by Liza Cody
The Devil doesn’t fear attack; the gate was unlocked. I opened it and slithered my scaly way to the kitchen door. The neighbour’s security light went on and skewered me, hand already grasping the doorknob. A grey cat stood, petrified, on the fence. We stared at each other in a rictus of alarm. The garden was bathed in white light and the rain shone like crystal rods. The door wouldn’t open.
I bent and felt for the spare key under the tub that once held a bay bush and scarlet geraniums. My back was hard as steel, my joints clanked like unoiled cogs but my robot self remembered. The key was still there but it was too crusted with lime-scale and the corpse of the dead earth to turn in the lock. I should have known—nothing living thrives where the Devil walks, nothing but his creatures, the rats, bats and cats. Green turns brown, nature withers and women rot in chokey, undead, with freeze-dried hearts.
I looked at my mother’s garden—at the bare fence where the dog rose used to ramble. The cat hissed and jumped down to defecate in the bed where once pure white lily of the valley rang its tiny bells and nodded to the grape hyacinths. If ever I needed proof that Ashmodai, Master of Corruption, lodged here, this was it.
Fear made me dither, and while I stood trembling the kitchen door swung open of its own accord.
Horned and hoofed, red eyed and yellow fanged, the Devil raised his tyre-iron to strike me dead…
Electra licked the rain off my face.
‘Get up and shut up,’ Smister whispered. ‘You’ll wake the neighbours.’
‘I knew it was you,’ I said. ‘The Devil doesn’t use a tyre-iron.’
‘Yeah-yeah, that’s why you shrieked and fainted.’
‘I slipped. What’re you doing here with a tyre-iron?’
‘I thought you were Graham Attwood coming home.’
‘How did you get in?’
‘Unlatched kitchen window.’ He pointed to the one above the sink. ‘I stepped in the washing-up bowl. I think I broke a plate.’
My mother, standing at that sink, used to boast that she had never in her life broken a plate, cup or glass. She said I was always in too much of a hurry. I could see my mother now—mid-height, mid-weight, hair washed and set every two weeks—as she complained, ‘Rush, rush, you’re sloppy about everything, and I’ll never know where you got those great clod-hopping feet. It wasn’t from my side of the family, that’s for sure.’ She’d look down at her own neat shoes. ‘No wonder you’re so clumsy.’
I couldn’t get to the office early enough or leave late enough to escape her harsh tongue. So I did well at work. Banks love busy, industrious little bees. Or they do until the bees help themselves to some of the honey. A bank will only tolerate thieves if they’re on the board of directors. Yes, if you want to steal, steal big. Gobble up entire insurance companies and pension funds.
‘Momster!’
‘What?’
‘I asked you where he would keep his papers, his laptop, personal stuff?’
Of course, I was in Satan’s stronghold with an unbeliever.
We followed the signs of decay and neglect up to my mother’s bedroom where the sight of her white sheets stained with carnal ichor and tumbled in disorder made me retch. He killed her and stole her bed. Of course he did: it was the biggest bed in 17 Milton Way. Mine had been the smallest. It was gone. Like me it had been used, abused and discarded. In its place were a computer table and a Posturistic office chair. There was a desk under the window. It supported the latest tech toys, monitors, mice and keyboards, games, three phones plus chargers. He hadn’t lost his taste for gadgetry.
At the top of the house, my brother’s room was now a well-appointed home gym. My whole family had been wiped out to meet the corporeal needs of Ashmodai.
Electra whimpered. Her ears were pinned flat against her narrow skull. She knew she was cowering in the shadow of true evil and she’d heard something…
Just before Smister switched off the light I saw the three of us reflected in a floor-to-ceiling mirror—Electra, pressing against my legs, me, in coat and hat looking like a deformed man, and Smister, sassy in slim denims, boots and a frock-top, head cocked, listening to the sound of a front door slamming. He flicked the switch. We disappeared into the dark.
A woman’s voice called from the bottom of the stairs, ‘Darling, is that you?’
