After a long stare, King Maxim, slowly asked. ‘What are you, Jonas?’
The boy gave a very natural grin before answering, ‘There are just too many answers to that question, your majesty. I’m not being rude, but I’d rather not give any answer, other than to say what I’m not: I’m not a boy, obviously, and I’m definitely not an elf. I’ve had this conversation with other Elphbergs. The one I liked most was Willi von Strelsau. He turned out to be a good friend. He was a funny man. He could make me laugh. You seem altogether more serious.’
‘Count Wilhelm von Strelsau … the Black Bastard? Good heavens, he died in the 1750s. You knew him?’
‘Yeah. Didn’t like his cousin, King Henry, that much. Not a laugh at all. And King Henry’s daughter, that Osra woman, she was nothing but trouble. Tarlenheims are much more fun than Elphbergs, apart from that blasted wizard.’
‘Count Oskar the Great?’
‘That’s the one. He’s basically the reason I’m here.’
‘Tell me more, Master Jonas.’
‘That man let something evil into the world, and it’s got to the stage where that evil is becoming obvious to all. It’s feeding off the dreadful things the Germans are doing: the slaughter and rape of children, torture and murder on a scale never before known.’
‘What? Are you saying this evil thing is responsible for the Third Reich?’
‘Nah! Course not. Those wicked Nazi people are choosing to do those horrible things all by themselves. But Mammon is feeding off them alright, like a jackal on an abandoned battlefield, and he’s going to try to help them, and he’ll think where better to do that than in Holy Rothenia?
‘Now the thing is this. Mammon has found a way to make things worse for Rothenia, which is what he really wants to do because in the heart of your kingdom is a great treasure, the Icon. While it’s in the world it weakens him terribly, and it’s one reason he’s fled to England. At a distance from the Icon he has more power. So he’s made his home in the head of yet another stupid wizard, a foolish man hungry for real magic.’
‘That would be Aleister Crowley?’
‘Yes, your majesty. It is. Do you know him?’
‘I do, Master Jonas. He was occasionally a socially acceptable figure in the twenties, and we moved in the same circles for a while, that’s how Crowley and Leo met, I believe. He’s been rather quiet of late. He was quite a fan of Hitler for a while in the 1930s and people remember these things. But he’s in London now a lot of the time. He has old friends in naval intelligence circles, particularly Maxwell Knight of MI5. I imagine that’s how he came into contact with your Major Harries. Ah … now I think of it, Maxwell Knight and Eric Kirby were … er … an item as you might say. Another connection in the underworld.’
‘Hmm,’ Jonas mused, catching Hugo’s eye. ‘I rather suspect from these connections that Mammon has his claws sunk deep in Crowley and all his friends.’
‘Good heavens!’ Maxim exclaimed. ‘Then that would mean he has already subverted the British intelligence network.’
‘So Sir Eric Kirby is working for Mammon?’ asked Hugo.
Maxim gave a small laugh. ‘Some might say he always has been. Excuse me. Do pardon my attempt at humour in this very dire situation. What are we to do, Master Jonas?’
The boy shrugged. ‘We need to find Crowley. The trouble is he’s shielded by Mammon, who’s powerful enough now to frustrate my gaze across Creation. I could call down my angels to sweep over your England and find him, but that might take rather more time than we have available. So, your majesty, make a list for me of the places associated with Crowley.’
The king meditated. ‘He has moved around a lot, but I do believe there is a Grand Lodge building of his magical order in Holborn, a former Congregational church.’
‘Hah!’ exclaimed Jonas, ‘A temple! Mammon does love temples. That’s where we need to go. Can we go in a car!’
Maxim smiled at the angelic boy’s enthusiasm. ‘You’ve never been in an automobile?’
‘Dead Boy thinks they’re great. Hugo’s been giving him lessons. Maybe you’ll let Lucacz drive us to London?’
‘Er … what?’ Maxim stuttered.
Hugo caught the hopeful look on the face of his beloved Lucacz, and decided to help. ‘Erm … I would agree that Lucacz should take the wheel, and for this reason. It’ll soon be dark, and car headlights are these days masked as an air raid precaution, making night driving dangerous. But Lucacz is dead and like others of the World Beyond, darkness means nothing to him. He sees at night as well as in the daylight.’
‘Good heavens,’ said Maxim, ‘you’re recommending for my chauffeur a youth born in the seventeenth century?’
‘It makes sense, sir.’
‘A very strange sort! I won’t ask about his insurance cover, Hugo.’
Lucacz mouthed ‘thank you’ and blew a kiss at his lover.
‘Very well, said Maxim, ‘I’ll have the Bentley brought around. We’ll have to be ready to go in half an hour. In the meantime, Hugo and Lucacz, this is the Automobile Association 1939 yearbook. The map section at the back is very helpful, let me just sketch out the route to London for you. Er … Master Jonas, would you like some more up-to-date clothing? The queen still has several boxes of Leo and Pip’s stuff from when they were your size.’
