by Peter McLean
I realised Papa Armand was looking at me like I had grown a second head, and that was without me mentioning that I seemed to have agreed to become Rashid’s replacement.
“Slow down Don-boy,” he said, “and maybe run this past me jus’ one more time. Upstairs in my bedroom, Madame Zanj Bèl is trying on clothes with Menhit the Black Lion of Nubia, is that what you sayin’ me?”
It sounded even more bonkers when he put it like that, I had to admit. I nodded.
“Yeah, pretty much,” I said.
Papa threw back his head and roared with laughter.
“You got Guédé spirit in you, Don-boy, I give you that,” he said.
I thought about the Burned Man, and had to admit he was probably right. In a way, anyway.
“Yeah well,” I said. “Shit has a way of… I dunno, Papa. Look, I really need this favour. Can you keep her here for a bit? I mean, I don’t think she’s dangerous right now. Not yet, anyway. When we pulled her out of the deep warren she was all on about us sorting her a palace and servants and all that shit, but ever since she saw a train and some traffic and a few buildings she’s gone bloody quiet, you know what I mean? I think she’s half dead of culture shock, to be perfectly honest with you.”
“She speaks French,” Papa pointed out.
“And English,” I said. That was just as odd, now that I actually thought about it. “Oh I don’t know do I? She’s a goddess Papa, who knows what she can do.”
“Anything I choose,” she said from behind me, and I almost jumped out of my skin.
I turned to see her and Trixie standing on the stairs looking down at the two of us. They had both changed, into clothes from wherever the hell Trixie whistled her wardrobe up from, I could only assume. Trixie was looking refreshed in clean jeans and a white silk blouse, whereas Menhit had gone modern formal in a black pinstriped business suit with black nylons and high heels, and a black satin blouse unbuttoned low enough to show off the impressively large gold necklace Trixie had found for her from God only knew where.
Menhit stalked down the stairs, her high heels clicking on the polished wood. She towered over Papa Armand, at least a head taller than him in those shoes. She smiled.
“I will stay here in the tower palace, with this priest,” she said. “You have done well, keeper.”
I bowed my head despite myself.
All the same though, anything I choose? I doubted that, to be perfectly honest. Once, maybe, surrounded by worshipers in a world she understood. But now? I didn’t think so somehow. I mean, would she still have been there with the likes of us if she really could do anything she wanted? I wasn’t going to get into that right then, but it was definitely something to think about.
“Thank you Mother,” I said.
She ignored me and ran a hand slowly up Papa Armand’s arm.
“I will like it here,” she said, examining him the way one would consider a minor but interesting purchase. “I have not had a fuck for many thousands of years.”
Papa just grinned at me, the dirty old bastard. I could only hope he had plenty of Viagra in his nightstand. I thought he was going to need it.
“We should be going,” Trixie said, and I couldn’t have agreed more.
We left Papa and his goddess to it and fled.
Chapter 25
“Well that was odd,” I said once we were settled into the back of a taxi.
Trixie just nodded. I looked at her, and saw that all the good humour had gone out of her face. She had done a great job of faking it for Menhit, but now that we were alone I could see how devastated she still was.
I sighed. I really didn’t even know how to approach this one. Her Dominion had fallen, beyond all doubt. She had been forced to attempt to kill it herself in fact, and I dread to think what that must have cost her. She had adopted Menhit as her new patron seemingly without thinking, and I hated to admit it but I appeared to have done the same thing. Who knew how the presence of a goddess affected minds? Now that we were a couple of miles away from her though, weaving through the early evening traffic, the whole idea started to feel more than a bit iffy. To put it fucking mildly.
“Trixie,” I said, “are you all right?”
She looked at me, and I could see the hurt in her beautiful blue eyes.
“No, not really,” she said. “I’m never going home, am I?”
Poor Trixie. I had to admit that it didn’t look like it. All her allegiance had been to that one Dominion and now it had fallen. I didn’t know where that left her, and fuck only knew what was going on Upstairs at the moment anyway. Besides, now she had sworn to serve Menhit it seemed to me that she had deserted and gone mercenary anyway, which made it all a bit of a moot point. Perhaps now wasn’t a good time to mention that though.
I put my hand over hers and squeezed her fingers.
“We’ll think of something,” I said.
She shrugged. “Perhaps,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“No,” I admitted. “And more to the point I’m worried. Did we, you know, sign anything? Metaphorically, I mean. Have we agreed to something we’ll struggle to get out of?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Perhaps.”
“Do you think Adam will know?” I asked. “I mean, he ought to know all about pacts and that sort of–”
“Adam’s dead!” she screamed at me, and I flinched.
I saw the cabbie giving us a look in the rear view mirror, and did my best to ignore him. Shit. I really hadn’t given Adam much thought, what with everything else that had happened, but now that she mentioned it…
“We can’t know that,” I said.
“You saw where he went,” Trixie said.
“Yeah I did,” I replied, keeping my voice too low for the cabbie to hear. “He went back to Hell. He fell into it once and got out, who’s to say he can’t do it again?”
