Lavie Tidhar - The Dope Fiend

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The Dope Fiend

by Lavie Tidhar

Mother's advice, and Father's fears,

Alike are voted—just a bore.

There's Negro music in our ears,

The world's one huge dancing floor.

We mean to tread the Primrose Path,

In spite of Mr. Joynson-Hicks.

We're People of the Aftermath

We're girls of 1926.

In greedy haste, on pleasure bent,

We have no time to think, or feel

What need is there for sentiment

Now we've invented Sex Appeal?

We've silken legs and scarlet lips,

We're young and hungry, wild and free,

Our waists are round about the hips

Our shirts are well above the knee

We've boyish busts and Eton crops,

We quiver to the saxophone.

Come, dance before the music stops,

And who can bear to be alone?

Come drink your gin, or sniff your 'snow',

Since Youth is brief, and Love has wings,

And time will tarnish, ere we know,

The brightness of the Bright Young Things.

—"Women of 1926" by James Laver

· · · · ·

I'd known Edgar Manning for a number of years,

and I was there at the event that introduced him,

rather notoriously, to the rest of London.

I was at Lizzie Fox's restaurant in Little Newport

Street. A group of us had been to the races the

weekend before, Mrs. Fox having had a weakness

to the laying of money on horses akin to mine.

Lizzie won seventy pounds. I'd lost a hundred,

and another hundred on champagne. Manning,

who was also there, won, but not as much as

Lizzie.

Which is what started it all.

I'd been sitting in my usual place by the window,

reading the paper, smoking. Watching the door.

Watching Yankee Frank come in, his ugly face

made even uglier by the cheap cigar in his mouth.

He came straight up to Manning and demanded a

pound.

"I have not a pound to give you," Manning said.

His manners have always been impeccable, and

his voice stayed quiet and calm.

"You're a fucking thief," Frank said. "I know how

you're earning your living."

There was a moment of silence. London may

have not, by that time, heard of Edgar Manning,

but the people at Mrs. Fox's had, and that silence

should have served as a warning to the

faux-American.

Manning merely shook his head.

"You're a fucking shitpot," Frank said to him. I

saw Manning's handsome black face go blank as

he contemplated Yankee Frank's future. He may

have let him go at that, but then Frank turned to

Molly O'Brien, an actress and a slip of a girl who

was sitting at a nearby table. "You're a bloody

prostitute," he told her, chewing on his cigar.

Mollie may have been slight, but she wasn't one

to take insults from anyone, and certainly not

someone like Yankee Frank. "It's a pity you don't

go and work for a living," she said to him. "You're

only a ponce."

It was true - Frank's main form of income was

from small-scale extortion of local hoodlums, an

act commonly knows as poncing - but it didn't

mean he liked Mollie calling him that. Before I

could move he threw the cigar at her and punched

her in the eye. Blood swelled up over delicate,

white skin. "If there wasn't so many people in

here, I'd do something else to you," he said, and

ran out.

I looked at Manning; his face had closed even

more, unreadable as a fetish mask, but it was

open and kind when he asked Mollie if she was all

right, before leaving a short while after.

What happened next became a legend, and it

happened like this:

Outside, Mollie O'Brien ran into Yankee Frank

again, who was walking with his brother, Charles.

As I said, she didn't take crap from nobody, and

she let him have it.

In turn, he punched her in the stomach and ran

off. The two brothers then met up with a friend,

Robert Davies, another lowlife.

They were just turning down Shaftesbury Avenue

when, outside the Palace Theatre, they met

Manning.

They attacked him.

Manning ran around a passing bus. Then he pulled

out a piece, and, with careful aim, he kneecapped

all three men.

· · · · ·

This much is public knowledge. The News of the

World delighted in the headline "Evil Negro

Caught" and called Manning the "King of London's

dope traffic." He was Jamaican, the son of slaves.

A jazz musician who came to England from

America during the war. He was always

impeccably dressed, articulate, attractive.

In the event, he was sentenced to only eighteen

months.

When he got out of jail he came to see me.

It was a cold November night; my apartment by

the meat market of Smithfields was draughty. It

was a bad night, and I did not wish to be

disturbed. I had cleared the floor of all furniture

and arranged half-melted candles in a Star of

David on the floor, contained within a chalked

pentagram.

I was about to begin when there was a knock on

the door.

Outside wet lights blinked in the dark. On the

steps stood Manning, hat in hand: the time in

prison had bulked him up, and his face looked

lined and worried.

"Tzaddik, I need your help," he said.

"Come in," I said. He followed me into the

hallway. "Sorry about the mess."

Manning took only a desultory look at the

arrangements on the living room floor. He knew

my working methods. I led him into the small

kitchen and set to making tea while my guest sat

down.

"I didn't know you got out," I said.

"It was only two days ago," he said. "And I've

been trying to lay low for a while. Luckily my

network of employees is still mostly in place. Here

-" He reached into a coat pocket and took out a

small paper packet which he placed carefully on

the table. "For you."

I didn't need to look in the bag to know what was

inside. Nevertheless, I did. I placed some of the

powder with care between my thumb and

forefinger and snorted it, feeling exhalation take

hold of my brain.

"They don't call it joy dust for nothing," I said.

Manning nodded, but his face did not reflect my

lightening mood. So, "What is it?" I said.

He looked up at me, his fingers wrapping around

the mug of hot Earl Grey I had given him as if

seeking to draw strength from it. "It's Billie," he

said. "I've seen her. I don't know what to do."

I sat down opposite him and looked at his eyes

carefully. His pupils were normal-sized, his eyes

anxious.

"Billie's dead," I said.

Manning slammed a fist on the table, droplets of

tea decorating the tabletop like liquid marbles. "I

know that, Tzaddik!"

And then he started to cry.

· · · · ·

Billie.

Billie Carleton.

The World's Pictorial News called her "the very

essence of English girlhood." Billie Carleton, with

her short cropped hair and large eyes that hinted

at both tragedy and joy. A small, perfect mouth

and a voice to match. I saw her in her first big

performance, when she replaced Ethel Levey in

the lead of Watch Your Step at the Empire. Charlie

Cochran, who gave her that first break, later

recalled her as "a young girl of flower-like beauty,

delicate charm, and great intelligence."

She was also a cocaine addict.

I thought of those beautiful eyes, closed in death,

and of a certain gold box I had kept, out of sight,

in the sea-chest upstairs.

"She's dead," I said again.

Manning's voice, when it came, was dangerously

quiet. "You and I both know, Tzaddik, that death

is not an entirely unknown country."

"Isn't it?" I said. "I've never been there to know."

And Manning slowly smiled. White teeth made his

mouth look like an ivory gate into the dark. "No,"

he said. "You haven't."

It is dangerous to deal with men who know your

secrets. So, "Tell me about it," I said, and waited.

"I started seeing her two months ago," Manning

said. "She came to me in prison. At first only in

my dreams. Her face, as beautiful as I

remembered it to be. She was trying to tell me

something. Her mouth moved, but if she spoke I

couldn't hear her."

"You were dreaming," I said. He ignored me.

"I got to a stage I didn't dare go to sleep

anymore," he said. "She haunted me until I feared

sleep." His tea stood untouched on the table. I

pushed the bag of snow on the table toward him,

and he helped himself to a pinch and snorted it.

"So she began to appear when I was awake.

Eighteen months, man, eighteen months of hard

labour. I thought I was losing my mind."

"You still have to convince me you haven't."

He laughed. "She gave me this," he said, and

reached into his pocket. "One night she came into

the cell and touched me. I could feel her skin,

warm and alive, and I could smell her, the scent of

French perfume and lilacs. She gave me this," he

repeated, and put a small, gold box on the table,

watching me.

"A snuff box?" My voice was steady, my hands

weren't. Manning could see that. Well, damn him.

I reached for the bag and helped myself to

another pinch of cocaine. Damn Manning, I

thought, and damn Billie too.

"Her coke box," he said. "The one that was

resting on the table beside the bed the night she

died." His eyes searched my face like a snake

charmer watching his cobras. He noted the hands

but didn't comment, and I gave him credit for

that.

"Can you raise her?"

It was a request, not a question, and I had seen it

coming.

"Possibly," I admitted. "Not a good idea. Not

tonight. Not on any night." I was babbling, and in

his eyes I could see he was reading me, not

knowing but still guessing the source of my

anxiety.

"Will you do it though?" Manning's large hands

rested on the table, palms open as if in appeal.

"Can you not get a houngan to do it?" I said.

Manning laughed, a short, dry laughter that

sounded like a cough. "I tried. The loa are refusing

to communicate with me. Apparently." His tone of

voice suggested he was not much pleased with

the voudon priest, and I suspected the man was

probably dispatched himself as a sacrifice to Baron

Samedi. Manning was not a man to tolerate

incompetence.

I needed to think. I needed to buy time to think.

"I'll have to make some inquiries," I said. "Also,

some preparations. Where are you staying at the

moment?"

He measured me up. "At the Montmarte Café," he

said at last.

"With Zenovia?"

"Yes."

"All right," I said, decided. "I'll find you there. If

you need to contact me, leave a message with

Motty in the sandwich shop."

