| Horror and Thriller Fiction posted July 6, 2011 | Chapters: |
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Dark forces threaten an enigmatic baby
A chapter in the book Mike Radshaw and the Black Dawn
The Demon of Death - BD1
by Fleedleflump
The author has placed a warning on this post for violence.
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.
The cards had been dealt. I found myself looking Death in his hideous face, inked meticulously by someone with a morbid imagination and way too much time on their hands.
"I predict," I said, my words quickly lost to the plethora of velvet drapery and tense atmosphere, "that the artist behind these cards wears black lipstick."
The deafening silence I got in response told me I faced a tough audience. I slapped my hands down on the small table, causing candlelight to flicker and cards to shift. Death still stared implacably, oblivious to his disrespectful treatment.
"He paints his nails black," I continued. "He finds corpses romantic, believes in the beauty of depression, and thinks Marilyn Manson is a lightweight, over-commercialised pussy." My words sank into the atmosphere of the tent interior. If I hadn't travelled there, I would never have believed I was currently sitting on the edge of Clapham Common, in a circus stall.
"Mock not the grim reaper, Mister Radshaw," said the old gypsy woman sitting opposite. If a voice could be labelled 'sepulchral', hers was living proof. She made Vin Diesel sound like a chipmunk castrato. On helium. "He sees your soul, and he craves its flavour."
"What, eight pints of Bombardier and a Doner kebab with a doner list three pages long?"
She stabbed me with with the kind of glare that makes serial killers cry and milk curdle in the udder.
"Your droll tongue flaps like a dirty rag in the breeze, but you do not hide your fear from me. The terror sweats from your pores, infesting you with its stench."
"That'll be the hangover." I tried to match her stare, squinting across the dimly lit space. It was no use, and she was dead right. I felt like a spotty teenager telling Mr T I'd just got his daughter pregnant. In his bed. And I wiped my junk on his curtains. I sighed inwardly.
Mike Radshaw's the name, and you've suffered the misfortune of stumbling on my life in progress - sorry about that. In my time as a cop and a PI, I've come to know demons both literal and figurative. I'm just stupid enough to poke my nose where it's not wanted, and so far it hasn't been clawed off. I've opened doors to places so FUBAR they make Tower Hamlets look like Utopia, and lived to tell the tales. I've faced demon assassins and zombie babies, even taken on a kiddie-fiddling street gang.
None of that helps when you're staring Death in his disturbingly well-drawn face.
"You came to me, Mister Radshaw," croaked the crone. "Forces gather in the shadows and you seek a torch, but only black ink can obscure what is written."
I sat back in the chair and let my arms dangle. "Is that supposed to help me?"
She smiled with all the warmth of a glacier wearing sunglasses. "You have Death's attention. He is drawn to the cadence of your flame. In the lonely night, a star will shine forever."
"That will not do," I whispered.
"Hah!" she exclaimed. I actually jumped and, feeling foolish, sat forward again. Shadows slithered through the grooves in her face but nothing could distract from the eyes. They beamed; green and bloodshot by booze, but wild with belief. She extended a hand. "Cross my palm."
I hesitated, but knew I had no choice. I dropped a small plastic bag into her clutch. Hair from each zone of my body, sputum, blood and semen. And no, I didn't ask why.
"Seek the light's wake, Mister Radshaw," she said. "All manner of thing may follow a star, but who will look behind it?"
*****
The tiny fingers gripped my thumb, pulling with insistent fervour. I resisted and the baby chugged out one of those delighted giggles that make the whole world smile. It filled my little office with sorely-needed levity.
"He's sooo cute!" said Amy. Assistant, confidant and frequent life-saver, Amy ran my PI business while I did the easy part. She was like a sat nav for my entire life, ushering me from one place to the next with assurance and aplomb. She had a better voice than the average in-car system, though, and more soul than I'd encountered in anybody else I'd ever met.
"What the fuck am I supposed to do with a baby?" I muttered. Gazing along the length of my outstretched arm into huge, blue eyes in a round face, all I felt was helpless. I'd like to say I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to hurt this fragile, young life, but I've seen too much to believe that.
Amy cooed down at the child, extracting an unfettered grin.
"The Knights gave him to you for a reason," she said. "The guy that dropped him off looked terrified. They can't protect him, Mike, and they think you can. That's a compliment, in my book."
I snorted. "If that's a compliment, politicians are always honest and spin doctors are just high-end deejays." The tiny fist tugged again at my thumb. "Who are you, little man?" I asked. "How did you end up with the Knights, and what evil thing wants you dead?"
I got a wet smile in response. The Knights were a secret order who claimed to be affiliated with the Vatican. I'd first encountered them after detonating a bomb in a disused factory to seal a demon portal. As it turned out, it was their bomb and I'd finished the job for them. They'd been fighting forces for centuries that I was only just coming to understand, but their methods were stuck in the dark ages. Why plug a hole with a cork when you can collapse a building on top of it? These days we had an uneasy truce. We shared information and, it now seemed, babies.
I wondered if the ever-elusive 'Mister Black' was involved at all. He seemed behind or linked to all the crap I had to deal with. Originally, he'd been just another client, but now I was certain he was the enemy. Mister Black; not that original as bad guy labels went, but evil comes with a limited colour palette.
"What did the tarot reader say?" asked Amy.
"She said I'm as fucked as a cute prisoner with a habit of dropping soap."
She sighed. "If this baby's first word is some hideous expletive, you'll be to blame, boss-o-mine."
"The gypsy told me I'm too clear a target," I said quietly. "As things stand, I'm like a crosshair, pinpointing this kid's location to every dark force in play." I looked Amy straight in the eyes, and I could see she knew what this meant as well as I did.
"I need to go dark."
"I'll set it up," she said in a tiny voice.
I put my best sardonic smile in place. "Tell me I'm not insane, Amy."
"I'm not insane, Amy." Her face betrayed no hint of a smile.
"Thanks."
*****
"Man, you got narrow shoulders," said Raffer, pulling on my recently-doffed trench coat.
"Just be grateful I'm not making you wear my undies," I replied. "Now, you know what needs to happen?"
"Yeah, yeah," replied the actor as he sniffed at my coat shoulder and grimaced dramatically. "I's you, at least until the money's run out. Man, you ever washed this thing?"
