by Heide Goody
A completely irrational but powerful corner of Morag’s brain wanted to shout out, “But he’s got a really big penis,” but Morag forced it down.
“Yo-Morgantus is fascinated by the cultural and religious connotations of red hair,” said the man.
“I had considered that,” said Vivian, “but I doubt your lord is that well-read. Now, we have an audience with Yo-Morgantus.”
“And I am to take you to his presence,” the man said.
“You are not his emissary. What happened to the woman, Brigit?”
“No, I am not his emissary. My own mistress is elsewhere but Yo-Morgantus has sent me nonetheless. My name’s Drew.”
“Hello, Drew,” said Morag.
Vivian sniffed. “Lead on then.”
Human slaves, skittering beings, and amorphous rolls of fat moved out of their way as they proceeded to the far end of the hall.
“In some cultures, red-haired people were considered the kin of the devil and violently driven away from towns and villages,” said Drew. “This distrust has crept into major religions. You are aware that Judas Iscariot had red hair?”
“I didn’t know that,” said Morag.
“And medieval painters gave Mary Magdalene red hair too. Gingers are betrayers and temptresses, fiery-tempered and highly sexed.”
“This is tenuous stuff,” said Vivian.
“The Malleus Maleficarum — I believe you have one of Heinrich Kramer’s original manuscripts in your library vault — says that red hair is a sign of a witch.”
“Are you suggesting a fifteenth century treatise on witchcraft correctly identified a link between redheads and this one Venislarn god?” said Vivian.
“Nothing so unlikely,” smiled Drew. “Yo-Morgantus merely has a special fondness for the degraded and persecuted.”
“Persecuted? Are gingers an ethnic group now? I didn’t realise that the trials of redheads were to be equated with the historic suffering of the Jewish people or the black community.”
“Try spending your life being called carrot top or fanta pants,” said Drew.
“Orangutan heid,” said Morag. “Jaffa flaps.”
“Red man walking.”
Drew stopped and turned at the far door. He gave Vivian a look, not an unpleasant one, but the warmth had gone from his expression.
“Miss Murray has an appointment with Yo-Morgantus. You don’t.”
Vivian was about to reply and then reconsidered. “Very well,” she said and then to Morag, “I will be here… when you return.”
“Nice knowing you,” said Morag and followed Drew through.
Alone with him now, it felt even more ridiculous to be in the company of an entirely naked man. As they walked the length of a corridor, Morag could not think of anything to say to break the awkwardness. Instead, she gazed at the downy hollow in the small of Drew’s back and said nothing.
Through a final door, they entered another hall-like space. It was curtained and dimly lit like the hall of monsters. Wire-thin streamers hung from the ceiling here too. And the noisy heating system was also at work in here.
The room was otherwise empty.
Drew stood in the centre of the room and turned to face Morag. “So I’m to wait here?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re Yo-Morgantus?”
He shrugged and winked mischievously. He raised a hand to touch one of the dangling streamers. A tiny flash of light, like a spark of static electricity, leapt between streamer and fingertip.
“You can talk to me,” said Drew. “His thoughts are mine.”
Morag looked up. The streamers, like ribbons of damp saggy paper, like thin lengths of shaved skin, ran up to the ceiling and through a fine mesh grille. She looked about herself. The heating vents… were not heating vents. That hot air was not just hot air; it was breath.
Morag signed a rainbow to indicate everything around them, within the room and beyond its walls, floors and ceiling.
“Am I inside Yo-Morgantus?”
“So, you are Morag Murray,” said Drew. “There’s been a lot of talk about you.”
“Who am I speaking to now?” she said. “Yo-Morgantus or Drew?”
“I’m not sure what the distinction is,” said the man. “I am Drew – or at least I am today – but the almighty Morgantus has filled me with his thoughts. I speak my own mind freely but my mind is his.” He waved his hands through the dangling fronds. “He takes, shapes, edits and inserts memories and thoughts into my head.”
