There could only be one reason. They wanted Henry to have it. Dressed up to look like he’d beaten them to it, albeit with my help. So that meant they’d wanted him to take it into their bizarre little world. But even then, they hadn’t taken it off him. They must have known he would use it to win back the singers. And in doing so, blowing the Pullulating Tribe and its surroundings to smithereens.
And in so doing, exhausting the guitar! It takes a long time for the guitar to re-charge itself, Henry’d said. Which meant, right now, it was useless.
We’d brought the girls—the singers—into our world. Singers who had gifts bestowed on them by the Angels of Malice. Singers who, according to Henry, were not quite as they had been. Puppets.
It was an Oh my God moment.
They were going to sing in Ariadne’s Big Jamboree at the night club and raise God alone knew what horrors, and there would be no blue guitar to blast them back to Hell. And when was this going to happen?
Tonight. In a few hours’ time.
* * * *
If I thought I was going to leave my office, sprint out into the city, grab a taxi and hightail to Ariadne like a bolt from the blue, I must have been kidding. I had my armoury strapped in and I went down the stairs to the alley like a cat with its tail ablaze, but no sooner had I got out of the door than I knew I was not alone. I almost ran into a hail of lead.
They were at both ends of the alley. Luckily the street lights were on the fritz again, so I must have made a blurred target. I was able to duck back inside before they shredded my carcass. Something nicked my arm, and I felt something hit my chest like I’d been punched but not enough to slow me down. I tore back upstairs, locked the door and made for the fire exit out back. I tossed an old jacket out first, and sure enough, it was ripped apart in seconds by another crossfire.
They had me pinned down. I had to get hold of Ariadne and tell her what I’d figured out. I reached inside my coat and pulled out my cell phone—or what was left of it. It disintegrated in my hand. The punch I thought I’d felt was a bullet glancing off it. I was glad enough the damn thing had saved me what might have been a crippling hit, but now I had no way of warning Ariadne.
I had one last chance to get out of there. I went into my cunningly converted broom cupboard, dropped down a makeshift elevator and emerged in the darkness of the cellar. There was a hidden door and I opened and closed it cautiously. Beyond, in a dank, dripping tunnel that was originally dug here generations ago, I crept away, listening for anything other than the rats that frequented the place.
I was intending to head for the office block where I knew Ariadne would be making her last preparations before going to Diamonds Are Forever. We had to cancel tonight’s show. On my way, however, it occurred to me that the block would be watched from all angles. Our enemies would be out in full force tonight. Divide and conquer. No doubt Henry and Stan would also be watched, not that Henry could do much damage without the blue guitar.
I got out of the cab and paid the driver, a block from Ariadne’s offices. I usually entered through a private door, but I could only do it if I gave her notice. Maybe I could climb up a fire escape out back somewhere. There were phone booths, but they’d be watched for sure. My guess was, Carmella Cadenza had given orders for her people to rub me out on sight, no messing. I couldn’t take that risk.
As I was sneaking my way towards an alley that I knew would take me to the back of the huge building, ducking and diving into every shadowy doorway I could en route, I felt an arm wrap around my neck and something hard jam up against my spine. I allowed myself to be pulled into the darkness. Someone had got the drop on me and as I swore crudely, it was at my own stupidity.
“Take it easy, fellar. You’re in good hands.”
The voice, coupled with the faint whiff of very expensive perfume made me realise I hadn’t been snared by one of Satan’s children.
“Ariadne,” I breathed.
She pulled me deeper into the shadows, released me and took me down the narrowest of alleys to a doorway, tapping on it with the gun she was toting. The door opened and we slipped inside.
“Sorry about that,” she said, with a rueful grin. “The bad guys are out in force. Didn’t want to be seen.”
I was about to blurt out what I’d pieced together, but she put a slim finger over my lips. “I know what you’re going to say. You realised what was really happening.”
“You, too?”
“I had a tip off. There’s someone I want you to meet. It’ll come as a shock, but just stay cool, okay?”
I nodded, but I was feeling more than a little edgy as she took me through another door and up some stairs. We came to a room that was lit by a single bulb. Some of her people were there, dependable guys who I knew could handle themselves. It was a relief. What was less relaxing was the sight of the guy sitting in the middle of the room on an old chair, his head down, his hands folded in his lap.
He looked up at me and for a moment it seemed like he was shuddering. “Mt Stone,” he said. “You know me.”
Yeah, I knew that bastard, all right. Erik van Brazen. We’d crossed paths a few times, and if there was a man on this Earth I’d sworn I’d tear apart with my bare hands, it was him. He was responsible for more misery in my life than a whole shipload of Satan’s sidekicks.
“This better be good, pal, because I am going to pull your head apart before I leave this room,” I told him in a tone that does not get any nastier.
Ariadne put a restraining arm on mine and it’s probably the only thing that prevented me from carrying out my threat.
“You’re too late,” he said and as he lifted his head, I saw now that he looked like he’d aged about a hundred years. His skin was waxy, lined and creased, and his hair was thinning, white and fading. I looked at his hands, and they were little more than bones. “You want to shoot me, I don’t give a damn. Go ahead.”
“What’s he doing here?” I snapped at Ariadne.
“He’s the Raggedy Man. The shaven, cleaned-up version. Before that, he was controlled by the creature who tried to abduct me, the thing you called Spiderhead. When you rescued me, Spiderhead fled. Licking its wounds, it rejected the human vessel it had used for its purposes and found somewhere to hole up. Just like Carmella Carnadine. You saw them, Nick, in that place where Henry took you.”
Van Brazen was nodding. “Once that creature had dumped me, I was finished. It and that floozy abandoned me and let me crawl around in the dark. The only reason they didn’t kill me was maybe I’d earned the right to live, even if it was a parody of life.”
“We should have left you there to rot.” I had no sympathy for the man.
“I became the Raggedy Man. My days are numbered now, Stone. If you don’t kill me, it won’t matter. I’ll be done for soon enough. You don’t want to worry about me—it’s that thing you call Spiderhead you need to deal with.” He shuddered again.
“Where is it?”
“Oh, it’s here, not far away. It’s gotten its filthy grip on some other sucker. In a coupla hours it’ll make itself known, through those two girls you pulled out of the hole. They were bait if you didn’t know it.”
“So why were you so damn keen to tip Ariadne off?”
“Listen, pal, when you’ve had your brain clamped by that monster and had your every move controlled by it, your skin would crawl at the thought of it. I’m no saint. Maybe I’ll burn in Hell. But if I can pay that creeping horror back for what it did to me, then fine.”
“We’re supposed to trust you?” I sneered.
“We