I clutched Smister’s hand and we backed away from the door into an exercise bike.
Footsteps on the stairs. I heard the creak of the fourth step from the landing. I tried to disentangle my coat from the bike pedals. Smister and Electra melted away.
The voice came from my mother’s bedroom door directly below us: ‘Are you asleep, sweetheart?’ A hideous breathy coo. She said, ‘Gram, baby?’ And I heard her open the bathroom door.
Then the smell of Rive Gauche and truffle oil—the scent of a spectre—wafted up the stairs. My wet coat caught around my legs, tying me to the exercise bike. How did the ghost know I was here? How did she know anyone was here?
The light blinded me. I threw up my arm to shield my eyes. The exercise bike suddenly released my coat and I stumbled forward.
The ghost of Natalie Munrow shrieked like a dying seagull. It staggered back and tumbled in slow motion down to the lower landing, bouncing off every other step, somersaulting and showing lacy knickers the colour of ashes of roses.
I just had time to think that I never knew ghosts were allowed to have elegant undies when Smister yelled, ‘You didn’t have to threaten her,’ and pushed past me.
Electra joined us and looked down on the heap of arms and legs that lay at the bend of the stairs.
‘Are you insane?’ Smister said. ‘You rushed at her. You were going to hit her.’
‘No, no,’ I protested. ‘I stumbled.’
We crept down the stairs to the pile of parts. I was thinking, a ghost can’t die—it’s already dead.
Then the ghost sighed. Which is what ghosts are supposed to do.
‘Thank fuck,’ Smister said. He bent over Natalie, straightening her arms and legs, supporting her head. ‘Ring for an ambulance, doofus. Don’t just stand there muttering.’
So I stepped over the two-time corpse and went to the bedroom. A space age remote handset stood on the cabinet by the Devil’s bed. I rang for an ambulance.
‘17 Milton Way,’ I said. ‘There’s been an accident. A woman fell down the stairs.’
‘Is she breathing?’
‘She shouldn’t be, but she is.’
‘Slow down, Madam. I know you’re upset but please speak slowly and clearly.’
‘She’s breathing,’ I said, and at last I started breathing too. ‘She isn’t properly conscious. It was a very hard fall.’
‘On no account try to move her,’ the expert on the telephone told me.
At that moment I saw Smister, supporting Natalie Munrow, coming across the hall.
‘Right you are,’ I said, feeling light-headed.
‘Get out the way,’ Smister said, and let Natalie down onto Satan’s bed of corruption. Her head rolled back like a cabbage on a kitchen floor. Her eyes were unfocussed. The impeccable grey-green eye shadow was smudged. I liked her better that way.
‘Ma’am?’ the expert on the phone said, ‘Ma’am, are you there? Did you hear me? It’s vital that you don’t move the victim till the ambulance crew gets there.’
‘Don’t move her,’ I said. ‘Right.’
‘Oops,’ said Smister.
‘Make sure she’s covered and doesn’t get cold.’
‘Covered,’ I said. ‘Right.’
‘You’re doing fine. The ambulance will be with you in about five minutes. Not long to wait now.’
‘Five minutes,’ I said. ‘Right.’
‘Fucking hang up!’ Smister hissed. He snatched the phone out of my hands, rubbed it all over with the Devil’s dirty sheet and dropped it on t
he bed. I grabbed a blanket and covered Natalie up to her chin. Her skin was spectral grey.
We rushed downstairs. I shut the back door and put the key in my pocket. We escaped by the front door which Smister left ajar for the ambulance crew. On his way out he picked up a black umbrella.
‘It was you, bird turd,’ I said. ‘I knew it was you.’ I led us at a cracking pace up Milton Way in the opposite direction from the High Street which was where the ambulance would come from.
‘It was me what?’ he panted.
‘You left your sodding wet umbrella in plain sight. That’s how Natalie knew someone was in the house. She thought it was Ashmodai and came looking.’
‘Ash who?’
