The Sprouts of Wrath

  There was a murmuring and a mumbling amongst the constables.

  ‘I know that,’ said Hovis, ‘it is no revelation. So what is it, Rune?’

  ‘I will not bore you with the intricacies of my research, the difficulties encountered, the countless hours of fruitful meditation.’

  ‘Good, then do not,’

  ‘Then I will tell you this. It has existed throughout at least eight centuries of recorded history. Local legend speaks of the two kings of Brentford, King Bran and King Balin, warlords in the time of King Arthur, one dwelt in a tower of stone and one in a tower of iron, such the old rhyme tells us. I cannot speak for the tower of stone, perhaps it has long become dust, but the tower of iron is here for all to see. It is the gasometer. Possibly it has not always appeared as it does now, but the deception it creates has existed in one form or another down the centuries.’

  ‘Ooooh!’ and ‘ahhhh!’ went the constables.

  ‘Go on,’ said Inspectre Hovis.

  ‘I quote the words of Samuel Johnson on his trip to the Brentford Bull Fayre: "I entered the town of Brentford by the river road, passing beneath the old iron tower, a fortress of great age, which still survives, although weed-grown and hung with ivy, striking in its presence." Johnson visited the fayre and actually witnessed a live griffin in a showman’s booth. All this is recorded in his memoirs, for anyone to check,’

  ‘Curious,’ said Hovis. ‘Continue.’

  ‘A record of land charters, granted in fourteen-seventy- two, states that, "One Able John Rimmer tills land to the North and West of the iron tower. His land extends to the North Road for Ealing, up against Ye Flying Swan Inn and bordering upon the dell of Chiswick, where-which the pasture grounds of our Lord the King abound for twenty leagues." I have sought even further back, but it is all the same, the gasometer is old beyond the point of memory. And where memory and the written word become myth and legend still it is there. It has been there for perhaps one thousand years.’

  ‘And now it is a den of thieves,’ said Hovis.

  ‘You are dealing with no ordinary thieves,’ Rune warned. ‘I can offer you many quotations to prove that you are dealing with a legacy of evil which has existed for a millennium unrealized.’

  The constables shifted uneasily in their seats. This was all beginning to sound distinctly iffy.

  ‘So,’ said Hovis, ‘can you guide us in, that we might beard the evil lion in his den?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Rune, ‘am I not Rune the all-knowing, Rune the cosmic warrior, Rune the

  ‘Yes, yes, we all know that.’

  ‘It will be no easy venture,’ said Hugo Rune.

  ‘That which is done with ease is done without conviction.’

  Rune raised an eyebrow, twisted into a waxed spike. ‘Please spare me the homilies, I shall require payment for my services.’

  ‘What? I offer to absolve you of your crimes and you demand payment to boot?’

  ‘The reward for the recovery of the gold is one per cent. As an arbiter of justice you must respect my entitlement. Under the circumstances I consider the sum barely sufficient, nevertheless.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you will have it over my carcass.’

  ‘Inspectre, you can huff and puff for all you are worth, but without me you will not blow this house down.’

  ‘Then I will call in the SAS,’

  Rune closed the book with a resounding thump. ‘If you no longer require my services, I shall depart. I have stuck to my side of the bargain, our tally is now even. I leave with a clean slate.’

  ‘Hold hard. Rune. Why do you think that we will not be able to enter the gasometer without your help?’

  ‘Because a wall of force surrounds it. It is a powerful force and one that cannot be breached by ordinary means. If you bluster in you will lose men. Death will be the reward of folly.’

  The constables shrank in their seats. ‘Hear him out,’ said somebody.

  ‘This is supposed to be the age of reason and logic,’ Rune declared, ‘of advancement, of knowledge. Take what I say to be superstitious nonsense if you please, but you will pay for your lack of foresight. There is an old evil here that cannot be dealt with by any means you understand. It is my territory and not yours, Inspectre. Without me you will not enter the iron tower.’ Hovis chewed ruefully upon his lip and tapped his cane upon the floor. The constables were growing restless. ‘If I lead you in,’ Rune continued, ‘then I demand the reward. If not, then you can do as you please, put me up as public enemy number one if you wish.’

  ‘How do I know that I can trust you?’

