The Witches of Chiswick

36

“If you gentlemen would be so gracious as to beseat yourselves, I will hasten to bring you beverages,” said Gammon, and he indicated an ebonised sofa, bowed deeply and departed the study.

Will and Tim exchanged glances, then the both of them sat down.

“He’s a weirdo,” said Tim.

“Not so loud,” said Will.

Presently Gammon returned, bearing a silver galleried tray which supported a dusty bottle, a brace of Georgian rummers and an ornate corkscrew, fashioned in the shape of a dragon. Gammon set down the tray upon a gopher-wood side table, took up the ornate corkscrew and then struggled to withdraw the cork.

“Let me,” said Will, rising.

“My thanks to you, sir. I am not as young as I once was, but nor am I as old as I might yet become.”

“Absolutely,” said Tim.

Will took the corkscrew, drew the cork. Sniffed it and held up the bottle. “No label,” said he.

“The Master set it aside for you. He thought that you would appreciate it.”

“Indeed.” Will trickled wine into a rummer, held it towards the light, gauged its colour, took another sniff and then a sip. And then a bigger sip.

“Well,” said Will. “A 1787 Chateau Lafitte claret. A most superior vintage.”

Gammon nodded his ancient head. “The Master taught you well,” said he.

Will filled both rummers. “Will you join us?” he asked Gammon.

“Oh no, sir. My palate is not what it was, although it is probably better than it eventually will be. Such fine wine would be wasted upon me.”

“As it will upon Tim,” said Will. “But do have some if you fancy it.”

“No, sir.”

Will handed a rummer to Tim and they both enjoyed the wine.

“So,” said Will, licking his lips. “You have clearly been expecting me, Mr Gammon.”

“The Master had the gift of prophecy, sir. All is predicted. Surely you have read The Book Of Rune.”

“Several times,” said Will. “This encounter however is not chronicled there. It is my intention to use these premises as a base for our operations. Do you have any objection to this?”

“On the contrary, sir. I have everything prepared for you. The icons, the hacking weapons, the—”

“Magical accoutrements?” Tim asked.

“Of course, sir.”

“Brilliant,” said Tim. “I’ve been really looking forward to getting my hands on some magical accoutrements.”

“Sir,” said Gammon to Will, “I assume this gentleman to be your manservant, yet you feed him upon the finest wine and allow him to make such outrageous statements.”

“He’s not my manservant,” laughed Will. “He’s my half-brother. He’s Mr Rune’s magical heir.”

“Oh, I am so sorry, sir. My apologies for such an oversight. So you are his manservant.”

“Let’s not go any further with this.” Will sipped wine. “And I have sufficient weaponry of my own, as it happens. But, as a matter of interest, who employs you now that Mr Rune is dead?”

Gammon put a wrinkly finger to his wrinkly lips. “Please do not use the word dead when speaking of the Master.”

“He definitely is dead,” said Will. “I attended his funeral.”

“I too, sir, but I still find it impossible to believe. The Master assured me that he was immortal.”

“He had a penchant for exaggeration,” said Will.

“But he had discovered the philosopher’s stone. Distilled the elixir of life.”

“I don’t think he was telling the truth,” said Will.

“But I also drank of the elixir.”

“Then keep your fingers crossed,” said Tim. “And always sniff the milk before putting it in your tea.”

Gammon made a bewildered face.

“Tell me something,” said Will. “You might know the answer to this. For all the research I did, I could never trace either Mr Rune’s birthplace, nor the date of his birth. Do you know?”

Gammon shook his snowbound head. “He did not confide such personal details to me, sir. But then I was only in the Master’s employ for some two hundred years.”

“What?” went Will.

And Tim coughed wine up his nose.[28]

“I exaggerate, of course,” said Gammon.

“Of course,” said Will.

“It would be one hundred and ninety years at most.”

Tim shook his head and pushed away his hair and then he said with a grin. “Did he ever pay you at all during this time?”

Gammon made a thoughtful face, but it was hardly a patch on those that Tim was so good at making. “I did once broach the subject of my salary,” said he. “About one hundred and fifty years ago. The Master assured me that a cheque would be in the post.”

“Perhaps it got lost,” said Tim, grinning further. “But you never know, it might turn up.”

“It didn’t today,” said Gammon. “I looked on the mat.”

“So,” said Will. “This is all hugely enjoyable, but—”

“It is for me,” said Tim. “I’m loving it.”

“—but,” Will continued, “Tim and I have pressing business. We have witches to thwart.”

“You are then already skilled in the necessary arts?”

“To a degree,” said Will. “I have done a lot of research. I know what I’m dealing with. And I’m well tooled up.”

