As I’ve said before, Trixie was a soldier, not a general, and a soldier needs a chain of command above her. With her Dominion gone, I could see she had slotted Menhit into that role almost instantly. We walked out of the deep warrens together, the goddess striding barefoot and naked under Rashid’s old coat. Trixie marched by her side like some sort of Praetorian Guard, and I followed behind in their wake.
“I will require funds and domicile, servants and so forth,” Menhit was saying. “If I must dwell once more upon this plane then I shall do so in a manner befitting my station.”
Goddess seeks suitable accommodation, servants and so forth, I thought. Funds available are the square root of fuck all.
Oh dear God, what were we going to do with her? I could hardly have her at my place, that went without saying. I dreaded to even think what she would make of my grotty little flat. Who the fuck could I dump her on until Trixie and I at least had the chance to talk? I wondered what she would think of Wormwood. He was rich at least, but he was also bloody horrible. No, I couldn’t see Menhit wanting to kip in Wormwood’s spare room somehow. Of course, he wasn’t the only multimillionaire I knew.
Sorry Papa, I thought. I think the Guédé just called in your debt.
Poor bastard. Although knowing him he’d probably try to shag her, goddess of war or not. I wondered how that would work out for him.
We made our way back out of the deep warren and found Janice waiting for us in the next tunnel, bless her.
“Hi,” I said. “Hi, Janice.”
She looked at the three of us, and there was no hiding the fact that Adam and Rashid weren’t there any more. There was even less hiding Menhit.
“Oh my goodness,” she said.
“A gnome?” Menhit asked.
Janice nodded nervously, and gave me a look that quite plainly said help. She had at least a rough idea of what stood before her, I could tell.
“The gnomes of the deep Earth have served us well, Mother,” I said.
By then I really had no idea if that was me or the Burned Man talking. My grip on reality was probably a bit loose at that point, to be perfectly honest with you, and I knew it was getting worse. The Burned Man seemed to be doing at least half of my talking for me now. What was with calling her Mother anyway? I had no idea, but the Burned Man obviously thought it was the correct way to address her. She didn’t seem to mind, anyway. She nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Honour be to the gnomes of the Earth.”
Janice bowed her head and I’d swear she was blushing, poor little thing.
“Could you perhaps guide us back to the surface, please Janice?” I asked her.
She did as I asked without question or complaint, and again I could feel the favour I owed her growing arms and legs and getting bigger and bigger. Ah well, there was no help for that now I supposed. She had more than earned it, bless her heart.
When Janice finally returned the three of us to the Tube station I looked at the clock and was amazed to see it was only late afternoon. Somehow after the events we had just witnessed, it felt like it should have been the dead of night, but there you are. I gave Janice a goodbye squeeze and told her to call me if she ever needed my help with anything. I had a strong suspicion that she would, sooner or later.
Even down in the Tube, the sight of Menhit standing on the platform barefoot in Rashid’s trenchcoat was drawing a few odd looks. If she just hadn’t been quite so tall it would have helped, although I noticed that at least her eyes had stopped glowing. That was probably for the best, all things considered. You can get away with a lot of weird shit on the Tube but that might have been a stretch too far all the same.
“Don,” Trixie asked me as Menhit stared silently at the sights around her, lost in thought. “What are we going to do now?”
I sighed. “I have no idea,” I said. “I reckon we’ll have to try and stash her at Papa Armand’s for now. His place is the closest thing I know to a palace.”
“It’s not going to do for long though, is it?” Trixie said.
“No,” I said. “No, I don’t think it is.”
I felt the familiar push of warm stale air coming out of the tunnel, and a moment later a train pulled up to a halt at the platform.
“Mind the gap,” the station system announced in its automated voice. “Mind the gap.”
The train doors hissed open and there was the usual surprisingly efficient dance of people getting on and off around each other. I was aware of Menhit standing there, staring at the train as though hypnotised. There was an unreadable expression on her face.
“Well, keeper?” she demanded after a moment, seeming to snap out of her trance. “What have you prepared for me?”
“Um,” I said. “Look, I just need to make a quick call, all right?”
She gave me a blank look. Oh God, she didn’t know anything about anything, did she? The last time she had been on Earth it was probably the fucking Bronze Age or something.
“The keeper will speak to your subjects,” Trixie translated, and Menhit nodded.
I hurried along the platform until I found a payphone. I really did ought to get a mobile, I knew I did, not that they worked very well down the Tube anyway. I shovelled coins into the phone and punched Armand’s number.
“Papa, it’s Don,” I said. “Look, I need a really big favour. The mother of all fucking favours, I’m afraid.”
He grumbled a bit while I explained, but he was pretty much all right about it. Admittedly I may have left out one or two key details, like exactly who the woman I needed to hide at his apartment actually was. If I had explained he would never have agreed to it, which was why I didn’t.
We went up to the street and I hailed us a cab, and waved enough money around for the cabbie not to ask any awkward questions about the state of the three of us. We sat in silence as he drove us to Knightsbridge. Menhit was staring out of the window of the taxi, gripping the seat so hard her knuckles were turning white. Her self-control was admirable but I could tell she was fighting to conceal sheer terror. Whatever must the towering, headlong rush of modern London look like to eyes that hadn’t seen the world in five millennia? Trixie was just staring at her boots, looking lost. I sighed again. Life never got simpler, did it?
Papa Armand opened the door of his apartment and gave me a weary nod. He really didn’t look himself either, truth be told.
“Come in Don-boy,” he said. “Zanj Bèl.”