"No, and it's important you don't, either. It's not enough, you looking like me, Raf. You need to act the part down to my toes. That means the smelly coat, three-day stubble, and a sarcasm level higher than Simon Cowell's waistband. This investigator needs to believe you're me, so you'll be working out of my office with Amy, and she'll get you on a real-looking case."
Raffer was an old acquaintance; a decent actor who never got a big break and bore an uncanny resemblance to yours truly. That made him ideal when I needed someone to represent me at boring-looking meetings or as a decoy if I thought I was being followed. We were at his apartment in Brixton - an address I was reasonably sure would not be under any sort of surveillance.
He grinned at me. "So, what if I's better at Peeing in the I than you?"
"I'll retire a happy man."
"This dude you got following you - he dangerous?"
I kept my face straight as a wave of guilt washed over me like an unwelcome flush. "He's just a rival, hired by a disgruntled ex-client. I can't risk him finding out the case I'm working on. You're cool, man."
"Aight, no problems, Radshaw." He started ushering me to the door.
"Don't forget the baby - I left the pushchair downstairs."
He gave me a look like I'd just farted in his coffee. "Man, I thought you was joking about the baby."
"If I was joking, I'd have said two condoms are walking past a gay bar. One goes to the other, 'let's go in and get shit-faced.'"
Raffer grabbed up the 'baby' - a realistically weighted, moving doll that, frankly, freaked me out, but it had to be believable. "You a homophobe, man," he muttered resentfully.
"Nah," I said as I opened his door, "I just like shit jokes."
*****
"You were not entirely honest with me, Mister Radshaw."
If I had a list of things I didn't want to hear my phone say to me, that would definitely be on it, but it seemed the fortune-telling crone had left me a voicemail message. That I was listening to it for a second time probably made me a masochist.
"You did not tell me you were with child." I grimaced at her choice of words, and hoped she'd just picked a strange way to phrase it. I mean, the belly's got some roundness - no denying it - but I put that down to the aforementioned ale. "You must visit me again, detective. There is much you should know. This you get for free: Death is a demon. That is, the Death you see anthropomorphised in a cloak, clutching a scythe. You saw his likeness on my card, staring into your soul. Of course, he is much uglier in person. You need help. Forces are in play that you can neither conceive nor combat. The Prophecy has been invoked. For the rest, you must cross my palm again. I will be expecting you. END OF MESSAGE. TO-"
I terminated the call with my forehead and slipped my phone into a pocket.
I shook my other hand into a plastic bag then sealed it up. One more payment for the gypsy, one last chance to find out what was going on before I started putting adverts in the paper. I believed I had to keep this child safe, but curiosity was burning my gut like a Vindaloo with extra onions. For a week now, Raffer had been masquerading as me, pushing and carrying his fake baby around London and being very obvious about making 'routine enquiries'. No person or thing had taken the bait.
In the meantime, I'd spoken to every scrote, contact, informant and random stranger I could get my hands on. Nobody knew or was admitting the truth. The Knights had gone underground - probably literally - and the better-informed shopkeepers from Soho's shadier alleys were conveniently on holiday.
I flushed the loo I'd been perched on and secreted the bag in an inside pocket. Emerging from the cubicle, I took the risk of washing my hands in the toilets at Victoria train station. There were many things I'd rather have touched than the tap - a leprous tramp with halitosis and a psychotic temper, or a used condom from a council estate tower block's stair well - but needs must when you've just been cramming various bodily excreta into a sandwich bag.
I shouldered the backpack with the baby, wincing at the weight. I was certain the pack itself weighed far more than the good-natured, thankfully sleepy child ensconced within. He'd been so good, I almost didn't mind his company any more. I'd come to quite enjoy the feeding, burping, and cheer-up rituals.
"You can keep the nappy-changing, though," I muttered to myself. "There are some things nobody should have to encounter close up."
As I rode a night train to Clapham and the stars presided over another barmy London summer, I tried to think of any alternative options. I really didn't want to expose this baby to the gypsy woman and her creepy cards, but she was the only one who seemed to have any clue what was occurring. I'd have far more chance of protecting the baby if I knew what from, and why I needed to.
I was approaching Clapham Common when the sight before me left me stumbling to a halt.
"Fuck my arse!"
Flickering lights splashed across the scene like strobe effects in a James Cameron flick. The gypsy woman's tent was gone, replaced by a vision that would make Quentin Tarantino shiver. Clearly, film directors would do well to stay clear of my head right now.
Great streamers of blood burst across the grass in a spray pattern thirty feet wide, their surfaces reflecting black and red alternately as the blue emergency lights atop cop cars and ambulances illuminated them. In the centre of the carnage was the small table I'd rested my hands on a week ago, now adorned with a pile of internal organs that weren't internal any more. Snakes of intestine spilled between surface and ground. In a sign that I found all too familiar, the skeleton was missing. From the distance, I could see a small rectangle perched atop the grisly heap. I didn't need to get any closer to know what it was; the death card, placed as a message.
My stomach tried to bundle my shoes and I was heartily glad I'd not eaten recently. What in fuck's name was I up against?
It was then, as I stood dumbly, that my phone rang with that default Nokia tune that can turn half the population of a train carriage into psychopaths on the spot - exactly why I hadn't changed it. I fumbled it from my pocked and slid my finger across its screen to answer.
"Mike!" Amy's voice, thin and breathless. She was either terrified, exhausted, or in great pain. I was back in the game instantly.
"What's happened? Tell me you're alright!"
"He came here, Mike, talking about 'The Prophecy' and sacrifices that must be made. He came for the baby."
My cheek felt cold and wet against the phone's surface. "Fuck that for the moment, Amy. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Mike, just got the shakes. Listen, I told him everything. He knows Raffer's location, and he's heading there now. It's an ancient church just off Horseferry Road, SW1. I'm sorry, Mike. I didn't know what else to do; I had to warn you."
The relief rushing through my system felt like dipping my toes in a cold stream during a heat-wave. "What did he look like?"
"A guy in a black suit, perfect hair, bright red eyes. He scared the shit out of me, Mike. He never threatened, just asked questions in a calm voice that made me wet my knickers. I don't know what he is, but you'd better know what you're doing if you plan to face him."
