by Rod Rees
What was going on?
Dragging his attention back to what was happening in the hounfo, he nodded to a large box – maybe two metres square and a metre thick – that was being carried over to the side of the clearing. ‘And that?’
‘That’s the pe … the altar from which the WhoDoo Queen, the senior mambo, will oversee this ritual.’
‘And just who is this WhoDoo Queen?’
‘Why, Josephine Baker, of course!’
*
Reluctantly Vanka allowed himself to be led towards the poteau-mitan and, as he did so, a trio of drums started pounding. This at least he was familiar with; Ella had used a batterie of Rada drummers to add atmosphere to the séance they’d held at Dashwood Manor.
‘If you will stand next to the poteau-mitan, Vanka,’ Jezebel suggested, ‘you’ll get a better view.’
‘A better view of what?’
‘Of Josephine in her role of mambo JoJo – the WhoDoo Queen – the most powerful mambo in the Demi-Monde …’ She stopped and gave Vanka a grim smile. ‘No, not any more, not now that Lilith has come again; Lilith’s powers are even more formidable than those of Josephine. All we can hope is that, as mambo JoJo has PaPa Legba as her spirit guide, she will be able to challenge Lilith and force her to return to the Darkness whence she came. That’s the purpose of the séance tonight. That’s why we need your help, Vanka, that’s why we need the help of PaPa Legba.’
Jezebel’s explanation was interrupted by one of the young ounsi – the girls who had been dancing around the poteau-mitan – walking to the altar carrying a large tankard. ‘And the tankard?’ Vanka asked.
‘That is the potion which the WhoDoo Queen drinks to help her to seethe … to commune with the lwa. I prepare it from the mushrooms that cluster close to the white ash, the tree that provides the template for the poteau-mitan. My potion removes the last vestiges of physical, mental and moral restraint that bind a mambo’s soul to the Demi-Monde.’ One of the ounsi handed Vanka a similar tankard. ‘You must drink too, Vanka.’
With a shrug he took a sip. It wasn’t bad.
‘And that?’ He pointed to what looked like a small doll one of the ounsi placed in the centre of the altar.
‘That’s an ouanga – a juju – a figure carved from the roots of the ash tree and decorated in the form of the object of our conjurations. This one represents Lilith, which is why it’s painted red and has pictures of snakes drawn over it. An ouanga helps us direct and concentrate our magic and hence make it more effective. By the use of an ouanga we hope to capture Lilith’s spirit and subjugate her will.’
‘You don’t sound very confident.’
‘I’m not. Lilith is very, very powerful and for an ouanga to work against her it must be personalised … we need to incorporate a lock of hair or a clipping of fingernail in the ouanga, none of which we have. But we will try.’ She looked up and nodded towards the altar. ‘The ritual is about to begin,’ and from the back of the hounfo strode Josephine Baker in her guise of mambo JoJo.
Though Josie’s face was almost totally hidden by a mask of gold – only her eyes and lips were visible – she looked, as always, beautiful and wonderfully lissom. Sure she was small, sure she was slim, but her naked body, seen through the few layers of gold-coloured chiffon that constituted her costume, was dark and desirable.
The mambo that was Josephine Baker stepped up onto the altar and standing there, arms outstretched before the audience, began to chant.
PaPa Legba, open the gate for me, Ago-e
Lwa Legba, open the gate for me:
The gate for me, PaPa, so that I might climb the Sacred Tree
And on my way back I shall thank you most lovingly.
And as the final words drifted off into the darkness, Vanka felt the potion he had drunk suddenly kick in: it was as though he was shoved in the back, as though some invisible force pushed him towards the poteau-mitan. He felt his senses start to reel; he suddenly seemed very drunk. Through dull eyes he saw the ounsi dancing around the hounfo, their movements becoming increasingly frantic as they moved to the racing rhythm of the drums. It was this incessant beat, beat, beat of the drums that sounded through his head, preventing him from thinking, as he stood, lost in a swirling maelstrom of flickering, laughing, screaming, prancing women. He began to shake, sweat dripped down his face and he could feel his jacket slick and heavy on his back.
