Better the Devil

by Mike Wild

  Dust seemed to hang in the air.

  Dust did hang in the air.

  What the hell? Where the...?

  Wait, wait. wait. He knew this place.

  Realisation struck him and he felt as cold as ice. He knew this place from old etchings and from photographs, and from descriptions of the curious down the years, those who had broken away from the main tourist parties to attempt to sneak a look to see if the legend was true. This was the attic of the Altneuschul, the synagogue in Prague, the reputed hiding place of Loew's golem. Was he actually here, transported as he had been from the construction site to the Dark Parliament, only now across hundreds of kilometres onto the continent? He stuck out a hand to caress a nearby beam... felt its solidity, its texture, its reality. Impossible but true. But there was something else, too. The return of the wooziness he had felt earlier - that same feeling of being out of phase with the universe - though this time multifold, as though more than a second was involved in this shift.

  Much, much more than a second.

  A noise. Brand made his way across the attic to a small, triangular window, failed to open it, but peered through the thick glass - old glass - and found himself looking down on three robed figures in a horse and cart trundling away down a half cobbled, half muddied, moonlit street. My God, this was the past - unless he missed his guess, Prague half a millennium ago. If that was the case then the figures in the cart...

  As if in a dream, Brand made his way down the attic stairs and out of the synagogue, following the cart along the otherwise deserted lane. He stared up at the moon, making a rough stab at the time - yes, that would be about right - and eventually found himself on the muddy banks of a river, where the three had abandoned the cart and gathered on the shore. As they stood there in their ritual robes, a distant clock tower chimed the hour. The fourth after midnight. His estimate had been correct, then. This was the time when legend said Rabbi Loew had created his golem.

  Brand watched spellbound as the bearded holy man led the others through the creation ritual, first drawing the outline of a giant man in the mud, as if he were sleeping on the shore, and then drawing in the rough features of a face. He then instructed his helpers to circle the shape seven times while he recited his words of creation, which they in turn repeated. The outline in the mud glowed red hot, took on a three-dimensional aspect, and finally cooled into the formed figure of a man. Now Loew himself circled seven times whilst holding a Torah above the figure, reciting yet more words. Finally Loew and his helpers spoke as one. Brand did not understand the tongue, but he knew that the words would be those from Genesis 2:7, which Dee had quoted earlier: "The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the earth, and He blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

  Brand sucked in a breath. Loew's golem rose from its muddy bed slowly and heavily, hauling itself out of the sucking earth, a leviathan awoken. It straightened ponderously, and as the giant stood fully erect the very air around it seemed to vibrate with its presence, which itself blocked the light from the stars. Then this hulk of a creature - it had been nothing such a short while before, Brand thought, nothing! - stared down at Loew and simply waited, a deeply resonant and questioning rumbling emanating from within. The thing appeared to be some kind of god, and yet, incredibly, here it stood, awaiting instruction from its own.

  As Loew led his golem away to do battle with those who would do its master's people harm, Brand desperately wished to follow, to see the further enactment of the legend through his own eyes. But he knew somehow that this was not why Dee had despatched him to this place - that there was something else he needed to experience. He found his eyes drawn to the giant-shaped depression from which the golem had come.

  Alone on the moonlit banks, Brand moved to the shadowy pit, and even before he reached its edge he felt the very molecules of his body begin to stir. Such a feeling - as if he were somehow disassembling - that he had to place a hand on his chest to reassure himself that he was there. Then, when he stepped into the depression, there was apart from this lightness of being a rawness of power, a throbbing orgasmic electricity that weakened him to nothing and made him fall to his knees. My God, what is this, he thought? He didn't think he could bear it, but gradually the feeling began to fade, to lessen, until whatever had been contained here dwindled to nothing, finally spent.

  Brand shuddered and gasped in what was now just a hole in the ground.

  And suddenly he was back with Dee.

  "Did you feel it, doctor?" Dee asked, after he had given him a moment to recover. "Did you feel the power in the earth?"

