Drake

by Peter McLean

  “Oh,” I said. “So… how do you kill them?”

  “I don’t,” Trixie said. “I fight them.”

  “So what’s the point if you can’t stop them?”

  “I’m trying to stop them, that’s the point,” Trixie said, and I could hear the brittle edge of anger creeping into her voice now. “That’s the task I was given, and I’m doing it. I’ll do anything to achieve it, do you understand me?”

  I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I think I do.”

  Poor Trixie. Like Sisyphus pushing his rock uphill for all eternity, Trixie had been doomed to battle the Furies forever. I couldn’t help thinking that someone up there really didn’t want her going home.

  “Good,” she said. “So, you’ll forget this nonsense the Burned Man told you and let me take care of Wellington Phoenix for you?”

  I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “Thank you, Trixie.”

  I got stuck into my pint and let her tell me her plan. I mean, how much more harm could it do?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ever heard the expression “famous last words”? I ought to know better, I really did.

  Trixie walked me home, and, yeah, I do know it should have been the other way around, trust me I do. She left me standing at my front door, staring at my sign. Don Drake, drunken wanker. No, I didn’t get a kiss goodnight.

  I stumbled up the stairs and into my office, feeling worn out and sore and dizzy and so, so relieved. Trixie had forgiven me. That, above all else, had made me feel better. I’d told her my story, or some of it anyway, and she’d promised to get rid of Wellington Phoenix for me. That was great, don’t get me wrong, but the main thing was that she had forgiven me. I felt like a ten ton weight had been lifted off my shoulders. It felt wonderful, and that wonderful feeling lasted all of ten seconds.

  “Oi,” the Burned Man shouted from the workroom. “Where the buggering hell have you been?”

  “Out,” I shouted back, feeling like a rebellious teenager talking back to my dad.

  “Get in here,” it ordered me. “Now.”

  I went. So much for rebellion. I hadn’t been much good at that when I’d actually been a teenager, come to think of it. The Burned Man rattled its chains and glared at me.

  “She’s gone,” I said, before it could ask.

  “Good,” it said. “Now, what about my plan? Are you ready for a little trip down under?”

  I shook my head. “No, not going to happen,” I said. “I’ve got a better plan.”

  “Blondie has, you mean,” it said, “and I very much doubt it’s better for you. You can’t trust her, you dickhead. Having a nice arse doesn’t make her on your side, you do realize that don’t you?”

  I shook my head slowly. The Burned Man was obviously doing its very best to forget the week or so we had both lost to Trixie. Apparently it was only me who had ever been infatuated with her, according to its version of events. Still, I supposed I was more than a bit guilty of having a selective memory myself sometimes. If I was completely honest with myself, I had only given Trixie the edited highlights of my early days with Davidson and the Burned Man.

  “Never mind that,” I said, “we’re doing it my way and that’s that. Or is there something you’d like to explain?”

  The Burned Man coughed, and gave me a vicious look. It can’t talk about freedom, I reminded myself. Good. “No,” it muttered.

  “Right,” I said. “I’m going to bed then. We’ll get it sorted in the morning. Phoenix has got a long flight over here and I expect he’ll want to get up to Edinburgh and see what’s what for himself before he does anything else. I think it’ll keep that long. Start working on a doppelganger, will you?”

  “A doppelganger?” it said. “Of who?”

  “Me, of course,” I said.

  I left it to chew on that, and went to bed.

  * * *

  By the time I wandered back into the workroom the next morning the Burned Man was virtually gnawing its chains with frustration.

  “What the fuck is the doppelganger for?” it demanded, before I could even open my mouth.

  “Good morning to you too,” I said.

  “Fuck the morning, tell me,” it said.

  I shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious? We use the doppelganger to lure Phoenix and his horrors to somewhere else, somewhere Trixie is waiting for them. She gets busy on them while I hide out here with you and a couple of something nasty to keep me safe. She comes and lets us know when they’re all dead, simple as that really.”

