The Printer's Devil
Page 23
‘Beelzebul,’ Kim said softly, and gasped in shock at the blow which buffeted her as it rushed in like air into a vacuum. Her breath caught in her throat, her skin crawled. The room stank, an indescribable reek which she could hardly bear to inhale.
‘No!’ shouted Southwell, flinging up his hands.
Kim saw, with a distant revulsion, his fingers sink into his temples, and a grey pocked rottenness steal over his face. She herself was shaking all over. The power she felt now was as great as the glory of her music, but its antithesis. It was destructive, sickening and terrible. It wanted to negate, to unmake. It wanted to torture and to rend; and she knew that it would not, once having been called, be content with Roger Southwell’s essence. And now it knew her, too. Sweat poured off her, cold as melted snow, and nausea made her stomach cramp, and more than her stomach: her mind and soul shuddered with the horror of what she had called. What she had had to call.
Behind her, Debbie and the dog Blondie were tightly curled together. One of them was whimpering. She didn’t know when Debbie had relinquished hold of her hand.
‘I am armoured in bronze,’ whispered Kim, sinking to her knees under the paralysing force which beat down upon her. She was clutching the Victoria Cross like a talisman, so tightly that it hurt her hand, but the pain helped keep her hold on reality. ‘All here are under my protection, except the one whose name you know.’
Southwell screamed then, a raw inhuman sound which tore out of his body. She saw blood follow his fingers as he clawed at his disintegrating face, and felt herself shaking like a leaf in a storm, wanting desperately to close her eyes, yet not daring to. She saw the skull beneath the skin, and that too was crumbling: within it was only darkness, and then she did close her eyes for an instant as she swallowed nausea, only to force them open once more a moment later.
Sucked out, finally, Alan collapsed on the floor, but she could not go to him, and that was almost the worst thing of all. The presence turned its attention on Kim: the room seemed full of mist now, swirling before her
vision, catching her voice in her throat. If it had been terrifying before, now, with its full malice bent upon her and somehow recognising her in ways she did not understand and did not want to contemplate, it was unbearable. She no longer believed herself capable of motion or thought, but she still felt, when she reached for it, her strong anchor, and with it, her powers of speech.
In the face of the invisible horror which hovered in the room, Kim shouted aloud.
‘Go. Begone. Get you hence. Be banished and buried!’
Its reluctance was like claws in her innermost being: agony flared as she felt it tearing at her. Gathering all her fading strength, she focused it like a laser and she sang one line, her voice rising to a crescendo.
L ’ultima volta, addio! For the last time, farewell!’ And the presence was gone, vanished as utterly as if it had never bruised the air as if with leathery wings. Kim crawled towards Alan, still shuddering. With dread, she turned him over.
Debbie lifted a white and tear-stained face from where she had buried it in her dog’s blond fur. ‘Is he all right?’
‘Yes,’ breathed Kim in relief, feeling his side rise and fall. ‘It’s Alan. Southwell’s gone.’
‘Gone... what was that?’
‘A devil. A demon. I don’t know. Something... killing you would be too kind for it. Something out of Hell, if you believe in it.’
‘Now I do,’ said Debbie.
Alan Bellman opened his eyes. He felt as though he had been ill for a long time, but was now waking free of sickness. Frowning at Kim and Debbie Griffiths, he wondered why they were sitting on the floor.
‘You okay?’ Kim asked.
‘I think so,’ he replied. ‘What happened? Did I pass out?’
‘Sort of. Sure you’re all right?’
‘Yes,’ said Alan, considering, ‘Except - I think I’m rather hungry.’
‘He must be all right,’ exclaimed Debbie, with a nervous smile.
‘How are you at frying bacon?’ Kim asked her.
‘All right, I suppose.’
‘Let’s go, then.’
Kim helped Alan onto the sofa. He was still a little puzzled, but sank back into the cushions amenably enough. There was something different about Kim, he thought. But what was it? A powerful sense of inner strength, certainly, but that was nothing new. So what...?
His gaze lighted upon an ancient-looking, crudely bound quarto volume, and his antiquarian instincts surged up. He picked it up avidly, dating it at a glance towards the end of the seventeenth century, and began to read:
‘It is a Proverb with us in England (That Every Pavan has his Galliard) by which expression is declared, That be a man never so Wise or Learned, yet every Sage hath his moments of Folly.
Which expression is most Apt in the matter of All men, for who can declare himselffree from Folly, whether it be in the cause of Love, or Avarice, or Power over other men.’
Envoi
Dearest Jennet
I find myself, having a moment of idleness, moved to put pen to paper, and bethought me that I would write and in such wise draw nearer to you. Indeed having lately presented to your father my credentials nor being in receipt on any word of him, I am sore concerned that he may think ill on me.
Of late have been many tempestuous wind and storms, which threw down many great trees and did much mischief all England over; then in the midst of the greatest storm of all did die at Hampton-court Oliver Cromwell, and now we must all trust in better times to come, that the Puritans be no more in the ascendant.
On that very same night of the 3rd of September I myself did witness one of the most strangest and curious dreams that I ever did see. I never did have with you a deal of speech concerning my poor wife Catherine that did dye in child-bed; ’twas all moiled up with magery and such-like; and I have been witness to the summoning of spirits; and dreamt on it so.
Thus was my dream:
That I sate alone and viewed in a scrying-glass, and in it I did see visions, a magus that was like unto a mere boy in countenance though I now believe ’twas a woman clad in boy’s garments, that did do battle with with a demon, and also with mine old acquaintance Roger Southwell that did desire to take her power for his own.
Yet she did turn the demon back onto the man and it devoured him. And all this was such a prodigy that I must needs set it down, for I do know that Roger S. doth yet live and prosper in the town of Fenstanton.
It may be, that you being possessed of an excellent wit, can riddle me this dream: Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, as Vergilius doth say; yet an you do tell me tis but naught, I shall accept your word on’t. When all’s said and done, there must be sufficient in the world yet to discover, and not concern ourselves with prophecies and dreams.
Trusting that we may meet again ere many days are passed; you dwell ever in my thoughts.
Fabian.
THE END
1) He is happy who can understand the causes of things
2) a pleasing madness of rapture (Odyssey)
3) let it be so