Before she knew what was happening, a streamer descended and touched her lightly on the head —
Morag saw the otter on the pebble shore from some distance but only when she neared did she see that it was alive. Its head lay on its side in the rock pool, half in half out of the water. Bubbles formed on its nose as it breathed. Its rear end… Something had shredded its rear legs and tail, torn away chunks of flesh and fur in a peculiar spiral pattern. There were no sharks in the firth. Had a seal done this? A motorboat? Whatever, the otter was dying, unable to move and breathing its last in a cold rock pool.
Morag looked back up the long beach to where her family sat. Her mother was dandling Morag’s baby sister on her knee. Her father was fiddling furiously with his binoculars.
The otter was still breathing. The blood around its wounds was thick and congealing.
Morag, with wind-stung eyes, looked around for a large stone.
— Morag staggered back across the hall floor, gasping.
“Funny,” said Drew. “I would have thought the death of your parents, either of them, would have taken precedence over that memory.”
“Don’t do that again,” she said, still breathing heavily.
“Are you telling Lord Morgantus what he can and can’t do?” asked Drew lightly.
“No. No, of course not.”
“Good. Now, what are we to do with you?”
“Do?”
“We sent for you for a reason.”
“Aren’t all new consular staff presented to the court?”
“Yes,” said Drew, “but not all new consular staff are murderers, are they?”
After inspecting it, Nina returned the Unapproachable Stone of Msgoto to its alcove, realised it was the wrong way up, turned it round, realised that, no, it was still probably upside down and turned it round once more.
“Anything?” said Rod.
“Nothing out of place,” said Nina. “Well, nothing I can see.”
Rod turned to Ingrid. “Do we have CCTV in this area?”
“Nope. We can’t risk it in most of these areas. Cameras effect a wave function collapse in perception-sensitive artefacts.”
“Eh?”
Ingrid sighed. “Some of the magic things don’t like being looked at.”
Nina glared at the Shus’vinah mask on the wall. It averted its gaze and pretended it hadn’t been looking at her.
“Fair enough,” said Rod, ambling through to the next section. “Change of tack. We know Izzy and the Waters Crew had some powerful zahirs. Maybe she came down here to find others. Have we got some here?”
“Lots,” said Ingrid. “There’s some physical items, some carved, some natural, including the Buenos Aires coin. But most are in books, illustrations, many of them just border doodles by mad occultists. One of the ‘Necronomicons’ is full of them. There’s even some in the confiscated pages of the Birmingham Qur’an.”
“That’s the one they found at Birmingham Uni?” said Rod. “And our Izzy was a student, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, but I don’t know where she studied,” said Nina.
“We could find out. Hey.” Rod put a hand against a long, empty case. “Shouldn’t wotsisname be in here?”
“Kevin?” said Nina.
“Kerrphwign-Azhal,” said Ingrid.
“How do you manage to roll your ‘r’s like that?” asked Nina.
“The alveolar trill is just a matter of letting your mouth relax and holding
your tongue in a position where it can vibrate.”
“I love it when you talk dirty.”
Ingrid blushed.
“Kerrphwign-Azhal was here but it was requisitioned this morning,” she said.
“By who?” demanded Rod.
A strand touched Drew once more. “You know there are members of the court who want you dead?” he said.
“I heard,” said Morag.
“They would like to kill you today, now, if Yo-Morgantus let them.”
“And is Yo-Morgantus going to let them?”
Drew grinned. “I told you earlier that Yo-Morgantus has a fondness for the degraded and persecuted.”
“Yes?”
“It’s not because he likes them. It’s more that they’re… pre-cooked. Surrounding himself with rusty gussets and ginga ninjas who know they’re derided and mocked is very pleasing to him.”
“I see.”
“Do you know the best thing about gingers?” said Drew, smiling broadly.
“Our superior ability to convert sunlight into vitamin D? Our immunity from rickets?”
“They suffer abuse and taunts every single day of their lives and – you know what? – no one gives a muda. I don’t see a ginger Martin Luther King marching on Washington any time soon, do you?”