"You did the right thing, Amy. I couldn't live with myself if you got hurt. I know that church - I'll head there now. I just arrived at the gypsy's tent, and someone's made mincemeat out of her. Literally. If you don't hear from me by six, call every fucking cop in the Met and send them to that church!"
*****
As I sneaked up to the church door, I felt like the last fart in a half hour crapping session - behind in every way imaginable. I hated playing catch-up on a case, especially when my neck was on the line. It was now four in the morning, and the dull grey sky was casting a pall across London as pre-dawn took hold.
There's a magic to that half-light that makes sights seem shrink-wrapped and sounds incorporeal. The baby slept in his backpack, a situation for which I was extremely grateful. I'd considered leaving him somewhere safe, until I realised there wasn't anywhere safe. To get to the baby, they'd have to get through me. That would have to suffice.
I looked closely at the door and knew there were dark runes ingrained in the wood. They were hiding, but I could feel it. There was an almost intolerable mental pressure emanating from the ancient portal. Nobody would be able to open this door.
Unluckily for me, I'm not nobody. I placed my scarred hand upon the door's surface - the hand which had been flayed to the bone by a demon's claws. There was no resistance, and I pushed it open as quietly as I could manage, slipping it shut behind me.
As I slunk through the darkness, sticking to the deepest shadows at the edges of the nave, I heard voices. There, standing behind the lectern atop a dais, was my doppelganger Raffer, a man whose only crime was looking like me. He was looking down at a figure wearing a black suit, standing between the front rows of pews, his back to me.
"Relinquish the Angel's get!" said the suit in a tone like thunder's older brother.
Raffer looked down with an exaggerated bemused expression. "Assuming you made sense, mate, which you don't, I'm about as likely to do what you say as a seagull is to fly backwards."
I rolled my eyes - Raffer wouldn't fool anyone with such lame comebacks!
"I am not here to tolerate your sarcasm, Radshaw. Give me the baby."
My jaw dropped open in affront, but I managed to stay quiet. This was the whole reason for hiring Raffer - so I could hide behind his facade.
"I'm not giving you anything," said the actor, but his voice sounded shaky. I couldn't blame the poor guy.
"And yet you will," whispered the suit, his voice carrying despite its quietness. "I will take him, and snuff his infant spark from existence. He cannot be allowed to live. So says The Prophecy."
Raffer looked lost and I ached to join in, to confront this terrible monster in a man's guise. Instead, I stepped further back into darkness until I was touching the door, ready to bolt. I swear I felt a little part of me die inside right then.
"No," managed the actor in a tiny voice.
"YES!" The suit bulged suddenly and billowed into a cloak shape as the figure wearing it grew to more than eight feet in height. Tendrils of ragged cloth flapped away from his form like fabric tongues, licking hungrily at the church floor. From somewhere, he was holding a scythe with shining blade and gnarled, knotted haft. Whatever his face now looked like, it did a serious number on Raffer, who collapsed to his knees and blubbed for mercy.
Of course, he is much uglier in person.
Something clicked inside, a connection I should have made a long time ago, and a whisper escaped my lips.
"Mister Black, I presume."
The figure strode forward and the scythe swung down with implacable force, severing Raffer in a diagonal cut from left shoulder to right hip. His body flopped in two, pissing buckets of blood and bursting organs across the floor. The Death demon knelt down and I saw a hand formed entirely from foot-long thorns grip the actors' head.
"What? You are not Radshaw! This cannot be - the Prophecy!"
On a whim, I wanted to grab the bag of excreta from my pocket and splat its various contents on the floor. 'See that, staining your floor? You can kiss it. That's the fuck I don't give about your prophecy!' But I knew I couldn't - there was too much at risk. Instead I slunk through the shadows and quietly made my escape.
As I descended the church steps into a burgeoning dawn, a terrifying voice thundered.
"I'll come for you, Radshaw. I'll find you!"
I'd successfully protected the sleeping child on my back, the young creature that might be an angel. But at what cost, and for how long? There was one thing I knew beyond doubt, and it mapped me on a course of utter terror and abject uncertainty:
This was not over.
This Sentence Starts The Story contest entry
The cards had been dealt. I found myself looking Death in his hideous face, inked meticulously by someone with a morbid imagination and way too much time on their hands.
"I predict," I said, my words quickly lost to the plethora of velvet drapery and tense atmosphere, "that the artist behind these cards wears black lipstick."
The deafening silence I got in response told me I faced a tough audience. I slapped my hands down on the small table, causing candlelight to flicker and cards to shift. Death still stared implacably, oblivious to his disrespectful treatment.
"He paints his nails black," I continued. "He finds corpses romantic, believes in the beauty of depression, and thinks Marilyn Manson is a lightweight, over-commercialised pussy." My words sank into the atmosphere of the tent interior. If I hadn't travelled there, I would never have believed I was currently sitting on the edge of Clapham Common, in a circus stall.
"Mock not the grim reaper, Mister Radshaw," said the old gypsy woman sitting opposite. If a voice could be labelled 'sepulchral', hers was living proof. She made Vin Diesel sound like a chipmunk castrato. On helium. "He sees your soul, and he craves its flavour."
"What, eight pints of Bombardier and a Doner kebab with a doner list three pages long?"
She stabbed me with with the kind of glare that makes serial killers cry and milk curdle in the udder.
"Your droll tongue flaps like a dirty rag in the breeze, but you do not hide your fear from me. The terror sweats from your pores, infesting you with its stench."
"That'll be the hangover." I tried to match her stare, squinting across the dimly lit space. It was no use, and she was dead right. I felt like a spotty teenager telling Mr T I'd just got his daughter pregnant. In his bed. And I wiped my junk on his curtains. I sighed inwardly.
Mike Radshaw's the name, and you've suffered the misfortune of stumbling on my life in progress - sorry about that. In my time as a cop and a PI, I've come to know demons both literal and figurative. I'm just stupid enough to poke my nose where it's not wanted, and so far it hasn't been clawed off. I've opened doors to places so FUBAR they make Tower Hamlets look like Utopia, and lived to tell the tales. I've faced demon assassins and zombie babies, even taken on a kiddie-fiddling street gang.
None of that helps when you're staring Death in his disturbingly well-drawn face.