Manning smiled unexpectedly. "Motty still there?"

I nodded.

"Still dealing to the tourists?"

I smiled back. "We've all got to make a living," I

said.

Manning nodded. The smile evaporated as he

stood up.

At the door, he turned to face me. The expression

on his face was unreadable. His hand felt warm

and heavy in mine as we shook. He looked like he

was about to say something, thought better of it.

I watched him disappear into the darkness. I shut

the door against the outside and raced upstairs,

searching for the box. But it was gone, and by

then it was too late, and the darkness had already

filtered inside.

· · · · ·

At that time of the night—so late it was almost

morning—Limehouse was shrouded in fog; a pack

of small dogs rooted through the garbage outside

the Shanghai restaurant, and from a distance

came the muted sound of a late-night reveler

stumbling out of an opium den and throwing up

on the pavement.

There were no lights behind the windows of the

Shanghai. I watched the place for a while, unseen,

but no movement was visible. After fifteen

minutes I gave up my watch and progressed

down the causeway until I reached a small,

unmarked door at the end of a narrow alleyway.

"You no come in." It took several loud knocks

before the door was opened by a young Chinese

man who stared at me with hostility.

"I'm looking for Chang," I said.

The lad looked blank. "No Chang here!" he said,

and tried to close the door in my face.

"Not so fast, butterfly," I said, and pushed the

door open again. I reached into my pocket,

watching him. "My card."

He moved his hand away from the knife hidden in

his coat and accepted it. When his head came up

again, he was grinning. "So you're the Tzaddik?

Sorry about that, you know what it's like around

here at this time of the morning."

His sudden cockney accent could have broken

glass, and there was something familiar about the

shape of his face. "Are you related to Xing He?" I

asked as he closed the door behind me.

His entire face lit up. "He's my uncle. Says you're

the best player of pai-ke-p'iao he'd ever seen."

"Don't believe everything he tells you," I said, and

we both laughed. "Is Chang around?"

He shook his head. "You can wait for him here, if

you like," he said. "I'll do you a pipe on the

house."

He saw my face and lowered his voice. "From

what I hear he's got a new lady friend somewhere

near Seven Dials. Should be back before too

long."

Brilliant Chang always had a new lady friend. The

son of a wealthy family based in Hong Kong, he

drew women to him: I believe the Sunday

Express once quoted a group of flappers who

enthusiastically referred to him as "the rich young

chink." I knew the man, and knew his methods:

he once showed me the pile of identically-worded

notes he carried everywhere in his pockets, to

hand out like sweets to women who caught his

fancy:

"Dear Unknown—" it said. "Please do not regard

this as a liberty that I write to you, as I am really

unable to resist the temptation after having seen

you so many times. I should extremely like to

know you better, and should be glad if you would

do me the honour of meeting me one evening

where we could have a little dinner and a quiet

chat together. I do hope you will consent to this,

as it will give me great pleasure, and in any case

do not be cross with me for having written to

you." It was signed, "Yours hopefully, Chang.

PS—If you reply, please address it to me at the

Shanghai Restaurant, Limehouse-causeway, E14."

"All right," I said to the young Chinese man. "I'll

take you up on the offer." He smiled, and led me

away into the main room of the house.

At this time of the morning few people were

inside: two sailors in one corner, lying comatose

with the glowing remains of a pipe still clutched in

their hands; a man and a woman, with clothes

that marked them out as members of the

privileged class, sat together on large red cushions

on the other side, similarly indisposed.

Low-hanging lanterns cast dim light.

In yet another corner a man lay in shadows; the

scent of incense wafted heavily throughout the

room as did the pungent smell of burning opium. I

took a seat on one of the cushions as my

companion began preparing a pipe for me.

I let the sweet smoke fill my lungs and felt my

eyes threaten to close as the drug took hold of

me. As always when it did images of my expulsion

from the Thirty-Six invaded my mind. What are

drugs to an immortal? I shouted at them. They

found me in the boarding house in Paris, in that

other, even-dirtier century: I was lying comatose

on the barren floor, my arms and legs bare and

punctured, lying in my own excrement. The

thirty-five other men and women of my circle, the

hidden guardians of our people. Immortals,

Guardians, Tzaddiks, call them what you will. In

Hebrew the word means someone who is

righteous: and they looked at me then with

expressions ranging from pity to disgust.

Another breath of opium, and another, and the

memory faded. The room receded into darkness,

and I let my mind open, welcoming in a rare

sensation of peace. There will be time, I thought,

to tackle the problem of Billie Carleton. For now,

let this be enough.

I watched the room with my eyes hooded. The

toffs had finally got up and were escorted out of

the room, a cab no doubt already waiting for

them outside. The sailors, I decided, did not look

like they were going anywhere in a hurry. My

young Chinese friend was busy preparing another

pipe for them.

And that person whose face I couldn't see… I

watched the corner of the room and tried to

guess at the features of the one who sat there. I

felt a prickling at the back of my neck, as if I, in

turn, was also being watched. I opened my

senses wide, cast a net around the room. I felt

the drug-induced haze of the two sailors,

nightmares of raging seas and visions of

monstrous creatures rising from the deep, felt the

sweat forming on their skin, the taste of bloodied

salt on their tongues. I tore myself from their

shared nightmare and tried to focus on that

corner of darkness I was after, but to no avail: it

was as if nothing living was sitting there, nothing

that could feel, or touch, or remember.

I rose from my seat and stepped toward the

shadows, the pipe falling from my hand. But it

was not my body that had stood: I was a pale,

transparent form, a ghostly semblance of my

body lying still and cold. I walked toward the

darkness, my steps making no sound.

That corner of the room attracted and repelled

me now. Its shadows thickened, became solid as

walls. I thrust my hands into the darkness,

drawing myself closer, intent on seeing the face

hidden within.

My spectral hands formed shapes in the air, and a

cold white fire burst from my fingers, penetrating

the darkness.

There were not one, but two figures sitting there:

two faces, clearly seen for the briefest of

seconds, before a force I did not reckon on

encountering hit my chest and pushed me

violently back into my own body, where I lay,

shivering and vomiting and no longer in the

throws of delirium.

Two faces, glimpsed for the briefest of moments:

I shivered again as I recalled Billie's beautiful

diamond eyes looking into mine, and beside her,

his hand on her thigh, a man with no face, whose

body was shadow and bone.

· · · · ·

I had my fingers wrapped around Brilliant Chang's

neck and I wasn't about to let go. He hung

against the wall, the expensive fur coat flapping in

time to his legs kicking the empty air.

"What the hell," I said, "did you get yourself

involved in?"

I let him go and watched him fall to the ground,

clutching at his neck and breathing hoarsely.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" he

said.

"No?" I took the small gold box from my pocket

and waved it in his face. "Do you recognize this?"

It was Billie's snow box. The box that had lain

secure in my sea-chest since her death on that

night at the Victory Ball in the Albert Hall. The box

that, somehow, made its way into Manning's

hand, given to him by a ghost.

Chang's eyes widened when he recognized it.

"Where did you get this?" he said.

"Bill," I said, "let me ask the questions, alright?" I

was breathing hard, the aftereffects of the opium

dream hitting me in waves. "There was a man in

your establishment earlier today. I want to know

who he is."

Chang looked at me. We weren't friends, but we'd

worked together in the past, and he could tell I

was anxious and angry. I looked into his eyes and

read understanding there, but also fear, a fear I

was certain was not inspired by me. It was not an

emotion I had seen in Brilliant Chang's face

before.

I watched him think it through. Then, "Let me buy

you a drink," he said, and rose up slowly to his

feet. He looked at me and smiled lopsidedly. "You

might need it. I know I do."

I had found Chang at Lily Rumble's flat off

Holborn, alone and preparing to go out. I'd gone

there straight from Limehouse: when I

recuperated from the psychic attack, the

mysterious man and his ghostly companion were

gone, as if they had never been there. The young

Chinese lad, Xing He's nephew, had also

disappeared. A waiter at the Shanghai Restaurant

finally gave me, after I coerced him, the address

and swore Chang would be there. I left him to

contemplate the prospects of the information

proving incorrect and made my way to Holborn.

"Alright," I said. I felt tired and angry and the

thought of a drink was appealing. We left Lily's flat

and walked the short distance to the Princess

Louise. I followed Chang into the dim interior; Big

Vi and Brixton Peggy were sitting in a corner.

Dealing. When they saw Chang they began to rise,

but with a look from him returned to their seats.

"Business good?" I said.

Chang shrugged. "You know how it is," he said.

"Everyone wants the dust my girls sell."

I said, "Let's go upstairs."

The upstairs bar was even dimmer than below,

and mostly empty. I scanned the room, but there

was only the usual crowd in there, the lowlifes and

the permanent drunks.

Chang ordered two glasses of cognac, and we

took a seat in the corner by the windows. Chang

pulled out two packets of twisted paper from his

pocket, offered one to me.

"Ta."

The cocaine perked me up; the cognac soothed

the edge of my anger. "Start talking," I said.

