still early, only about fifteen people had gathered, and they milled around the room eyeing the seance table rather sheepishly, waiting for the show to begin.
The role Vanka had given Ella for her first performance was that of a recently bereaved widow. So it was a heavily veiled Ella, dressed in an all-enveloping black gown – her veil, her gloves and her widow’s weeds doing an excellent job of camouflaging her skin colour – who sat amongst the audience waiting for Vanka to make his appearance. But despite her rather unflattering costume, there was no disguising that she was slim and young, and inevitably one of the male attendees wandered over to Ella and, doffing his hat, introduced himself. ‘Good evening, Madam, I see we are to be co-travellers on this journey to the Spirit World.’ He held out a hand. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Nathaniel Warrington.’
They shook hands and immediately Ella knew everything there was to know about Nathaniel Warrington.
Knew that he was a liar.
Knew that his real name was Samuel Morris.
Knew that Morris had adopted an alias because he was a Senior Psychic Assessor at the Ministry of Psychic Affairs who was attending the seance not to journey to the Spirit World but rather to unmask Mephisto – Vanka’s new stage persona – as a fraud.
Knew that Morris was attending the seance with his boss, an equally odious-looking man called Tomlinson, who was lurking on the other side of the room pretending not to know his colleague.
But Ella didn’t need PINC’s help to know that she had to warn Vanka. Reading Morris’s mind told her the fate of fraudulent psychics and it wasn’t pretty.
It took all her self-control to sit calmly through a few minutes of inconsequential chit-chat, before she made her excuses. ‘You must forgive me, Mr Warrington, but I’m quite overcome by the excitement of the seance… by the prospect of communing with my recently departed husband. Oh dear, I feel a little queasy.’ With that she scuttled off to find Vanka.
Even the normally unflappable Vanka Maykov was stunned by the news.
‘You’re certain?’
‘Yes. I touched his hand. I get my strongest insights when I do that.’
‘Then I can’t go on. I’ve heard of Morris: he’s a devil for detail. He’ll spot my tricks for certain and then I’ll be for the high jump.’ He paced up and down the room. ‘But if I pull, Burlesque will blow his top. Anyway, sure as eggs are eggs, my non-appearance will only make Morris more determined to find out who I really am. And once he finds out that Mephisto is none other than Vanka Maykov there’ll be Hel to pay: stage names are meant to be registered with the Ministry.’
‘There is one solution,’ Ella said quietly.
‘Under no circumstances!’
‘Put me on, Vanka. No tricks, just me. You’ve seen what I can do.’
‘I can’t… he’s already seen you.’
‘I was wearing my veil: he’ll never recognise me. And you can introduce me as the mambo Marie Laveau, a WhoDoo mambo.’
Marie Laveau? WhoDoo? Now where had PINC conjured that from?
Ella could almost hear Vanka’s mind whirring. ‘You’re sure you’re up for this?’
‘Don’t worry, Vanka. Leave everything to me.’*
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ announced Vanka as he strode out before the audience seated around the seance table, ‘I am Mephisto.’
There was a polite round of applause to which Morris, on whom Ella was spying from the wings of the stage, did not contribute.
‘In my quest as a psychic to achieve ever more profound union with the Spirit World I have sought others whose abilities complement my own. It is a given that two psychics who are able to achieve spiritual union with one another are able to delve more deeply into the strangeness that lies beyond the reality that is the Demi-Monde. Unfortunately such spiritual union is rare, but, ladies and gentlemen, during my travels around the Demi-Monde I have found a woman of such power and ability that together we are able to do what no other Spiritualists have ever been able to. The magical abilities of WhoDoo mambos of NoirVille are much derided, but tonight you will be witness to the most remarkable feats of psychic divination ever performed. I say this to warn you: if you do not wish to see the shadowed secrets of the Future that awaits you, withdraw now before it is too late.’
No one moved but the atmosphere in the room became distinctly more serious. Ella, as she watched Vanka work his audience, was lost in admiration: when it came to dishing out bullshit, Colonel Vanka Maykov was without equal.
‘Very well,’ he continued in an increasingly sombre tone. ‘Could I have all the lights in the room turned off with the exception of the one situated over this stage?’ One of Burlesque’s minions performed the duty. ‘Now, ladies and gentlemen, I have the very great honour of presenting the amazing, the unprecedented, the awe-inspiring, the High Priestess of all WhoDoo magic, the Great Mambo herself… Miss Marie Laveau!’
Hearing her cue, Ella swept out into the room to stand beside Vanka under the pool of light afforded by the single gas lamp that sizzled overhead. It was really quite a blast to be on stage, playing the clairvoyant and having an audience of twenty people hanging on her every gesture.
And Ella knew she looked the part.
Considering she had had only ten minutes to concoct a costume, she thought she had done pretty well. She had torn down one of Burlesque’s new blue and gold brocade curtains, folded it in half and, using a knife, had cut a slit in the fold. By pushing her head through the slit the curtain enveloped her like a huge tabard that draped down to her feet. It gave her, she thought, a vaguely Oriental air, especially when worn in conjunction with her all- encompassing black veil.
If the gasps emanating from the audience when she stood, arms outstretched, in the middle of the stage were anything to go by, the people seated around the table set in the middle of the room were impressed.
Vanka moved to stand behind her with his hands on her shoulders.
‘If you would all join hands, we will begin,’ he commanded the audience.
Once this was done, he chanted a long, rambling incantation to the Spirits to leave the sanctuary of the World Beyond to journey to the Demi-Monde. There was something almost hypnotic in the rhythm of his voice and even Ella, who had heard Vanka rehearsing this piece of hocus-pocus a dozen times, found herself drifting off into a fugue. Indeed she was so lost in her daydreams that it came as a shock when the gas light above her head began to flicker.
‘The Spirits are come,’ announced Vanka.
Or, more accurately, one of Burlesque’s boys was buggering around with the gas tap.
His grip on her shoulders tightened, the signal for her to go into her act. ‘Ooooooh!’ Ella wailed and she was pleased to see several mouths drop open in nervous astonishment. ‘Who calls?’ She used a voice that she hoped was a good imitation of the spooks she had seen in late-night horror movies. ‘Who calls me from the Sphere of Shadows?’ Immediately the room seemed to become colder as though the manifesting of the Spirit had drained the room of its warmth.
That, Ella presumed, would be Burlesque opening one of the pub’s windows behind the stage.
‘It is I, Mephisto,’ intoned Vanka, in a voice about an octave lower than his usual speaking voice. ‘I am an Adept of the Fifth Circle, Magus of the Esoteric Arts, and as an Ipsissimus of the Temple of Odin, I call you and I command you. What is your name, Spirit?’
‘Hear me. I am Lilith, Goddess of Nature and of the True Magic.’ The words tumbled out of Ella unbidden. It was as though she were tapping into some primeval memory of a life lived long, long ago.
Weird.
She paused to do a little shaking of her head and body, then with a shriek she stretched out her arms as though trying to embrace some invisible Spirit. Being possessed, Ella decided, was quite good fun. ‘Why, oh Magus, do you call me from the sanctuary of the Spirit World?’
‘There are those gathered here who wish to see the Future.’
‘Ooooooh! There are many Futures: the Future that could be, the Future that will be…’
‘Will you answer our questions?’
‘I will.’
