The Demi-Monde: Summer (21 page)

‘Nikolai, you gotta dig that Vanka’s the big barracuda. He’s the guy who could help us defeat the Beast. The trouble is the Lady IMmanual knows it too: our cryptos in the Doge’s Palace tell us that she got really bent outta shape when she heard he’d vamoosed.’

Kondratieff played the naif. ‘Why? My understanding is that Vanka Maykov is little more than a confidence man … a trickster.’

‘Trickster …’ Josephine mused on the word for a moment. ‘Yeah, that’s who Vanka Maykov is: the Trickster. So tricky that he doesn’t have an aura.’

Kondratieff gave an absent-minded nod. He already knew about that peculiarity of Maykov’s, but there were other things that made the man remarkable. Ever since he’d tried to have HyperOpia make predictions about Maykov and the program had come back saying that as far as it was concerned he didn’t exist, Kondratieff had known he was … different. So different that it was as though he’d appeared out of thin air five years ago. Of course, Kondratieff had his own theories as to who – or more accurately,
what
– Vanka Maykov was, but as these were somewhat unorthodox, he kept them to himself.

‘I appreciate that a lack of an aura is unique, Miss Baker, but that in itself is hardly enough to substantiate the Doge’s enthusiasm for having the man executed. Maybe the Doge’s lust for vengeance is simply jealous pique; she and Maykov were, after all, lovers.’

‘It ain’t jealousy, Nikolai. Truth is Vanka really creeps that dame out. She’s scared of him.’

‘Why?’

It was Josephine’s turn to look nervously around to check there were no eavesdroppers. ‘Some of the senior WhoDoo mambos, Jezebel amongst them, think that Vanka might be an emissary of the Great Bondye – of ABBA – that he might be PaPa Legba, the keeper of the gate that divides the Demi-Monde from the Spirit World. That’s why, now he’s safely in the JAD, we’re gonna have him attend one of our séances. If he is who we think he is then he’ll be able to have us defeat Doge IMmanual … Lilith.’

‘You don’t sound terribly confident.’

‘We’re not. Lilith is a very powerful mage … maybe too powerful for us to take down. That’s why we need Vanka’s help.’

‘When are you planning to hold this séance of yours?’

‘Soon … as soon as I get back to the JAD.’

The conversation faltered as Kondratieff sipped his coffee and Josephine lit another cigarette. It was Kondratieff who broke the silence.

‘Then if you think you have the beating of Doge IMmanual, why have you taken such a risk to come to speak with me?’

‘Jezebel Ethobaal asked me to deliver this. It’s a gift to thank you for the help you’ve given to the Code Noir.’ From her large canvas shoulder bag Josephine extracted a leather-bound book, which from the look of it was many hundreds of years old. ‘This, Nikolai, baby, is one of only five surviving copies of the
Flagellum Hominum
, more commonly monikered as—’

‘The Scourge of HumanKind
. Yes, it’s one of the most famous of all relics from pre-Confinement history.’

Famous certainly, and very, very rare. What Josephine Baker was holding in her hand was worth a small – correction, a
large
– fortune. By reputation it was a compendium of all Lilith’s
wisdom regarding matters relating to the Spirit World, though of course, being written in the language of the Pre-Folk, until the discovery of the Column, no one had ever been able to translate it.

‘Jezebel said you’d dig its importance. She asked that you read the verse in the book relating to Loci’s Column. It’s a real nastygram. I’ve marked it with the slip of paper.’ With that she passed the book to Kondratieff, who took it reverently into his hands.

The tome was as fragile as it looked and the pages brittle with age. Gently he opened it to the place marked. ‘It’s written in Pre-Folk A,’ he noted.

‘But you’re a real longhair when it comes to digging the Pre-Folk A inkings.’

‘A
recent
expert, Miss Baker: the language has only just been deciphered. Anyway, understanding is one thing, but fluency is quite another. To translate this will require time.’

‘Then I’ll give you the ten-centime tour. Thanks to Professeur de Nostredame’s unBabelising of Pre-Folk A, Jezebel has managed to decipher the contents of the book and the heavy-duty revelation is that the Column you have housed in the Galerie des Anciens has beaucoup de much occult significance.’