"It's to do with Manning," he said, and looked to

see my reaction. He nodded. "I don't know what

he's been up to in that prison: some fucked-up

shit, by the sound of it. Way I hear it, he met

some crazy houngan there. Someone not entirely

human. Some awfully powerful horse being ridden

by Samedi." He took a deep breath. "You know

how he's been about Billie," he said, and it was

my turn to nod. Manning had never gotten over

her death, but I suspected Chang hadn't, either.

Chang looked reassured, but his face changed

when he began to talk, his eyes narrowing. His

fingers drummed a nervous staccato on the

tabletop. "A man arrived at my establishment two

nights ago," he said. "He was tall, almost gaunt,

with a way of moving that reminded me of a cat.

I can't recall his face clearly: all I could see were

his eyes, emerald green and hypnotic. It was like

a strange elongated skull mask with two pools of

burning light where its eyes should have been." He

shuddered and swallowed the rest of the cognac.

"He knew everything! Every detail of every

transaction; he reeled out the network to me as if

it were a family tree. Every connection, every

shipment, everything."

"What did he want?" I said. There was a strange

feeling at the back of my head, a warning, like we

were being watched. I scanned the bar crowd

slowly, but it had not changed and I felt exposed,

my nerves tingling in anticipation of attack.

"What did he want?" Chang gave a low, bitter

laugh. "He wanted me. My organization. To start

with. I have seen things in my time, Tzaddik," he

said, "but I have seen nothing like that man, if it

was a man. He had power, and he held me

helpless." He paused, and snorted more cocaine.

His eyes were moving frantically in their sockets.

"He told me you would come. He arranged to be

there when you did. What did he want? Maybe he

wanted you. I don't know. But I know this,

Tzaddik: something Manning did brought this man

here."

"How do you know?" I said. The sensation in the

back of my head intensified.

Chang's fist hit the table. "Because I saw them! I

followed him, you see, and I saw them! In

Highgate cemetery, digging up the coffin of Billie

Carleton!"

Something didn't ring true in Chang's narrative.

"All right," I said. "Two questions. One, how do

you know about Manning's houngan?" I didn't

believe the story about the cemetery, but I wasn't

going to interrogate him on that. There were

more effective means at my disposal to ascertain

the truth. They were never pleasant, but they

were there and I knew I would have to use them.

"Two, if this man has the power you say he has,

why did you follow him? And why are you talking

to me now?"

Bill Chang smiled a slow, cold smile. "That's three

questions, Tzaddik," he said. "Technically." He

signaled to the bartender; waited for two new

glasses to arrive.

"Cigarette?" he opened a slim silver case and

proffered it to me.

"No thanks."

He helped himself to a cigarette, lit it. Inhaled. The

cold smile remained. "No one fucks with me,

Tzaddik," he said. "No one. I don't care where

that son of a bitch moshushi came from, he's not

muscling in on my territory. I fulfilled my part of

the bargain. He wanted to meet you. Knew you

would come. If you ask me, it's you who needs to

start looking out."

He took a sip from his cognac and sighed. I knew

then that Chang was lying to me, that

somewhere in the last few days I had unwittingly

walked into a maze of danger and deceit, and had

to step cautiously if I wanted to survive it.

Chang tapped ash from his cigarette. A cloud of

pale blue smoke covered his face like a cloud

heralding storm. "As for Manning's witch doctor?

Uncle Lee is in prison, as you probably know. He

told me the rumours. That's all they are. All I

know is what I saw. That Manning is now free,

and a grave-robber to boot, and that a

Feng-Huang is set loose in London. Make of it

what you will."

While he was talking I was watching his hands.

Chang's hands were a lover's hands: Billie used to

say that. Long, sensitive fingers that trembled

now, sending smoke up in a crazy spiral. I

watched his eyes, the quick twitch in one corner;

watched the sweat form on that smooth pale

skin. The feeling at the back of my head refused

to abate.

I knocked back the cognac and stood up. "Thanks

for the drinks," I said. "I'll be seeing you." He

nodded at me slowly.

I left him there and walked out, feeling like a rabbit

caught in the sight of an unseen gun.

· · · · ·

I was caught in a web of lies, and

somewhere—unseen but for a brief glimpse in

Chang's opium den—somewhere was a spider,

spinning the threads that threatened to bind me. I

sat down in my armchair back at Smithfields and

thought about the situation. On the one hand

Manning, haunted by Billie's ghost, carrying with

him the gold box that I had thought secure in my

possession. On the other, Chang, with a strange

story about a man with fiery green eyes and the

power of suggestion.

I had seen for myself the power of the stranger,

and found in it something that I recognized.

Manning's people may have called it a loa;

Chang's word for it was Feng-Huang. And in my

own long history I had known ones who were like

this mysterious entity, glimpsed from beneath

darkened skies and on the edge of worlds beyond

time…

My people called such beings mal'achim: angels.

I felt forced into doing something that was

perhaps best left undone. There was danger here,

and no clear motives, no understanding of the

deeper powers at work. To have an angel

materialize on the human sphere, on Assiah… I

thought of my time serving with the Thirty-Six,

and of a day and a night long ago in the deserts of

Kush. Specifics evaded me like water flowing

through grasping fingers. I had seen this before,

but the memory was weak and unreliable, as is

always the case with beings from the higher

Sephirot.

It was time to make a decision, and so I did. My

living room was already prepared: I redrew the

symbols on the floor and lit the candles and

placed protection about me, the symbols and

icons of long-forgotten religions.

The candles flickered as I began the summons,

and the wind howled outside, sending leaves

fluttering against the windows like moths drawn

to a flame.

A darkness formed in the heart of my chalked

star, a cold and empty darkness as of space itself.

Pinpricks of light appeared and disappeared inside

it, and I could feel my power being tapped, drawn

to feeding the portal between the spheres,

between the Sephirot.

The lights in the darkness slowly grew, resolved

themselves into a being of light. As if from a great

distance the sound of beating wings was heard,

rattling the glass of the windows.

"Tzaddik…," a voice whispered from the star. Eyes

the size and brightness of suns regarded me. "You

are still alive… How disappointing."

Not taking my eyes off it, this thing summoned

from the sphere called Binah, Wisdom, I reached

into my coat pocket and pulled out a small packet

of snow. The bright eyes regarded me with

hunger. I took a small pinch between thumb and

forefinger and snorted it. Then I blew the rest,

gently, into the circle of light, and the being inside

it made it disappear.

"I want to know what it is that had made its

appearance on Assiah," I said, when it had

quieted.

A slow chuckle like the death of stars. "The

Emanations are disturbed," it said. "The path

from Ketter has been opened, and the Tree of Life

itself is in turmoil. What have you done…

human?"

The apparition's words disturbed me. "I have done

nothing," I said.

The chuckle again, grating like a nail against glass.

"Then perhaps that is the source of the

disturbance," it said. "When the guardians do not

guard, who will guard the guardians?"

"Wait!" I said. The burning figure was diminishing,

the darkness of space returning to the place of

summoning.

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes...," whispered the

voice, and the burning eyes closed, and were

gone. The echoes of its mocking laughter

resonated in the room, leaving me standing, alone

and exhausted, in the thin light of candles.

· · · · ·

"Manning's been looking for you, boss," Motty

said. He stood behind the counter of the sandwich

shop, chopping onions.

I slid onto a stool and opened the paper. Life was

getting much too complicated, and I wanted a

rest. I also needed the kind of information Motty

and his boys could usually be relied on to supply.

"Thanks." I accepted the steaming mug of coffee

and sipped the hot liquid.

"You want a pastrami and gherkin on rye with it?"

I smiled and lit a cigarette. "You know I do," I

said.

"Sure thing, boss."

For the next ten minutes we didn't talk; I drank

the coffee and settled down to enjoy Motty's

creation. When I was done, I lit another cigarette

and sat there, enjoying the momentary peace.

"Did Manning say what he wanted?"

Motty shook his head. "Said he needed to see

you. Urgent like. Said you know where to find

him."

I did. I just wasn't sure I wanted to.

As I sat in the rare sunshine, a half-smoked

cigarette in my hand and a new mug of coffee on

the counter beside me, I found myself going back

to the night on the twenty-seventh of November

and the Victory Ball, when lights were once again

allowed to dispel London's after-hours darkness.

Billie wore a frock designed by one of her cohorts,

Reggie De Vaulle: she looked stunning in it, like a

butterfly awakened from a cocoon all ready to fly

and dazzle. In the early evening she appeared in

Freedom of the Seas. I was in the audience that

night, and when the curtain fell I had felt a

premonition, a fear. The curtain was about to

permanently close on Billie Carleton.

The Victory Ball glittered with the ladies' jewels;

the Brigade of Guards played Rule Britannia. Then

came the dancing.

It was a night that lasted forever. The dancing

didn't stop and neither did the trips to the

lavatories, where men and women separately

took cocaine to fuel their dancing. Billie had her

gold box with her, and by the end of the night it

was nearly empty. I danced with her once, and

then she disappeared into the crowd.

It was a night that women ruled supreme. A night

to welcome in a new era and lay to rest the old.

Too many men had been lost on the battlefields

of the Great War, and the change this had

wrought was profound and, for many, unsettling.

Billie danced all night, and the women of London

danced all around her.

"Boss?" Motty's voice shook the memories away

like drops of falling water. "I don't know what

Manning was after, but there is something you

should know."

