indri

SUMMARY: Giles and Ethan, the electric Kool-Aid funky Satan groove year, in the early seventies. Rated M. Spoilers to Band Candy. Acknowledgements and disclaimers.

3.

Evelyn's bed was more comfortable than Ethan's own. He lay there for a while, enjoying it, but feeling weak and weary. He thought he might stay there with his eyes closed for as long as he could, but he could smell coffee and his face was growing warm from sunlight. So he pulled himself up on his elbows to look around. Their third was long gone, but Evelyn was at her desk, with her glasses on, already working her way through her tome. Ethan's clothes were piled at the bottom of the bed. The pentacle was still chalked onto the floor in a hastily-cleared space between the bed and her desk, but its lines had been deliberately smudged to remove its power.

"Breakfast!" Evelyn said, when she noticed him awake. "And stout. Nutrients to help with the blood loss." She brought him some peanuts, a pint of flat Guinness and some toast, quite the oddest breakfast he'd had in a while. "The book's gorgeous," she said, pressing his hand affectionately. "Thank you."

"A large favour," he said.

"Of course!"

He finished eating and she went back to her book. After he dressed he had a further look through her things. He picked up a Baedeker's guide to West Germany, a coffee tin encrusted with seashells, and a tiny jade cat.

"Don't take anything home now," Evelyn said, without looking up.

There was a scrap of paper tucked into the coffee tin. In Evelyn's handwriting, it read, "Ciccarello, 131 Esplanade". Ethan looked at it and wondered why the name was familiar. Of course, it could just be a restaurant or a dentist's...

"Midsummer should be good," Evelyn said. "You should come this year."

"Waste of time," he muttered, putting down the tin.

"Depends who you know, sweetie," she said, "and I know people."

He buttoned up his shirt. "Randall and Diedre might go."

"Oh!" she said. "And how are the rest of the Bash Street Kids?"

"We're all quite well. You should come over. They'd love to see you."

"How about the day after tomorrow, in the evening? I'll bring the usual. And do a party trick."

"If you would," Ethan said.

The air outside the barge felt thin after the magical miasma of the barge. The lunchtime crowds were coming out and the weather was still holding, so it was probably a good time to busk. He wasn't in the mood though; he'd rather just go home and sit with his eyes closed for a while. And he had enough cash for a couple of days at least.

The house was quiet when he got back. Adrienne had her door shut. Stan would be downstairs. Diedre and Tom were nowhere to be seen. Randall was up on the second landing, finishing off a Boschian tableau he was painting on the wall. It was better not to talk with him when he was working.

Perhaps he should spend the afternoon on some minor conjurations, the magical equivalent of playing scales. He felt calm but not up to anything strenuous. He fetched himself a cup of tea and a biscuit and then settled into the old drawing room with his wishing-stones and candles.

Water first, he thought, closing his eyes and extending his hand. He imagined the taste of it in his mouth and its flow over his skin. Water, the fluid in every living thing, the substance of mist and the strength of the oceans. Water, bring it to me.

He turned his face upwards to the small shower of indoor rain.

Then he reset the stones in a different pattern. Earth, he thought, from dust to dust, the ground beneath our feet. Pebble and stone and soil and wormcast.

A grind of fine rocks appeared outside the circle.

Wind next, and as it pulled at his hair and breathed over his neck, he thought that perhaps he was in better condition than he'd expected. The power was there, singing just underneath his skin.

He started to set up the circle for the fourth time. As he did so, he heard someone come up the stairs and then pause on the landing. Ethan was intent on the pattern when the man came into the room. He didn't look up; it was probably Stan.

Then a bare foot extended into the circle and nudged the last stone into place with a heel. The foot wasn't Stan's. It belonged to a tall young man clad only in jeans who blinked rather sleepily down at Ethan. The man had thick wavy hair and an ugly ring on his finger.

"Ripper!" came a shout from below, from Adrienne. "Ripper!" Or that's what it sounded like, but no-one calling themselves "Ripper" would have much success picking up women in London, surely?

"He's up here," Ethan shouted back down. He considered. The man was better-looking than most of her catch. "Are you a communist?" Ethan asked him.

The man blinked at him in surprise, which Ethan took to be a "no".

