Pariah

by Donald Hounam

  Dangerous, though, when your licence is suspended – probably revoked altogether by now – and you’re supposed to be on a pilgrimage to Rome.

  A big shiny, grey vehicle has drawn up behind them. No horses: it’s a Ghost. A figure in a black uniform steps out from the driver’s compartment at the front and walks round to open one of the doors at the back. A man in a dark overcoat gets out. As he looks round, I see a fringe of tonsured silver hair and a heavily scarred face.

  A split second before he looks up, I jump back out of sight. I recognised him immediately. Ignacio Gresh. The Society’s Grand Inquisitor and a leading member of the Frank Sampson Appreciation Society.

  I hate it when the Society pays house calls. Marvo’ll have to look after herself. I’ve got to get out of here.

  I slip out of the back door into the yard behind the jack shack. A horse shuff les in the shafts of a van, so that it can get a good look at me. I walk quietly round to the archway leading out to the street.

  Nobody in sight, apart from a passing cyclist . . . and the driver of the Ghost, standing there like a statue, holding the reins of the Knights’ horses.

  He’s an elemental. That’s how Ghosts work.

  I can hear a bell tolling somewhere; and the iron wheel-rims of an omnibus grinding its way along Walton Street, up at the top of the hill.

  It’s not that cold; but I open my satchel and pull out my woolly hat. Officially, the Society is a religious order so I’m supposed to shave my head into a tonsure, like Gresh. There are two reasons for this. It’s a sign of devotion; and it’s meant to stop demons being able to grab you by the hair – although I reckon that if a demon wants to grab you, it’ll always find something. But whatever the point, it’s not a good look. So I just shave my entire head clean every morning. Almost every morning, anyway. I was otherwise engaged today.

  Having my head shaved isn’t an automatic giveaway that I’m a sorcerer; but it’s a reason for people to look at me. And there are a surprising number of people who, once they get a good look at you, can spot a sorcerer. I want to get back to my place in one piece. I jam my hat on and head up the hill. The driver ignores me. It’s like he’s been switched off.

  If anyone bothered to ask him, though, he’d remember me.

  Twenty minutes later I pitch up at the mortuary and ask if I can get something from my old robing room. They tell me to get lost.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Affinity

  I’VE GOT A termite nest to get into.

  Actually, it’s a monastery; and the termites are Agrippine monks: a small order set up to keep sorcerers like me safely tucked up in bed until Satan gets around to coming to gobble us up.

  For once, the Anti-Sorcery Brotherhood aren’t hanging around outside the front gate; but they’ve left a new calling-card chalked on the wall opposite: a crude drawing of a burning five-pointed star with a scrawled inscription: ‘Rot in hell!’

  I ring the bell. The gate opens.

  Brother Thomas is my least favourite termite. ‘Brother Tobias?’ He gasps, and fumbles for his spectacles.

  That’s me, by the way. Let’s stick to Frank.

  I don’t have to push him over; his eyes roll up in their sockets and he goes over backwards with a thump that shakes the city. I have that effect on quite a few people these days. I step over him and sneak across the cloister, past the chapel, from where I can hear the sound of frantic praying. I haven’t eaten all day and I’m starving. I duck into the kitchen.

  In the good old days the termites used to leave food around the place for me. Since I built my cloaking spell, that’s all stopped. I hack off a few slices of bread and a lump of mouldy cheese. And while I’m at it, I grab a couple of handfuls of cinnamon and cloves for my studio – almost as far gone as the cheese, but I can work around that . . .

  The termites are still howling away to themselves. I nip across the vegetable garden towards my studio, where we can stop for a moment to admire the magic that sent Brother Thomas flat on his back.

  Nice work, my cloaking spell, even if I say so myself. It’s kind of like an invisibility spell except that this time it’s my entire studio that’s disappeared. Not literally; it’s misdirection. The building’s still there, but people find more interesting things to look at instead. And anybody who gets really close to it . . . they just fall over.

  Always backwards, for some reason.

