The Naming of the Beasts

She wiped her sweat-beaded forehead with the back of her hand. ‘The woman,’ she said. ‘The woman who was drawing on me, with knives and paint. She taunted me with that knowledge. Is that woman still alive, Castor? I’d be happy to know that she was still alive.’

I made a could-go-either-way gesture. ‘She might be,’ I said. ‘Jenna-Jane is a tough old bird. Juliet, sit down before you fall down.’

Nicky pushed a vacant chair in behind her, unexpectedly solicitous. Juliet had given him his one and only post-mortem erection, so maybe his feelings were running along the same lines as mine. Juliet sank down, her arms visibly shaking from having supported her weight for those few seconds.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You’ll admit that there isn’t a lot you’re good for right now.’

‘We heal quickly.’

‘Quick enough to get up to fighting strength in less than an hour?’ I demanded. ‘Listen, I promised you I’d keep Sue safe.’

‘And you broke that promise.’

‘The day’s not over yet.’

Juliet bared her teeth in a snarl, and however weak her body might have been right then, she spat out the next four words with the full, scary strength of her will.

‘I’m coming with you.’

I was prepared to argue some more, But Nicky spoke up before I could. ‘Why are you even arguing about this?’ he demanded. ‘Asmodeus’ plan depends on her being there, right? He might not even let you in through the door without her. And he’s likely to let her get in real close to him for the same reason. She can be your Trojan Horse.’

Juliet turned her head to stare at Nicky with cold ferocity. She said something in her own demonic tongue that was probably very insulting and - I was willing to bet - physically impossible.

Nicky leaned back from her sudden, unsettling anger and tensed, looking like he was about to bolt. Being dead, he hates physical confrontation. When you’re running on empty, your body doesn’t heal, and every wound is irreversible.

Trudie stepped in to take some of the heat. ‘Maybe he’s right,’ she said. ‘Forget what I just said. Asmodeus is too strong for any of us. If he wants us dead, we’re dead. We’ve only got a chance at all because he needs Juliet alive.’

Gil laughed sardonically. ‘Until he finds out that she can’t do the mojo any more. That’s not going to give us much of a window, is it?’

Trudie looked at me expectantly. I hefted the Sainsbury’s bag and carefully poured the jagged pieces of broken glass out onto the table. Juliet, Nicky and Gil stared at it, their faces registering all the many flavours of nonplussed.

‘Fortunately,’ I said, ‘we have a secret weapon.’

Gil cleared his throat, looking a little awkward. ‘Actually, we have two,’ he said. He reached into his pocket and took out a slim rectangular case, which he cracked open to display the shiny silver disc inside. ‘A little present from Davey Nathan, Castor. He gave it to me this morning, but with everything that’s happened . . .’

‘Is that my anti-Asmodeus lullaby?’ I asked.

‘The extended disco remix.’

‘Thank Christ,’ Nicky said glumly. ‘We’re saved.’

20

Imelda Probert had lived - and died - in an otherwise abandoned low-rise block in a grubby little cul-de-sac in Peckham, south London. Long ago scheduled for demolition, the building hung on like most of Imelda’s clientele in a sort of limbo state between life and death. The front door was nailed up with plywood boards, across which someone had sprayed the word WU-TANG CLAN inside a stylised W logo that looked like spread wings of a bird. More inexplicably, someone had painted the entire frontage of the block matt black, although red brick showed like raw flesh in places where the paint had cracked and fallen away. From the outside the building looked not just dead but already decayed.

Imelda hadn’t minded that at all: it just guaranteed her the quiet and privacy she needed to work. Her third-floor flat had been like the spark of life in a zombie’s cooling brain. That was until I brought Asmodeus here for the first time, and shifted the balance in favour of death. Everything that had happened since stemmed from that one stupendously bad decision.

Now here I was again to put things right - with Wayne Coyne singing ‘Too Heavy for Superman’ in a dirgy adagio inside my head.

We drove up and parked right in front of the house, the four of us, like the horsemen of some B-movie apocalypse, except we were riding in a high-sided Fiat Ducato which Nicky had appropriated from God knew where. It had been modified for use in the first London mayoral election, and for some inexplicable reason had never been touched since. Its customised sides were emblazoned with Frank Dobson’s gormless, what-me-worry face along with the worst election slogan in the history of the civilised world: FRANK AND TO THE POINT. In the middle of Peckham’s genteel Georgian slum district, the van was about as inconspicuous as President Ahmed Ahmedinajad at a Village People concert.

Gil slid over and let Trudie take his place in the driver’s seat. She shot me a glance, troubled and unhappy.