He saw Josie Baker bend forward and take hold of the hem of her dress, drawing the edges of the skirt back, pushing it behind her, unveiling her body. Then, once again, she cried out into the night.
PaPa, see mambo JoJo is warm and ready
Ready to love you strong and steady
Oh, see how naked and sweet I kneel
So come help me, PaPa, help me please.
Then she leant forward and, taking the tankard in both hands, lifted it to her lips and drank greedily, the red liquid spilling from her mouth.
Tremors racked Vanka. His senses reeled as he was taken by the rhythm of the drums. He had the odd sensation of his soul easing free from his body and drifting high above the hounfo. Now he found himself peering down on the ounsi as they danced and cavorted, on mambo JoJo as she lay slumped on the altar … and on himself standing motionless in the middle of the hounfo.
It was as though the rules and the measures of the Kosmos – distance and time, up and down, far and near, past and present – were being bent and twisted. Now he and the OverSoul were one.
30
Venice
The Demi-Monde: 45th Day of Summer, 1005
As punishment for Lilith’s connivance in the Fall of Man, ABBA decreed that henceforward woeMen would be required to conduct themselves according to the precepts of subMISSiveness, that is, they must be at all times Mute, Invisible, Subservient and Sexually Modest. Only in this way can woeMen earn the forgiveness of ABBA. As the guardian of his family’s honour it therefore falls to Man to ensure that wayward woeMen be persuaded to walk only along the Path of Righteousness prescribed by the teachings of HimPerialism. ABBA commands Men to be strict and resolute in their disciplining of woeMen who transgress subMISSiveness.
The Irrefutable Logic of HimPerialism: Mohammed Ahmed al-Mahdi, Bust Your Conk Books
It was amazing, decided Selim as he waited for his aide to signal that his ‘guest’ had arrived, how easily the opinions of the public could be manipulated. All it had taken was a few coins spent on having pamphlets produced and circulated in Venice and NoirVille and on the organising of a whispering campaign, and the fact that that imbecile Duke William had attempted to rape Lady Isabella and beaten her father, Duke Pietro Gradenigo, to a pulp in the process was distorted into something quite different.
Now the rumour was that rather than raping the girl, it had been Isabella who had pursued Duke William and it had been her father, infuriated by her being in love with a Shade, who had attacked the boy. Now the rumour was that Duke Gradenigo was so ashamed of his daughter’s conduct that he had made up this nonsense about an attempted rape in order to protect his family’s good name. Now Duke William was being portrayed in all the NoirVillian newspapers as a victim of the racial prejudice supposedly endemic in Venice.
More, Doge IMmanual’s attempts to placate Duke Gradenigo were represented as typical woeManly weakness, the Doge unable to find the courage to defend either her brother’s honour or Shade rights.
Would it not be better, the whispers continued, if Duke William, that staunch defender of Shade Machismo, was made Doge instead of his timid, Blank-loving sister? And being the skilful politician that Selim was, he knew the time to strike was when public opinion was at its most febrile. So while the powers that be in Venice dismissed the suggestions of Venetian racism and the Doge’s weakness out of hand, Selim plotted.
He had ensured that there were two regiments of HimPis stationed in Venice – ten thousand soldiers – ostensibly to protect Venice from ForthRight invasion, but the reality was much more sinister. He would use them to stage h
is planned coup d’état … a bloodless coup d’état, which would remove Doge IMmanual and replace her with her brother. His hope was that he could manage this transfer of power without the use of violence but that would require Doge IMmanual being neutralised.
Of course, his natural inclination was simply to poison the woeMan, but the opinion of the supreme religious leader in NoirVille, Mohammed al-Mahdi, was that she should be sacrificed on Lammas Eve, in place of her brother. The woeMan’s blood would have, after all, the same occult value as his. Therefore the task given to Selim by Shaka Zulu was to take the Doge alive, but as she spent most of her time ensconced in her Palace protected by the Signori di Notte, this was difficult. He needed something that would make her so angry that she became imprudent.
And to do that he would have to use Duke William, who was, fortunately, the most tractable of Men.
