The Black Museum

Chapter 1

Millennium Eve, 1999, London. The silence was deafening. The whole city seemed to be holding its breath. The cars, normally so loud and aggressive, were mute, impotent and stationary. Their bright, yellow eyes were shut tight, and their engines were dead to the world. London’s low-level hum and sky roar had been turned down. Fewer planes criss-crossed the sky above, and the all-day chorus of alarms and horns had been paused, just for tonight.

The only road users out in number were the delivery cyclists with their big green boxes packed with hot Indian takeaways and rapidly-cooling pizzas. Keeping the riders company were horny tomcats looking for love, and urban foxes looking for half-eaten hamburgers.

The pubs were packed to the rafters with people desperate to see the new century in. Inside, sweat dribbled down the windows like reversed rain, and air-conditioning units struggled to cope. Loud music was playing, but hardly anyone was listening.

Images of the world’s other big cities were being looped on giant flat-screen televisions on walls. Hopeful punters strained every sinew in their necks in order to try to catch the eyes of the bar-folk. Everyone was desperate to get a round in before Big Ben started to welcome in another year with its booming chimes and spiky coat of fireworks.

Behind the bar in every single one of these smelly public houses, the glass-washing machines were doing overtime, belching small clouds of hot steam into the faces of the harassed barmen and women that fed them again and again and again. Tall glasses, shot glasses, cocktail glasses and pint pots went in dirty and came out clean and hot, turning ice-cold lager into warm yellow stuff within seconds.

The floors were already starting to get sticky with spilt beer and warm wine, and chewing gum and squashed cherries from rubbish mocktails were rapidly multiplying under-foot. Five-pound notes, and sad, never to be used condoms peppered the spaces underneath the small, round wooden tables that heaved under the weight of drinks that would never be drunk and the elbows of boys and girls that would regret everything the following morning.

Forget the carpet cleaning cost, the plasma screen repair bill, and the ticking off from the local police force for public order offences in your pub. And you can stuff Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and any other public holiday for that matter. New Year’s Eve is where a publican’s real money is made.

Customers had already started making best friends with complete strangers. Any other night of the year they’d have been giving each other the ‘London look’. The ‘don’t talk to me, I don’t want to know you’ look.

But tonight, they were giving it a rest, because tonight was a special night. It was nearly time to join hands and celebrate. This was the big one. This wasn’t just the end of the year, this was the end of an era. In 23 minutes precisely, the skyline would turn red, white and blue with fireworks, and the city would erupt with hollow, forced cheers, and plastic goodwill.

Policemen had been told to turn two blind eyes to the punchy little boys who couldn’t handle their ale and were busy creating hot steamy rivers of urine in the alleyways and on street corners. They had also been advised to pose for as many ‘selfies’ as they could. It had not been a great year for public relations, so the Superintendent’s instruction to “Be Nice” was being followed to the letter, although the cells would fill up at exactly the same rate regardless. But in the heavens at least, the skyline was still undisturbed, and with 15 minutes to go no premature ejaculations of light could be seen, while the great river beneath it looked like it was full of submerged pearls.

At the heart of the city stands St. Paul’s Cathedral, no longer the tallest building in the city of London itself, but by far the most iconic.

At the top of this architectural homage to St. Peter by Sir Christopher Wren, is a small tempietto.

tempietto.It’s an odd little room, or rather structure, being square rather than circular, and sitting incongruously on top of the ‘Golden Gallery’ right at the very top of the main dome.

The tempietto doesn’t get many visitors at all, because it is practically impossible to gain entry to it. One of the official guides that takes the tourists around the building tells the same joke every day.

“We had a guest from Tibet, last week – one of those Sherpa fellas. He needed to be airlifted down, that’s how high it is. Anyone feel like a challenge today? No? Don’t blame you; the view’s better from the London Eye, and it does all the work!

“Moving on, ladies and gentlemen, let me show you the rest of the cathedral…”

Tonight, though, it has visitors that have made the climb easily. These men have not come to see the architecture, or to view the fireworks. Their intentions are far more sinister.

