by Peter McLean
“A photo, aye,” he said. “On my phone.”
I shut my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers. I could hardly burn his fucking phone in the candle flame could I? God help me but modern technology was fucking up everything to do with magic, I swear it was.
Oh sod him and his phone, I’d have to bluff it. I needed that hundred quid.
“That’ll do,” I lied.
Obviously it wouldn’t do at all, but this twat didn’t know that. A focus is an important part of what’s called sympathetic magic, in case you didn’t know. If you want to bind someone to stay away from someone else, like I did here, then one way to do that is to take something that symbolized them, like a lock of their hair or a photograph of them or whatever and burn it in the flame of a ritual candle while you perform a banishing. Power your working with some lifeblood and the appropriate herbs and put a bit of your Will into it and you’ve got a pretty solid spell right there. Without a focus you were just staring at a blood-covered candle and some salad garnish, and feeling silly.
Of course the only lifeblood I had was going to come from two mangy rats that were probably already dead by now, and all I could do for a focus was to wave the bloke’s mobile bloody phone about over the candle and hope for the best. I supposed it might work, but by then I didn’t really care whether it did or not.
“Give it here then,” I said. “And the money.”
He gave me a wary look but handed over phone and cash together. I stuffed the money in my pocket and fiddled with the phone for a minute before I got it to wake up. He had hundreds of photos on there, most of them of skinny, ill looking women with no clothes on.
“Give us a fucking clue mate,” I said, passing it back again.
“Oh, fuck,” he said. “Yeah, here.”
He passed it back to me, and the screen was now showing a picture of a rough looking bloke with deep scars at the corners of his mouth. Oh joy, a Glasgow smile. That was always a good sign. I nodded and gestured for him to get out of my way while I squatted down in front of one of the candles. I took my lock knife out of my pocket and clicked it open, then reached for the rat sacks.
Neither of them were moving any more, which didn’t bode too well for the health of their contents. Still, when I cut the bag open and pulled out a dead rat Joey looked suitably impressed. Or horrified – I wasn’t too sure which and I didn’t really care. I held the rat up over the candle and Joey looked like he thought he was getting a real magician for his money, which was the important thing. So much of this game is showmanship, it really is.
I muttered under my breath and cut the sad, dead rat open with my knife, letting its congealing blood spatter over the candle. I did the same with the second dead rat then lit the candle with a cheap plastic lighter and burned a couple of sprigs of sage in the flame. Once everything was suitably smoky and rank smelling I passed the phone over the flame while I muttered some more, whatever bollocks came to mind. It didn’t really matter what I said, there wasn’t a hope in hell of this working now with no lifeblood and only a stupid fucking mobile phone to work with. Oh sod him, he’d paid me already and he was horrible anyway. I couldn’t care less if it didn’t work.
“…name of Astaroth and Asmodeus, be thou bound by my Will and the blood of these beasts to stay away from the plaintiff Joseph forever unto the end of time,” I finished, and hurled what was left of the rats dramatically across the room.
I nodded with feigned satisfaction and stood up.
“That’ll do it,” I said.
“You sure?” he asked, looking warily at my bloody hands.
I grinned at him.
“Would I lie to you?”
He gave me a queasy smile and left.
As soon as I was sure he’d buggered off I put a shirt on and went out to score. One good thing, probably the only good thing, about this hellhole I was living in was that you didn’t have to go far to find a dealer. I made myself keep twenty quid back for food and spent the rest of it on gear. I got back to my squat a couple of hours later and by then I was already starting to feel a bit twitchy. Jesus, the sick need was coming on quicker and quicker every time now.
I fixed up in a hurry and lay back on my sleeping bag with a sigh of relief as I felt the grey blankets of sweet oblivion coming down. My amulet lay heavy on my chest, making me think of her. Oh God I missed her so badly. I pulled the sleeping bag around me against the night’s cold. As the heroin darkness came down over me, I remembered how we had parted.