I picked up the cigarette but it had run too low to

smoke. I let it drop and helped myself to another.

"What is it?"

Motty scratched his dark beard. He looked at me

carefully. "Last night the boys were down by the

Isle of Dogs. Helping remove a late night

shipment, if you know what I mean." He smiled to

himself. "They were nearly finished when they

heard a dog barking at the river, loud enough to

raise the dead." His smile vanished. "Or so they

thought. You and I both know it takes more than

a bark to…"

"Yes."

"They went over to check what the noise was

about. When they came close enough, they saw

it. It was a corpse."

I sipped the coffee. Corpses were not an

unknown cargo on the Thames. They came

floating up, bloated with gas, and lodged

themselves in the reeds on the bank amidst the

rest of the rubbish thrown into the river. For a

corpse to remain unseen, it would need to be

weighed down; letting it rise from the depths

meant one of two things. Either the killer or killers

were amateur, or they wanted the corpse to be

found, as a message or a warning or both.

"Go on."

"It was a black man," Motty said. "His body was

covered in faint blue tattoos from head to foot.

Serpents and dragons and lizards; the boys said

they seemed to move of their own accord, the

lines glowing faintly in the moonlight." He sighed

and rubbed his chin. "Boys."

I tapped the ash from my cigarette and waited. I

had long ago found that Motty was not one to be

hurried along. "Go on."

He lowered his voice. "It was a sangoma, Tzaddik.

A houngan. Alfy Benjamin recognised him, even

though the face of the corpse was frozen like a

mask carved with fear. Alfy said he looked like he

screamed for a long time; he said he looked as if,

even in death, he was still screaming."

"You say Alfy recognised him?" I said. Possibilities

were resolving themselves in my head, worrying

me. "Where did he come across a houngan?"

Motty's answer was the one I was expecting. "In

prison," he said. "Two, three years back. This guy

was doing life with hard labour for some muti that

went very wrong. Three people died, and a

baby."

"I remember." There were rumours of a cover-up,

that it was someone at Cabinet level who ordered

the botched ritual. The houngan, as far as I could

remember, remained quiet on that front. "What

did the boys do?"

Motty shrugged. "What could they do? They

cleared out as fast as they could. But I don't like

it, Tzaddik. He was a powerful sangoma, that one

was. Alfy, he said he saw him draw a window

once on the wall of his cell. Said the window came

alive, that there were things on the other side of

that window he never wanted to see as long as

he lived. Someone like that… Someone like that

doesn't turn up floating in the river, Tzaddik. Not

unless…" He left the thought unspoken.

Motty had given me a lot to think about. It

seemed the story Chang fed me was at least

partially true, and that meant I had to find

Manning and get the truth out of him in turn. What

worried me, though, was that the houngan was

sent down the river as a warning: as a message,

addressed to me. The Feng-Huang was after me.

I just hoped he would stop skulking in the fog long

enough for me to kill him.

"Thanks Motty," I said. "You and the boys try and

keep out of this, alright? Keep out of trouble for a

few days."

Motty winked at me across the counter. "We'll

keep our noses clean," he said, mimicking putting

snow to his nose and snorting it. "Don't you

worry, Tzaddik."

I shook my head and walked out, into the dregs

of the sunshine. Shadows were gathering over the

old stone buildings and the alleyways, and I

wondered if it would ever be possible to be rid of

them. London was such a city, in which light and

shade were inexorably bound. I feared the

darkness that was circling around me, stalking me

in the shape of the Feng-Huang. And I feared the

thought of Billie, a ghost forced to return to the

scene of her death. The dead should be left alone,

should be left to death. To force them into a

semblance, a mockery, of life, that was a crime,

and for that violation I knew I would have to act.

· · · · ·

The Montmarte Café was dark and smelled of

vinegar and smoke. I came up to the counter and

greeted Zenovia Iassonides, patron of the Soho

Church Street establishment and Manning's

unofficial business partner.

In the corner, two chorus girls were going over a

script while blowing enough snow into their

nostrils to kill an elephant. Cocainomaniacs, the

papers called them, and they came to the café for

Zenovia's true trade, not for her cooking.

She greeted me with a closed face. Zenovia was a

hard woman to read.

"I'm looking for Manning," I said.

She snorted, and brushed a strand of graying hair

from her temple. "Who isn't?"

I ignored that. "Is he here?"

Her hand took in the small, dank room and its

shabby occupants. "Do you see him anywhere?"

I wasn't in the mood for games. "He wanted me

to get in touch with him, and this is where he said

he'd be." I paused, then added, "Please don't

answer that with a question."

She unexpectedly laughed. "It's good to see you,

Tzaddik. Where have you been hiding?"

"In broad daylight," I said, and she smiled and

nodded. "Best place to hide, Tzaddik. Best place

to hide."

I thought of Manning's story, of Billie Carleton's

ghost, and of the Feng-Huang walking the streets

of London. It was not I who was hiding but

Manning, and in his place, I thought, wouldn't I be

hiding too?

"Come with me." She opened the latch on the

counter and I came through. She took me to a

small door underneath a wooden staircase that

looked riddled with worms. She pushed the door

open and pointed me in.

"Watch your step on the stairs," she said. "There

isn't much light down there."

I thanked her and stepped through, and she

closed the door behind me and left me in

darkness.

The steps were stone, and old. I could feel a chill

coming off them and taste moisture on my

tongue. It was damp and humid and yet

increasingly cold as I descended.

At the bottom of the stairs I stopped and let my

eyes adjust to the scant lighting. There was a

table there, covered in a grimy red cloth, with a

single candle on it. There was a small cabinet, with

nothing but a handgun on it, and a narrow bed.

"Edgar…," I said.

The body on the bed jerked up, a hand grabbing

the gun from the cabinet and pointing it at me.

"It's me."

He looked at me with wild, unseeing eyes before

some sort of sanity returned and he lowered the

gun. "Won't do much good against you anyway,"

he said in an almost inaudible voice.

"No," I agreed. "And it won't do you much good

against a loa, either."

His head snapped up. "What are you talking

about?"

"Put the gun away," I said. He hesitated, then put

it back on the cabinet.

"Good." I scanned the small subterranean room.

"Do you have any opium down here? Or some

alcohol?"

He grunted and reached for a drawer in the

cabinet, pulling out a bottle of red wine and

handing it to me.

I uncorked it and found two dirty mugs under the

bed, which, after some thought, I poured the wine

into.

"Drink this," I said. "I need you calm." I waited as

he gulped down the red liquid. "You look like shit."

Some of Manning's old fire came back to him

when he answered.

"Fuck you."

"Ah." I lit a cigarette and offered it to him, lighting

another for myself. I hoped the smell of smoke

would help mask the mouldy, decaying

atmosphere of the cellar, but in the event I can't

say the effort was overly successful.

"Now," I said. "Tell me the truth. Tell me about

the loa."

I looked at him and waited. His face changed,

anger receding as a kind of dead man's hope

crept into his eyes. Yet the overwhelming emotion

on his face was fear.

"Tell me about the loa."

I did not want to use the word of my people,

mal'ach. Angel. To do so would be to perpetuate

a Christianised image of the word: of saintly, holy

beings, granting peace and tranquillity and the

touch of God. Those angels stared down at

people from Church windows and from the pages

of thousands of religious tracts, and I had no

doubt it would have been a better, more just

world if it were true.

"How much do you know?"

My patience was gone. It was not my job to play

nursemaid to a man who had put me in danger,

and it had been a long, long day besides. My fist

hit his face and sent him reeling back, the

cigarette dropping from his lips onto the floor. I

grabbed him by the throat, lifting him up in the air

and pinning him against the wall.

I watched as his feet tried to find purchase and

failed.

"Don't fuck me about," I said. Each word was like

a jagged knife I wanted to run across his neck.

"You fucked up, Eddie. You fucked up big time.

Now tell me what I need to know or you are

going to find your skeleton in this cellar for the

next hundred years with nothing by Billie

Carleton's ghost for company. Do you

understand?"

He was turning blue, but still he tried to nod.

"Good."

I opened my fingers, let him drop onto the bed,

where he lay holding his throat and coughing. He

tried to reach for the wine, but I knocked it out of

his hand. The wine spilled like a pool of blood on

the decaying mattress.

"Talk."

His words when they came were barely more

than a whisper. "Prison was hard. They treated us

like dogs. Worse, because the English value their

dogs. They treated us like cattle, like we were

nothing more than animals destined for the meat

grinder. The wardens beat us, and at night the

screams of the weaker prisoners could be heard

echoing throughout the prison. We didn't treat

each other any better."

He coughed and this time I poured him some

wine. He drank it quickly and continued. "There

was one prisoner nobody else dared treat this

way. Not the wardens, not the prisoners. His

name was Beauregard. Saturday Beauregard."

Manning drew a shape in the air with his hands.

"He was a big, mean badman. A bull bucka." He

saw my expression. "Someone who butts heads

with a bull, Tzaddik. A bully, and that's exactly

what Saturday Beauregard was. That, and a

houngan, a horse for Baron Samedi. I saw him

when he was possessed, and you knew then that

the only thing keeping him in prison was that he

liked it. He liked it! He enjoyed ruling the prisoners

and the wardens. He had a good life, like a king.

