Rod Rees - The Demi-Monde - Winter

‘Where am I?’ asked Norma, desperately trying to mask the quaver in her voice.

‘You are at ExterSteine, Daemon, perhaps the most magical of all places in the Demi-Monde. ExterSteine is a group of five tall pillars of Mantle-ite created when the Demi-Monde was young, before the Confinement. We are now atop Lilith’s Tower, the tallest of all the columns, where the Pre-Folk formed this cavern. It was here, or so mythology would have us believe, that Lilith performed her most vile and debased magic. But that was long ago: where you are standing, Daemon, is now UnFunDaMentalism’s holiest place.’

‘Why have you brought me here?’ She asked the question despite the fact that she had a pretty good idea already. Still, better to hear it from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

‘Every Quarter’s Eve I gather my innermost circle of adepts here to give thanks to the Spirits for the changing seasons. In the UnFunDaMentalist calendar the most important Quarter Eve is this one, the one which celebrates the movement of our world from the barren cold of Winter to the lush fertility of Spring.’ He pointed to a shuttered hole high up in the roof of the cavern. ‘The rays of the rising sun will pour through that opening tomorrow morning to signal the death of Winter and the birth of Spring.’

Totally non compos fucking mentis.

Crowley began to prowl around the floor of the cavern, pontificating as he went. ‘But tonight we do more than merely celebrate Spring Eve. Tonight we will push back the very boundaries of magic. Tonight, Daemon, we will perform the Rite of Transference, a rite never attempted before. The Lady Aaliz Heydrich will take possession of your body in the Real World and for the first time, a Demi-Mondian will manifest themselves physically and not just spiritually in the Real World. Tonight, we in the ForthRight will take our first step along the path that will lead to the Unification of the Two Worlds and the triumph of UnFunDaMentalism throughout the Kosmos.’

A twenty-four-carat screwball.

‘Well, if it’s all the same to you, I think I might pass.’

Crowley chuckled. ‘I am afraid that is not possible, Daemon; you have a leading role to play in the little drama we will be enacting tonight. Your cooperation is essential.’

‘Go screw yourself. I’m not cooperating while a prick like you tries to steal my body.’

He moved towards her. ‘The options you have, Daemon, are stark. You either cooperate in the performing of the Rite of Transference or you will be disposed of. If you refuse I will ensure that you die in the most painful and prolonged manner.’ His lips were so close to Norma’s ear that she could feel his sweet breath on her cheek. ‘I will have you drained of blood, drip by drip by drip. Do you understand?’

Out of the corner of her eye Norma caught a glimpse of the Witchfinder running his tongue over his fleshy lips.

Yeah, I understand, you mad bastard, and I’ve got a sneaking idea who would volunteer to do it.

Norma reluctantly acquiesced: anything was better than that piece of shit being given a free run of her body.

With a self-satisfied smirk of triumph, Crowley gestured to one of his adepts. ‘If you would ask the Lady Aaliz to join us.’

Aaliz, when she entered the cavern, looked entirely different in appearance from the clean-cut RightNix girl whom Norma had met at Dashwood Manor. Her blonde hair had been dyed a raven black. Her ears were circled with piercings, which, as far as Norma could see, were decorated with the studs taken from her own ears. And she now had a Celtic cross tattooed on her shoulder, the design copied from the one Norma sported.

To all intents and purposes, Aaliz Heydrich was now Norma Williams. And Norma realised that with her hair dyed blonde and her studs removed, she was now Aaliz Heydrich.

As she watched Aaliz Heydrich strut across the floor of the cavern, Norma experienced a weird out-of-body sensation. It was as though she were watching herself walk towards her. And that was when she noticed the weird difference between herself and Aaliz: Aaliz was her mirror image. Everything about her was reversed: they had inscribed the Celtic cross tattoo on Aaliz’s right shoulder rather than on the left. She could tell by the way Aaliz used her left hand to brush back an errant trail of hair that she favoured that hand: Norma would have used her right. Even the parting in her hair was to the right, while Norma’s was to the left.

Freaky.

And when Norma thought about it, she realised that the majority of Demi-Mondians were left-handed.

Crowley’s voice cut through her reverie. ‘Tomorrow, at dawn, the power of the Goddess of Fertility, Freyja, will claim the world from the frosted grip of Goddess Skadi. The blossoming of dawn’s light will signal the Goddess Freyja’s rise to dominance in the Demi-Monde and the rebirth of the world. And when this light falls on the Lady Aaliz it will also signal her rebirth in the Spirit World.’ He turned to his gathered disciples. ‘Let us prepare.’

The Witchfinder stood behind Norma. She felt his scuffed fingers fidgeting at the bows that tied the straps of her dress, felt a tug as the bows were undone and felt the dress slipping from her shoulders, sighing to the ground to leave her standing naked.

Crowley eyed her slim, naked body hungrily.

She had read about the prurient, vile things Crowley – when he had been a black magician in the Real World – had persuaded his disciples to do to conjure Spirits, had read about the degenerate and bestial antics he and his supplicants got up to in the place he called the Abbey of Thelema. Her flesh crawled when she thought about the bastard so much as touching her.

She saw that Aaliz Heydrich had been similarly stripped. Now the two girls stood stark naked facing each other across the cavern. The Witchfinder didn’t know where to look first.

‘You, Daemon,’ announced Crowley, ‘will be adorned with the Runes of Power and the incantations that will demand the Spirits manifest themselves.’

For the next half-hour Norma was obliged to stand stock-still as Crowley’s adepts daubed designs and emblems over her naked body, culminating in the draughting of the sign of the Valknut on her forehead. When she looked up, she found that Aaliz Heydrich’s body had been similarly decorated.

Crowley circled the two naked girls, examining his disciples’ handiwork. ‘You should know, Daemon, that all magic is about harnessing Man’s natural power through the application of the magician’s will. Will-power is the essence of all magic. Through the sublimation of your natural powers to my will, I will be able to direct and order the Spirits. But where is this natural power of Man most evident? The answer lies in the sexual appetites of Men and Women. Sexual lust is the natural companion of magic: wed sex and magic and a psychic engine of vast occult potency is created.’

Crowley must have seen the look of mounting horror that dressed Norma’s face. He chuckled. ‘Do not be alarmed, Daemon, I am not suggesting that you participate in a sexual ritual. Far from it: with both you and the Lady Aaliz being pure in body you exert a huge attraction to the Spirit World. Your beauty, your purity and your latent, unexpressed sexual appetites, Daemon, will stimulate my adepts to heights of sexual desire, and thus stimulated they will generate all the sexual energy necessary to bind the Demi-Monde with the Spirit World.’ He clapped his hands in triumph. ‘But first we must have the Sacrifice of Blood.’

Crockett puffed contentedly on his clay pipe. ‘Did Miss Trixiebell listen, Major?’ he asked from his perch on a crate in the warehouse that Baron Dashwood’s regiment had made its home.

‘No.’

‘So what are we going to do, Sir?’