Necrophenia (33 page)

Tick tock went the clock, counting down to midnight.

Did you know that the average human life lasts less than one thousand months? It doesn’t sound like much when you put it like that. And it isn’t very much really. And like anything that matters, the less you have of it, the more precious it becomes.

As I rose all wet and bare-bottom-naked from the floor of that floatation tank and gave out with another of those great atavistic howls that were finding so much favour with me of late, I really felt the preciousness of life.

That and the need for underpants.

You just can’t go into battle in nowt but your bare skuddies. It’s not a good look and they’ll never put it in the movie version, the one where Ray Harryhausen is doing the animated monsters.

I was in definite need of underpants and I knew just where to find them.

It was going to be tricky getting from the floatation-tank room all the way up to the God-knows-how-many-floors-above top-most lair and loveless office of Papa Keith Crossbar, necromancer, murderer and head of the CIA. I was going to have to make my way up carefully.

And so I got down to a bit of the old Doctor Strange magic mambo. I crept to the door of the room, pressed my ear to it, nipped outside in my spirit-self and had a good look-see. All clear, so back into my body and out into the corridor and so on. It was a damn fine system, and it occurred to me that should I be able to best the horrible Homunculus and save the World in general, a legitimate job might be found for me in the CIA, as a spy or an undercover agent. Now that I was not only a skilled detective, but also a Master of the Mystic Arts.

I upped to the changing rooms above that smelled of plimsolls and man-bits and sought out one of those smart black suits whose style never dates as long as they’re not made of polyester. And I eventually found one that fitted rather well, and I decided that in keeping with the mission I was presently engaged upon, I would go ‘commando’ while wearing this suit. I did put on a white shirt, though, and a black tie. And a pair of socks and shoes. And, probably best of all, a really spiffing pair of Ray-Bans. And I examined my reflection in a changing-room mirror. And as God had done when finished with His big six days of labour, I looked upon all that I had made and beheld it was very good. And very cool.

And then I heard voices and I did slippings away.

I noticed that there was no shortage of wall clocks in this building, and that the nearest one that I noticed displayed its hands in the twenty-to-midnight position.

Which meant a number of things to me.

That Kevin in Pharmaceuticals would probably by now have loaded the golden girlie up with happy juice.

That a couple of burly ninja types would probably be heading to the floatation tank to hoik me out to face whatever horrors the Homunculus intended for me.

And that the quicker I could get up to the office of the thoroughgoing swine and put paid to his eldritch schemes, then probably the better.

Outside the thunder crashed and bashed and the lightning did all that could reasonably be expected of it.

This final showdown should, at least, not lack for suitable SFX and noises-off, I thought.

I wondered, perhaps, if I should take the lift.

Lift or stairs?

Stairs or lift?

It would be a lot of floors and a lot of stairs-

And Hell, I looked the part. I could blend in here. Dressed like this I could pass for a CIA man-in-black spook any day of the week.

With the possible exception of Tuesday.

But then today wasn’t Tuesday.

I took the lift.

I pressed ‘Penthouse Office’.

And then I did something rather clever.

I left my body standing in the lift and put my astral mind once more to the application of the Tyler Technique.

I concentrated really hard and then did nothing at all.

And I accompanied the rising lift all the way up in the astral, as it were. And I observed all those folk who were about to push the lift button on various floors. I watched them as they missed the button, changed their minds, tripped over, bumped into one another. And on floor thirty-seven, the tall woman from Sales Services, Ms Williams, fell suddenly into a passionate embrace with Trevellian from Corporate Holdings. Much to the shock of his fiancée Ms Hayward of Musical Therapy (the one with the sweet nose who played the steel pan), who had not in fact gone home early, but simply popped out to purchase a new pair of pan sticks. Because she was having a secret affair with Jonny, the manager of the pan-stick shop. Who was the half-brother of Dave, the evil cat’s paw of the Homunculus. Who really quite fancied Ms Williams.

Office life, eh?

So, basically I got all the way up to the top floor unmolested, whipped back inside my body and stepped from that lift looking like a million dollars and cool as a mountain stream.

Just in time to hear all the alarms going off.

‘That would be them finding me missing from the floatation tank,’ I told myself. On the off-chance that I hadn’t already figured it out. ‘So best get a bit of a move on, eh?’