* * *
I had been sitting in my workroom flicking through one of my grimoires, pretending to feed the Burned Man and killing time while I waited for Trixie and Adam to finish talking in my office. We had just got back from Wormwood’s club, on the night that Mazin had turned up at my door and announced that he and his Order of the Keeper worked for me now.
That was the Order of Menhit’s Keeper, in case you don’t remember. Menhit, the ancient Nubian war goddess who I had allowed myself to be browbeaten into swearing service to, remember her? Menhit, who I was fucking terrified of. Mind you, she had just killed a fallen Dominion and saved all our lives, so it was no wonder I had been feeling a little bit in awe of her at the time, and that was without the whole “actual living goddess standing right there in front of me” thing. Long story, as I said.
The fetish of the Burned Man didn’t actually need feeding any more, of course. The Burned Man itself was now inside my head, and instead of the blood that the fetish had drunk it was sustaining itself by slowly eating my soul. The fetish stood on the ancient altar at the end of my workroom where it always had, only now it hung lifeless in the tiny chains around its wrists and ankles. It was inanimate and thick with dust, and it obviously hadn’t moved for weeks.
And that was when Trixie barged in and finally saw it.
“Oh Thrones and Dominions, what did you do?” she said, but by then she knew.
And then of course the fucking Burned Man decided to wake up and speak for me. I lurched to my feet and grinned at her.
“Hello Blondie,” I said.
I have no words to describe the look on Trixie’s face.
Oh she knew what I had done all right. She knew because Adam had gone and bloody told her, the smug bastard. He had told her exactly what I had done. He had told her all about how I had accidentally invoked the Burned Man. About how it was now living in my head and how I couldn’t get rid of it, and no doubt he had also told her how it was controlling me half the time.
Adam, if you don’t remember, was the name that Lucifer was going by on Earth these days. He wasn’t exactly my mate, to put it fucking mildly.
I’ll make you more powerful than you can possibly imagine, the Burned Man had told me once, and it had certainly done that. In a manner of speaking, anyway. The Burned Man never said anything it didn’t mean, but sometimes the meaning you think you hear isn’t the meaning you actually get, if you understand me. Oh I was powerful now all right. I had an archdemon living in my head, after all.
I had an archdemon living in my head, and it was fucking awful.
“Trixie…” I started, but it was far too late for that and I knew it.
“No! No, Don. Not that thing, inside you. No!”
Her long evening dress swirled about her ankles as she stormed out and slammed the door of my workroom behind her.
I sank to my knees and stared at the dusty, inanimate fetish of the Burned Man.
“Oh God help me,” I said.
It’s too fucking late for God now, the Burned Man said in my head. Too late for piety by a long way. You shut that fucking door the day you took up with me, you daft prick.
I hung my head and whimpered.
Diabolists go to hell, Don.
Adam had told me that, and I supposed he should know. I fought the sharp sting of tears and made myself go after Trixie. Of course Adam was long gone. He’d sown his seeds of discord and dissent and fucked off as usual, the wanker. Trixie rounded on me with a face
like thunder.
“How could you?” she demanded.
“I didn’t have any fucking choice,” I said. “Bianakith was killing you. I… I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I’m a soldier,” she said. “I am an angel of the Heavenly Host, a Sword of the Word. I fight battles, that’s what I’m for! If I die in one, then there we are. There’s no excuse for freeing that… that thing!”
“You’re that thing’s Guardian, in case you’d forgotten,” I snapped back at her. “Your Dominion tasked you to–”
Oh fuck me no. Oh shit that was exactly the wrong thing to say, wasn’t it?
I knew it was the moment the words left my mouth, but as always that’s a moment too late. Trixie slammed a hand down on my desk so hard it smashed in half.
“My Dominion has fallen!” she screamed at me.
She threw her head back and shrieked. My office window exploded and blew out into the street below.
I felt the Burned Man rear up inside me.
