A convoy of police vehicles moved up the Kew Road towards the gasometer. In the lead car sat Inspectre Hovis, dressed in battle fatigues, his face boot-blacked. Across his knees lay a sub-machine gun.
Constable Meek crouched across the wheel. “Are you sure we’re going about this the right way?” he asked.
“Onward, Meek,” said the Inspectre. “You might well earn yourself a promotion tonight, lad. Off the beat and into the cars, you’d like that, eh?”
“Well, sir …” Meek wrinkled his boyish nose.
“Well, sir, what?”
“Him, sir. How can we trust him?” The constable nodded over his shoulder towards the back seat where Rune perched, his fat legs tortured into a full lotus, his eyes closed in meditation.
“I know a spell,” said the Logos of the Aeon, “which can transpose the organ of smell with that of reproduction to great comic effect. Would you care for me to demonstrate upon you?”
“No I wouldn’t.” Meek crossed himself with his gear-changing hand.
“Pull up here, constable.” Inspectre Hovis studied his map. “I am expecting the arrival of a bulldozer.”
“Bulldozer!” spluttered Rune. “By Crom!”
Hovis consulted his watch and took up a walkie-talkie. “To your positions, men, and radio blackout until you hear from me.”
In the Professor’s study the sage mopped the sweat from his brow and seated himself in the circle.
“What now?” asked Jim, taking the opportunity to refill his glass.
“We begin again. The process is tedious, I regret, but there is nothing for it.”
“He seems to be causing a terrible amount of damage, if you don’t mind me saying.”
The Professor nodded in sombre agreement. “This time we will see to it that he materializes in a more manageable form.” He leafed through his book of spells. “Ah yes, a formula used by the magicians of Atlantis for hypnotizing captives and transforming them into cattle during times of famine.”
“You are going to turn him into a cow?”
“Hardly, Jim, the image of a man will be quite enough. Now I want you to do something for me. Take this phial.” He handed Jim a silver flask engraved with runic symbols and capped by a cork stopper. “No, do not open it now, only when I give you the word and then as quickly as you can. Understand?”
Pooley nodded. “If my brain holds out, which I doubt.”
“Stout fellow, Jim. Then we begin again.”
The bulldozer rumbled towards the police convoy. Some surprise attack this is going to be, thought Constable Meek. Hovis leapt from the car, loudhailer in one hand and sub-machine gun in the other.
Jungle John, itinerant local builder and now a big name in the demolition game, nudged his hirsute brother who sat as ever at his side, munching sandwiches and swigging beer. “Look at this, Dave. It’s Sergeant Rock and his Howling Commandos.”
Hairy Dave peered down at the approaching detective. “He’s got a bleeding machine gun,” he observed.
“All right, men!” Hovis cried up at them through his loudhailer. “Timing is everything, have that fence down!”
“That’s gas board property,” said John. “We can’t do that.”
Hovis cocked his gun. “Now!” he commanded.
John looked at his brother. “He’s a bloody loon.”
Dave sank low in his seat. “Have the fence down and let’s get off home.”
“As you please.” John jiggled the joy-stick, revved the engine, spun the tracks and trundled towards the high wire fence which encircled the grounds of the gasometer. “Tally ho!” he cried.
The Professor raised his arms. “By the names of power, by Yetzirah, by Briah, by Atziluth, by Assiah. RAPHAEL GABRIEL MICHAEL AURIEL in the form so prescribed I summon you.”
There was a cry of pain, a terrible groaning, as of one in the exquisite agonies of death. The human form of Kaleton became focused in one of the fireside chairs. He swayed, his gloved hands upon his deformed knees. “You injure me greatly,” he gasped, turning his twisted visage towards his tormentor.
“I will injure you further if you do not answer my questions.”
Pooley stared at the creature. If this was the man, the thing that had killed his friend, then better the Professor slay it now than waste time with questions.
“Your thirst for knowledge is likely to be your undoing. Such inquisitiveness will …”
“Answer my questions,” the Professor commanded, “or I will stretch your neck.”
Kaleton’s breath rasped and rattled in his throat, his chest rose unevenly. “Have you no mercy?” he croaked.
“And why should I? You have none.”
“But mine is the true cause,” whispered Kaleton. “I bear the pain of centuries. My retribution is just.”
“Explain yourself.”
Kaleton rose to face the Professor. “You still do not know who I am? You with your books and your learning. Surely you have long expected me.”
Pooley glanced at the Professor. The old man looked frail beyond imagination. The confrontation was draining every last ounce of his energy. “Expected you? What do you mean?”
“And I thought you a man of understanding, if the word is not anathema to man.”
“Speak now, or I reverse your skin.”
“That’s the stuff,” urged Pooley.
Kaleton raised his head and glared at his enemies. His body quivered. “I am the one and the many,” he declared, “I am the history of the planet. A planet raped, looted and despoiled by mankind. Your race have pillaged and destroyed. Poisoned the atmosphere, polluted the rivers and the seas. Razed the grasslands. Now is the time of the coming, the time of retribution. Who am I, Professor? I am the ‘Spiritus Mundus’, I am the World Soul, I am the spirit of the earth made flesh!”
“No,” said the Professor, “no, you lie!”
“Why should I lie? Mankind is now done. You are powerless to resist, powerless to intercede in a plan which has taken centuries to form. Above you a dark star fills the heavens, two feet upon the water and three upon the land. The prophecies fulfil. The time of the reckoning, the time of the great gathering.”
The Professor was noticeably trembling. “Why, why do you do this?”
Kaleton laughed. It was not the tinkling of fairy bells. “Why? Man’s history has been brief, but the destruction, the wanton waste, the needless horrors … the planet will stand no more. The world turns back upon you. A new beginning, Professor, a free world. A world free of men.”
“Madness! How can you think to accomplish this?”
“You have aided in your own destruction. Down the centuries you have built great temples, great cathedrals, seats of learning, but each to a divine formula. My formula. It is all in the stones, the power lies in the stones. From the Henge to the stadium, the power is with us, with me. At the signal the great old buildings will live, the stadium will become charged with power, it will walk, it will reap.”
The Professor’s eyes glittered. “Signal, what signal?”
“You will feel it when it comes. A great shot will ring out across the universe. The earth will tremble, the stadium will live, the great old buildings will live, they will rise and crush you, clean you from the face, sweep you away, like the insects that you are. We will smash you down!” Kaleton raised his crooked hands high above his head. “Smash you down!”
“Smash it down!” Hovis shouted as the bulldozer strained against the wire fence. The tracks slewed upon the pavement, tearing up the flagstones, unable to grip.
Jungle John hunched low over the controls. “This is bloody funny,” he said through gritted teeth. “Something is holding us back.”
“Give it revs!” shouted Hairy Dave. “Give it revs!”
“I’m doing it, for Chrissakes! What’s going on here?”