The Naming of the Beasts

‘Always more sinned against than sinning, J-J,’ I said. ‘But think about Mr Dicks before you throw the first stone. We had a deal, and I stuck to it until you tried to have me killed.’

Jenna-Jane laughed incredulously. ‘Tried to have you killed? Is that what Gilbert told you? It’s nonsense. I admit I wanted to delay you in Surrey. Of course I did. I simply didn’t trust your objectivity when it came to the succubus - and I’d say your present actions provide ample evidence that I was right.’

‘They’re following us,’ Gil muttered.

I glanced back over my shoulder. The myrmidons were advancing from cell door to cell door, corner to corner, staying far enough back to be no immediate threat but clearly waiting for their chance. That might mean there was a flank party somewhere. I slowed down as we approached an intersection, but the ambush I was expecting didn’t materialise.

We could see the metal stairs ahead of us now, and Gil accelerated toward them. The black uniforms came out from behind the stairwell when we were ten strides away from it. At the same time, the ones who’d been tailing us closed up the gap, trapping us neatly.

‘No innocent bystanders here,’ one of the guys in front of us said. He was an unprepossessing specimen, with lank black hair and a drooping Spanish-waiter moustache. He slapped his baton into the flat of his hand with a ringing thwack. ‘Drop the girl and let the professor go. Otherwise I’m letting these men off the leash.’

‘If you do, she dies,’ I said.

The guy smiled unpleasantly. ‘Better get on with it then,’ he suggested. ‘Because we’re not moving. On my mark, gentlemen. Three . . . two . . . one—’

‘Don’t any of you move a muscle!’ Jenna-Jane ground out, her voice deep and carrying. ‘I forbid it! Do you understand? ’

The rent-a-cops fell back a step out of pure reflex, responding to their master’s voice. The leader looked nonplussed. ‘Professor . . .’ he began.

‘The succubus is a valuable medical resource,’ Jenna-Jane snarled caustically. ‘By heaven, I will have the skin off the back of the man who harms her. Now, you will back off and you will allow these men to leave, unharmed. Anyone who disobeys will answer to me. Doubt me not, you whoreson dogs.’

I’d already started to have my suspicions with ‘by heaven’, not to mention the flogging reference. By the time she got to ‘whoreson’, I knew damn well what I was dealing with. This wasn’t Jenna-Jane; this was Rosie Crucis.

I moved towards the stairs, shifting to avoid turning my back on any of these sonsofbitches. ‘You heard the lady,’ I said. ‘Come on, McClennan.’ Gil was baffled but he wasn’t stupid. He stayed with me as I shuffled round to the foot of the stairs and put my foot on the bottom step.

‘Give them some ground!’ Rosie bellowed, and the myrmidons fell back as one man.

‘Did I ever tell you I loved you?’ I muttered to Rosie.

‘Often and often,’ she chuckled. ‘But don’t ask me to kiss you with these lips, Felix. It would be a crime against nature.’

Gil was staring at us in a kind of existential horror, his eyes wide. Then the penny dropped, visibly. ‘How did you break the wards?’ he whispered.

‘I didn’t,’ Rosie whispered. ‘I went under them. There were no wards on the floor.’

At the top of the stairs we paused. I looked to the right of the door and found what I expected to find: a locked junction box. I let go of Rosie and took the fire axe to it, breaking off the lock with three clumsy strokes. Inside were two red buttons. The one on the left was labelled LOCK and the one on the right RELEASE.

‘Any idea where you’ll go from here?’ I asked Rosie.

She shrugged, and an uncharacteristically wicked grin played across Jenna-Jane’s features. ‘I haven’t had a tumble in five hundred years,’ she said. ‘I think I might remind myself what the sins of the flesh are actually like.’

‘When that gets old,’ I said, ‘drop by and say hello.’

‘Certainly, Felix,’ she agreed. ‘Perhaps even before.’

I hit RELEASE. There was a prolonged, ragged-edged chunk-chunk-chunk sound as hundreds of cell doors opened in near but not perfect simultaneity.

Rosie slipped away. Through my death-sense I felt her go, but even if I hadn’t, I would have known it was the real Jenna-Jane I was now looking at as her face twisted into an expression of naked, almost berserk hatred.

‘Castor!’ she choked.

‘I think you said three days’ probation, J-J,’ I reminded her. I held up thumb and forefinger, almost touching. ‘I came this close to making the grade.’

I slammed the great steel door shut and threw the bolt.

19

We held our council of war at the Walthamstow Gaumont. Nicky wasn’t exactly thrilled to host, but he was still feeling sheepish about missing the boat with the anagrams in Asmodeus’ summonings, so I had a little leverage to work with.

He let us in off the street, giving the bundle in my arms - Juliet, now wrapped in my greatcoat and still more or less out of her head - a curious look.