Mike Carey - Vicious Circle

‘One letter out,’ I riposted, more feebly still.

Pen was still looking daggers, flails and chainsaws at me: the two of them still had a lot of ground to cover, so my turn would have to come later. I let myself out into the corridor, where Webb was hovering expressly to catch me as I exited. Another male nurse waited in the background – presumably in case I turned violent and had to be sedated.

‘You’re looking a little tense,’ I told Webb. ‘Is something on your mind?’

‘I need to know what I’m dealing with here, Castor,’ he snapped back, my solicitous tone having done nothing to improve his mood.

‘A miraculous recovery?’

‘Is that what you think it is?’

‘I don’t know,’ I hedged. ‘Why, what do you think?’

‘I think Ditko – or the thing inside him – is playing a new game. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve called Professor Mulbridge.’

Those words affected me like intravenous ice-cubes. ‘You had no right—’ I began. But Webb wasn’t about to be stopped when he’d barely started.

‘I have every right to consult with a colleague,’ he interrupted. ‘Professor Mulbridge is an acknowledged expert in the field.’

‘What field?’ I demanded, pinning him to it.

He hesitated, trying to sniff out the trap before he fell into it.

‘What field?’ I repeated. ‘Metamorphic ontology? Because your diagnosis of Rafi is schizophrenia. Are you saying you’ve changed that assessment?’

‘We both know—’

‘What we both know,’ I said, shouting over his already raised voice, ‘is that you’re so desperate to get rid of Rafi, you’ll try anything. And right now, saying that he needs specialised facilities elsewhere looks like a much quicker option than going through MHA screening and getting him independently assessed.’

‘He does need specialised facilities,’ Webb yelled back. ‘He’s a danger to everyone he comes into contact with.’

‘That was last week,’ I said, in a tone that was just barely short of a snarl. ‘And believe me, Webb – if you start flirting with Jenna-Jane, you’re going to be explaining in court exactly when your professional opinion of Rafi Ditko’s condition changed – and why you didn’t see fit to tell any of his friends or family about it.’

Webb flushed a very fetching shade of brick red that set off his pale yellow shirt nicely. ‘Castor, you’re chopping logic,’ he hissed, ‘and I won’t be intimidated by you. I have to do what’s best for the whole of this therapeutic community, and I believe my actions will stand the scrutiny of—’

I walked away, leaving him yelling apoplectically after me. I needed to get clear of him before I hit him, thereby handing him the moral and legal high ground on a plate.

Also I needed answers, and I wasn’t in the mood to wait until I knew what the questions were.

‘It’s good to see you again, Felix,’ my brother Matt said, as I squeezed into the booth opposite him. ‘You’re in my prayers a lot.’

‘I’d feel happier about that if I knew what you were praying for,’ I countered, with a cold smile. Letting him get away with a line like that would get the conversation off to a bad start.

We were in a little coffee house just off Muswell Hill Broadway with questionable decor in the general neighbourhood of art nouveau – or maybe a few blocks down. Figure paintings by Mucha and Hodler lined the walls, and square-edged Tiffany-style lampshades hung down dangerously low over each table. Upbeat 1920s jazz was playing softly in the background to make the point that this was all a period quote – but incongruously there was also a TV playing on a high shelf behind the counter with the volume turned all the way down: currently it showed a reporter with an earnest face standing in front of a row of shops, talking soundlessly to camera. From where I was sitting, the reporter stood on Matt’s right-hand shoulder like his conscience.

My brother had already ordered, which was fine with me: what I felt like drinking right then wasn’t on the menu here. When I passed this way, I preferred to drink at the O’Neill’s pub on the Broadway, which is built into the shell of a deconsecrated church. But Matty doesn’t share my sense of humour and I wanted to establish a convivial atmosphere, so we’d settled on the coffee house.

I’d called Matt from the Stanger and asked him to meet me. When he asked why, I said it was for the good of my soul and hung up. He knew I was most likely kidding, but he never quite allows himself to despair of me seeing the light. Pretty much any light will do.

He was in civvies, by which I mean he wasn’t wearing his collar: looking at him, you’d just see a slim-built, slightly bookish man on the cusp of forty, in a dark sweater and jeans that looked old without being shabby, with thinning mid-brown hair and very hard blue-grey eyes. Everything about Matty is hard: he’s got a weakness for moral certainties. He’s also got a good eye for detail, and he looked me up and down searchingly.

‘You don’t look well,’ he said. ‘There’s something hectic about your complexion. And your lip is swollen. Did you have an accident?’

‘I was mugged,’ I said.

‘In the line of duty?’ Matt’s lips pursed. He really doesn’t approve of how I earn my living.

‘You could say that. How’s mum?’

‘She’s well. She had a bad chest infection a few weeks back, but they gave her antibiotics and she’s fine now. They’ve put her on an inhaler, too.’ He frowned. ‘She won’t stop smoking, in spite of the emphysema, so keeping her airways open is the main priority. I thought you said you were going to go up and visit?’

‘I am,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a couple of things to clear up first, that’s all.’

‘Right.’

He took a sip of his coffee, gaze cast down, looking like a man who was trying hard not to say anything.

To fill the gap, I dug in my pocket for Zucker’s knife and put it down on the table between us.

‘You ever see anything like that before?’ I asked him.

Matt stared at the knife, and his eyes widened slightly. ‘That object belongs in your life, not in mine,’ he said softly. Too softly: and he never did learn to lie with his face as well as his voice.

‘Funny you should say that,’ I mused. ‘Because the guy who tried to use it on me was definitely one of your crowd.’

‘A priest?’ Matt’s tone was disdainful.

‘Yeah, in a way. Maybe. A functionary of your Church.’

‘My Church doesn’t employ armed men.’

‘It doesn’t? I suppose the crusaders were using your registered trade mark without permission, then?’

Matt sighed heavily. ‘The last crusade ended in the thirteenth century, Felix. I used the present tense.’

I tapped the hilt of the knife. ‘This thing is present, Matty. And it makes me tense enough for both of us. Tell me about the Anathemata.’

He was silent.

‘They’re trying to kill me,’ I said. ‘It would help a lot if I knew why.’

Another silence, but this time I went with instinct and let it stretch.

‘They don’t – kill – indiscriminately,’ Matt said at last. ‘And they’re not agents of the Church.’

‘Then why are they listed as a Church organisation?’

‘They’re not. Unless you were using an old book.’

Again, I waited, and eventually, reluctantly, Matty filled the silence.

‘They’re a very old sect,’ he said. ‘But their history is patchy. Under some popes they barely existed. At other times they were as powerful in their way as the Society of Jesus or the Inquisition. Their brief was to deal with those things that Mother Church considers abominations – anathema , in the Greek word. Anathemata is just the plural form. In recent times – over the past ten years or so – that has come to mean the risen dead.’