Trixie looked at me, and a faint smile touched her lips. It looked like hope.
“Do you think so?”
For fucksake, I wanted that smug git stuck in Hell until the end of days, but… Trixie was still in love with him, there were no two ways about it. How did I put up with that, loving her as I did? It was pathetic, I knew it was, but there we were.
“Yeah, I reckon,” I said. “I reckon he’ll be back before we know it.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “I hope so.”
I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. I really didn’t hope so but I didn’t want to get into that with her now. I sat back in the seat and sighed again.
“Home, then a shower and something to eat,” I said. “Everything else will keep until then at least.”
“Yes,” Trixie said softly. “Yes, I suppose it will.”
We rode the rest of the way in silence. Back at mine we took turns to shower and change, and I went and sat in the workroom for five minutes to keep up the pretence of needing to feed the Burned Man. The angel’s skull I had borrowed from Wormwood was still sitting under the altar, grinning at me.
I really ought to give that back before he gets stroppy about it.
We went out to eat as usual. I had bugger all in the fridge anyway, and I’m a shit cook at the best of times. I sat across the table from Trixie in the little Italian place around the corner from my flat, pushing my spag bol about on the plate and working my way steadily through my second bottle of red. I wasn’t really hungry now that it came to it, and the atmosphere was more than a bit strained. Neither of us had said anything for far too long.
“Seriously Trixie,” I said eventually, “what are we going to do?”
She blinked and looked up at me.
“Sorry Don?” she said. “About what?”
About you and me, I wanted to say. I didn’t quite dare, though.
“About everything,” I said. “I don’t fucking know. About Menhit, most of all.”
Trixie shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “We swore to serve her.”
“Yeah I know we did, but… oh fucking hell, seri
ously? I mean, neither of us were really in our right minds at the time were we?”
“She appointed you her new keeper,” Trixie pointed out, a bit waspishly I thought. “If you didn’t want the job, that would have been the time to say so.”
“I didn’t really feel like I was being given an option,” I said. “What does that even mean anyway, keeper of the Veil?”
“I have no idea,” she said.
I necked my wine and refilled the glass.
“Fuck it, we can always back out,” I said.
“Can we? She’s a goddess, Don. Can you go back on your word to a goddess?”
Oh I was fucked if I knew. I bloody well hoped so, that’s all I could think.
Oi, are you awake in there? I thought at the Burned Man.
Nothing.
I realised I hadn’t heard a peep out of it since I had accepted the position as Menhit’s keeper of the Veil. That might mean nothing, or it might mean a great deal. I only wished I knew.
“I’m very tired,” Trixie said. “If you’re not actually going to eat that, shall we just go?”
I sighed and nodded.
“Yeah,” I said. “I think we’re done for the day.”
* * *
We were done for quite a few days, as it went. I don’t think either of us woke up much before noon the next day and we were both still knackered even then. It really had been a hell of a couple of weeks. I kept waiting for some urgent summons to come from Menhit, and it kept not coming. Part of me wanted to call Papa Armand and make sure he was still alive over there but the bigger part of me said to let sleeping goddesses lie. Whatever was going on in Papa’s penthouse, Trixie and I needed a rest.
We spent the best part of a week just resting up, sleeping and eating and watching old movies together. Proper ones, from before they invented all that computer generated shit that makes everything look like a cartoon. I think Trixie even enjoyed some of them, although it was hard to tell. She was still withdrawn and quiet, mourning both Adam and her Dominion. I just kept my head down really, trying not to drink too much and remembering to pretend to feed the Burned Man every day. The little git still hadn’t said a word, and if I hadn’t known better I could almost have forgotten it was there inside me. Maybe facing down the Dominion had taken more out of it than I had thought.
It was Saturday afternoon and once more I was sitting on the floor of my workroom, contemplating my navel while I waited for enough time to pass for Trixie to reasonably think I had been feeding the Burned Man. That angel’s skull was still grinning at me from underneath the altar. I glared at it. A fat lot of use that had turned out to be in the end.
I got up and poked about in the room for a bit, straightening my books and tidying the contents of the drawers. Ally’s dagger was back in the cupboard, and the flat black case containing the hexring I had used on Charlie Page was nestled next to it. Neither exactly had happy memories attached to them but you never knew, I might be glad of them again one day. I hoped not, to be perfectly honest about it, but I was too used to my life by then to discount the possibility.
Oh bugger it, I really did need to get out of the flat for a bit.
“Hey,” I said when I came back through to the office.
Trixie looked up at me from her seat on the sofa, a long black cigarette smouldering between her fingers.
“Mmmm?”
“I really ought to give Wormwood his skull back,” I said. “I thought I might pop over to the club with it tonight if you fancy a bit of a night out?”
She shrugged. “I suppose we could,” she said.
She didn’t look exactly keen but she hadn’t said no either and that was good enough for me. I was feeling pretty well rested up by then and truth be told I was starting to get bored. A few drinks and a hand or two of cards would put the spring back in my step, especially as I still had that couple of grand I had taken from red-eyed Antonio sitting on my account at the club. I grinned at her.
