by Clive Barker
‘She’ll be all right,’ he said, barely above a whisper. He reached for the front door handle. The demon bolted the door, quickly, loudly. No temper left for pretence now.
Jack, keeping his movements as even as possible, unbolted the door, top and bottom. It bolted again.
It was thrilling, this game; it was also terrifying. If he pushed too far surely the demon’s frustration would override its lessons? Gently, smoothly, he unbolted the door again. Just as gently, just as smoothly, the Yattering bolted it.
Jack wondered how long he could keep this up for. Somehow he had to get outside: he had to coax it over the threshold. One step was all that the law required, according to his researches.
One simple step.
Unbolted. Bolted. Unbolted. Bolted.
Gina was standing two or three yards behind her father. She didn’t understand what she was seeing, but it was obvious her father was doing battle with someone, or something.
‘Daddy —‘ she began.
‘Shut up,’ he said benignly, grinning as he unbolted the door for the seventh time. There was a shiver of lunacy in the grin, it was too wide and too easy.
Inexplicably, she returned the smile. It was grim, but genuine. Whatever was at issue here, she loved him.
Polo made a break for the back door. The demon was three paces ahead of him, scooting through the house like a sprinter, and bolting the door before Jack could even reach the handle. The key was turned in the lock by invisible hands, then crushed to dust in the air.
Jack feigned a move towards the window beside the back door but the blinds were pulled down and the shutters slammed. The Yattering, too concerned with the window to watch Jack closely, missed his doubling back through the house.
When it saw the trick that was being played it let out a little screech, and gave chase, almost sliding into Jack on the smoothly-polished floor. It avoided the collision only by the most balletic of manoeuvres. That would be fatal indeed: to touch the man in the heat of the moment.
Polo was again at the front door and Gina, wise to her father’s strategy, had unbolted it while the Yattering and Jack fought at the back door. Jack had prayed she’d take the opportunity to open it. She had. It stood slightly ajar:
The icy air of the crisp afternoon curled its way into the hallway.
Jack covered the last yards to the door in a flash, feeling without hearing the howl of complaint the Yattering loosed as it saw its victim escaping into the outside world.
It was not an ambitious creature. All it wanted at that moment, beyond any other dream, was to take this human’s skull between its palms and make a nonsense of it. Crush it to smithereens, and pour the hot thought out on to the snow. To be done with Jack J. Polo, forever and forever.
Was that so much to ask?
Polo had stepped into the squeaky-fresh snow, his slippers and trouser-bottoms buried in chill. By the time the fury reached the step Jack was already three or four yards away, marching up the path towards the gate. Escaping. Escaping.
The Yattering howled again, forgetting its years of training. Every lesson it had learned, every rule of battle engraved on its skull was submerged by the simple desire to have Polo’s life.
It stepped over the threshold and gave chase. It was an unpardonable transgression. Somewhere in Hell, the powers (long may they hold court; long may they shit light on the heads of the damned) felt the sin, and knew the war for Jack Polo’s soul was lost.
Jack felt it too. He heard the sound of boiling water, as the demon’s footsteps melted to steam the snow on the path. It was coming after him! The thing had broken the first rule of its existence. It was forfeit. He felt the victory in his spine, and his stomach.
The demon overtook him at the gate. Its breath could clearly be seen in the air, though the body it emanated from had not yet become visible. Jack tried to open the gate, but the Yanering slammed it shut.
‘Che sera, sera,’ said Jack.
The Yattering could bear it no longer. He took Jack’s head in his hands, intending to crush the fragile bone to dust.
The touch was its second sin; and it agonized the Yattering beyond endurance. It bayed like a banshee and reeled away from the contact, sliding in the snow and falling on its back.
It knew its mistake. The lessons it had had beaten into it came hurtling back. It knew the punishment too, for leaving the house, for touching the man. It was bound to a new lord, enslaved to this idiot-creature standing over it.
Polo had won.
