Maxie's Demon

by Michael Scott Rohan

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Military Sci-Fi

Synopsis

Maxie's in trouble! Again. Only, this time it's serious. Driving a stolen Ferrari Testarossa off a motorway flyover at something approaching Mach 1, with the police in hot pursuit, is no way to make old bones. But it's child's play to what follows. For Maxie, small-time thief and general low-life, has crashed into the Spiral, a strange whirlpool of time and space, where, it seems, almost anything can happen, and anyone appear. The two Elizabethan alchemists, for instance, who are convinced that Maxie can help them with their magickal endeavours. And the swashbuckling band of spectral pirates who promise Maxie power and riches beyond his wildest dreams - if only he'll join them.

Release date: June 24, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 192

Sample

SEX IS ALL RIGHT, but it’s nothing like the real thing.

I pressed my foot down gingerly. I almost jumped at the snarl that answered me, deep enough to feel, not hear. It was the old electric feeling. Suddenly I was lord of limitless power. The bucket seat hugged me in white hide and made me a part of the machine, brain to a bigger, stronger body whose every quiver I felt and controlled. Now I was the strong man, the wild one. I was the one who set the pace.

Out ahead of me they stretched, fat, docile slugs in dotted ranks, and I saw myself weaving and winding a stream of fire between them, leaving a trail of dropping jaws and wet pants. The road stretched out arrow-straight ahead to where it met the sky, and I felt I could just ground the pedal and go shooting off it like a launching ramp, straight into the sunset. But there was all that bloody traffic in the way, taillights flocking like mindless fireflies; and I had to be careful. Didn’t want to draw attention to myself, did I? I’d gone carefully this far, light on the throttle, low on the revs. Draw back; rein in. There were cameras and things. Don’t stand out. Just another commuter, however sleek the car.

There’d be time enough for thrills, later.

I did an elegant side-swerve, all four-wheel drift, to avoid an unwary citizen in the outer lane, a sardine gaping out of his conventional little can, carved him up neatly on the inside – and swore. I was getting careless already. Leave the plebs alone, boy. Let them gape. Be grey; be glad.

The back of my neck was itching. Cameras and things – why the hell had I moved out on to the motorway? This bitch coked up at low revs. Speed, that was what I’d been thinking of. Stupid, stupid. If I’d only stuck to the back roads.

Maybe I could turn off. I searched my memory feverishly, there was one hell of a junction up ahead, wasn’t there? All splits and merges and multiple laning, idiot planning. Cloverleaf hell, as junctions go this was a Venus flytrap.

I could drop out of sight there, altogether. I reached around for my road atlas on the passenger seat, but my hand lit on the hard little box of the scanner radio beside it. Christ, I hadn’t even turned it on! I flicked the switch, the array of lights flickered, sweeping up and down the frequencies. A couple of meaningless crackles, and then there was a voice.

‘… car checking in – suspect is moving through traffic on the westbound carriageway, I say again westbound, driving recklessly …’ I swore, and stared into my mirror. I couldn’t see anything, but there was so much traffic. A trickle of sweat ran down behind my ear lobe, and the old urges surfaced, swamping all my cool good sense. Never mind whether they meant me! Get moving, now, fast, get away, get out, run run run run run. All the old primeval rat rose up in me, as the boot stamped down into the sewer mud. I floored the pedal and changed up, and up, and a hard hand pressed down on my chest as the car really took off.

The engine was amidships, behind my head, and the manic bass bellow filled my ears as I was blasted back in my seat. The deep-dish wheel leaped and bucked against my wrists, a battle that hardly had anything to do with direction. It was like wrestling a living will, a maniac writhing any way and all ways. Yet in the midst of it, weaving between citizen cans and rustbucket trucks and trailer units full of freezer-fresh cabbages, fear snatched my eyes back to the mirror and the ice-blue flicker that had awoken in the dusk.