And then I did one of those duckings aside and divings for cover, which, as I previously mentioned, you have to know how to do rather than try and learn. Because the lift beside mine made that dinging noise that lifts do to signify their arrival and my extrasensory nose told me that there were two men in that lift and one golden girlie. So I ducked behind one of those corporate potted plants, the likes of which you can never grow in your own home, which are watered regularly by strange little Japanese men in overalls. Who always whistle old Go West numbers and smell rather strongly of bicycles.

Or was that a dream I once had?

‘Hold on there,’ I told myself. Quietly and behind the cover of the corporate potted plant. A Ficus elasticus decora, I think. ‘Keep your mind together. Don’t go wandering off on any tangents. This is neither the time nor the place.’ And I tried very very hard to stay focused, which wasn’t too easy, I can tell you, because the temptation to go off on one about potted plants and how Captain Lynch had once told me all about a man-eating variety that lived in the Amazon Basin was tempting.

Oh, so tempting.

But I stayed focused.

And the two men, young men, Dave being the one and the other, I assumed (for no reason other than convenience), to be Barry, to whom Dave had recently spoken upon the internal telephone about oh so many things, escorted between them a scantily clad golden girlie who had about her now a rolly-eyed-staggery-stumblyness of a kind that is so much favoured by a certain type of young female as a late-night-Saturday-town-centre look.

And as I have stated that I would make no further mention of my anger, I will make no mention of it now.

But I wondered, perhaps should I take my chances and have a pop at Dave and Barry? Perhaps I could take them down, as it were, and rescue the golden lovely. But, of course, there was always the chance that Dave and Barry worked out in the gym with the ninja types and were well heeled in the martial skills department. Which meant that they would beat me up and I’d never get a chance to take my shot at the Homunculus. So to speak. Et cetera.

So I let them pass by and then I followed them.

Discreetly.

And they were not, it appeared, heading to the office of the Awful One. They passed by this office and went up a staircase. Towards the roof.

The roof! I thought and I smiled a little, recalling a certain idea that had come to me in the Awful One’s office. The idea that I had considered a long shot, but one that was still in the running.

And so I followed these fellows as they hustled the golden girlie ahead of them up the staircase. And I heard them make lewd remarks regarding her bottom, which were going to cost them dearly when they got theirs. Which they would, I felt confident. Somehow.

At the top of the stairs was a door. And here they knocked and entered. And then I heard a voice cry, ‘Don’t bother to lock it.’ And then some mumbled words.

And I parked my physical self on the stairway, vacated it in my astral and poked my head through the door to see what was what.

And wouldn’t you just know it? Dave was crouched on one side of the doorway and Barry on the other. And they had electric truncheons in their hands. And were obviously lying in wait for me.

Damned cheek!

‘Well, let ’em crouch there till they get the cramps,’ I told myself. ‘I will find another way in.’

But where was in?

What was all this up here?

And so I had a little drift about to see what was what and why.

This was not the open roof. It was a great high-domed conservatory kind of a jobbie, in the grand Victorian style, glorifying in each twiddly bit and the unnecessary fussiness of its design. It was lit by flaming torches held within cast-iron embrasures at regular intervals about the single circular and all-encompassing wall of glass and iron-work – rather out of place upon the peak of this bland tower block of a building, but evidently constructed to serve a particular purpose.

And the purpose it was constructed to serve was all too horribly evident. The circular floor was of marble, inlaid with many precious and semi-precious stones: aquamarine, beryl, chrysoberyl, emerald, sarkstone, heliotrope and tourmaline and lapis lazuli. And wrought into it was the infamous pentagram, enclosed within the double circles, which themselves enclosed the words of power too terrible to be named.

And there were many other symbols and sigils wrought into this floor, symbols and sigils from many cultures, ancient and modern – all points covered, as it were. And at the heart of the pentagram, enclosed within another circle, this one composed of amethyst and sapphire, was the circular altar.

And strapped to this, spread-eagled, was the girlie.

And standing before her, big bad gem-encrusted book in his horrid hands, was Papa Keith Crossbar, the heinous Homunculus.

And he had a wicked old grin on his chops.

And the lightning flashed and the thunder crashed and those two men crouched by the doorway.

My attention was also drawn to a number of television monitor screens that were affixed to the upright structures of the great glazed dome – CCTV. And there indeed was me upon one of these screens, standing sentinel upon the stairs outside the door.

