Robert Rankin - Retromancer

‘I am a teenager,’ I explained to the guru’s guru. ‘I am inconsistent and contradictory as the mood takes me.’

‘Quite so,’ said Mr Rune. ‘But to me the existence of God is, as our American cousins might put it, “a given”. Without the existence of God and the orders of beings He created, angelic and otherwise, magic, the High Magick, could not function. Professor Campbell sought to discover the God Particle because it is this particle that constitutes the ether, the very medium along which magic is transmitted, as it were.’

‘And you are saying that he found it and in doing so put himself into the unfortunate situation that he is now in?’

Hugo Rune flicked ash from his cigar with his little pinkie finger and shook his large head sagely. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I am not. Professor Campbell did not discover the God Particle. Because the God Particle cannot be discovered. The evidence of God’s existence is essentially esoteric and exclusively within the realm of belief. There can never be solid evidence that you can hold in your hand. God is God, Rizla, He knows everything and He is everywhere. Everything is composed of God Particles, everything.’

‘I am as confused as ever I was,’ I said.

‘Now that does surprise me. For I have only devoted several lifetimes to this study and still confess to knowing but little. I naturally would have thought that a present-day teenager could pick up such matters within half an hour.’

‘You are being sarcastic,’ I observed. ‘So fair enough. But what did happen to the professor? And can he be restored to health and normality?’

‘Professor Campbell is dead,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘His mortal form dissolved into the ether. No magic that I or any other Magus living possesses can restore him to life. Presently the psychic echo of him that I outlined through the employment of this sanctified cigar will vanish for ever. Clearly he worked out the formula, the equation necessary to prove the existence of the God Particle. Such a formula or equation would constitute the strongest spell in the universe. The war would certainly be won in an instant by the country that possessed such a spell and knew how to use it correctly. And he read it aloud. I suspect that his calculations were only ninety-nine-point-nine per cent correct. And so he became subject to the scourge of all clumsy magicians, the three-fold law of return, whereby an incorrect calling is reflected back upon the caller with triple force. Most unfortunate for the professor, but fortunate for the Allies.’

‘How so fortunate?’ I asked. ‘The spell does not work. Quite to the contrary in fact.’

‘Precisely,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘But the Nazis aren’t to know that, are they? And so when one of the high muckamuck magicians recites it, he too will go the way of Professor Campbell. Hopefully taking a few of his close-by companions-in-infamy with him.’

‘But the Nazis do not have the professor’s spell, do they?’ I said.

‘Oh yes they do,’ said Hugo Rune, ‘or at least they soon will.’

‘How so?’ I asked again, and I really sighed as I asked it.

‘Because the Nazi spy working in the professor’s house will be transporting it to them even now.’

‘Will they?’ I said. And now I was really confused. ‘And how could you possibly know that?’

‘Because you and I met her only a short while ago. She opened the front door and directed us to the cellar laboratory. Did you not notice that she was in a great hurry to get us down there? It was so that she could flee before her identity was discovered. She had found what she was looking for and was making good her escape with it.’

‘But how did you know that she is a spy?’ I asked.

‘Because I recognised her, Rizla. She is Countess Lucretia. The wife of my arch-enemy Count Otto Black. You will recall that I put paid to the evil count in the nineteen sixties. But these are the nineteen forties and he is alive and well and in the employ of the Nazis.’

‘Oh,’ I said. Which was all I had. But then I said, ‘But surely she recognised you.’

‘Of course she did, Rizla. I did introduce myself to her. And I’m sure that it amuses her greatly to think that she has pulled one over on me. I certainly hope that it does, anyway.’

‘And so the case is over,’ I said. ‘And I suppose it is a satisfactory conclusion. Although not for poor Professor Campbell.’

‘Caught in the cosmic crossfire, as it were. Regrettable, but these are troubled times. Ah, Rizla, I see a bus coming, let us return to town and take tea.’

But I shouted, ‘No!’ And then I shouted, ‘Run, Mr Rune. Back into the house, run.’

And Mr Rune, seeing that I meant what I said and clearly sensing that something was deeply amiss did that very thing.

We dived through the open doorway, slammed the door behind us, rushed down the hall and into the kitchen. And not before time did we do this, because so great was the explosion that followed that it brought down the front of the house, lifted the roof and chimney pots and cast them far beyond the back garden.

Coughing and gagging somewhat, we raised our ducked heads and Mr Rune took to dusting down his tweeds, before patting me on the shoulder.

‘ Stirling work,’ he said to me. ‘You saved our lives, Rizla. But how you knew what was coming, I confess that I do not know.’

‘It was a bus,’ I said.

‘Yes, Rizla, I am well aware that it was a bus.’

‘It was a Number Twenty-Seven bus,’ I said.

And then there was a moment’s pause.

And then Mr Rune said, ‘And that is supposed to be significant, is it?’

‘Well, I did not know it was going to blow up,’ I said. ‘I thought it was going to run us over.’

‘I am still in the dark, I regret. And such a lack of illumination suits me not at all.’

‘I had a vision,’ I explained, ‘on the top deck of the tram. An old ragged man warned me to run when I saw the number twenty-seven. I thought it might be a door number, or something. I was not expecting a bus. And certainly not an exploding bus.’

‘Packed with dynamite, I suspect, and certainly intended to destroy us. So, it was a vision that warned you.’ And Hugo Rune nodded thoughtfully. ‘And did this vision have a name?’

‘He did,’ I said. ‘He said that his name was Diogenes.’

‘Excellent, splendid, A-one and dinky-do. It would appear that you have a guardian angel watching over you. How appropriate considering the nature of our first case.’ And Hugo Rune flung an imaginary hat into the air. ‘Then this first case is now most successfully concluded. Diogenes of Sinope, my dear Rizla, was a Greek philosopher. He eschewed all domestic comforts for a life of austere asceticism. He lived in squalor and preached on self-sufficiency. A tarot card is based upon him. And the name of that tarot card is-’

‘THE HERMIT?’ I said.

And Hugo Rune nodded.

‘It’s time for tea,’ he said.

JUSTICE

I did not immediately take to Lord Jason Lark-Rising.

He appeared upon Mr Rune’s doorstop on a Monday morning in early March, while Mr Rune and I were recovering from the after-effects of a particularly heroic five-course breakfast. Waistcoat buttons had been undone, and bellies gently massaged.

‘Get the front door, Rizla,’ cried Hugo Rune, ‘before that young jackanapes has the knocker off it.’

As Lord Jason had yet to reach out for the knocker, I hastened, though sluggishly and unenthusiastically, to oblige the great man. Loud knockings would not suit either of us at that particular time.