‘That’s one way of putting it,’ I answered. ‘Another would be to say that he led the lambs to the slaughter exactly like you told him.’
Jenna-Jane shrugged. ‘All’s well that ends well.’
‘How do you know it’s even over?’ I demanded.
She glanced towards the limo behind her. It had other occupants, who I could just about make out through the open door: the security man Dicks, now acting as chauffeur, and in the back seat, Gentle, who Jenna-Jane had introduced as her PA.
‘I didn’t commit my whole strength to this one exercise, ’ Jenna-Jane said. ‘That would be very poor strategy, Felix, even if we didn’t know that Asmodeus was still out there. Gentle tells me that the haunting here has now entirely ceased.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘We won.’ I looked past her to where more of the injured from downstairs were being loaded into the waiting ambulances. ‘Let’s see if any of these poor sods want to join us in a cheer.’
Jenna-Jane was in a good mood and refused to take offence, or maybe she just realised that letting my sarcasm wash over her would be the best way of winding me up. ‘You’ve been missing for most of the day,’ she said, ‘and not answering your phone. I gather the search for Asmodeus’ underground route was unsuccessful.’
‘It was until an hour ago,’ I corrected her. ‘The Holborn underpass – the part that was never reopened. He’s got a little hideaway tucked in at the south end that you should probably take a look at. But don’t go in half-cocked, because it’s a dead end. He almost killed me and Pax when he cornered us there.’
Jenna-Jane raised her eyebrows. ‘You should have called me before you went in,’ she said.
‘Before I went in, it was only a hunch. And then when we found the place, things kind of got away from us.’
‘Things?’
‘Asmodeus cornering us in the dark,’ I elaborated. ‘And then having to pull McClennan’s irons out of the fire over here. I told you to wait, J-J.’
‘Do you know what comes to him who waits, Felix?’ Jenna-Jane asked. ‘Other people’s leavings.’
‘Then you agree I was right to go in without you.’
She chuckled and wagged a finger at me, as though slapping her in the face with her own logic was just my little joke. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ll be very careful. Thank you for all your hard work on this, Felix. And for sharing intelligence, as we agreed. I’ll go and look at this place, if you think it’s worthwhile, although I assume we’ll be unlikely to succeed in setting an ambush there now. Where is Pax? Downstairs? Perhaps she can be my guide.’
‘She was hurt when we fought the demon,’ I said, ‘and I got a passing civilian to drive her to a hospital. I’m going to go see how she’s doing.’
‘Then leave a message for me at the unit. Let the switchboard know where you are, and I’ll join you when I can.’ She cast a sombre look at the open doorway of Super-Self, from which another pair of stretcher bearers was just emerging. ‘Poor Gilbert. I think he’ll take this hard.’
I called Sue Book’s house, and got the answerphone: Sue Book’s voice, sweetly inviting me to leave a message. I explained what we’d found, tersely and probably inadequately, and asked her to call me as soon as she could. Trudie didn’t pick up when I rang either, which was a lot less surprising: I called Nicky and got him to hack into the hospital databases. A patient listed as T. Pax had been admitted to the A & E unit at University College Hospital on Grafton Way, which was only a mile and a half away.
And since I already had Nicky’s ear, I dropped the bombshell about what we’d found in the underpass. ‘You can add some names to your list,’ I said. ‘Alongside Tlallik, Ket and Jetaniul.’
‘Yeah? Shoot.’ Nicky tried to keep his tone neutral but couldn’t quite manage it. It niggled him that he hadn’t managed to solve this one yet; it was going to piss him off royally when he found out I’d got to the answer first.
‘Tsukelit,’ I said. ‘Ilalliel. Aketsulitur. Notice a pattern?’
‘Not so much.’
‘Think about Juliet, Nicky.’
‘You think these names all belong to succubi?’
‘No, I think they all belong to her.’
There was dead silence at the other end of the line.
‘I would’ve seen it sooner,’ I went on, ‘except that I’m an arrogant sod, and the first ward I found was at Pen’s place, not at Juliet’s. I’d forgotten about Juliet bringing me home after one of my drunks. Asmodeus probably put them everywhere he thought she might turn up, including your place. I’ll bet there are a couple taped to the underside of her car. A few more spread around Willesden Green Library. In her sock drawer, maybe. I don’t know. There could be hundreds of the fucking things.’
Still no answer from Nicky’s end of the line, which probably meant he was thinking.
‘You remember the passage you showed me back when Gabriel first raised her up?’ I reminded him. ‘“She is of Baphomet the sister, and the youngest of her line, though puissant still and not easily to be taken with words or symbols of art. But with silver will you bind her and with her name, anagrammatised, appease her.” You explained that to me. Every name she takes on Earth – including Juliet Salazar – is a subset of the sounds or symbols that make up her real name. I think Asmodeus has been invoking Juliet by all her old, cast-off names. That’s why Foivel Grazimir had Tlallik down as a dead number. It was a name she wasn’t using any more, even way back then.’
‘Holy mother of fuck,’ Nicky intoned, his voice dropping to the limit of audibility as he forgot to breathe.
‘So what I’m asking you now is why anyone would want to do that? What’s he planning? Can one demon bind another demon? Get me some answers, Nicky, before this blows up in my face even worse than it already has. And get a message through to Juliet, somehow. I’ve dialled her a couple of times, but nobody’s picking up. She needs to know about all this shit.’
‘I’m onto it.’ For once Nicky didn’t carp or haggle about terms. His pride was on the line here, and he was only too keen to make a start. He hung up on me without another word.
When I got to the hospital, they stonewalled me. A nurse explained that Trudie was already under anaesthetic and about to go into theatre. The damage not just to the bone but to the muscle of her shoulder was spectacular. They were going to try to sew her back together before any of the tissue started to necrotise.
I called the MOU, as Jenna-Jane had suggested, to tell them where I was. Then I sat and waited for news. I called Pen too, but there was still no answer from her house – or her mobile. Both she and Sue were probably asleep by now. I left a message on her voicemail, asking her to call me, but I thought it was likely I’d get home before she got the message.
I dozed intermittently while I waited, recharging my batteries slightly. They seemed to need it. The last three days felt like a waking dream, shot through with hallucinatory moments. My three encounters with Asmodeus ran together in my mind, so that they seemed like just the one conversation, interspersed with pregnant pauses while the two of us played a prolonged game of hide-and-seek across the face of the city. I’d found him, but that didn’t feel like much of a victory, not now I knew he’d been working on Juliet the whole time, driving her crazy for reasons I couldn’t even begin to guess.
At 4.00 a.m. I was woken up by my own phone ringing. It was Jenna-Jane.
‘Felix, this is remarkable,’ she said. ‘You saw the sigils in the demon’s lair?’
‘I couldn’t take my eyes off them, J-J,’ I said, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
‘Are you aware of what they represent?’
‘Yeah. Are you?’
‘They’re steganographic homonyms. They all denote the same entity. It appears to be the succubus who is referred to in late-medieval grimoires as Ajulutsikael.’
‘Yeah. That was my conclusion too.’
‘Which means that Asmodeus is trying to summon her simultaneously in multiple aspects or incarnations.’ She paused as if she expected me to say something. When I didn’t, she went on with sardonic emphasis. ‘Despite the fast that she’s already been definitively summoned.’