By this time, the scientist had the crowd hanging on his every word, and he scurried back and forth before the blackboard, adding a symbol here and taking away one there as he carefully rewrote his maths, getting closer and closer to his objective. He finally added one last symbol with a flourish, and the blackboard disappeared. The crowd gave him a massive round of applause.
“No! No!” yelled the scientist, throwing his chalk on the ground and stamping on it. “That isn’t what’s supposed to happen!”
Molly and I moved on and left him to it. I don’t like to see a grown man cry.
Not too far away, another scientist was trying to persuade a sceptical crowd of the value of quantum uncertainty devices. Only every time he adjusted the controls on the device in front of him, he changed into somebody else. The scientist became another man, who became a woman, who became something tall and blue, before disappearing completely. Leaving only a disembodied voice saying, “Hello? Hello? Is there anybody there? Oh, bloody hell, not again . . .”
There were a great many other interesting things to be seen. A bottle of cheap djinn, a rifle that could shoot round corners and a pack of crazy ghosts who’d been conditioned to work as attack dogs. These last were a miserable-looking bunch, held in place by shimmering chains of reinforced ectoplasm. Their faces were blank and their eyes were empty, and their semitransparent bodies drifted in and out of one another as they stirred restlessly in the limited space of their tent. Their handler was an Armani-suited Sicilian with an easy, charming manner and a chilling ruthlessness in his sales pitch.
“Imagine, my friends,” he said. “The enemy you have whom no one can reach . . . is now reachable. Ghosts can go anywhere: through walls, through barbed wire, through all kinds of security systems, walking in straight lines straight to their targets. They do whatever you tell them to do, with no back talk. They have no identities left; I’ve beaten that nonsense out of them. They’re spiritual attack dogs now, suitable for defence or offence. Ectoplasmic collars and chains can be provided at little extra cost.”
“Have you no respect for the dead?” said someone in the crowd. “What if they were members of your family?”
“They are my family,” said the Sicilian. “Why should they rest while they can still make money for the family?”
“What if one of them should happen to wake up?” said Molly, almost lazily. “What if they should happen to remember who they are and what you’ve done to them?”
The Sicilian grinned his easy, supercilious grin. “Not going to happen, pretty lady. You want a big brute, perhaps, just for yourself? They can be trained to do almost anything. . . .”
“When people can be as appalling as this,” said Molly, “is it any wonder I prefer animals, on the whole?”
The Sicilian stopped smiling. He tugged on the chain of one of the ghosts, and it surged forward to crouch beside him. The Sicilian pointed at Molly and muttered something under his breath. The ghost suddenly snapped into focus. Its face was sharp and distinct, the eyes full of a mad rage. It snarled, and its mouth had vicious teeth. It raised a hand, and the fingers ended in claws. It looked entirely solid and substantial. The Sicilian slipped loose the chain, but before the ghost could move forward Molly fixed it with her gaze, holding its eyes with hers. For a moment neither of them moved, and then all the rage went out of the ghost’s face, and it cringed back to hide behind the Sicilian, whimpering. The Sicilian cuffed it round the head and glared at Molly.
“Hey! You break it, you pay for it!”
Molly ignored him, looking thoughtfully at the pack of ghosts. They moved restlessly back and forth, frowning under her gaze. Molly looked back at the Sicilian.
“What if they should all wake up and remember what you’ve done to them . . . ?”
She snapped her fingers once, and then turned unhurriedly away. The Sicilian screamed horribly as the pack swarmed over him, but he didn’t scream for long. I gave the crowd a warning look, in case anyone felt like getting involved, but they all had urgent business elsewhere. I caught up with Molly and walked along beside her.
“Can’t take you anywhere,” I said after a while.
“Some shit I won’t put up with,” said Molly, staring straight ahead.
“You sweet, sentimental old thing, you,” I said.
She smiled suddenly, like the sun coming out. “Yes,” she said. “I am. And I’ll kick the crap out of anyone who says otherwise.”
