‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You’ll admit that there isn’t a lot you’re good for right now.’
‘We heal quickly.’
‘Quick enough to get up to fighting strength in less than an hour?’ I demanded. ‘Listen, I promised you I’d keep Sue safe.’
‘And you broke that promise.’
‘The day’s not over yet.’
Juliet bared her teeth in a snarl, and however weak her body might have been right then, she spat out the next four words with the full, scary strength of her will.
‘I’m coming with you.’
I was prepared to argue some more, But Nicky spoke up before I could. ‘Why are you even arguing about this?’ he demanded. ‘Asmodeus’ plan depends on her being there, right? He might not even let you in through the door without her. And he’s likely to let her get in real close to him for the same reason. She can be your Trojan Horse.’
Juliet turned her head to stare at Nicky with cold ferocity. She said something in her own demonic tongue that was probably very insulting and – I was willing to bet – physically impossible.
Nicky leaned back from her sudden, unsettling anger and tensed, looking like he was about to bolt. Being dead, he hates physical confrontation. When you’re running on empty, your body doesn’t heal, and every wound is irreversible.
Trudie stepped in to take some of the heat. ‘Maybe he’s right,’ she said. ‘Forget what I just said. Asmodeus is too strong for any of us. If he wants us dead, we’re dead. We’ve only got a chance at all because he needs Juliet alive.’
Gil laughed sardonically. ‘Until he finds out that she can’t do the mojo any more. That’s not going to give us much of a window, is it?’
Trudie looked at me expectantly. I hefted the Sainsbury’s bag and carefully poured the jagged pieces of broken glass out onto the table. Juliet, Nicky and Gil stared at it, their faces registering all the many flavours of nonplussed.
‘Fortunately,’ I said, ‘we have a secret weapon.’
Gil cleared his throat, looking a little awkward. ‘Actually, we have two,’ he said. He reached into his pocket and took out a slim rectangular case, which he cracked open to display the shiny silver disc inside. ‘A little present from Davey Nathan, Castor. He gave it to me this morning, but with everything that’s happened . . .’
‘Is that my anti-Asmodeus lullaby?’ I asked.
‘The extended disco remix.’
‘Thank Christ,’ Nicky said glumly. ‘We’re saved.’
20
Imelda Probert had lived – and died – in an otherwise abandoned low-rise block in a grubby little cul-de-sac in Peckham, south London. Long ago scheduled for demolition, the building hung on like most of Imelda’s clientele in a sort of limbo state between life and death. The front door was nailed up with plywood boards, across which someone had sprayed the word WU-TANG CLAN inside a stylised W logo that looked like spread wings of a bird. More inexplicably, someone had painted the entire frontage of the block matt black, although red brick showed like raw flesh in places where the paint had cracked and fallen away. From the outside the building looked not just dead but already decayed.
Imelda hadn’t minded that at alclass="underline" it just guaranteed her the quiet and privacy she needed to work. Her third-floor flat had been like the spark of life in a zombie’s cooling brain. That was until I brought Asmodeus here for the first time, and shifted the balance in favour of death. Everything that had happened since stemmed from that one stupendously bad decision.
Now here I was again to put things right – with Wayne Coyne singing ‘Too Heavy for Superman’ in a dirgy adagio inside my head.
We drove up and parked right in front of the house, the four of us, like the horsemen of some B-movie apocalypse, except we were riding in a high-sided Fiat Ducato which Nicky had appropriated from God knew where. It had been modified for use in the first London mayoral election, and for some inexplicable reason had never been touched since. Its customised sides were emblazoned with Frank Dobson’s gormless, what-me-worry face along with the worst election slogan in the history of the civilised world: FRANK AND TO THE POINT. In the middle of Peckham’s genteel Georgian slum district, the van was about as inconspicuous as President Ahmed Ahmedinajad at a Village People concert.
Gil slid over and let Trudie take his place in the driver’s seat. She shot me a glance, troubled and unhappy.
‘I’d rather be in there with you,’ she said.
I touched the thick mass of bandage on her upper arm, like an American football player’s shoulder pad. ‘You can’t fight,’ I pointed out gently, ‘and you can’t perform an exorcism. But you can do this. It makes sense.’
‘I know it makes sense.’ Her voice was tight. ‘But I’ve been in on this hunt from the very start. And I’ve got the feeling tonight might be it for me. The last time I ever do this. It’s hard when it’s your last time and all you’re good for is back-up.’
‘You’re not back-up,’ Gil said. ‘You and Heath, you’re our long-range artillery.’
Trudie grinned at that, a little sourly. ‘And I suppose the three of you are the cavalry?’ she said. ‘Great metaphor, Gil. You can take turns being General Custer.’
I jumped out of the van and went round to the back, where I opened the doors. Juliet was slumped among the boxes there – probably full of old campaign fliers and I’M BACKING FRANK badges – but she climbed to her feet and stepped down, the wobble in her stride barely noticeable. She was wearing a black tracksuit that Trudie had picked up from the Oxfam shop on Hoe Street; a pair of black boots with tall heels, likewise. For once, I felt no compulsion to imagine what she was wearing underneath. No electricity came from her. Even her scent had gone. She smelled of nothing but new leather.
‘You’ll need to hang back,’ I told her, for the tenth or maybe the twentieth time. ‘If you go in too fast, he’ll figure it out. And if he figures it out, we’re all dead. The only reason he won’t just kill us all outright is because he still needs you to do him that one last favour.’
‘I’ll eat his face right off his skull,’ Juliet growled.
‘A sentiment we can all get behind,’ I agreed. ‘But for the love of God, Juliet, hang back. Don’t take the lead.’
‘For the love of who, Castor?’
Another good point. I let it stand.
We synchronised watches, mostly for Trudie’s benefit: ten to midnight.
‘Luck, Castor,’ she said.
‘Yeah, and you. We’ll have a pint afterwards, yeah? I think it’s my round next.’
‘Do you even have any money?’
‘No. But I like to keep track of my debts.’
I led the way, the point of a triangular battle formation that had Juliet and Gil McClennan as its other two vertices. My skin prickled as an invisible wave of pressure swept across it, the feeling an exorcist gets when the dead or the undead are watching him.
Asmodeus knew we were coming. He’d known we were coming even before we did.
Ignoring the front door, we circled around the left-hand flank of the building. A little way along, the black brickwork gave way to a spavined wooden fence with a door set into it. The door had a Yale lock, but it had never been locked as long as I’d known it. It wasn’t even bolted: the warped wood was all that kept it from swinging open by itself. It yielded to my push and we stepped through into a backyard so thick with brambles and thistles that it looked like the set of Day of the Triffids.
The side door was open too, and the hall inside was completely dark. I tiptoed to the foot of the stairs and listened for a moment or two in silence, throwing out my arm to hold Juliet back in case she tried to step past me. Nothing seemed to be moving in the gulf of air above us.
Slowly, I began to climb the stairs, with Juliet right at my back. They creaked and shifted under us, appallingly loud in the echoing emptiness. Ridiculously, even though I knew there was no point in stealth, I couldn’t keep myself from moving softly, trying to minimise the noise.