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.

5.

"Ciccarello," said Randall, frowning. He was sitting on the attic's window seat next to Diedre; they were eating ice cream together with little wooden spoons from a paper cup. "Sounds familiar, but I can't place it."

"I've heard of her," said Diedre. "I mean, enough that I know that she's a she. But I don't even remember why I know that."

The attic had been a nursery once. Shreds of carousel wallpaper still clung in places. Ethan was sitting on one of the beanbags next to a wall.

"Do you think it's important?" Diedre asked.

Ethan shrugged. "It caught my eye," he said. For a moment, that scrap of paper had been the clearest object on Evelyn's boat.

"Your instincts are good," Randall said. "I'll get out my scrapbooks so we can go look."

Adrienne came up the stairs then. "Does anyone know when the electricity will be back?"

"I paid the bill," said Diedre. "Maybe Tuesday? It always seems to take a couple of days."

"We won't need power for the party tomorrow," said Randall. "Cold food and cold drinks will be fine."

"Ethan said you brought home a cute guy last night," Diedre said, a question in her voice.

"She's paraphrasing," said Ethan.

"He's OK," Adrienne said. "I've invited him back."

Diedre tried hard to hide her surprise, but didn't manage it well enough for Ethan not to notice. It had been a long time since Adrienne had invited home the same man twice.

"Well," Diedre said. "Must be a bit of all right then."

"He might know some magic," said Randall. "We're going to have to check him out."

"Then I shouldn't have let him meet you," Adrienne said. "I should have kept him tied up downstairs."

"That's new," said Ethan, a little surprised himself now.

"Metaphorically speaking."

Randall had finished his icecream. "I'll go get those scrapbooks," he said.

Randall had been compiling his scrapbooks for years now. He scoured the popular press for odd little items that might be of magical interest. They were thick books, heavy and brittle with old newspaper and advertising flyers. He had dozens of them now. It took a a couple of trips to bring them all upstairs.

They took a volume each at first, apart from Adrienne, who was heading out for one of her meetings. Diedre got bored halfway through hers. Randall worked through two, then decided it was time to go out and fetch dinner. Ethan kept going, lighting candles when it got dark and then casting a light spell when he started to find the candlelight annoying. The others brought him something to eat.

He found what he was looking for some time after midnight. It was an article about the New Egyptian Hall, shortly before it was to be demolished. "In its heyday, the building saw many famed performers," Ethan read, "including Harry Houdini, Long Tack Sam, Nevil Maskelyne and Eusapia Ciccarello."

Ethan rocked back on his heels. Ciccarello was a stage magician? How disappointing: he was not remotely interested in legerdemain and trick boxes. It was all superficial, mechanistic frippery; it taught you nothing about the inner workings of the world. Why would Evelyn be interested in her? Most stage magicians knew very little of true magic. Still, some did, and a few true practitioners made a living out of performance, as Ethan himself well knew.

He could hear Randall's record player, turned low, and people talking downstairs in the drawing room. He realised he was cold and stiff from sitting on the floor.

He still wasn't sure whether this was worth following up, but it might be worth a go. He should go and see Terry as soon as he could.

6.

Ripper arrived deliberately late to the party, not wanting to look too keen. He'd half-hoped that Adrienne would be looking out for him, but there was no sign of her from outside, just some flickering lights from an upstairs window.

The stairwell up was lined with candles, which made the paintings even more disturbing than they'd been in daylight: now they merged together into a writhing mass. He could hear music from upstairs.

The party was being held in the same room where he'd seen the spellcaster, only it had been transformed. The bare floorboards were still there underneath, but they were now covered with throw-rugs, beanbags, and what were probably gingham tablecloths. There were very few chairs. A record-player in a corner was playing The Grateful Dead. The room was lit by more of the ubiquitous candles and some paraffin lamps. Trays of food and alcohol lined one wall.

It didn't seem to be much of a party yet. There were only a dozen people or so, and only one couple dancing. Perhaps it would liven up later.

Adrienne was over by the drinks, pouring herself something. She waved him over.

"Vodka?" she asked, handing him a glass. "I'm glad you brought your guitar." She nodded at the rest of the room. "It's not jumping yet, but this way you'll get to meet people."

He put his guitar down, being careful to keep it in his line of sight. Adrienne took his arm, swaying in time to the music. Ripper wondered if she was always like this or if she was drunk.

"So," she said. "I should point out my housemates to you." She pointed at one of the dancers, a gamine girl with waist-length dark hair who was wearing an orange dress. "That's Diedre. I went to school with her. The man she's dancing with is her boyfriend, Tom." She pointed next to a long-haired, moustachioed blond man in a purple military-style coat. "That's Randall, he's American. His brother was engaged to Diedre. And that's Ethan, you've already met him. He went to school with one of Diedre's cousins--"

"So you all know this Diedre."

"Not everyone." She motioned then to a skinny, freckled man in a cheap safari suit. "Stan lives in the basement flat. He's our bartender, I mean, he was, but then he got fired, so now he lives with us. And I should probably tell you that Diedre wants to be called Dee. She thinks 'Diedre' sounds too old."

"She's right," said Ripper. He looked at the sparsely-populated room. There were a few knots of people having stilted conversation, plus the dancers. It didn't look any fun yet.

"Can we go back to your room for a bit?" he asked her.

She tightened her grip on his arm. "OK," she said.

When they came back up an hour later, the party had livened up a bit. The music was louder and the party more thronged. Even the air was thicker, going smoky from cigarettes, pipes and joints. Ripper felt much less conspicuous. He went to fetch himself another drink and watch the crowd.

