And he took a smart step backaways.
‘Now, now, now, Tyler,’ he said to me. ‘There is no need for violence.’
‘No need for violence?’ I spat as I shouted. ‘I have come here to kill you. And you want me here so you can kill me. I do believe that there is bound to be some violence involved. But please do correct me if I’m wrong.’
‘Well, in essence you’re right,’ said he. ‘But come, before we engage in any fisticuffs, allow me to explain matters to you. There is a long tradition, both literary and now in the medium of film, that the super-villain explains everything to the hero before he offs him, as it were.’
‘I am aware of this tradition,’ I replied. ‘And also that within its closely prescribed boundaries, the hero always thwarts the super-villain once the super-villain has had his say.’
‘A break with tradition is never a bad thing,’ said Papa Crossbar, producing as he did so what looked for all the world to be my trusty Smith & Wesson and pointing it at me.
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘My pistol.’
‘Correct. So, would you like to hear all the details, or shall we break with tradition completely and I’ll just shoot you and have done?’
‘Let’s stick with the tradition for now,’ I proposed, ‘and we’ll see how things pan out after that.’
‘Right then, where would you like me to start?’
‘Perhaps with the rubbish bit about me being your brother.’
‘Ah, that.’ And Papa Crossbar did evil grinnings of the ear-to-ear persuasion, and the lightning did flash and the thunder did roll. And up in this great conservatory in the sky, there was more than just a little weirdness about the atmosphere.
‘Oh yes indeed,’ said the Evil One. ‘Your not so humble beginnings. You see, Tyler, the trouble is that over the years a number of people have told you a number of things, but they haven’t always told you the truth. They have just told you what they wanted you to hear, in the manner that you wanted to hear it.’
‘So to speak,’ I said.
‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing, please continue.’
‘Captain Lynch – your spiritual advisor, Mr Ishmael – our guardian and trainer, and myself, I confess – we’ve all been a wee bit guilty of not sharing all of the truth with you. But then, in all truth, why would we have? We only wanted you to know the bits that it suited us that you know. But then you are a detective. You really should have figured it out for yourself.’
I had already tired of Papa Crossbar’s conversation and was thinking about what would be the best way to wrest the pistol from his hands.
‘There is no best way,’ said he, interrupting the flow of both his conversation and my thoughts. ‘I can hear you thinking, Tyler. Do you want to listen to what I have to say or not?’ And he cocked the trigger of my trusty Smith & Wesson.
‘I’ll listen,’ I said. And I listened.
‘The Ministry of Serendipity,’ he said, ‘below the other Mornington Crescent. The department of the most potent of secret affairs during the Second World War, where the real business of war was carried out between the white magicians of the West and the black brotherhood of Hitler’s Reich, both sides vying to create yours truly.’ And he bowed, but he didn’t lower the weapon. ‘Had my magical father Adolf Hitler, the nineteenth-century Homunculus, been able to achieve the Great Creation, he would have become all-powerful and Germany would have won the war. But the West won that particular battle, with the help of Mr Aleister Crowley. He was the most skilful wizard of his day, greater even than those of Hitler. And at the behest of the Ministry of Serendipity, and a large quantity of the green and folding stuff, he cast the Spell of the Great Creation, the one in that big gem-encrusted golden book that rests there on the altar.
‘But the problem for the Ministry was Crowley’s vanity. He created six children, as he styled himself the Beast Six-Six-Six.’
‘Two died, Tyler, only two. Not three, as you were told. Four survived: Elvis, Darren McMahon – who grew up in the Ministry and is its present controller, myself – the true Homunculus, and you, Tyler, boy number four, not really one thing or the other. The dull one of the family. And there’s always a dull one, isn’t there?’
‘I’m not dull,’ I complained. ‘I’m as interesting as you.’
‘As me? I’m nothing less than the frigging Antichrist. One of your brothers runs the most powerful occult organisation in the world and the other one was frigging Elvis Presley. And you’re not dull, compared to your brothers?’
‘Stop with the frigging,’ I said. ‘But I suppose if you put it like that. If it were true that I’m your brother, which it isn’t. And I’m not.’
‘You are, Tyler. Mr Ishmael knew it. Captain Lynch knows it. Frig, Tyler, Captain Lynch attended the ceremony that brought you and me into being. He is a disciple of Aleister Crowley’s.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t believe it. Captain Lynch is a good man.’
‘A good man? He’s been humping your mum for decades.’
‘Ha!’ I said. ‘What a giveaway. My mum, you said. That’s my real mum, not some sacrificial virgin of Crowley’s.’
‘Same woman,’ said Papa Crossbar. ‘Has it never occurred to you what a weirdo your – I mean our – mum is?’
‘Which isn’t to say-’ I began.
But he stopped me. ‘It is to say,’ he said. ‘You are special, Tyler. And you have some of your brothers’ gifts. Elvis got all the charisma, I make no bones about that. I got all of the evil, as befits my status. You got your share of magic, though. You’re a magical individual, a little bit of a Doctor Strange, aintcha, though?’
‘I have one or two mystical tricks up my sleeve,’ I said, and I blew onto my fingernails and buffed them upon my lapel. Which is not something you see every day nowadays, is it?
Although it’s not particularly mystical.
‘You perfected the Tyler Technique,’ said Papa Crossbar – or did all this make him brother Crossbar to me? I thought I’d just stick with Papa Crossbar.
‘Yes, I did,’ I said. ‘The Tyler Technique. I did perfect that. And it was all my very own idea.’
‘Well-’ went Papa Crossbar.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Never mind. Let’s say yes, it was all your own idea. Well done.’
‘So is that it?’ I asked. ‘Is that all, or do you have anything else you wish to share with me?’
Papa Crossbar did scratchings of the head with the barrel of my gun. ‘I can’t think of anything else,’ he said. ‘Unless there is anything you’d like to know.’
‘Anything I’d like to know?’ And I shouted this, I know I did. ‘Anything I’d like to know? Well, I wouldn’t mind knowing why you want to wipe out all life on Earth. You might try explaining to me just what the point of that would be and what could possibly be in it for you.’ And then I took deep breaths to steady myself. Not that deep breaths ever really do. Mostly they just make you dizzy.
‘Well,’ said Papa Crossbar. And he twirled my pistol on his guntotin’ finger. ‘That is the point of all this, after all, isn’t it? So yes, allow me to explain.’ And he did so.
‘You see,’ said he, ‘Planet Earth is a frightful aberration. It has all this life all over it. And I do mean all over, down to the tiniest single-celled whatnot. It’s all so busy busy busy, everything whirling away and making so much noise. The sound of it all! Have you ever heard of the Music of the Spheres?’ I nodded that I had. ‘Complete silence, that music. It’s more in the nature of mime. The universe is a great big interlinked body, all completely at peace with itself, this thing moving sedately about that thing, in perfect harmony and perfect silence… because these things are dead. But here! On this planet! Noise noise noise. And fuss and bother. And the smell! You can smell Planet Earth as far away as Saturn, did you know that? So it all has to stop.’
‘And so you are intending to exterminate all life on Earth?’
‘Yes, because Earth is the pest hole of life. There is no other planet that supports life. And once all life here is gone, then Universal Harmony will return. Look upon me as an ecowarrior, with a far higher calling.’
‘Higher calling?’ And I laughed. ‘You cannot be talking about God. God created life on this planet. What right have you to destroy it?’
‘God?’ There was laughter from the Homunculus. ‘Perhaps it has escaped your notice, Tyler, but God ceased to
