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William."

     

Chapter 5
    I'm not sure what it was that I saw under the table in Stinx's workshop. People are extremely ignorant about demons and their nature. It is possible to walk into almost any bookshop and find some kind of encyclopaedia or A-to-Z of demons. How disappointing these publications are, for they generally turn out to be nothing more than lists of the names of gods of various cultures. Beelzebub, for example, the god of the Philistine city of Ekron; or Asmodeus, the Persian god of wrath. These are only demonic in as much as the Judeo-Christian religions took them to be rivals.

    These are not demons. These do not number in the one thousand five hundred and sixty-seven, as brilliantly catalogued by Goodridge. And anyway, if it's long lists of gods you want, you need go no further than the Hindu religion to stop you in your tracks. Diamond Jaz, who was at one time in his youth training for the Sikh priesthood, informed me that they are countless; and the last figure I was quoted was "in excess of three hundred and thirty million." Right. And of course, the person trying to count them is in the grip of that particular demon Goodridge characterized as the "demon of counting the ever-changing number."

    I was thinking about this as I neared King's Cross. The light was already fading and a man in a long, filthy coat croaked at me from a doorway. I was thinking about the person working for some government agency whose job it was to count the homeless. I'd probably walked five or six yards past the shop doorway when I stopped and retraced my steps.

    I looked hard at the wreck of a man in the doorway. His long hair was plastered to his face. Tear tracks—I'm sure that's what they were—ran down his grimy face and into his beard. He seemed to be all in.

    He blinked at me. "Ain't it terrible, I'm trying to get a cup of tea."

    "Seamus, isn't it?" I said. "We met at Otto's place the other day. You were with Otto in the Gulf."

    He looked away, to the side. "Don't keep going on about it."

    I wasn't sure he was talking to me. "How are you, Seamus? You look a bit rough, if you don't mind me saying."

    "Cup of tea would be the thing."

    I could have easily given him a couple of quid and carried on walking. But we all know what a cup of tea means, so instead I asked him if he knew about GoPoint. He said he'd heard of it. I found a business card and scribbled the GoPoint address on the reverse, plus a brief note for Antonia, and pushed it into his hand. Seamus looked disappointed. Then on second thoughts I hailed a black cab and steered Seamus into it.

    "Thanks," said the driver. "I wanted him in my cab."

    "Shaddup. Here's a twenty. Make sure he finds the door to the place, will you?"

    Then I took the Tube to the offices of NOYA in Victoria.

     

    It was about eleven when I rolled up to work. It makes no difference what time I go in. For one thing I'm often there until seven in the evening or travelling for the organisation, and for another I'm the boss. In any case, Val, my long-term secretary, holds the fort from nine to five. Val's a lovely girl. Old school. Immaculate filing cabinets and keeps a delicate tissue tucked inside her sleeve.

    Very formal secretarial standards, too. Always opens the post for me and removes the envelopes unless marked "Personal and Confidential," which they never are. Except this morning, there it is on my desk with the other, opened mail: a white envelope.

    "What's this?"

    "You'll have to open it to find out, won't you?" Val often speaks to me as if I'm twelve years old. "Looks like an invitation to me."

    Invitations come often enough—usually to some stiff formal reception or briefing hosted by a government agency and preceded by a pernicious glass of chardonnay or some filthy sherry. Inside the envelope was a stiff white card. A small publishing house called Winding Path was inviting me to the launch of a book by one Charles Fraser.

    "Bloody Hell!" I said aloud. "There's a name