The Demon Curse

by Simon Nicholson

  “It’s too late, I’m afraid,” said a voice.

  It wasn’t Dr. Mincing. Harry knew that, because the spindly doctor was standing straight in front of him and hadn’t moved his lips at all. A new figure had appeared, down at the far end of the reading room. Harry blinked again, and the figure moved toward him at the same time, coming more plainly into view.

  A pale suit. A neatly trimmed beard.

  It was the man Harry had seen on the train.

  It was the man he remembered from New York.

  Chapter 14

  Harry’s arms hung at his sides, motionless. Billie’s hands rested on Arthur’s body as it writhed. Her mouth dropped open, and Harry realized that his own mouth was open too, its inside hot and dry. No sound could be heard in the library at all apart from Arthur’s moans and the creaking of overhead fans.

  “Who are you?” At last, Harry managed to speak.

  “All in good time.” The man’s voice was hard and clear. “For now, we must concentrate on Arthur and his extremely dangerous condition—”

  “Excuse me, sir!” Dr. Mincing interrupted. “I, a qualified doctor, am the one attending to these children and their friend, and I must insist that—”

  “My name is Mr. James, and I assure you the organization I represent is better equipped to deal with this matter than you.” The man planted a hand directly on Dr. Mincing’s chest. He pushed him, driving him down the aisle. “It could hardly do worse! You don’t seem to have done much to help so far, either with the boy or Mayor Monticelso before him. Is that not right, sir? Allow me to speak to these children in private, sir!”

  A final push sent Dr. Mincing toppling into a chair. Mr. James marched back up the aisle. Reaching Arthur’s body, he knelt down next to it, examining it. Harry, still with no idea what to say, took in the neatly trimmed beard, the pale suit. He took in the piercing gray eyes, which were flicking in different directions, carefully inspecting every detail of Arthur’s state.

  “A mistake, an error of judgment…” Mr. James frowned. “This investigation has turned out far more sinisterly than we predicted.”

  “Just help us!” Billie cried. “Whoever you are, help us!”

  “Help you? We most certainly will. I have already informed the Order of the White Crow, and help is on its way. But it will not be easy.” The gray eyes were still inspecting Arthur, and they narrowed with concern. “This demon curse—whatever the explanation behind it—is a truly terrible condition. Had I known, I would never have selected it as your first investigation. I would never have put you on the train to New Orleans.”

  “Locked in packing cases! I had to escape!” Harry found his voice.

  “You were locked in there for your own safety and for the security of the investigation. I explained all this quite carefully in the letter.” With a handkerchief, Mr. James dabbed away the beads of sweat on Arthur’s struggling face. “I drilled airholes; I left a staple near your hand to assist with your escape. You did read the letter, I trust?”

  “Sure, we read it—the same letter that, when we first opened it, knocked us out with some kind of chemical dust!” Billie reached into Harry’s jacket pocket and pulled the pale green letter out. “As for explaining things, I don’t think so! All you say is that we’re working for the Order of the White Crow…” She opened the letter and read. “Which is devoted to the overthrow of evil and—”

  “And has there ever been a more terrible example of evildoing than this?” Mr. James pointed down at Arthur. “A demon curse, unleashed in New Orleans upon its most senior politician, and now upon a boy, and for who knows what purpose? Evil it most certainly is—evil so hideous that it was clearly, as I say, an error to choose it as the first investigation for you all, no matter how talented you may be.” He clenched a fist around the handkerchief, screwing it into a ball. “Members of the Order are on their way. You must leave it to us.”

  “How can we? Arthur’s our friend!” Billie cried.

  “Tell us what’s going on!” Harry stuffed the letter back in his pocket. “Even before you drugged us and put us on the train, you were watching us, back in New York. Making notes too. You were planning to do something even then. I saw you!”