"He's in a band," Adrienne said, as she came into the room. "Aren't you, Ripper?"

The man nodded.

"You were out late too," Adrienne said to Ethan.

"I was visiting Evelyn. She's around for a few days. She'd like to come over tomorrow night."

"A party," said Adrienne. "Ripper could come to that. He could play guitar."

Ethan made a gesture with his hand of not caring very much, although he was looking thoughtfully at the completed circle. "If you want."

"You'll come to that, won't you, Ripper?"

"Yes," said Ripper, in a surprisingly crisp accent, "I think I will."

She led Ripper back downstairs, promising him that the cafe around the corner made good egg and bacon rolls.

Ethan tried to settle back down to his conjurations, but his concentration had gone. He packed up his kit and then mopped up the water and earth.

Then he went upstairs to watch Randall paint. Randall was just putting on the final touches to a Bacchannal. Tiny painted figures held tiny painted goblets and danced over tiny painted dogs. Ethan watched him until Randall finally put down his paints and reached for the brush-cleaner.

"What was that ruckus downstairs, then?" Randall asked.

"Fresh blood," said Ethan.

4.

They were waiting for him when he got home. He should have expected it: they'd been talking behind his back for a week. And now here were Jim and Alison standing in the flat's doorway, blocking his way through. Alison had her arms folded over her pregnant belly and she had her serious expression on. Jim had his hands in his pockets and his shoulder had nudged the print of Skegness askew.

"It's been three weeks, Ripper," Jim said. "You said you'd only be here a couple of days."

"I'm looking for my own place," Ripper said.

"And how's that going?" asked Alison.

"It's been hard..."

Alison reached behind her to grab something from the telephone table. It was a newspaper. "I've called around," she said. "I've circled the ones still free."

"And we know you've got money," Jim said, "from the gigs last week."

"I'm just sleeping on the sofa," Ripper protested. "I'm barely here at all."

"Well, you can be barely there somewhere else then," said Alison.

He gave her a stare.

Jim said, "Please, Ripper."

He realised then that they were afraid of him. They were expecting him not to go without a fight, or without breaking up some of the furniture. They'd both been there the night he clobbered a pickpocket outside the pub.

"You'd better give me my stuff then," he said.

Jim helped him carry everything he owned down the three flights of stairs to Ripper's car. It all fit in the boot. Alison watched from an open window upstairs.

"Look," said Jim, "no hard feelings, right? It's Alison, you know what preggers women are like. Let me know where you end up."

"You traitorous prick," said Ripper.

Jim backed off towards the dubious safety of the flat's stairwell. "Right, well, we'll see you Thursday, at The Cap. We're on at eight, Ripper. Setup at seven?"

Ripper took a step forward and Jim fled. Ripper didn't follow -- he did still want to play with the band -- but he settled for kicking the gate.

He went back to the car, wishing he'd at least been given the chance to wash. He was aware that he smelt of egg and bacon roll, and of himself and Adrienne. He drove around the corner to get out of Alison's gaze.

He crumpled up the newspaper page they'd given him. He didn't have enough money left for a week's rent, not after petrol, a few LPs, a couple of t-shirts, a carton of cigarettes, food, drink, and the cover charge for last night's gig. He practically only had pocket change left.

It was Sunday afternoon. The streets were quiet but there were kids out on the children's playground. Ripper wondered what to do. He could stay in his car one night, he thought, then go back to Adrienne's. Maybe he could talk her into staying at her place for a few nights, until he had the money from the next gig.

Strange bloody house, though. He'd had a bit of a look that morning. Candles everywhere, stairwells painted obscenely, that bloke casting the fire spell. But everything looked human, no signs of anything demonic. New age hippies, worried about their chakras? But no, that conjuration had looked real enough. Ripper had cast that one himself once, on a very wet training trip in Epping Forest. Dabblers, then, or dilettantes.

But the odd thing was that the smells which had put him on edge when he first arrived had had a different effect on him in the morning. Waking to them, they were familiar and almost reassuring. Part of him thought that all buildings should smell that way.

That night he slept in the car. It wasn't too bad, on an unseasonably warm night, curled up in the back under his jacket. Except that his legs were too long and he got a crick in his neck and the old jumper he'd rolled up as a pillow kept slipping out on to the floor.