exists. My brother reckons they’ve got more than a thousand people on their payroll. But they’re on silent running now. They’re officially disconnected from the apparatus of the Church. They can’t receive communion, be given the last rites or be buried in hallowed ground. And they eat that shit up, in my opinion. Being all virtuous and irredeemable; chucking over the chance of grace to save the world. They think they’re the scourge of God, fighting the last crusade against the undead.’
‘And you,’ Coldwood interjected.
‘What?’
‘And against you. You seem to get right up their noses, for some reason.’
‘Yeah, well I’d love to think that. But it’s not personal, Gary. Nothing ever is with fanatics. It’s Rafi. It’s always been Rafi.’
Father Thomas Gwillam, the current head of the Anathemata, had known about Rafi Ditko’s demonic passenger right from the start; he’d probably even been tailing Rafi as one of Fanke’s votaries before he ever summoned Asmodeus. He’d considered killing Rafi, but opinions among his own exorcists differed: the death of the human host might kill the demon too, or it might simply set the demon free to be resurrected elsewhere. On the balance of odds, Gwillam had decided to do nothing as long as Rafi was safely locked up at the Charles Stanger Care Home, in a cell lined with silver and with frequent visitations from yours truly to play his inner demon to sleep whenever he got too boisterous.
But once I’d moved Rafi from the Stanger to Imelda’s house, all bets were off. Gwillam had let the dogs out, and eventually they’d run Asmodeus to ground in Peckham, only to fumble the ball so badly that three of their best exorcists found their insides becoming their outsides, while the demon walked out from between them onto the streets of London, and in due course back into the life of Ginny Parris.
I could see where Gwillam might feel he had some sins to atone for. But I didn’t want him paying for them with Rafi’s intestines if there was anything I could do to stop it. And there was the big question, complete with neon lights, fireworks and a bank of laser beams playing across its fifty-foot-tall letters. Was there? Was there anything I could do to head the god-botherers off at the pass?
Coldwood seemed to be brooding on the same question, which was alarming.
‘Forget it, Gary,’ I advised him. ‘You piss these guys off and you’ll spend the rest of your life as a lollipop man on the M25. They don’t play games.’
‘Neither do I,’ Coldwood growled. But it was just something to say. He couldn’t stand up for a second against Gwillam’s heavies and Gwillam’s twisted cunning. I used to think I could, and the mess I was in now just went to show how badly wrong I was.
I finished my cooling coffee in three swigs, put the cup down. Coldwood watched me in silence. ‘So you’re advising me to lie back and think of England?’ he demanded. ‘Is that what you’re planning to do?’
‘I don’t know, Gary,’ I lied. ‘I have no idea what I’m going to do.’
But the idea had already come to me, a whole lot more bitter and harder to swallow than the last dregs of the Maxwell House. When God has abandoned you and the devil is snapping at your heels, what you really need on your side is a bigger devil.
Paddington. St Mary’s Hospital. The Metamorphic Ontology Unit, or MOU for short. I hadn’t been here since the last time Asmodeus tried to break his chains. Life had seemed simpler then, in some ways. You knew who your friends were, even if you could count them on the fingers of a mutilated hand.
Today though, none of that really mattered. Today I was coming here to cosy up to one of my worst enemies.
I lost my way at first, because the place had moved. I went to the old building - the Helen Trabitch Wing, on Praed Street - only to find that it had turned back into a genito-urinary clinic and was filled with a random cross section of Sussex
‘And you,’ Coldwood interjected.
‘What?’
‘And against you. You seem to get right up their noses, for some reason.’
‘Yeah, well I’d love to think that. But it’s not personal, Gary. Nothing ever is with fanatics. It’s Rafi. It’s always been Rafi.’
Father Thomas Gwillam, the current head of the Anathemata, had known about Rafi Ditko’s demonic passenger right from the start; he’d probably even been tailing Rafi as one of Fanke’s votaries before he ever summoned Asmodeus. He’d considered killing Rafi, but opinions among his own exorcists differed: the death of the human host might kill the demon too, or it might simply set the demon free to be resurrected elsewhere. On the balance of odds, Gwillam had decided to do nothing as long as Rafi was safely locked up at the Charles Stanger Care Home, in a cell lined with silver and with frequent visitations from yours truly to play his inner demon to sleep whenever he got too boisterous.
But once I’d moved Rafi from the Stanger to Imelda’s house, all bets were off. Gwillam had let the dogs out, and eventually they’d run Asmodeus to ground in Peckham, only to fumble the ball so badly that three of their best exorcists found their insides becoming their outsides, while the demon walked out from between them onto the streets of London, and in due course back into the life of Ginny Parris.
I could see where Gwillam might feel he had some sins to atone for. But I didn’t want him paying for them with Rafi’s intestines if there was anything I could do to stop it. And there was the big question, complete with neon lights, fireworks and a bank of laser beams playing across its fifty-foot-tall letters. Was there? Was there anything I could do to head the god-botherers off at the pass?
Coldwood seemed to be brooding on the same question, which was alarming.
‘Forget it, Gary,’ I advised him. ‘You piss these guys off and you’ll spend the rest of your life as a lollipop man on the M25. They don’t play games.’
‘Neither do I,’ Coldwood growled. But it was just something to say. He couldn’t stand up for a second against Gwillam’s heavies and Gwillam’s twisted cunning. I used to think I could, and the mess I was in now just went to show how badly wrong I was.
I finished my cooling coffee in three swigs, put the cup down. Coldwood watched me in silence. ‘So you’re advising me to lie back and think of England?’ he demanded. ‘Is that what you’re planning to do?’
‘I don’t know, Gary,’ I lied. ‘I have no idea what I’m going to do.’
But the idea had already come to me, a whole lot more bitter and harder to swallow than the last dregs of the Maxwell House. When God has abandoned you and the devil is snapping at your heels, what you really need on your side is a bigger devil.
Paddington. St Mary’s Hospital. The Metamorphic Ontology Unit, or MOU for short. I hadn’t been here since the last time Asmodeus tried to break his chains. Life had seemed simpler then, in some ways. You knew who your friends were, even if you could count them on the fingers of a mutilated hand.
Today though, none of that really mattered. Today I was coming here to cosy up to one of my worst enemies.
I lost my way at first, because the place had moved. I went to the old building - the Helen Trabitch Wing, on Praed Street - only to find that it had turned back into a genito-urinary clinic and was filled with a random cross section of Sussex
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