Gammon shook his head once more and this time tut-tut-tutted.

“Why do you do this tut-tut-tutting?” Will asked. “I’ll get by.”

“Not without a period of intensive training.”

“And you can provide this training?”

“That is why I awaited your arrival, sir.”

“No need,” said Will. “I know all the basic stuff about thwarting witches, driving horseshoe nails into their footprints, manufacturing witch-bottles from urine and fingernails and so on.”

“That is very basic stuff, sir. I would not wish to open a book upon your chances of success, let alone your survival.”

“You think so?” said Will. “Well, check this lot out,” and he flung open his long leather coat to expose a veritable armoury of weapons. Tim looked on approvingly.

Upon his hips, Will wore a brace of pistols. He drew one from a holster and twirled it upon his finger. “This pistol,” said he, “contains—”

“Bullets forged from silver chalices, inscribed with the sign of the cross and blessed by the Pope?” asked Gammon.

Will nodded.

Gammon shook his head.

“Then this.” Will reholstered his pistol and whipped a stiletto from his belt. “Fashioned—”

“From nails and timber reputed to come from the True Cross?”

Will nodded once more.

“Then this.” Will reached for something else.

But Gammon said, “I’m so sorry, sir. Clearly you have done a considerable amount of research, but I suspect that your researches have been into witches of the medieval persuasion.”

Will nodded. “Yes,” he said.

“You will be dealing with modern witches, sir. Thoroughly modern witches. It is no longer bell, book and candle, nor phials of the Virgin Mary’s tears.”

“Aw,” said Will.

“You haven’t?” said Tim.

“Paid a fortune for them,” said Will.

“Nor,” said Gammon, “threads from the Holy Shroud of Turin, woven into the undergarments.”

“Damn,” said Will.

“In your underpants?” said Tim. “Isn’t that blasphemous?”

Will waggled the claret bottle at Gammon. “Are you telling me,” he said, “that none of these things will be any good against witches?”

“The pistols would no doubt prove effective in regards to shooting them dead, sir. But it’s doubtful whether you would ever get the opportunity to test this proposition. Personally I would advise the icons, the hacking weapons—”

“The magical accoutrements,” said Tim.

“I suspect that your definition of these differs from my own,” said Gammon. “And if you will pardon my forwardness, I will take the liberty of suggesting that we have spoken enough of these things and that it might be better if I were to show you rather than try to explain.”

“Please do,” said Tim, putting down his glass and rubbing his hands together.

“Sir?” said Gammon.

“Go ahead,” said Will.

“Then follow me, please.” Gammon turned upon an antique heel and shuffled from the study. Will topped up his glass and Tim took his up for a topping also.

“Follow the leader,” said Tim. “And I’ll follow you.”

In the hallway, Gammon produced a ring of keys and introduced one to the lock of a low iron-bound door. The door swung open to the sound of suitably dramatic creaking noises. Gammon reached into the darkness, threw a switch. Neon lighting illuminated a stone stairway that led down and down and down and down some more.

And Gammon hobbled down this stairway, followed by Will and Tim.

“I had the lighting installed myself,” said Gammon, when they had descended a considerable distance. “I know that candles tend to make for a more forbidding atmosphere, but if you’d fallen down these steps as many times as I have—”

“Is it much further?” Will asked.

“Much,” said Gammon.

“I don’t fancy walking all the way back up again,” Tim said.

“Nor me, sir,” said Gammon. “That’s why I always take the lift.”

As all good things must come to an end, so too did the stone stairway.

Tim looked up at the big door that lay (or rather stood, or perhaps, more precisely hung) before them.

“That’s a big door hanging there,” said Tim.

“Don’t be fooled by it,” said Gammon. “It’s not so big as it thinks it is.”

“Is it just me?” Tim asked, “or do things always get whacky the moment we go underground? Remember the police station and all that interior-decorating nonsense?”

“You weren’t at the police station,” said Will.

“See what I mean?” said Tim. “Continuity and logic all go to pot underground.”

“A consequence of time travel,” said Gammon, selecting a key about four feet in length from his key ring. “Something to do with the transperabulation of pseudo cosmic antimatter.”

He turned the key in the miniscule keyhole and gave the door a little nudge with the toe of his buckled shoe.

“Gentlemen,” said he as he threw another switch and brought neon tubes stuttering to light. “The adytum. The naos. The cella. The Master’s Sanctum Sanctorum.”

Tim looked in.

And Will looked in.

And then Will looked at Tim.

And Tim looked at Will.

“It’s—” said Will.

And, “It’s—” said Tim.

“A computer room,” said Gammon.