Thicker Than Water

I took a look at the other people in the room. It was true that there were a lot of eyes on us - or rather, on her. ‘Okay,’ I said, reluctantly. ‘But if I hang around until after the reading, could we—’

‘I don’t mean here and now, Castor. I mean ever. This isn’t a subject that can be raised between us.’ Her stare was cold and stern: she knew me, and she knew how hard it was for me to take no for an answer. She was warning me with her eyes that any subsequent answers would be smackdowns.

But fools rush in, as they say. ‘It kind of already has been,’ I pointed out. ‘Raised, I mean. Can you at least tell me whether you felt this thing?’

‘No.’

‘Or whether you recognised it? Whether it’s something you’ve met before?’

‘No.’

‘But you’re a ghost-breaker,’ I pointed out. ‘This is your living, right? What if I hired you to—’

‘I said no, Castor. I’m not for hire. If you can handle this yourself, do so. If you can’t, don’t come to me for help or try to pick my brains with one of your stacked games of twenty questions. It will cause friction between us. It could even compromise our friendship.’

Before I could think of a question that wouldn’t sound like it was a question, Susan Book crossed the room and joined us. She put a hand on Juliet’s shoulder: Juliet took it in her own, touched it to her lips and then replaced it.

Susan beamed at me. Being with Juliet had made her blossom: turned her from a shy, conflicted little mouse with a self-effacing stammer and a tendency to blame herself for other people’s failings into a woman with confidence and quiet charisma. Sex is magic, and she was tapped into the wellspring. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t envy her that.

But in case the point needed to be made, that unobtrusive little kiss on the back of the hand reminded me that there was a lot more to this relationship now than sex. Susan loved Juliet, wholly and desperately and unquestioningly. And Juliet - felt something too. Something that made her protective and a little possessive and occasionally exasperated when Susan wouldn’t do as she was told or see things as they obviously were. Might as well call that love, too: it had a lot of the hallmarks.

‘Hi, Felix,’ Susan said. ‘Are you going to come along with us to the Martin Amis thing?’

‘And be lectured about how Muslims ought to smack their kids more? Nah,’ I said. ‘No, thanks. You crazy kids go and enjoy yourselves.’

I stood up, trying not to let my consternation and annoyance show on my face. Juliet had warned me once before this - about a year before, if memory served - that certain subjects would always be taboo between us. Heaven and Hell were on the list, and so was God, and so were her own nature and origins. It would be useful to know which of these, if any, were operating here: but Susan’s arrival had made it impossible for me to fish any further.

‘We will,’ Susan said, presumably referring back to my begrudged ‘Have a good time’, or whatever it was I’d said.

Juliet made a sour face. ‘Ideas,’ she said.

‘Nothing wrong with ideas, Jules,’ Susan chided gently.

‘No. But my comfort zone is flesh.’

On which note I said my goodbyes, feeling none too happy.

If Juliet wasn’t going to play ball, I was left with Asmodeus. And k As he Asmodeus was a different proposition altogether.

Bigger, for one thing. Meaner. And living inside my best friend.

Rafi only started playing with black magic after he met me and saw the things I could do. This was during my brief, abortive stint at university, when he was an elegant wastrel and I was a working-class Communist with a chip on my shoulder the size of the Sherman Oak. We vied briefly for Pen’s affections, although Rafi never had any doubt that he’d win in the end. He always did: he was one of the people who life went out of its way to accommodate.

Rafi was never part of the exorcist fraternity: he was just an enthusiastic amateur with a sharper mind than most who mixed and matched necromantic rituals until he put one together that actually worked. But he was never a completer-finisher, either, which was the first part of his downfall. He left out one of the necessary wards, and the magic circle that should have kept Asmodeus safely contained was fatally flawed. The demon - one of the most hard-core bastards in Hell - battered his way out and into Rafi’s soul.

A lot of things could have happened at that point: demonic possession is a fairly new phenomenon, and not all that well documented. What actually happened was that Rafi became delirious and got so hot he actually seemed in danger of catching fire. His girlfriend called me, and I tried to carry out an exorcism.

That was the coup de grâce. I’d never encountered a demon before, let alone one as powerful as this. I screwed up badly, welding the two of them together in a way that I couldn’t undo. Asmodeus has lived inside Rafi ever since, the senior partner in a very unequal alliance.