  ‘What do you have to lose?’

  ‘All right,’ said Hovis. Then we go in tonight.’

  ‘All right,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘So be it.’

  ‘Hip, hip, hoorah!’ went the constables, and then wondered why.

  At a little after three Neville cashed up. Despite the debacle, Ye Flying Swan had done a most profitable lunchtime’s trade. If Croughton’s hands had wandered, Neville had not observed them. Now the part-time barman sat in a lounge chair sipping Scotch and musing upon the peculiarities of the present times. His Open University course in Psychology had gone right out of the window.

  What did psychologists know about life? he asked himself. About as much as the legendary late and learned pig, he concluded. Psychology was as history had been to Henry Ford, bunk. The barman sipped his Scotch and thought all the things that drunken men always think. Why wars, why profiteering, why religion, why racial intolerance, it was a lot of whys. Mankind was an enigma, an impalpable mystery and for all the why-are-we-here’s and where-are-we-going’s that had ever been asked, we were no-nearer-to-learning-the-truth.

  Neville’s good eye wandered about the confines of his world. The Swan had seen him fine for twenty years. He was barlord, confidant, guru, bouncer, jovial mine host to patrons he neither knew nor understood. He watched them turn from likeable personalities to unlikeable drunks nightly, but he didn’t ‘know’ them. He liked them, perhaps he even loved them, but he didn’t know them. They were basically good people, a little misguided perhaps, but then who wasn’t these days? Who was there to guide them? The words of self-obsessed politicians, egotistical media personalities, power-crazed newspaper magnates and half-mad clerics? Who could reason sensibly when supplied with all the wrong information for all the wrong reasons? Neville sank down in his seat, he was really at his gloomiest.

  And this business today? The games? It was evident that the people of Brentford were not to be any part of it. The promised free tickets had yet to materialize. Brentonians didn’t matter, they were nobody. It all took a lot of thinking about. Neville took a pull at his Scotch. Was there any truth in drink? Experience had taught him to doubt that one. Was there any truth in anything? The barman was forced to conclude once more that he just didn’t know. Where had it all gone? Those grand thoughts and dreams of his youth had become trivialized by uneven memory and present-day responsibility, and such it was with all of them. He recalled the high-jinx of Pooley and Omally. He had watched them mellow down, lose their edge, although he still admired them for their freedom. About the only patron who never changed was Old Pete, but he was hardly any example.

  ‘Where did all the good times go?’ Neville asked bitterly. ‘If only we had known how fragile they were, would we have treated them with such indifference?’ He finished his Scotch and forbore another. Life had to go on, he had to open up in the evening, the game had to be played out. Where it was all leading, he didn’t have a clue. The world was changing, and one had to change with it or get left behind. That the planet seemed to be going down the sewer to him did not mean that it actually was. There was always the young, there was always hope for the future.

  Neville twirled his glass upon his finger and began to whistle. ‘I think I’ll have a root in the attic for the old record collection. Dig out some Leonard Cohen and cheer myself up.’

  Down in the tee-pee Paul and Barry Geronimo swayed back and forth chanting
softly. In the Professor’s study, Pooley paced likewise, a tumbler of Scotch in his hand. In the briefing room Hugo Rune pointed variously about a map of Brentford, whilst constables made jottings in regulation police note-books. And on high in the Star Stadium, athletes trained and practised within a self-contained and air-conditioned environment. While deep within the great gasometer a power beyond any human reckoning seethed and thrashed against the iron walls.

  39

  In the near distance the Memorial Library clock chimed twelve, midnight.

  In the study of Professor Slocombe, Jim Pooley pulled back the Persian carpet to expose the bare oak floorboards. ‘What now?’ he asked.

  ‘And now we begin,’ said Professor Slocombe. The sage was dressed in a white seamless robe which reached to his naked feet. About his neck hung a small leather satchel, in his right hand, a length of chalk. He stood in the centre of the room and bowed to the four cardinal points. ‘And now about me I scribe the circle, confining good within good, constraining evil with evil.’ He knelt and swung about, transcribing a perfect white chalk circle. ‘Step within, Jim, you would fare badly without.’

  Pooley skipped into the circle, whisky decanter and glass at the ready. ‘This all looks extremely serious, Professor.’

