by Peter McLean
“Right,” I said. “Well, um, so you’ll email me?”
“Already have,” said Wormwood. “Now bugger off and think it through, and let me know when you’ve figured out what you need. And Drake, don’t fuck about on this one, understand? This is what you might call a little bit urgent.”
He hung up. I dropped the phone back onto its cradle and shoved my fingers through my hair with a sigh of despair. This was just never going to go away, was it? Wormwood pretty much owned my arse now, as far as I could see. I’ve known loan sharks, and how they operate, but I honestly never thought I’d end up letting myself get sucked into a situation like this.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered as I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and dug out my elderly laptop.
I hated the thing. Me and technology don’t really get on, as you might have gathered. Oh I can work it, but all the same I hate it and everything it stands for. Every time I turn the bloody thing on I long for the good old days of the Rolodex and the newspaper clipping. I mean, I was a kid in the Seventies when “the future” was going to be all flying atomic cars and holidays on the moon. What did we get instead? The internet, bag of shit that it is. Give me my flying car any day. I sighed and opened my emails.
Wormwood had written to me, true to his word. I read his email, then I read it again. I gaped. This was a fucking disaster, and one that I wasn’t at all sure I knew how to survive.
Chapter Eleven
Wellington Phoenix was a stone cold killer. He’d been in the business a hell of a lot longer than I had, and his reputation was sheer bloody poison. He must be over seventy by now but I still nearly shat myself when I saw his name in Wormwood’s email. He was a physically huge man, a Nigerian with a big, booming voice and a pedigree that went back to before I was even born. I had met him once, maybe fifteen years ago, at the first professional gathering I had plucked up the courage to attend.
I had still been finding my feet then, working with the Burned Man and trying to figure out what I could do with the new-found power at my disposal. Phoenix had been the de facto star of that gathering, looming over everyone. He had been wearing a Savile Row suit, I remembered, and it had strained over his six foot eight, twenty-two stone bulk. He had been the keynote speaker. I remembered his speech as well. The things he hinted at had made my blood run cold.
The thing you have to understand is this. I was suddenly powerful then, as I saw it, with the newly acquired Burned Man in my possession. Wellington Phoenix was much, much more powerful than me all by himself. He loomed, he boomed, and he frightened the fucking life out of me. He was also, according to Wormwood, Vincent and Danny’s insurance policy.
Wormwood’s sources had discovered that Danny had made a pact on their behalf some years ago. Just before they started in on Wormwood’s business interests, funnily enough. Anyway, there was a lot of legalese but the gist of it was that if anything untoward should happen to them, then Wellington Phoenix would come down on whoever did it like fifty tons of napalm. That would be me then, and after me it would be Wormwood.
“Fuck me, that’s going to be a problem,” the Burned Man said when I explained the situation to it.
I nodded. “Innit just,” I said. “Any bright ideas?”
“Oh you know me, I’m usually full of bright ideas,” it said. “Not right now, though.”
“What?”
“This is Wellington motherfucking Phoenix,” the Burned Man spat. “You do grasp that, yes?”
I glared at it. Of all the times for it to show a yellow streak, this wasn’t the right one.
“You put the power of Hell at my fingertips, remember?” I said. “And what do I do with it? Right now I hurl the whole fucking lot of it at Wellington fucking Phoenix. How’s that suit you for ambition? Fuck what it costs, Wormwood’s sorting the ingredients. I’ll have that debate with him later. What can we get? What have you got that can take care of this?”
The Burned Man paused for a moment, and looked at me.
“Cost no object?” it said.
I shrugged. “If Phoenix toasts me he’ll be going after Wormwood next, so I’m guessing not.”
“Well,” it said slowly. “There are… things. I mean, it can be done, yeah? Anything can be done, for a price.”
There was something about the look on its ugly burned little face that I really didn’t like.
“Hang on a minute,” I said. “You’re trying to pull the wool over my eyes, I know you are. What sort of a price are we talking about?”