"You came to me, Mister Radshaw," croaked the crone. "Forces gather in the shadows and you seek a torch, but only black ink can obscure what is written."
I sat back in the chair and let my arms dangle. "Is that supposed to help me?"
She smiled with all the warmth of a glacier wearing sunglasses. "You have Death's attention. He is drawn to the cadence of your flame. In the lonely night, a star will shine forever."
"That will not do," I whispered.
"Hah!" she exclaimed. I actually jumped and, feeling foolish, sat forward again. Shadows slithered through the grooves in her face but nothing could distract from the eyes. They beamed; green and bloodshot by booze, but wild with belief. She extended a hand. "Cross my palm."
I hesitated, but knew I had no choice. I dropped a small plastic bag into her clutch. Hair from each zone of my body, sputum, blood and semen. And no, I didn't ask why.
"Seek the light's wake, Mister Radshaw," she said. "All manner of thing may follow a star, but who will look behind it?"
*****
The tiny fingers gripped my thumb, pulling with insistent fervour. I resisted and the baby chugged out one of those delighted giggles that make the whole world smile. It filled my little office with sorely-needed levity.
"He's sooo cute!" said Amy. Assistant, confidant and frequent life-saver, Amy ran my PI business while I did the easy part. She was like a sat nav for my entire life, ushering me from one place to the next with assurance and aplomb. She had a better voice than the average in-car system, though, and more soul than I'd encountered in anybody else I'd ever met.
"What the fuck am I supposed to do with a baby?" I muttered. Gazing along the length of my outstretched arm into huge, blue eyes in a round face, all I felt was helpless. I'd like to say I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to hurt this fragile, young life, but I've seen too much to believe that.
Amy cooed down at the child, extracting an unfettered grin.
"The Knights gave him to you for a reason," she said. "The guy that dropped him off looked terrified. They can't protect him, Mike, and they think you can. That's a compliment, in my book."
I snorted. "If that's a compliment, politicians are always honest and spin doctors are just high-end deejays." The tiny fist tugged again at my thumb. "Who are you, little man?" I asked. "How did you end up with the Knights, and what evil thing wants you dead?"
I got a wet smile in response. The Knights were a secret order who claimed to be affiliated with the Vatican. I'd first encountered them after detonating a bomb in a disused factory to seal a demon portal. As it turned out, it was their bomb and I'd finished the job for them. They'd been fighting forces for centuries that I was only just coming to understand, but their methods were stuck in the dark ages. Why plug a hole with a cork when you can collapse a building on top of it? These days we had an uneasy truce. We shared information and, it now seemed, babies.
I wondered if the ever-elusive 'Mister Black' was involved at all. He seemed behind or linked to all the crap I had to deal with. Originally, he'd been just another client, but now I was certain he was the enemy. Mister Black; not that original as bad guy labels went, but evil comes with a limited colour palette.
"What did the tarot reader say?" asked Amy.
"She said I'm as fucked as a cute prisoner with a habit of dropping soap."
She sighed. "If this baby's first word is some hideous expletive, you'll be to blame, boss-o-mine."
"The gypsy told me I'm too clear a target," I said quietly. "As things stand, I'm like a crosshair, pinpointing this kid's location to every dark force in play." I looked Amy straight in the eyes, and I could see she knew what this meant as well as I did.
"I need to go dark."
"I'll set it up," she said in a tiny voice.
I put my best sardonic smile in place. "Tell me I'm not insane, Amy."
"I'm not insane, Amy." Her face betrayed no hint of a smile.
"Thanks."
*****
"Man, you got narrow shoulders," said Raffer, pulling on my recently-doffed trench coat.
"Just be grateful I'm not making you wear my undies," I replied. "Now, you know what needs to happen?"
"Yeah, yeah," replied the actor as he sniffed at my coat shoulder and grimaced dramatically. "I's you, at least until the money's run out. Man, you ever washed this thing?"
"No, and it's important you don't, either. It's not enough, you looking like me, Raf. You need to act the part down to my toes. That means the smelly coat, three-day stubble, and a sarcasm level higher than Simon Cowell's waistband. This investigator needs to believe you're me, so you'll be working out of my office with Amy, and she'll get you on a real-looking case."
Raffer was an old acquaintance; a decent actor who never got a big break and bore an uncanny resemblance to yours truly. That made him ideal when I needed someone to represent me at boring-looking meetings or as a decoy if I thought I was being followed. We were at his apartment in Brixton - an address I was reasonably sure would not be under any sort of surveillance.
He grinned at me. "So, what if I's better at Peeing in the I than you?"
"I'll retire a happy man."
"This dude you got following you - he dangerous?"
I kept my face straight as a wave of guilt washed over me like an unwelcome flush. "He's just a rival, hired by a disgruntled ex-client. I can't risk him finding out the case I'm working on. You're cool, man."
"Aight, no problems, Radshaw." He started ushering me to the door.
"Don't forget the baby - I left the pushchair downstairs."
He gave me a look like I'd just farted in his coffee. "Man, I thought you was joking about the baby."
"If I was joking, I'd have said two condoms are walking past a gay bar. One goes to the other, 'let's go in and get shit-faced.'"
Raffer grabbed up the 'baby' - a realistically weighted, moving doll that, frankly, freaked me out, but it had to be believable. "You a homophobe, man," he muttered resentfully.
"Nah," I said as I opened his door, "I just like shit jokes."
*****
"You were not entirely honest with me, Mister Radshaw."
If I had a list of things I didn't want to hear my phone say to me, that would definitely be on it, but it seemed the fortune-telling crone had left me a voicemail message. That I was listening to it for a second time probably made me a masochist.
"You did not tell me you were with child." I grimaced at her choice of words, and hoped she'd just picked a strange way to phrase it. I mean, the belly's got some roundness - no denying it - but I put that down to the aforementioned ale. "You must visit me again, detective. There is much you should know. This you get for free: Death is a demon. That is, the Death you see anthropomorphised in a cloak, clutching a scythe. You saw his likeness on my card, staring into your soul. Of course, he is much uglier in person. You need help. Forces are in play that you can neither conceive nor combat. The Prophecy has been invoked. For the rest, you must cross my palm again. I will be expecting you. END OF MESSAGE. TO-"
I terminated the call with my forehead and slipped my phone into a pocket.
