Vicious Circle

“But I was on my feet and the satanists were on their knees. And I knew what I had to do. I ran straight forward—had to jump over one guy who was lying flat on the ground right in my way, holding on to what was left of his kneecap—got to the circle and Abbie was still lying there, blood all over her chest, her eyes wide open. The demon, or the demon’s shadow or whatever you want to call it, was writhing around now like a fire hose that someone’s let go of, whipping this way and then another way and keeping up that silent screaming all the time.

“I didn’t have my deck, and I wouldn’t have had time to deal out a hand of cards in any case. All I could do was call her, and hope she came. I took hold of her locket, shouted out her name as loud as I could, shouted ‘Come with me!’ or something like that, and pulled. I mean, I didn’t just yell: I called her, the way you do when you’re doing it on a job. I was calling her into the locket—at least, into the lock of her hair that was inside the locket. I was making that be the anchor her ghost attached itself to.”

He looked at me to make sure I understood. I nodded tersely, as though it were what I’d have done under the circumstances. The truth was, I was having a hard time believing it was even possible. Summoning a ghost into a physical object? Channeling it, as though spirit was water and you could choose which way gravity was going to run? I suppose the hair was a part of Abbie, something she already had a link to, but still . . . In other circumstances, I’d have been asking him for details and taking notes. As it was I let him go on talking, oblivious of my slightly grudging wonder.

“Without the cards, I didn’t have any idea if it would work—and the frigging chain was a fair bit thicker than I thought it was: I had to wrap it around my wrist and give it a good hard yank. That did it; it snapped and I ran for the door with the locket in my fist—still holding the gun in my other hand even though it was empty now.

“Just as well I kept it, too, because one of those guys with a bit more presence of mind than his mates tried to come in from the side and shut me down. He got the stock of the Tavor in his face and I kept on going.

“My car was a long way up the street. Theirs were right outside and I didn’t have time to spike them. I just ran for it, got to the car, got inside and took off like a cat with pepper up its arse.

“I didn’t even know if they were chasing me, at first. Then I saw some headlights behind me, and they didn’t move out of my mirror even when I took some reckless, stupid turns. So then I knew they were onto me and I had to shake them.

“The trouble was, the car kept losing power. I was flooring the accelerator and I was actually slowing down. It was as if we were pulling a trailer full of bricks. Or a dead whale, or something. I thought the engine was going to die and leave us stranded on the street for those bastards to pick off.

“I did the only thing I could think of. I turned my lights off and took every turn that came up, making it as hard as I could for them to keep me in sight.

“I was desperate, and I was driving like an idiot. I took a right at the bottom of Scrubs Lane, just by the Scrubs, you know? And it was too tight. I scraped my side against a whole row of parked cars, ripped my bumper clean off, and nearly killed some old guy who was crossing the road. The noise was incredible, and I thought we’re cooked now, good and proper.

“But for some reason the engine cleared after that. I got her up to sixty and we belted off west. Got to here, which was where I was aiming for all along. No better place in London to hide a ghost, Castor. As you should know by now.”

I didn’t answer him. I was putting his story together with what I already knew.

Saturday evening. Bottom of Scrubs Lane. Fifty yards from the doors of St. Michael’s, just as evensong was kicking into gear. It sounded like madness, but then this whole thing was shot through with insanity from start to finish. Peace had interrupted a summoning ritual for a demon. For Asmodeus. The devil-worshippers had intended to consume Abbie body and soul, but they hadn’t reckoned on her dad stepping in with an assault rifle to throw into the works by way of a wrench. Body and soul: but they’d only gotten one out of two.

And Asmodeus?

Asmodeus had ended up trapped halfway between there and here. One foot in Rafi’s soul, one foot in Abbie’s. That was the weight that Peace had been dragging behind him as he fled for home. He didn’t just have one spirit inside that piece of jewelry, he had two—one minnow and one big bastard of a killer whale. Until he turned the corner and hit the long straight of Du Cane Road. Then—what? I thought I could guess.