Maxie’s Demon

by Michael Scott Rohan

  That’s what I did, though. The last Derby favourite should have left the tape that fast. I liked the old bugger, couldn’t help it, angry or not; and one giant cockroach was enough for one night, and more. Better just to find another manhole cover.

  Only there didn’t seem to be any. Not one. Maybe I was just looking down the wrong streets, or maybe there was something more to it. I wandered around those winding little streets for what felt like hours, trying to orient myself by the shadow of the castle. Then drizzle came on and I lost that, too. There were plenty of people about, some of them spoke German, but you try to ask your way after you’ve been strolling around in the sewers for a few hours. Everywhere I showed up, conversations faltered, folk suddenly crossed the street and back again, when I did too.

  It made me almost glad of the rain. When I found myself back at the river, I felt like taking a swim; I couldn’t have been much wetter. There was another bridge here, and across on the far bank a huge ritzy building, brightly lit and hung about with those gaudy posters, with folk in penguin suits and long dresses streaming out into waiting limos and horse-drawn carriages. Old World elegance, before the First World War blew it away; and I could have modelled for the other side of that particular coin. I felt fit for the gutter; hell, I felt like the gutter, with water coming down my neck and out my trouser leg.

  Then a deeper chill took the same route in reverse, and it wasn’t the water. I started across the bridge, staring, ignoring the hurrying figures with umbrellas who swerved suddenly out of my way. The same posters, the same face staring out of them; and behind the Art Deco convention and the pseudo-Chinese make-up, I knew it only too well.

  There was a stage door round the side, surrounded by a whole load of exquisites with wilted flowers. When I pushed through them, though, they stepped aside with silent respect, brushing hastily at their tailcoats. Inside the door was guarded by the usual crusty old oaf behind a little window, who leaned out with moustache bristling, then jerked back hastily as I grinned at him, and hit his head. By the time he got out I was past him and scuttling down the backstage corridors. What I was after should be easy to find, made to be. It was. It was all the red velvet around the door, and the neat little name card. Mme Marty.

  I went straight in, without knocking. There was a squeak of horror as a startled maid sprang up; but it wasn’t her I was looking at. ‘You owe me a cloak,’ I said.

  She stood up, slowly. She was wearing about the same as when I last saw her, or maybe less. But it was a lot fancier, all silk and lace and La Vie Parisienne; and she was used to being looked at that way, you could tell. But outwardly, at least, she hadn’t changed. Not one bit.

  ‘Do I know you?’ she demanded. The maid was staring in terror, with her handkerchief to her nose. She must have thought I was some kind of maniac.

  ‘You said you sang well, Elina. Got to admit, you had it right.’

  ‘My name is Em …’ She stopped, and stared, and nodded, quite calmly. ‘So, wizard. You too?’

  ‘No. I came by a different route. We met just this morning.’

  She nodded at that, too. Completely cold, completely unsurprised. ‘The cloak was useful – shut up that whimpering, girl! So what do you want? Blackmail? You’re welcome to see who would believe you.’

  ‘No. Just help. Nothing very much.’ She shrugged, and reached for her purse on the dressing table. ‘Not money,’ I said.

  ‘Well, what then? I am expecting a gentleman caller soon.’

  ‘I want—’ I paused. What would they have, in these times? ‘I want a change of clothes, dry ones, decent ones. I want a pair of rubber boots, and some kind of lantern or flashlight. I want some food, something I can carry. And I suppose this theatre’s got some sort of connections to the sewer systems. I want to know where those are.’

  She let out a sudden raucous laugh – pure Melina Mercouri, very Greek. I got the idea it wasn’t something she did very often. Her face was smooth and unlined, except for little dimples of bad temper flanking her mouth. ‘Christos Soter! Well, each to their own. Marie – Marie! Telephone down to wardrobe for a good suit and overcoat to fit this … gentleman. Something practical, a hunting outfit, perhaps? Very good. And to the bar for some sandwiches. Then ask Josef to bring up boots, not too large, and a lantern, at once. And tell the Baron he must wait. And before you go – open a window. Well, wizard?’

