The Daemon Device

by Jeri Westerson

  Exhausted, he moved to a chair and flopped into it. “Well, Spense, we are alone at last. And I can finally introduce you to one of my unusual friends.” Glancing at the coal stove, he decided to get it lit and spend the night here. He was too tired to travel and too tired to eat much. Perhaps there were some digestives still in the jar he kept near the stove.

  “Despenser Thacker, meet Raj…the mechanical man.” He gestured toward the automaton.

  Thacker glided toward him. Sometimes when the ghost moved, he seemed to forget to move his legs and they morphed into a sort of tail. Leopold supposed ghosts didn’t really need feet or legs.

  Thacker studied the automaton with a low whistle. “Blimey. It’s a machine.”

  “A machine that is much more than a machine. It’s all right, Raj. You can move and speak. Thacker is my very dear friend. And as you can see, he is in a different state now. Or…perhaps you can’t see him. I just assumed you could. He’s a ghost, I’m afraid.”

  “Pull the other one, Leo. That machine ain’t gonna come to life.”

  “I assure you he will. Come, Raj. There is much to tell you. But first, you can at last tell me what the devil occurred here.” He added kindling to the stove. “Raj? Don’t make me wait. Was it Waldhar’s men?” He took a matchbox from his waistcoat pocket and lit the kindling, getting a small fire going. He checked the scuttle and found enough coal there. “Raj, don’t be angry with me.”

  He turned to examine his friend, for even though he could not change his facial expressions, he seemed to be able to convey his emotions through the cast of his eyes or the tones of his mechanical voice.

  But Raj remained frozen.

  “The Professor is gone, old friend. No one else is here but Spense.” He looked around, scanning, just to make certain. There were no more crates, at any rate, to hide a man, and the arched ceiling and walls concealed nothing.

  Thacker was beginning to get that skeptical look again.

  “Raj?” A stab of fear radiated its heat throughout his chest and he stepped quickly up to his friend, touching his shoulder. “Raj?” The automaton did not move. But he had before! He had winked at Leopold, telling him in the only way he could that he was all right. Hadn’t he?

  “Raj!” He cast up the boiled shirt and stared at the interior of Raj’s torso beneath the delicate brass ribcage. But the expected glow from the gases in their crystal vials that breathed life within him were extinguished, cold, and still.

  Chapter Sixteen

  LEOPOLD SPENT THE better part of the night trying to get Raj to work again. The absence of hissed air through his many tubes and pistons filled him with dread. Finally, when his shelf clock struck three, he sat back on his haunches and stared at the silent automaton. “I can’t fix you,” he said, disbelief rife in his voice. “I don’t understand it. Nothing is broken. And the gases are present, but they don’t glow. I never knew what made them glow in the first place.”

  “This bloke really does speak, then?”

  He was startled though he shouldn’t have been. But he had been so concentrated on his work that he had forgotten about Thacker, even though he had remained a glow in the corner of his eye.

  “Yes. And think and feel.”

  “Where is God’s name did you find him?”

  “He found me. He talks in no one else’s presence. I found him in an old secondhand shop. He was dusty and shopworn but there was something about him as I walked by and I stopped to look. When he spoke at first I thought the proprietor was having me on. But then…I could tell that that wasn’t the case.”

  Hours ago he had rolled up his sleeves to work and now he looked down at his naked arm, at the All-Seeing Eye glaring back at him. Raj’s repair was beyond his capacity. He needed help.

  “Listen, Spense. I’m about to do something that might startle or terrify you. Please be aware that I am in full control.”

  “Eh? What are you going to do?”

  He reached into his waistcoat and retrieved a small switchblade. He pushed in the button, releasing the sharp knife blade with a snap. Before he could talk himself out of it, he swiped the blade across his arm. The unexpectedly sharp pain made him gasp as the blood welled up and dripped upon the floor.

  “Jesus, Leo! Christ! What have you done?” Thacker lurched to grab his arm but his hands went through it. In a panic, he flew around the mews like a balloon releasing its air.