And he liked breaking the weaker men most of all.

The loudest screams always came from his cell."

Manning shivered when he spoke, and his eyes

looked haunted by memories. I offered him a

cigarette, and he took it.

"Anyway, I got on with him all right. There were

few enough black men in that prison, and

Saturday was our boss. He had strange powers,

but he was still a man. He liked talking, and he

liked to hear stories, too. Also, he was a heroin

addict. I think that was one reason he didn't

escape. He needed a regular supply, and once he

had the drug he didn't care much for anything. I

still had my contacts, of course—I was only sent

down for eighteen months—and so I ended up

being his main supplier."

I listened. A strange feeling was forming again at

the back of my head, as if we were being

watched. I got up and checked the stairs, but we

were alone. I sat back down and let Manning

continue.

"One night I slept badly. I dreamed, and in the

dream I saw Billie, not dead but alive, walking

toward me across a stormy sea. She seemed to

walk on the waves, her hands reaching out to me,

but when she finally came close enough to touch,

her hands were as cold as marble and her hug

was ice. I woke up then, and couldn't return to

sleep. In the morning, Saturday picked up on it,

and I was forced to tell him about the dream, and

about Billie."

The feeling in the back of my head intensified. I

stood up but again there was nothing. The cellar

was silent save for Manning's voice.

"He knew who she was, and he enjoyed my

discomfort. I think that's when he had his idea,

though he only approached me several weeks

later. When he found me he was shaking. He

needed more heroin, and he had a proposition for

me." There was something in Manning's face that

made me think of an old clock, badly broken. I

gave him another cigarette, and he continued.

"He said he could bring her back from the dead.

That he had the power to negotiate with the

Baron. In exchange, I would supply him with all

the heroin I could get hold of, for free. I thought

he was mad.

"You might not know what it's like when you're

incarcerated, though I suspect that you do. For

me, trapped in that prison, racked with dreams

and held captive by a constant, dull fear, the

thought was soon too much to bear. All I could

think of was Billie, Billie's warmth against mine,

Billie's laugh that was like a spring garden, Billie's

humour, Billie's touch...

"After a week of that, I went back to Saturday,

and I said yes."

I didn't hear any more. When the last word left his

lips a cold, damp wind blew through the basement

and the candles were extinguished. I heard the

door at the top of the stairs move on its hinges

as if caught in a storm, beating out a rhythm as it

banged against the frame.

Without conscious thought I pushed Manning

down, reached for his discarded gun, and in one

move turned around and shot the figure standing

at the bottom of the stairs.

· · · · ·

He fell with a grunt of pain.

Human, then, and not the dark shape with the

burning green eyes that I had half expected to be

there.

More shapes moving on the stairs.

The gun rang out, once, twice, and two of them

fell, but more kept coming in.

"Is there any way out of here?" I shouted to

Manning.

One of the intruders reached the bottom and

attacked. I felt a knife cut through my clothes and

penetrate my skin. I twisted, broke the man's

wrist, and plunged the knife into his eye.

More, jumping down from the staircase. There

was a tattoo on the man's wrist, the one I had

just killed.

A sword was thrust at my head. I ducked, kicked

out at the attacker's face, and at his knees. He

dropped with a scream, and I wrenched the sword

out of his hand, using it to inflict wounds on two

more of the attackers as they jumped down.

Then I was choking. Fingers were wrapped around

my throat from behind, thumbs pressing into my

windpipe. My elbow connected with the attacker's

chest but didn't remove the pressure. I struggled,

then found the pressure had lifted, and I could

breathe again. Turning around, I saw my attacker

on the floor, a bloodied gash in his head.

Above him stood Manning, and he was grinning.

"There's a way out through the sewers," he said.

"If you could hold them for just a minute…"

He pulled the bed away from the wall. I turned

back and into the whirling blade of another of the

assassins. I broke his nose and watched him

collapse. It was becoming difficult to move with all

the bodies around, and more and more of the

silent assassins were coming in through the door.

"Come on!"

Manning removed the bed; below it was a rug and

a wooden box, which he opened. He pushed the

rug with his foot, revealing a trapdoor. I ran

toward him in a crouch.

"Get down there, I'll follow you," he said. There

was a stick of dynamite in his one hand, a lighter

in the other. He must have had them hidden in the

box.

Edgar Manning, Always Prepared.

I jumped down the hole.

· · · · ·

An explosion of heat above me and Manning

dropped like a lead balloon, knocking into me. I fell

into rancid water; a rat scuttled by, startled by

the commotion.

It was a big rat.

"Who the fuck were those people?" Manning said

as he got up. He looked dazed, but the grin on his

face showed that, all of a sudden, he was

enjoying himself.

I told him about the tattoo I saw. Manning let out

a whistle. We were moving as fast we could

through the sewers: the smell of excrement and

waste was overpowering, and dirty water kept

dripping on our heads and clothes from the metal

ceiling of the pipe we were in. "Tongs? I didn't

expect that."

"I did," I said. "I think someone wants you dead."

Manning turned his head: a man appeared behind

us, and Manning shot him clean through the

head.

"Or you," he said. "Which is the answer I find

more likely."

I had thought of that, and the thought gave me

no pleasure. Manning, on the other hand, seemed

buoyant.

He led me through the glistening tunnels; there

were no more followers. Our passage made the

pipes reverberate and produce odd echoing

sounds, and our feet splashed in the waste

water.

"You don't want to be caught down here when

they flood the sewers," Manning said and moved

his index finger along his neck with emphasis.

"I don't want to be caught down here at all," I

said.

I followed him, but a feeling of foreboding began

to steal over me. I was used to feeling the

connection with the ground, with the skies, and

now I felt that connection disappearing, barred to

me behind the lead piping and the layers of earth.

Down here elementals ruled, in a simpler and

more dangerous world, a world closer to the Old

World, a buffer zone between this world of Assiah

and the outer Sephirot.

"Chang told me you dug up Billie Carleton's

coffin."

He stopped and pushed me against the wall of the

tunnel, his breath hot against mine. I didn't fight

him. His face was hard, like iron that was smelt

and remade in the furnace. "Then he lied."

"Did he?" I said. "It seems to me you both have

an unhealthy interest in the dead."

He lifted his hand to hit me. I shook my head.

After a moment he lowered his hand and

continued walking.

"I could say the same for you," he said over his

shoulder.

I trudged after him without an answer.

We were walking, it seemed to me, for too long.

We had descended in Soho; surely there would be

a manhole cover somewhere nearby? Instead, I

felt our path was leading us farther down, into the

bowels of the city, and I was growing disturbed. I

looked at Manning's back: he seemed to walk

with a purpose in his step, leading me… leading

me where?

"Stop," I said. The tunnels were getting darker

and darker, and it was difficult to see. The air

turned humid and hot, and deformed rodents ran

in the murky water at our feet. "I said stop."

He didn't seem to hear me.

"Manning!"

I watched him disappear into the shadows ahead.

I looked at my surroundings, sighed, and moved

on to follow him. From a coat pocket I removed a

small packet of snow and snorted it. I thought of

Manning: he seemed scared when he came to see

me, and scared again in the basement, and yet

the fighting seemed to have revived him. And now

he was leading me through the sewers like a

Dybbuk, a man possessed. I thought of simply

knocking him out, but then where would I go? I

didn't want to leave him down here, and I had no

idea how to get out. I was, literally, out of my

depth.

Somehow, the thought made me giggle. I felt

happier now, as if decisions and their making were

no longer important. I followed behind Manning as

we walked further and further into the bowels of

the earth.

· · · · ·

We walked in silence, the only noise produced by

the treading of our feet in water.

I followed Manning through turnings in the sewer

system, into tunnels that were made of stone;

clumps of moss grouped together for comfort on

the cold walls providing a faint luminosity. There

were writings on the walls, letters and drawings

that I felt I should recognise and yet didn't.

The quality of light changed: as we journeyed I

began to notice strange crystal globes set in the

walls, emitting a clear, bright light.

After more time had passed the tunnel we were in

began to widen, and at last came to an end in a

cavern of white stone. Here the light was brilliant

and yet comfortable. Crystal globes were set at

regular intervals along the walls, turning the

cavern into the semblance of a ballroom, or a

temple.

On the floor of the cavern was a giant drawing,

and when I saw it my mind returned to me. It was

the Tree of Life.

A dark snake was coiled around the Sephirot. Its

tail was touching Malchut and its head was by

Keter.

Beside me, Manning's face slackened, then closed.

Without a sound the big man fell to his knees and

to the floor, where he lay with a look of peace on

his face.

As he fell, the lights had dimmed. I kneeled down

and took his pulse. Manning's heart was beating a

strong, steady beat. He looked like a man in the

throes of a deep, drugged sleep.

Nothing stirred amidst the newly formed

shadows. I opened my mind and let it encompass

the cavern. Slowly it expanded, and yet I

encountered the presence of no living being, only

a kind of ancient, drowsy solitude that seemed to

emanate from the stones themselves.

"Tzaddik."

