Night Sessions, The by Ken MacLeod Page B

with slashed sleeves and a leather waspie, her face powdered pale with black lips and eyelids; the loli all peaches and cream in a tiered knee-length white dress with pink and green rosesprig print and a lot of ruffles and ribbons. Beside him was a matching hat, doll and handbag. He moved them to his lap as Dave approached. Dave had intended to sit beside him anyway, to block any sudden departure, so he took this as reassuring. He distributed the bottles on the table and sat down.
    The loli held out a hand, gloved in white net. “Mikhail Aliyev,” he said.
    “David Warsawski.”
    “The famous Dave Warsaw,” said Aliyev. “I've heard about you on the scene, but this is the first time I've been at one of your gigs.”
    “We'd noticed,” said Dave.
    “Was I really that obvious?”
    “Afraid so,” said Dave. He took a swig. “I gather you've told Jess all about it.”
    “Yeah,” said Aliyev. He poured his beer into a glass and sipped it as if it was tea. “I'm a journalist—well, freelance, a local stringer for Pravda.ru . They've asked me to check out a rumour that the Murphy murder is linked to the dark-siders.”
    By this time, Dave had had enough of a clock on the guy's features to have run a search on Ogle Face. He looked quite different on his bylines without the make-up, but what he'd said checked out. Most of Aliyev's stories, however, seemed to be gossip-column fluff and pop-culture reviews. One or two juicy scandals on his score, though: exposures of Russian construction-company scams down in Leith Water. Aliyev was a tougher cutie than he looked. Dave shook the search results from his head.
    “Wouldn't have figured crime for your beat,” said Dave.
    “Oh, it isn't,” said Aliyev. “But I'm all they've got in Scotland, let alone on the scene. And when something comes up that involves murder, a priest, occultism—well, you know what they're like.”
    “Aye,” said Dave. “I'm well acquainted with that rag, thank you very much. They once had me biting the head off a live chicken. Their only actual evidence was that I was VJ at a Santeria wedding reception, for fuck's sake.”
    “He was seventeen at the time,” said Jessica. “Youthful excess.”
    Dave glared at her.
    “Moving swiftly on…” said Aliyev. “What do you make of the rumour?”
    “Rumour?” said Dave. “If I haven't heard it, it doesn't even rise to that. I think your editors are trolling.”
    “The substance of it,” insisted Aliyev.
    Dave leaned back and took a long swallow, locking stares with Jessica. She was, almost imperceptibly, shaking her head. Dave, just as minutely, nodded back.
    “You can forget about the dark-siders,” he said. “The left-hand path is all mouth, for all that they'll leave out the ‘an it harm none’ from the ‘Do what thou wilt.’ You'll be lucky if you find some self-styled warlock who'll admit to having sacrificed a kitten on a gravestone in his misspent youth.”
    “There's the Neo-Gnostics,” said Jessica.
    “Ah, yes,” said Aliyev.
    “Never heard of them,” said Dave.
    “That's because you spend all your time behind the box,” said Jessica, “while I spend mine at the bar.”
    “Fair enough,” Dave said. He turned to Aliyev. “When it comes to sub-cults, Jessica's the one to ask.”
    “They're not a sub-cult,” Jessica said. “They're an intellectual trend, kind of like a religion. You can't spot them by their clothes or mods or anything like that. They're very cagey about their ideas, too. But from what I know of them, they're perfectly capable of talking themselves into killing a priest. Some of them, anyway.”
    “That's crazy!” said Dave.
    “Nothing's crazy if you don't believe the world is real,” said Jessica.
    Dave finally made the connection. “Oh, that lot!”
    “Yes, that lot.”
    “Spotty physics nerds, most of them.”
    “What lot?” asked Aliyev.
    Jessica leaned forward. “You've heard of Gnostics?”
    Aliyev shook his head.
    “The ancient