The Demi-Monde: Summer (54 page)

This was the most dangerous moment, Vanka decided, as the HimPeril agent guarding the entrance to the Temple examined Kondratieff’s invitation for the third time, trying to reassure himself it was genuine. Vanka stood there trying to look calm, cool and academic, but it was bloody difficult. He could feel his body clock racing and his shirt was damp with sweat.

‘Gotta check everywun, sir,’ the agent said by way of explanation. ‘Some real big shots gonna be here tonight, so no wun is allowed in widout de invitation.’ He handed the pasteboard back. ‘And ah’s gotta make sure that yo’ ain’t carrying a weapon, so ah’s gotta ask if yo’ have any ob de metal objects on yo’ person, sir,’ adding hopefully: ‘any guns, knives, swords … bombs?’

‘Only this,’ answered Vanka, delving inside his shirt and pulling out the crucifix he was wearing about his neck.

The agent scowled. The crucifix was the symbol of RaTionalism, a religion that was, in HimPerialist NoirVille, viewed with a combination of suspicion and distaste. But Vanka
did
have an invitation …

‘Ah’d keep dat well outta sight, sir; some ob de other guests might find it mucho offensive.’

As understatements went, that, mused Vanka as he stepped through the entrance and into the Temple, was a peach.

Peeking out of the wings of the stage, Norma was astonished by just how many people were crammed into the Crystal Palace, the massive audience having been treated to an impressive spectacle celebrating the might of the ForthRight. The thousands upon thousands of red-jacketed soldiers marching and countermarching in serried ranks, the torchlight processions, the girls dancing in choreographed perfection, the parading of the Blood Banner, the waving of so many Valknut-emblazoned flags, the bands playing their martial music … all this threatened to overwhelm Norma. It was a display of such towering political confidence that it seemed impossible that anyone, least of all a nineteen-year-old girl like her, could threaten the awesome power of the ForthRight … could threaten Heydrich. It was Nuremberg writ large.

There was a touch on her arm as Odette came to stand alongside her. ‘I think it is the time, Norma, for you to undertake the preparations final. Perhaps if you would come to the dressing room of Mademoiselle Chance for the application of the
maquillage d’étape
… the stage make-up?’

Norma nodded. It was showtime.

‘Marcantonio Raimondi is in attendance, Your Excellency.’

Grand Vizier Selim – newly appointed as the High Commissioner of Venice – gave an absent-minded nod. It was the last meeting of a long and tiring day and for a moment he thought about simply sending the man away but, ever the
perfectionist, he knew he couldn’t do that. It was essential that the coverage of the Ceremony of Awakening to be carried in tomorrow’s newspapers was appropriately splendid and appropriately accurate.

‘Send him in.’

A moment later the man was shown into Selim’s office. ‘You have completed the engravings, Raimondi?’ The artist gave a nervous nod. ‘I would see them,’ and Selim waved him across to the large conference table.

When the engraver had rolled the six diagrams – one for each of the six faces of the Column – out on the table, Selim stood silent for several minutes examining them, searching for mistakes. They had to be perfect: the engravings would, after all, be the centrepiece of the souvenir pages carried in tomorrow’s newspapers.

‘Excellent work, Raimondi,’ he said finally, ‘but there is one small error.’

The engraver frowned. ‘Error, Your Excellency? I don’t understand.’

‘You have failed to show the scar on the sixth face of the Column. You have shown it pristine.’

Raimondi frowned. ‘Scar? There was no scar, Your Excellency. I was most diligent: my engravings are a most faithful representation of all the features of the Column.’

‘When did you examine the Column?’

‘I did my sketches the day before it was removed to the studio of Auguste Rodin to be loaded in the pontoon.’

‘Rodin … why Rodin?’ Now it was Selim’s turn to frown as possibilities – very disturbing possibilities – whirled around in his head. If the scar hadn’t been on the Column when Raimondi had done his sketches then it followed that it must have been made later. But as the Column was made from invulnerable Mantle-ite …

The answer came to him in a flash. The Column now in the Temple had to be a duplicate.