“How many people are you prepared to kill?” it asked me.
“No,” I said at once. “No, fuck that. I’m talking about artefacts here, not fucking human sacrifice. Bones, toads, quicksilver and gold, a bit of demon blood maybe. Not… not that.”
It shrugged. “Well that’s you bollocksed then,” it said. “That’s you and your fucking lack of ambition again, that is. Do you honestly think Wellington Phoenix has those sort of scruples? You’ve got no idea what he can get his hands on.”
No, no I probably haven’t. “That’s not the point,” I said. “I don’t care what he’s got. You see, I know what he hasn’t got. He hasn’t got you.”
The Burned Man basked in the praise. It was nothing if not proud, after all.
“It’s true, that,” it said.
“Now, what can you get me without having to kill anyone?”
“Nothing that can face what Phoenix will bring to the party,” it said.
I gritted my teeth in frustration. “Isn’t there anything you can do?”
The Burned Man looked thoughtful for a moment. “That depends,” it said. “Are you feeling brave?”
Not particularly. “I’ll just have to be. What have you got in mind?”
“I…” it said, and started to cough.
“You what?”
It opened its mouth again, and coughed again, until it was almost choking. “Bugger!” it shouted.
I frowned. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” I asked it. “You were about to tell me your grand plan. Come on, out with it.”
“I can’t do that,” it said, and coughed again.
“What do you mean, you can’t do that?” I said. “You can’t tell me your own plan?”
“I… can’t… say...” the Burned Man gasped between coughing fits. “There are limits to what I can do, bound and chained to your sodding altar.”
I gave it a sharp look. The Burned Man never said anything it didn’t mean, and it usually didn’t say anything useful at all unless you asked it a direct question.
“What?” I said. “That sounded like a hint.”
“There was a settlement on the Thames, where London stands now, long before the Romans came,” the Burned Man said. “I was bound before even then, bound by a magic you can’t even begin to imagine, you little puke. So if there are things I can’t say it’s not because you’re clever, you understand me?”
I nodded slowly. “You can’t say, and it’s because of someone, but not me,” I said. “So I have to guess?”
The Burned Man shrugged, and rattled its iron chains.
“You tell me,” it said.
“So,” I began, “if there’s a limit to what you can do while you’re bound, there might be less of a limit if you weren’t bound – is that what you’re getting at?”
“I couldn’t possibly comment on idle speculation,” the Burned Man said. “I could tell you a little story, I suppose, if you’re bored. Just to pass the time, you understand.”
I shrugged. This was getting obtuse, even for the Burned Man, but like I say, it never said anything without a reason. I had the distinct impression it was trying to get around something here, to slip through some loophole only it knew about.
“Go on then,” I said. “Jackanory time.”
“Back then,” it said, “in Tir Na Nog, before the waters made this land an island, there was an antler druid called Oisin who had the gift of summoning. Oisin had the words of binding, and the working of iron,
and the power to take his pick of the archdemons of Hell to enslave to do his bidding on Earth. Oisin chose me and bound me into this fetish to serve him. On Earth. Do you see?”
I frowned at it. “You’re saying this Oisin bound you on Earth,” I said, “but maybe you’re not bound somewhere else, is that it?”
The Burned Man shrugged. “Is it?” it asked, and coughed again. “If a man asked a direct fucking question maybe I could answer it.”
“Is there somewhere where you’re not bound?” I asked it.
“Yes,” it said.
Well fuck me sideways, that’s a nasty thought. “So,” I said, thinking out loud, “if we were there, and I could get Phoenix there as well, could you get rid of him for me?”
The Burned Man nodded. “I could,” it said.
“Forever?” I asked. “I don’t mean send him to Spain for a week’s bloody holiday, I mean smash him into atoms so he’ll never bother anyone again, yeah?”
“Yup,” it said.