I couldn’t hear the sound, I didn’t need to. Sickening fear. They were that close, they must have been shadowing me right from the start, practically, waiting so I wouldn’t panic and bolt in the commuter traffic, maybe damage the pretty car. Christ, that meant they’d be ahead of me as well! Waiting to drop a stinger in my path, split the tyres and stop me painlessly …

We’d bloody well see about that! Cops can’t drive worth a damn. I could outrun them in this, I could hardly do anything else. Just one clear stretch—

I wrenched the wheel straight-armed, sliding up and down the gears with featherlight jabs on the brakes, no more. I wove a jagged line of swerves and skids and sudden violent braking, I beat crazy riffs of dents and bangs and ditching as the citizens smacked each other. But not me, not one of them touched me, not one!

Then the balloon burst and fizzled, like all my balloons, always. I hunched behind the wheel, and wailed between my teeth. Why here? Why now? Why me? Why’d they have to be there, the bastards? Why weren’t they out catching real crooks?

Look at the dash! The citizen who’d shelled out for this classic had never put more than twelve thou on it. Just used it as a weekend runabout, probably, when he was tired of his Roller. Now that was a crime. That was the old man’s kind of thing …

Sign gantries came sweeping up above me, and batteries of lights – and cameras. I could see them swivelling on their poles, and gave them the finger for their trouble. The flicker was nearer now, though, for all my speed, sweeping blue across the low cockpit roof, filling the mirror. Christ, he was close – how the hell, in a pissy little patrol car? Cops can’t drive.

We were just past an exit lane. I swung this way and that to shake him, then bore down hard, spinning the soft leather rim, wrenched the car across the lanes, across the shoulder, the grass – bump, crash, sang the six-figure suspension in a spray of dry soil and weeds – and out, away up the exit slope, leaving Blueballs skidding into the shrubbery. I twisted around in my seat to gloat.

The engine retched. The revs sank. Memory, swift-slashing glass shards – a fuel cutoff, if the car overturned and the driver’s weight came off the seat. All Ferraris had them; formula stuff. And I hadn’t much weight, so when I shifted …

I slammed my backside down hard, but the engine was coughing, misfiring, coking up probably like all these high-revving temperamental—

And suddenly the screen was full of truck, as if someone threw it at me. Big, bigger, bright green, very, with a red light leering. Me – why bloody well me?

I slammed on the brakes, I hauled the wheel, I screamed. All very conventional. The car took off. Like a launching ramp. Straight into the sunset. Still screaming.

It landed. I rose and smacked into the roof. It bounced, I sprawled, the gearstick goosed me playfully, the bright-red bullet ran forward on burst tyres and collapsing suspension, howling like a demon. I must have landed on the bloody fuel switch. We were racing across one lane, then another, brakes screeching, cars swerving, blank faces turned to terror-masks whirled by – and I never guessed, then, that they must be mirroring mine. Another lane, a bump, a crash and a screech of sparking metal and now I really saw the sunset, whirling, spiralling as I spilled and tumbled about, knowing I was falling into a pit of fire. The old man’s hand came up and cuffed me so hard my eyes went dark and whizzing spots of red filled my head, like the atomic models in the college labs. And the turning and bouncing went on and on and on.

Why didn’t the fire come? Why?

A breathtaking bang, a slithering roll and agony flared as I was flung about like a cat in a spindrier, my knees and elbows and head whirled out into a wild riff of blows. Then, almost sickeningly, stillness and silence, except for the tick and creak of cooling metal. A burning stench filled my nostrils. Something gave, and I slumped down heavily on my neck, my head driven painfully into my chest. I was upside down, knees by my shoulders, showing my usual aspect to the world.

And, it began to dawn on me, I was still alive. I might even be all right. Normally I wasn’t too hot on life, but right then it was sunshine and apples and Pimm’s No. 1 – how long since I’d tasted that? – and Celia the Snake Dancer and steak and chips all rolled into one.

You think that’s improbable? Try hanging arse-upward under about eighty litres of high-octane.

An awful hope and panic billowed up, and I was thrashing and gibbering to get free, seeing the fireball blossoming above the seat of my jeans any moment. A leg fell free into emptiness and I did an involuntary backward roll. Suddenly there was open air and grass, and I scrabbled like a maniac on all fours to get away, clutching at the ground in gratitude.

When I ran out of breath I lifted myself on my stinging elbows, and looked around. The car was a mess, crumpled like a beer can in a giant fist, resting upside down on its rollbar in deep grass, wreathed in steam or smoke. Whoever owned this wasn’t going to get his toy back. Serve the bastard right.