  The entire outside wall of my studio is covered with symbols drawn in red and black paint. There’s all the usual stuff, and what looks like a wobbly, eight-pointed star but is actually an octopus. It took me a whole night to get it bang in the middle of the wall and draw the long, twisting arms with dozens of small circles, each containing a symbol. It’s a miracle I got away with it, even with all the termites locked in the chapel. It’s even more of a miracle that I didn’t die of boredom or writer’s cramp.

  Anyway, much as I’d like to, I can’t stand around here all night patting myself on the back. I close the outside door behind me. At the end of the corridor, I touch the surface of another door. For a split second, the wood twitches into the head of a wolf. It barks enthusiastically. I tickle it between the ears and the door swings open.

  My studio was never much to look at: just a disused chapel with a fireplace at one end, where the altar used to be, and an iron stove at the other. One small stained-glass window, high up in the wall. A photograph of an old Japanese bloke: Pope Innocent XVII. Tiled floor: cold, but good for drawing on with chalk. Stone walls: even colder than the floor . . . and damp.

  It’s pretty much a tip. The last time the Society paid a visit, they left the joint looking like a tornado had hit it. One chair lived to tell the tale; I’ve used the others for kindling. I mended the bench, so I’d have somewhere to repair and repurify the instruments they smashed, and to prepare herbs; I screwed a couple of the shelves back onto the wall; I managed to round up most of my white rats and stick them back in the cage; and I’ve swept up the broken glass and cleared enough floor space to make magic. The place could be worse.

  But I get tired, and some days I’d rather stay in what’s left of my bed: a mattress, all slashed and oozing stuffing. I throw myself back onto the pile of dirty sheets and blankets, pull off my boots and lob them across the room.

  A small dog with blue ears scampers out of nowhere with a yelp of delight and starts licking the soles enthusiastically.

  I manage to raise my arm, but I’m too far gone to read my watch. I close my eyes. But I can’t sleep. The dog’s claws scratch on the tiles. And there’s this thin, dragging whine in my ears like somebody’s passed a needle clean through my head and they’re pulling a long, long thread through with it . . .

  I jump to my feet as a deafening crash shakes the studio. I know what it is and I know where it comes from. Strictly speaking, it isn’t real. It’s just in my head. Alastor reminding me that he’s bored of being stuck down in the cellar with Matthew.

  My heart has agreed to start beating again. Even if I could sleep, I don’t have time. I haul myself across to my bench . . .

  Six hours later I’m still there, holding my head and wondering how I’m going to do this.

  I’ve spent the evening fixing and repurifing the instruments I need. Two white candles flutter. The plume of smoke rising from a brass brazier smells of the lavender and rosemary I used for the fumigations.

  I’ve calculated and recalculated the planetary alignments. I don’t normally bother with all that astrological shit – as a working forensic sorcerer you can’t ask the jacks to leave the bodies lying around for a couple of weeks, until Jupiter condescends to wander into the house of Mercury or whatever. But if you want that extra punch, planets are your friend.

  I’ve got it all worked out. The place: a magical convergence outside the city in Wytham Wood. The time: just before two o’clock in the morning, when a few planets are in the right place. The symbols and smells. The right words in roughly the right order.

  But I could�
��ve done with that shark. The barbels, anyway.

  It’s your basic sympathetic magic, innit? I want to sniff Kazia out. I could mince up a bloodhound’s nose, but a nurse shark’s barbels are better. I was going to build myself a search elemental that wouldn’t take no for an answer and would winkle Kazia out before she got the chance to zap it.

  But of course the bloody shark’s locked in the mortuary. I could hike out to Marvo’s mum’s place and ask Marvo to help me get it back, but I’m not in the mood to grovel, and I don’t think she’s that keen to help me.

  And I’m tired. It’s not just the whine and the explosions in my head. Any spell, it’s like you feed a bit of yourself into it. I’ve had the cloaking spell up for nearly three weeks and I can feel it sort of nagging at me, dragging on my stomach. I wish I could just go to bed and sleep until I go post-peak and all my problems solve themselves . . .

  I’ve had enough. I open the cabinet and start putting the cutlery away. The black-handled knife goes in a silver box lined with blue silk. I turn for the white-handled knife. I run my finger along the razor-sharp edge of the blade and get a whisker of blood. I lick it away. I told Marvo I wasn’t cutting myself any more, but that’s a lie. What else is a boy to do when he’s shut up with only a door and a dog to keep him company.