I went ice cold and burning hot all over, all at once, and flames roared up out of my hands. I snarled at her like an animal.
Like a demon.
Stop it! I screamed at the Burned Man, feeling like my skull was going to burst. What are you doing? Stop it!
I hurled my Will at it in desperation, mentally throttling it as hard as I could. My sudden fury died down and the flames went out, but I felt utterly drained by the effort of keeping the monstrous thing under control.
My shoulders sagged and I looked helplessly at Trixie. She stared back at me with a mixture of horror and blind rage on her face.
“I…” I said.
Trixie tuned on her heel and stormed out of my office. I heard the front door slam shut behind her, and I collapsed onto the sofa and put my head in my hands. What the fuck had I become?
I didn’t know, but I knew one thing. I was dangerous. The Burned Man had no love for Trixie, I knew that much. I did though. I loved her more than anything, and I had almost hurt her.
Again.
It wasn’t even the first time. I remembered the time I had been ambushed by Miss Marie’s so-called Initiates of the Melek Taus. After killing them the Burned Man had almost turned on Trixie as well, as though it had gone berserk. It had been as if the killing frenzy had overcome it and it didn’t know when to stop. This time had been much worse though. This time it had come horrifyingly close to just attacking her out of hand.
I wasn’t having that.
No I wasn’t, but I wasn’t at all sure I was strong enough to control the Burned Man either. I remembered my attempt to banish it when I first realized that it had possessed me, and what a miserable failure that had been. No, I wasn’t going to match the Burned Man in a straight battle of Will, that was for sure.
Still, a man in my line of work knows more than one way to skin a toad.
I walked back into my workroom and rummaged through the drawers of my cupboard. I knew this was cowardly, and I also knew it was going to hurt me as much as her. More so, probably. God only knew I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t want the Burned Man to hurt Trixie either. More than anything I didn’t want that. I found the things I was looking for and put them on the altar in front of the dead fetish.
Years ago people used to think pebbles with holes in them were magic. They aren’t, but they’re nice and easy to hang from a cord or a necklace or whatever so they make great amulets. I threaded this one onto a leather cord and picked up my scalpel. One quick nick of the back of my hand was all it took to make my blood well up, enough to dip a small artist’s paintbrush into. I gritted my teeth as I used the brush to draw the necessary sigils on the pebble, muttering her true name over and over again under my breath as I worked.
I slipped the leather cord over my head and stuffed the amulet down the front of my shirt. An amulet of binding charged with my own lifeblood and the sigil of Trixie’s true name would be enough to keep her from even finding me, never mind coming anywhere near me. I knew it would work, I had made one once before. That hadn’t ended entirely well, all things considered, but I figured things were a bit different now. This was for her safety this time.
I emptied my desk drawer of all the money I had, then caught sight of Trixie’s eyewateringly expensive handbag sitting on the floor beside the sofa. It was testament to just how upset she had been that she had left without it. I had a brief moment of guilt, but made myself ruthlessly suppress it.
Her good as much as mine, I told myself as I raided her bag. There wasn’t much in there, just her silver cigarette case and a slim gold lighter, a packet of tissues and a thick roll of cash that looked like it was probably a good five or six grand’s worth. I pocketed the money and left the rest. She always seemed to be able to produce more money whenever she wanted it but woe betide the man who took Trixie’s smokes away from her. I touched her cigarette case fondly for a moment, feeling tears well in my eyes. It was so much a part of her it was almost like stroking her face.
God, was I really doing this?
Was I really leaving her?
I have to, I told myself. It’s not safe for her any more. Or for me, for that matter.
If I really had gone for her I dread to think what would have happened. The Burned Man was a murderous psychopath, but to be perfectly honest so was Trixie.
Angelus Mortis, I remembered Janice calling her. The Angel of Death. Maybe she wasn’t exactly that, not literally anyway, but she wasn’t bloody far off it. If I had gone for her I don’t really know who would have won but it was a pretty sure bet one of us would have ended up dead on the floor, and there was no way I was going to let that happen.