  ‘Very well, El … Emilia.’ She shrugged again, sprawled inelegantly on a couch, lit up a long black cigarette and exhaled the smoke around her face. In that graceless pose she exposed about as much as the peepshow girls, and clearly cared even less. She didn’t seem to have any more questions. She adapted fast; but then I guessed she’d had plenty of practice.

  I felt weirdly alone. It was like sharing a room with a Martian.

  ‘Well, Emilia,’ I said conversationally, ‘how’s it feel to have been – what? fifteen? – for three hundred years?’

  And I wished I hadn’t asked, because she told me, all in the same quietly unemotional tone. Just as well the maid came back when she did, with Moustache Josef in tow. I might have been ready to leap out of the window otherwise, into the river.

  Josef bristled when he saw me. Evidently he’d have quite cheerfully built a flight of steps for the sheer pleasure of throwing me down them. But he took his orders from Elina/Emilia without so much as a word, evidently as enthralled by her icy magnetism as the maid. It was beginning to get to me, too. It was almost purely sexual, but refined to a point as sharp and cold as a needle. You had the idea she’d do almost anything, and do it superbly, and with the same vast indifference as anything else. If she could project that off a stage, no wonder she was so big around here.

  She watched while I changed, with the unblinking interest of a crocodile, but said nothing – not until I was tying an extraordinary string tie. Then she said suddenly, ‘I gave one or two people the formula. Most did not survive it. Do you want it?’

  That really made me hesitate. Even if I didn’t want it myself … If she still had the recipe for that stuff, we could clean up the health-store business, for a start. They’d go nuts.

  But five minutes of listening to her had had its effect. And there’d be all those lawsuits for the ones that didn’t survive. ‘N … no. No thanks!’

  ‘As you please. A friend has it for now, anyway. Or rather his heirs. Are you ready now?’

  I surveyed myself in her mirrors. Loden coat and leather plus fours, tucked into stiff rubber-coated riding boots, a trace large. ‘Fine. Thanks, Emilia.’

  ‘Hardly worth it. Josef will see you out. But before you go—’

  I heard a new note in her voice, almost like interest. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You are from a time to come, it seems. Am I still famous, then?’

  ‘In opera? You could be, for all I know. Not my thing. But I’ll look out for you, if I ever get back. Maybe come and see you.’

  She shrugged. ‘Of course. Come by a different route, though.’

  ‘OK, OK. And thanks.’

  That was as emotional as the leavetaking got. It was almost a relief to encounter the warm human hatred of Josef, as he took me down endless stairs into the bowels of the building. No vacancies for phantoms here; this was quite a new building, and very well planned. Josef was absolutely fanatical about every detail; clearly he thought he owned it, as these college-porter types commonly do. And he turned out to be a positive enthusiast about the sewers, and warmed to my evident interest.

  ‘Yes, yes, we’ve had them here since the house was built, in 1881 – it burned down before opening, you know, and we rebuilt it! The sewers, yes – we were the first in this quarter to get them, though they’re extending them out to the east of the New Town, where I live.’ He puffed out his beard. ‘Eventually. In about fifty years, maybe. Or a hundred!’

  ‘Sounds about right – can you show me which way the latest stuff is? Out that way and along?’

  I congratulated myself on the idea, as I plished and ploshed
along, turning my nice new electric lamp at the ceiling to avoid seeing what squished underfoot. I’d let myself be thrown by the Spiral, but now I was determined to sort this crap out logically. I’d go and find the latest, the very latest stretch of sewer open today; and then look for a still newer extension. One, you see, that wasn’t built today; and so that would be bound to come up a lot nearer my time. And, strange as it may seem, that’s exactly what I found. It was newish brickwork, leading off from about where Josef said the sewers ended; and it had arrows and numbers painted on the walls, and – yes! – great chunky masses of cables sprouting out of the walls here and there, as one system crossed another. If I didn’t go grabbing at the first spot of light, but took this as far as it went – and surfaced very, very carefully …

  I was so delighted I took one incautious step. What I stood on you don’t want to know, but one foot skidded sharply out from under me on the newer, slimier surface. I staggered, waved my arms wildly, desperate not to lose my footing and fall – anything but fall. In those stiff boots it wasn’t easy. I suppose it must have looked like one of the wilder folk dances – the Sewerman’s Reel, the Shitkickers, or whatever.