  It’s at my feet, the dog, staring up at me with one paw raised, whimpering hopefully. The cut in my fingertip is still oozing tiny red beads. I lean down and offer it. The dog yelps and I feel its tongue brush across my skin.

  I could give it something to get really excited about. I roll up my sleeve and lay my arm flat on the bench, palm up. The tip of the knife is sharp against my skin.

  The candlelight glints along the blade . . .

  Does it matter if I don’t find Kazia? She doesn’t seem to be missing me – she’s got useful things to do like sending demons to polish the Crypt Boy off.

  The thing is, though: the Society doesn’t take kindly to people summoning demons without authorisation. Ignacio Gresh will move heaven and earth to find out who sent a Presence to mash the Crypt Boy. So if I don’t get to her first, Kazia has an appointment with a stack of dry wood.

  Her pentacle of Solomon glints as it revolves on its gold chain. I’ve put the knife safely away. I’ve got a silk square open in front of me. Lying on it, one small, grey feather.

  When Ferdia told Caxton that you can’t trace who conjured up a particular demon, I kept my mouth shut. True, Ferdia couldn’t have done it, even before he hit peak Gift. But I’m better than he ever was, and I reckon I can do it. A demon may not have a contiguity with whoever summoned it; but what it does have is an affinity. It’s not a physical link, it’s more . . . spiritual. That’s why, every time you summon a demon, you have a ritual sword that you wave around to symbolically sever the affinity and stop the demon bouncing back at you next time it fancies a brain salad.

  OK, so it’s just a feather. But according to the magical rule of synecdoche, part of a thing can stand in for the whole. If I have the feather, I have the demon.

  The demon has an affinity with Kazia. The pentacle has contiguity with her. And when I find her, maybe she’ll tell me who the Crypt Boy is and why someone wants him dead . . .

  Marvo’d appreciate that.

  Why am I thinking about Marvo?

  I spend two hours hunting through what’s left of my books and scrawling symbols and equations on virgin parchment. Finally, everything’s ready.

  I wrap my instruments. I fold the silk square carefully around the feather. I stuff everything into my satchel, and knock back a dose of my special wake-up juice. It kicks me hard in the stomach, but it clears my head like a stiff brush down a lavatory. I bounce out of my studio, into the cold night air . . .

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Naked Magic

  AT THE BOTTOM of the steps outside my studio, the whining noise in my head doesn’t quite drown out the tuneless wailing from the chapel.

  I take a moment to admire my handiwork, scrawled across my studio wall; then I push into the bushes, trying not to get snagged up on the thorns, and fight my way into the corner. I grab the drainpipe and stick my left foot on one of the supporting brackets. My right foot jams into a hole in the masonry, and after a bit of a struggle I find myself peering over the top of the back wall into the alley that runs behind the monastery.

  I can’t see anybody lurking to jump out at me, so I roll over and drop down. I look around again: all safe. I make another check through my satchel – wolfskin that I cured and tanned myself, sewn with red silk thread and fastened with silver buckles.

  No, I didn’t kill the wolf with my bare hands – although the Liber Bonifacii insists that I should’ve . . .

  The moon is peering over the houses, pale and open-mouthed like it’s upset to see me off on the rampage again. According to my watch, it’s just after ten o’clock. It’s freezing and I’m under-dressed, as usual; so collar up, hat pulled down . . .

  I can’t afford to blow money on a cab, so I walk. Halfway down the hill to Saint Clement’s, I think I hear footsteps following me, but when I stop and look round, the road behind is empty. I walk on, faster, but I can’t quite shake the suspicion. As soon as I turn the corner at the bottom, I sprint till I’m nearly bursting and collapse into the porch of the church, where I wait, heart pounding . . .

  For nothing, apparently. When I’ve finished chalking a pentagram on the wall, I peek out. There’s a police van rattling along the road and a couple of drunks yelling; nobody with any interest in me.

