The Infernal Aether Read online

  “I’ll have you know I can be extremely dangerous when the mood takes me,” I said, huffily.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Out of the three of you, I’d say you’re the least threatenin’, that’s all,” she said. “You should take it as a compliment.”

  “What, even less threatening than him?” I pointed at Maxwell, who was trying not to grin as he examined his machine.

  She squinted at my brother. “Of course,” she said. “Scientist-types have always worried me. They know too much for my liking. Anyway, it’s always the quiet ones you need to look out for.” She looked me up and down. “Now, the outspoken dandy look is never a threat. Not to women anyway.”

  “I... I am not a dandy!” I exclaimed, before marching away from her and into the building.

  To give the girl her due, she had managed to distract me from the fact that I was walking toward almost certain death, a realisation which hit me as soon as I entered the warehouse proper. N’yotsu was staring at a darkened corner, which housed an ominous shadow and a pair of glowering, furnace-like eyes.

  “What do we do now?” I whispered.

  “Not quite sure,” replied N’yotsu. “I was hoping that some inspiration would have come to me by now.”

  “We could go and get the police and bring them here.” I suggested. “If we can keep it here long enough.”

  There was a crashing noise from the shadows. “Not to worry anyone,” said N’yotsu. “But I think this discussion has just become a mite academic.”

  We watched as the creature emerged from the shadows and stalked toward us, seeming to fill the room with its bulk. Those red eyes were twin flames of pure, murderous desire, sitting atop a body which moved with a lazy menace, putting me in mind of a swan slowly advancing on an unsuspecting child. The absurdity of the comparison made me smirk in spite of the situation and my rapidly increasing heart rate.

  “Run?” I suggested, my voice sounding very loud in that space.

  “I suspect we wouldn’t get as far as the door,” said N’yotsu. He took a deep breath. “Only one thing for it,” he said and then darted forward, straight at the beast.

  Kate let out a short yell of terror at his apparent suicidal dash, while Maxwell and I were rooted in shocked silence. I for one was remembering not just the way that he had attacked the other demon just a week previously in Milly’s house, but also the fact that that time he had initially been paralysed by fear. Either that other encounter had given him the confidence to now attack without hesitation whatever fiends Hell might throw at us, or he saw something much less threatening in this current creature.

  The demon checked its advance; confused or perhaps bemused at the actions of the puny creature charging toward it. It swung a massive, clawed fist and I took a breath, anticipating N’yotsu’s usual trick of catching or deflecting the blow with ease.

  N’yotsu was thrown across the room and hit the brick wall with a sickening crunch.

  The demon took a step toward us, baring teeth which glistened a sickly yellow in the half-light. I stepped backwards, onto Maxwell’s toes. He dropped his machine with a curse.

  Like a hawk swooping onto a mouse, N’yotsu arrowed straight into the creature’s side. It casually elbowed him away and he shot backwards into the darkness, arms wheeling in vain for a purchase.

  I yelled to attract the creature’s attention and then charged, my teeth set in resigned determination. The demon turned to face me with a snarl and then took a step in my direction. Faced with its fearsome bulk, I checked my advance; not for the first time, misplaced courage and the imperative for action had overruled my head.

  For a moment, I faced the creature, my heart beating wildly as I prayed that the others were making good use of the distraction I was creating. The sound of shuffling feet just behind me proved the futility of my sacrifice; Maxwell and Kate had clearly decided to stay and die with me. “Idiots!” I hissed.

  As the creature bore down on us, N’yotsu once again appeared, swinging a long, thick metal pole which broke across the demon’s face with a satisfying clang. It turned on him with a roar.

  N’yotsu darted away, drawing it from us and leading it on a chase around the room. We knew that he had given us the opportunity to escape, but could not bring ourselves to leave him to the mercy of that creature.

  N’yotsu dived and sprinted away from sweeping claws and snarling teeth, somehow managing to keep just inches away from certain death or dismemberment.