  "Yes, I..."

  "Tell me - did it remind you of anything?"

  Brand paused. It had been the same feeling he had felt in the earth at the construction site - not unexpected considering how the place had been full of golems - but he remembered how in that place it had felt strange - bad - and despite the fact that those golems had been created over half a century before, it had quite evidently not dwindled away.

  He thought back to the seals he had discovered on the mid-level, the binding power that they had contained.

  "The Clay Resource wasn't abandoned because the war ended, was it?" he asked. "Something there went very wrong."

  "No, doctor, it wasn't abandoned because the war came to an end. Why would it be? Can you imagine any government abandoning the opportunity to retain its own unquestioningly obedient and all but indestructible domestic security force? They would not necessarily need to be faced with an Axis threat to deploy it, would they?"

  "Revolt, public insurrection, terrorism," Brand said. "I see what you mean. If the golems had been available to her in Thatcher's era, she'd probably have used them to quash the miners' strike, the poll tax riots..." He shivered. "The ultimate nightmare. The Iron Lady and her stone army."

  Dee leaned forward, conspiratorially. "Between you and me, she attempted to have them unearthed before her removal from office in 1990, but that, as you will appreciate, is another story."

  "So," Brand said after a moment, returning to the subject at hand, "if the end of the war didn't kill the project, what did?"

  "Utmost folly," Dee said, "miscalculations in the ritual by one of Emmanuel Konterman's people. Even we are unaware of the details, but we suspect a number of transposed pronunciations while speaking the words of creation."

  "And what? These failed to fully imbue the golems with life?"

  "No, doctor, you have experienced for yourself the discomfort of knowing that these creatures live. They are merely awaiting instruction, a word of guidance from their masters."

  "Then what-?"

  "Though the miscalculations may have been small, the power of the newly formed words was far from so. The breath of life that was created and instilled in the golems that night was drawn from no natural lung, but from a lung that should have remained as forever still and silent as the never-ending darkness that surrounds it."

  Brand swallowed. He had heard of a place of never-ending darkness. "Are you talking about the Void?"

  Dee slowly shook his head. "I wish only that I were. As dark and as ravenous and as all-consuming as the Void is, it remains still a natural thing, horrible to perceive, perhaps, but a borderland essential to the stability of all realities, to the overall scale of things. No, doctor, we who make up this Dark Parliament are familiar with the Void - we have even, on occasion, been know to utilise it for our own manipulations-"

  "Norrell, at the Accord..." Brand interjected.

  "Yes. But what Emmanuel Konterman and his people tapped with their invocations - the dark materials they unknowingly used for their act of creation - no one can manipulate, and no one can or should ever know."

  "I don't follow."

  "It is the antithesis of what you felt on the banks of the River Moldau. It is the Unformed. The stuff that remains from before the Beginning. The waste of Creation."

  "What remains from-?" Brand repeated, dizzied. "Are you trying to tell me th
at the universe - the entirety of our existence - has leftovers?"

  "No act of creation comes without its discards. The afterbirth expelled with a newborn, for example. The crumpled first chapter of a novel, the unused paint washed from an artist's brush when the painting is done."

  Brand laughed out loud.

  "Doctor?"

  "I'm sorry, I couldn't help... I'm just having difficulty comprehending the universe as an MFI flatpack with an extra screw."

  "The concept does require some... reorientation, I admit, but thanks to Konterman's project the Unformed has stirred. It breathes as the golems breathe, and something that should not be is here, granted unnatural life by his misguided wartime ploy."

  "What - what exactly is here?"

  "Something with an instinct to pervert all of creation. A dark intelligence borne of the words that seeks to spread the Unformed into this world."

  "So you're saying that while Konterman splashed around in his muddy Garden of Eden he not only breathed life into his Adams, he also somehow breathed life into the serpent?"

  "Not into the serpent, no. He created his own serpent. A new Lord of Darkness and Chaos. The Formless One."