  “I was researching you. I was gripped by your every move, not to mention the remarkable deeds of your two young friends.” Mr. James swung around and stared straight into Harry’s eyes. “Three candidates, I was sure of it. How could I not have selected you all? And the New Orleans case seemed perfect, once my research led me to the useful fact of Billie knowing some of those involved. With her determination to help the Islanders, together with her skills—and the skills of young Arthur here too—I was sure the solution would not remain undetected for long.” He gripped Harry’s shoulder. “But, Harry, you were the candidate who filled me with the greatest confidence of all—and my confidence has only grown. Yesterday you escaped from the suitcase with ease. And then there was the remarkable way you broke into the mayor’s office which, I discovered a few hours later, you had achieved by scrambling through the dumbwaiter system.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a corked test tube in which, Harry noticed, were some familiar-looking brick crumblings. “Not to mention the escape you and Billie pulled off just now from the fishermen across the river. I haven’t even worked out how you did that yet—”

  “Set fire to the Islanders’ spirit charms,” Harry said quietly.

  “What miraculous skills!” Mr. James’s face drew closer. “Skills that dazzled us all at the Order of the White Crow. Skills that make anything seem possible. Such agility! Such quickness of eye and thought! Such immense concentration, when others would simply panic and flail! Most of all, you demonstrate an ability to put these skills into practice not just on the stage, in the world of theatrical magic, but in the real world too, the real world that, as this investigation proves, is far more bewildering than any magical one and far more terrifying too.”

  The man stared intently at Harry. He spoke some more, but Harry had stopped listening, too busy thinking about what he had already heard. Skills that dazzled us all. Skills that made us think anything was possible. Deep in his chest, his heart began to throb, and he felt the pulses in the side of his neck twitching to life. Those flickering sensations were back, traveling over his skin. Just like before a trick. He knelt there, letting them take him over and looking into Mr. James’s eyes.

  Then he looked down at Arthur, struggling on the floor.

  “Harry?” Billie said. “What are you doing?”

  “Stop!” Mr. James tried to grab his arm. “I have told you—we will take over from this point!”

  Harry’s hands were back on Arthur’s body. His fingers scurried, searched, examined, as Mr. James’s words echoed in his thoughts. Skills that dazzled us all… With every echo, his hands sped up, diving into pockets, searching along seams. He sent them digging through the lining of the jacket, the tips fluttering over the silken material, detecting the tiniest irregularity in the stitching. Mr. James grabbed at him, but he pushed him away. He remembered the New York magicians and how the tiniest sign had given away their secrets to him, and his fingers moved on to his friend’s skin, floating over his face, his trembling neck, inspecting that for clues too.

  “Maybe we should do as he says, Harry?” Billie tried to grab him too. “Maybe we should let him take over…for Artie’s sake.”

  “Don’t let Artie hear that!” Harry kept searching. “Remember what Dr. Mincing said—he could be listening to every word. Can’t have him thinking we’re giving up on him... Hey, what’s that?”

  Spatters of purple ink on the cuff of Arthur’s sleeve. Some were dry, but a couple smeared Harry’s fingertips when he brushed at them. Still fresh. There were other wet spatters, now he looked for them, on Arthur’s jacket and his trousers. He stopped searching the body and checked the nearby floor. More spatters there too. He crouched down low and
peered along the floorboards. He saw Arthur’s pen, lodged under the base of the bookcase on the left, a short distance away. The body of it, without the lid. He sprung across and picked it up. Purple ink dribbled from it. Billie stumbled up next to him, and so did Mr. James.

  “That leaky old pen.” Billie joined him. “Must have been holding it when it happened.”

  “Just like Mayor Monticelso. Where’s the lid?”

  “What?” Mr. James butted in. “Harry, I must insist you stop this!”

  Harry closed his eyes. He saw the soft glow of the office again, the paper-strewn rug. He saw Mayor Monticelso’s lidless pen, its ebony carriage, its shining metalwork, clutched in his own fingers. He opened his eyes again and saw the body of Arthur’s pen in its place.

  “Mayor Monticelso dropped his pen too. I found it when I was up in his study.”