I turned, my mind shrinking back to one focal

point from which I tried to see the speaker. The

voice was feminine, and somewhat familiar, like

the taste of vintage Judean wine sampled a long

time ago and never entirely forgotten.

She stood in the drawing of the Tree, in the heart

of the Pillar of Equilibrium, over the sphere called

Tiphe'ret, Beauty. Her hair was short, where I

remembered long; white, where I remembered

the blackness of strong coffee.

"Amat…"

She laughed. I remembered her laughter, but it

was buried deep, under the layers of memories

that recorded every detail of her death, the

screams as she fought the Leviathan in the old

Egyptian kingdom and was pinned by the dying

god into the mud of the Nile, her body broken and

the magic whispering as it ebbed away… Amat

al-Qadir, Servant of the Almighty.

Under her feet the dark snake came alive. It

crawled from the Tree of Life and wrapped itself

around her like a scarf. Reptilian eyes regarded

me; a forked tongue hissed as it tasted the air.

"It hardly seems credible that you are alive," I

said.

She nodded. A small smile caught at the corners

of her mouth like a butterfly threatening to

escape. "Hardly," she said, and we both laughed.

"Come here, fallen guardian," she said. I walked

to her. She held her hands to me, but when I

touched her I felt nothing, only whispering air. I

looked into her face, no longer smiling. "You

died."

She inclined her head in agreement.

"The paths between the spheres are disturbed,"

Amat said. "The passage of those seeking an end

to death has unbalanced the twenty-two ways."

I stood back and looked at her, feeling both sad

and annoyed. "Don't you think I know that?"

She shook her head. "It isn't a question of what

you know, it is a question of what you do."

"Amat," I said. "You can drop the sphinx act. I'm

too old for riddles, and I am no longer bound by

the code of the Thirty-Six."

She smiled at that, and it brought back memories

of her and Ma'ani and Sarwa—the three golden

girls of the hidden temple—in days long gone,

when the sun seemed never to set and the

waning and waxing of the moon were reflected in

the Nile and in the lives of our people. Still, I felt

the old bitterness rise in me again.

"You were always a rake," she said gently, and I

felt the anger pass as swiftly as it materialised.

"I've come to deliver a message," she said. Her

hands stroked the snake, and its tongue hissed

against her skin, scenting her. "There is a thing let

free on Assiah which is not meant to be so." She

looked into my eyes and said, "And it is your

problem."

"Strictly speaking," I said, "it's the Thirty-Six's

problem."

Her eyes betrayed amusement. "Oh, they will

probably move in if you can't solve it," she said.

"But of course, you'd be dead by then."

"And wouldn't that be just dandy," I said. But I

thought about her words, realised they had hidden

a warning. There was something on Assiah that

could kill a Tzaddik. No wonder the Thirty-Six

were sitting it out, hoping I could do the job for

them or, even better, finally die in the process. I

thought about my old comrades and decided I'd

rather stick around, if only to give them a

two-fingered salute.

"Is that it?" I said, feigning a confidence I didn't

quite feel.

That smile again, returning with its parasitic host

of unwanted memories.

"That's it," she said. "No more 'sphinx act,'

alright? You know the consequences of failure or

success."

"Fine," I said. I had always found it difficult to

argue with Amat. I reached out with my hand,

wanting to touch her one last time, to feel her hair

between my fingers, to say good-bye. But again

there was nothing there, like a mirage painted on

air.

I looked around me, at the cavern and the

painting on the floor. "What is this place?" I said.

"A hiding place," Amat said. "During the riots and

blood libels of Richard the First's rule, a group of

rabbis -- with an understanding some say has

never been surpassed since -- built this place as a

refuge for our people, deep under the king's city."

"It couldn't have done them much good," I said,

thinking of the expulsion of the Jews from England

in 1290. I had never heard of a secret dwelling

underneath London, or of the mysterious rabbis

Amat talked about.

"Their understanding of the Zohar was

unparalleled," Amat continued. "They utilised…"

I let her speak as I opened my mind again to my

surroundings. In life, Amat loved to show off her

knowledge, and it seemed she had retained the

tendency in death. Still, I could not detect her

presence. My mind moved over the curious

crystals and their cold light, sensing nothing.

Beyond one of the walls I felt space, and within it

giant, hushed figures. My mind moved over them,

sensing enormous bodies made of clay: statues,

perhaps? My mind moved around them, then

shrank back as I detected a slow, regular beat

coming from them. Were they alive?

I looked at them in my mind's eye. They were

enormous, each easily the size of ten men, and

the clay they were made of seemed ancient. Their

faces had no features, and their hands were

closed into fists. Hard diamonds were strewn in a

pattern throughout their body, a pattern I had just

recognised.

They were imbued with the Tree of Life.

"Enough," Amat said. I returned to myself and

stood facing her. On the floor beside me, Manning

snored loudly. "Time is running out, and the angel

is growing stronger. It will come looking for you.

Be prepared."

"I thought you were going to quit the Sibyl role," I

said, but her eyes mesmerised me. I was lost in

them, seeing the faraway shapes of curious

mounts and rivers, clouds that seemed like faces,

and giant creatures gliding on the winds… I

reached for her, a third and futile time, and felt

pain explode in my hand like a grenade.

"Remember me…," she whispered as the snake's

venom coursed through my blood: I felt a hot,

searing pain, as if my brain were exploding.

Then I passed out.

· · · · ·

I came to on the floor of my living room. My hand

throbbed. Two puncture marks were visible on the

flesh between my thumb and forefinger. I stood

up. Underneath my feet was my chalked Star of

David. Around me, furniture and belongings lay in

broken heaps.

I moved through the house, feeling weary: room

after room had been smashed up and its contents

scattered. There were pools of piss in the

bedroom and human excrement left on the

kitchen's floor.

I didn't care about any of that. I went down to the

basement, not surprised to find it had also been

ransacked. The false brick in the southern wall,

however, was undisturbed. I slid it out and helped

myself to its mysteries: a bottle of Scottish

whiskey, a small bag of opium, and a curved

wooden pipe, the shape of a wingless bird. There

were also some vials I had left there for a day of

need, and these I pocketed carefully.

Then I proceeded to have a party.

It went well as far as solitary parties go, and when

there was no more whiskey and only a little

cocaine I curled up into a ball on the floor and

went to sleep, figuring a house that had already

been broken into might just be the best place to

lie low for a little while.

I slept, and in my sleep Amat's face returned to

haunt me, uttering more nonsensical warnings; I

saw the dark figure of the Feng-Huang stalking

shadows, moving through my dreams, but he

never turned back, never turned to look at me. I

followed him through dreamscapes of torn

memories, returning at last to the boarding-house

in Paris, to a self centuries in the past, lying on the

floor, choking on vomit, body wracked by drugs.

It occurred to me, then, that my life had not,

perhaps, changed as much as I thought it had.

In my dream, the Feng-Huang loomed over me

and laughed. Its eyes were burning emeralds,

poisonous green, and its laughter was that of the

hyena, a mad, deep sound that hurt my skull.

I tried to turn away from it, and in the way of

dreams the scene was somehow gone, and I was

dancing in the Albert Hall, Billie Carleton in my

arms, the band playing music that made us soar

together like two birds tied by a string. I could see

Manning sitting at a table by the bar, Brilliant

Chang opposite him. They were playing cards,

their faces grim, and the pot was Billie's golden

snuff box.

Their cards, I noticed, were Tarot cards, and I

strained my neck to see who would win the

game, but the swirl of dancing partners passed

between us and when I looked again they were

gone.

"You smell lovely tonight," I said to Billie, and she

smiled at me and held me tight and so we danced,

until the ballroom was gone and only the two of

us remained, dancing in a perfect darkness, our

lips touching in one blossoming, perfect kiss.

As I tasted her I felt her move away, become

lighter. "Billie, no!" I cried, but her form began to

melt in my hands, to ebb away, and I cried and

tried to hold her, to keep her, all to myself.

Then somebody kicked me hard in the ribs and I

woke up shivering on the basement floor.

· · · · ·

"You son of a bitch," I said. Motty put out his

hand and helped me to my feet.

"Sorry, boss," he said. "We tried waking you up

but you were gone. And time is something we

don't have an abundance of right now."

He motioned for the boys, who were leaning

against the walls of the basement. Aviel brought

forward a flask of hot tea and a bag full of

sandwiches, then retreated and lit himself a

cigarette.

"Thanks."

The hot tea washed away memories and dreams

alike; I ate quickly, while Motty and the boys

waited. Then, "What's going on?"

"We've been trying to find you since yesterday,"

Motty said. "Zenovia came to the shop screaming

murder. Said that you and Manning had been

attacked by tongs, then disappeared. We came to

your house, but it was already broken into. I left

Daniel outside to watch if you came back, but

being the useless boy that he is it took him until

now to let me know."

The boy foremost left shook his head. "It wasn't

my fault, boss. This whole area is crawling with

police."

"Why police?" I said. I had a feeling I would not

like the answer.

Motty coughed. It wasn't a gentle cough, but the

cough of a smoker who had pursued tobacco with

a passion. "You're wanted for the murder of

Saturday Beauregard."

I opened my mouth. Then I closed it. Then I said,

"Fuck."