He was laughing, watching the way the outline of the demon formed in the snow on the path. Like a photograph developing on a sheet of paper, the image of the fury came clear. The law was taking its toll. The Yattering could never hide from its master again. There it was, plain to Polo’s eyes, in all its charmless glory. Maroon flesh and bright lidless eye, arms flailing, tail thrashing the snow to slush.
‘You bastard,’ it said. Its accent had an Australian lilt.
‘You will not speak unless spoken to,’ said Polo, with quiet, but absolute, authority. ‘Understood?’
The lidless eye clouded with humility.
‘Yes,’ the Yattering said.
‘Yes, Mister Polo.’
‘Yes, Mister Polo.’
Its tail slipped between its legs like that of a whipped dog.
‘You may stand.’
‘Thank you, Mr Polo.’ It stood. Not a pleasant sight, but one Jack rejoiced in nevertheless.
‘They’ll have you yet,’ said the Yattering.
‘Who will?’
‘You know,’ it said, hesitantly.
‘Name them.’
‘Beelzebub,’ it answered, proud to name its old master. ‘The powers. Hell itself.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Polo mused. ‘Not with you bound to me as proof of my skills. Aren’t I the better of them?’
The eye looked sullen.
‘Aren’t I?’
‘Yes,’ it conceded bitterly. ‘Yes. You are the better of them.’
It had begun to shiver.
‘Are you cold?’ asked Polo.
It nodded, affecting the look of a lost child.
‘Then you need some exercise,’ he said. ‘You’d better go back into the house and start tidying up.’
The fury looked bewildered, even disappointed, by this instruction. ‘Nothing more?’ it asked incredulously. ‘No miracles? No Helen of Troy? No flying?’
The thought of flying on a snow-spattered afternoon like this left Polo cold. He was essentially a man of simple tastes: all he asked for in life was the love of his children, a pleasant home, and a good trading price for gherkins.
‘No flying,’ he said.
As the Yattering slouched down the path towards the door it seemed to alight upon a new piece of mischief. It turned back to Polo, obsequious, but unmistakably smug.
‘Could I just say something?’ it said.
‘Speak.’ ‘It’s only fair that I inform you that it’s considered ungodly to have any contact with the likes of me. Heretical even.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Oh yes,’ said the Yattering, warming to its prophecy. ‘People have been burned for less.’
‘Not in this day and age,’ Polo replied.
‘But the Seraphim will see,’ it said. ‘And that means you’ll never go to that place.’
‘What place?’
The Yattering fumbled for the special word it had heard Beelzebub use. ‘Heaven,’ it said, triumphant. An ugly grin had come on to its face; this was the cleverest manoeuvre it had ever attempted; it was juggling theology here.
Jack nodded slowly, nibbling at his bottom lip.
The creature was probably telling the truth: association with it or its like would not be looked upon benignly by the Host of Saints and Angels. He probably was forbidden access to the plains of paradise.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘you know what I have to say about that, don’t you?’
The Yattering stared at him, frowning.
No, it didn’t know. Then the grin of satisfaction it had been wearing died, as it saw just what Polo was driving at.
‘What do I say?’ Polo asked it.
Defeated, the Yattering murmured the phrase.
‘Che sera, sera.’
Polo smiled. ‘There’s a chance for you yet,’ he said, and led the way over the threshold, closing the door with something very like serenity on his face.
PIG BLOOD BLUES
YOU COULD SMELL the kids before you could see them, their young sweat turned stale in corridors with barred windows, their bolted breath sour, their heads musty. Then their voices, subdued by the rules of confinement.
Don’t run. Don’t shout. Don’t whistle. Don’t fight.
They called it a Remand Centre for Adolescent Offen-ders, but it was near as damn it a prison. There were locks and keys and warders. The gestures of liberalism were few and far between and they didn’t disguise the truth too well; Tetherdowne was a prison by sweeter name, and the inmates knew it.
