Vicious Circle

The rest was just mechanics, because the decision wouldn’t take a heartbeat. You wouldn’t want your child’s soul to stay in the company of the bastards who’d just killed her. And it was always possible that you might be saving her from something worse.

Because the satanists were still looking for Abbie, even though she was dead. Obviously something hadn’t quite worked out as planned. Something that had been started needed to be finished—and whatever it was, it was a big enough issue that the Catholic Church had brought its big, excommunicated guns in.

That was as far as I could take it right then. I still felt that I was missing something that was right under my nose, and the something was probably the missing link that tied Rafi and Asmodeus and St. Michael’s Church into all this, but I had more immediate fish that needed frying. I carried Juliet down into Nicky’s basement under his directions, and into a cupboard the size of an aircraft hangar. It was full of all kinds of stuff that Nicky has acquired over the years: paintings and sculptures, his precious record collection, and for reasons I’ve never understood (because zombies don’t eat) a vast amount of canned food. Maybe he had some idea of using it for barter after some future holocaust.

He spread a couple of blankets on the floor, one on top of the other, and I put her down on top of them as gently as I could. Nicky stared at her, nonplussed.

“I got no hormones anymore, Castor,” he told me, in a tone that sounded a little tight and nervy. “Adrenaline, testosterone, dopamine . . . nothing. The relevant organs all stopped pumping.”

“I know. So?”

“So how come when I look at her I get a hard-on?”

“Magic, I guess. That’s the demonic thing she does.”

He tossed me the keys, then backed away with his hands cupped protectively over his crotch. “Lock her up,” he muttered, and he turned and left.

I knelt down beside Juliet and lowered my head until my mouth was close to her ear. “Hang on in there, Jules,” I whispered.

I went out and closed the door. I had to lean my shoulder into it: this cupboard had been the film store, and since old film stock is only slightly less explosive than sweaty gelignite, the walls and door were flame-proof and blast-proof. It was a good place to store Juliet’s physical form until the rest of her came back to it; I’d be getting to work on that as soon as I could.

I found Nicky up in the projection booth, taking a pH reading from his plants. I ignored him and crossed to the plan chest where he keeps his maps and books. Being a conspiracy addict, his reference section is better than the British Library’s, and I already knew he had a set of 1:1000 maps of London in there. I took out the Ealing-Acton one and spread it out on the chest, sweeping a couple of books and a Newton’s cradle desk toy onto the floor.

Nicky jumped up from his kneeling position next to the hydroponic tank and crossed the room at a run. “Hey, Castor!” he protested. “Leave my shit alone.”

“I thought we could play a little game, Nicky,” I said, positioning the map a little better, so that the section I needed was dead center.

“I’m not in the mood for games. I just had a physiological reaction I haven’t had since I died. My prick got a fucking visitation from the other side of the grave—your side—and I’m trying to come down from it. I want you to go now.”

I ignored him. I knew once I told him what we were doing, he’d be into it: I just had to sell him the concept.

“Peckham Steiner,” I said, “had a big dream about a network of safe houses. Miniature, self-contained fortresses in the hearts of cities, where the living could shelter if the dead ever got their act together and tried to mount a coup.”

Nicky was unimpressed. “Steiner was bat-shit crazy,” he snapped. He snatched the map off the table and started to roll it up again, with slightly shaky hands. Juliet had clearly gotten to him on a level that scared him very deeply.

“ ‘The essential element to stop the dead from entering is water,’ ” I quoted. “You remember that? The letter he sent out to all the borough councils? ‘But ramparts of earth and air are also useful,’ de da de da, ‘to blind their eyes and blunt their forces.’ ”

“Why are you telling me this?” Nicky shoved the map back into the drawer, slammed it shut. He was scarier now than he’d been when he had the gun pointed at me, because he was less in control of himself.

“Because it’s a big joke, right? Everyone laughs about how spectacularly Steiner lost it, and the safe houses are the funniest part. Well here’s the punch line: he actually built one. Right here in London.”

Nicky’s response was immediate and vehement. “My ass,” he said, indignantly. “He fucking did not.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I would’ve known about it. I know everything that happens in London. When a sparrow farts, I get to hear about it. You’re telling me I could’ve missed something that big?”

“It was disguised as something else,” I said.