And I did shruggings of my astral shoulders. The Homunculus had probably watched me on screen as I came up in the lift. This was, after all, the CIA building. They did have security.

And I returned silently to my body and sat down upon one of the stairs and had a bit of a think.

And having had it, I marched up the stairs, kicked open the door, took one step forward, two steps back, invoked the power of the Tyler Technique and watched as Dave and Barry leaped forwards to the spot where I had been standing, struck each other mighty whacks with their electric truncheons and toppled both unconscious to the floor.

And their heads did go crack upon that marble, which must have really hurt. Even if they were dead.

And I stepped forward into that great domed wonderful-terrible room. And the Homunculus glared at me big pointy daggers and closed his book and placed it down upon the central altar.

And then he approached me on short stumpy legs and he put out his hand for a shaking.

And he grinned once more and said, ‘Welcome, Tyler, you are right on time.’

And I grinned somewhat in return, but I did not shake his hand. Instead I did something I had never done ever before in my life.

I spat in his face.

‘I have come to kill you, Mr Crossbar,’ I said, in a manner that let him know that I was not kidding around here. ‘Prepare yourself for death.’

And I reached out for his throat.

And do you know what? I never even saw them. But then you never do, do you? You never do see them, because they are all stealth and secret martial arts. Ninjas. Damned ninjas.

All in black and looking cool. They came out of nowhere.

And then-

They had me by the throat.

‘Tick tock, kill the clock, said the faerie queen in her flowery frock.’

The Homunculus did a little bit of a jig on his stumpy legs and he wiped my spittle from his chin. ‘Do you know that old nursery rhyme, Tyler? “Tick took, kill the clock”? I can only remember the first two lines. It’s funny what you remember and what you don’t, isn’t it? What sticks with you and stays with you. Because it is those things that stick and stay when we are children that make us what we are when we become adults. Were you loved, as a child, Tyler? Did your mummy love you?’

A ninja loosened his hold on my throat. And I made a gagging, ‘Yes.’

‘How charming. And has that made you a good person, Tyler? Have you lived a good life? Done good things? Made your mummy proud of you?’

‘I’ll thank you to leave my mother out of this,’ I said. ‘This is strictly between you and me. If you’d be so kind as to ask the ninjas to release me, I will carry on with my plan to kill you.’

‘Well, that’s one possibility. And please don’t think that I am simply dismissing it out of hand without giving it due consideration. But I think… no. I think we will go along with my plan, rather than yours. After all, that clock that has ticked and tocked your life away has just a little bit more ticking and tocking to do before it stops for ever. Before everything stops for ever.’

I made a very grumpy face. As well I might, considering the circumstances. ‘Is there nothing I can say?’ I said. ‘Nothing I can do to dissuade you from this course of action? Everything that you are doing is so utterly, utterly wrong. Can you not understand how wrong it is? Listen, let’s go and have a beer. I know a nice little place – Fangio’s Bar. We could drink some beer and talk the toot. I’m sure I could explain things better over a few beers.’

‘No beers.’ The Homunculus turned his back and fluttered his fingers.

‘Perhaps a sweet sherry, then, you old-’

‘What did you say?’ The Homunculus turned back.

‘Nothing,’ I said. Just testing, I thought. Because I had not spoken. I just wanted to know whether the Homunculus could hear my thoughts as I could hear his.

And he could.

‘Yes,’ said he. ‘I can. And they do all seem to be rather confused, the past and the present all jumbled up. However do you ever get anything done with such chaotic patterns of thinking?’

‘I get by,’ I said. And I tried very hard to think those words convincingly.

‘You do not get by, Tyler. You have never got by. Your entire life has been orchestrated and manipulated, if not by me, then by Mr Ishmael. Tonight is probably the first time in your entire life that you have done any real thinking for yourself and made any decisions that weren’t already prearranged for you.’

‘Rubbish,’ I said. ‘I’ve done tons of independent thinking.’

‘And it’s never crossed your mind to wonder why things have always been there, right there, exactly when you needed them? You wish to descend into subterranean depths, and there just happens to be a supplier of subterranean appliances and appurtenances right across the street?’

‘That was just a happy coincidence.’

‘There have been no happy coincidences in your life, Tyler. Everything was put there, for you to “find”. And all so that ultimately you would “find” yourself right here. Right now.’