  I picked up a brick and threw it at the beast with a yell, noting with dismay the way that the projectile bounced harmlessly off the creature’s bulk. The demon swung an arm at me and I ducked, feeling those terrible claws graze my hair. The creature roared as N’yotsu once again dived into the fight and then the two of us were forced to dance aside as it lashed out at us. I watched as it rounded on N’yotsu and, before I could react, it caught him across the shoulder, causing him to yell out in pain and fall onto his back.

  The following events occurred so fast that I was barely able to discern them in their individuality, let alone intervene in them. N’yotsu rolled out of the way as the creature howled and stamped its foot down upon him, but a grunt showed that he had been wounded by the blow. He scrambled to his knees and tried to shuffle away but the creature wrapped a fist around his damaged left arm, causing him to scream in pain. It lifted him into the air by his arm and flung him up, over and then down onto the ground. The creature lifted a foot over N’yotsu’s head, ready to stamp on him while it glared at us.

  I ran forward with a roar, the noise intended to mask the terror I felt at charging headlong toward certain injury, death or—more likely—both. The demon swung a fist at me and I threw myself beneath it, wincing at the sensation of the claws skimming past my head.

  Taking advantage of my distraction, N’yotsu grabbed the demon’s foot and guided it to the ground, away from his body. I caught a glimpse of his face as I did so and a chill ran through me. There was something different—wrong—about him. His eyes seemed to have taken on the appearance of deep holes while his mouth was twisted as it formed words I could not comprehend.

  The demon’s foot hit the floor and then kept going as though it were plunging into water rather than hitting stone. N’yotsu let go of the foot and the floor returned to its natural, solid state once more. The creature pulled at its leg, roaring with rage as its foot stayed fast in the stone.

  It swung down with a fist, which again N’yotsu dodged—barely—and then guided down, into and through the floor. The creature’s momentum gave its fist and arm an unstoppable force and, with what appeared to be minimal effort from N’yotsu, it was soon submerged up to its shoulders. N’yotsu used the creature as a crutch to pull himself upright, which in turn served to push it yet further downwards. The creature’s roars muffled and then ceased as its head passed into the floor, followed by the rest of its body.

  After a few moments N’yotsu slumped down to the ground, exhausted. Beside him the only remaining trace of the demon’s existence was a solitary claw reaching up to the skies. It twitched once and then was still.

  CHAPTER 10

  For a moment we stared at N’yotsu’s prone figure, unsure exactly what to think of what we had witnessed.

  The fight and subsequent... whatever it was... had clearly drained N’yotsu almost to depletion. Maxwell examined him and assured us that he was alive, if very weak; this was confirmed shortly afterwards when N’yotsu groaned and tried to lever himself upright. I took a step backwards, almost expecting the ground to liquefy once more under his hand. Thankfully the floor remained reassuringly solid.

  “What just happened?” asked Kate.

  “I have no idea,” I said. “But it was effective. If a bit... brutal.” I stood over the solitary claw which reached out of the solid stone and nudged it with the toe of my shoe, flinching away in anticipation of it making a grab for me. It stayed deathly still; whatever life there had been in the demon had clearly been suffocated or crushed out of i
t by the stone. I shuddered at the thought of suffering such a demise.

  “I like it,” said Kate, squatting down to examine the claw. “It looks artistic.”

  “Yes, quite,” I said. “Although it does leave me with one rather large problem. While the police were always going to find it hard to believe that a demon was behind all the attacks, they are going to be even less likely to believe that this is what remains of the fiend.”

  N’yotsu’s eyes snapped open. “I have an idea,” he said, holding his arms out. “Help me up.” I hesitated at the thought of being in contact with him after what he had just done but Maxwell and Kate had no such qualms and, not wanting to appear squeamish or a prude, I joined in the effort.

  “Back to the street,” said N’yotsu.

  “Wait,” I said. “Would you care to explain what you did to that creature?”

  N’yotsu looked at me with a curious expression on his face, as though I had asked him how he breathed or opened his eyes.