I shook my other hand into a plastic bag then sealed it up. One more payment for the gypsy, one last chance to find out what was going on before I started putting adverts in the paper. I believed I had to keep this child safe, but curiosity was burning my gut like a Vindaloo with extra onions. For a week now, Raffer had been masquerading as me, pushing and carrying his fake baby around London and being very obvious about making 'routine enquiries'. No person or thing had taken the bait.
In the meantime, I'd spoken to every scrote, contact, informant and random stranger I could get my hands on. Nobody knew or was admitting the truth. The Knights had gone underground - probably literally - and the better-informed shopkeepers from Soho's shadier alleys were conveniently on holiday.
I flushed the loo I'd been perched on and secreted the bag in an inside pocket. Emerging from the cubicle, I took the risk of washing my hands in the toilets at Victoria train station. There were many things I'd rather have touched than the tap - a leprous tramp with halitosis and a psychotic temper, or a used condom from a council estate tower block's stair well - but needs must when you've just been cramming various bodily excreta into a sandwich bag.
I shouldered the backpack with the baby, wincing at the weight. I was certain the pack itself weighed far more than the good-natured, thankfully sleepy child ensconced within. He'd been so good, I almost didn't mind his company any more. I'd come to quite enjoy the feeding, burping, and cheer-up rituals.
"You can keep the nappy-changing, though," I muttered to myself. "There are some things nobody should have to encounter close up."
As I rode a night train to Clapham and the stars presided over another barmy London summer, I tried to think of any alternative options. I really didn't want to expose this baby to the gypsy woman and her creepy cards, but she was the only one who seemed to have any clue what was occurring. I'd have far more chance of protecting the baby if I knew what from, and why I needed to.
I was approaching Clapham Common when the sight before me left me stumbling to a halt.
"Fuck my arse!"
Flickering lights splashed across the scene like strobe effects in a James Cameron flick. The gypsy woman's tent was gone, replaced by a vision that would make Quentin Tarantino shiver. Clearly, film directors would do well to stay clear of my head right now.
Great streamers of blood burst across the grass in a spray pattern thirty feet wide, their surfaces reflecting black and red alternately as the blue emergency lights atop cop cars and ambulances illuminated them. In the centre of the carnage was the small table I'd rested my hands on a week ago, now adorned with a pile of internal organs that weren't internal any more. Snakes of intestine spilled between surface and ground. In a sign that I found all too familiar, the skeleton was missing. From the distance, I could see a small rectangle perched atop the grisly heap. I didn't need to get any closer to know what it was; the death card, placed as a message.
My stomach tried to bundle my shoes and I was heartily glad I'd not eaten recently. What in fuck's name was I up against?
It was then, as I stood dumbly, that my phone rang with that default Nokia tune that can turn half the population of a train carriage into psychopaths on the spot - exactly why I hadn't changed it. I fumbled it from my pocked and slid my finger across its screen to answer.
"Mike!" Amy's voice, thin and breathless. She was either terrified, exhausted, or in great pain. I was back in the game instantly.
"What's happened? Tell me you're alright!"
"He came here, Mike, talking about 'The Prophecy' and sacrifices that must be made. He came for the baby."
My cheek felt cold and wet against the phone's surface. "Fuck that for the moment, Amy. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Mike, just got the shakes. Listen, I told him everything. He knows Raffer's location, and he's heading there now. It's an ancient church just off Horseferry Road, SW1. I'm sorry, Mike. I didn't know what else to do; I had to warn you."
The relief rushing through my system felt like dipping my toes in a cold stream during a heat-wave. "What did he look like?"
"A guy in a black suit, perfect hair, bright red eyes. He scared the shit out of me, Mike. He never threatened, just asked questions in a calm voice that made me wet my knickers. I don't know what he is, but you'd better know what you're doing if you plan to face him."
"You did the right thing, Amy. I couldn't live with myself if you got hurt. I know that church - I'll head there now. I just arrived at the gypsy's tent, and someone's made mincemeat out of her. Literally. If you don't hear from me by six, call every fucking cop in the Met and send them to that church!"
*****
As I sneaked up to the church door, I felt like the last fart in a half hour crapping session - behind in every way imaginable. I hated playing catch-up on a case, especially when my neck was on the line. It was now four in the morning, and the dull grey sky was casting a pall across London as pre-dawn took hold.
There's a magic to that half-light that makes sights seem shrink-wrapped and sounds incorporeal. The baby slept in his backpack, a situation for which I was extremely grateful. I'd considered leaving him somewhere safe, until I realised there wasn't anywhere safe. To get to the baby, they'd have to get through me. That would have to suffice.
I looked closely at the door and knew there were dark runes ingrained in the wood. They were hiding, but I could feel it. There was an almost intolerable mental pressure emanating from the ancient portal. Nobody would be able to open this door.
Unluckily for me, I'm not nobody. I placed my scarred hand upon the door's surface - the hand which had been flayed to the bone by a demon's claws. There was no resistance, and I pushed it open as quietly as I could manage, slipping it shut behind me.
As I slunk through the darkness, sticking to the deepest shadows at the edges of the nave, I heard voices. There, standing behind the lectern atop a dais, was my doppelganger Raffer, a man whose only crime was looking like me. He was looking down at a figure wearing a black suit, standing between the front rows of pews, his back to me.
"Relinquish the Angel's get!" said the suit in a tone like thunder's older brother.
Raffer looked down with an exaggerated bemused expression. "Assuming you made sense, mate, which you don't, I'm about as likely to do what you say as a seagull is to fly backwards."
I rolled my eyes - Raffer wouldn't fool anyone with such lame comebacks!
"I am not here to tolerate your sarcasm, Radshaw. Give me the baby."
My jaw dropped open in affront, but I managed to stay quiet. This was the whole reason for hiring Raffer - so I could hide behind his facade.
"I'm not giving you anything," said the actor, but his voice sounded shaky. I couldn't blame the poor guy.
"And yet you will," whispered the suit, his voice carrying despite its quietness. "I will take him, and snuff his infant spark from existence. He cannot be allowed to live. So says The Prophecy."
Raffer looked lost and I ached to join in, to confront this terrible monster in a man's guise. Instead, I stepped further back into darkness until I was touching the door, ready to bolt. I swear I felt a little part of me die inside right then.
