The Naming of the Beasts

It was a sleep that was almost deep enough to be dreamless: or at least the things that populated it were too primitive and unformed to resolve themselves into actual images or sounds. They were just inchoate feelings, made up of unease and familiarity in equal amounts. It was as though I was sliding down an endless helter skelter of déjà vus.

What woke me was the sound of the PA system at Moorgate reporting a good service on all lines. It’s like they say: there are lies, damned lies and London Underground service announcements.

I was groggy and crumpled and slumped into a corner of the seat. The first thing I realised was that I’d slept with my tin whistle jammed against my third rib, so that I winced in discomfort every time I breathed in. The second was that the man in the snow-white mac sitting opposite me, staring at me with an expression of distant, contemplative calm, was Father Thomas Gwillam.

‘Good evening, Castor,’ he said solemnly.

Evening? I looked at my watch. Half past nine. I’d slept for three hours. Still no need to panic, but this had to be my last turn on the merry-go-round.

‘Evening, Father,’ I muttered. ‘It’s been sixteen years or so since my last confession.’

Gwillam’s thin lips pursed slightly: he doesn’t like it when people make light of grave matters. His pale eyes blinked and then opened again slowly, like a cat’s. ‘I’ve been excommunicated,’ he reminded me. ‘I’m therefore no longer qualified to take confession. Your sins will have to remain on your conscience a while longer.’

I looked around me as I came awake properly, belatedly taking in the fact that Gwillam wasn’t alone. Two of his team - a very young woman and a man built even more solidly than Mr Dicks - stood to either side of me, close enough to intercept if I tried anything that smacked of lèse-majesté.

‘You’re playing a very dangerous game,’ Gwillam told me.

I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help myself; it was just so obviously something he’d heard someone say in a Bond movie.

‘What do you suggest?’ I asked him. ‘Twister’s no good. I’m just not as supple as I used to be.’

‘You set this thing free in the first place, Castor. All the deaths that have resulted from that act are on your hands. And it’s your responsibility more than anyone’s to see that it’s destroyed before it can do any further harm.’

Anger crawled up my throat like bile. In spite of his two bodyguards - and I was under no illusions that the girl was at least as dangerous as the bruiser - I was tempted to lunge across the aisle and take a poke at him. One good whack on his self-satisfied snout: that would almost make up for being beaten into lumpy porridge immediately afterwards.

But I still had promises to keep.

‘It was your people who set him free, you fuckwit,’ I snarled instead. ‘I got him out of the Stanger, but your hit men opened his fucking door and let him walk right out. It’s on you as well as me.’

To my surprise, he nodded. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘It’s on me too. I don’t deny that. It’s the reason I’ve allowed you to operate as a free agent. I know what you’re trying to do. I don’t hold out any great hope that you’ll succeed, but the smallest chance that you might outweighs the risk that you’ll sabotage our own operation.’

He paused for a second, frowning at me. He tilted his head to one side to get a better angle on the only slightly faded bruises on my face, the ones left over from my first encounter with Asmodeus down in Brixton.

‘But we suspect that the demon has plans of his own in train,’ he said. ‘Plans that are already far advanced. So I’m swallowing my pride, Castor. I’m here to suggest that we work together to bring him down.’

‘No thanks,’ I said.

Gwillam didn’t seem surprised, but his eyes narrowed into a severe frown.

‘You’re making no progress alone. You’re flailing in the dark.’

I laughed again. ‘Gwillam, do you think I’m an idiot?’ I demanded. ‘You’re here because you’ve fired every shot in your locker and you didn’t hit a blind thing. You’re coming up empty. This is no-stone-unturned time, and I’m probably the last stone you got to. But you think offering to share will play better than asking if you can pick my brains for free.’

Gwillam’s expression didn’t change. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘Your cynicism demeans you, but it’s understandable, to some extent. It’s true that we haven’t run Asmodeus to ground, any more than you have, but we’ve succeeded in closing down his support system.’

‘The American satanists,’ I translated, and I took a certain pleasure in seeing in his face the surprise he tried to hide.

‘Exactly,’ Gwillam confirmed. ‘The remnants of Anton Fanke’s organisation, now completely eradicated. Whatever Asmodeus is doing, he’s been thrown back on his own resources. We have a window, and if we use it wisely - if we cooperate and pool our intelligence - we can bring him down.’

I shook my head firmly. ‘No,’ I said, ‘we can’t. Because that - bringing him down, I mean - is exactly where we part company. You want him dead; I just want him caught.’