  “He has a point,” said Maxwell. “We have just witnessed a phenomenon which I believe is unprecedented. The spontaneous alteration of the fundamental nature of the floor, transmuting it from solid to liquid and then back again was…well…”

  “That wasn’t normal,” interjected Kate. “How’d you do it?”

  N’yotsu grunted. “An old trick I picked up on my travels, from an African witch-doctor. It took many years to master and, as you can see, it requires a significant amount of effort to undertake. I should be happy to explain more another time, but I should like to deal with Augustus’s immediate problem while I still have some meagre reserves of energy remaining. If you would be so kind?” He gestured with his head at the door, indicating that we should assist him in leaving the building. After a pause, we obliged.

  We retraced our steps back to where we had first encountered Kate. I caught a glimpse of Jason the pimp, now lying in a doorway in a bruised and bloody state, a couple of girls fussing round him. He was clearly still a little dazed after his beating but when he noticed us his face contorted with the mental struggle between wanting to confront us and the desire to run away.

  “Why is he still here?” asked Maxwell.

  “Point of principle,” said Kate, clearly nervous but to her credit staying with us. “Problem will come when his mates turn up. Then we’ll be in trouble.”

  A pair of policemen strolled along the street in our direction, clearly having been alerted by the various disturbances but in no hurry to get caught up in them.

  “You should wait here,” N’yotsu said to me. I offered no objections and stepped into the shadows, letting Kate and Maxwell take his weight. They walked over to the policemen and started to talk to them.

  I strained to hear what was being said but was distracted by a hand on my shoulder. It was effectively a huge slab of meat, with knuckles as warped and battered as a gnarled tree trunk. I turned to see that it was connected to an arm which was both hairier and more tattooed than anything I had seen for a long time.

  “Well, well, well,” said a voice from behind me. “If it ain’t our old friend Gus.” I turned slowly, partly of my own volition but mainly at the none-too-gentle urging of the hand on my shoulder. My heart sank as I noted the two men standing there, one large and heavy-set—the owner of the hand which had me in its grip—and the other tall and thin.

  The thin man continued. “‘Course, when I say ‘friend’ I’m being sarcy-astic. But then you’d know that, being cultured and all.” He opened his mouth in a grin full of black stumps of teeth.

  “Spencer,” I said, my mouth dry. I glanced around, trying in vain to identify any potential escape routes. “It’s been a long time. You too, Bart.”

  “That’s Mr. Spencer and Mr. Bart to you. We heard you were back in town. We knows some people who are mighty keen to talk to you, on account of some trouble you caused round ’ere. Rather fatal trouble, if you get my meaning.”

  “But that was not me!” I protested. “Eve—she was killed by a demon. I know it sounds far-fetched, but—”

  “We don’t care about the whore,” said Spencer. “No, I’m talkin’ about the other trouble, over in St. Giles’s.”

  “But that was years ago.”

  “You knows we have long memories in these parts. Don’t matter why you did it. You can’t just kill a man and expect to get away with it. ’Specially not someone like what he was.”

  I took a deep breath, readying myself for a fight I knew I would lose. “Could we do this some other time?” I asked. “Only I am rather busy at the moment.”

  “Yeah, we knows. It upset us to find Jason in that state.” He nodded at the pimp, who smiled evilly at me from his doorway. “We’re keen on balancing out wrongs round here, and looks like there’s been a big wrong done not long ago, too. Jason says them are the cause of this.” He gestured in the direction of my friends.

  “You with them?” asked Bart. He had barely changed over the years, save to grow even larger and was now as huge as he was wide, with a bald head and a long, dark beard. His eyes betrayed nothing more than a brutal menace overlaid with the slightest flicker of intelligence.

  The pain of his grip on my shoulder made my eyes water. Were I a little less scared or tired, I might have been able to talk my way round the brute. As it was, the cumulative traumas of the day merely contrived to allow me to utter: “I...”

  “I’ll warn you,” said Spencer. “He knows the answer. He’s just givin’ you the chance to lie to him so he can beat you. He don’t like liars.”