  “Perfectly controlled,” said Leopold between clenched teeth. And then he chanted. “Titgale befanai shed afel, Eurynomos!”

  The pool of blood lurched, rippled, and then grew, first spreading across the floor and then rising up like a bubble of lava.

  Leopold was glad he was already on the floor. His head was light from fatigue and lack of food and now the loss of blood. He pressed the fingers of his other hand to the wound, but the blood oozed over them. He fell forward on the elbow of the sliced arm and watched as the daemon rose out of the blood.

  “Leopold, old man.” And then the daemon noticed his distress. He rushed forward, the blood having disappeared from the floor. He grabbed Leopold’s wrist and the slice instantly healed. Eurynomos closed his eyes and licked his lips in ecstasy before slowly releasing him.

  “The greater my pain the sweeter it tastes, eh?”

  The daemon opened his eyes and with a sadness there he nodded. “I am afraid so. It is how these things work, old man.”

  “What is that?” screeched Thacker.

  The daemon turned his huge head and let out a squeak. “Gods! A ghost!”

  Thacker fell back, blinking. They both regarded one another with wide eyes.

  “I could use some brandy,” muttered Leopold. “Eurynomos, meet my good friend Inspector Despenser Thacker. He’s been murdered, I’m afraid. And Eurynomos is an old friend from long ago. And he’s a sort of daemon chappy.”

  “Leo,” said Thacker, his hat now pushed nearly to the back of his head. “Old sod, you know the damnedest people.”

  The daemon seemed to have calmed and smiled. “Likewise, I’m sure.”

  “I could still use some brandy.”

  “Good grief, where are my manners,” said the daemon. “Have you any here? You look pale as death. Never mind. I’ll conjure it.” And no sooner had he said it than it was in his hand, a crystal decanter and glasses. Eurynomos poured from the delicate crystal into the three dainty glasses with his enormous scaly hands. He handed a glass to Leopold, who took it gratefully and knocked it back.

  Eurynomos tsked. “Is that any way to treat Napoleon brandy? That’s from Napoleon’s own stock, by the way.”

  “I never know when you are jesting with me.”

  “I assure you I am not.” Eurynomos extended the second glass to Thacker, who licked his lips in anticipation, but though the phantom tried to grasp it, he couldn’t and it fell through his transparent fingers and exploded into shards on the floor.

  “Oh, sorry, old man,” said Eurynomos. “I’m afraid I know nothing of ghosts.”

  “I ain’t too clear on the matter m’self,” said Thacker sadly, looking forlornly at the spilled spirits on the floor.

  Leopold poured himself a second glass and sipped it with relief.

  “It’s late, Leopold. Why have you summoned me?” But when he cast his glance at Raj he too gasped. “What’s happened?”

  “Someone has switched him off. I have no other explanation.” And he described how the lockup had been turned over and the plans stolen.

  He didn’t know if he had ever seen Eurynomos as angry. His elegant horns began to smolder. “Who has done this?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly Waldhar’s men. But that ‘special inspector.’ I don’t much trust her either. She knows far too much about me, about all—” He gestured loosely toward the room. “This.”

  “Perhaps I should look into this Mingli Zhao.”

  “That would be helpful, Eurynomos.” The daemon reached down and helped Leopold to his feet.

  “And why is your frien
d haunting you?”

  “He’s not haunting me…are you?”

  “No! I just…that Chinky slag brought me here. I don’t know where I was before that. Better that I don’t, likely.”

  “So you’re here to help Leo? Oh, he does need it. You are most welcome.”

  Thacker saluted uncertainly, studying the daemon from head to foot. His dark expression seemed to indicate that he was putting two and two together about Leopold’s trouble at the theatre.

  “What of Raj?” Leopold pleaded. “Can you help him?”

  Eurynomos shook his head. “Raj is made from the magic of Old Ones. I do not know the source of its power, nor how to repeat it.”

  Leopold sagged. “Then…he is…he is…”

  “He is sleeping for now,” said the daemon, and he rested a taloned hand on the shoulder of the automaton. “Rest, old friend. And if you dream, dream of the future.” He cast a glance at Leopold. “When was the last time you ate, Leo?”