  “Which makes sense.” Billie pointed back at Arthur’s flailing arm. “Arthur, the mayor—they were both having fits, so obviously they’d drop whatever they were holding.”

  “Yes, but the lid…” Harry crouched down by the floor again. “Where’s the lid?”

  “Cease this investigation, Harry!” Mr. James folded his arms. “You must leave this matter to us—I demand it! Do you not realize how much danger you are in already?”

  Harry saw the lid. It was lodged under a skirting board at the far end of the library, at least fifteen feet away from the pen. Just like Mayor Monticelso. He pounced on the lid, held it up, and paced back to Arthur’s body. Standing over him, he held the pen in one hand, the lid in the other, and his arms arced, miming the throw, just as he had done in Mayor Monticelso’s office.

  “Just like the mayor. He threw the body of the pen in one direction, the lid way off in the other.”

  “So?” Billie’s face was tear-stained, confused.

  “But if they went in two different directions, then they must have been in two different hands, see?”

  “But that’s just what happens when you use a pen.” Mr. James frowned. “You take the lid off and—”

  “And you slot the lid back onto the pen’s back end.” Harry performed the action, the lid sliding on with a click. Then he pulled it off again. He looked into it, but it was perfectly empty. “Or you put the lid in your pocket or something. But you do that pretty quickly. The length of time you’re holding the pen in one hand, the lid in the other—it’s a couple of seconds, no more.”

  “And?” Billie asked.

  “So isn’t it a bit unusual that both Artie and Mayor Monticelso got hit by this demon curse or whatever it is at the exact same time? During the few seconds after they opened their pens?”

  He held the pen perfectly still. He saw that Mr. James was looking at it too.

  “An interesting clue, I’ll give you that,” he said. “Proof of your remarkable skills, if any was needed. But still, I insist you leave this investigation to others. I cannot continue to expose you to such danger—”

  “Let Harry think, will you?” Billie snapped. She pulled Arthur’s pen out of Harry’s hand and slid its lid on and off. “Mind you, you’ll have to do quite a bit of thinking, Harry. I can’t see it—what can a leaky old fountain pen have to do with a demon curse?”

  The clink of a bottle, the gurgle of liquid. Harry saw something, a blur of movement down at the end of a nearby aisle of books. He swept down it, the books’ spines flashing at him. He kept running until he reached the end of the stacks, and then he turned toward the figure by the door.

  It was Dr. Mincing. His briefcase was open, and he had a bottle of fluid in his grip. He was tipping it onto a cloth and using it to daub at his hand.

  On which was a spatter of purple ink.

  Chapter 15

  Harry’s boots scrabbled at the polished floor as he skidded down the library aisle, but Dr. Mincing had seen him and was too quick. The bottle smashed into a wall, the cloth fluttered through the air, and Mincing was by the door, fumbling with the key. He opened it, slid through, and slammed it behind him just as Harry reached it. The key rattled in the lock on the other side. Harry threw himself down on the floor, squinted under the gap, and saw the doctor’s shoes scampering toward the main staircase. He stood up, his fingers dancing in his pockets, searching for something to use as a pick. Won’t be quick enough. He turned and ran for the windows at the far end of the reading room.

  “Where are you going? What’s happening?” Billie stumbled along beside him. Tears still trailed over her cheeks.

  “Dr. Mincing! We’ve got to find him!”

  “Why?”

  “The purple ink from Artie’s pen! All over his hand!”

  “But are you sure Artie’s pen’s got something to do with it? We haven’t worked that out for sure, have we?”

  “How come Mincing was trying to rub the ink off then? How come he ran off as soon as I saw it?”

  “True, but—”

  “Must have done something with the pen. Put something inside it perhaps…”

  “Come back! Come back, both of you!”

  Mr. James’s voice boomed after them. Harry glanced back and saw the tall, pale-suited figure striding along the aisle, an arm thrust out. But Harry was already at the window. He pulled the latch, swung the sash open, and stepped out onto the ledge outside. The sky flashed with lightning, and rain hurtled down, but Harry’s boots kept their grip on the ledge as he helped Billie out through the window too. About seven feet away from the library, a fire escape ran down the side of another building. Harry fixed his gaze on it as Mr. James’s voice boomed through the open window behind him.