I had obligations here in London, I knew that. There was Papa Armand for one thing, and more to the point there was Menhit, who had appointed me her Keeper of the Veil. I never had got to look at Mazin’s book so I still wasn’t too clear what I had actually agreed to there, but whatever it was, I was backing out. Menhit might frighten the life out of me but at that precise moment all I really cared about was keeping Trixie and myself alive.
Was that cowardly? Yes I’m afraid it fucking was, but I was doing it anyway.
Sorry my love, I thought sadly as I put her bag down again. I have to.
I put my coat on and fled.
Chapter Five
When I woke up I was fucking freezing. I had been dreaming about the fucking child again, or maybe it had even been there while I was on the nod. I really had no way of knowing, but it never got any less ghastly whether it was real or not. I gagged on the vinegar aftertaste of the heroin, something I didn’t think I’d ever get used to. It took me a moment to work out why I was so cold. Eventually I realized it was because I was half bloody naked and lying on top of my sleeping bag instead of in it.
I sat up, and realized I wasn’t wearing my shirt. That was more than a bit odd, as I was damn sure I’d still had it on when I shot up. I scrubbed my hands through my hair and blinked, shivering violently, but the squat was in pitch darkness. That figured – by the time I had got rid of Joey the pimp it had been getting late, and then I’d gone out to score and come back to shoot up and then I had been on the nod for however long it had been. It was the middle of the bloody night. Even so, when had I taken my shirt off and why the fuck wasn’t I in my sleeping bag? I never shot up at night without getting in first. That was how people froze to death in their sleep.
I crawled into the horrible nylon bag and pulled it around me, huddling and shivering until I’d worked a bit of warmth back into myself. Something felt even more wrong than usual but I put it down to the comedown and the cold and the general fucking awful state of my life in general. It took me about half an hour to realize what it was.
My amulet was gone.
I sat bolt upright and started scrabbling around on the floor for it, my hands shaking. I knocked over the whisky bottle and cursed fluently and at length until I finally found a candle and my lighter. I got the candle going and started to look properly, and that’s
when I noticed my door had been kicked in.
Jesus, I’d been on the nod so hard the noise hadn’t even woken me up. I stumbled onto my knees, half tangled in my sleeping bag, and spotted my coat and shirt thrown carelessly on the floor a few feet away. My works were still there, but my smack and the last of my money was gone. All my lovely new stash, gone.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
No smack and no amulet. No smack and no money to buy more.
Oh fuck…
Someone had quite obviously robbed me, but why the bloody hell had they taken my amulet? It was only a pebble on a rotten bit of leather, worthless to anyone but me. How would someone even have known I was wearing it under my shirt?
They already knew you had it, the Burned Man said.
“How?” I asked out loud.
How does anyone know anything? it said. Some cunt told them.
I swallowed and made myself think. Someone had wanted my amulet, because someone had told them I had it. The amulet was worthless in itself so they didn’t want it exactly, they must have just wanted me to not have it. And they’d nicked my smack as well, which either made them some special sort of sadist or someone who’d either wanted it for themselves or to sell on, which narrowed it down quite a bit.
Joey. My money was on that Joey creep. He knew as much about magic as I imagined he did about quantum physics, but this Lambo character who had put him on to me obviously knew which way was up. If he knew what I did for a living, then I was damn sure he knew what an amulet was too. I just wished I could remember who the fuck he was.
Lambert, the Burned Man said. It’s short for Lambert. Daniel Lambert, if my memory doesn’t fail me.
Of course its memory didn’t fail it, the little git never forgot anything. I nodded slowly. I vaguely remembered a Danny Lambert. He was a seeker I had met briefly in Edinburgh while I was still seriously looking for Debbie, before my whole life went down the toilet in such a spectacular fashion and I stopped looking for anything except more heroin.