The boys all nodded.

"According to the papers," Motty said, ploughing

on as if determined to unburden himself of the

bad news as quickly as he could, "Beauregard

escaped prison the night after Manning was

released. And according to eyewitnesses he was

seen in Limehouse, and later again he was seen

having a fight with a man matching your

description. Also," the cough stopped him again,

but only briefly, "his body was found last night,

downriver from the place we saw him. You're

wanted for questioning."

"Very convenient," I said. I thought about the

situation. The Metropolitan Police were not known

for moving very fast, so their quick mobilisation

must have had an external agent of some sort. It

didn't take long to work out who - or what - was

behind it.

"Any word of Manning?"

"No," Motty said, a faint note of surprise in his

voice. "We thought he was with you."

"Clearly," I said, "he isn't."

There was a noise from upstairs, and Alfy

Benjamin came rushing down the stairs.

"Looks like we were spotted," he announced.

"There're pigs and tongs all over this area and

they seem to be heading this way. Separately, of

course, but this looks like trouble."

I motioned the boys, and they followed me as I

climbed back up to street level. The time for

running around and being pursued was over, or so

I tried to tell myself.

Through the window a dull afternoon light cast a

tired haze over Smithfields market. I had lost

twenty-four hours according to Motty, though I

suspected my time in the sewers and my time in

the dream were somehow longer than that. There

were plainclothes policemen milling about in the

street, trying unsuccessfully not to look like

policemen. There was also a large contingent of

Chinese men, sticking to the shadows in the

entryways of buildings. It almost made me want

to find a way back to the sewers. But not quite.

"Where one sees only a problem," I said, "another

sees opportunity."

"What are you going to do?" Motty asked. I

turned to him and grinned. "I'm going to magic us

away," I said.

"Oh. Good," he said. He didn't look reassured.

We left through the front door. Me in the middle,

surrounded tightly by the boys. Alfy and Motty

strode ahead, shouting for the crowd to make

way, that a dangerous criminal was caught. The

policemen were close, and were approaching us

now, but we continued to move, directly toward

the tongs.

It was a dangerous game to play, with me as bait

and the boys with the very real chance of getting

hurt. But it was a game worth playing.

I could almost see it in their eyes, the moment

the decision was made. The tongs wanted me.

And they hated cops. On the other hand, the cops

wanted me. And they really hated the tongs.

I heard the shot go off as planned. Motty, soon

followed by another, this one from a policeman.

The tongs returned fire.

I watched the riot begin.

"Since when do the police have firearms?" I

shouted and felt exhilaration grip me like a vice.

"Watch out, boys—it's magic time!"

I took out the two large vials from my pocket and

broke them with a flourish against the ground.

Rancid smoke enveloped us.

I hit out, as a man—I couldn't tell which faction he

belonged to—charged at me, and then we ran,

me and the boys, while behind us smoke billowed

and guns sounded and the whole of the street

descended into a manic, wild brawl.

· · · · ·

A guy came through the door with a gun.

He put the gun into his belt as he came in, and

took off his hat. The face - leathery and tough

and wrinkled and as pockmarked as the face of

the moon - curved into a smile.

"Shalom, boys," he said cheerfully. His voice was

American, soft, well-articulated. I could see Alfy

and Motty tense beside me.

"Adam," I said. "How are you."

He laughed. "It's good to see you too, Tzaddik. I

hear you've landed yourself in trouble again."

I made a sign, and the boys got up and filed out

of the door. When we were alone, I motioned for

him to sit down and poured him a glass of brandy

from the crystal decanter. We were in a safe

house in Hampstead. At least, I hoped it was safe.

In any case, I did not intend to stay long.

Adam Worth regarded me with a smile. He

brought out a small silver case, opened it, offered

me a cigar. When I declined he took one out,

returned the case into the hidden pocket in his

coat, and took great care in trimming and lighting

it. Fumes rose in the room like an ill wind.

I watched him in silence and waited for him to

speak. Adam Worth, the man Sir Robert

Anderson, the head of Scotland Yard, once called

"the Napoleon of crime"; the man who inspired

Doyle to create his fictional Moriarty.

"I thought you were dead," I said.

"Did you?" he shrugged. "I am under that name.

The Civil War—though why for God's sake they

call it that I have no idea—ended some time ago.

It was time to assume a new rôle."

"What do you want?" I didn't need this

complication. And I didn't want anything to do

with Worth, regardless of what he was calling

himself in these more enlightened times.

"Do you know," he said, puffing on the cigar and

looking at me keenly, like an interested father,

"Pinkerton once said that 'in the death of Adam

Worth there probably departed the most inventive

and daring criminal in modern times?' he said that

of all the men he had known in his lifetime, I was

'the most remarkable criminal of them all.'" He

smiled and shook his head, as if remembering

better times and better days.

"Did he?" I said. Then I had to smile. "You were

always a great thief."

Worth waved his hand in false modesty. "You're

not so bad yourself, when you put your mind to

it."

"So what do you want?" I said again. He shook

his head at me, admonishing. "You fucked up,

boy," he said. "There's a ghost and an angel on

the loose in your city, and you seem to think

hiding here and drinking brandy is the answer to all

your problems. Look how long it took me to find

you. If you're trying to hide, you're not doing a

very good job of it."

"I'm not trying to hide," I said, annoyed. "I'm

trying to think. I don't understand what's going

on."

"Don't you?" We were indulging in the Jewish

Dialogue: trading a question for a question for a

question. He dropped his ash carefully into the

ashtray. "Or is it because for you, the ghost is

more than a ghost, and you are reluctant to face

her? No, don't answer that," he said. "I

understand no one knows exactly what happened

on the night Billie Carleton died, and I'm sure

that's only right. I also know a small gold-plated

snuffbox that she habitually carried on her person

could not be found when the police got to her

room, though I've heard it's been seen recently

around town."

I watched him, this fat, immortal Jew, who sat

like a contented spider in his web of information. I

should have been flattered he was here at all, but

I remembered Genoa, and the murder there. I

was not the only one to be expelled from the

Thirty-Six over the long, long years.

"The heart of the mystery," Worth said, "is at the

heart. Cherchez la femme, ah?" He winked at me

and blew a smoke ring that turned into Billie

Carleton's face before ebbing away.

"Impressive trick," I said, but I was rattled. Worth

had come here to tell me something. Time was

running out, and I had to act.

"What do you mean?"

He stood up, drew out his gun, twirled it on his

finger; raised it to his lips and blew smoke from

the barrel. "I'll be seeing you," he said. "Or not. As

the case may be."

He walked out of the room, putting the gun into

his belt as he did so, leaving me alone to think of

a woman, and her grave.

· · · · ·

Cherchez la femme, Worth said, and so I had

come at last to find her: the night was moonless

and the skies patterned in stars, and the

tombstones projected, ghostly and grotesque,

over the lengthening fog that lay like a thick

residue on Highgate Cemetery.

I had taken some coke beside the gate to the

cemetery, afraid of what I might find inside.

Dubious of Chang's story of the desecrated grave

and yet apprehensive. I felt my consciousness

grow as the drugs took hold of me, and knew the

ways between the Sephirot were wide open

tonight. The Feng-Huang might not be the only

thing to walk Assiah on this night.

Her grave lay, undisturbed and modest, beside

two larger graves, one sporting an angel with

wings unfurling, the other a curious figure: an

innocent, androgynous child with eyes of stone

that caught the distant light of stars. As I

approached it, the feeling of dread at the back of

my head intensified.

I turned—and found him. A piece of darkness

detached from the night.

The Feng-Huang laughed.

It was a deceptive sound, full of the warmth of a

spring day and the lucidity of lakewater, and yet it

made my skin go cold, as if a skeletal hand had

laid bony fingers on my wrist.

We stood facing each other without movement,

without sound. He was tall and dressed in a black,

flowing robe that formed a closed circle on the

ground. His face was hidden in shadows: only the

green eyes burned within the darkness.

The eyes found me and held. Finally, he spoke.

"You are like a ferret, set on a scent and left to

run and run in circles until you reach its source,"

he said. "You are no longer dangerous, but you

may be useful."

"Fuck you," I said.

The Feng-Huang laughed again. "I don't think so,"

he said. The fire in his eyes intensified.

Burning pain burst in the back of my head, and I

fell to the ground.

Hands grabbed me. Hauled me to my feet. I felt

my hands being tied behind my back.

"Your rivals for the affections of the delightful Ms.

Carleton," the Feng-Huang said. As he did, two

figures materialised in front of me.

"Hello, Tzaddik," Chang said. "You took your time

getting here." He was dressed in flowing, vaguely

oriental robes, his dark hair tied back in a ponytail.

In his hand he held what seemed to be a very

sharp knife.

But the man I was watching was standing next to

Chang. Edgar Manning wore a calm expression,

but the pupils in his eyes were abnormally large. In

his hand, too, was a knife. I was getting a bad

feeling.

"To bring the dead back to life," the Feng-Huang

said, "can only be done at a perilous exchange. A

normal human life would not do, as that exchange

is only equal. You understand?"

Chang and Manning nodded, the motion

mechanical like that of automatons.

