Mike Carey - The Naming of the Beasts

Out on the lawn, Jenna-Jane was talking animatedly to Dicks. The big man shot me a glare as I approached, then nodded curtly – to Jenna-Jane, not to me.

‘It’s imperative,’ Jenna-Jane said. ‘This is the most important lead we’ve had so far, and we have to be free to pursue it wherever it leads.’ She looked round and seemed to notice me for the first time. ‘Castor. Good. Get into the car.’

‘Can’t I just drive myself?’ I asked. The last thing I wanted was a sulky South African security guard on my case all the way from here to Surrey, when I needed to get my thoughts in order and try to figure out a plan of campaign.

‘The car cost the hospital forty-eight thousand pounds,’ Jenna-Jane pointed out to me in a schoolmarmish tone. ‘And you’re exhausted, Felix. I simply wouldn’t trust you behind a wheel right now. In any case, you’ll need to be in touch with me at all times.’ She pointed to the radio, which I was still holding in my hand. ‘I’m going to leave Gentle here, in case we’ve missed something in our search. Some clue as to what the demon means to do. Assuming that Miss Bruckner and the other woman have been taken alive, he may have demands. You yourself may figure in his plans in some way that we don’t yet understand. Keep the radio on, and keep thinking about what we now know. About the names, and the summonings. If anything occurs to you – anything we can do that we’re not already doing – call me and I’ll do my best to see that it happens. When you return, come back directly to the MOU. I’ll debrief you there, unless we’ve located Asmodeus and we’re already in pursuit of him. If that happens, I’ll radio you and let you know where to find us.’

This entire speech was delivered without a pause. When it was over, Jenna-Jane stared at me in a way that said more loudly than words ‘Why are you still standing there?’ It was a good question. I got into the car, and Dicks slammed the door shut behind me with a muttered obscenity. As soon as he’d done so, Jenna-Jane tapped on the window. No manual wind. I opened the door a crack and she held out her hand.

‘Your phone,’ she demanded.

‘My what?’ I queried, mystified.

‘You’ve got Gentle’s radio,’ Jenna-Jane pointed out impatiently. ‘And the land line has been comprehensively destroyed. I can’t have her completely incommunicado. You’ll have to leave her your phone.’

‘Give her yours,’ I suggested.

Jenna-Jane bristled. ‘Castor, we’re in a situation where every second counts. Please don’t waste time arguing with me.’

I hesitated. I could see the point of the radio. If I found something that could work against Asmodeus without killing Rafi, and if Jenna-Jane’s people caught up with him while I was on the road, I had to get the information back to them immediately. It could be life or death at that point, and anything that could shorten the odds had to be a good idea. Giving up my phone struck me as a really bad idea, but my mind was full of urgency and emotional static. I took it out and tossed it into Jenna-Jane’s hand.

‘Stay in touch,’ she instructed me tersely as I shut the door again.

We headed south, and then west. Dicks drove quickly but with skill and control, taking advantage of the pre-rush-hour quiet to push the pedal wherever there was a clear stretch of road. He didn’t speak, and I had nothing to say to him, so I did as Jenna-Jane had suggested and thought about what Asmodeus had done.

By summoning Juliet’s cast-off aspects, he seemed to have regressed her to an earlier stage of her own history. Either that or he’d just driven her half-mad by reminding her of her past selves – surrounding her with names she thought she’d sloughed off forever. It was one of those two things or maybe a little of both, the names themselves having power over Juliet, power to define and shape her, or the overlaying of the names tormenting and confusing her, so that the restraints she’d built up around her demonic nature had begun to fall away.

Was all of this just a more elaborate form of payback? A quick death for Ginny Parris, torture and mutilation for Jovan Ditko, slow disintegration for Juliet. But in that case, why had he been prepared to kill me twice, in Brixton and then again in the Kingsway tunnel? Surely he had to blame me more than he did her for the half-life he’d endured these last few years.

The rule of names. Something to do with names, and how they worked. Something he knew and I didn’t, and because I hadn’t figured it out in time, he’d taken Pen and Sue.

The sun came up behind us as we drove, and I had to turn my face away from the rear-view mirror to keep from being blinded. I’d been sunk in thought for twenty minutes or more, and so I hadn’t given much thought to the route until we suddenly slowed down and I recognised the lower reaches of the Edgware Road. The traffic was getting heavier now, but we weren’t in a jam and I couldn’t see any reason for Dicks to hit the brakes.

Then he pulled into the kerb and came to a stop. Another burly-looking guy in the same black uniform climbed into the front passenger seat beside him. Of course, I thought. We were only a short walk from the MOU here: base camp for Jenna-Jane’s grunts.

‘Reinforcements,’ Dicks said. ‘In case we have to insist on seeing this gent of yours.’ The newcomer – whose sewn-on name badge identified him as DeJong – shot me a look, nodded to Dicks, and then we were moving again.

We picked up speed now, rounding Hyde Park and threading our way through Victoria without hitting any real snarl-ups. Thank you again, Mr Livingstone. We crossed the Thames by Chelsea Bridge and picked up the A3 at Clapham Common. After that, Dicks really put his foot down.

Eashing is the same kind of mundanely schizophrenic market town you’ll find off any A road in south-east England. It consisted of one quaint little main street with a half-timbered pub, a few old cottages that would look great on a postcard, and an ungainly sprawl of red-brick closes and steel-and-glass low-rises built in the last fifty years to the same rigorous structural and aesthetic standards as your average latrine pit.

I was sort of assuming that Moulson might have retired to some dignified rustic seat, with a trellised archway over his garden gate, but Appleton House turned out to be an old folks’ home, a cheerless barn built in washed-out yellow brick with a one-storey flat-roofed annexe. Dicks and his friend waited in the car while I walked to the front door and pressed the buzzer.

‘Yes?’ A female voice, although you could only just tell over the fuzz and blat and crackle of the intercom.

‘I’m here to see Mr Moulson,’ I said.

Crackle. Hiss. Blat . ‘Are you a relative?’

I might as well be. Anything that would get the job done was fine with me. ‘He’s my great-uncle,’ I said.

The random static was replaced by a sustained metallic chainsaw sound as the receptionist buzzed me in. I stepped through into a reception area that looked like a doctor’s waiting room, except that it was deserted.

The formidable-looking woman at the reception desk took her thumb off the buzzer and instructed me to sign the visitors’ book, which I did. I even used my own name.

‘He’s in his room,’ she said, sounding apologetic. Her accent was Australian. ‘We try to get him to come out from time to time, but he prefers his own company.’

‘He always did,’ I bluffed automatically.

She nodded, looking at me a little curiously. ‘And to be honest,’ she added, ‘it’s a bit of a relief. That’s an awful thing to say, I know, but he scares a lot of the other residents when he does come out. Do you have any ID, Mr Castor?’