  I head off over the meadows and across the Cherwell, round the north wall of the Hole, and over the Isis. I still haven’t managed to throw off the idea that I’m being followed, but I can’t see anything – unless you count six horses in a field who follow me along the fence, their breath forming clouds in the crystal-cold air. They probably want their noses rubbed, but I’m pushed for time, and magic and horse-slobber don’t mix.

  Finally, I’m at the edge of Wytham Wood. Last glance around: all clear. My satchel weighs a ton, so I swing it over the other shoulder before jumping the ditch and pushing through the undergrowth into the trees.

  A sharp, cold wind springs up to fight me as I struggle uphill along a dangerously slippery path that twists and turns through the trees. I duck under an ancient holly tree, split right down the middle of the trunk, with ribbons tied to its branches. Some are recent – I can even make out the colours, red and blue in the light of the setting moon. Most have been there for years and are just tatters of loose threads fluttering in the breeze. People from the village think the ribbons will make wishes come true.

  If only.

  Owls screech in the branches above me as I break into an awkward trot, with my satchel bouncing against my hip. Suddenly, an abrupt clatter of wings . . .

  And utter silence.

  The wind dies. I step out of the trees, look around, and scuttle across open ground to a rickety wooden shed. Inside, I push a stack of timber aside and dig out a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. I stagger up to the bare top of the hill, where the ground sinks into a deep crater from whose rim three huge shapes cast long black shadows.

  The stones are about twelve feet tall, one of them narrowing at the top to resemble the shoulders and head of a cowled figure. The locals call them the Weird Sisters. But then they would, wouldn’t they?

  I don’t come here often – that final slog uphill is a killer and I’m resting with my hands on my knees, gasping for breath. But the great thing about it is that nobody’s going to bother me because the place is supposed to be haunted.

  My watch says it’s eleven forty-five. The moon has set. The stars glisten in a cloudless sky. It’s the perfect time and place to do magic. I slide down the side of the crater and feel a chill as I pass through the shadows cast by the stones. This place isn’t just spooky; it’s eerie. It was the Boss who first brought me here, seven years ago. He described it as a magical conjuncture, a place where natural energies reach a pitch of inten
sity that a skilful sorcerer can tap into.

  Whatever.

  I unwrap the oilcloth and lift out a small brazier, a sharp wooden stake, a mallet and a length of cord. I unpack my satchel. Wands and knives. The sheet of parchment: my crib sheet. Sachets of herbs, spices and precious stones. The silk-wrapped feather from the demon. Kazia’s pentacle of Solomon . . .

  I hammer the stake into the flat ground at the bottom of the crater, then use the cord and a knife to mark out a series of concentric circles in the dirt. I scratch symbols between them and drop amethysts and jasper around the place.

  The wind has dropped. The owls are back in the trees, sending soft, sad calls drifting through the darkness. The brazier is glowing at the centre of the circle, next to the blue silk square where I’ve laid out my instruments and materials.

  What I’m about to instantiate is a monster elemental, a powerful entity that’ll go out there and find Kazia and won’t take no for an answer.

  Ready to go . . . except for one final detail. I get my kit off. Jerkin, jumper, jeans, shoes and socks, vest and underpants. I pull off my ring and park it out of harm’s way, in the pocket of my jeans. Bollock-naked and shivering, I dive back into the circle and grab my knife—

  ‘Adonai, most high, deign to bless and to consecrate this knife, that it may show the necessary virtue through thee, O most holy Adonai, whose kingdom endureth through all the ages. Amen.’

  I seal the circle with my knife and manage not to scream as I pour a bottle of exorcised water over myself.

  ‘O creature of water, cleanse me of all impurities and uncleanliness and wash away all delusion, so that no wickedness may still find place within me. Amen.’

  To do magic, a sorcerer normally wears a robe decorated with symbols to assist the process, and exorcised to prevent either it or the sorcerer from contaminating the procedure.

  But tonight I want an affinity.

  In the bad old days, if you wanted to find somebody, you had to give a bloodhound an item of clothing or whatever to sniff. Around 1890 they discovered how to instantiate an elemental that has a magically induced contiguity with whoever or whatever you’re looking for. It’s a bit like a Ghost, where the passenger’s intention creates an artificial contiguity between the elemental driving the vehicle and the desired destination.