I ushered Trixie into the flat ahead of me, and Papa’s gaze found Menhit at last. His smile broke like the rising sun.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, giving her a courtly bow.
“Je suis Maman,” she corrected him in flawlessly accented French. “Mère de la guerre.”
He blinked and looked at her again, properly this time.
“Ah,” he said. “Don-boy, maybe there somethin’ you’d like to explain?”
Fucking hell, here we go.
“Can we at least come in?” I asked him.
He paused for a moment, giving Menhit another long look, then nodded and held the door open for us to follow Trixie inside. He locked the door firmly behind us. I kicked my shoes off and padded down the luxurious white carpet into the sitting room.
The mesmerising origami cabinet had been smashed to pieces, and there were dark drink stains on the carpet. At least I hoped they were just drink stains. Even the big smoked glass windows that led out onto his balcony were cracked, I noticed, and there was a long burn mark up one wall that had definitely not been there before. He saw me looking and nodded his shiny bald head slowly.
“Guédé come visit last night,” he said, by way of explanation.
I didn’t know a great deal about the death loa of Vodou but I knew they were a pretty wild bunch by all accounts. From what little I knew of how Papa’s magic worked I suspected he had done the damage himself whilst possessed by the spirits. If Papa had invoked the Guédé Barons last night then it was a testament to his power and control that the place was still standing at all.
“If you would please come with me, Mother,” Trixie said to Menhit, “I’ll find you some more fitting clothes.”
She led the goddess up Papa’s floating stairs to the second floor and I heard a door close behind them. I turned to Papa.
“Is Jocasta still here?” I asked.
I left the question deliberately ambiguous. When Papa gave his head a sombre shake I was glad I had. I’d rather not know, to be honest with you. Still, she might have been young but she knew the risks. At least, I sincerely hoped she had. Oh well, done was done and no help for it now.
“Your lady friend,” Papa said. “Talk to me.”
“Her name is Menhit,” I said, and Papa hissed like he had been stung. “You remember that guy Rashid?”
Papa nodded slowly, his jaw set in a hard line as he looked at me.
“Yeah, well,” I said. “Turns out he was her priest or something, apparently. Keeper of the Veil, she calls it. He’d been putting it about for just about ever that he was her enemy, that he was keeping her walled up safe somewhere the other side of a Veil, and that was sort of true. I think he had been doing that, but not to keep us safe from her. Because she commanded him to, is my understanding, so she would be left alone. Now, when Trixie’s Dominion needed Menhit’s help for its war in Heaven it summoned Bianakith to dissolve this Sentinel thing of Rashid’s that was keeping her Veil closed, and once that was gone the Veil fell apart and she couldn’t help but come through, even though she never wanted to. I think.”
I realised Papa Armand was looking at me like I had grown a second head, and that was without me mentioning that I seemed to have agreed to become Rashid’s replacement.
“Slow down Don-boy,” he said, “and maybe run this past me jus’ one more time. Upstairs in my bedroom, Madame Zanj Bèl is trying on clothes with Menhit the Black Lion of Nubia, is that what you sayin’ me?”
It sounded even more bonkers when he put it like that, I had to admit. I nodded.
“Yeah, pretty much,” I said.
Papa threw back his head and roared with laughter.
“You got Guédé spirit in you, Don-boy, I give you that,” he said.
I thought about the Burned Man, and had to admit he was probably right. In a way, anyway.
“Yeah well,” I said. “Shit has a way of… I dunno, Papa. Look, I really need this favour. Can you keep her here for a bit? I mean, I don’t think she’s dangerous right now. Not yet, anyway. When we pulled her out of the deep warren she was all on about us sorting her a palace and servants and all that shit, but ever since she saw a train and some traffic and a few buildings she’s gone bloody quiet, you know what I mean? I think she’s half dead of culture shock, to be perfectly honest with you.”
“She speaks French,” Papa pointed out.
“And English,” I said. That was just as odd, now that I actually thought about it. “Oh I don’t know do I? She’s a goddess Papa, who knows what she can do.”
“Anything I choose,” she said from behind me, and I almost jumped out of my skin.
I turned to see her and Trixie standing on the stairs looking down at the two of us. They had both changed, into clothes from wherever the hell Trixie whistled her wardrobe up from, I could only assume. Trixie was looking refreshed in clean jeans and a white silk blouse, whereas Menhit had gone modern formal in a black pinstriped business suit with black nylons and high heels, and a black satin blouse unbuttoned low enough to show off the impressively large gold necklace Trixie had found for her from God only knew where.
Menhit stalked down the stairs, her high heels clicking on the polished wood. She towered over Papa Armand, at least a head taller than him in those shoes. She smiled.
“I will stay here in the tower palace, with this priest,” she said. “You have done well, keeper.”
I bowed my head despite myself.
All the same though, anything I choose? I doubted that, to be perfectly honest. Once, maybe, surrounded by worshipers in a world she understood. But now? I didn’t think so somehow. I mean, would she still have been there with the likes of us if she really could do anything she wanted? I wasn’t going to get into that right then, but it was definitely something to think about.
“Thank you Mother,” I said.
She ignored me and ran a hand slowly up Papa Armand’s arm.
“I will like it here,” she said, examining him the way one would consider a minor but interesting purchase. “I have not had a fuck for many thousands of years.”
Papa just grinned at me, the dirty old bastard. I could only hope he had plenty of Viagra in his nightstand. I thought he was going to need it.
“We should be going,” Trixie said, and I couldn’t have agreed more.
We left Papa and his goddess to it and fled.