‘If she hadn’t thought Gram was there she’d have gone away.’ I turned the corner at the end of the street and dropped down in a crouch. I needed to catch my breath. I opened the bottle of gin I’d swiped from the kitchen and took three enormous gulps.
‘Gimme that.’
We had a short undignified tussle which Smister won.
‘Oh lord,’ Electra sighed. ‘Not both of you!’
‘We had a shock,’ I told her. ‘We’re stressed out.’
‘No shit,’ Smister said. ‘Why the sodding hell did you push her downstairs?’
‘I did not!’
‘Shut up! You’ll wake the neighbours. You always go for maximum fuck-up and you always succeed.’
‘Now who’s shouting?’ I whispered. ‘I did not push, threaten or harm her in any way. If anyone’s to blame it’s you for leaving your umbrella where she could see it. And moving her when any fool knows you’re not supposed to.’
‘Both of you be quiet,’ Electra warned. ‘The sirens—listen.’
I peeked round the corner as the ambulance sped up Milton Way and stopped outside number 17. Lights went on all up and down the street as the neighbours woke up with their nosey noses twitching. That was the Milton Way I knew—everyone watching everyone else from behind the curtains.
A few minutes passed and then the ambulance crew came out carrying Natalie. I think she was wearing a neck brace but it was hard to see from the distance and through the rain.
‘They haven’t covered her face,’ I said.
‘She isn’t Too-Tall,’ Electra said, leaning against me sympathetically.
‘I’m telling you, she was alright when we left,’ Smister said. ‘If anything happens to her it’ll be medical malpractice.’
The ambulance U-turned and roared away.
‘I’m cold and wet,’ Electra said. ‘What’re we waiting for?’
‘We should go,’ Smister said. ‘She’s bound to tell the cops there were strangers in her house.’
‘It isn’t her house!’
Electra slid away and hid under a low hedge.
‘Go away, both of you,’ I said.
‘You’re never thinking about going back in?’ Smister said. ‘Listen, you sad old souse, the cops are coming. It’s suicide.’
‘I’m not going back inside.’
‘Then what’re we waiting for?’
‘Ashmodai.’
‘Who the freaking hell is Ashmo-whosit?’
‘He’s a member of the fiery circle,’ I said, ‘the Lord of Lust and Rage.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake—where do you get all this shite from?’
‘Same place as you get your stupidity and carelessness,’ Electra said from under her bush. ‘Take a long look at yourselves—you’re both catastrophes waiting to happen. And I use the word cat advisedly.’
‘Cats are minions of the Devil.’
‘Oh, give it a rest,’ said Smister and Electra together.
‘Go away,’ I said. ‘Leave me alone.’
‘You’ve got to promise not to go back in,’ Smister said, and Electra crawled out from under the bush and nodded.
‘All I need is a little support,’ I said. ‘But all you ever do is tear me down.’
‘What’re you talking about?’
‘Always going on about how clumsy I am—how I drove our dad away with my neediness. Is it any wonder I turned to Satan for affection?’ I took another swig of gin.
Smister snatched the bottle away. ‘You are so totally marmelised I can’t understand a sodding word you say. I’m taking Electra and if you’ve got a single brain cell left you’ll come too.’
But I wouldn’t. They didn’t get me. I had to wait for the Devil. It’s what I always do.
I studied the cars on Milton Way and there it was—the cat I’d last seen crapping in my mother’s garden appeared on the pavement. It crossed the road and sat sheltering under a little red German car. I had one of those lodged in my memory like a speck of dust in my eye. It was irritating but I couldn’t get to it. It was a sign. I approached with caution. The cat hissed and climbed into the wheel arch. I put my hand out and touched the hood of the car. The cat spat and slithered away. But it left the mark of Satan—the hood was warm.
I know what Electra would’ve said. She’d have said that the engine was warm and that’s why the cat chose the little red car for shelter. She’d have said the engine was warm because the car had been recently driven not because the cat transferred its demonic energy to whatever it touched.