Not that Redman had any illusions about his pupils-to-be. They were hard, and they were locked away for a reason. Most of them would rob you blind as soon as look at you; cripple you if it suited them, no sweat. He had too many years in the force to believe the sociological lie. He knew the victims, and he knew the kids. They weren’t misunderstood morons, they were quick and sharp and amoral, like the razors they hid under their tongues. They had no use for sentiment, they just wanted out.
‘Welcome to Tetherdowne.’
Was the woman’s name Leverton, or Leverfall, or —‘I’m Doctor Leverthal’
Leverthal. Yes. Hard-bitten bitch he’d met at —‘We met at the interview.’
‘Yes.’
‘We’re glad to see you, Mr Redman.’
‘Neil; please call me Neil.’
‘We try not to go on a first name basis in front of the boys, we find they think they’ve got a finger into your private life. So I’d prefer you to keep Christian names purely for off-duty hours.’
She didn’t offer hers. Probably something flinty.
Yvonne. Lydia. He’d invent something appropriate.
She looked fifty, and was probably ten years younger.
No make-up, hair tied back so severely he wondered her eyes didn’t pop.
‘You’ll be beginning classes the day after tomorrow. The Governor asked me to welcome you to the Centre on his behalf, and apologise to you that he can’t be here himself. There are funding problems.’
‘Aren’t there always?’
‘Regrettably yes. I’m afraid we’re swimming against the tide here; the general mood of the country is very Law and Order orientated.’
What was that a nice way of saying? Beat the shit out of any kid caught so much as jay-walking? Yes, he’d been that way himself in his time, and it was a nasty little cul-de-sac, every bit as bad as being sentimental.
‘The fact is, we may lose Tetherdowne altogether,’ she said, ‘which would be a shame. I know it doesn’t look like much ...‘ ‘— but it’s home,’ he laughed. The joke fell among thieves. She didn’t even seem to hear it. ‘You,’ her tone hardened, ‘you have a solid (did she say sullied?) background in the Police Force. Our hope is that your appointment here will be welcomed by the funding authorities.’
So that was it. Token ex-policeman brought in to appease the powers that be, to show willing in the discipline department. They didn’t really want him here. They wanted some sociologist who’d write up reports on the effect of the class-system on brutality amongst teenagers. She was quietly telling him that he was the odd man out.
‘I told you why I left the force.’
‘You mentioned it. Invalided out.’
‘I wouldn’t take a desk job, it was as simple as that; and they wouldn’t let me do what I did best. Danger to myself according to some of them.’
She seemed a little embarrassed by his explanation. Her a psychologist too; she should have been devouring this stuff, it was his private hurt he was making public here. He was coming clean, for Christ’s sake.
‘So I was out on my backside, after twenty-four years.’ He hesitated, then said his piece. ‘I’m not a token police-man; I’m not any kind of policeman. The force and I parted company. Understand what I’m saying?’
‘Good, good.’ She didn’t understand a bloody word. He tried another approach.
‘I’d like to know what the boys have been told.’
‘Been told?’
‘About me.’
‘Well, something of your background.’
‘I see.’ They’d been warned. Here come the pigs.
‘It seemed important.’
He grunted.
‘You see, so many of these boys have real aggression problems. That’s a source of difficulty for so very many of them. They can’t control themselves, and consequently they suffer.’
He didn’t argue, but she looked at him severely, as though he had.
‘Oh yes, they suffer. That’s why we’re at such pains to show some appreciation of their situation; to teach them that there are alternatives.’
She walked across to the window. From the second storey there was an adequate view of the grounds. Tether-downe had been some kind of estate, and there was a good deal of land attached to the main house. A playing-field, its grass sere in the midsummer drought. Beyond it a cluster of out-houses, some exhausted trees, shrubbery, and then rough wasteland off to the wall. He’d seen the wall from the other side. Alcatraz would have been proud of it.
‘We try to give them a little freedom, a little education and a little sympathy. There’s a popular notion, isn’t there, that delinquents enjoy their criminal activities? This isn’t my experience at all. They come to me guilty, broken. .