  “And if I say I am with them?” I asked.

  “Then he’ll beat you anyway. But at least you’ll have a clear conscience. Lyin’ is a terrible thing.”

  I resolved to stall them long enough to enable either my friends or the police to intervene but, as I opened my mouth to respond, I realised that suddenly neither of the two thugs were paying me any attention. The hand on my shoulder went slack and my would-be assailants wandered over toward the policemen. Spencer pointed to Jason the pimp and said to the policemen in a slow voice: “That’s ’im, officer. The murderer.”

  The policemen looked at him and then back at my friends. “Do you know these men?” he asked and they shook their heads. He turned back to Spencer and Bart. “Which murderer exactly?”

  “The one that’s been killin’ all them girls on the streets at night,” the thug said. “It’s ’im. I swear.” Bart nodded in agreement.

  The policemen walked away from the group and advanced on the pimp, still in the sanctuary of the doorway. He tried to pull himself upright and reached out for assistance from his companions. However, he suddenly found himself surrounded by a sea of pointed fingers.

  “What’s this? What’s goin’ on?” he yelled, reaching out to the two thugs. “Spence, Bart, tell ’em you’ve made a mistake. You know me.” The two men ignored him and continued to profess his guilt, joined by others saying the same. The pimp’s pleas turned to threats as he was pulled to his feet. “You lying bastards,” he shouted. “I know you, I’ll get you!”

  “I don’t think you will,” said one of the policemen as they pulled him away. “Your days of getting anyone are numbered, my lad.”

  Seeing that the coast was now clear, I walked over to N’yotsu, Maxwell and Kate. “So, please enlighten me as to what just happened,” I said as we watched the pimp being dragged away by the police, kicking, swearing and proclaiming his innocence.

  “I convinced the police that that man was the true murderer,” said N’yotsu.

  “Not just them,” I said. “You weren’t even talking to those other people and they believed the story as though it were fact. How did you do that?”

  “An old trick I picked up in India, from a Fakir. Quite a useful one, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

  “Another trick,” I said. “You seem to be full of them.”

  “Indeed,” said N’yotsu. “The world is a fascinating school, to those who know where to look for their education.”
/>   I looked at him, checking for any sign of humour, but there was none. Maxwell clearly shared my concerns. “You must know that it is not normal to be able to control people’s thoughts at will,” he said slowly.

  “You needed an alibi,” said N’yotsu to me, changing the subject. “I have provided you with one. I convinced everyone as to your innocence and the guilt of that low-life.”

  “And it does not bother you that he is in fact innocent?” I asked.

  “He is guilty of many things,” said N’yotsu. “Mistreating Kate here, for example. And no doubt countless other women and men. The fact that he is innocent of the act he is directly accused of is surely a mere detail.”

  “A mere detail!” I exclaimed.

  He looked at me intently. “Did we not achieve our objective and clear your name?”

  “We did. And I thank you, but—”

  “And have we not rid the streets of two unsavoury characters?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Then I fail to see why you are not happy.”

  I looked to Maxwell and Kate for support. Kate shook her head. “I’m on Mr. N’yotsu’s side,” she said. “I’m just glad to see the back of that arse.”

  “Max,” I said. “Surely you must see my point.”

  Maxwell shrugged. “There is a certain logic to his argument,” he said.

  I threw my hands in the air and, for want of anything better to do, stomped off to the other side of the road. After a pause, Maxwell followed me.

  “I appreciate that you have your qualms about the morality of all this—although this is a fine time for you to suddenly acquire such feelings,” he said. “But you must admit that this is a neat solution to your problems, as well as Kate’s.”

  “Ever the scientist,” I laughed. “I agree. But there’s something else bothering me. N’yotsu is clearly more than he lets on. The business with pushing that creature through solid stone, not to mention the way that he mesmerised everyone into doing his bidding just now. How do we know that he would not turn on us? Could he be manipulating us in the exact same way, making us his puppets?”