“So,” I said, “where is this place where you’re not bound?”
“Hell,” it said.
* * *
Now I’m sorry, but I didn’t exactly leap at the opportunity to go to Hell. Not just any Hell either, but a Hell in which the Burned Man wasn’t nine inches tall and chained up. I could still remember that growl. To say I smelled a rat was an understatement – I was practically gagging on the stink of it.
I was sitting at my desk, staring glumly out of the window. It was mid-afternoon by now and it was pouring outside, the rain streaking down the glass like tears. They’ll be my bloody tears if I’m not careful, I thought. I need a second opinion on this shit before I do anything rash.
“Meselandrarasatrixiel,” I said out loud. “Trixie, if you can hear me, I’d really like to talk to you.”
I almost regretted throwing away what I was still assuming had been her spying stone, but then I remembered that I hadn’t had it with me when I called her the last time either. I had just screamed her name, and she had come. I’d been so bloody glad to see her that I hadn’t really given that a lot of thought at the time. Having your hide flayed off by a Fury can be distracting like that, but now that I did give it some thought I found the idea a bit worrying. I mean, I can’t summon squat without the Burned Man, but she had heard me anyway. Was she watching me somehow, even without her little stone? Is she still watching me now?
“Trixie, I really do need some advice,” I said.
A siren whooped in the distance. The wind was really getting up out there, making the rain lash furiously against my window. Cars hissed past on the busy road below, throwing fantails of dirty water across the pavement. I sighed. I guess not.
“And I wanted to say thank you for last night, obviously,” I said, as an afterthought. “It was really good of you to, you know, to come and rescue me like you did.”
My front door banged in the wind, and I heard footsteps on the stairs. I didn’t know whether to be pleased or really, really worried when the acrid smell of Russian tobacco wafted into the room a moment before Trixie did.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Someone’s got to look after you, you’re hopeless at it.”
“And you should be soaking wet, and you’re not,” I said. “That was careless of you.”
“Oh bother being wet,” she said. “I think we’re a bit past you needing to think I actually came in from outside, aren’t we?”
I sighed and looked at her. A magic knight who fights Furies with a burning sword probably doesn’t arrive on the bus, does she? She certainly didn’t look like she’d ever travelled on a bus in her life. In a Rolls Royce maybe, but never on public transport. She was wearing her long leather coat open over a dark skirt and jacket today, with black high-heeled shoes and a white silk blouse. She picked up a dirty coffee cup I’d left lying around and casually flicked her cigarette ash into it.
“I suppose we are,” I said.
“Good,” she said, and settled on the sofa. She crossed her legs and smiled at me, the cup cradled in one hand. “Now, I believe you said you wanted to talk to me.”
I nodded. I did, but should I, that was the question. You don’t think there’s even the tiniest chance she might want something in return, the Burned Man had said, but then the Burned Man wanted me to go to Hell, for fuck’s sake. I still wasn’t convinced I could trust Trixie, but I was getting less and less sure I could trust the Burned Man either. Whatever, I wasn’t having this chat with her in here with only a cheap wooden door between us and the Burned Man’s prying ears.
“Fancy a decent coffee?” I asked her. “Big Dave’s will still be open.”
I shot a meaningful look at the door to my workroom, and she nodded. “I’d love one,” she said.
It was almost worth all the pain and grief of the last few days just to see the look on Big Dave’s face when I walked in with Trixie at my side. He remembered her all right, and no mistake.
“Rosie?” he asked in open astonishment.
I winked at him. “Two coffees, there’s a good lad,” I said.
Trixie sat down at a table in the corner by the window, as far out of Dave’s hearing as she could get. Luckily there was no one else in there at that time in the afternoon.
I sat down opposite her and waited while Dave brought the coffees over.
“So,” she said, when he was safely out of the way, “what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”
I sighed. “I, um, I don’t even know where to start to be honest,” I said.
“At the beginning,” she said. “That’s usually the best place.”