‘Er … thank you, your majesty. I suppose my old gear from when I was in Lord Serge’s household stands out a bit these days. Just like then, I understand I’ve got to blend in and dress in human stuff, itchy and scratchy though it is. Maybe the queen can help me.’
And so a transformed Jonas, in a green sweater over a white school shirt, short khaki trousers secured by a snake belt, long grey socks held up by Boy Scout green garter tabs, and with scuffed brown sandals on his feet met the expedition at the house’s grand entrance. Lucacz was already huddled in the front of the Bentley Mark IV saloon with Hugo, discussing the route and checking the controls.
‘Leo’s old clothing fit Jonas a lot better,’ Queen Helga informed the travel party. ‘And it was much better looked after than Pip’s stuff,’ Jonas added, sniffily. The queen reached down and straightened Jonas’s clothing, then swept the boy up and gave him a kiss. He didn’t seem too bothered, and later explained wearily that women often did that when he was out in the world, starting with Margrit, the cook in Lord Serge’s household, but he got used to it. ‘King Henry’s girlfriend, the countess of Westerborg, and Princess Dodie did the kisses too,’ he giggled. ‘So royal ladies have some sort of weakness for me.’
Jonas settled into the green leather back seat of the big car next to Maxim and stretched luxuriously. ‘Ready boys?’ asked the king of the two young men in the front. Lucacz engaged the gears and pressed the accelerator, and the handsome limousine glided down the drive of Belsager priory, Lucacz intent at the wheel. As they took to the dark Surrey lanes Maxim observed that if Lucacz was looking for employment, he’d be happy to consider him for a night chauffeur’s post.
‘You really do have a gift, young man,’ he said, as the hedges of the narrow country lanes whipped past the windows. The car climbed up on to the Downs, dark under a wide starlit sky. There was no moon that night.
Lucacz might have seemed to be driving hideously and recklessly fast through the darkness, but with his own enhanced senses Hugo realised the boy was in fact keeping quite a moderate pace, a pace indeed appropriate to such narrow lanes in full daylight. It was not that long till they moved down into the Thames Valley and suburban London, and found themselves in the serried streetscape of Surbiton. Hugo efficiently called the directions at the road junctions, and Lucacz was prompt with the indicator lights. They motored through a dark and silent Clapham and crossed the river at the Waterloo Bridge.
Here they encountered a police checkpoint, though King Maxim’s papers got him respectful attention. ‘A quiet night, sir,’ said the sergeant, ‘they don’t come over so often these days, not with them American night fighters patrolling. They say that the last big attempt on the docks lost them most of their planes. But take care, sir, though to be sure there’s not much traffic out at night with most of the theatres closed.’ Somehow it failed to occur to the sergeant to ask to see Lucacz’s driving licence.
At Aldwych Maxim directed them towards Holborn and from there up a side road heading to Bloomsbury. ‘I think it was around here. Ah yes! That’s the building!’
Lucacz pulled up outside the railings of a sombre stone church building, jammed between two large mansion blocks. It had a gabled Gothic façade featuring a double porch and a grand Decorated window of six lights. Lights from within the building dimly hinted at expensive stained glass.
‘Someone’s home,’ Hugo observed. The four got out on to the pavement and surveyed the building. Hugo scrutinised the old church noticeboard, which with his gifts from the World Beyond he found easy enough to read, despite the lack of street lighting. It now announced itself to be THE NATIONAL O.T.O. GRAND LODGE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, with a figured lamen below it, and a further affiliation indicated below it as THE ECCLESIA GNOSTICA CATHOLICA. The name of a Hymen was given and a contact phone number, as well as service times.
As they were standing in the street, a middle aged man approached, bringing with him several children. He stopped, stared at Jonas, raised his hat, and asked courteously whether they too had come for the Initiates group.
‘Why yes,’ said Hugo promptly, ‘My father has brought me and my baby brother, and my friend.’
‘Oh, you’re foreigners, did you belong to the Order at home?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hugo improvised. ‘The Germans have closed our meetings, and many of our masters have … disappeared. A pity as my brother Jonas was quite advanced in the mysteries, and he … er … assisted in the mass.’
‘Really!’ the man seemed impressed. ‘he is a friendly young fellow’ Indeed, Jonas was chattering away to the English kids.
‘Let’s go in,’ said the stranger, and led them through a side gate and along a dark alley to the rear of the church, where they found a two-storey annexe with SCHOOL inscribed above one door.
They found several more children inside, all sitting along a wall, and adults perched on chairs.
A black-robed person was standing at the front of this little assembly. ‘Now children,’ he began, ‘what is our Thelemic rule?’
The children stared back. It was Jonas who answered, ‘Do what you want.’