I was sitting on a garden wall, looking at a row of toy cars, telling two littler kids that my dad worked in the factory that made these, and that if they let me take them tonight I could get copies tomorrow. So they picked out all their favourites, of course. A treat to watch them.

I was looking at the old man’s Jaguar, with its wing stove in against the gatepost, feeling my pants wet – oh hell, they were. Somehow in the middle of that lot I’d lost control. I began to shake violently and my stomach just punched up at me. Explosive vomit arched across the grass.

Strangely enough I felt better, as if I’d spewed out my terror. At least the bloody machine hadn’t caught. Maybe, I decided with the idiot clarity of the concussed, I ought to get my scanner out; it could be traced to me. I tested one aching knee gingerly, and managed to get to my feet. Then the flare of heat stung my face, and I fell down again. It wasn’t a movie-style explosion, more like elephant gas, but it was fierce enough, a greedy, mocking roar that took all the relief out of being alive. It was telling me just how close I’d come. It was crisping up all the cash I’d been looking forward to, that might have made the difference – not that Ahwaz would have paid out anything like a fair price anyway. He’d just shrug and go on about the shipping costs to the Gulf, the way he always did. He didn’t even have to get nasty. One of these days …

No. I couldn’t do anything about Ahwaz. I couldn’t do anything about anything. And my legs and arms hurt, a real wincing pain, and the back of my head. I’d bitten my cheek, and my damp pants were riding up. The cash wouldn’t have changed anything. I hugged myself and whimpered.

I looked up abruptly. Somebody was looking at me, and I hated his guts for it. He was standing there quite calmly, about ten yards away, a smallish man, little bigger than me but more heavily built. His face, as far as I could see it in the gathering dusk, was leathery, outdoor, expressionless; he was leaning on some kind of heavy crooked pole. I stood up again, not too shakily. He didn’t say anything. I glanced around quickly for ways out. Plenty of those; it was an open field, rich-looking strips of some kind of grain – wheat, probably, heavy heads whispering in the breeze over the rumble of the road.

The car had burst through a low straggly hedge and come to rest in the lush green grass at its edge. Above the hedge, a surprising distance away, I saw the rising strips of bridge and flyover that made up the junction, its lamps a hazy golden curtain in the dusk. I looked nervously for flashing lights at the edge, but there weren’t any. Maybe they hadn’t even seen me spin off! Maybe nobody had!

But they’d see the fire soon enough, and the scar; I’d crashed like a jet. I’d better get out of here, fast. I looked back; the junction was there too, and its approach roads, glowing beads told endlessly in the dark. And to the other side – Christ, it was all around! This must be a patch in the middle. And yet somehow the junction hadn’t ever seemed that big, as I remembered it.

I rubbed the back of my head gingerly. It was all a bit much. The yokel still hadn’t said a word, which confirmed everything I’d ever felt about yokels. I looked at him. He looked back, a very ordinary sort of oik in the usual shabby shirt and trousers. Only one thing stood out, a gleam of metal among the grass at the base of that stick; it was a scythe, begod, the huge old-fashioned kind. They still used them on verges, sometimes, but I didn’t like the connotations. He made a pretty grim reaper, at that.

‘Ferrari,’ he said suddenly. ‘Ar.’

Well, that about put the situation in a nutshell, I had to admit. Voice like a corncrake, but a bit more reassuring. At least he didn’t talk in small capitals. I assumed my best upper-crust self-confidence. ‘Yah. Bit of a nasty smash, eh?’

Silence.

I shook my head ruefully. ‘I was fond of that car. Still, lucky I’m alive. And nobody’s hurt. It’s burning itself out, it shouldn’t spread to your wheat or whatever it is.’

Silence. I wanted to kick him, but I wasn’t feeling too stable right then, and he looked tough. Besides, there was that scythe. Play it natural. ‘Look, laddie, I’d better get to a phone, hadn’t I? Is there a pub somewhere around?’

He jerked his head backward, at what looked like an oak covert, but was actually something like a windbreak. Now I looked, I could just make out a squat roof behind it, thatched probably. ‘Oh. Right. Well, I’ll just – pop over there, then, eh? Er – right.’