The next booth was a technological wonder, all brightly polished steel with flashing lights and electronic sound effects. The booth operator was trying to persuade passersby to step inside the booth and be made over into a perfect new version of themselves. Results guaranteed. Strangely, no one seemed interested. The operator was working himself into an absolute lather of excitement, but no one even stopped to enquire about the price. I looked at Molly.
“It’s a con,” she said briskly. “You step into the booth and disappear forever. What steps out is a Thing from Outside transformed into a perfected version of you. It then goes out into the world to gather information before an invasion by the rest of its kind. No one’s fallen for it in years, but they keep trying.”
“If the fair knows about this, why do they allow it to go on?” I said.
Molly gave me a pitying look. “Because they’ve paid.”
“Ah,” I said. “Of course. Silly me.” I looked at the transformation booth. “I knew I’m supposed to be on holiday, but I really don’t think I can allow an alien invasion to happen right in front of me. Distract the operator for me; there’s a dear.”
“Can’t take you anywhere.” Molly sighed. She walked up to the operator and glared right into his face. “Hey! You! My sister walked in there ten minutes ago and she hasn’t come out yet! What’s your game?”
And while the operator was sputtering and protesting his innocence, and offering to open the booth so that Molly could see her sister wasn’t in any way in there, I strolled round the back of the booth, glanced casually around to make sure no one was watching and then concentrated on my torc, muttering the activating Words under my breath. As I concentrated, a slender filament of golden strange matter eased out of the torc and slid across my shoulder and down my arm, till it could jump off my fingertip and into the open workings at the back of the booth. I whipped the filament back and forth, ripping and tearing at the delicate parts within, and there was a sudden flash of discharging energies, followed by a burst of thick purple smoke. I quickly pulled the strange matter back into my torc and stepped away as purple smoke enveloped the booth. The operator forgot all about placating Molly, and howled something inhuman as he saw what was happening to his transformation device. It suddenly imploded, sucked inside itself by whatever was happening within, and alien forces pulled the whole thing back into its home dimension. Molly gave the operator a good shove from behind, and he tottered forward, to be sucked in by the imploding energies. In a few moments booth and operator were both gone, and Molly and I were some distance away, not even looking in that direction.
“I know,” said Molly. “Some shit you won’t put up with.”
“Damned right,” I said.
And that was when the Satanist conspiracy made their appearance at the Supernatural Arms Faire. A group of about twenty large and menacing men in dark suits appeared out of nowhere, striding purposefully through the fair, looking quite ready to trample over anyone who didn’t get out of their way fast enough. They weren’t even trying to hide what they were; each wore a large inverted cross on a chain. As they drew nearer, I realised they were wearing formal tuxedos, and very smartly fitted, too. Nothing like a tuxedo to add that touch of class and dignity to a bunch of Satanist scumbags. Molly and I stood well back to let them pass. They all seemed very serious, very focused, very determined. I got the giggles.
“Look, everybody!” I said loudly. “They all look like waiters! No, penguins!”
And I moved in behind them and waddled along in the rear, flapping my arms at my sides and making plaintive
feed me!
noises in penguin. The crowd loved it. They went apeshit, laughing and cheering and joining in with penguin noises of their own. The Satanists kept going. They couldn’t stop and look back to see what was going on; that might make them look weak. So they increased their pace, trying to leave me behind. So I made plaintive
wait for me!
noises in penguin and hurried after them. Until Molly grabbed me by an arm and hauled me away, forcefully pushing me into a side turning, out of sight of the Satanists and the wildly applauding crowd.
“We’re not here to attract attention!” said Molly. “Especially from a whole bunch of probably highly trained satanic foot soldiers! You’re supposed to be a secret agent, so act secret! Stick close to me, and observe what the bastards are up to from a safe distance. They wouldn’t have shown up here in such an ostentatious way unless they were up to something important!”
“You mean, like, make friends and influence people?” I said. “Or are they here to buy weapons like everyone else? I know! Let’s grab the smallest one, haul him off somewhere private and hit him in the head until his eyes change colour, or he starts telling us things we want to know.”