"No," managed the actor in a tiny voice.
"YES!" The suit bulged suddenly and billowed into a cloak shape as the figure wearing it grew to more than eight feet in height. Tendrils of ragged cloth flapped away from his form like fabric tongues, licking hungrily at the church floor. From somewhere, he was holding a scythe with shining blade and gnarled, knotted haft. Whatever his face now looked like, it did a serious number on Raffer, who collapsed to his knees and blubbed for mercy.
Of course, he is much uglier in person.
Something clicked inside, a connection I should have made a long time ago, and a whisper escaped my lips.
"Mister Black, I presume."
The figure strode forward and the scythe swung down with implacable force, severing Raffer in a diagonal cut from left shoulder to right hip. His body flopped in two, pissing buckets of blood and bursting organs across the floor. The Death demon knelt down and I saw a hand formed entirely from foot-long thorns grip the actors' head.
"What? You are not Radshaw! This cannot be - the Prophecy!"
On a whim, I wanted to grab the bag of excreta from my pocket and splat its various contents on the floor. 'See that, staining your floor? You can kiss it. That's the fuck I don't give about your prophecy!' But I knew I couldn't - there was too much at risk. Instead I slunk through the shadows and quietly made my escape.
As I descended the church steps into a burgeoning dawn, a terrifying voice thundered.
"I'll come for you, Radshaw. I'll find you!"
I'd successfully protected the sleeping child on my back, the young creature that might be an angel. But at what cost, and for how long? There was one thing I knew beyond doubt, and it mapped me on a course of utter terror and abject uncertainty:
This was not over.
"I predict," I said, my words quickly lost to the plethora of velvet drapery and tense atmosphere, "that the artist behind these cards wears black lipstick."
The deafening silence I got in response told me I faced a tough audience. I slapped my hands down on the small table, causing candlelight to flicker and cards to shift. Death still stared implacably, oblivious to his disrespectful treatment.
"He paints his nails black," I continued. "He finds corpses romantic, believes in the beauty of depression, and thinks Marilyn Manson is a lightweight, over-commercialised pussy." My words sank into the atmosphere of the tent interior. If I hadn't travelled there, I would never have believed I was currently sitting on the edge of Clapham Common, in a circus stall.
"Mock not the grim reaper, Mister Radshaw," said the old gypsy woman sitting opposite. If a voice could be labelled 'sepulchral', hers was living proof. She made Vin Diesel sound like a chipmunk castrato. On helium. "He sees your soul, and he craves its flavour."
"What, eight pints of Bombardier and a Doner kebab with a doner list three pages long?"
She stabbed me with with the kind of glare that makes serial killers cry and milk curdle in the udder.
"Your droll tongue flaps like a dirty rag in the breeze, but you do not hide your fear from me. The terror sweats from your pores, infesting you with its stench."
"That'll be the hangover." I tried to match her stare, squinting across the dimly lit space. It was no use, and she was dead right. I felt like a spotty teenager telling Mr T I'd just got his daughter pregnant. In his bed. And I wiped my junk on his curtains. I sighed inwardly.
Mike Radshaw's the name, and you've suffered the misfortune of stumbling on my life in progress - sorry about that. In my time as a cop and a PI, I've come to know demons both literal and figurative. I'm just stupid enough to poke my nose where it's not wanted, and so far it hasn't been clawed off. I've opened doors to places so FUBAR they make Tower Hamlets look like Utopia, and lived to tell the tales. I've faced demon assassins and zombie babies, even taken on a kiddie-fiddling street gang.
None of that helps when you're staring Death in his disturbingly well-drawn face.
"You came to me, Mister Radshaw," croaked the crone. "Forces gather in the shadows and you seek a torch, but only black ink can obscure what is written."
I sat back in the chair and let my arms dangle. "Is that supposed to help me?"
She smiled with all the warmth of a glacier wearing sunglasses. "You have Death's attention. He is drawn to the cadence of your flame. In the lonely night, a star will shine forever."
"That will not do," I whispered.
"Hah!" she exclaimed. I actually jumped and, feeling foolish, sat forward again. Shadows slithered through the grooves in her face but nothing could distract from the eyes. They beamed; green and bloodshot by booze, but wild with belief. She extended a hand. "Cross my palm."
I hesitated, but knew I had no choice. I dropped a small plastic bag into her clutch. Hair from each zone of my body, sputum, blood and semen. And no, I didn't ask why.
"Seek the light's wake, Mister Radshaw," she said. "All manner of thing may follow a star, but who will look behind it?"
*****
The tiny fingers gripped my thumb, pulling with insistent fervour. I resisted and the baby chugged out one of those delighted giggles that make the whole world smile. It filled my little office with sorely-needed levity.
"He's sooo cute!" said Amy. Assistant, confidant and frequent life-saver, Amy ran my PI business while I did the easy part. She was like a sat nav for my entire life, ushering me from one place to the next with assurance and aplomb. She had a better voice than the average in-car system, though, and more soul than I'd encountered in anybody else I'd ever met.
"What the fuck am I supposed to do with a baby?" I muttered. Gazing along the length of my outstretched arm into huge, blue eyes in a round face, all I felt was helpless. I'd like to say I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to hurt this fragile, young life, but I've seen too much to believe that.
Amy cooed down at the child, extracting an unfettered grin.
"The Knights gave him to you for a reason," she said. "The guy that dropped him off looked terrified. They can't protect him, Mike, and they think you can. That's a compliment, in my book."
I snorted. "If that's a compliment, politicians are always honest and spin doctors are just high-end deejays." The tiny fist tugged again at my thumb. "Who are you, little man?" I asked. "How did you end up with the Knights, and what evil thing wants you dead?"
I got a wet smile in response. The Knights were a secret order who claimed to be affiliated with the Vatican. I'd first encountered them after detonating a bomb in a disused factory to seal a demon portal. As it turned out, it was their bomb and I'd finished the job for them. They'd been fighting forces for centuries that I was only just coming to understand, but their methods were stuck in the dark ages. Why plug a hole with a cork when you can collapse a building on top of it? These days we had an uneasy truce. We shared information and, it now seemed, babies.