But why? All a fake Column would do was delay things. All it would do was prevent the Ceremony of Awakening reaching a climax and the ABBAsoluti being reborn. It could not prevent the untimate triumph of HimPerialism … or could it?

Realisation dawned. There could be only one reason why this had been done: the imitation Column was a bomb! This was a plot to destroy Doge William … this was a plot to destroy His HimPerial Majesty Shaka Zulu! Selim sprang to his feet, yelling for his aide as he did so. ‘Order the arrest of Kondratieff and Rodin. Prepare my steamer, prepare a boat. I have to go to the Temple of Lilith with all speed. Hurry man, hurry, the life of His HimPerial Majesty depends on it.’

The Grand Mufti, accompanied by two priests, came for Ella when it was dark, taking her from her cell and leading her through the labyrinth of corridors that twisted deeper into the Temple. He finally brought her to a halt in front of a polished oak door decorated with symbols of twinned snakes spiralling around one another.

Opening the door he ushered Ella through into the strange hexagonal chamber beyond. On each of the room’s six walls hung a large mirror formed from burnished brass, these mirrors flickering with the light cast by the burning tapers the priests carried. As she peered into the mirrors, Ella saw her image echoing towards infinity, disappearing into a never-ending nothingness. An appropriate piece of symbolism, she decided, for the fate that awaited her that night.

The Grand Mufti waved towards the deep pool of crystal-clear water set in the middle of the room. ‘You must be baptised,
witch, to purify you in mind and spirit for the Ceremony of Awakening.’

The priests stepped forward and tore Ella’s robe away. This done, they pushed her down into the pool, wading in after her to plunge her head under the water.

‘Tonight,’ the Grand Mufti crooned as she climbed out of the pool, ‘is Lammas, the night when Doge William will be proclaimed as the True Messiah. Now the Column has been restored to us: that which we thought lost for ever, drowned under the waters fed by the Five Rivers, stands ready to be positioned, once more, in its rightful place at the centre of the Temple of Lilith. By the use of the Column all the power of the Temple will be unleashed and we will use this to usher in the Second Coming of Man. Tonight a new race of Man will be forged and it is your blood – the blood of a Lilithi – that will be the catalyst to bring this about.’

He stepped forward and poured a thick red oil onto Ella’s shaven head.

‘I am anointing you with an oil made to an ancient formulae,’ the Grand Mufti explained, ‘which will ensure that your spirit is ripe for sacrifice and that your will is appropriately subMISSive. You must go to your death as a woeMan should: Mute, Invisible, Subservient and Sexually Modest.’

As the oil trickled over her head, the air around Ella was perfumed by a heavy cloying smell that pulled at her nostrils and drifted into her mind, inducing a strange soporific relaxation.

More and more oil was poured, and Ella felt the red ribbons of the oil gently coursing over her face, stinging her eyes and painting the creases of her cheeks and mouth. The smell became more and more intense. She shook her head, trying to drive away the dizziness that engulfed her but it did no good: she felt herself rolling and tumbling through space. Now when she
looked at herself in the bronze mirrors she saw the oil trails transmogrifying into curling, wriggling snakes that corkscrewed around her body, snakes that glowed and shimmered in the firelight.

From far, far away she heard the Grand Mufti speaking to one of his priests. ‘She is ready … ready to become one with the Nothingness.’

Comrade Captain John Worden was not a happy man. It was bad enough to have been given the honour – responsibility, rather – for ‘capturing the greatest prize in the whole of the Demi-Monde’, but what made this ‘honour’ burdensome was that it necessitated His Holiness Aleister Crowley coming aboard his ship to keep an eye on him. Crowley’s baleful presence had infused the ship with fear.

He sensed the man standing behind him now, watching him …

‘Has the enemy WarJunk been sighted yet, Comrade Captain?’

Worden took a deep, calming breath. ‘Not yet, Your Holiness. You will be informed immediately we do.’ Then he added by way of explanation, ‘We had expected the rebels to force the Wheel during daylight—’

‘An unfortunate change of plan, as was notified by the semaphore signal.’

Worden eyed Crowley warily. He didn’t like getting signals from NoirVillian semaphore stations: he wouldn’t trust those zadnik bastards as far as he could throw them.