  The sage eyed Pooley’s weaponry. ‘A clear head is required,’ he said.

  ‘Dutch courage,’ Jim declared. ‘I do not share your fearlessness.’

  ‘I would tell you that you have nothing to fear except fear itself, but it would be an untruth.’

  In each corner of the room stood a brass censer supported upon a wrought iron stand. The Professor gestured to each in turn and each obligingly sprang into flame. Within minutes the air was heavy with the smell of incense. The old man stooped and laboured about the floor with his chalk, scribing pentagrams, cabalistic symbols, the names of power. Adonai, Balberith, Tetragrammaton, and all the rest. Aleph, the number which is always one and those others which correspond to the elements and the seven most powerful planets.

  Pooley tossed Scotch down his throat and considered his reflection in the large concave mirror which the Professor had erected upon his desk. It didn’t look all that promising.

  ‘And now, Jim,’ said the old man, rising to his feet, ‘you will do all that I tell you without question and upon the instant. I have no need to impress upon you the importance of this.’

  ‘None whatever,’ said Jim.

  ‘Good, then we shall begin.’ The Professor placed his hands across his chest and joined Pooley in the circle. ‘The invocation was formulated by the magician John Dee. Distilled from Enochian, Goetic, Gnostic and Tantric sources. The potency of the words lies to some extent in their unfathomability, causing, as they do, an elevation of the magician’s mind which unseals his consciousness allowing the release of the "Ka". Do you follow me?’

  ‘Yes, indubitably.’

  ‘ZODACARE, EGA, OD ZODOMERANU! ODO KIKALE QAA! ZODORJE, LAPE ZODIREPO NOCO MADA, HOATHATE IAIDA!’

  Pooley shivered and turned up his shirt-collar, the room was becoming impossibly cold. The fire was dying in the grate and the Professor was swaying upon his heels, staring into space.

  ‘ZODACARE, EGA, OD ZODOMERANU! ODO KIKALE QAA! ZODORJE, LAPE ZODIREPO NOCO MADA, HOATHATE IAIDA!’

  Pooley’s thumbs were now definitely on the prickle.

  ‘He resists us,’ said the Professor. That is to be expected, but we shall have him.’ He returned once more to his invocation, repeating it again and again, each time with greater force. The words seemed to grow from his lips and fly as living things into the ether of space, where they spread and expanded, became charged, alive.

  The air trembled and wavered, became soupy. It was difficult to draw breath, the incense hung, a heavy impenetrable cloud. Pooley felt as if he was drowning, he clawed at his throat, ‘Air,’ he gasped.

  The Professor stooped, drew up his hands, formed the cone of power. Fresh air returned. ‘He is coming . . . he approaches.’ The room began to tremble, to vibrate, books toppled from the shelves, ornaments keeled over. One of the censers crashed to the floor, spilling smouldering incense in every direction, though none fell into the sacred circle. ‘He comes

  Above the mantelpiece, the plaster of the wall was beginning to crack and bulge. A priceless painting snapped from its hook and broke in the fireplace beneath. The wall-lights buckled and shattered. The wall lurched forward. Pooley ducked for cover.

  ‘Do not leave the circle,’ the Professor commanded. ‘On the pain of your life, remain,’ Pooley froze, one foot hovering in the air.

  The wall contorted, warped, stretched. A face appeared, formed in the plasterwork. A great grinning face, the face of Kaleton. Jim Pooley was a born-again Christian.

  Unrestrained by its plastic sheathing and artificial optics, the face leered down from the wall. It was the face of a tribal god, a pagan deity. The mouth opened and a black tongue lolled out, dripping foul saliva, the lashless eyelids opened to reveal dull white orbs. ‘You!’ The voice was that of a chorus, a thousand voices yet only one. ‘You dare to summon me here?’

  ‘I summon you by a single name and a single image, you are constrained and ordered to obey me.’

  The mouth spread into a vast grin and gales of hideous mocking laughter broke from it. Pooley covered his nose and crossed his legs, such things as this were not good for his constitution.