One broken victim flicked a vee at Leverthal’s back as he sauntered along the corridor. Hair slicked down and parted in three places. A couple of home-grown tattoos on his fore-arm, unfinished.
‘They have committed criminal acts, however,’ Redman pointed out.
‘Yes, but —, ‘And must, presumably, be reminded of the fact.’
‘I don’t think they need any reminding, Mr Redman. I think they burn with guilt.’
She was hot on guilt, which didn’t surprise him. They’d taken over the pulpit, these analysts. They were up where the Bible-thumpers used to stand, with the threadbare sermons on the fires below, but with a slightly less colourful vocabulary. It was fundamentally the same story though, complete with the promises of healing, if the rituals were observed. And behold, the righteous shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
There was a pursuit on the playing field, he noticed. Pursuit, and now a capture. One victim was laying into another smaller victim with his boot; it was a fairly merciless display.
Leverthal caught the scene at the same time as Redman.
‘Excuse me. I must —‘
She started down the stairs.
‘Your workshop is third door on the left if you want to take a look,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘I’ll be right back.’
Like hell she would. Judging by the way the scene on the field was progressing, it would be a three crowbar job to prize them apart.
Redman wandered along to his workshop. The door was locked, but through the wired glass he could see the benches, the vices, the tools. Not bad at all. He might even teach them some wood-work, if he was left alone long enough to do it.
A bit frustrated not to be able to get in, he doubled back along the corridor, and followed Leverthal downstairs, finding his way out easily on to the sun-lit playing field. A little knot of spectators had grown around the fight, or the massacre, which had now ceased. Leverthal was standing, staring down at the boy on the ground. One of the warders was kneeling at the boy’s head; the injuries looked bad.
A number of the spectators looked up and stared at the new face as Redman approached. There were whispers amongst them, some smiles.
Redman looked at the boy. Perhaps sixteen, he lay with h
is cheek to the ground, as if listening for something in the earth.
‘Lacey’, Leverthal named the boy for Redman.
‘Is he badly hurt?’ The man kneeling beside Lacey shook his head.
‘Not too bad. Bit of a fall. Nothing broken.’
There was blood on the boy’s face from his mashed nose. His eyes were closed. Peaceful. He could have been dead.
‘Where’s the bloody stretcher?’ said the warder. He was clearly uncomfortable on the drought-hardened ground.
‘They’re coming, Sir,’ said someone. Redman thought it was the aggressor. A thin lad: about nineteen. The sort of eyes that could sour milk at twenty paces.
Indeed a small posse of boys was emerging from the main building, carrying a stretcher and a red blanket. They were all grinning from ear to ear.
The band of spectators had begun to disperse, now that the best of it was over. Not much fun picking up the pieces.
‘Wait, wait,’ said Redman, ‘don’t we need some wit-nesses here? Who did this?’
There were a few casual shrugs, but most of them played deaf. They sauntered away as if nothing had been said.
Redman said: ‘We saw it. From the window.’ Leverthal was offering no support.
‘Didn’t we?’ he demanded of her.
‘It was too far to lay any blame, I think. But I don’t want to see any more of this kind of bullying, do you all understand me?’
She’d seen Lacey, and recognized him easily from that distance. Why not the attacker too? Redman kicked himself for not concentrating; without names and person-alities to go with the faces, it was difficult to distinguish between them. The risk of making a misplaced accusation was high, even though he was almost sure of the curdling -eyed boy. This was no time to make mistakes, he decided; this time he’d have to let the issue drop.
Leverthal seemed unmoved by the whole thing.
‘Lacey,’ she said quietly, ‘it’s always Lacey.’ ‘He asks for it,’ said one of the boys with the stretcher, brushing a sheaf of blond-white hair from his eyes, ‘he doesn’t know no better.’
Ignoring the observation, Leverthal supervised Lacey’s transfer to the stretcher, and started to walk back to the main building, with Redman in tow. It was all so casual.