“We’re indoorsy kind of people.”
Drew laughed. “With that sense of humour, we might let you live beyond today. It all depends on how much entertainment value you can provide.”
“You want to watch me suffer?”
“You. Them. Anyone. Everything – and I do mean everything – in this city exists for our pleasure. Maybe today, I’ll make you fall in love.” A strand touched Drew. He grunted in surprise and put a hand to his groin.
Morag fixed her gaze on a point above his left shoulder and refused to look down.
“Put that away before you have somebody’s eye out,” she tutted, annoyed.
“Maybe tomorrow, I’ll kill you.” Drew suddenly gripped his own throat and dug his fingertips into his own windpipe. His face reddened quickly.
“Stop that,” she said.
Drew – or was it Yo-Morgantus? – had to stop in order to speak.
“Again, you appear to be telling me what to do.”
“Maybe I don’t give a muda anymore.”
He grinned. “Keep it up, Morag Murray. Keep it up and maybe you’ll even live to see the weekend.” Drew shuddered, the smile suddenly gone. He looked at Morag with different eyes. “I think that’s our lot,” he said quietly.
She looked up at the streamer tendrils. Without moving, many of them had recoiled out of reach.
“The audience is over?” she said.
Drew nodded and gestured toward the door. Partway down the corridor, Drew put a gentle hand on her arm and gestured to a side door.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to introduce you to my mistress.”
The side room was another huge hall. Morag was beginning to suspect that the Venislarn weren’t playing fair with the local dimensions. The room was built from pale stone and lit by bowls of open flame on metal tripods. The whole was like a theatrical set designer's idea of an ancient Greek temple. Drew’s mistress squatted hugely in the centre of the room.
Her form was, if anything, that of a gigantic faceless thin-legged spider, but one that was coated in horny plates of armour taken from some deep sea crustacean. The bony exoskeleton was generously dotted with protuberances in the shape of faces – the faces of human babies, eyes screwed shut, mouths wide in silent cries.
It was one of the August Handmaidens of Prein.
Morag’s legs wobbled for a moment in absolute fear.
The handmaiden took a step towards Morag. Her armoured plates rotated and shifted until one of the porcelain baby faces was directly facing Morag. Morag had read that the August Handmaidens had added the faces to their hides when they first met humans. They hadn’t done it to make themselves look fucking terrifying (even though that was the net effect); they had done it to make themselves appear like the locals. The August Handmaidens of Prein were Venislarn trying to look like humans.
Drew coughed politely.
“May I present her ladyship, Shardak’aan Syu, of the August Handmaidens of Prein.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Morag hoarsely.
At that point Morag saw that the handmaiden held something in her front claws. It looked like a large leathery ball. The handmaiden rolled it absently from claw to claw.
It was the virgin-devouring Kevin.
A voice spoke. It came from the handmaiden but not from any mouth. It was Morag’s own voice.
“My card’s marked anyway, Kevin,” her voice said. “Do you know what I did last night? Um, yesterday? I met one of the handmaidens of Prein. In Damnation Alley, Edinburgh. You know what I did?” Morag realised these were words she had spoken, taken from Kevin’s memory. “Kevin,” she said, “I put a double barrelled shotgun in her mouth and blew that gallus bitch’s head clean off. That’s right. Handmaiden of Prein. Boom.”
Morag trembled. “Well, any quote taken out of context can sound…”
The handmaiden leaned closer and spoke mouthlessly again. The handmaiden’s own voice was clear and precise, the deep warm tones of a female newsreader.
“Boom,” she said.
Morag dug deep and found a small reserve of anger and defiance. She put her hand meaningfully inside her jacket, reaching for a weapon or amulet that wasn’t there.
“You want to come at me, you adn-bhul bitch?” she snarled. “Try it.”
The handmaiden shifted. Faces rotated.
Vivian was almost barged aside as Morag pushed through the double doors and back into the hall of monsters. “Let’s go.”