  ‘By the names of power which are those of the elements,’ the Professor made the signs with his arms, ‘by SET, by SHU, by AURAMOTH, by THOUM-AESH-NEITH, So I constrain you, that you will answer my questions.’ The mouth closed, the eyes blinked shut, showing only ghastly whites. ‘Spawn of darkness,’ cried Professor Slocombe, ‘what order of demon are you?’

  ‘Demon?’ The eyes flashed fire, black teeth showed in the lipless mouth. ‘I am no demon, I am anything other than that!’

  ‘Then what? Angel, perhaps? I think not.’

  ‘You know who I am, you know what I am!’

  Professor Slocombe spun about, suddenly distracted. Pooley glanced over his shoulder and felt very sick indeed. Two creatures were approaching from behind, tall and naked, their skin a lustreless black. The bodies were lithe and muscular, their heads featureless ebony spheres. Professor Slocombe uttered a single unpronounceable word. Blue flame leapt from his fingertips, struck the creatures, dissolved them into nothingness.

  ‘Enough of this foolishness.’ The Professor turned once more to confront the face, but it had vanished. ‘How tiresome,’ said the old man to his wet-trousered companion. This is going to take a lot longer than I might have hoped. We shall have to begin again.’

  A convoy of police vehicles moved up the Kew Road towards the gasometer. In the lead car sat Inspectre Hovis, dressed in battle fatigues, his face boot-blacked. Across his knees lay a sub-machine gun.

  Constable Meek crouched across the wheel. ‘Are you sure we’re going about this the right way?’ he asked.

  ‘Onward, Meek,’ said the Inspectre. ‘You might well earn yourself a promotion tonight, lad. Off the beat and into the cars, you’d like that, eh?’

  ‘Well, sir . . .’ Meek wrinkled his boyish nose.

  ‘Well, sir, what?’

  ‘Him, sir. How can we trust him?’ The constable nodded over his shoulder towards the back seat where Rune perched, his fat legs tortured into a full lotus, his eyes closed in meditation.

  ‘I know a spell,’ said the Logos of the Aeon, ‘which can transpose the organ of smell with that of reproduction to great comic effect. Would you care for me to demonstrate upon you?’

  ‘No I wouldn’t.’ Meek crossed himself with his gear-changing hand.

  ‘Pull up here, constable.’ Inspectre Hovis studied his map. 1 am expecting the arrival of a bulldozer.’

  ‘Bulldozer!’ spluttered Rune. ‘By Crom!’

  Hovis consulted his watch and took up a walkie-talkie. ‘To your positions, men, and radio blackout until you hear from me.’

  In the Professor
’s study the sage mopped the sweat from his brow and seated himself in the circle.

  ‘What now?’ asked Jim, taking the opportunity to refill his glass.

  ‘We begin again. The process is tedious, I regret, but there is nothing for it.’

  ‘He seems to be causing a terrible amount of damage, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  The Professor nodded in sombre agreement. This time we will see to it that he materializes in a more manageable form.’ He leafed through his book of spells. ‘Ah yes, a formula used by the magicians of Atlantis for hypnotizing captives and transforming them into cattle during times of famine.’

  ‘You are going to turn him into a cow?’

  ‘Hardly, Jim, the image of a man will be quite enough. Now I want you to do something for me. Take this phial.’ He handed Jim a silver flask engraved with runic symbols and capped by a cork stopper. ‘No, do not open it now, only when I give you the word and then as quickly as you can. Understand?’

  Pooley nodded. ‘If my brain holds out, which I doubt.’

  ‘Stout fellow, Jim. Then we begin again.’

  A bulldozer rumbled towards the police convoy. Some surprise attack this is going to be, thought Constable Meek. Hovis leapt from the car, loudhailer in one hand and sub-machine gun in the other.

  Jungle John, itinerant local builder and now a big name in the demolition game, nudged his hirsute brother who sat as ever at his side, munching sandwiches and swigging beer. ‘Look at this, Dave. It’s Sergeant Rock and his Howling Commandos.’ Hairy Dave peered down at the approaching detective. ‘He’s got a frigging machine gun,’ he observed. ‘But he’s agreed to pay us double time.’

  ‘All right, men!’ Hovis cried up at them through his loudhailer. ‘Timing is everything, have that fence down!’

  ‘That’s gas board property,’ said John. ‘We can’t do that.’