Mike Carey - The Naming of the Beasts

Juliet scowled. ‘Could have raised one of the other powers against me? No, Castor. Not without me noticing. I think . . .’ She gave a sudden shrug. It looked almost involuntary, as though she was shaking off some unwelcome touch. ‘It’s my nature,’ she said, her tone tight. ‘There are limits to how far you can change yourself. I’ve come to the end of an arc, Castor, and I’m swinging back.’

She was staring at me, and I realised suddenly that her eyes were back to their usual black on black. The red fires had died for the time being. But there was no mistaking the rigid tension in her posture: she was fighting her own instincts, guarding the borders of rationality from one second to the next.

‘Go wait in the kitchen,’ I suggested. ‘Shut the door. Turn the radio on. Make yourself a coffee.’

Juliet considered this, nodded and retreated. ‘Decaf!’ I shouted, as the door closed on her.

Sue was sitting on the living-room sofa, the wreckage of the chair scattered across the carpet a few feet away from her like debris from an explosion. The TV set had had its screen staved in too, and was lying on its side in the corner of the room. A ragged hole in the plaster above it showed how it had got there, and roughly how fast it had been travelling.

Sue rose to greet us as we entered, saying hello to me and then shifting her gaze enquiringly to Trudie in a way that invited me to make introductions. I’d been afraid we might find her in shock, but there was a desolate calm about her. She looked like someone who’s finally let go of the last shred of hope, and is just beginning to discover the terrible relief that despair brings.

‘You should pack some things,’ I said. ‘Clothes. Toiletries. Anything you can’t do without. We don’t know how long it will take to sort this.’

‘Sort it?’ Sue gave me a pitying look. ‘You can’t, Felix. You can’t sort it. Whatever she felt for me . . . it’s gone. I don’t even know her.’

‘Me neither,’ I agreed. ‘But it’s happened so suddenly, Sue. Maybe it’s a sickness. Or something that just happens to demons when they get to a certain age. What we’re doing now . . . it’s not forever. It’s damage limitation until we can work out something better.’

Sue wasn’t convinced or consoled, but Trudie stepped in at this point and took her away upstairs to help her through the process of packing. I was left alone in the living room, surveying the destruction. Sue had lived here all her life: with her mother, until her mother died, then alone, and finally with her demon lover. Maybe I should have suggested that Juliet be the one to go, but then when her self-control evaporated again she’d probably head straight back here and reclaim the things that were hers – including Sue. This way was better.

The room stank of her anger, and Sue’s fear. Having a death-sense makes me sensitive to emotional resonances too, and when they’re strong and recent they can be overpowering. My own heart rate started to climb, riding a second-hand adrenalin rush.

I retreated into the hall just as Sue and Trudie came down the stairs. Trudie was carrying a suitcase, Sue a small flight bag.

‘Everything?’ I asked.

Sue nodded, her face expressionless.

‘Go ahead and wait in the cab,’ I said to Trudie. ‘I’ll be right there.’

I watched them down the drive, then tapped lightly on the door of the kitchen. Juliet opened it instantly. I suspected she’d just been standing there, on the other side of the door, waiting for the coast to clear, waiting for the woman she’d lived with for more than a year to depart.

‘She’s gone,’ I said.

Juliet nodded. She already knew that.

‘Would you rather not know where she is?’ I asked her. ‘I was going to take her to Pen’s, but I could find a hotel, if . . .’ I let the sentence hang. If you’re so afraid of losing control that she’d be safer in hiding , was the implication.

‘Let her be among friends,’ Juliet said, her voice a throaty murmur. ‘I won’t . . . I don’t believe I’ll seek her out. The wards at your house are strong. And you’re there, which is some protection – not because of the whistle but because you’re such a slippery little bastard.’

‘Okay,’ I said. On another occasion I would have thanked her for the compliment, but right then didn’t feel like the time. ‘I’m still tied up with this other stuff. With Asmodeus. He’s cooking something up, and I really need to find him before it comes to the boil. You’re sure you won’t . . . ?’

She shook her head emphatically. ‘You don’t need me at your back right now. Half the time I’d be at your throat instead.’

‘And parts south,’ I acknowledged. ‘Yeah. You’re probably right. But when it’s done . . . we’ll talk.’

‘Castor.’

I’d got to the door. I paused with my hand on the latch and turned back. She was holding something out to me. By reflex, I took it. A small sheaf of fifty-pound notes, the four I’d given to her two days ago, when I’d paid her to keep watch over Pen.

‘You’re right,’ Juliet said. ‘She’s more than a friend. I don’t want her to be hurt. I need you – I’m employing you – to make sure that doesn’t happen.’

‘I’ll do that without the money,’ I said.

‘Do it with the money. Friendship is hard for me to understand or to believe in right now. Bargains I understand. Say yes.’

‘Yes.’

‘Bind yourself to it.’

‘I bind myself to it. I won’t let her get hurt.’

‘Good then. Go away.’

I hesitated. ‘What will you do?’ I asked.

She made another of those abrupt movements, like a shrug that was close to getting out of control. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. Her voice was cold and flat, with none of its usual thrilling harmonics. ‘I might give up on this experiment. Go home.’

I felt an unnerving shifting in my stomach. It wasn’t pleasant hearing Asmodeus’ words echoed so closely by Juliet.

‘Don’t do that without talking to me first,’ I said.

She shot me a bleak hard stare. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ she growled.

Despite what she’d said the night before about going hunting on her own account, Pen was home when we arrived, and once I’d explained the situation, she rolled with the punch of having a new tenant landed on her.

‘We’ve got lots of empty rooms,’ she said to Sue, taking the little sheaf of fifties from me without comment. ‘Come and find one you like, and we’ll open the windows and air it out a bit.’

She spirited Sue away into the remote fastnesses of the house – the no-man’s-land between her basement and my attic, where she scarcely ever ventured. Like Sue, she was living on in the house where her mother had lived. In fact, she could boast three generations of Bruckners who’d all lived and (with one exception) died on this soil. Maybe that would give the two of them something to talk about.

Judging by the look on Trudie’s face, we had something to talk about too, and I knew what it was before she spoke.

‘That thing is dangerous,’ she said. ‘Probably too dangerous for you to handle yourself. The fact that it’s been playing house with a human being doesn’t change what it is underneath. You should tell Professor Mulbridge about what’s happening here.’

‘Juliet isn’t a thing,’ I said. I helped myself to a large brandy from a bottle on Pen’s sideboard, then realised what I was doing when the glass was halfway to my lips. Tense and frustrated, I set it down again untasted. ‘I count her as a friend.’

Trudie shook her head grimly. ‘Then you’re an idiot,’ she said. ‘Castor, didn’t you learn anything from what happened with Ditko?’