Silence. He stood watching me as I limped off, first into the grain, then, remembering myself, around the verge; but he didn’t say a damn thing more. I decided his parents were first cousins.

The last thing I wanted was a phone. I wanted to get out of there. I needed a ride out, but trying to thumb one around the junction I’d just spun off would be about as clever as tapdancing in a minefield. But before all that I needed, I really needed, a drink.

By the time I reached the door I needed it a lot more. There was a path alongside a fence, and I found myself hanging on to the wooden rails. The pub was easy to spot from here, its newish-looking red brick glowing cheerfully in the greyness beneath an ornate thatched roof, very high pitched. It had a sign, but it was swaying in the breeze so much I couldn’t read it – or was it? By the time I reached the post it was quite still.

The Wheel, it said, with an odd design of an old carved cartwheel apparently hanging against a starry sky. Très, très quaint, I thought giddily; something Biblical. Yay for Ezekiel. I shuffled effortlessly down the path, fumbled with the old-fashioned lever latch and more or less fell inside.

It was dark as any number of pits, and the resemblance didn’t stop there. The waft of beer was pleasant enough, but it carried a wide range of guest odours, ranging from old locker rooms to a hint that the landlord kept pigs – lots of them and very well fed. I was past caring. As my eyes struggled to adjust, I slumped down on the nearest empty bench I saw, leaned my elbows on the table and sank my head in my hands. The moment my elbows took the weight I yelped and clutched at them, bruised and raw, and sat wincing and swearing. Then I felt a light hand on my shoulder, and realised somebody had said something. I looked up to see a pleasant, plump face, female and quite young, beaming down at me sympathetically through the gloom.

‘Had an accident, ’ave yer, moi dear?’

I nodded painfully. ‘Came off the road a way back. Into the grassfield behind the trees. Lucky I got thrown out, I suppose.’

The face nodded. ‘Oo yer, moi dear. Could do yerself a proper peck o’ mischief that-wise. And yer could use a drink, I’ll be bound. Just sit yer down there and let Poppy fetch yer a good deep draught. And physic for your sores and scathes, to boot!’

I nodded thankfully, hardly able to speak. God, what a nice girl! More sympathy than I’d have got from the usual tarts I went out with. I blinked gratefully at her – then I half shot to my feet, forgetting aches and pains and everything else. She was wearing some kind of costume – white cap, long skirt, full blouse – full enough, at that. Why tell? Label her ‘Tavern Wench’ and you’ve got the essentials.

God, just my luck. One of those bloody tourist traps. Ye Olde Banquet Fayre and that sort of crap; though this one looked more authentic than most, if only because of the gloom. The only light came from the small leaded windows, and that was fading fast, building a great pool of shadow between me and the bar. No cod hanging lanterns or plastic chandeliers – no lamps at all, by the look of it. That might be carrying things a touch far. I wasn’t alone, though, that much I could make out. Rough accents grated through the air. They must have stopped talking the moment I came in, but now they were ignoring me again. Fine by me. Within a minute the girl was bouncing her way back with an encouraging smile and a laden tray.

‘There now! Get you that down your pipe, and a bite of bread to boot.’ She plonked down a great earthenware mug of ale, and a wooden platter with a hunk of brown bread. ‘And here’s water and salve, moi dear, and a rag or two. If you can’t—’

‘No, thanks, love, I can manage. Kind of you, though.’ I hoisted the mug in a toast, and dimples broke out all round. A born comic’s face, kindly, sleepy-looking eyes and tip-tilted nose, an odd upper lip that pursed and pouted around her broad rustic burr and turned her smile into a beaming half-moon. I was almost a bit sorry when she did leave me alone. She unnerved me slightly; maybe I just didn’t want her fussing. I was about to ask about Band-aids, but maybe she’d go galloping out for some, or something else embarrassing; she looked the type. Nice, but I didn’t need it. The beer I needed.