‘I understand, Your Holiness. And as the breakout is now expected to take place during darkness, I’ve doubled the number of lookouts. Have no fears in this regard: the WarJunk won’t get past us.’

Because if it does
, Worden thought ruefully,
I’ll be spending the rest of my somewhat truncated life in the Lubyanka
.

‘We are ready for you, Great Leader.’

Heydrich gave a nod, glanced around to see that his bodyguards were in position and then strode, smiling, out onto the floor of the Crystal Palace. As was his right, his arrival was greeted by a resounding round of applause, though he had the distinct impression that it wasn’t as enthusiastic as he’d enjoyed at previous rallies. Pushing this somewhat disturbing thought to one side, he looked along the serried ranks of those who he would honour by handing them their Victory medal personally, these the one hundred stalwart individuals and upholders of the creed of UnFunDaMentalism who had laboured most earnestly to help the ForthRight triumph over the Coven. Six million medals would be issued but only these select few would receive it from his own hand.

He was pleased to see that the Party’s publicity machine had made sure there were plenty of photographers on hand to record the medal ceremony and that the first five recipients were fine embodiments of the Aryan ideal.
Very
fine, if the rather beautiful young girl dressed in a Valknut-embroidered dirndl was a typical example.

As he came to stand in front of the girl, she bobbed a curtsy, allowing him a tantalising peek of cleavage. Conscious of the cameras, he did his best to ignore it.

Maybe later
…

‘Nadya Krupskaya, I have great pleasure in presenting you with this medal in recognition of your great work in caring for those brave soldiers wounded during the liberation of the Coven from the evil that was HerEticalism.’

He took the medal by its ribbon, the girl dipped her head and he hung it around her lovely neck. The medal was gold-plated, with a Valknut engraved on one side and a fist – symbolising the strength of UnFunDaMentalism – on the other. Once the medal was secure around the girl’s neck, he smiled for the cameras.

‘Great Leader,’ the girl said, returning the smile, ‘might I be permitted to ask a question?’

He beamed for the cameras. ‘Of course.’

‘Then could you tell me when the slaughter of our young men is going to end?’

Trixie judged it to have been a correct decision to run the Nile at night, when the
Wu
had the tide behind her. The WarJunk’s engines weren’t terribly powerful and, encumbered by the huge pontoon she was towing, she was a nightmare to manoeuvre, taking an age to answer the helm. Negotiating the turn out of the Nile into the Wheel River would require the use of all the river-room they could get.

Unfortunately, river-room was the one thing she would be denied.

‘Enemy Monitors ahead.’

Trixie snapped open her telescope and peered into the night. She couldn’t see a thing: either ObserverFemme Cunningham had to have been living on a diet of carrots or was possessed of the sharpest pair of night-eyes in the whole of the Demi-Monde.

‘Confirmed,’ snapped LieutenantFemme Lai Choi, ‘I can see the Monitor’s turret.’

Now
Trixie spotted the enemy ship’s turret, the only part of the vessel visible above the surface of the river. The turret was a clever invention that allowed the ForthRight’s Monitors to
bring their guns to bear in any direction, unlike the
Wu
where the whole ship had to be manoeuvred before a broadside could be fired.

Four more Monitors hove into view, the five warships strung in a line across the river.

So that’s what Nearchus was so nervous about!

They had sailed into a trap. The bastard had – literally – sold them down the river.

For a moment she was so angry at her stupidity in trusting Nearchus that she could barely think, but then the red mist lifted and options scuttled through her head. Anxiously she checked her watch: the tide would turn soon and the prospect of fighting a naval battle in the teeth of a current flowing Boundarywise did not appeal. It would be suicide to lose either the momentum the
Wu
had or the element of surprise.

‘Full speed ahead. Tell the engine room to give me all she’s got. Have the helmsFemme aim for the stern of the Monitor dead ahead. We’ll ram the son of a bitch.’

LieutenantFemme Lai Choi gave an enthusiastic bow. This was obviously the order she had been hoping for; the four-metre-long ram that jutted out from the front of the
Wu
was a lethal weapon, especially when it was backed by four thousand tons of angry WarJunk.