Jack of Ravens(135)

Church was touched. ‘You tell your jokes, Jerzy. The world needs more like you.’ In the moment’s silence that followed their friendship grew stronger still.

‘The questions remain, though,’ Church mused. ‘Who sent the invitation? Why did they want me here to see you, and what do they know about the skull and the box?’

‘And,’ Jerzy added, ‘are they from the same one who spirited me away from you at Stonehenge?’

Before they could debate possible answers there was an outcry in the corridor. Jerzy grabbed his mask and ran out with Church to find an anxious man in a dinner jacket and bow tie, several stagehands and the escapologist’s pretty assistant.

‘Don’t worry, Max. We’re on top of it,’ the man in the dinner jacket said.

‘No, you’re bleedin’ not!’ the assistant shrieked. ‘He jumped right over the top of me!’

‘Who?’ Jerzy asked.

‘Just some gadabout who fancies a life on the stage,’ the dinner-jacketed man said with theatrical reassurance.

‘He was breathing blue fire!’ The assistant looked as if she was about to swoon. ‘He was wearing a black cape and he had eyes like the devil! He was flying … flying—’

‘Bouncing,’ one of the stagehands corrected.

‘Leaping,’ the assistant said, ‘like he was a bleedin’ India rubber man!’

With that, the assistant finally did swoon, and the man in the dinner jacket caught her flamboyantly. The grizzled stagehand with the mop pushed his way forward. ‘You know who that is? That’s Spring-heeled Jack, that is. Hasn’t been seen round these parts for thirty year or more.’

Church pulled Jerzy to one side. ‘Things are starting to make a lot more sense,’ he said.



3



‘My Old Man (Said Follow the Van)’ was ringing around the auditorium as Church and Jerzy followed the trail of Spring-heeled Jack backstage. A man practising the trombone pointed them to the stage door, which hung open. Outside in the icy fog two women clutching each other in terror directed Church and Jerzy towards the East End.

They hadn’t gone far when ear-piercing sirens rose up.

‘It’s another air raid,’ Jerzy said. ‘That’s why there’s a blackout – if the city is in darkness it is much more difficult for the bombers to find a target.’

‘I know what a blackout is, Jerzy.’

‘Ah. I forgot. This is all history to you.’

‘Come on, come on, lively up!’ An ARP warden brought his bicycle to a wobbly halt. ‘You don’t want to be out on the street with the Nazis dropping eggs on your bonces. Get down the Tube, pronto!’

Jerzy grabbed Church and started to haul him in the direction of the nearest Underground station. ‘He is right, Church. I have seen what it is like. The fires blaze like the furnaces of the Court of the Final Word. Even if you are nowhere near the bomb blast it can tear you limb from limb. I have seen arms and legs lying in the gutter … men, women and children. We can search later.’

‘It’ll be too late then,’ Church said, but he knew Jerzy was right. They set off for the nearest Tube station, but after a few feet Church had a very strange feeling about the ARP Warden: something about him was familiar. He turned back, but the street was empty.



4



‘You are a very strange creature, Ryan Veitch. I cannot quite fathom you.’ The Libertarian gnawed the last vestiges of his lamb dinner from a bone in the darkened second-floor room. Outside, the cry of, ‘Get that light out!’ rose up at irregular intervals.

Wearing a too-sharp suit that made him resemble a local gangster, Veitch stood at the window looking out at the silhouette of the city skyscape. He lazily flipped a half-crown, a mannerism he’d picked up from a George Raft movie he’d seen at the Gaumont that afternoon. ‘What is there to understand?’ he said without looking back.

‘Hmm. Well, there is that. The point is, I feel you are completely lacking in self-awareness. Do you have any idea who you are?’ He tossed the lamb bone into the corner of the room. ‘You collude with our forces to bring about our ends, yet at the same time you’ll help some innocent or carry out some futile action to winnow the flame of hope. These two extremes are incompatible. Do you not comprehend that?’

‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, mate.’

The Libertarian sighed. ‘I really should know better.’ He stood up and stretched like a cat. ‘Are you coming to the ritual?’

‘Nah. Seen one, seen ’em all.’ In the distance, searchlights swept the sky. Veitch listened for the approaching drone as the Libertarian closed the door behind him. His footsteps disappeared down the creaking stairs.