It was real ale with a vengeance, hoppy as hell and full of bits, but not too strong; and though I prefer white bread, I had to admit this fresh wholemeal stuff set it off nicely. I could have done with some butter, though; stuff this healthy eating lark. Maybe she’d put something in the beer, because after a few minutes I felt strong enough to try the first aid. The water made me want to hop around the ceiling, but the salve – something herbal and greenish, as best I could make out, and smelling strongly of mint – certainly cooled things off quickly enough, and dulled the general ache. For the first time since I’d got behind that bloody wheel things began to calm down a little. I’d still got off pretty lightly, considering. In the shit I might be, but with waterwings.

Or that was what I thought then, anyhow.

A wizened old man came doddering out with a lantern in each hand, and began struggling vainly to loop their handles over little pegs in the beams, while the customers egged him on with ribald suggestions. This was evidently the floor show around here, the local answer to Las Vegas. With much moaning and clanking and Gabby Hayes-type mutterings he managed it eventually and trimmed the wicks. After the gloom even those dim yellow flames made the room stand out as stark as a bank of photofloods.

I blinked, and kept blinking. My God, not just a theme pub. They must be doing Olde English banquets or something, all chicken legs and Charles Laughton. They’d sure as hell overdone the picturesque clientele – as ripe a load of yokels as ever dropped out of a butter commercial, all leathery cheeks and tangled whiskers. A couple of them were even wearing smockfrocks, and one warty character had battered kneebritches and boatlike wooden shoes. Straight out of the casting agency, most likely, and filling in before summer rep.

Not that barmaid Poppy, though. Somehow you couldn’t mistake her for anything she wasn’t. And come to that, I felt less sure about the others. Those faces, the hard outdoor gloss to their cheeks, the bad teeth, the dirt on their hair and clothes – life and work did that. Not many people lived that way these days, not even gypsies or travellers. Grating-squatters and Cardboard City bums, maybe, but they never look that tough. These grimy tables, the dim walls with painted hangings obscured by smoke and grease, the trodden patina of bare earth, brick and bone chips – this was all just a bit too bloody real for the coach trade, wasn’t it? And after a few minutes downwind I could guarantee one thing: this lot had never even heard of a hygiene inspector.

So, underneath all this some very nasty little thoughts indeed seethed up and out.

Like, maybe this was a haunted inn and I was seeing—

Like maybe that yokel with the scythe—

Like maybe I didn’t get out of that crash after all—

Frantically I clutched at my wits as they made an excuse and left. I’d never believed in ghosts – not really, anyhow, not much. This beer wasn’t off the astral plane, was it? And if they were anything ancient at all, why weren’t they more surprised at modern me?

Besides, spooks shouldn’t need Lifebuoy this badly.

Then I heard the door open behind me. I always notice that. Not a sound I like much, maybe because all my life I’ve been waiting for it – the old man or the teachers or the cops or bookie’s goons, something like that; but it always makes me look around.

What I saw, though, flooded me right out with relief. A tall man, stooping under the lintel. A modern man, in modern clothes – very modern. He strode past me to the bar and rapped lightly upon the rough planks with a smart walking stick. He would have looked smooth anywhere, but down here among the shit-kickers the hair and the rigout made him almost ridiculous, like something cut out of a lifestyle glossy.

Almost. He looked too sure of himself by half. He took a beer mug – no, a tankard – from the old scrote, and leaned back on the counter, glancing calmly about. A regular, at home here. More than that, maybe; the massed village idiots were all tossing him a wave or knuckling brows and tugging forelocks and whatever. A bit out of character for spooks.

I tried not to feel too relieved. A theme park, it had to be – a stately home, maybe. I could believe Flash Harry was the owner, or the manager at least. Or maybe …

A great light dawned. It had to be these recreator types – middle-class pillocks who got their rocks off living out Olde English fantasies down to the nth detail. Even the sackcloth knickers, or total lack of same, and who knows, maybe authentic pet lice called Bill and Shirley. I’d seen them in Civil War gear and Viking armour hanging around railway stations on their way to fight old battles – total prats and proud of it. Being surrounded by them made me itchy, as if I was catching codpiece fever or something. This one probably had his doublet and hose in the car. In a Harrods bag.

