Timekeepers: Number 2 in Series Read Free Page B

get red hot. He then placed one of the Coke cans inside the box of talcum powder.

    Sam opened the whisky bottle, on the inside of which he traced another ignition ward, this time leaving the end of the ward untied. Concentrating hard, to keep the ward from firing spontaneously, he picked up the ball of string and wrapped the end of the ward round the end of the string. He was careful to keep the string in contact with the bottle, and thus not damage the ward as he tied it round the mouth of the bottle and screwed the lid back on. He then wrote ‘Do not touch, signed Lucifer’ on a piece of paper and tied that down to the bottle with the same piece of string. The bottles of beer he emptied on to the grass and replaced the tops.

    His miniature magical arsenal prepared, he walked towards Marble Arch. Beyond Hyde Park, and several streets of expensive hotels, he found a petrol station and went over to a pump. He didn’t bother with a properly thick illusion but simply stood at the pump, unconcernedly pouring petrol into the beer bottles and soaking the J-cloths as well. People passed him by without a glance. When anyone did look his way, all they saw was a man standing by a pump: Sam was very careful to make sure of that. Sure, the nearby CCTV cameras wouldn’t be deceived by the tiny tendrils of thought he was manipulating; but they were the least of his worries. Screwing the lid back on the last bottle, he walked away stinking of petrol and feeling satisfied. He’d studied arson at the feet of masters. And just because he usually found magical means more efficient, it didn’t mean he hadn’t listened.

    Sam made his way beyond Bond Street and its grand antique shops, and crossed Regent Street into the byways of Soho with their bizarre mixture of Georgian architecture, clubs, offices and prostitutes. It was beginning to get dark, which was good; he liked darkness, especially when forced to call attention to himself.

    The streets grew narrower. Some were heaving with young fashionables in black, others were all but deserted. On one a lady clad in leather asked him if he wanted to come inside – ‘Looking for business, love?’ – on another a drunk in a soiled anorak told him he was the devil in disguise, and an inferior one at that.

    Reaching Soho Square he looked at his watch, which he kept perpetually on GMT no matter what plane he was on. Ten to nine. A good time, neither busy with office workers struggling to commute home nor with clubbers thronging back out on the streets. The gates to the square were locked, so he dropped his bags on the other side and climbed over the railings. He’d chosen this place, a small haven of green in a maze of shops and office blocks, for the particular reason that it was where two Ways, of Heaven and Hell alike, formed Portals that opened on to Earth.

    Sam went over to an area of grass beneath a flowering cherry tree, its pink blooms unappreciated in the dark by all but the most sensitive of beings. There he collected four sticks and stuck them into the ground at intervals around him. Having positioned the whisky bottle behind his back and towards the Hell Portal, he trailed its string towards the sticks, winding it round each one a little above the ground. He then placed the box of talcum powder in front of him and towards the Heaven Portal, careful to judge the range of any potential explosion. To be doubly sure of his weaponry, he also lined up five of the Molotov cocktails of petrol and foul-smelling rag within reach along with seven of the Coke cans.

    He then took out the tubes of toothpaste. These were in two colours, unattractive red and sickening green, and smelt so disgusting they had to be good for you. He drew a long green circle of toothpaste around him, tying it off at the end in a traditional ward pattern. Wards were always stronger when they had an artificial line to follow, but it was up to the practitioner to decide which material to use to write the line. Sam