The two figures that stand at the centre of the small, dark room have a different series of explosions in mind. Both men are wearing black robes that swish on the floor as they move around. Short puffs of breath escape from their hoods at regular intervals as they prepare the room; this vantage point may have views, but it lacks heating, or double-glazed windows. Strange symbols are embroidered on the arms of their robes, and when the symbols catch the moonlight, the silver thread strobes for a second.

There are now 10 minutes to go.

One of the men checks his watch and begins to write four names on the floor, in chalk. Then he takes out four black and white photographs, each of which shows a child wearing the uniform of the Hitler Youth movement. He places each one on top of the corresponding chalked name.

The other man, who is considerably shorter, takes a metal rod from within the folds of his robe. The rod is approximately one metre in length and 30 millimetres in diameter. When the rod catches the light, it gives off a cold, cruel, silver glow.

Etched into the metal are four names, repeating over and over again up and down its length in a spiral of mathematical precision. The man lays the rod down on the floor at his feet and steps away from it, carefully. The rod twitches uncontrollably, like a patient in a psychiatric ward waiting for the squeak of the medication trolley.

Both of the men then throw back the hoods of their robes, and take up position on opposite sides of the room, facing each other. They are careful not to move the photographs, or touch the silver rod. The spell that they begin to cast is not welcome in this holy place, and the building fights back. The air crackles ominously, and the taller man looks nervously down at the rod and the photographs on the floor.

“Something is missing,” he says.

“You are right. This is missing,” says the small man.

He produces a shiny, well-oiled, silver, Luger pistol, and calmly shoots the other man in the face. Blood sprays out of the hole that’s left behind, and what remains of the man crumples to the floor. A tiny droplet flies across the room and spatters onto the handle of the pistol. The red spot disrupts the symmetry of the red, black and white flag with the swastika on it. The little man lifts the weapon to his mouth and licks the blood off with relish.

“Powerful magic needs complete faith and a powerful show of force to give it life. That, my friend, was why you were brought along. Your power was needed to break the defences of the building. You have earned your place now, may your passing be swift.”

The silver rod on the ground begins to hum and glow even brighter; the human sacrifice has given it life.

The little man passes his hand over the rod, then points upwards toward the ceiling.

The rod begins to float, then turn in the air. It moves through 180 degrees, giving the impression of the minute hand on an invisible clock, rotating its way to 12.

Then, it starts to glide upwards. It touches the ceiling, then passes slowly through the plaster like a hot needle through a slab of butter before disappearing entirely. It comes to rest one metre later, having found its resting place inside the golden cross that points straight up at the heavens, atop the dome of St. Paul’s. Then, like a living missile, it goes to sleep, ready to play its part in a magical blitz.

There are now two minutes to go.

Then there are two seconds.

And then the sky burns with millions of pounds of pyrotechnic fire and light, and all the people cheer. They are unaware that a magical lightning conductor has been hidden in the city they love, just waiting to channel the hellfire and hatred of a beaten race of self-proclaimed super-humans.

The tempietto inside St. Paul’s is empty now; all of the photographs have been collected, the chalk has been brushed away, and the body of the man has disappeared. The little man has left the Golden Gallery and taken a seat opposite the Apse and High Altar on the ground floor.

The bells of London start to clash, and their collective boom makes the world shake.

Stranghold – for that is the small man’s real name – crosses one leg over the other, and sits back. A smile creeps onto his face; it looks unnatural there. He has hidden his robe where no one will ever find it, and has changed back into his favourite suit.

A fleck of dust floats down from the ceiling and rests on his thigh; it spoils the symmetry of his pressed woollen trousers, so he flicks at it and watches approvingly as it floats away.

The Millennium is here at last, and all of the magical rods are in place. When we have the book and the children are finally ready, we will light up the sky once more with such power that this city will be scratched from the pages of history like the scab it is. The death toll will make the Blitz seem like the pop of a champagne cork!

The Millennium is here at last, and all of the magical rods are in place. When we have the book and the children are finally ready, we will light up the sky once more with such power that this city will be scratched from the pages of history like the scab it is. The death toll will make the Blitz seem like the pop of a champagne cork!High above in the dome, a bell sounded again. Before the sound had faded, the little man was gone.