bookish kid, bullied by wankers like Nick Regan and his mates when I was a lad and then growing up a magician and still being bullied by the likes of Gold Steevie and the Russian.
I’d fucking had enough of it.
Just look how that had turned out for Steevie, since me and the Burned Man reached our meeting of minds. Damn but it felt good to have the boot on my foot for once. It shouldn’t have done, I knew it really really shouldn’t, but it did all the same.
Fuck them.
Fuck them all, and burn in Hell.
Trixie stared at me as flames roared out of my hands and consumed the nearest of the Initiates. He bellowed in agony, burning, falling to his knees and then onto his side, thrashing on the rapidly blackening carpet.
“Burn!” I bellowed.
Everything got a bit hazy after that.
I remember Trixie’s sword blazing in her hands, cutting mercilessly as she simply took my word for it that these were enemies. She felled two of them faster than I could even follow, but I was amongst them now, and now the guy who had let me into the house was there too with a double-barrelled shotgun in his hands.
He levelled the shotgun at me but somehow I moved fast, so fast, one burning hand slamming into the side of the weapon and knocking it away just in time. It roared and blew a huge hole in the plaster behind me. My hand stabbed out and a gout of fire leapt from my fingers and took him full in the face. He shrieked as he burned.
His flesh crisped and his eyes boiled and collapsed into his head, venting steam. I grabbed his blazing body and dipped my hips and twisted and threw, hurling him into his two remaining friends. They fell against the wall in a blazing heap and I turned on them all, flames streaming from my hands.
“Fucking burn!” I remembered screaming at them, and then the ceiling caught fire and I blacked out.
* * *
Someone was slapping my face.
“Come on Don, I can’t carry you forever,” Trixie said.
“Shit, sorry,” I muttered. “It’s OK, I’m awake.”
“You are now,” she said, and I realised she had me over her shoulder in an undignified sort of fireman’s carry.
She put me down and I blinked and looked at her. We were beside some railway tracks, with a high fence on one side and an industrial estate on the other. One of those big self-storage places loomed over the low-rise factory units and lockups. I had no idea how far she had carried me but it looked like we had come a fair few miles from leafy Totteridge.
“Jesus, what happened?” I asked.
She gave me a long, cold look.
“You tell me,” she said at last.
I swallowed as I remembered bits of it, disjointed images of fire and death.
Oh fuck.
“Look, Trixie...” I said, tailing off helplessly. I was afraid this was beyond even my powers of bullshit.
“You called for my help and I came,” she said. “That’s fine, Don. You know I’ll always come. That’s what I’m for. But you didn’t need me, did you? Not really. You slaughtered them, just like you slaughtered Bianakith when I couldn’t.”
Oh fuck me, this could get ticklish really easily.
“I did need your help,” I said. “There were six of them, and five vorehounds, and he had a gun and…”
And what? I couldn’t really remember much of what had happened, to be perfectly honest, but I was pretty sure it was much like what had happened to Gold Steevie and his boys. The look on Trixie’s face told me everything I needed to know.
“We had to run,” she said. “The house was on fire. And the one joined on to it.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well look, I mean if you hadn’t carried me out of there I’d have burned with it, wouldn’t I? I did need you, Trixie.”
She shook her head.
“How, Don?” she asked me. “How did you do that, exactly? I saw you nearly get shot and I thought… I thought… I nearly lost you, Don. And then they were all dead and you looked at me and your hands were still burning and for a moment there you looked for all the world like you were going to attack me too. How, exactly, did you do that?”
She was trembling, I realised, and she looked alarmingly like she might be about to cry. I pulled her into my arms and hugged her.
“I don’t know,” I lied, but actually I suppose that was sort of true. If you squinted at it, anyway. I mean I didn’t really know how the Burned Man did what it did through me, did I? “I don’t know. It’s just…. something I can do now.”
“But how?” she asked.
Something in her voice was painfully reminiscent of the time she had asked me how Aleto had been so strong the last time she had faced her. Adam had been cheating then, of course, and now the Burned Man was doing the same thing through me. Would it really attack her while I was blacked out? I honestly didn’t know, and that frightened the life out of me. I loved her, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hurt her. I could hardly tell her that though.
“I don’t know,” I said again. “But if it happens again, run. Just leave me to it and run.”
Trixie pulled back and looked at me for a long moment, then nodded.
“Yes,” she said, and the sadness in her eyes was almost heartbreaking. “Yes, I think perhaps I will.”
We walked a long way in silence after that, listening to the distant sirens of the fire engines.
Chapter 21
I wanted a little word with Harry the Weasel. To put it fucking mildly.
It wasn’t hard to round him up now that I knew where he drank. We both went that evening, to avoid any misunderstandings about whether I was serious or not. Trixie turned more than a few heads in the shitty dive of a pub that Weasel called his local, for all that I had told her to dress down. Trixie’s idea of dressing down was leggings and a T-shirt. Leggings, for fucksake. I could hardly take my eyes off her as I followed her into the pub, and I wasn’t the only one. Even I had put some jeans on for once, and dug my battered old leather bomber jacket out of the back of the wardrobe. This really wasn’t the sort of place you went to in a suit if you could help it.