The man smiled. ‘You’re new, young man. Where did you learn that?’
Jonas beamed. ‘Just picked it up, mister. But I’m still not sure what it means. Does it mean that I can do anything I want, even if my dad or my brother says I can’t?’
A boy next to Jonas, a bit more confident now Jonas had spoken up, put up his hand and said. ‘Yeah. It doesn’t make much sense to me. If I said my will was that I don’t do my homework, I know what would happen at home and at school.’ Several other children murmured agreement.
The man, momentarily disconcerted to have a vocal element in his class, gave a tight smile and responded. ‘It all depends on your will.’
‘What?’ said Jonas and laughed, ‘surely you mean my “won’t”.’
The man shrugged. ‘That’s a clever way of saying it. A good Thelemite boy like you wants to be well-instructed in our Law, so what it is he wills is always right and proper.’
Jonas looked over at Hugo, caught his eye and winked.
The man then took up a notebook and said that today’s topic was the Great Spirits, which, with a nod at Jonas, he said was particularly appropriate for it was one of the Great Spirits who had dictated the Book of Law to the Grand Master. ‘That was the greatest of all spirits, Ai-wass, who appeared to him in 1910 in Cairo.’
Jonas, eyes alight, had to join in at that. ‘So was this Ai-Wass an angel or archangel?’
‘No boy, he was an Ipsissimus, that is, the most fulfilled state of being.’
‘Isn’t that God the Creator?’
The man scoffed, ‘The Dying God? We know better than that, surely. You children are, like all Thelemites, on a journey of discovery. We are climbing a ladder of self-realisation of ourselves, physically, emotionally and sexually, and the Ipsissimus is at the highest heights we can see ahead of us. You must shed such primitive spiritual concepts as angels.’
‘Primitive spiritual concept!’ spat out Jonas, clearly offended.
‘Of course, child. A winged beautiful male fluttering around in a petticoat, how silly. It is an ancient fallacy, older even than the Dying God himself. But if like the Abrahamic peoples you imagine your God to be an ancient monarch on a golden throne, then he has to have soldiers, courtiers and messengers.’
‘And a chief of police,’ growled Jonas.
‘Childishly anthromorphic,’ commented the instructor.
Jonas suddenly grinned. ‘Bet you thought that was a put-down. It wasn’t.’
Disconcerted, the man hesitated and then regrouped. ‘But apart from Ai-wass, greatest among the Great Spirits are the Elementals.’
‘They Ipsissimi too?’ asked the talkative lad, whose name it appeared was Brian.
‘Indeed they are, Brian, though different. For they are the incarnate summit of human virtues.’
‘So, are they good beings?’ chimed in Jonas.
‘Of course. If we were primitives, we might call them gods. And for Thelemites it is not inappropriate to offer them a measure of deference, which you might call worship. Indeed we invoke them at our cardinal initiations. At the end of this class for instance you boys will make offerings to Harpocrates, the being of stillness and strength, and to Mammon, the being of healthful passion who is his point of balance.’
Hugo caught Jonas’s eye, and smiled as the boy asked. ‘And what are these offerings? Why don’t girls make them?’
The instructor struggled a little, and tried to pass on, ‘That will be made clear to you in a later meeting for boys only. The offerings are only such as you won’t miss once given.’
‘Huh?’ Jonas grimaced. ‘I’ve read The Golden Bough, mister. I know what sort of offerings were asked of pubescent boys in the old days by priests of Mammon. Frankly I’d like to keep my balls, seminal fluids, blood supply and major organs.’
A shocked silence ensued, other than Brian’s gasp and tittering. The instructor, face blazing red, turned to Maxim. ‘Are you this child’s father?’
The king gave a tight smile. ‘I’d say I was in loco parentis to Jonas, yes.’
The man scowled. ‘Then may I say the boy has been permitted too much liberty in his reading, and has drunk too deeply of the Pierian spring, for “there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again”.’
Maxim grinned quite as impishly as Jonas. ‘Really sir? For myself I admire the child’s ready wit and his determination to be critical of what he hears from his supposed elders. And is he wrong? What do you have in store for the boys of this class?’
The man’s blush deepened. ‘It’s not appropriate to discuss the arcana here without the Grand Master to provide explanation.’
Jonas blazed with delight. ‘He gets us boys naked and asks us to kiss and to suck and wank each others’ little hard cocks and play with our bumholes till we cum … oh, and he likes to help. He’s already touched up Brian’s willie. That what you mean by preparation, mister?’
‘This is too much!’ The man yelled, ‘Class over!’ and stormed out, his robe fluttering behind him.
Hugo caught Lucacz’s eyes, and shrugged. In the meantime the several parents present were muttering together, while Jonas was talking close up to the boy, Brian, who was occasionally sniggering. Jonas called over to Maxim, ‘Dad! Can I go play with Brian? He only lives round the corner and he’s gonna let me ride his bike. I’ll get back home on my own.’