  “Simple as that,” the Burned Man echoed. The look of disappointment on its ugly little face would have been heartbreaking if I hadn’t known what it was, and what it had tried to get me to do. “Well, I’ve got the pattern prepared. You’ll need to get some stuff for it, and then whatever else we need for your idea of something nasty.”

  “Screamers,” I said at once. “Three of them, if you can manage it.”

  The Burned Man spat at me. “I can manage whatever the fuck you can dare to ask for, you little prick,” it reminded me. “What are you willing to pay for, more to the point?”

  “Yeah, sorry, course you can,” I said. I was pissed off at it, but winding it up wasn’t a good plan all the same. “Three screamers then, that ought to be enough bodyguard for anyone. I’ll tap Wormwood up for the ingredients.”

  I phoned the club, and Connie picked up. I gave him the shopping list. Two hours later my doorbell rang. I was half expecting to see Connie standing there himself with a basket of goodies in his huge hand, but then of course he was a tad conspicuous to be seen on the street in the daylight. Even in South London. It was that waitress I liked instead, the one with the cute tail. Oh, she had it tucked down the back of her jeans where it didn’t show, obviously, but it was her all the same. She had a suitcase in her hand.

  “Mr Drake?” she asked me.

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “Hi, I’m Tasha. I’ve got a delivery for you.”

  I looked over her shoulder to where Wormwood’s black Rolls Royce was pulled up at the kerb outside. The registration plate was WW 1, I noticed. And he called me a ponce, the cheeky git. The tinted front window rolled down and Connie nodded at me from the driver’s seat. How he’d got his bulk wedged in there I had no idea. I nodded back.

  “Great, thanks,” I said. “Tell Connie I said hi.”

  She smiled and passed me the big grey Samsonite. “I will,” she said.

  I watched her as she wiggled back to the car and slid into the back seat. She was still very cute even without the tail on show, but she was no Trixie.

  Whoa there, I told myself. Don’t you start that, Don. Trixie was… well, she was Trixie. However gorgeous she might be, I knew I was on a hiding to nothing with that sort of thinking. I sighed and lugged the suitcase back up the stairs to my office. I was missing Debbie, that was all it was. I wondered whether it was too soon to try phoning her again, and decided that it almost certainly was.

  “The goody bag’s here,” I called out to the Burned Man.

  I hauled the Samsonite into my workroom and popped it open to be greeted by the reproachful croaks of several large toads. There were other things in there too – three large flasks of goat’s blood, several vials of tincture of mercury, and a full ounce of powdered manticore spines. It was everything I’d asked for to summon the screamers, and the other things I needed as well. There was modelling clay and a big lump of soft black wax for the poppet, and a police-issue mobile DNA sampling kit. Say what you like about Wormwood, the man was connected.

  “You know what to do with this shit?” I asked the Burned Man, pointing at the DNA kit.

  “I’m old, not out of touch,” it said. “Of course I do. Get the bit and bobs out and shut that lid before the fucking toads escape or you’ll be chasing them round the flat all day.”

  I did as it told me. “So I make a poppet of myself, yes?” I asked it as I fingered the modelling clay.

  “Just make something with two arms and two l
egs and that pinsized head of yours,” it said. “This isn’t sculpture, it’s symbolism. Then go piss in that bottle there, clip your nails into it, and give me a good hawk of spit on top. We’ll run that little lot through the DNA sampler and I’ll use the results to–”

  The doorbell rang.

  “It’s OK, that’ll be Trixie,” I said.

  “Oh wonderful,” the Burned Man muttered, its voice heavy with sarcasm. “I’ve missed her.”

  I heard footsteps on the stairs, and the door banged shut behind her. I knew perfectly well she had only rung the doorbell as a courtesy.

  “In here,” I called out.

  She marched into the room looking nothing like herself at all. She had her hair pulled back into a severe ponytail for one thing, and she was wearing black combat trousers with unflattering army boots and a bulky leather jacket. The jacket was half unzipped to reveal what I could only assume was some sort of body armour underneath. It looked like it was made from articulated plates of thick matt-black plastic.

  “Show me your war face, soldier,” the Burned Man sniggered.

