‘But I was on my feet and the Satanists were on their knees. And I knew what I had to do. I ran straight forward – had to jump over one guy who was lying flat on the ground right in my way, holding onto what was left of his kneecap – got to the circle and Abbie was still lying there, blood all over her chest, her eyes wideopen. The demon, or the demon’s shadow or whatever you want to call it, was writhing around now like a fire hose that someone’s let go of, whipping this way and then another way and keeping up that silent screaming all the time.
‘I didn’t have my deck, and I wouldn’t have had time to deal out a hand of cards in any case. All I could do was call Abbie and hope that she came. I took hold of her locket, shouted out her name as loud as I could, shouted “Come with me!” or something like that, and pulled. I mean, I didn’t just yelclass="underline" I called her, the way you do when you’re doing it on a job. I was calling her into the locket – at least, into the lock of her hair that was inside the locket. I was making that the anchor her ghost would attach itself to.’
Peace looked at me to make sure I understood. I nodded tersely, as though it was what I’d have done under the circumstances. The truth was, I was having a hard time believing it was even possible. Summoning a ghost into a physical object? Channelling it, as though spirit was water and you could choose which way gravity was going to run? I suppose the hair was a part of Abbie, something she already had a link to, but still . . . In other circumstances, I’d have been asking him for details and taking notes. As it was I let him go on talking, oblivious of my slightly begrudged wonder.
‘Without the cards, I didn’t have any idea if it would work – and the frigging chain was a fair bit thicker than I thought it was: I had to wrap it around my wrist and give it a good hard yank. That did it: it snapped and I ran for the door with the locket in my fist – still holding the gun in my other hand even though its magazine was empty now.
‘Just as well I kept it, too, because one of those guys with a bit more presence of mind than his mates tried to come in from the side and shut me down. He got the stock of the Tavor in his face and I kept on going.
‘My car was a long way up the street. Theirs were right outside and I didn’t have time to spike them. I just ran for it, got to the car, got inside and took off like a cat with pepper up its arse.
‘I didn’t even know if they were chasing me, at first. Then I saw some headlights behind me, and they didn’t move out of my mirror even when I took some reckless, stupid turns. So then I knew they were onto me and I had to shake them.
‘The trouble was, the car kept losing power. I was flooring the accelerator and I was actually slowing down. It was as if we were pulling a trailer full of bricks. Or a dead whale, or something. I thought the engine was going to die and leave us stranded on the street for those bastards to pick off.
‘I did the only thing I could think of. I turned my lights off and took every turn that came up, making it as hard as I could for them to keep me in sight.
‘I was desperate, and I was driving like an idiot. I took a right at the bottom of Scrubs Lane, just by the prison, you know? And it was too tight. I scraped my side against a whole row of parked cars, ripped my bumper clean off, and nearly killed some old guy who was crossing the road. The noise was incredible, and I thought we’re cooked now, good and proper.
‘But for some reason the engine cleared after that. I got her up to sixty and we belted off west. Got to here, which was where I was aiming for all along. No better place in London to hide a ghost, Castor. As you should know by now.’
I didn’t answer Peace. I was putting his story together with what I already knew.
Saturday evening. Bottom of Scrubs Lane. Fifty yards from the doors of Saint Michael’s, just as evensong was kicking into gear. It sounded like madness, but then this whole thing was shot through with insanity from start to finish. Peace had interrupted a summoning ritual for a demon. For Asmodeus. The devil-worshippers had intended to consume Abbie body and soul, but they hadn’t reckoned on her dad stepping in with an assault rifle to throw into the works by way of a spanner. Body and souclass="underline" but they’d only got one out of two.
And Asmodeus?
Asmodeus had ended up trapped halfway between there and here. One foot in Rafi’s soul, one foot in Abbie’s. That was the weight that Peace had been dragging behind him as he fled for home. He didn’t just have one spirit inside that piece of jewellery, he had two – one minnow and one big bastard of a killer whale. Until he turned the corner and hit the long straight of Du Cane Road. Then – what? I thought I could guess.
If some part of Asmodeus had been with them as they fled – attached to Abbie, or flying behind her through the London night like an invisible kite with no ribbons and no string – then when they shaved that corner the demon would have turned, too. Turned a little more slowly, maybe – and a little more widely. That would have taken him right across the south-western corner of Saint Michael’s church.
Peace dragged Asmodeus over hallowed ground, at the exact moment that a religious service was taking place. I will sing a new song unto the Lord my God. For a demon, it must have been like being hauled through a barbed-wire entanglement. No wonder Rafi screamed. No wonder he lashed out and hurt people: he was going through what you could fairly call Hell on Earth.
And finally Asmodeus got wedged solid – trapped in the stones of the church and in the nets of prayer that were rising up all around him. His link to Abbie was severed, and Peace drove on through the night, picking up speed, leaving an invisible, formless monster from Hell embedded in the fabric of Saint Michael’s like a fossilised mosquito in a lump of amber.
Except that Asmodeus was still far from defunct. His insidious will fell down on the congregation of Saint Michael’s like black rain, and their souls took the taint.
More innocents in the crossfire. Just like Abbie. Just like Rafi.
I pulled my mind back to the present and tried to recall what Peace had just said.
‘Why?’ I demanded. ‘Why did you come here, particularly? What makes this place so special?’
‘The ramparts,’ said Peace, sounding just a little smug even through his pain. ‘Earth and air you saw, right? Outside? But it’s the water that’s really clever. That brickwork is double-skin, and there’s a hollow space in between the two layers that’s lined with lead. It’s meant to be filled with water from the mains supply, with a pump to keep it circulating, but there are all sorts of holes in it now so it keeps draining away again. Whenever I felt you fishing for Abbie, I turned the pumps on and put up a wall of running water between you and her. And one time I gave you a bit of salt on your tail, too, just by the way.’
‘I remember,’ I said, a touch grimly.
Peace managed a weak laugh. ‘“Set a thief to catch a thief,” yeah? Only it doesn’t work unless you get hold of a better thief than the one you’re looking for.’
‘And yet,’ I reminded him, ‘here I am.’
‘Only because someone ratted me out. You didn’t find me by looking.’
I let that pass. If Peace wanted to have a pissing contest, he could play both sides. In any case, I thought I’d heard a car door slam somewhere out on the road – far enough away that it was at the limit of hearing. Peace didn’t seem to have noticed it, though, so maybe I was mistaken.
‘I’m going to wake Abbie up,’ he said. ‘Unless there’s anything else you want to ask me about?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m good. My bedtime-story needs are met.’
I turned my back on him, walked to the door and looked out. Nothing moved in the baleful moonlight. Behind me, there were only the small sounds of Peace dealing out a hand of cards on the bare concrete floor. When I glanced his way again Abbie was back, standing at his side as if she’d never left. I had to admit, grudgingly, that he was as good as he thought he was. They were talking in low murmurs, and I felt a definite reluctance to disturb their privacy.