  “I don’t know. But I must now get this Lock created. I saw the wretched device, Eurynomos. I must stop it.”

  Eurynomos walked to the tables and looked over the plans. “I don’t know, Leopold. This appears to be quite dangerous.”

  “What choice do I have?”

  The daemon studied it quietly for some time before moving away from it, picking up various odds and ends on shelves and from the broken crates.

  He had never seen Eurynomos like this. First anger then distraction.

  “What…what is it you are thinking about, Eurynomos? You seem preoccupied.”

  “Hmm? Oh, it’s nothing.”

  “Is it?”

  Those yellow eyes focused on Leopold and stared. If Leopold weren’t careful, he’d fall into those mesmerizing eyes and never recover. He knew it well, but he was tired. So tired. He felt himself falling and then, with all his strength, he pulled away. The sensation was unpleasant but he owed it to the strangeness of daemons. They had their own way about them, to be sure.

  “I don’t like it. This Lock. I don’t think you should pursue it, Leopold.”

  He dragged himself to the table and leaned against it, looking down at the confusing scrawls and notes. Thacker glided forward and leaned over the table too. He tried to brace his hands on it but they just went through. Swearing, he straightened and merely hovered.

  Leopold had the metal parts on hand, the machining tools. Von Spiegel said he would bring the glass cylinder needed to make the thing function, but it was Leopold who would have to perform the incantations to fill it with magical vapors, his magical signature. Was he truly capable?

  Looking over the notes, he wasn’t entirely sure what the incantations said. They were a mixture of Latin, medieval French, and R'lyehian, none of which he spoke with any fluency.

  “It must be done, Eurynomos. I must stop that Daemon Device.”

  The beast frowned. “This Lock. It holds great power. Perhaps too much power. Once it locks the gateway, then what will be done with it?”

  “Well, I…I don’t know.”

  “Will the Lock be yours then, Leopold? Will you wield the Lock?”

  “Wield the Lock? What’s gotten into you? I am building it to stop a madman from destroying the world.”

  “The world you know. It may little affect mine.”

  “But that’s what we’re talking about! Saving my world. Eurynomos, don’t you want to save my world?”

  The daemon hesitated. Maybe it was the late hour or the levels of exhaustion lashing at Leopold’s senses, but he didn’t like what his old friend seemed to be insinuating. “Do you think I am incapable of controlling it? Or surrendering it once it has done its job? Do you think I would be emperor of the Universes?”

  Eurynomos turned to him. The great shadow of his horned head loomed against the wall. “You would not be the first. Nor the last.”

  “I am not any of that!” He paced, gesticulating wildly. “And if you think that of me maybe you aren’t the person I thought you were.”

  “No, for I am not a ‘person’. Not at all.”

  “Beast, then,” he flared. “Creature.”

  Thacker floated toward Leopold. “Leo, steady on, man.”

  But that large head nodded. It was the bobbing of some great bull with its horns twisting and climbing heavenward. “I am a creature and a beast. Sheid. You knew that when you summoned me. You knew that when you reached for me that day, when blood covered your face, and your father was dead, pulled away from the Land of the Living, when you asked for my help and I gave it. You knew all these years, Leopold, each time you went against the Torah to shed blood and bring me forth, and you knew it as deeper and deeper you cut. What am I to you and you to me, chaver?”

  “We…we are chaver, friends.”

  His yellow eyes narrowed, focused, taking a bead down the barrel of a gun. “Are we?” he said softly.

  “I have always thought so.” When had it happened that tears had welled in his eyes? Leopold’s sight was blurry until they spilled down his face.

  Eurynomos drew back, and he seemed to retreat yards and yards away. “Then that is your answer.”

  “You’d…best go.”

  “You shouldn’t do this, Leopold. You should think it over.”

  “Just go, Eurynomos! Go before I say something I will regret.”

  The crimson shoulders slumped and his head bobbed down between his shoulders. He backed away. In any other circumstances, he would have crashed into the rickety washstand, but because the daemon, once dismissed, was phasing through the realms, he simply moved through the furniture and then the brick wall, until he was as transparent as a dusty window and then gone all together.