‘That we already know, Miss Baker. And the question which comes to my mind is “so what?”’

‘There’s a new face in town—’

‘Billy Thomas.’

‘Got it in one, daddyo. That cat’s a real piece of strange.’

‘How so?’

‘He’s a loose cannon and the feeling is that he ain’t the type of cat who’ll wanna play second banana to his sister. Our worry is if someone like Selim the Grim takes him under his wing he could become as big a threat as she is.’

‘You’re too late, Miss Baker, that’s already happened. Selim
brought Duke William to the Galerie des Anciens this morning to view the Column.’

‘Shit. I should’ve known that Selim would be sniffing around … he’s one fly guy. The important thing is to keep Selim from getting control of the Column. According to the
Flagellum
, in the final struggle between the Messiah and the Beast whoever has control of the Column is gonna end up as top cat.’ Josephine allowed the waiter to refresh her coffee, to give him time, Kondratieff suspected, to absorb the import of what she was saying. ‘Jezebel has asked me to urge you to do everything in your power to prevent the Column falling into the hands of the badniks. You gotta know that if they succeed in tapping into the Column’s power, then it’s curtains for the good guys. It’ll be Lucifer who emerges triumphant from Ragnarok … Duke William.’

Kondratieff gave a doleful shake of his head. ‘Dr Ethobaal flatters me if she thinks I am able to influence matters with regard to the Column. The Column is
already
in the hands of Doge IMmanual and she has already issued orders that it is to be moved to the Temple of Lilith.’

Now
that
piece of information stopped Josephine Baker in mid-puff. ‘That’s beaucoup de bad news. Is there anything you can do to prevent that going down? If the Column gets to the Temple then we’ll all be hurtin’ for certain.’

Kondratieff shook his head. Since his meeting with de Sade that morning he had thought long and hard about the Column and had come to the conclusion that the order he had been given to transport it to the Temple presented him with a unique opportunity to destroy Doge IMmanual’s poisonous brother … and,
en passant
, to give him the chance of destroying Heydrich and UnFunDaMentalism.

For a moment he resisted the temptation to share his plan with Josephine Baker. Having made a quick calculation of the
risks and benefits of confiding in her, he had come to the hard-headed decision that as the probability of her being captured by the Signori di Notte was well over fifty per cent – she was much too noticeable for it to be otherwise – it would be imprudent for him to reveal his intentions to her. But as the girl had risked her life to meet with him, for once in his life Kondratieff decided to cast caution to the wind. He leaned closer.

‘Very well, Miss Baker. Let us assume that you and your fellow WhoDooists are successful in stripping Lilith of her powers, then it will only remain for us to dispose of Duke William and to position the Column atop of the Great Pyramid.’

‘Sounds easy if you say it quick.’

‘Indeed … but I have a plan,’ and for the next five minutes Kondratieff explained what he was intending to do.

When he had finished, Josephine Baker sat back in her chair and whistled. ‘That’s a real ballsy play, Nikolai, and you dig that for you it’s a one-way ticket to endsville?’

‘I know …’ Kondratieff trailed off. Josephine Baker had verbalised that which he had so desperately tried not to think about … that to destroy Duke William he would have to sacrifice his own life.

For several moments the pair of them sat in an uncomfortable silence. Then Josephine Baker took Kondratieff’s hand in hers and gave it a squeeze. ‘Let me thank you on behalf of the Code Noir and the people of the Demi-Monde for what you are intending to do, Nikolai. It takes a steamer-load of moxy to go up against the Beast.’ She checked her watch. ‘I better be going. Knowing what I know now I can’t take any chances of been picked up by the badniks. Shit, I still can’t believe that you’re serious.’

‘Oh, I’m
very
serious, Miss Baker, but before you go I need you to do me a service. I want you to stand up from this table, slap me and then storm out of the café.’

‘You’re kidding me!’

‘No, I’m not!’

‘Why?’

‘It’ll be my insurance policy if we have been spotted together.’