"To give the dead life," said the Feng-Huang, "an

immortal life must be sacrificed."

"You didn't think I came here alone, did you?" I

said, trying for a bravado I didn't quite feel.

"That is exactly what I think," said the

Feng-Huang. "Like I said, you were like a ferret,

led on a leash. You believed Manning when he lied

to you. You believed Chang when he, in turn, fed

you the rest. And you believed them because

each was telling you some of the truth, and you

were too weakened by your drug habit to

comprehend the whole."

"I've had a perfectly healthy drug habit for many

years," I said. The Feng-Huang laughed. "Manning

was the fool who asked Saturday Beauregard for

help in raising Billie's spirit. And Beauregard was a

fool for consenting, and for trying to take on

powers far beyond his control. But we are all

pawns in somebody else's game, Tzaddik. Even

you and I. For Manning, there was another man

who moved the pieces on the board."

"Chang."

The Feng-Huang moved the darkness that was his

hooded head in assent. "Chang wished to have his

mistress back. And so he used one of his men, a

man by the name of Uncle Lee, to impress upon

Manning the idea of the summoning. But he was

useful, too: for all his bravado he is mine, now."

"And so," I said, "all the actions of mortal men led

only to bring forth a creature like you onto this

earth. Compelling stuff, I'm sure, but I do not play

games with either mortals or angels. You will not

be allowed to remain."

As I spoke my fingers moved, analysing the knot.

The Feng-Huang had wanted me out of his way,

wanted me chasing reflections in the fog as he

waited for this night, the night when the spheres

were aligned and the spirits of the dead—as well

as those of the living—could travel across the

Sephirot with relative ease. He set me on a goose

chase, planting the seeds that would lead me here

at last, to this lonely grave in this place of the

dead.

"She meant a lot to you, didn't she?" he said.

"Would you like to see her again?"

I didn't answer.

"No? A pity."

The Feng-Huang's eyes rose in flame. He

extended his arms as if in an embrace—and into

the darkness of the night materialised the face of

the woman I once loved, and lost.

"Billie…" The word was drawn from our collective

throats. Chang and Manning and I, together,

under her power still.

Her face was white and still beautiful. But her eyes

were dark and vacant, the eyes of the dead, and

when I looked into them I saw only the abyss

between worlds.

"Release her!" I said.

My tormentor laughed again. "At what price,

Tzaddik? Would you sacrifice your life so she could

live again? Or would you have me send her back

to death?"

"She is already dead," I said. "And what you have

there is only a pale and empty copy of the

woman that was Billie Carleton. You could never

bring her back—such a thing is beyond your

power and mine. Listen to me, Chang!" I said.

"And you, Manning. She is dead, gone, and you

must let her be!"

Chang slowly shook his head. "I don't think so,"

he said. "Why is it that I, the son of an ancient

and powerful culture, am here in this city, in this

place and time, treated like an animal? A menace?

They call me a Dope Fiend, the Yellow Plague,

when I am a man with a heart as good as any

Englishman's. But they would never let me and

Billie be. And you could say the same for Manning,

Tzaddik. Or indeed for you."

"You don't understand," I said. "She is dead. Truly

dead. This creature is preying on your desires for

his own ends."

"Then so be it," Chang said with sudden anger. "I

have made deals with worse and survived."

"Unlikely," I muttered.

And then, like in a nightmare one expects but

dreads all the same, Billie spoke.

Her voice was flat, lacking the exuberance, the

joy and excitement of her living days. It was the

voice of a ghost, but a familiar one, and I knew

what she would say before she said it.

"My box," she whispered, her dead eyes finding

mine. "My golden snuffbox. Why did you take it?"

The Feng-Huang turned his eyes on me; there

was malicious glee in their burning essence.

"What is she talking about?" Manning asked.

"Billie, what do you mean?"

"She means," the Feng-Huang said, "that the

Tzaddik is the one who removed her little box of

poisons from her deathbed. Perhaps you'd care to

ask him why?"

"Why, Tzaddik?" Manning said. There was real

anguish in his voice, and I realised then, with a

springing of hope, that he and Chang were not yet

entirely under the Feng-Huang's control, that he

was waiting to see if he could use them without

destroying their minds. And it gave me a chance.

"He gave me the pills," the thing that was once

Billie Carleton said. "The pills I took, after the ball.

They made me fast and happy and filled me with

energy."

"What did you give her, you bastard?" Chang said,

and I was aware of the knife in his hands moving

toward my face.

I sighed. My fingers worried at the knot, loosening

it. I had to hope talking would keep me away

from the Feng-Huang's ultimate purpose, at least

temporarily.

"I gave her the pills she asked for," I said,

suddenly weary. "I gave her everything she asked

for."

"She didn't die of the cocaine, did she," Manning

said, and his knife, too, was rising toward me.

"She died of the pills you gave her."

"I died," Billie said. Her empty eyes looked into

mine. "I died for you."

"You never loved me," I said. "You never loved

any of us."

The Feng-Huang moved. It was like mercury,

heated up and sliding on pure glass, the

movement inhuman and frightening. "Enough," he

said. "Gentlemen, I have offered you a deal. For

your love to live, an immortal must be sacrificed.

Please don't let me keep you from your job."

"Stop!" I said. The knot was nearly untied. Chang

and Manning looked at me. Their eyes were still

their own. I had hope. "Believe me. If there was a

way to bring her back, I would gladly do whatever

is needed to do so. But the dead must remain so.

It is the law of nature. To undo it would be to

destroy everything."

"He is lying!" the Feng-Huang said. "Kill him,

mortals, and you will have your woman."

Would they do it? How much were they blaming

me for? They raised their knives.

"Chang! Manning! Please!"

And then my hands were free. I raised them as

the Feng-Huang howled, and I drew a symbol in

the air. Chang and Manning blinked, looked

around. When they saw Billie they both looked

scared.

"Is that what you want?" I said. "A ghost? That is

all she will ever be."

"No," Chang said. And again, "No!" And he moved

the knife in an arc and sliced at the Feng-Huang's

throat.

"Chang!"

The Feng-Huang roared; he took hold of Chang

and threw him in the air. Chang's head hit a

tombstone with a sickening sound, and he lay

still.

"Go, Edgar!" I said. "Go!"

Manning moved slowly away, the knife held in

front of him.

"This is between you and me, angel," I said. "The

road between the spheres is open tonight, and I

suggest you take it back to where you came

from."

"You," the Feng-Huang said, "are going to die."

"I don't think so," I said. While standing in the

cemetery with my hands tied, my foot had been

able to draw, again and again, a symbol in the

ground. Now, I moved away from it.

On the ground where I had stood was a Star of

David, etched deeply into the soil as if branded

there. "Clay and magic," I said. "And the Tree of

Life." There was a small leaf, half broken,

embedded in the circle. I hoped it would work.

"What is this?" the Feng-Huang said. "This is

nothing. Is that the best you can do?"

He didn't wait for my answer. The clothes

containing him drew and tore, and out of them

grew the true darkness of the angel. It was a

darkness such as encountered in an underground

river that had never seen the sun, the darkness of

the inside of snails, of the other side of the moon,

of death. It grew, threatening to absorb me, to

touch Chang's unmoving body, to engulf Manning

as he stood there, uncertain, the knife in one

hand.

The earth shook.

It shook with the fury of an earthquake. The

darkness that was the angel hovered above,

suddenly unsure.

And from below the graves they rose: the beings

I had glimpsed beneath the foundations of

London, the buried, secretive giants.

They were creatures of clay, and yet the lifeblood

of the Tree surged in them, the strongest I had

ever seen or felt. They had arms like tree trunks,

and as they rose out of the earth they took hold

of the angel, the loa, the Feng-Huang, and held it.

He screamed.

He screamed for a long time as the great golems

descended back into the earth; screams that

could still be heard, echoing in my ears, from far

below the ground.

"Tzaddik." It was Billie, and the voice was her

own, that voice I had fallen in love with, the voice

that commanded me and entreated me, and got

me to supply her with the drugs that were to kill

her.

I turned, and her eyes were once again her own,

loving and happy and mischievous.

"I am sorry, Billie," I said. "I am so, so sorry."

"I know," she said, and she moved towards me,

growing insubstantial as she did. "I know."

And then she kissed me. Her lips touched mine,

for the longest second I can recall. And then she

disappeared.

· · · · ·

"Was it a dream?" Manning said.

We were sitting in the upstairs bar of the Princess

Louise. There were only the three of us: the

Jamaican, the Chinese, the Jew.

"No," I said. "Though I wish it was."

Chang returned to the table, carrying with him a

tray with three more glasses of bourbon on it.

"Future generations will judge us," he said, and

cut three lines of snow on the table. We each

snorted one. "And perhaps, after all, they will not

judge us, nor Billie, too harshly."

"I'll drink to that," I said.

The End

I am indebted to Marek Kohn's nonfiction work,

Dope Girls, for the historical background and

characters. Anyone who would like to know the

true and fascinating stories of Edgar Manning,

Brilliant Chang, and Billie Carleton, or indeed the

secret history of the London drug underground,

should consider it essential reading.

permission of David Higham Associates

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Lavie Tidhar - The Dope Fiend

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