Dead Men's s Boots

‘Nothing,’ she said, a little too quickly. ‘I was remembering things that happened before you were born. Let’s just say that his kin are cats, and mine are dogs. Or vice versa. Where the succubi and incubi settle and build their houses, the shedim can’t live. He’d love to hurt me, if he thought he could. But what is he doing on Reth Adoma?’

‘You know,’ I groused, ‘if you keep doing this I’m going to ask for a simultaneous translation. What is he doing where?’

‘On Earth. Among the living. There’s nothing he can eat here. He’ll starve if he stays too long.’

‘He looked like he was halfway there already,’ I agreed. ‘At least – that’s how he looked when I first met him, a few days ago. Today he looked a fair bit sleeker. And he was strong enough to make this loup-garou run for cover.’

Juliet frowned, her eyes slightly unfocused as she followed a train of thought she didn’t bother to voice. To be honest, I didn’t want her to: it’s hard to think of Hell as a place, and even harder to think of her walking there. It has a whiff of bad Bible stories and undigested metaphors.

‘This is bigger than we thought,’ she said, looking at me again. ‘Something – something important, perhaps – is at stake here. Something has brought him up through the gates, and made him stay long enough to weave a body for himself. I think . . . ’

The pause lengthened.

‘What?’ I prompted. ‘What do you think?’

She shrugged dismissively. ‘Nothing. So you think Kale might have been involved somehow in John Gittings’s death?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘Not directly, obviously. He killed himself. But the big case he was working on – the one he kept saying was going to get him into the history books – had something to do with dead killers. And now we know that Kale was on his list.’

Juliet thought about this. ‘And the problem with Kale is that she isn’t dead enough,’ she finished, voicing my own thoughts. ‘Are there any urban legends about the great East End gangsters coming back from the grave?’

‘None that I’ve heard. Maybe it’s a foreign-exchange kind of thing. Kale does London and the Krays do Chicago.’

Juliet nodded. ‘It’s possible,’ she mused. ‘But it goes against everything we know about the dead. And it raises far more questions than it answers.’

‘I meant it a“16;oess a joke,’ I said.

‘Then you should have smiled.’

‘I’ve finished,’ Susan said, standing up and inspecting her handiwork with profound and obvious misgivings. ‘But you should probably go to a hospital as soon as you can, Felix, and let a doctor take a look at you.’

‘I will,’ I lied. ‘Thanks, Sue. You’re an angel of mercy.’ Living with a sex demon, I added in my mind: life throws you some funny curves.

‘I saved you some ratatouille,’ Susan said, embarrassed. ‘You can eat it on a tray, if you like.’

Downstairs in the living room, I ate and drank and began to feel less like a piece of wind-blown trash. The room had changed a lot since I’d been there last. Then, it had still been full of Susan’s late mother’s ornaments and antimacassars and framed samplers like a mock-up of a room in a museum of Victoriana: now it was kind of minimalist, with red Chinese calligraphy hung on white-painted walls. I knew enough about Juliet’s tastes to recognise them here, and I wondered how Susan felt about the changed ambience. She seemed comfortable enough.

‘So how’s work?’ I asked her. ‘Juliet said you’re kind of snowed under.’ Susan had been the verger at a church in West London when she’d met Juliet, but had bailed out when they’d started living together and had gone back to her old career as a librarian. It was a principled decision, based more on the fact that she was in a same-sex relationship than on her shacking up with a demon. The modern Anglican church regards Hell as a state of mind and doesn’t officially believe in demons (unlike the Catholics, who hunt them with papally blessed flamethrowers), but it still has problems with church officers who are openly gay. As an atheist with issues, I have to say I love that shit.

Susan smiled, genuinely pleased to be asked. ‘No, I’m fine, really,’ she said. ‘I’m enjoying it. It’s a little hard, sometimes, because I’m trying to do a lot of ambitious things on no money. But it’s lovely to be working with children. They’re so open-minded and spontaneous. And you’d be amazed how many children’s authors will do readings just for the fun of it. We had Antony Johnston in last week. He wrote the graphic-novel version of Stormbreaker. And he was wonderful. Very funny, and very – whatever the opposite of precious is. Very matter-of-fact about what he does. We got the biggest audience we’ve ever had.’

‘Stormbreaker being . . . ?’ I prompted, feeling a little lost.