Maxim gave his ‘consent’ and the two boys went off, arms round shoulders. He sidled over to Hugo and Lucacz. ‘It seems to me, gentlemen, that we may have upset Mammon’s plans for the youth of London, at least temporarily. And in the meantime Jonas has had a lot of fun.’
Lucacz laughed. ‘He always has fun. He’s very much a boy’s boy. You wonder why he’s so keen on the idea of growing up.’
The king shook his head slowly. ‘Gentlemen, thank you for one of the strangest and most revelatory evenings of my existence. I have always been aware of a life beyond the one we see, but to spend this evening with a … please excuse me, Lucacz … dead boy and what seems very like one of God’s great archangels, in pursuit of a demon of corruption, this is something far beyond my experience.’
‘The night is yet young, sir,’ grinned Hugo. ‘Me and my dead boy want to carry on hunting demons.’
‘Ah … and how do you propose to do that, young Hugo?’
‘Well, the thing is sir, Martin Tofts told me about a bath house in Jermyn Street, which is where our sort of thing happens. It’s not far away. Me and my Lucacz found it on your AA maps, and we think there’s a good chance that Sir Eric, Crowley and their set will be there, and if they are, so will be Mammon.’
‘Take care, boys.’
***
Lucacz observed that it was as well they hadn’t brought the Bentley, ‘It’s a big car and these are narrow streets.’ He looked around. ‘A bit like the Wejg in some ways. So that’s No. 92?’ Do we just go in?’
‘The Savoy Turkish Baths. Will you be alright in a hot bathhouse, Dead Boy? You won’t … er …. decompose on me, will you?’
Lucacz just laughed. ‘This isn’t that sort of body, as you should be well aware, since you’ve been inside it often enough. A bath house, eh? One thing I’m not sure of is whether it’ll float like a human one. We’ll find out.’
Through the heavy doors was a tiled entry, where a clerk with a cash box awaited them. Other doors led inwards. ‘Good evening gentlemen, have you been here before?’ he asked. On their negative response, he smiled. ‘Not Americans for a change. You must be from among our European allies.’
He directed them through the further doors to the changing lockers, and failed to ask them for any entry fee. Lucacz winked as they entered. Having hung their clothes, they took thick and fluffy white towels and wrapped them around themselves. ‘Oddly enough,’ Hugo remarked, ‘I could really do with a bath.’
They followed their noses through a pair of swing doors, to find themselves in a big tiled hall with a timber beam roof far above. Partitions and palm fronds divided it up into sections, featuring wicker divans and chairs. Hugo found a vacant booth and took a divan, with Lucacz snuggling up to him. ‘People will look!’ Hugo hissed.
‘Isn’t that the idea?’ was the reply, as Lucacz dropped his towel and pulled off Hugo’s. Passing men gave them a stare, and eventually one slipped in and joined them. He was a middle-aged man, well-tanned.
‘Hi guys!’ he said. ‘You’re a handsome pair of kids. You like fun?’
‘Er, yes sir. What is this fun thing you have in mind?’ Lucacz inquired politely.
‘Great! Whatever you like, but I like to watch. Wanna fuck for me?’
‘Er … here?’ Hugo asked.
‘Nah, nah. This ain’t New York. This old British place has its traditions. Out here you should wear towels. Naked fucking goes on in the Russian bath, where the steam gives some decorous screening.’
Hugo smiled. ‘Lucacz! It’s your lucky day. I believe this gentleman is an American.’
The dead boy grinned fit to bust. ‘Is that so, sir?’
‘Why sure! That’s not so unusual these days in London. Say, where you guys from? You don’t seem like Brits to me. You Polish or Czech?’
‘No sir. Rothenians,’ Hugo provided.
The man stood back, gave a low whistle and gave the two boys a close look over. ‘Prosim. Dijs velme ist pozorokhodne!’ he said. ‘I’m not just American, I’m Rothenian-American. Marek Marcovic, Captain OSS.’
‘Marcovic!’ But that’s my name!’ yelped Lucacz.
‘My people live in Wisconsin, but we came over from Husbrau in the 1840s.’
‘Don’t tell me from Terlenehem!’
‘So my grandad told me.’
‘Well … three kinds of fuck,’ said Lucacz, shaking his head. ‘I thought I was the last Markovic. You still want to watch me and my Hugo fuck?’
‘It adds something,’ smiled the American.
‘No charge for relatives!’ Lucacz made clear. ‘Cum is thicker than water.’
‘Son, I’m sure gonna take my turn up your ass. I wouldn’t normally, you don’t know what you can pick up in these sorts of places, but you are special. Come this way boys. Oh, and towels on until we get into the steam room.’
Posted 18 January 2025