I wondered if the ever-elusive 'Mister Black' was involved at all. He seemed behind or linked to all the crap I had to deal with. Originally, he'd been just another client, but now I was certain he was the enemy. Mister Black; not that original as bad guy labels went, but evil comes with a limited colour palette.
"What did the tarot reader say?" asked Amy.
"She said I'm as fucked as a cute prisoner with a habit of dropping soap."
She sighed. "If this baby's first word is some hideous expletive, you'll be to blame, boss-o-mine."
"The gypsy told me I'm too clear a target," I said quietly. "As things stand, I'm like a crosshair, pinpointing this kid's location to every dark force in play." I looked Amy straight in the eyes, and I could see she knew what this meant as well as I did.
"I need to go dark."
"I'll set it up," she said in a tiny voice.
I put my best sardonic smile in place. "Tell me I'm not insane, Amy."
"I'm not insane, Amy." Her face betrayed no hint of a smile.
"Thanks."
*****
"Man, you got narrow shoulders," said Raffer, pulling on my recently-doffed trench coat.
"Just be grateful I'm not making you wear my undies," I replied. "Now, you know what needs to happen?"
"Yeah, yeah," replied the actor as he sniffed at my coat shoulder and grimaced dramatically. "I's you, at least until the money's run out. Man, you ever washed this thing?"
"No, and it's important you don't, either. It's not enough, you looking like me, Raf. You need to act the part down to my toes. That means the smelly coat, three-day stubble, and a sarcasm level higher than Simon Cowell's waistband. This investigator needs to believe you're me, so you'll be working out of my office with Amy, and she'll get you on a real-looking case."
Raffer was an old acquaintance; a decent actor who never got a big break and bore an uncanny resemblance to yours truly. That made him ideal when I needed someone to represent me at boring-looking meetings or as a decoy if I thought I was being followed. We were at his apartment in Brixton - an address I was reasonably sure would not be under any sort of surveillance.
He grinned at me. "So, what if I's better at Peeing in the I than you?"
"I'll retire a happy man."
"This dude you got following you - he dangerous?"
I kept my face straight as a wave of guilt washed over me like an unwelcome flush. "He's just a rival, hired by a disgruntled ex-client. I can't risk him finding out the case I'm working on. You're cool, man."
"Aight, no problems, Radshaw." He started ushering me to the door.
"Don't forget the baby - I left the pushchair downstairs."
He gave me a look like I'd just farted in his coffee. "Man, I thought you was joking about the baby."
"If I was joking, I'd have said two condoms are walking past a gay bar. One goes to the other, 'let's go in and get shit-faced.'"
Raffer grabbed up the 'baby' - a realistically weighted, moving doll that, frankly, freaked me out, but it had to be believable. "You a homophobe, man," he muttered resentfully.
"Nah," I said as I opened his door, "I just like shit jokes."
*****
"You were not entirely honest with me, Mister Radshaw."
If I had a list of things I didn't want to hear my phone say to me, that would definitely be on it, but it seemed the fortune-telling crone had left me a voicemail message. That I was listening to it for a second time probably made me a masochist.
"You did not tell me you were with child." I grimaced at her choice of words, and hoped she'd just picked a strange way to phrase it. I mean, the belly's got some roundness - no denying it - but I put that down to the aforementioned ale. "You must visit me again, detective. There is much you should know. This you get for free: Death is a demon. That is, the Death you see anthropomorphised in a cloak, clutching a scythe. You saw his likeness on my card, staring into your soul. Of course, he is much uglier in person. You need help. Forces are in play that you can neither conceive nor combat. The Prophecy has been invoked. For the rest, you must cross my palm again. I will be expecting you. END OF MESSAGE. TO-"
I terminated the call with my forehead and slipped my phone into a pocket.
I shook my other hand into a plastic bag then sealed it up. One more payment for the gypsy, one last chance to find out what was going on before I started putting adverts in the paper. I believed I had to keep this child safe, but curiosity was burning my gut like a Vindaloo with extra onions. For a week now, Raffer had been masquerading as me, pushing and carrying his fake baby around London and being very obvious about making 'routine enquiries'. No person or thing had taken the bait.
In the meantime, I'd spoken to every scrote, contact, informant and random stranger I could get my hands on. Nobody knew or was admitting the truth. The Knights had gone underground - probably literally - and the better-informed shopkeepers from Soho's shadier alleys were conveniently on holiday.
I flushed the loo I'd been perched on and secreted the bag in an inside pocket. Emerging from the cubicle, I took the risk of washing my hands in the toilets at Victoria train station. There were many things I'd rather have touched than the tap - a leprous tramp with halitosis and a psychotic temper, or a used condom from a council estate tower block's stair well - but needs must when you've just been cramming various bodily excreta into a sandwich bag.
I shouldered the backpack with the baby, wincing at the weight. I was certain the pack itself weighed far more than the good-natured, thankfully sleepy child ensconced within. He'd been so good, I almost didn't mind his company any more. I'd come to quite enjoy the feeding, burping, and cheer-up rituals.
"You can keep the nappy-changing, though," I muttered to myself. "There are some things nobody should have to encounter close up."
As I rode a night train to Clapham and the stars presided over another barmy London summer, I tried to think of any alternative options. I really didn't want to expose this baby to the gypsy woman and her creepy cards, but she was the only one who seemed to have any clue what was occurring. I'd have far more chance of protecting the baby if I knew what from, and why I needed to.
I was approaching Clapham Common when the sight before me left me stumbling to a halt.
"Fuck my arse!"
Flickering lights splashed across the scene like strobe effects in a James Cameron flick. The gypsy woman's tent was gone, replaced by a vision that would make Quentin Tarantino shiver. Clearly, film directors would do well to stay clear of my head right now.
Great streamers of blood burst across the grass in a spray pattern thirty feet wide, their surfaces reflecting black and red alternately as the blue emergency lights atop cop cars and ambulances illuminated them. In the centre of the carnage was the small table I'd rested my hands on a week ago, now adorned with a pile of internal organs that weren't internal any more. Snakes of intestine spilled between surface and ground. In a sign that I found all too familiar, the skeleton was missing. From the distance, I could see a small rectangle perched atop the grisly heap. I didn't need to get any closer to know what it was; the death card, placed as a message.
