“We’re not an assassination squad.”
“We have the finance to hire one,” Shales pointed out. “And the friends to cover the evidence if need be. As I see it, we have one responsibility: to prevent, at all costs, another attempt at Reconciliation. That’s what we were born to do.”
He spoke with a total lack of melodrama, as though he were reciting a shopping list. His detachment impressed the room. So did the last sentiment, however blandly it was presented. Who could fail to be stirred by the thought of such purpose, reaching back over generations to the men who had gathered on this spot two centuries before? A few bloodied survivors, swearing that they, and their children, and their children’s children, and so on until the end of the world would live and die with one ambition burning in their hearts: the prevention of another such apocalypse.
At this juncture McGann suggested a vote, and one was taken. There were no dissenting voices. The Society was agreed that the way forward lay in a comprehensive purge of all elements—innocent or not—who might presently be tampering, or tempted to tamper, with rituals intended to gain access to so-called Reconciled Dominions. All conventional religious structures would be excluded from this sanction, as they were utterly ineffectual and presented a useful distraction for some souls who might have been tempted towards esoteric practices. The shams and the profiteers would also be passed over. The pier-end palmists and fake psychics, the spiritualists who wrote new concertos for dead composers and sonnets for poets long since dust—all these would be left untouched. Only those who stood a chance of tripping over something Jmajical, and acting upon it, would be rooted out. It would be an extensive and sometimes brutal business, but the Society was the equal of the challenge. This was not the first purge it had masterminded (though it would be the first of this scale); the structure was in place for an invisible but comprehensive cleansing. The cults would be the prime targets: their acolytes would be dispersed, their leaders bought off or incarcerated. It had happened before that England had been sluiced clean of every significant esoteric and thaumatur-gist. Now it would happen again.
“Is the business of the day concluded?” Oscar asked. “Only Mass calls me.”
“What’s to be done with the body?” Alice Tyrwhitt asked.
Godolphin had his answer ready and waiting. “It’s my mess and I’ll clear it up,” he said, with due humility. “I can arrange to have it buried in a motorway tonight, unless anybody has a better idea?”
There were no objections.
“Just as long as it’s out of here,” Alice said.
“I’ll need some help to wrap it up and get it down to the car. Bloxham, would you oblige?”
Reluctant to refuse, Bloxham went in search of something to contain the carcass.
“I see no reason for us to sit and watch,” Charlotte said, rising from her seat. “If that’s the night’s business, I’m going home.”
As she headed to the door, Oscar took his cue to sow one last triumphant mischief.
“I suppose we’ll be all thinking the same thing tonight,” he said.
“What’s that?” Lionel asked.
“Oh, just that if these things are as good at imitation as they appear to be, then we can’t entirely trust each other from now on. I’m assuming we’re all still human at the moment, but who knows what Christmas will bring?”
Half an hour later, Oscar was ready to depart for Mass. For all his earlier squeamishness, Bloxham had done well, returning Dowd’s guts into the bowl of the carcass and mummifying the whole sorry slab in plastic and tape. He and Oscar had then lugged the corpse to the lift and, at the bottom, out of the tower to the car. It was a fine night, the moon a virtuous sliver in a sky rife with stars. As ever, Oscar took beauty where he could find it and, before setting off, halted to admire the spectacle.
“Isn’t it stupendous, Giles?”
“It is indeed!” Bloxham replied. “It makes my head spin.”
“All those worlds.”
“Don’t worry,” Bloxham replied. “We’ll make sure it never happens.”
Confounded by this reply, Oscar looked across at the other man, to see that he wasn’t looking at the stars at all but was still busying himself with the body. It was the thought of the coming purge he found stupendous,