‘Why do you care?’ I asked him. ‘It’s gone. And the credit’s all yours. I was never here.’
‘The credit?’ He laughed incredulously. ‘The credit? Look at what’s left of my team!’ He came away from the wall. ‘I’ve got to get some ambulances over here,’ he muttered. He walked past me down the side of the pool but turned before he was out of earshot. ‘You think I wanted this?’ he demanded, his voice trembling slightly.
I shrugged. ‘You could have said no,’ I pointed out.
‘She doesn’t let you say no.’
‘That’s down to you.’
McClennan laughed again. It sounded even harsher than the first time. He seemed about to say something else, but whatever it was he locked it down and turned away.
I put my hand in my pocket, checking that the box was still there and unchanged. It was an involuntary reflex. A box full of Gader’el demon seemed to be identical in every way that mattered to a box full of nothing. It didn’t hum or rattle or throb with ectoplasmic energy. It didn’t even weigh any more than it had.
I’d pushed my modality to the limit, and a little bit over. I’d made the music play for me when I couldn’t play it myself, and somehow the link had held. Whatever power I tapped when I put the whistle to my lips still allowed itself to be accessed in this clumsy, second-hand and mechanical way.
What did that mean? What else could I do if I set my mind to it? I had to think about this, and soon.
But before that I had to call Trudie and make sure she was okay.
And I had to do something about Asmodeus. I had some inkling of what he was doing now, but not why he was doing it. I either had to figure it out for myself or get someone else on the case, fast. ‘I’m pretty much done here now,’ he’d said. ‘Got all the ducks in a row.’ I had a suspicion bordering on certainty that his plans were in their final phase, and I knew now who they revolved around.
I followed McClennan back through the anteroom to the reception area. He was checking his people, trying to make one of them sit up and talk to him, and I left him to it. Battlefield triage isn’t my strong suit.
Upstairs, the ambulances had already arrived, far too quickly for them to have responded to any call from Gil. Samir Devani was being loaded into one of them by two paramedics, an oxygen mask over his bloodied face. A third man was walking alongside, holding a saline drip that had already been attached to Samir’s arm.
In the midst of the ambulances, incongruous, a storm crow among doves, stood a black limousine. Its rear door was open, and Jenna-Jane Mulbridge stood beside it in a light raincoat, overseeing operations with a calm and slightly distant expression.
She turned and saw me as I approached, acknowledging me with a nod. ‘I’m glad you were able to lend a hand after all, Felix,’ she said. ‘Gilbert appears to have over-stretched his own resources rather badly.’
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ I answered. ‘Another would be to say that he led the lambs to the slaughter exactly like you told him.’
Jenna-Jane shrugged. ‘All’s well that ends well.’
‘How do you know it’s even over?’ I demanded.
She glanced towards the limo behind her. It had other occupants, who I could just about make out through the open door: the security man Dicks, now acting as chauffeur, and in the back seat, Gentle, who Jenna-Jane had introduced as her PA.
‘I didn’t commit my whole strength to this one exercise, ’ Jenna-Jane said. ‘That would be very poor strategy, Felix, even if we didn’t know that Asmodeus was still out there. Gentle tells me that the haunting here has now entirely ceased.’
‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘We won.’ I looked past her to where more of the injured from downstairs were being loaded into the waiting ambulances. ‘Let’s see if any of these poor sods want to join us in a cheer.’
Jenna-Jane was in a good mood and refused to take offence, or maybe she just realised that letting my sarcasm wash over her would be the best way of winding me up. ‘You’ve been missing for most of the day,’ she said, ‘and not answering your phone. I gather the search for Asmodeus’ underground route was unsuccessful.’
‘It was until an hour ago,’ I corrected her. ‘The Holborn underpass – the part that was never reopened. He’s got a little hideaway tucked in at the south end that you should probably take a look at. But don’t go in half-cocked, because it’s a dead end. He almost killed me and Pax when he cornered us there.’
Jenna-Jane raised her eyebrows. ‘You should have called me before you went in,’ she said.
‘Before I went in, it was only a hunch. And then when we found the place, things kind of got away from us.’
‘Things?’
‘Asmodeus cornering us in the dark,’ I elaborated. ‘And then having to pull McClennan’s irons out of the fire over here. I told you to wait, J-J.’
‘Do you know what comes to him who waits, Felix?’ Jenna-Jane asked. ‘Other people’s leavings.’
‘Then you agree I was right to go in without you.’
She chuckled and wagged a finger at me, as though slapping her in the face with her own logic was just my little joke. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ll be very careful. Thank you for all your hard work on this, Felix. And for sharing intelligence, as we agreed. I’ll go and look at this place, if you think it’s worthwhile, although I assume we’ll be unlikely to succeed in setting an ambush there now. Where is Pax? Downstairs? Perhaps she can be my guide.’
‘She was hurt when we fought the demon,’ I said, ‘and I got a passing civilian to drive her to a hospital. I’m going to go see how she’s doing.’
‘Then leave a message for me at the unit. Let the switchboard know where you are, and I’ll join you when I can.’ She cast a sombre look at the open doorway of Super-Self, from which another pair of stretcher bearers was just emerging. ‘Poor Gilbert. I think he’ll take this hard.’
I called Sue Book’s house, and got the answerphone: Sue Book’s voice, sweetly inviting me to leave a message. I explained what we’d found, tersely and probably inadequately, and asked her to call me as soon as she could. Trudie didn’t pick up when I rang either, which was a lot less surprising: I called Nicky and got him to hack into the hospital databases. A patient listed as T. Pax had been admitted to the A & E unit at University College Hospital on Grafton Way, which was only a mile and a half away.
And since I already had Nicky’s ear, I dropped the bombshell about what we’d found in the underpass. ‘You can add some names to your list,’ I said. ‘Alongside Tlallik, Ket and Jetaniul.’
‘Yeah? Shoot.’ Nicky tried to keep his tone neutral but couldn’t quite manage it. It niggled him that he hadn’t managed to solve this one yet; it was going to piss him off royally when he found out I’d got to the answer first.
‘Tsukelit,’ I said. ‘Ilalliel. Aketsulitur. Notice a pattern?’
‘Not so much.’
‘Think about Juliet, Nicky.’
‘You think these names all belong to succubi?’
‘No, I think they all belong to her.’
There was dead silence at the other end of the line.
‘I would’ve seen it sooner,’ I went on, ‘except that I’m an arrogant sod, and the first ward I found was at Pen’s place, not at Juliet’s. I’d forgotten about Juliet bringing me home after one of my drunks. Asmodeus probably put them everywhere he thought she might turn up, including your place. I’ll bet there are a couple taped to the underside of her car. A few more spread around Willesden Green Library. In her sock drawer, maybe. I don’t know. There could be hundreds of the fucking things.’
Still no answer from Nicky’s end of the line, which probably meant he was thinking.
‘You remember the passage you showed me back when Gabriel first raised her up?’ I reminded him. ‘“
‘Holy mother of fuck,’ Nicky intoned, his voice dropping to the limit of audibility as he forgot to breathe.
‘So what I’m asking you now is why anyone would want to do that? What’s he planning? Can one demon bind another demon? Get me some answers, Nicky, before this blows up in my face even worse than it already has. And