My stomach tried to bundle my shoes and I was heartily glad I'd not eaten recently. What in fuck's name was I up against?
It was then, as I stood dumbly, that my phone rang with that default Nokia tune that can turn half the population of a train carriage into psychopaths on the spot - exactly why I hadn't changed it. I fumbled it from my pocked and slid my finger across its screen to answer.
"Mike!" Amy's voice, thin and breathless. She was either terrified, exhausted, or in great pain. I was back in the game instantly.
"What's happened? Tell me you're alright!"
"He came here, Mike, talking about 'The Prophecy' and sacrifices that must be made. He came for the baby."
My cheek felt cold and wet against the phone's surface. "Fuck that for the moment, Amy. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Mike, just got the shakes. Listen, I told him everything. He knows Raffer's location, and he's heading there now. It's an ancient church just off Horseferry Road, SW1. I'm sorry, Mike. I didn't know what else to do; I had to warn you."
The relief rushing through my system felt like dipping my toes in a cold stream during a heat-wave. "What did he look like?"
"A guy in a black suit, perfect hair, bright red eyes. He scared the shit out of me, Mike. He never threatened, just asked questions in a calm voice that made me wet my knickers. I don't know what he is, but you'd better know what you're doing if you plan to face him."
"You did the right thing, Amy. I couldn't live with myself if you got hurt. I know that church - I'll head there now. I just arrived at the gypsy's tent, and someone's made mincemeat out of her. Literally. If you don't hear from me by six, call every fucking cop in the Met and send them to that church!"
*****
As I sneaked up to the church door, I felt like the last fart in a half hour crapping session - behind in every way imaginable. I hated playing catch-up on a case, especially when my neck was on the line. It was now four in the morning, and the dull grey sky was casting a pall across London as pre-dawn took hold.
There's a magic to that half-light that makes sights seem shrink-wrapped and sounds incorporeal. The baby slept in his backpack, a situation for which I was extremely grateful. I'd considered leaving him somewhere safe, until I realised there wasn't anywhere safe. To get to the baby, they'd have to get through me. That would have to suffice.
I looked closely at the door and knew there were dark runes ingrained in the wood. They were hiding, but I could feel it. There was an almost intolerable mental pressure emanating from the ancient portal. Nobody would be able to open this door.
Unluckily for me, I'm not nobody. I placed my scarred hand upon the door's surface - the hand which had been flayed to the bone by a demon's claws. There was no resistance, and I pushed it open as quietly as I could manage, slipping it shut behind me.
As I slunk through the darkness, sticking to the deepest shadows at the edges of the nave, I heard voices. There, standing behind the lectern atop a dais, was my doppelganger Raffer, a man whose only crime was looking like me. He was looking down at a figure wearing a black suit, standing between the front rows of pews, his back to me.
"Relinquish the Angel's get!" said the suit in a tone like thunder's older brother.
Raffer looked down with an exaggerated bemused expression. "Assuming you made sense, mate, which you don't, I'm about as likely to do what you say as a seagull is to fly backwards."
I rolled my eyes - Raffer wouldn't fool anyone with such lame comebacks!
"I am not here to tolerate your sarcasm, Radshaw. Give me the baby."
My jaw dropped open in affront, but I managed to stay quiet. This was the whole reason for hiring Raffer - so I could hide behind his facade.
"I'm not giving you anything," said the actor, but his voice sounded shaky. I couldn't blame the poor guy.
"And yet you will," whispered the suit, his voice carrying despite its quietness. "I will take him, and snuff his infant spark from existence. He cannot be allowed to live. So says The Prophecy."
Raffer looked lost and I ached to join in, to confront this terrible monster in a man's guise. Instead, I stepped further back into darkness until I was touching the door, ready to bolt. I swear I felt a little part of me die inside right then.
"No," managed the actor in a tiny voice.
"YES!" The suit bulged suddenly and billowed into a cloak shape as the figure wearing it grew to more than eight feet in height. Tendrils of ragged cloth flapped away from his form like fabric tongues, licking hungrily at the church floor. From somewhere, he was holding a scythe with shining blade and gnarled, knotted haft. Whatever his face now looked like, it did a serious number on Raffer, who collapsed to his knees and blubbed for mercy.
Of course, he is much uglier in person.
Something clicked inside, a connection I should have made a long time ago, and a whisper escaped my lips.
"Mister Black, I presume."
The figure strode forward and the scythe swung down with implacable force, severing Raffer in a diagonal cut from left shoulder to right hip. His body flopped in two, pissing buckets of blood and bursting organs across the floor. The Death demon knelt down and I saw a hand formed entirely from foot-long thorns grip the actors' head.
"What? You are not Radshaw! This cannot be - the Prophecy!"
On a whim, I wanted to grab the bag of excreta from my pocket and splat its various contents on the floor. 'See that, staining your floor? You can kiss it. That's the fuck I don't give about your prophecy!' But I knew I couldn't - there was too much at risk. Instead I slunk through the shadows and quietly made my escape.
As I descended the church steps into a burgeoning dawn, a terrifying voice thundered.
"I'll come for you, Radshaw. I'll find you!"
I'd successfully protected the sleeping child on my back, the young creature that might be an angel. But at what cost, and for how long? There was one thing I knew beyond doubt, and it mapped me on a course of utter terror and abject uncertainty:
This was not over.
 Recognized |
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.
.
I hope you enjoyed the read :-).
After talking to Lyenochka about my books recently, I wanted to revisit this 8-part story and re-promote it for those who haven't read it before.
I'll revive a chapter each week.
Previous Mike Radshaw stories can be found in my portfolio. They are (chronologically);
Satan Claws
The Door
Nuts, a Mike Radshaw Story
Mike Radshaw and the Demon Assassin
I write in UK English with some slang. Please feel free to ask if any of it baffles.
Mike
.
.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. .
I hope you enjoyed the read :-).
After talking to Lyenochka about my books recently, I wanted to revisit this 8-part story and re-promote it for those who haven't read it before.
I'll revive a chapter each week.
Previous Mike Radshaw stories can be found in my portfolio. They are (chronologically);
Satan Claws
The Door
Nuts, a Mike Radshaw Story
Mike Radshaw and the Demon Assassin
I write in UK English with some slang. Please feel free to ask if any of it baffles.
Mike
.
.
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