“Nice one,” I said.
I pottered about for a bit, had a shave and another shower I didn’t really need, shined my shoes and did all the other pointless shit you do before you go for a night out. We had a quick bite to eat and were getting ready to leave when the doorbell rang.
I frowned and pressed the button on the intercom.
“Don Drake,” I said.
“Lord keeper,” a voice said. “I would speak with you.”
I blinked. That was fucking ominous. I took my finger off the button.
“Trixie,” I called, “we’ve got company.”
She hurried out of the bedroom, barefoot in the long black evening dress she had produced for the occasion.
“Who is it?”
“Some geezer who knows to call me lord keeper,” I said.
She nodded. “Let him in.”
She had a look on her face that said she had been getting bored too, and was starting to fancy a good fight to cheer herself up. I love her, I really do, but she is a bit mental if I’m honest about it. I pressed the button to open the door.
I heard footsteps on the stairs then the door opened and a man walked in. He was tall and broad shouldered and sort of Arabic looking, wearing a smart jacket and neatly pressed slacks. He ignored Trixie completely, and looked at me for a long moment. Then he knelt at my feet.
“Lord keeper,” he said, and bowed his head.
“Um,” I said. “I… um… Evening.”
“I am Mazin,” he said. “I am your humble servant.”
“Right,” I said. “Why’s that then?”
“My order served your predecessor, the Lord Rashid,” he said, “and so now we serve you in turn as the new keeper of the Veil.”
You must confer with your people, as I must with mine, I remembered Rashid saying in the back room of the Rose and Crown. Of course, I didn’t actually have any “people” as such, but it looked like he really had. It seemed this was one of them, probably the boss of them by the sounds of it, kneeling in front of me on the floor of my office. Fucking hell, I’d never had “people” before. I must admit I had no idea what to say to him.
“I am the lord keeper’s guardian,” Trixie said, rescuing me as usual. “You may rise, and address your petition to me.”
Mazin got to his feet and bowed respectfully to her.
“Madam guardian,” he said.
“Right,” I said again, completely spoiling Trixie’s attempt to establish protocol. I’m afraid I really am shit at this sort of thing. “So, um, what can I do for you, Mazin?”
“It is for you to command us, lord keeper,” he said. “I wished only to convey my respects upon your glorious elevation, and make ourselves known to you.”
He took a small black book out of the pocket of his jacket and handed it to Trixie with another short bow.
“It is all in the book,” he said.
“My thanks,” she said.
He seemed to have accepted her as my bodyguard or chamberlain or something, which I have to admit was a bit of a relief. Trixie was so much better at all this formal crap than I was.
“Thank you, Mazin,” I said.
He bowed low to me.
“I will take my leave, lord keeper, and trouble you no longer,” he said.
“Night then,” I said.
He bowed yet again, and turned and left. I waited until I heard the front door close behind him before I turned to Trixie with a bewildered look. She was already leafing through the book.
“What the fuck was that all about?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “Rashid had staff,” she said. “They’re your staff now.”
“Well you’re going to have to be my chief of staff,” I said. “I’m hopeless at shit like this.”
“Yes you are,” she said.
Well, she needn’t have agreed with me quite that quickly as far as I was concerned, but whatever. She was right and we both knew it.
Anyway, after that unexpected little bit of excitement we were running late, so we b
oth hurried up and finished getting ready then rode a cab to Wormwood’s club. I really wanted to see what was in Mazin’s book but I supposed it would have to wait until we got home now. People, I couldn’t help smirking to myself as the cab bounced over the potholes towards Wormwood’s place. I’ve got people. Fuck me, I’ve arrived.
I had the big aluminium flight case containing the angel’s skull on the floor of the car between my feet. I must admit I had been half tempted to just fucking keep it, after the amount of shit Wormwood had dropped me in lately, but that wouldn’t do much for the health of our future business relationship. I hated depending on him, but there we were. I really did need to find another alchemist, and soon.
He was certainly pleased to get it back, that was for sure. Wormwood grabbed the case out of my hands with avaricious, nicotine-stained fingers as soon as I presented it to him in the smoky club. Before I knew it one of his creepy croupiers was carrying it through into his private office. He gave me a slippery smile.
“I trust that everything’s equal now and we’re all friends again then, Don?” he said.
Obviously he wouldn’t have been anything like as pleasant if Trixie hadn’t been standing right beside me. She still had that look on her face that said she was just waiting for an excuse to hurt someone, and I knew damn well Wormwood had picked up on it. Good.
“Yeah, we’re fine,” I said.
He nodded and found an excuse to make himself scarce. I collared a passing waiter and snagged us each a glass of champagne.
“Interesting night so far,” I said.
Trixie nodded, then narrowed her eyes. “It’s about to get more interesting, I think,” she said.
I turned to see what she was looking at, and almost choked. Across the club Papa Armand was playing craps, his black silk top hat bobbing as he threw the dice. Beside him, standing almost seven foot-tall in her high heels, was Menhit.
“Fuck a duck,” I muttered. “I’ve got to go say hello, you know I have.”