  "Holy shit. No wonder Konterman disappeared."

  "Whether Emmanuel Konterman disappeared as a direct result of this is a matter of conjecture, but what is important is that his legacy remains, a legacy that for his own reasons Conrad Capek wants released. You have already - in a small way - experienced its consequences at the attraction you call the London Eye."

  "In a small way?" Brand repeated. "That thing nearly did away with us all. But that was it? That was the Formless One?"

  "Just the merest hint of its voracity, released by the breaking of the first seal at the Capek Construction site. Now, of course, Capek has broken all four seals and, in firing the golems, has taken the first step to releasing its full destructive power"

  "Jesus. What I don't get is why the Accord isn't doing anything about all of this, instead of persecuting us? I mean, that's their primary remit, isn't it? To protect the city from infernal incursion? And you have to admit, as infernal incursions go, this is a doozy."

  "Indeed, but although the Accord was originally solely sovereign in establishment, it has over the years become inseparable from the quasi-governmental entity that has become needed to enforce it. It is consequently as open to political pressure and corruption as any other such body."

  "You're saying that Capek has someone inside the Accord? Someone who's getting them to turn a blind eye? Not Absolam, surely?"

  "No. In fact, I believe that if the Inspector knew that he had been used simply as some baying hound to help remove you from the scene, he would be really quite incensed. Besides, it does not necessarily have to be someone on the inside, merely someone in an allied position able to pull the right strings."

  "The Right Honourable Percival James Hengist," Brand realised, one of the new Albion Quarter trustees. "A handy homunculus to have around."

  Dee nodded. "Needless to say, while he remains in position, you and your people will glean no help from the Accord. For our part, we are able to negate the threat from the rippers, but that is all the assistance we can offer for now."

  "It's a good start," Brand said. But then he paused. "Urm... assistance with what exactly?"

  "Returning the Formless One whence he came, of course. That is why we brought you here."

  Of course... right... well, that's okay, then, Brand thought.

  "And how in hell are we supposed to do that?"

  Chapter Sixteen

  The timed detonation of the explosives sounded to Ness and Farrow's search teams as if giants were making their way through the tunnels one heavy and laborious footfall at a time - ka-thoom, ka-thoom, ka-thoom. As yet, of course, neither they nor the reanimates and the others back in the chamber had any idea how apt the comparison was.

  Nor would any of them have been, right at that moment, particularly interested - they were suddenly far too busy thinking about saving their own lives.

  They had only had time to find and defuse two charges. Two charges were not enough to stop the explosives' cascade effect.

  And it was heading their way.

  Ka-thoom. Ka-thoom. Ka-thoom.

  Ness was the first to see the fire coming, as a dancing and advancing kaleidoscope of orange and yellow reflected on the walls of a bend in the tunnel he had been searching, threatening to sweep around and consume him and those with him in a matter of moments. Ness had, of course, seen such channelled firestorms before - many times, in fact, in various underground rat-runs in Iraq - and some had even been triggered by his own incendiary grenades. Consequently, he knew there was no fleeing such a rush of destructive heat, and equally there was no hunkering down and hoping to survive it, either... ducking and covering in this type of situation meant all you were doing was puckering up to kiss your ass goodbye.

  The Scotsman made three quick glances - one each to the reanimates with him, and the third to their only possible way out. He ran forward with a roar that drowned out that of the oncoming fire, scooped the reanimates under his armpits, and flung their combined mass into the darkness of an adjoining conduit.

  Farrow, meanwhile - teamed with Chapter and a reanimate whose name she had learned was Ian - had no such conduit in which to hide. Being further along the tunnel, though, what he did have was a few more seconds. Unfortunately, he had no idea what to do with them. He glanced desperately at Hannah, who quickly scanned their surroundings. There was a ceiling pipe about ten metres back from their position, fractured and slowly dripping water. It had to have been dripping for some time because a small depression with a puddle had formed beneath it. Not much, but it would have to do. Hannah barked commands - There! Roll in the water, soak your clothes! Then flat on your stomach and keep down! - and, together with her companions, ran like hell.