“What’s the matter, Eddie?” said Molly, looking searchingly into my face. “This isn’t like you.”
“Lightbringer House,” I said. “They made us run away with our tails between our legs. I’m not taking that from a bunch of Devil-worshipping scumbags.”
Molly shook her head slowly. “Testosterone must be such a curse. No one is supposed to know there’s a Drood here, remember? You’re Shaman Bond. Who fortunately has a reputation for eccentric behaviour.”
I smiled briefly. “I put a lot of time and effort into building that reputation. Lets me get away with all kinds of things that would otherwise require explanations.”
“You’re not going to do the penguin thing again, are you?” said Molly.
“Almost certainly not,” I said. “Satanists bring out the worst in me. They’re so straight-faced. We can still sneak along behind them and spy on them, can’t we?”
“Oh, sure,” said Molly. “I can sneak with the best of them.”
So we caught up with the Satanists and strolled casually along behind them, observing their every move from a respectable distance. We weren’t alone. A lot of people were interested in why Satanists had come to the arms fair. The tuxedo group walked up and down the stalls and booths, row after row, looking over the exhibits on display, but never buying anything. They seemed much more interested in the people behind the stalls, especially the weapons designers and manufacturers. Quite often the Satanists would make these people a more than generous offer to come and design weapons for them. Most of the weapons makers turned them down. Even they had a line they wouldn’t cross. The Satanists never made a fuss, never tried threats or intimidation, only smiled politely, gave everyone their card and moved on to the next stall.
They did buy a few things, after it became clear people wouldn’t talk to them if they didn’t, and by eavesdropping shamelessly at the next stall, I was able to ascertain that the Satanists had established a major line of credit with the fair before they arrived. Which made me wonder who was backing them. You can’t set up a major conspiracy without extensive funding. A question to raise with the family once I got back. Certainly the stallholders seemed only too happy to take the Satanists’ money, even if none of them seemed to be taking the tuxedo guys particularly seriously.
One of the Satanists broke away from the group, attracted by a stall offering cloned monkeys’ paws. He spoke briefly with the stallholder, who spoke briefly in return. Then somebody must have said something, because it all kicked off, with the two men shouting into each other’s faces and the insults flying thick and fast. The rest of the tuxedos got involved in a hurry, backing up their own with cold, glaring eyes and a heavy, threatening presence. The stallholder must have hit a silent alarm, because almost immediately the fair’s security people were making the scene. The crowd backed quickly away to give both sides room to manoeuvre, but not so far that they might miss any of the excitement.
The Satanists stood shoulder-to-shoulder, several ranks deep, their tuxedos almost crackling with indignation that anyone should dare to stand against them. They faced off against the fair’s security people, who turned out to be a small army of bald-headed monks in scarlet robes. They outnumbered the Satanists, but only just. They had no obvious weapons, but were very clearly That Kind of Monk. The kind who didn’t need weapons because they’ve trained themselves to be weapons.
“The Bloodred Guard,” Molly murmured in my ear. “They’ve been enforcing polite behaviour at the fair for centuries.”
The Satanists and the monks stood their ground, facing one another down with cold, impassive faces, and then one of the tuxedos revealed himself to be the leader, or at least spokesperson, by stepping forward to address the monks in an actually quite polite and reasonable tone of voice.
“You know who we are. You know whom we represent. And you know what we can do. Are you really ready to throw down against us over a single obnoxious stallholder who threatened one of us to his face?”
“Of course,” said one of the monks, stepping forward to meet him. “That’s our job. We protect the fair. Are you ready to be banned from the fair, forever, over one of your own who can’t control his temper? You know who we are. And what we can do.”
“We’re protected,” said the Satanist.
“We are protection,” said the monk.
The Satanist leader considered for a moment, and then shrugged easily. “We shall show our peaceful intent by making a sacrifice, for the good of all.”
He turned around to face his group and beckoned forward the one who’d started all the trouble. He came forward and stood before the spokesman, scowling sullenly.