Mike Carey - Thicker Than Water

I kicked open the first door, seeing a roomful of books beyond and smelling the contemplation-and-dust smell of a library or study. The second was a broom cupboard. I was going for the third when running footsteps sounded from our right: we turned to see two men coming down the stairs towards us. One of them was Gwillam, a book in his hand and a pair of reading glasses on his nose. The other was a slight, bald man in a plain black suit, whose teeth were bared in a subtle but permanent snarl.

Gwillam opened his mouth to speak, but he was too late because Baldy was already in the air, launching a flying kick towards Juliet’s face. Not a bad opening gambit, all things considered, but when his leading foot reached its intended destination, Juliet wasn’t there any more. She leaned sideways, her movements seeming almost lazy because they were so perfectly timed that there was no need for haste. Her right arm flicked out and flexed at the elbow, intersecting the bald man’s trajectory and punctuating his leap with a queasily suggestive impact sound. He jackknifed in mid-air, his forward momentum catastrophically sabotaged, and hit the floor in a rolling heap of limbs. He didn’t get up again.

Gwillam’s gaze was locked on Juliet’s face. He recognised her at once, on a level deeper than sight: he knew her for what she was. He began to intone as he descended the stairs towards us, his voice an octave lower than its normal register. ‘Would you tarry for them till they were full grown? They found a plain, in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. The right hand of the Lord hath done–’

‘One more word,’ Juliet said, unconcerned but a little stern, ‘and you’ll die where you stand.’

Gwillam fell silent. He was good, and he was quick, but he knew he couldn’t complete an exorcism before Juliet reached him. He’d only managed to bind her last time because neither of us had seen his particular MO before.

But he lowered the book, allowing us to see that he was holding something else in his other hand. It was a handgun.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You won’t touch me.’

Juliet stared at the gun for a moment in silence. Then she laughed softly, richly. ‘Is that for me or for yourself, servant of Heaven?’ she murmured deep in her throat. ‘Either way, the distance between us is too small for it to matter. Perhaps if it were already pointed at your head, and your finger on the trigger, you could pulverise your own brain while your purpose still held. But see, you stand there listening to me, and seeing me, and smelling me, and it’s already too late. So now –’ her voice had sunk to an insinuating whisper, and her eyes narrowed as she spoke ‘what will you do?’

Gwillam was staring at Juliet in fixed astonishment. His mouth had fallen open a little way, as though he’d been about to speak and then been struck by some insight that took his breath away. He made a strangled sound that had no consonants in it.

‘Come to me,’ Juliet said, raising her hand.

Gwillam came, stumbling down the stairs with a rocking gait. His movements were as stiff and uncoordinated as a zombie’s: so much of his mind was taken up with Juliet that there was barely enough left to handle basic motor functions. He walked right up to her, and then stopped when she raised a hand to signal that he’d come close enough.

She stood facing him, her breasts thrust forward, her head on one side in a parody of coquetry. They stared into each other’s eyes, and for a long time neither of them moved. A lazy, terrible smile spread slowly over Juliet’s face: Gwillam’s breathing became louder and more laboured with each gulp of air he took.

‘You may love God, Thomas,’ Juliet growled, ‘but now you’ve learned a different love. I hope you think of me often. And I know that whenever you think of me, God will be far from you.’

The joke was getting a little thin. I’d needed Juliet to get me in here, and I guess I’d known all along that she wasn’t going to let Gwillam go with a warning. Maybe I was looking for a little payback myself, for the hurt the good father had put on me already, but I wasn’t comfortable watching this sado-psycho-surgery.

‘Break it up,’ I told Juliet.

‘When I’m finished. Kneel, Thomas. Kneel and pray to me.’

Gwillam was about to comply when I punched him in the mouth and sent him sprawling. The gun flew out of his hand and clunked away end over end into a corner.

Juliet shot me a look of pure rage, which was actually something of a relief. I didn’t want to feel what she’d just made Gwillam feel: I’d been there, and seeing it happen to him had brought the whole thing back: the seismic, heart-stopping lust, the almost unbearable pleasure, and the black abyss of cold turkey afterwards.

‘Your point’s made,’ I said. ‘My turn. My show.’

Did you ever play cards for money? And if you did, can you remember a time at the end of a desperate night when you bet everything you had on a lousy hand, knowing the only way you could win was if everyone else bought the bluff?

That was me right then. Except that I knew Juliet wouldn’t buy it for a moment, because she could smell my fear the way dogs are supposed to be able to. So actually I was betting on something else, and the odds were pretty easy to calculate: two years on Earth, against fifteen millennia in Hell.

My number came up.

After maybe five or six seconds — long enough for most of the late 1980s to flash before my eyes — Juliet relaxed and shrugged. She shot Gwillam one last glance, where he lay at the foot of the stairs, and he gave a ragged moan as her gaze swept over him, as though he’d just been lashed raw and her stare was a splash of vinegar on his open wounds. ‘I’ll wait in the car,’ she said, and walked away, stepping over Baldy’s sprawled unconscious body.

I got Gwillam into a sitting position. His breathing was still uneven and his eyes wouldn’t focus at first. I half-led and half-carried him through into the study, dumped him into a chair that looked like an eighteenth-century antique, and while I was doing that I noticed a decanter of brandy standing on a dresser. I poured a shot, which I managed to get down Gwillam’s throat after three tries: I took one myself, too, purely for medicinal purposes.

Slowly the good father came back to himself, anger and hatred filling the void left by his recently discovered passion.

‘You consort with demons, Castor,’ he sobbed, his voice breaking. ‘This one, this succubus, and even worse. You think we don’t know that you took Asmodeus from his cell? You profane this place and imperil your soul.’

‘My soul?’ I touched the dressing on my cheek, made a half-shrug with just the one hand. ‘Well, I’m gambling on a deathbed conversion, so I’m hoping I’ve got a bit of leeway yet.’

Gwillam had been staring at the empty brandy glass. Now he looked up at me, his pale face streaked with sweat. ‘Without sincere repentance,’ he said, ‘I can promise you, God won’t listen to your apologies. Some sins are mortal.’

I leaned down to bring my face in close to his.

‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘They are. And being as stupid as a hatful of arseholes is one of them. You screwed up, you sanctimonious fuckwit. I thought I’d stop by and tell you that before things at the Salisbury get even worse than they are. Because I’ve got other places to be and this was your mess before it was mine.’

From somewhere, Gwillam found the strength to stand. He thrust his face into mine, his eyes wide and his face white with rage. ‘You persist in thinking that, don’t you, Castor? That the whole world is full of the waste products of other people’s mistakes? That your role in life is to clean them up, and take the thanks for it? But Asmodeus alone is proof enough to refute that.’