I relaxed – too soon. His eyes were fixed on me as surely as bombsights. Reflex suggested I hop up and shoot out the door, but I fought it down, sort of. He had that calm, considering look I kept seeing on people who gave me grief, and when he hoisted himself easily off the bar and strolled over my heart sank. He lowered himself on to a high-backed settle by the wall, propped his stick against it and swung his shoes – pretty good shoes – up on to the bench opposite. I clutched the heavy table, half tempted to tip it over right now and run. But suppose I couldn’t? Then he’d have me cold. And he was a big, sleek bastard, not quite young but lean and strong-looking, like a tennis pro. His clothes were casual, cords and a blouson jacket, pricey-looking; they wouldn’t slow him up.

He gave a polite half-nod. His voice was surprisingly deep, his accent BBC neutral. ‘Evening. You the chap who came off at the junction, are you?’ He didn’t wait for me to deny it, shaking his head. ‘Willum told me you’d come this way. Bad smash, that. You’re lucky to be here.’

That was a matter of opinion, but I mumbled something into my beer, trying to look dazed and delicate. I wished he’d take those bloody eyes away, but he just tilted his head back. ‘Sad, too. Nice motor, very nice. Ferrari Testarossa, wasn’t it? Don’t see too many of those these days. Never ever, in fact, eh? Worth – God, I don’t know, what would you say? Two hundred big ones at least. At least,’ he repeated.

I tried not to wince, but I could see where every step was leading. ‘Sure. I wouldn’t know. It was the old man’s.’ It could easily have been, after all. And I’d probably have screwed it up just the same way. Too much Testarosterone.

He looked a little surprised, maybe at my accent, but he didn’t give up twisting the screw. ‘And the insurance! A classic boy racer like that, third-party cover alone’d come to, I don’t know, how much? I mean, even my Morgans cost me into the high hundreds. Each. Something like that, at least a couple more big ones a year, whew! You must be a very lucky guy.’

I ground my teeth. This close I was seeing more about him, the kind of things I make a habit of noticing. Casual buckskin shoes, ordinary enough except there was no maker’s mark on the sole, and the fit was perfect. Casual cord trousers, not new but heavy and uncreased, with a soft, thick belt, and above them a casual shirt in a subtle heathery shade you don’t just find in the shops. But it was the blouson jacket that bugged my eyes; that nubbly designer Donegal stuff with the coloured flecks would have cost serious money in wool, but this was raw silk, thick and close woven. And I’d caught a glimpse of a hand-painted lining, some kind of sailing scene.

I knew that kind of stuff. A bit more luck and sense, and I’d still have been wearing something almost as good. They put this smug son of a bitch in the millionaire class. Even his bloody stick looked like a personality concept, the wood probably something Peruvian or whatever. And extinct.

Not a cop, then; but dangerous. Power. The kind of power that might go with owning that stately home or theme park. Or – sickening thought – owning a Ferrari. He’d certainly identify with the owner; Morgans were pricey enough. Power. One word, one move, and you could bet I’d have all these loyal arsekissers on my back.

‘Well,’ he remarked, ‘since you had the car in the first place I suppose you can afford all that. Lucky, as I said.’

And he was looking at my clothes, too; cheap Levis, leather bomber whose shoddy thinness showed through the tears and scorches, chain-store shirt fraying at the collar, stained trainers. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. ‘Yah. My people have the cash. Can’t take any credit for it – I was born, that was all. Like in Figaro. Silver spoon, consider the lilies, that kind of thing.’

That shook him, and so it should. It was near as dammit the truth, and these days I was finding that more and more of a luxury. The eyes narrowed, all the same, and he lounged even further back on the settle.

‘There are problems, though, aren’t there, with owning a car like that? Like thieves – oh, not just your ordinary joyrider, but the kind of organised thief who steals with a ready resale market in mind. Sometimes to order, even with a target and an information dossier supplied by the dealer. Classic cars for export, to countries where they don’t ask too many questions before they register, that kind of thing.’

‘Yeah,’ I said savagely, ‘they keep me awake at nights sometimes. Listen, I’d better go get to a phone, hadn’t I? Obviously they don’t have one here!’

‘Not right now,’ he said mildly. ‘And my mobile’s in the car. Back at the junction, though—’

‘I don’t want to go that way,’ I said, thinking quickly. ‘The, uh, the b. . .