Love, Doge IMmanual decided, was a torturing, tearful thing, so much so that it prevented her sleeping. She took another sip of her Solution, hoping that it might quieten the chiding, bickering voice inside her head, the carping voice that relentlessly nagged at her, spoiling her peace, her sleep and her certainty.
Nag, nag, nag …
And the name that the voice murmured over and over and over was Vanka Maykov. The man she had loved … still loved, if the voice was to be believed.
Yes, love spoilt everything. Love was an irrational thing, a giddy nonsense that corrupted the will. She would have none of it: there was no place for love in the chill perfection of the world she would create. Love was for the weak. Worse, love was an irredeemably human infirmity, and those who followed her would be superhuman. She would breed love out of the world.
But …
But try as she might – and she had tried mighty hard – she couldn’t still that persistent voice that constantly reminded her of Vanka’s touch, of the feel of his lips on hers, of the strength of his arms around her, of …
Angrily she shook her head in a vain attempt to drive away these delinquent thoughts. She was Lilith, a goddess! And goddesses were not prey to the weakness of flesh that befuddled and beguiled lesser beings. She glanced despairingly at her tousled bed. There would be no more sleep for her tonight, her vocal and oh-so-determined conscience would see to that.
A wry laugh. Conscience? She had no conscience; she was Lilith and Lilith was beyond doubt or remorse. Lilith was as hard, as implacable and as remorseless as tomorrow. More, she was tomorrow – she was HumanKind’s destiny – and no seductive suggestions of love would stay her hand. And soon she would prove that implacability by making a blood sacrifice of her brother.
On Lammas Eve, less than fifty days hence, she would sacrifice him so that the Lilithi might rise again. Not that Billy would be any great loss to the world. She had always known he was possessed – excellent word that – of devils, but she had never suspected they were so all-consuming: he was undoubtedly a Dark Charismatic, his very presence a threat to her. She knew that the religious leaders of NoirVille, despite their protestations of fealty, would much rather have a male Messiah than a female one.
She walked across to the tall dressing mirror standing by the wardrobe, and, taking a deep breath, studied her mirror image. It was the perfect representation of her duality: she and Ella identical, yet warped through ninety degrees. The same but oh so different.
The sad, almond-shaped eyes of her reflection studied her with equal interest, the eyes so black that it was easy for her to imagine herself falling, tumbling down into their noired nothingness.
Beautiful, whispered the voice, reminding her that Vanka had always considered her the most beautiful of women, and Vanka, of course, was an expert when it came to beautiful women. Hadn’t he had more of them than any man had a right to? But even with all these women at his beck and call, he had preferred Ella to every other. Vanka had loved her.
Enough!
What was love anyway? Nothing but a crude mélange of pheromones and hormones cocktailed together to make the heavy encumbrance of breeding possible.
No, said the voice, as it conjured thoughts of Vanka Maykov. Don’t you remember, urged the voice, that love is something sublime … wonderful … the merging of two souls?
She stamped her foot petulantly on the marble floor and rubbed her fingers hard into her temples, trying to erase the hectoring voice as it scolded her for betraying the man … for deserting him … for conniving to destroy him.
And, as she stood alone and desolate before the mirror, she saw a single tear course its silent, sorrowful way down her cheek.
Love ….
Love, she realised, was a torturing, tearful thing … and very tenacious.
These maudlin thoughts were interrupted by a frantic de Sade barging into her room. ‘Your Majesty … Selim has had Lady Isabella, the daughter of Duke Pietro Gradenigo, brought to his chambers—’
When Billy received the message from Selim suggesting that he might welcome some ‘diversion’ that night, he ignored the ridiculously late hour, patted the girl he was with – he thought her name might be Marcella or something – on the ass, pulled his pants on and scuttled off down the corridors of the Palace to Selim’s chambers. The scenes Selim put on in his private – and soundproof – suite of rooms were always worth the price of admission.
Billy liked Selim. He liked him because he liked doing the things that Billy liked doing … especially getting cruel. Billy liked getting cruel.