“Is everything all right?” asked Vivian. “Apart from the obvious,” she added, indicating the horrors and hallmarks of mankind’s extinction around them.
“Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?” Morag said.
Vivian looked at Morag’s hands. They were visibly shaking.
“Very well,” she said.
Rod crossed the office with a piece of paper in his hand. Nina put the phone down.
“You first,” she said.
“There are items missing,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Minor stuff. Junk. An earring. A piece of egg shell. A key, a knife, a brooch. None of it powerful or dangerous or meaningful. All of it from one room of the Vault.”
“But Izzy had none of it on her.”
“So she moved it. Dumped it. I don’t know. You said, ‘you first’.”
Morag and Vivian entered the office.
“Tea?” Morag offered to Vivian.
“I will but I doubt you can make it how I like it.”
“I am vaguely familiar with the process,” said Morag.
Vivian made a sceptical noise.
“I think some education is in order,” she said and beckoned for Morag to follow her to the kitchenette.
“‘Go on,” said Rod to Nina.
“Oh, yeah. You’ll like this one. Izzy Wu was at Birmingham University. She was doing a degree in Practical Theology. Guess who her tutor was?”
“Omar?”
“Professor Sheikh Omar.”
“Who’s Professor Sheikh Omar?” asked Morag.
“A bloody thorn in our sides,” said Rod.
“A tit,” said Nina.
“I think it’s time to go knock on some doors and bust some heads,” said Rod. “Who’s coming?”
“Me and Vivian and Ingrid were going to oversee the audit at the Dumping Ground today,” said Nina. “Kinda keen to check we’ve not lost anything there either.”
“Why would you have?”
“No reason. Just after discovering we’ve lost stuff from the Vault…”
“Bolting the stable door after the horse has gone,” said Rod.
Nina frowned. “We don’t have any horses at the dumping ground.”
“No, that’s�
��” He didn’t bother finishing the sentence. “You coming, Morag?” he called out.
Morag poked her head over an office divide.
“Vivian was going to show me the five steps to making the perfect cup of tea,” she said.
“So, no?”
“I didn’t say that. I really didn’t say that.”
Vivian knocked on Vaughn Sitterson’s door and entered. The consular chief was sitting at a low table with Archdeacon Silas Adjei, his face buried in a sheaf of notes.
“Lois said you wished to see me?” said Vivian.
“Yes, Vivian.” Vaughn didn’t look up. “Silas and I were discussing the round table negotiations and ecumenical outreach that we had originally lined up for next month.”
Vivian sat, cup and saucer in hand. “Yes?”
Vaughn made an open palm gesture towards her in lieu of actually looking at her. “Silas, quite reasonably, was asking me why they’re no longer going ahead.”
“We talked about this briefly this morning. Two reasons mainly,” said Vivian. “Firstly, they would be pointless.”
“You would dismiss peace negotiations before they’d even begun?” said Silas.
“I am trying to picture it,” said Vivian. “We are to imagine something like the United Nations, are we? You, yourself sitting down at table to talk with the Venislarn gods, assuming we can find a table that Yoth Mammon wouldn’t dissolve with her bile and a meeting room large enough for Zildrohar-Cqulu to squat in. Presumably some sort of aircraft hangar, one with an Olympic swimming pool in it for Daganau-Pysh.”
“It would not be easy, true,” said Silas.
“And ranged around the other end of the table, would be you, Kevin O’Driscoll from the Roman Catholic diocese, the chairman of the central mosque, Councillor Singh perhaps, one of the priests from Shree Geeta Bhawan or Shri Venkateswara. Are you going to invite the humanists? The Buddhists?”
“You’re creating barriers and making jokes, Mrs Grey,” said the archdeacon.
She put her tea down on the table and took the opportunity to also stop and silence the annoying Newton’s cradle in the window sill.
“I’ve already told you,” she said. “I only know one joke. But let us imagine we have you all sat together, what do you think the first thing is to happen?”