So I told her some of it. As little as I could get away with and still make sense, admittedly, but I told her about Wormwood and Connie, and Vincent and Danny, and Wellington Phoenix and most of all about the Burned Man’s plan.
Trixie went white.
“No,” she said as soon as I’d finished. “No you can’t, you mustn’t. No, Don, absolutely not!”
I have to admit that was a bit more of a reaction than I’d been expecting. “Why not?”
“It’s a trap,” she said at once. “A trick, to get you where that horrible thing wants you.”
The aroma of rodent was back and this time it was strong enough to drown out the smell of Dave’s stale bacon, but now I wasn’t even sure where it was coming from. One of them is bullshitting me, that’s for sure, I thought. Maybe even both of them.
“Why would it want me in Hell?”
“It doesn’t, particularly. It just wants to be free,” Trixie said. “Above all else, anything else, it wants that.”
“It’s never said,” I pointed out.
She shook her head. “It wouldn’t,” she said. “It can’t, thankfully, or some idiot would no doubt have freed it long before now. Whoever this Oisin was knew what he was doing, I’ll give him that much, for all that he should never have done it in the first place. The fetish can’t talk about freedom, it can’t ask to be free, and it can never know the ritual needed to free it. But its real self can. It wants you in Hell so it can learn the words that will set it free.”
“I’m confused,” I said. “For one thing, if it’s free in Hell where it actually lives it’s not really bound anyway, so I don’t see its problem.”
“Where does Wormwood live?” Trixie asked.
“What? I dunno, Mayfair somewhere I think. He’s minted. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Not in Hell, then. Funny that, when it’s supposed to be such a nice place. Why do you think there are so many nasty little things wandering around this part of London, where the Veils are thin enough for them to slip through?”
“You mean they’d rather be here?”
Trixie nodded slowly, like she was addressing a simpleton. I was starting to feel like a simpleton, to be honest. None of this was in the grimoires. “Indeed they would,” she said. “Even demons don’t want to be in Hell, Don.”
“So why are they? I mean like you said, Wormwood isn’t.”<
br />
“Mostly because they can’t get out,” she said. “The Veils are there for a reason, after all. They can only get out in places where the Veils have worn very thin, and even then, only the little ones can squeeze through the gaps. Things like Wormwood’s minder, and those night creatures of yours. Nothing much.”
Connie’s nothing much? She had a point though, I supposed. He was a huge, hulking brute of a monster, but as far as I knew he was no more magic than the slab of granite he so closely resembled. “Wormwood’s not a little one,” I said.
Trixie’s mouth twisted in distaste. “No, he isn’t,” she said. “Wormwood is more powerful than you give him credit for, actually. We should think ourselves lucky he’s one of the more anthropomorphic ones, and a child of Mammon at that. He’s more interested in making money than laying waste to the land. The Burned Man isn’t.”
I screwed my eyes tight shut and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to make myself think. “So how the hell is Wormwood here then?”
“Some fool of a magician summoned him and messed it up, and he got loose,” she said. “That was a very long time ago though, and it doesn’t matter now. The point is that while the Burned Man is bound to that fetish in your study, it’s in a fixed place on Earth and can’t be summoned anywhere else by anyone else, so it can never get free the same way Wormwood did. It needs you to say the words of the ritual to destroy its link to the fetish.”
“But I don’t know the sodding words,” I said. “I never knew they even existed until just now.”
“No,” she said, “but it thinks Wellington Phoenix does. It just wants you to get Phoenix into Hell so it can torture the ritual out of him, teach it to you, and make you say the words when you get back. Then it just has to wait for some idiot to try to summon it, which knowing what you diabolists are like probably won’t take very long in the great scheme of things. As soon as someone does that it will simply destroy them, however powerful they think they are, and then we’re all in terribly big trouble.”
“Wait, what? You mean the trap’s not even for me, I’m the fucking bait?”
