"You weren't always like this," said Pretty Poison. "So . .. cynical."
And as she and Walker continued to talk in the Willow
Tree tea room, she worked a change in the vision the rest of us were watching, to show us the Past.
Information came subtly to us, along with the new sights, seeping painlessly into our thoughts. We all knew at once that the year was 1967, and that the three young men walking down the Nightside street together, talking and laughing and shoving at each other in sheer good spirits, were Henry Walker and Charles Taylor and Mark Robinson. I recognised Walker first, because his face hadn't changed that much, but his clothes actually startled me. It seemed that back in his younger days, Henry Walker had been a hell of a dandy and a dedicated follower of fashion. He strode along like a slender peacock, outfitted in dazzlingly bright colours, the best the King's Road had to offer, complete with narrow oblong sunglasses and a great mane of wavy dark hair. He looked like a young god, too perfect for this material world.
Mark Robinson, who would one day know both fame and infamy as the Collector, was also easy to spot, if only because he was clearly an Elvis fanatic even then. He had that whole young Elvis thing down pat, even to the greasy black quiff and the practised curl of the upper lip. His black leather jacket had far too many zips and chains, and rattled loudly as he walked. He was never still, packed full of nervous energy, and was always that little bit ahead or behind the other two, talking sixteen to the dozen and bouncing up and down on his feet. His laughter came free and easy, from sheer joi de vivre. He had plans and ambitions, and thought he had his whole future mapped out.
It took me rather longer to recognise Charles Taylor. My father. I had no photos of him. He threw everything out, or burned it, after my mother left. In the vision, he was younger than I was, and he didn't look much like me. He didn't look at all like I expected. Unlike his colourful friends, he wore a smart dark three-piece suit and a tie, short-haired and clean-shaven. He could have been just another anonymous executive, toiling in the big city. But what surprised me most of all was how free and easy he looked, how happy in the company of his friends. That was why I had so much trouble recognising him. Because I'd never seen my father happy before.
It was 1967, a time of change in the Nightside, just like everywhere else. They were three young men on the way up, men with great futures before them. They were going to change the world.
They finally entered that most fashionable meeting place, the Hawk's Wind Bar & Grill. I'd never seen the original place. It burned down (some said self-immolation) in 1970, and now existed as a ghost of itself. A haunted building, with real people as its customers. In the vision it looked much the same, though. A glorious monument to the psychedelic glories of the sixties, complete with rococo Day-Glo neon and Pop-Art posters with colours so bright they practically mugged the eyeballs. Even at a distance, I thought I could still smell the usual aroma of coffee, joss sticks, dodgy cigarettes, and patchouli oil. The Go-Go checked jukebox played all the latest sounds, and the Formica-covered tables were surrounded by all the familiar faces of the period, from the enigmatic Orlando to the Travelling Doctor and his latest companions. Walker and Robinson and Taylor smiled and waved easily to one and all as they entered, but no-one paid them much attention. They weren't important people, then, these three. The man who would run the Nightside, the man who would collect it, and the man who would damn it.
Henry, Mark, and Charles commandeered the last remaining table in the far corner, ordered various kinds of coffee from the gum-chewing, white-plastic-clad waitress, then poured over the latest issue of OZ magazine, the special Nightside issue. Charles had just picked up his copy, and Mark grabbed it from him, to check if they'd printed his letter about Elvis being the real shooter of JFK. Walker had already read the issue, of course. He was always the first at everything.
We all listened as the three young men talked. It seemed they were impatient, for all their good humour. Their inevitable bright future seemed unfairly far off. They were being held back, by entrenched interests and people who weren't interested in trying anything new—anything that hadn't been around for decades, and preferably centuries. Fashion was one thing, sin always thrived on the very latest fashions; but no-one at the top wanted to know about institutional change. These three young men were determined to seize power and influence, if necessary, so that they could force through necessary changes. For the greater good of all, of course. They wanted to usher in the Age of Aquarius, and the mind's true liberation. Everyone young was a dreamer and an idealist in 1967.
When they'd finished with the magazine, it was time for show-and-tell. Mark was a collector even back then, and had got his hands on something special. He took it out of his shoulder bag, looking quickly about to make sure no-one was watching, then laid his find reverentially on the table before them. Henry and Charles looked dubiously at the cardboard box full of tatty, handwritten pages.
"All right," said Walker. "What is it this time? And it had better not be about Roswell again. I am sick to death of Roswell. If anything had really happened there, we'd know about it by now."
"You just wait," Mark said darkly. "I'll get you proof yet. I know someone who knows someone who claims one guy actually filmed the autopsy on the aliens... Of course, this is the same man who claims we'll be landing men on the moon in two years, so ..."
"What have you found, Mark?" Charles said patiently. "And what good does it do us?"
"Is it something we can blackmail people with?" Walker said wistfully. "I've always wanted to be able to blackmail someone."
Mark grinned wolfishly, one hand pressed possessively on the pile of papers, as though afraid someone might sneak up and steal them. "This, my friends, is the real thing. The mother lode. An unpublished manuscript by the one and only Aleister Crowley—the Magus, the Great Beast, the Most Evil Man in the World. If you believe the newspapers, which mostly I don't. But Crowley was the real thing, for a time at least, and there have always been those who said his best, or more properly his worst, stuff was never published. This manuscript was apparently put on the market some years back, when Crowley was desperately short of money, but no-one was interested. He was out of favour among the conjuring classes, and the papers were bored with him. Eventually a copy of this manuscript turned up at the International limes, and a sub-editor there passed it on to me, in return for a complete set of Mars Attacks! cards. Unlike most of the fools whose hands the manuscript passed through, I actually read it from end to end, and I am here to tell you, my friends ... this is the answer to all our prayers. A direct means to our much desired end."
"God, you love the sound of your own voice, " said Henry. "What is it, Mark? Not just another grimoire, I hope."
Mark was still grinning widely. "One chapter in this manuscript describes a particularly powerful spell, or Working, that Crowley began but never dared finish. And let us not forget, Crowley dared a lot. He started the Working, to summon and bind to his will a most powerful Being, but abandoned the ritual after catching a glimpse of just what it was he was attempting to summon. Beautiful, terrible, he wrote ... and that was all. He ran away from his splendid home on the bank of a Scottish loch, and never returned."
"Hold everything," said Charles. "We're supposed to attempt something that was too scary and too dangerous for Aleister Crowleyl Called by many, not least himself, the Most Evil Man in the World?"