The Naming of the Beasts

I thought about the fight I’d had with McClennan the day before. Greaves might be right, but if Gil was scared, I suspected it wasn’t just for his own safety. He’d thrown that punch at me because he saw my off-the-cuff battle plan as putting his exorcists in danger. But then this morning he’d rejected my suggestion, which would have given him an easy out. He must be wondering now what he’d let himself and his team in for, and whether he was going to end the evening with blood - someone else’s blood, I mean - on his hands. He might be the first McClennan ever to fret on that score.

We kept on going to the end of the street, then did one more long trek up and down Kingsway. At that point Trudie announced she was going back to the MOU - back to her map. Maybe the fact that Asmodeus had been out of town would make a difference. There’d be new lines to draw now, with a jump discontinuity from the old ones because Asmodeus had nipped over to eastern Europe on his murderous little day trip. That time lapse might be enough to allow her to distinguish his present movements from older ones.

I was going to offer to go with her, but my phone rang and a glance at the display told me it was Caldessa. ‘I have to take this,’ I apologised to Trudie. She shrugged and backed off a few steps.

‘Hello?’ I said, turning my back on her.

‘Hello, dear heart,’ Caldessa said. ‘Good news. My friend Burgerman was able to help me with the internal workings of your dread device. It transpires that the drilling and pinning process is done by means of a computer these days - quelle surprise. Burgerman knows a man who makes them up in batches for the tourist dollar, from old chocolate boxes and jewel cases. He boggled a little at your specifications, but he was able to run off the cylinders in no time, and the combs are standard.’

‘So it’s all done?’ I demanded.

‘Not quite, but it will be by the time you get here. I’m just fitting everything into the case now.’

‘You’re the eighth wonder of the modern world, Caldessa,’ I said fervently.

‘Of the ancient world,’ she sighed, ‘unfortunately.’

I hung up and looked around for Trudie, but she was nowhere in sight. She must have got tired of waiting for me, or maybe she felt being on her own for a while would be an improvement on my company. I couldn’t fault her logic on that one.

I looked at the time and weighed up my options. I wanted to go back to Pen’s and make sure both she and Sue were still there and still safe. I wanted to check in with Nicky and see if he’d managed to get the dirt on Tlallik and Ket and Jetaniul. More than anything, I wanted to sleep, but you can do that when you’re dead, at least if your luck is in.

Before doing any of those things, I took the Tube out to Kensington and collected my order. Caldessa demonstrated its workings to me with pardonable pride.

‘Three keys,’ she said, rotating the drab little wooden box in her hands. It hadn’t been painted or varnished, and unlike Burgerman’s enterprising friend, Caldessa hadn’t used a Victorian chocolate box or jewel case as her starting point; she’d just nailed six roughly sanded pieces of MDF together into a cube, cutting slatted holes into one of them to allow the thing to function. ‘But once they’re all wound up, you can turn it on and off with this toggle switch here. It doesn’t open, of course. And it doesn’t look like anything very much. But I assume function is more important than form, and it’s a lot sturdier than the regular kind.’

‘It’s perfect, Caldessa.’ I kissed her on the cheek, and she yelped because my stubble was more than usually obtrusive. ‘I’ll be in touch about that date, as soon as I’m done with this. I’ll even shave.’

‘You needn’t bother as far as that goes,’ Caldessa allowed. ‘Your louche charm is a selling point, Felix. A shave and a manicure would just make you look like a used-car salesman.’

She had a point. I never did scrub up more than halfway decent. I thanked her again and retired with some of my dignity still intact.

No answer from Pen’s house, or from Nicky either at the Gaumont or on his mobile. Fatigue was catching up on me with a vengeance now, and my eyes were doing that thing where they only stay open while you’re actually making them, and close by infinitesimal degrees whenever your attention slips.

It was only six thirty or so, more than five hours yet before I had to be at Super-Self to head Gil McClennan off from his Little Big Horn. I bowed to the inevitable, caught a Circle Line train running widdershins through South Ken, and put my head down for half an hour.

Well, half an hour was the plan. When sleep opened its black throat at my feet I lost my balance and pitched in head first, like a drugged honey cake into the gullet of Cerberus, and lulled by the motion of the train we both went rocking into the dark together.