  And just as I caught my balance the lamp flew out of my fingers, clanked off the ceiling and bounced down into the centre of that awful channel, which swallowed it greedily. There was an instant’s yellowish glow under the scummy surface, and then it went out. I could swear the damn stuff burped.

  Darkness descended. I said a word, very loudly. Down there it could have been a comment, a definition, an invocation even or just a sort of general description. As a swearword it didn’t seem anything like adequate.

  In fact, I was stuck for one that did; so I had to calm down and do a bit of thinking instead. No way was I going to go delving around after the lamp. Even if it wasn’t broken, it had probably begun to corrode already – or been digested.

  Just creeping forward, though, seemed harder than ever. OK, I’d seen which way I was going – or thought I did. I’d been had that way before. But what choice was there? I couldn’t just—

  Couldn’t I, though?

  I looked down at where I thought my fingernails ought to be. They weren’t; but a few inches over a sort of feeble firefly glimmer registered against nothingness. I thought of Kelley, and suddenly ten ghostly fingers were outlined in writhing fire. It looked spooky as hell, but I concentrated and the glow grew. Slowly the tunnel outlined itself around me, in starker shadows than before, looking like an antechamber of hell. Only – was that the same entrance, or had I got turned around somehow in all that folk dancing?

  Even as the thought formed, the light swelled and swept forward, picking out the painted numbers I’d seen, and the cable trunking. Wild. Was it showing me the right way? Could it show me the way out, to my own time, or something like it?

  A fat spark sizzled in the air. Light speared down the sewer tunnels, stabbing at the distant roof. Somewhere down there? Well, where else had I to go? I plodded on, more carefully now. The bias of the light stayed the same. Excitedly I pressed on, and on. An outflow opened, but the light seemed to avoid it, still pointing further ahead. Well, why not? All I needed now was Tinkerbell.

  Hastily I cancelled that, and hurried on. If wishes were horses, beggars would have a hell of a feed bill.

  It didn’t seem to be any time at all before the light positively played on something ahead, a yellow steel-caged ladder, with all sorts of little safety symbols all over it – hard hats, protective clothing, that kind of thing, just so you didn’t come down here in a ball gown and tiara. Signs of the times, if ever I saw them.

  I splashed forward excitedly. Even that God-awful vomit yellow looked so fresh and cheerful after the basic brown décor down here, with snot-green embellishments. I had to fight down an urge to hug it and burst into tears. Instead I climbed, swiftly, feeling as if long, stinking years of history were trickling off my boots. At the top there was a heavy steel trap, very modern-looking. And locked, but that couldn’t stop me now. A needle of fire spat from one fingernail and the lock dropped away into the depths with a long, nasty splish. Still cautious, though, I levered the trap up gently, and saw paving stones, a big glass shop window full of books. Slowly, savouring the moment, I tipped the trap back with a clang and clambered stiffly out.

  Mild airs blew around me, and probably regretted it. A wide, quiet street under the gentle blanket of a spring evening, a tree-lined boulevard with brightly painted bus shelters, power lines, TV aerials, a couple of parked cars, the odd hoarding—

  Still Prague, evidently. The book titles looked like alphabet soup. I didn’t mind that anymore. This would do. This would do nicely, thank you.

  Now to find the cops, and the British Consulate. I had bashed my head enough times to raise a few lumps, and I probably smelt like the vultures’ cage at the zoo. Clearly I was a respectable British tourist who’d been robbed, beaten and thrown down a sewer, was understandably a bit confused, and needed to be flown home and tucked up in a nice hospital with hot and cold running nurses.

  I took a deep breath. And then all I had to do was get as far as possible from the Spiral, and never, ever even dream of using that power again …

  Only I’d used it to get here, hadn’t I? Oops. But only briefly. I’d already known roughly where I was going. They couldn’t have led me here—

  Where was everyone?

  There was a godawful rumble, a bellowing snarl that echoed between the high buildings. I know how engines sound, but this one was new, sounding like a kingsize bulldozer over-revving, with a blatting exhaust note. Only bulldozers don’t generally come with shouts and screams attached.