‘Lies,’ I said, ‘all lies.’ And I had a bit of a struggle. But that was a waste of time. And one of the ninjas kicked me. Quite hard.

‘Ouch,’ I said.

‘It wasn’t that hard,’ said the ninja.

‘For half of your life, Tyler,’ the Homunculus continued, ‘Mr Ishmael guided you, saw to it that you learned what he felt you needed to learn in order to defeat me.’

‘I know that,’ I said.

‘When you were doing your little out-of-body walkabout, Tyler-’

‘You know about that?’

‘I taught you that, while you were in your coma. I protected you. You would have gone completely gaga if I hadn’t. And then you would never have been able to enter Begrem, fulfil their prophecies and bring me the mother-to-be of my magical son. But what I was trying to say was that when you were doing your little out-of-body-walkabout tonight, Tyler, you should have popped down to the freezers in the basement. The big padlocked one at the end has Mr Ishmael’s head in it.’

And the lightning flashed and the thunder crashed and I was far from happy.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Say I believe you, that you have kept me alive until this night. Why? What do I matter to you?’

‘You really haven’t figured it out?’ Papa Keith Crossbar stared very hard at me. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you haven’t figured it out. Why you are involved in this. What your part in it is. You really have no idea who you are, do you?’

‘I am Tyler,’ I said. ‘And I will kill you. You will die tonight. I make a promise to you of that.’

‘Sadly no,’ said Papa Keith, rubbing his pudgy hands together and doing a little pace up and down. ‘You will die tonight, Tyler. You are the sacrifice, the magical child who must die if another is to be born. You are the virgin sacrifice.’

‘I’m not a virgin,’ I said.

‘I think you will find that you are. In order to not be a virgin, you do have to have had sex with someone other than yourself.’

‘I’ve had sex with loads of women. I was around in the swinging sixties. I was at The Stones in the Park gig, in the green room with Marianne Faithfull.’

‘Tyler, you have never had sex in all of your life with anything other than Miss Hand and her five lovely daughters.’ And he waggled his fingers once more.

‘How dare you!’ I cried. Most loudly.

And the ninjas sniggered.

‘I’ve had loads of sex,’ I told them. ‘I had sex earlier this evening with Ms Williams, the tall woman from Sales Services.’

And wouldn’t you know it, the other ninja kicked me.

‘Ouch!’ I went. ‘That was hard.’

‘Ms Williams is my girlfriend,’ said this other ninja.

‘Yeah, well, take it up with Trevellian. He was snogging her by the lift on the thirty-seventh floor only a few minutes ago.’

‘He was what?’

‘In front of a load of people. No shame at all.’

‘You’re making it up.’

‘Wake Dave up and ask him.’

‘Cease this nonsense!’ cried Papa Crossbar.

‘I’m not having this!’ cried the ninja.

‘Stay put!’ And Papa Crossbar did foldings of the brow. And the ninja did clutchings of the skull. Which loosened the grip upon me by a factor of one. But didn’t help my situation too much.

‘I’ve had loads of sex,’ I said.

‘You’ve had none,’ said Papa Crossbar. ‘Both Mr Ishmael and myself saw to that. We both needed a virgin. It’s a magical thing. Don’t go bothering yourself about it.’

‘But I was married.’

‘But you never actually did it with your wife.’

‘This is outrageous,’ I said. ‘Let go of me,’ I told the ninja who wasn’t clutching his skull. ‘This thoroughgoing swine has stopped me having sex for nearly all of my life and I’m nearly seventy years of age. At least let me punch him once, really hard, in the face.’

The ninja looked towards Papa Crossbar. ‘What do you think, Boss?’ he asked. ‘One punch in the face seems fair.’

Papa Crossbar did further foldings of his brow. Which had my other captor clutching at his skull. Which at least left me with my hands free.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Papa Crossbar.

But I was. And I couldn’t stop.

‘You had to be pure,’ said Papa Crossbar. ‘Kept pure, to fight on one side or the other. The choice of which side was always ultimately yours. Personally I think you chose the wrong side. You should have thrown your lot in with me.’

‘You? ’ I said. ‘YOU? But you are an evil madman who wants to wipe out the entire World. Why in the name of all that’s holy, or otherwise, would I want to throw my lot in with you?’

And Papa Crossbar stared very hard at me.

‘Because you are my brother, you oaf,’ said he.