But Electra’s just a dog, she doesn’t understand signs and symbols. The corporeal world, with its sights, sounds and smells, overwhelms her. She has no room left for alternative dimensions. Although sometimes she can sense them. Then her hackles go up and she trembles.
But tonight the hair on the back of my neck prickles and I am trembling. For Gram Satan Ashmodai sent the cat to me as a message.
He is coming.
Chapter 31
I See The Devil’s Feet
I awoke to the sound of his voice, to the smell of truffle oil and Rive Gauche.
He said, ‘But you’re only going to be there a few more hours. Can’t you… ?’ He sounded angry, but not thunderous. It was that complaining, impatient dissatisfaction I’d learned to avoid at all costs.
My head was on a pillow and the pillow smelled of Natalie. My eyelids creaked. I woke up in my mother’s room and Gram Attwood’s bed. How the hell did I get there? Gram Attwood was downstairs talking on the phone.
He said, ‘Well, I need a shower first and coffee… I’ve been up half the night with you, in case you’ve forgotten.’
He needed a shower. He was coming upstairs.
I got off the bed. I grabbed my hat. I fluffed a pillow, tried to straighten a sheet.
There was nowhere to hide. I went down on the floor and scrambled under the bed.
He said, ‘The sooner I can shower and have breakfast, the sooner I… No, I’m not trying to… No, I’m not threatening you… now that’s just paranoia… no I did not hire them—you’re raving mad.’
I could see his feet in hand-tooled black loafers and midnight blue silk socks. Then I saw his naked feet. I could’ve reached out and stroked them.
He said, ‘If I was going to put the frighteners on you I wouldn’t hire a derelict old man and a blonde bimbo to do it, would I? No, I’d do it myself, wouldn’t I? And we’d both enjoy it.’ He was almost laughing. His voice was caressing but his bare feet paced impatiently. The Devil, oh the Devil.
I buried my face in my hands and tried not to breathe. He was blaming me again. That’s why I was here. I came when he called. As always.
And yet… I couldn’t hear her but I knew she was accusing him. I knew she was crying and begging for comfort. She was not happy in love. She was nagging and demanding and he wouldn’t like it.
She was accusing him of sending two people to hurt her. Why? Had she threatened him? Did she know something he didn’t want known? Was she holding it over him? On maybe she’d done something bad. She’d offended him in some way. She thought he was punishing her; that he sent for me
and Smister to punish her.
He cut the phone call short. I turned my head and saw his heels going away to the bathroom. I saw his silk shirt rumpled on the floor, his trousers, like empty snake skins, beside it. I heard the sound of running water and the screech of the shower door.
I rolled out from under the bed. I stopped myself from picking up his clothes, folding them and burying my nose in them. They wouldn’t smell of him anyway.
I crept away, down the hall, down the stairs and into the kitchen. There was no more gin. I tried all the cupboards. There was nothing in the fridge but milk and white wine. He didn’t cook. There was only bed, wine and pain when you took the Devil for your lover.
I picked up an already opened bottle and necked it.
I couldn’t put it back in the fridge empty, so I looked round for a rubbish bin to hide it in. I opened the cupboard under the sink and grabbed the first black plastic bag I saw. The weight surprised me. I dropped it on my foot and stifled the yell of pain.
Inside the bag was a little stone lion with a broken leg. The lion’s head was stained rusty red. I put it back.
From upstairs, I suddenly registered that the shower water had stopped running. I stuffed the empty bottle in my pocket and let myself out by the kitchen door.
The rain was misty in the air. I tipped my hat down over my eyes and shuffled as quickly as my headache would allow down Milton Way. Last night I had a plan, but I couldn’t remember what it was. I had seen the Devil’s feet, his cloven hooves. I was terrified and now all I wanted was to escape his wrath.
I dumped the wine bottle in the bin outside the Pizza Place on the High Street. Then at Mother’s old hairdresser, Claire’s Hair, I remembered my plan. I used to call Claire ‘Hairy Clairey’ because she was a malicious gossip and I hated her. But I could use her.