  “Shut up,” I told it. “You OK, Trixie?”

  She nodded briskly. “Fine,” she said. “I’m expecting to work today, that’s all.”

  “Where’s your sword?” I asked her.

  “Right here,” she said, and patted her thigh. “One dimension over. I shift it through when I need it.”

  “That’s a neat trick,” I said, impressed.

  I suppose things like that shouldn’t still have surprised me, knowing what I did about her, but that was seriously cool. I wondered if she’d teach me how to do it. Probably not, thinking about it.

  “How are we getting on?” she asked, ignoring my comment.

  “I have been working on the pattern all night,” the Burned Man said. “I’ll get you your doppelganger as soon as numbnuts here makes the poppet and produces some DNA for me to work with. Fuck knows what you two have been doing.”

  “Shut up,” I said again.

  I picked up the modelling clay and the wax and got to work, kneading one roughly into the other with my thumbs. The wax had to come from candles used in a genuine Black Mass, I knew that much. Wormwood really did know all the beautiful people.

  Doppelgangers are fairly simple things, spirit-wise, once you find one that fits your pattern. The trick is in how you make use of them. Contrary to popular belief, they don’t just happen to look like you. That, like so much occult folklore, is sadly straight out bullshit. What you have to do, to put it simply, is make a rough likeness of yourself or the person you want to impersonate, using the clay and wax poppet. Then you imbue the poppet with what used to be called the essence of the person, or what we’d now call their DNA. Nail clippings, hair, urine, that sort of thing. It’s all fairly standard Vodou stuff, but these days you can greatly enhance the effectiveness by using the concentration of sampled DNA. Then, and only then, you summon the doppelganger with the correct pattern into the poppet and animate it, and away you go. Simple.

  “How long is this going to take?” Trixie asked.

  “Five minutes to finish this,” I said as I rolled out a leg between my palms and attached it to the poppet’s body. “It doesn’t have to be a work of art, exactly. Couple of minutes to, um, produce some DNA. Dunno about the sampler.”

  “Not long,” said the Burned Man. “I assume you’re taking it somewhere with you, when it’s done?”

  Trixie nodded. “Yes,” she said. “A good way away from here. If you do it right, Phoenix will follow this version of Don and not the real one.”

  “Why would he?” I asked. “Sorry, I know you explained this to me last night but I was a bit pissed, to be honest with you. What makes the fake me a stronger draw than the real me?”

  “Well nothing, normally,” she said. “I’ll have to knock you out, I’m afraid. Once you’re unconscious, the doppelganger will feel much more like you than you do, if you see what I mean.”

  I nodded, but I had to admit I was feeling a bit dubious about the whole plan in the cold light of day. Phoenix would be hunting me by my aura, from the traces of me he would have picked up from Vincent and Danny’s house. It’s a bugger, but whatever you summon has little traces of you on it, and they tend to get left behind like fingerprints wherever the demon goes. It can’t be helped, and thankfully it takes a very strong magician to be able to read traces like that. Unfortunately Wellington Phoenix was that strong, and then some. All the same though, the thought that a doppelganger could be made to be more me than I was myself made me feel more than a little bit uncomfortable.

  Of course, there was always the off-chance that Phoenix was so strong he managed to detect the other trace at the house as well, the tiny essence of the Burned Man. I wasn’t planning on telling Trixie about that part; she had enough to worry about, after all. If Phoenix managed to do that, if he sent something to follow that secondary trace to my office, well that’s what the three screamers were for. There wouldn’t be any getting past them. At least, I sincerely hoped there wouldn’t be.

  “Right, how’s that?” I said, holding up the finished poppet for the Burned Man’s inspection.

  Truth be told, it was a pretty crappy rendition of a human figure that could have been anyone, but the Burned Man nodded happily.

  “That’ll do,” it said. “Like I said, this is just the symbolism. The important bit is your DNA. Now go fill that bottle for me, there’s a good lad.”

  I picked up the bottle and headed towards the bathroom. I paused at the door and glanced back briefly, to see Trixie and the Burned Man glaring at each other like two strange cats in a box. I sighed and went to do the necessary.

