Rod Rees - The Demi-Monde - Winter

Clement strutted around the house and the grounds barking orders, kicking slaves and generally acting in a hugely obnoxious manner. And it was impossible to say him nay; the SS was, after all, the force dedicated to protecting the person of His Holiness Comrade Aleister Crowley and, by inference, the spiritual well-being of the ForthRight. They were UnFunDaMentalism’s shock troops.

It was fortunate that her father was, by dint of breeding and education, so adroit at handling jumped-up popinjays like Clement. As a Comrade Commissar he was used to the rough and ready manners of some of the men who populated the upper ranks of the Party.

‘Will you take coffee, Colonel Clement?’ her father had offered. ‘I could have it served in my study, which has endured only modest restructuring at the hands of Captain Dabrowski’s men.’

Clement was oblivious to the sarcasm. ‘That’d be mighty choice of you, Comrade Commissar; ah’m partial to a cup of cafe au gore after a hard day.’

‘Perhaps it would be useful if my daughter, Lady Trixiebell, were to join us?’ Dashwood nodded towards Trixie, who bobbed a curtsy. ‘She, after all, has a major part to play in the drama that is to unfold in this house.’

Ignoring the scowl from Clement – UnFunDaMentalism taught that women should confine themselves to ‘Feeding, Breeding and Menfolk Heeding’ – her father led the three of them – Dabrowski came too, much to Trixie’s disgust – through to his study and had Crockett serve coffee with a blood chaser.

Immediately he had drained his cup, Clement began. ‘You understand, Comrade Commissar, that while the Daemon is in your care, she… it… is to be your complete responsibility.’

This was an example of a phenomenon associated with the rise of the Party that Trixie had often heard her father complain about. Heydrich was an uncompromising Leader, quick to reward success, but equally quick to punish failure. And as the consequences for failure in the ForthRight were so draconian there was an aversion for officers and politicians to take responsibility for any action. Given a task to do, the first instinct of anyone in the ForthRight was to make sure that if anything went wrong there was someone else to take the blame, that it was someone else who disappeared – never to re-emerge – into the shadowed depths of Beria’s Lubyanka Prison.

Dashwood was too experienced a politician to be fooled by such a crude attempt to avoid responsibility. ‘Not so, Comrade Colonel Clement; I understood that all security arrangements are the responsibility of Comrade Captain Dabrowski. No, whilst your Daemon is here, the responsibility for keeping it here is the Captain’s. And presumably, Comrade Colonel, as you are inspecting and approving the security arrangements then you are also shouldering, at least in part, some of this honourable duty.’

Clement shook his head. ‘Nah, all the Comrade Captain is doing is assisting you… helping you make your house secure such that the Daemon can’t escape. But the final responsibility for holding her… it

… here is yours.’

Trixie found the inability of her father and Clement to decide whether the Daemon was a ‘she’ or an ‘it’ somewhat troubling. To her mind Daemons – figments of supernatural fiction though she thought them to be – were, by definition, inhuman and therefore should be referred to using the pronoun ‘it’.

Her father replied equitably. ‘The task I was given by Vice-Leader Beria was very clear: I am to provide an environment where the Daemon might feel less threatened and therefore more inclined to talk. To facilitate this loquaciousness, my daughter is to try and establish a friendship with the Daemon. Vice-Leader Beria made no reference to my being in charge of security.’ He shrugged to indicate his helplessness in the matter. ‘And how can I be? The good Captain here…’

Good, huh!

‘… is not under my command, Comrade Clement. If anything, he is under yours.’

This verbal tennis proved to Trixie just how important this Daemon was considered to be by the upper echelons of the Party. For two such high-ranking officials as her father and Archie Clement to be squabbling about who should carry the can if the Daemon were to escape showed just how fearful they were. Which raised the question: if she couldn’t get the Daemon to talk and to divulge its secrets what would be the consequences of failure to her?

His soft, boyish face red with anger, Archie Clement sprang to his feet, but before he could reply an imperious and cultured voice cut through proceedings.

‘Comrade Commissar Dashwood is quite correct, Colonel Clement. His only obligation in this momentous endeavour is to persuade the Daemon to speak: all other matters are in your most competent hands.’

How the speaker had entered the room without any of the four of them noticing was beyond Trixie’s comprehension: he seemed to have materialised out of thin air. But then, she decided, if any man could perform such an amazing manifestation, such an extraordinary feat of magic, it would be His Holiness Aleister Crowley.

Trixie had never met Crowley close to before, but although he was standing swathed in shadows in the corner of the room, she recognised him. He was the man, after all, who stood at Comrade Leader Heydrich’s left hand; he was the man who presided over all the Party’s ceremonies and rites; he was the man who was head of the Church of the Doctrine of UnFunDaMentalism; and it was his UnFunnies who claimed to be leading the ForthRight towards the reclaiming of its Aryan birthright lost by the Pre-Folk to the wiles of Lilith.

But while it was one thing to watch the man awe-stricken from afar, it was quite another to be with him in the same room. At a distance of ten feet he looked disappointingly normal: just an ordinary man in early middle age running to fat.

Despite the arrogance that dressed Crowley’s face, despite the intensity of his gaze and how dramatic he looked with his shaven head and his pointed ears, there was, Trixie decided, something weak about the man. Oh, he was tall and handsome enough in a fleshy, puffy sort of way, but he gave the impression of being less resolute than his proud, square jaw signalled. It was almost as though Crowley used his decidedly outre appearance – the shaved head and the flamboyant clothes and jewellery – as window-dressing to distract attention from the rather flimsy reality beneath.

But nonetheless Aleister Crowley was one of the most powerful and vindictive personages in the whole of the ForthRight. He was so vainglorious that he demanded his rank be acknowledged by lesser mortals – and acknowledged quickly. As one they dropped to the floor and genuflected. Crowley, a smile twitching at the side of his mouth, mimed a benediction over his audience.

‘I must apologise, Comrade Commissar, for visiting you unannounced

…’ He waved away Dashwood’s spluttered protests about the honour Crowley was showing his humble house. ‘… but it behoves me to confirm for myself that everything is prepared for the arrival of the Daemon, and that the young lady’ – a glance towards Trixie – ‘charged with uncovering its secrets is aware of the importance the ForthRight places on her success.’ He flicked a careless hand to signal everyone back into their seats, and then seated himself behind Dashwood’s desk.

After he had allowed Crockett to serve him with a glass of Solution, Crowley continued his address. ‘You will all know that since time immemorial, the Demi-Monde has been visited by Daemons from the Spirit World. Some are emissaries from ABBA but most are in league with Loki, the Lord of Darkness. These disciples of Loki have sought to disrupt and subvert the natural order of the Demi-Monde and it will not have escaped your notice that in recent months these visitations have been concentrated here in the ForthRight. It is as though the Daemons sense the growing power – the growing certainty – of the ForthRight as it seeks to bring racial, political and religious order to the Demi-Monde. Such is the threat posed to the ForthRight by these troublesome Daemons that Comrade Leader Heydrich, in his ineffable wisdom, decreed that my priests bend their will to the breaching of the Mystical Integument that divides this, the physical world of the Demi-Monde, from the ephemeral Spirit World, and strike back at the Daemons.’ Crowley gave a self-satisfied little smile. ‘This we have done. But we have done more: we have lured a Grade One Daemon into the Demi-Monde.’