  “Leo,” said Thacker quietly after a time. “I don’t mean to get between a man and his…daemon…but he seemed like a right straight bloke. I think he had your best at heart.”

  “I don’t know, Spense. I don’t know anything anymore.”

  Leopold stared at Raj. Since magic was all around him now, he tried to use it to awaken his mechanical friend, but his magic brushed up against that which was completely alien and it bounced off of the automaton like a stone skipped upon a lake.

  Even with an abundance of magic, he felt powerless. Eurynomos, Mingli, the unusually silent Raj, Thacker…whom could he trust? Who to turn to?

  He didn’t want to work on the Lock just now. He grabbed his coat and a top coat and threw the bar from the door aside.

  “Leo, where are you going?”

  “I’m going out for a while. On my own. You…you’re free to stay here.”

  The ghost wilted. “Where else am I gonna go?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  AFTER LOCKING UP, he dug his hands into his coat pockets, and, collar up to his ears, trudged down the lane, not really caring where he ended up.

  He walked a long time at a steady pace and was suddenly surprised to find himself on the outskirts of London and absent-mindedly heading toward the Romani camp.

  The dogs raised their heads but did not bark. They recognized his scent, he supposed. No matter how he dressed, no matter what affectations he acquired, there was no disguising the Romani in him.

  Even the men with clubs never moved from their spot around the fire. They simply raised their arms in greeting, and went back to their pipes, blowing lazy smoke rings above their heads into the quiet early morning.

  Gray was giving way to rose along the horizon, though trees and caravans were still in silhouette. It wasn’t hard to find Uncle Yanko’s caravan. Leopold climbed the steps and didn’t bother knocking. He opened the door as quietly as he could. And there was the old man, sitting up in his chair, his pipe lying on his belly with ashes spilling out. It was a wonder the man never set himself on fire. His head lay back against the cushion, and his mouth hung open with a snore. Leopold remembered those snores that jerked him awake with their thundering grunts and growls.

  He tenderly pulled the pipe from the old man’s mouth and set it aside. Staring down at his
uncle, the man who had taken him in, fond remembrance welled up in his heart, nudging the emptiness aside. Leopold, with all his clothes still on, threw himself on the bed, gathered the musty knitted quilt around him, and curled up.

  * * *

  WHEN HE AWOKE, the sun was streaming in through one of the windows near the bed. The smell of streaky rashers sizzling in a pan and coffee boiling in the pot immediately assailed his memories of happier times. He opened his eyes stickily and watched for a moment or two as Yanko stood over the hob, fork poised over the bacon. There was a time that he refused his uncle’s attempt to feed him bacon in deference to his father and the religious prohibition against pork, and Yanko had conceded to it, giving Leopold bloaters for breakfast instead, but he had weakened under the irresistible smell, and now only Eurynomos would give him any grief for it.

  As usual, Yanko was in his stocking feet and shirtsleeves, braces pulling his trousers high just under his ribcage. He had not donned a collar for the shirt, though a ragged scarf was wound round his neck to ward off the chill.

  “So you are awake,” said Yanko without turning.

  Leopold sat up and looked down at himself. His clothes were wrinkled and disreputable. He took off his outer coat and laid it carefully on a nearby chair and unbuttoned his coat to remove that, too. Perhaps he could get an iron to press it. The caravan was warm, at any rate, so he didn’t mind rising and walking toward the stove in his shirtsleeves.

  “Good morning, Uncle.”

  “Good morning, Nephew.” He turned then, looking Leopold up and down. He seemed shocked by what he saw. “Take the coffee. It is ready.”

  Without thinking, Leopold reached up to where the cups hung on hooks and took one down, the chipped one he used to use. He grabbed the coffee pot’s handle wrapped in a rag and poured the dark, bitter brew into his cup. It was full of chicory and spices, but it smelled heavenly, and he sunk his face into the cup, closed his eyes, and let the steam rise and anoint him before he took that first scorching sip.