  I came back a few minutes later with a bottle half full of my piss, nail clippings, and spit. Magic is such a glamorous lifestyle it’s a wonder more people don’t take it up.

  “Here you go,” I said.

  I put the bottle down on the altar in front of the Burned Man, and it nodded approvingly. I won’t bore you with the rest of it, but we ran my “produce” through the sampler and imbued the poppet with the output, and the Burned Man did its thing and summoned the doppelganger into the poppet while Trixie stood over it and did… something. I have no idea what but her dodgy white aura flared even brighter than usual as she wove her own magic into the Burned Man’s mix.

  I stood well back out of the way, personally. This was all new ground for me. The poppet glazed white with charred ash and fell to bits, and then there I was, standing in front of me in the middle of the circle.

  “Bloody hell,” I said.

  “Bloody hell,” said the doppelganger.

  The doppelganger looked like me. No, I’m sorry, that’s nowhere near good enough. The doppelganger was me. It didn’t just look like me, standing there in an exact copy of the clothes I was wearing, it even had my very own personal, patented expression of slightly confused pissed off-ness on its face. It also needed a haircut as badly as I did. Damn, this was one of the weirdest things I’d ever experienced in a life that had been pretty much full of weird experiences.

  “The fuck,” I said, staring at the doppelganger.

  “The fuck,” the doppelganger said, staring at me.

  In Germanic lore, seeing one’s own doppelganger is said to be an omen of death. If the way my heart was hammering in my chest was anything to go by, I could well believe it. I honestly felt like I might just have a heart attack right there and then.

  “This isn’t fucking right, Trixie,” I said.

  So did the doppelganger.

  “It’s me!” We both said that at the same time, too.

  “Ah,” said Trixie. “Oh dear.”

  “You know what, Blondie,” the Burned Man said, “I think we might just have fucked something up here.”

  Trixie shook her head. “No, it has to be good,” she said. “Anything less than this good and it won’t fool Phoenix for a minute. He’ll just have to adjust.”

  “Will I fuck as like,” we sai
d, my doppelganger and I. “I don’t like this!”

  “You don’t have to like it, either of you,” Trixie said, “you just have to do it. Come here, Don.”

  Predictably, we both took a step towards her.

  “Not you,” she said to the doppelganger. “You wait here a minute. You, you come with me.”

  She led me out of the workroom and into my office and made me sit down on the sofa. She shut the door firmly behind her.

  “Trixie, this… this is weird,” I said.

  “I know,” she said, and patted me gently on the shoulder. “It’s only for a little while. I just need a convincing decoy for Phoenix and his horrors. We talked about this last night.”

  “Yeah I know but… but that’s not a fucking decoy, is it? That’s actually me.”

  “Of course it is,” she said. “It wouldn’t work otherwise. Phoenix isn’t stupid.”

  “You did something, I know you did,” I said. “I saw you do it. That’s not just a copy of me, it’s me, isn’t it?”

  Trixie cleared her throat and started to speak very quietly. “Don,” she said, “you have to trust me here. I gave the Burned Man a hand, that’s all. To make it work better.”

  “Bullshit,” I whispered back. “What happened to the doppelganger? Because that isn’t it. They aren’t that good. A doppelganger might look like me, but that bloke in there thinks what I’m thinking and says what I say, at exactly the same time. He’s an actual different version of me, isn’t he? Where did you get that version of me from, Trixie?”

  “One dimension over, maybe,” she snapped. “What do you care?”

  I stared at her. “What do I care, seriously? What don’t you understand here? That’s me, Trixie.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “Look Don, I’m good, but I’m just one soldier. I have my limits, and I don’t know exactly what Phoenix is bringing to the fight. You have to understand, I’m going to be busy today. Very busy, if what I’ve heard about the terrible Wellington Phoenix is right. I’m afraid I won’t be able to come and help you if anything nasty finds you, and I probably wouldn’t be able to protect you if you were with me either. It’s safer this way. If a Don Drake has to die today, do you want it to be you or the doppelganger?”