The moustachioed, purple-coated man came up to pour himself a drink too. "I'm Randall," he said, extending his hand. "I hear you know something about magic."

"A little," Ripper said, warily. "Why?"

"A few of us here have a deep interest in the topic," he said, "and we're always happy to meet someone new."

"I play the guitar now mostly," Ripper said. "I'm supposed to be playing something now."

The LP on the record player was drawing to a close. Ripper lifted off the needle but couldn't find a way to turn off the turntable. He unplugged it, but it kept going. Battery-operated, he supposed. He gave up, and turned to face the crowd.

He thought he'd start with something by The Byrds.

7.

Evelyn always brought the best hashish. Ethan pocketed most of what she gave him, but took a little in a pipe. Small amounts made him feel mellow and expansive, two things he seldom felt without pharmaceutical assistance.

The party seemed to be going well. Stan had brought a crowd of people and Evelyn had invited a few of her local friends. Adrienne's new boy had sung a few songs quite probably in tune.

"Not bad at all," he said, as Adrienne walked past, "as far as I can tell."

"You have a beautiful voice," said a girl sitting on the carpet scrap next to him. Ethan had no idea who she was. "Are you on the radio? You sound like you should be."

Ethan decided to kiss her, but Evelyn pulled him off. "Just make sure you save some for me," she said mildly. "I don't often visit."

Randall came over. He'd been trying to sound out the new boy about his knowledge of magic, without much success.

"We're strangers to him," Ethan said. "What did you expect?"

His head started to clear again around one a.m., which was when Evelyn decided it was time for her party trick. She cleared the middle of the room and laid out her circle, chanting. Ethan strained hard to hear the words, but she was deliberately speaking too quietly to be heard above the music.

She did a sort of party-streamer-firework-light-show. Multi-coloured, and bright enough to leave one flinching. Stan's friends, who knew fuck-all about magic, stood there with their mouths open, thinking it was all a trick. Which it was, in a way.

An hour later, someone tripped the wards on the second floor landing. Diedre, Randall, and Ethan all felt it and looked at each other across the room. Ethan happened to be closest to the door, so he motioned that he'd be the one to investigate.

At the top of the stairs he found Ripper coming out of one of the spare rooms. He was hardly trying to be stealthy: he was tipping cigarette ash onto the floor and was carrying his guitar.

"Not light-fingered, are we?" asked Ethan.

"Just looking for Adrienne."

"She's asleep on one of the beanbags downstairs," Ethan told him. "I'll show you." He gestured that Ripper should walk in front of him, back down the stairs.

"You've got a few spare rooms," said Ripper. "It's a good house."

"Adrienne found it," Ethan said. "She's resourceful."

"Your girl looks like a handful."

"She's not my girl," said Ethan, "but you're right. She does sex magic and pagan tantra."

"Pagan tantra?" said Ripper. "She's making that one up."

They reached the lower landing. Ethan pointedly opened the drawing room door for him.

That was when Stan shouted, "Oi! He's taking my stash!" and one of the male party-goers dashed for the door, bag in hand.

Ripper didn't even move from where he was standing. He just extended a fist and then a foot and the thief fell sprawling onto the ground. Pills and joints and chunks of resin scattered across the floor.

It was practised and highly efficient: Ethan really ought to have been alarmed. But then Ripper swept his hair back with one hand, and took a drag of his cigarette from the other. He lifted an eyebrow at Ethan, and turned on his heel before anyone else had made it as far as the doorway. It was the faux nonchalance that Ethan found hilarious. Ethan thought, I'm going to fuck him.

The party didn't wrap up until almost light. Randall took on his usual task of shepherding out the last of the guests while Ethan went upstairs.

Evelyn had changed into a Japanese silk dressing-gown and was doing the last of her stretches. "Nice party," she said.

"Complete with drama and acts of of derring-do."

She laughed. ""That Ripper guy was trying hard to chat me up later on."

"Well, I may have strongly implied you were very good in bed." He opened the curtains a little because he wanted the light to fall over them as the sun rose.

"That's sweet, Ethan," Evelyn said, "but if I wanted him, I'd take him."

He sat down next to her and took off his sandals.

She pulled her hand through his hair. "Tie it up, this time? It gets ticklish."

8.

Adrienne still wasn't quite asleep when dawn came. She stirred against Ripper, looking sleepy and sated.

"You got on OK, tonight," she asked, "with my friends?"

"They're all right," said Ripper.

"They've got me through a lot," she said.

He got up to piss, and when he came back she seemed to be asleep. He thought he'd look at some of the piles of papers she kept around, but when he picked one up it was all small print and he didn't have his glasses. The light was still too thin for him to read without them.

"Oh no," said Adrienne, from the bed. "Don't read those, not yet."

He put them down, thinking of what he'd seen that night. The record player, which he'd taken a good look at, which wasn't battery-operated at all, and which still ran when unplugged. The fat woman who'd cast the light-show spell. The occult symbols on the walls. He had a feeling that if he'd stood there reciting demon lore, her friends wouldn't have found that odd at all.

"Do you think they'd mind if I stayed a few days?" he asked her. "I've a gig nearby on Thursday and I think my flatmates need some space."

"I could ask. I think so. In fact, I think they'd be rather keen."

He settled back next to her. "Did you say that Dee was going with Tom?" He was sure she'd said so, but then he'd seen Dee tongue-kiss Randall in front of half the crowd.

"Yes," she said. "Look, Ripper, some of my friends have known each other a long time. You'll find it easier if you just assume that everyone's slept with everyone else by now. And if that's not OK with you, then you probably shouldn't stay here."

"You and Dee?" he asked, elbowing her.

"Go to sleep," she said.