Vicious Circle

“When are you planning to do this?” I demanded, cutting through the banter. It was making me uncomfortable because the physical desire Juliet arouses is very real and very acute; and because, given that she is what she is, I know exactly where that desire leads. That fact makes jokes about oral sex ring a little hollowly.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “Five minutes to midnight.”

“Why so precise? What happens then?”

“Moonrise—except that tomorrow is the dark of the moon. It’s a propitious time.”

“I’d like to be there for it. As backup, in case something goes wrong.”

She looked a little perplexed. “What could you do to help,” she demanded, “if something went wrong?”

“Maybe nothing,” I said. “But that party at the mall gave me the thin end of a scent for this thing. Maybe I could run interference for you.” I half-lifted my tin whistle out of my coat pocket, let it slide back again.

Juliet’s eyes narrowed slightly, which I could understand. Showing the whistle was a little bit like offering Superman a kryptonite sandwich. But her tone stayed cool, even slightly bored. “You know where I’ll be,” she said. “And when. If you want to come along and watch, be my guest. Don’t bring the whistle, though. Or if you bring it, keep it in your pocket. Your aim isn’t as good as you think it is.”

It was hard for me to argue with that, with Rafi chafing at the edges of my thoughts the way he was right then. That was certainly a demonstration of how dangerous friendly fire could be. I knew I was better now than I had been then, but I could see why Juliet wasn’t keen on the idea.

I stood up, leaving the cash on the table.

“My treat,” I said. “I came into some money.”

“ ‘Mackie,’ ” Juliet quoted, “ ‘how much did you charge?’ ”

“Funny. I always knew they’d play Bobby Darin in hell.”

“Kurt Weill,” Juliet corrected.

“Bless you,” I deadpanned.

The waiter looked stricken to see us go. If Juliet ever came off that diet, she’d be sure of a good meal here.

We said good-bye on the street without much in the way of small talk, and Juliet walked away with her usual ground-eating stride, not looking back. Showing her the whistle seemed to have spoiled the mood somehow: probably because it reminded her that I was the closest thing the human race had to an antibody against her kind. I’d have to remember that another time, and be more tactful.

I was bone weary, but Nicky had said he had important news for me, and I’d agreed to meet him at the Ice-Maker’s place, south of the river. That was a fair old haul, but at least the roads would be clear now. I considered leaving Matty’s car where it was and taking the tube—since I didn’t have the “it’s an emergency” excuse to call on anymore—but that would mean getting back here somehow, probably after midnight, and then driving all the way back east again. I couldn’t quite face that.

I drove south down Wood Lane, vaguely intending to cross the river at Battersea. But in the mood I was in, brooding about the various things I’d left undone or half-done, it wasn’t long before my thoughts came back around in a big, ragged circle to the Torringtons and Dennis Peace. I’d almost had him at the Collective, I thought with grim irritation—but that was a polite gloss on what had really happened. It would be fairer to say that he’d almost had me: certainly I’d been lucky to avoid his kamikaze airborne assault. And then Itchy and Scratchy had turned up and it was a whole different ball game—with Peace’s balls being the ones on the table, or so it seemed. Why? What did he have that these breakaway provisional-wing religious zealots wanted so badly that they’d hire werewolves to find it? The only thing I knew he had was Abbie Torrington’s ghost; that didn’t seem to fit the bill.

No, I was still seven miles from nowhere here, much as it hurt me to admit it. Okay, I had Rosie Crucis as an ace in the hole, but given her legendary flakiness, and the unappetizing prospect of having to go through Jenna-Jane Mulbridge to get to her, maybe now was a good time to go back to plan A—making contact with Abbie’s spirit directly. I still had the doll’s head with me, and a vivid memory of the tune that it had inspired.

What the hell, it was worth a try. I pulled the car over onto a broad ribbon of freshly laid asphalt on the steeply canted foothills of the Hammersmith overpass, and got out. It wasn’t that the reception would be any better outside the car: I just felt that I needed the touch of the cool night air.