“Oi,” I said, when I saw Weasel standing at the fruit machine.
He almost jumped out of his skin. He was wearing new Nike trainers and a new tracksuit and a big tasteless gold ring, like he’d recently come into some money. I dare say he had, at that. I hoped he had asked for a lot of money to sell me out. I hoped he had enjoyed it too, because I’d be fucked if he was going to enjoy the consequences of it.
“Mr… Mr Drake,” he said, turning to stare at us with a panicky look in his lazy eye. “Ma’am.”
“Hello,” Trixie said. “I think you should come with us.”
To be fair to the little bastard he at least had the sense not to make a fuss. I could only assume he had figured out that being dragged out of his local on his ear by a woman that looked like Trixie wouldn’t do much for what little reputation he had. We bundled him into our waiting taxi and took him back to my office.
Trixie left me to it after that, and went through to the kitchen to have a smoke. I shoved Weasel into my workroom and shut the door behind us. I pushed him into the centre of the circle and forced him down onto his knees, making myself not look at the inanimate fetish that had once contained the Burned Man. I didn’t want to think about that right then, not after what had happened.
“Do you know the difference between Heaven and Hell, Weasel?” I asked him.
He nodded, but I ignored him. By then I couldn’t give a fuck what he thought he knew.
“Right now, in this room, you’re on Earth,” I said, “but you’re about to go to one or the other in the next few minutes. Heaven for you is my office, the other side of that door. In Heaven there’s a comfortable sofa, and a cup of coffee and a fag. Maybe a whisky, if you want it. That’s Heaven. Does that sound good, Weasel?”
He nodded again, and I could see the fear in his eyes. Good.
“Hell…” I started, and I looked down at him.
I had to admit I didn’t really know how to do this sort of thing. I know I’d promised Trixie that I wouldn’t bully the Weasel again but that was before he set me up to get killed. I wasn’t having that. I thought of Gold Steevie. What would Steevie have said, before I melted him to the floor of his warehouse?
“Hell is a lockup about twenty minutes’ drive from here. Hell is boltcutters and blowtorches, and having your fingers and toes cut off. Hell is nasty little hammers and chisels, and losing all your teeth without anaesthetic.”
Weasel whimpered, but he still wasn’t talking. I glared at him. I glared at him, and I remembered Lavender. Oh dear God, yes, I remembered Lavender, who had been Wellington Phoenix’s pet torturer. I had met Lavender once, under very unpleasant circumstances. I didn’t think I would ever forget Lavender. I leaned forwards and got right in Weasel’s face, keeping my voice low.
“Hell is what the IRA used to call a six pack. Hell is having your wrists and elbows and knees destroyed. Hell is power drills and plastic explosive and me deciding whether or not you get to ever walk or feed yourself again, you little cunt.”
Weasel broke.
It was hardly surprising, all things considered. I had too, when Lavender had given me much the same little speech. Adam had sent Lavender to Hell with a .50 calibre bullet through the face, and I sincerely hoped he was still screaming down there. I like to think he was, anyway.
Weasel started to talk.
“It was a lady, Mr Drake,” he confessed, his lazy eye weeping slowly onto his stubbled cheek. “An American lady.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked. I had a sudden nasty suspicion that I knew who he was talking about. “Did she by any chance have a big feather fan?”
>
Weasel nodded eagerly. “Yeah,” he said. “Them big ones with what look like eyes on the end of them. Peacock feathers, I think.”
I nodded. I knew who that was all right. Miss Fucking Marie. I had been sure she was taking an unhealthy interest in me and my affairs, and it looked like I had been right. One day I’ll learn to listen to myself, I promise.
“And what did she promise you, Weasel?” I asked him. “What was my life worth?”
“Five grand,” he said.
I kicked him in the face.
“Five grand?” I shouted at him. “Is that fucking all?”
Weasel snivelled and picked himself up off the floor.
“I’m sorry, Mr Drake,” he said.
For fucksake. Five grand? That was a fucking insult.
“Is that all you think I’m worth, Weasel?”
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’ve got debts.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you’ve got,” I snarled. “You sold me out to the peacock woman for five cunting grand, you little shit!”
I raised a hand and he cowered, and suddenly I felt about three inches tall. What the fuck was I turning into? I was no Nick Regan, I knew that much. At least, I hadn’t been. I looked at the empty fetish that used to contain the Burned Man, and I thought about where the Burned Man was now. I swallowed. I had changed recently, that much was for bloody certain.
“Get up, Weasel,” I said.
He gave me a fearful look. I held a hand out to him and eventually he took it, and I pulled him up onto his feet.
“I’m sorry, Mr Drake,” he whispered.
I sighed. “Yeah, you are,” I said. “You’re a sorry little bastard all right. Get in that office.”
He scurried out of the workroom and I followed him, shutting the door carefully behind me. I knew Trixie wouldn’t set foot in there unless I physically shoved her in, but all the same, the last thing I wanted was her catching sight of that fetish in its current state. She might be a bit naive but that would have given the game away good and proper.