  In the chamber, both Ravne and Mary Henderson heard the approaching detonations and snapped urgent glances at each other, and then at the entrance to their hideaway. Framed in the doorway, the underground was brightening, as if the sun were rising in the east. Ravne worked the odds - they might be safe where they were, but there was some danger of side blast and maybe structural collapse. He pointed quickly at Mary and then at the others, then at Rose's room. It was their only chance. Seconds later the door to the annexe slammed tightly shut as the Dead of London's home greeted the first dawn it had ever seen.

  That left Lawrence Verse. As far as the priest was concerned, he had picked the worst possible time to give up searching for Ravne and return to the relative surface of the tunnels. If the oncoming firestorm wasn't bad enough, he also had to contend with a disoriented Jonathan Brand. Where in hell the doc had appeared from he had no idea, but he had found him just moments before kneeling and confused in front of the platform of one of the abandoned underground stations, as if he had somehow simply been transported there. It had been obvious that the academic was out of it, especially as when the first detonations sounded all he could say was, "Die. I'm going to die."

  Maybe, Verse had thought, but not today... not if I can help it. It was the very reason why for the last few seconds he had been trying desperately to wrench a slab of protective metal panelling from the trackside of the platform wall.

  Sweat pouring down his face, he glanced at the now visible and rapidly advancing roil of flame, and back at the panel's last protesting edge. He was running out of time.

  Come on, you bastard. Come on!

  UUUUURRRNNNGH!

  Just. The priest flung the panel round as he snapped his gaze once more down the tunnel, the rushing glow almost directly on top of them. Immediately dropping to his haunches, he grabbed Brand roughly by the arm and yanked him in close before propping the metal panel against his own shoulder, supporting it so that it blocked their bodies like a shield.

  A second later, as if the shield had been shoulder-rammed by a fullback, the firestorm hit.

  In the hands of a less
er - and weaker - man it might not have held, but Verse was neither of the two. Roaring with determination, muscles bulging against the seams of his coat, and shoes digging into the ground, he rode the onslaught of fire as it was deflected over and around them like an angry dragon's breath.

  Ten seconds of hell, but then it was over.

  Breathing heavily, Verse rose and allowed the charred metal panel to drop to the ground with a clang. He slowly patted down a smoking shoulder and sleeve of his leather coat. Then he snarled.

  "Cremate us," he said. "Now those bastards try to cremate us."

  "No..." Brand said weakly from below him. "Not what this is about."

  Verse raised an eyebrow. "Damn well could have fooled me," he replied. He paused when Brand said a certain G-word, and his eyebrow rose higher still. "You think maybe we should tell the others, doc?" he asked after a second.

  Twenty minutes later, the two of them were back in the Dead of London chamber, to where the other survivors of the explosions had returned. Both Ness and Farrow's teams had escaped relatively unscathed, as had Ravne, Mary and the rest. The chamber itself, though, like most of the tunnels, had been effectively fire-stripped of all of its content.

  That said, the lack of makeshift furniture was not high on the list of anybody's current concerns. Brand had told them all about his experience in the pit along with his subsequent encounter with the Dark Parliament and what that entailed.

  "Golems, is it?" Ness asked. "Yer mean like that little twat in Lord o' the Rings?"

  "Oh Christ..."

  Ness held up both hands. "Alreet, alreet... ah ken the kind o' golems yer talkin' aboot, bu' come on yer po-faced bastards, some bugger had ta say it."

  "Actually, Mr. Ness," Brand said. "I'm not sure you do ken the kind of golems we're talking about, because I'm not sure that I, er, ken it myself."

  Ravne frowned. "The tallow-like substance you mentioned is puzzling, though it is doubtful that the biological residue of our reanimate takeaways was used solely for cosmetic purposes."