  It was like a monster movie the way the crowd came around the corner, running and looking back at the same time. But what came after them wasn’t a giant tarantula or the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, it was a huge dirty green tank.

  It roared like a Beast, though, and its treads tore up the tarmac. One of them went over a parked car as it turned and flattened it into a sardine tin in one instant of screaming metal and popping glass. It glanced against a fine tall tree and the trunk bent and snapped explosively. A couple of stragglers stopped to shout and wave their fists. Its machine-gun hammered the tarmac into a spray, and they ran wildly on.

  The crowd whirled past me like a shoal before a shark, some of them plucking at my sleeve and shouting at me to run – you didn’t need to know the word. I just stood there with my face hanging out, full of a sort of dazed unreality. Then I saw the tank’s turret, with its big red star, swivel, the huge gun barrel bounce and sway in my general direction. That was enough. I turned and bolted with the rest.

  Behind me there was one thunderous bang, an instant’s whirring whistle and the bus shelter ahead erupted in a flare of light. A great warm breath smacked me up and stung me with fragments and smashed me on to the ground. Trees and sky flew by as I rolled, stunned, among a pattering rain of hot fragments. I came to rest, winded and helpless, my ears ringing, unable to move. The only thing in my mind was jumbled relief I hadn’t been closer. I could see a couple who had, one a youngish-looking woman, not that I could see her face; they sprawled on the street ahead, unmoving, among spreading spatters of darkness. Bitter smoke drifted across the road.

  Behind me the roaring grew louder. Wheezing, stunned, I struggled to suck in air, to force numbed limbs to obey me. Maybe I’d been torn open too, and just couldn’t feel it for shock. All I could manage was to flail myself over on my side, kicking feebly, and that didn’t help a bit. The grey-green bulk seemed to fill the world, creaking, grinding, its still smoking cannon rearing upward as if to shatter the sky and drop it on me. Less than a hundred yards away, the great metal links whirring down over the wheels to bite and scar the very road that carried them, coming straight for me. Panic let me feel them chew at my skin, feel the appalling weight press down my chest and grow and press and press while the whirling metal ripped my ribs apart—

  With my first full breath I screamed.
And the tracks slowed suddenly, and stopped, maybe four feet from my face.

  I fought to get up, at least to drag myself aside. I managed to struggle up on my arms, then slump back. No good. Above me somewhere I heard the clang of a turret, the clatter of boots on metal.

  ‘So what do we have here?’ enquired a guttural voice. ‘Another enemy of the people, no doubt.’

  ‘Look at his extravagant clothes,’ said another, female. ‘An agent of imperialism, sent to delude the people into opposition to the lawful forces of the mutual self-defence agreement.’

  Otherwise known as the Warsaw Pact, I reflected dizzily. I’d really picked it this time. Prague, 1968 – still more than ten years before I was born, when Russian and East German tanks smashed even the first faint smile off the Eastern Bloc’s face. Their pretext had been rooting out Western agents and counterrevolutionaries. Which meant I’d come as a gift. The moment they found I was a Brit they’d start warming up the rubber hoses and crocodile clips in earnest.

  ‘He might perhaps be persuaded to join the people’s cause, nevertheless,’ said another voice. My ears were clearing, and my head. I almost recognised it. And did even East Germans ever really talk like that, outside the agitprop stuff?

  There was a thump as somebody jumped down off the tank. Boots and combat fatigues filled my vision, and the crude-cut stock of an AK-47 swung around as they hunkered down beside me. A long brown hand stroked my hair, and bits of bus shelter tinkled out. ‘Buon giorno, mio signor Maxie! ’ said the long-haired woman.

  I hauled myself up again, and vomited ceremonially into the road. ‘Why – why the hell won’t you leave me alone?’

  The two women hauled me up by my armpits, leaning me against the tank. ‘Not us, señor. You inflict these torments upon yourself. You need never suffer any such things again.’

  My head was beginning to clear, and there didn’t seem to be any major leaks anywhere. ‘Oh yeah!’ I riposted feebly. ‘I wouldn’t bloody well be here if it wasn’t for you! Christ, why do you want me so much? I don’t want you! There must be a million idiots who’d suit you better. That maniac Kelley’s just slavering for the chance—’