With a nod of understanding Josephine Baker stood up, moving so quickly that she knocked her chair over. Then she glowered down at Kondratieff. ‘Man, you’re one big disappointment, Nikolai,’ she announced in a loud voice. ‘I thought you were a stand-up guy, but now I see that when the heat is on, I’ve gotta number you amongst the missing. Pardon me while I commune with the cobbles.’ With that she slapped him hard around the cheek then flounced out of the café, not even pausing to secure her veil around her face.

Even Kondratieff wasn’t sure if she had been play-acting.

‘Behold, Your Grace … the Temple of Lilith!’

Billy Thomas braced himself against the sway of the Bucintoro as the Captain brought the ship alongside the stone jetty and then looked to where de Sade was pointing. Thankfully, the rain had eased a little so he could see, maybe a mile or so inland from the river, at the end of an arrow-straight road, a huge – make that a
fucking
huge – temple standing alone and majestic slap-bang in the centre of the grassland the Dupes called ‘the Hub’. It looked like one of those
temples they had in movies like
The Lord of the Rings
, all columns and statues and shit, though he couldn’t ever remember any of them glowing green in the sunlight. Well, not so much glowing as
shining:
the Temple looked perfect and perfectly clean, which, he guessed, wasn’t surprising given the army of people de Sade had had scrubbing and polishing it.

Still, it was a weird building to see rising out of the grass prairie, but then everything in the Demi-Monde was weird to the max. Especially his sister. Yeah, in his opinion, Ella was taking all this Doge IMmanual shit too fucking seriously by half.

‘This, my Prince,’ de Sade prattled on, ‘is the centre of all power in the Demi-Monde. This is where Lilith – the greatest mage ever to walk the Nine Worlds – conducted her rites.’

As he stood listening to this crap, Billy found it difficult to keep a straight face. But that was the deal he had cut with Bole: to enter the Demi-Monde and make like he believed all this Lilith baloney his sister and her main man, de Sade, were laying down. Humour them. And for a million bucks he was willing to do most anything, even stand on the deck of a ship dressed like Gandalf’s gay brother in a golden robe (now
that
was a picture he sure didn’t want posted on Facebook; the KY cru would be sniffing around him in no time flat) surrounded by sixty almost naked bitches and being told by de Sade that he was gonna be taking part in the Ceremony of the Leaping or some such heavy-duty bullshit. What made things worse, he hated the fucking crown he had planted on his head. Bling was one thing but this made him feel like a total prick. But Ella had insisted, and whatever Ella wanted, Ella got. She was the big enchilada in the Demi-Monde.

Yeah, all this religious crap was getting right up his ass.

There
were
compensations. He was living large and now that Selim had hooked him up to a regular supply of Dizzi he could
go through life with everything sunny. Then there were these really toned priestesses de Sade had brought along for the ride to the Temple and as he had discovered, fucking a Dupe was just as much fun as fucking a Real Worlder. And with him being a Duke and the brother of Doge IMmanual, every one of these priestess honeys was more than willing to frolic and fuck.

Yeah, role-playing a Duke was kinda cool in a screwed-up, offbeat sorta way and with all this ImPuritan shit the girls in Venice believed in, since he’d arrived in the Demi-Monde he’d been laid all ways and sideways.

‘It is truly magnificent, is it not, Your Grace?’ murmured de Sade.

For a moment Billy wasn’t sure if he was talking about the Temple or the really stacked Shade priestess with the tight ass he’d be putting the moves on later. It was difficult to tell with de Sade. When it came to women, de Sade was as down and dirty as Billy, but at the same time he came on like he really believed all this IMmanualism shit.

‘The Temple? Yeah, man, it’s banging. Real awesome.’

‘Are you ready to attend the Ceremony of the Leaping?’

Billy tore his gaze away from the girl. He had no doubt whose bones he’d like to be leaping right now, but the problem with being, like, a main man in Ella’s little fantasy world was that he couldn’t just stand there checking out the talent and trying to decide which one he’d like to fuck next. No, he had to look real serious and religious and shit which was difficult with sixty naked girls parading around him. He felt like a kid let loose in a candy store.

‘Yeah,’ he murmured as the priestesses began to disembark. ‘I’m cool.’