Ever since he had been a boy, Billy had enjoyed torturing things. He’d tormented cats, mutilated dogs and blown frogs to hell and back by strapping them to firecrackers. Torturing animals had given him a real buzz, made him feel powerful and given him a hard-on. And when he’d got older he’d turned his lust for cruelty towards the women in his life. Billy liked hurting women … just like Selim did. As far as cruelty was concerned, Selim was a real bastard. Just like Billy.
But when he got to Selim’s chambers, he found himself a little disappointed. There was just Selim waiting for him and none of the girls the Grand Vizier could usually be relied on to provide for entertainment.
‘Good evening, Your Grace,’ oozed Selim, as he motioned Billy to a seat on a couch and served him a glass of cognac. ‘I am so pleased you were able to honour me with your presence.’
‘So what’s going down, man?’ Billy waved a hand around the empty room. ‘Where’s the action?’
‘In a moment, Your Grace, I have an experiment planned for this evening which, I think, you will find most amusing.’
‘Amusing?’ asked Billy a little petulantly: ‘amusing’ seemed a shitty substitute for the scene he’d been planning with the girl he’d left warming his bed. Getting down and dirty with Marcella seemed a much better way of whiling away a night than shooting the breeze with Selim.
The Grand Vizier seemed unperturbed by his indifference. ‘You may remember from one of our previous conversations that I advised you the effects of imbibing large quantities of Dizzi had never been fully explored. This is especially the case with a new, improved version of the drug which has just been delivered to me … a version boasting a greater purity and hence a greater potency.’ He placed a large silver bowl full to the brim with the blue powder on the side table at Billy’s elbow. ‘It is for this reason that I have organised an experiment to establish just what effect an excessive dose of this new Dizzi has on the human body.’
Billy watched Selim pour four heaped tablespoonfuls of the blue powder into a glass of Solution and then stir the mixture until the powder had dissolved. ‘I am told the maximum amount of this improved Dizzi you should ever indulge in over the course of an evening is a tablespoonful; over that – say, four tablespoonfuls – and the effects are … unpredictable.’
Billy eyed the glass warily, wondering if Selim was suggesting that he should drink it.
Fuck that!
‘So what? I ain’t gonna be working as no guinea pig.’
‘Ah, once again you show your perspicacity, Your Grace. For an experim
ent to be conducted we do indeed need a guinea pig.’
Selim tugged on a bell rope hanging next to his chair and immediately two Shade guards entered the room with an angry-looking Lady Isabella pinioned between them.
‘Boo-yah’ was all an excited Billy could say.
De Sade didn’t think he had ever seen Doge IMmanual so angry. Her face was red with rage and she was almost running along the corridor that led to Selim’s chamber. And such was her impatience to confront her brother that she had refused de Sade the opportunity to order an escort.
‘My Doge,’ he gasped – running wasn’t really his strong suit – ‘I think it would be advisable that before you confront Duke William I have the Signori di Notte—’
‘I can’t believe that even Billy is stupid enough to flout my orders in such a disdainful way.’ The Doge wasn’t listening, too distracted by the thought of Duke William raping Lady Isabella to pay any attention to de Sade. ‘He must be mad!’
De Sade almost laughed: Duke William was mad. De Sade, better than anyone, knew what it was to be intoxicated by the inflicting of pain, but even he understood the need for restraint. Certain of the more outré appetites needed to be satisfied in private, otherwise the natives became restless, but Duke William was a stranger to moderation, though by the look of the Doge’s face tonight she was determined to effect an introduction … a very painful introduction.
‘When I get my hands on—’ The Doge stopped abruptly and stood for a moment stock-still in the middle of the corridor. All the colour had faded from her face and she looked as though she was about to faint.
‘Are you unwell, my Doge? You seem—’
The observation was cut short when Doge IMmanual staggered and had to put an arm up against the wall to stop herself falling.
‘My Doge?’ There was real anxiety in de Sade’s voice. He had never seen the Doge exhibit weakness before and it was very worrying. If she was to die then his days were numbered, there were a lot of people who would come seeking revenge for the slights de Sade had visited on them since he had become First Prelate.
