I needed to have that music clear in my mind, and at the moment it was rubbing shoulders with other tunes, to their mutual detriment. I had to unremember the harsh skirls of the fear-thing in the Super-Self swimming pool and the insidious discontinuities of Asmodeus, had to put them way to the back of my mind where they couldn’t be heard.
I was kidding myself, of course. The tin whistle is a great specific against ghosts, but when you’re fighting demons it has the disadvantage of a crossbow against an AK-47: you get off one shot, and then you’re dead before you can ratchet up for the second. But this was yet another fine mess I’d invited an innocent bystander into, so there was no walking away from it. No, as usual, I had to walk right into it whistling a jaunty refrain.
Bourne Terrace was quiet and deserted, and from the outside Sue’s house looked similarly untroubled.
‘We’ll be right back,’ I told the cabbie. ‘Don’t move.’
Trudie kept up her running commentary all the way to the door. ‘We’re coming up the driveway now. We’re right outside . . .’ But it was Juliet who opened up, and stood aside to let us in. I stared at her questioningly. Her gaze flicked to the tin whistle I still had clutched in my hand, and she quirked an eyebrow.
‘You won’t need that,’ she said. ‘Luckily for you.’
‘Maybe I won’t,’ I conceded. ‘Do you?’
‘Need you to play me back into my right mind?’ Juliet asked with sardonic emphasis. ‘No. I don’t. Not for the moment, anyway. But get her out of here quickly. She won’t look at me, and she cries when I come near her. It makes me . . . agitated. I can feel myself slipping.’
‘You’re sure there’s no other way?’ I asked lamely. ‘You don’t have any clue why this might be happening? You can’t get any kind of a handle on it?’ I remembered the painted stones. ‘I found some summonings around your house and in a few other places. You think maybe someone could have . . . ?’
Juliet scowled. ‘Could have raised one of the other powers against me? No, Castor. Not without me noticing. I think . . .’ She gave a sudden shrug. It looked almost involuntary, as though she was shaking off some unwelcome touch. ‘It’s my nature,’ she said, her tone tight. ‘There are limits to how far you can change yourself. I’ve come to the end of an arc, Castor, and I’m swinging back.’
She was staring at me, and I realised suddenly that her eyes were back to their usual black on black. The red fires had died for the time being. But there was no mistaking the rigid tension in her posture: she was fighting her own instincts, guarding the borders of rationality from one second to the next.
‘Go wait in the kitchen,’ I suggested. ‘Shut the door. Turn the radio on. Make yourself a coffee.’
Juliet considered this, nodded and retreated. ‘Decaf!’ I shouted, as the door closed on her.
Sue was sitting on the living-room sofa, the wreckage of the chair scattered across the carpet a few feet away from her like debris from an explosion. The TV set had had its screen staved in too, and was lying on its side in the corner of the room. A ragged hole in the plaster above it showed how it had got there, and roughly how fast it had been travelling.
Sue rose to greet us as we entered, saying hello to me and then shifting her gaze enquiringly to Trudie in a way that invited me to make introductions. I’d been afraid we might find her in shock, but there was a desolate calm about her. She looked like someone who’s finally let go of the last shred of hope, and is just beginning to discover the terrible relief that despair brings.
‘You should pack some things,’ I said. ‘Clothes. Toiletries. Anything you can’t do without. We don’t know how long it will take to sort this.’
‘Sort it?’ Sue gave me a pitying look. ‘You can’t, Felix. You can’t sort it. Whatever she felt for me . . . it’s gone. I don’t even know her.’
‘Me neither,’ I agreed. ‘But it’s happened so suddenly, Sue. Maybe it’s a sickness. Or something that just happens to demons when they get to a certain age. What we’re doing now . . . it’s not forever. It’s damage limitation until we can work out something better.’
Sue wasn’t convinced or consoled, but Trudie stepped in at this point and took her away upstairs to help her through the process of packing. I was left alone in the living room, surveying the destruction. Sue had lived here all her life: with her mother, until her mother died, then alone, and finally with her demon lover. Maybe I should have suggested that Juliet be the one to go, but then when her self-control evaporated again she’d probably head straight back here and reclaim the things that were hers – including Sue. This way was better.
The room stank of her anger, and Sue’s fear. Having a death-sense makes me sensitive to emotional resonances too, and when they’re strong and recent they can be overpowering. My own heart rate started to climb, riding a second-hand adrenalin rush.
I retreated into the hall just as Sue and Trudie came down the stairs. Trudie was carrying a suitcase, Sue a small flight bag.
‘Everything?’ I asked.
Sue nodded, her face expressionless.
‘Go ahead and wait in the cab,’ I said to Trudie. ‘I’ll be right there.’
I watched them down the drive, then tapped lightly on the door of the kitchen. Juliet opened it instantly. I suspected she’d just been standing there, on the other side of the door, waiting for the coast to clear, waiting for the woman she’d lived with for more than a year to depart.
‘She’s gone,’ I said.
Juliet nodded. She already knew that.
‘Would you rather not know where she is?’ I asked her. ‘I was going to take her to Pen’s, but I could find a hotel, if . . .’ I let the sentence hang.
‘Let her be among friends,’ Juliet said, her voice a throaty murmur. ‘I won’t . . . I don’t believe I’ll seek her out. The wards at your house are strong. And you’re there, which is some protection – not because of the whistle but because you’re such a slippery little bastard.’
‘Okay,’ I said. On another occasion I would have thanked her for the compliment, but right then didn’t feel like the time. ‘I’m still tied up with this other stuff. With Asmodeus. He’s cooking something up, and I really need to find him before it comes to the boil. You’re sure you won’t . . . ?’
She shook her head emphatically. ‘You don’t need me at your back right now. Half the time I’d be at your throat instead.’
‘And parts south,’ I acknowledged. ‘Yeah. You’re probably right. But when it’s done . . . we’ll talk.’
‘Castor.’
I’d got to the door. I paused with my hand on the latch and turned back. She was holding something out to me. By reflex, I took it. A small sheaf of fifty-pound notes, the four I’d given to her two days ago, when I’d paid her to keep watch over Pen.
‘You’re right,’ Juliet said. ‘She’s more than a friend. I don’t want her to be hurt. I need you – I’m employing you – to make sure that doesn’t happen.’
‘I’ll do that without the money,’ I said.
‘Do it with the money. Friendship is hard for me to understand or to believe in right now. Bargains I understand. Say yes.’
‘Yes.’
‘Bind yourself to it.’
‘I bind myself to it. I won’t let her get hurt.’
‘Good then. Go away.’
I hesitated. ‘What will you do?’ I asked.
She made another of those abrupt movements, like a shrug that was close to getting out of control. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. Her voice was cold and flat, with none of its usual thrilling harmonics. ‘I might give up on this experiment. Go home.’
I felt an unnerving shifting in my stomach. It wasn’t pleasant hearing Asmodeus’ words echoed so closely by Juliet.
‘Don’t do that without talking to me first,’ I said.
She shot me a bleak hard stare. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ she growled.