  “Let others take over from now! You are not ready. Not yet!”

  Harry jumped. He flew through the rain, arced between the two buildings, and his outstretched hands caught the fire escape’s rail. He swung onto it and threw back an arm just as Billie leaped off the ledge too and plummeted toward him. Her hand reached out, he grabbed it, and she thudded into the fire escape’s side. Harry helped her over the rail, and together they spiraled down the iron stairs.

  “There he is, Billie!” cried Harry, pointing into the rain.

  From the fire escape, Harry saw the crowd gathered outside the library. Dr. Mincing was pushing out through the swarming bodies, his bag clutched under his arm, and he hurried down one of the streets that led away. Harry clattered down the rest of the steps and ran after him, dodging between doorways and avoiding brightly lit windows. Billie gripped his hand, and he heard her struggling for breath. Together, they kept running, their gazes fixed on the stumbling silhouette ahead.

  Droplets of rain snaked into Harry’s eyes, blurring his vision, but he wiped them away fiercely. The streets were becoming even darker, and the nearby buildings were empty of light.

  “What’s going on, Harry?” Billie’s voice was weak.

  “I told you. Dr. Mincing, the pen…”

  “Not just that—everything!” She pointed back to the library. “This Mr. James, his organization—what’s it all about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The demon curse—we still haven’t worked that out either! What is it?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Don’t know much about anything, do we?”

  “We know Arthur’s in trouble, and the Islanders too.” Harry tried to keep his voice steady. “And we know we’re going to do whatever it takes to help them. And that’s all we need to know for now, isn’t it?”

  But Harry slipped as he said it. The cobbles were wet, and his eyes were filled with rain. He slammed down onto one knee. It’s the shock of what’s happened, he told himself as he scrambled back up. The discovery of Arthur in that terrible state, and everything else besides. He swayed, recovering his balance. He wondered if he had ever felt his heart pound so hard—it was making his whole body shake, and maybe that was affecting his balance too. Concentrate…


  He kept on running.

  Harry and Billie chased Dr. Mincing over a narrow bridge. They followed him down a set of stone steps and started weaving through alleyways, each one narrower than the last. The doctor swerved around a corner. They followed him along a street that seemed to grow muddier with every step, water bubbling around the paving stones.

  Reeds grew up through cracks, their leaves dripping with rain. Dark slime trickled out of drains. Harry’s balance was back, and he was glad about that, because his boots were heavy, smothered with mud, and difficult to move. He saw that the buildings around him were crumbling and that some of them tilted over, half sinking into the ooze.

  “Thought I knew New Orleans pretty well,” Billie panted. “But I’ve never been here before. Looks like it’s turning back to swamp.”

  A gas lamp glimmered ahead, slanted at an angle. Its light picked out the shape of a crumbling wharf. Dr. Mincing was hurrying along it in the rain, toward a line of old rowing boats. He clambered down into one, and an oil lamp flickered to life in the boat’s stern. Mincing tugged at the oars, heading out across a dark stretch of water, a lake thick with weeds.

  “What is this place?” Billie hissed.

  Harry said nothing. He waited until the sound of the doctor’s oars vanished into the rain and then made his way out along the wharf. Together, he and Billie stepped down into the nearest boat and set out across the water, Harry pulling the oars, Billie paddling in the prow. Harry saw the flicker of Dr. Mincing’s oil lamp some distance away. He concentrated on rowing, struggling to free the oars of weeds. He felt Billie’s hand gripping his shoulder.

  “What’s that up ahead?” Billie hissed again. “Some kind of prison?”

  Harry turned. Dr. Mincing’s boat could still be seen, and beyond it, a dark hulk of a building loomed on the lake’s far side. Harry rowed harder and looked around again once the building was nearer. Bars filled the windows, and plants from the lake had wound their way into the thick, dark walls. The whole back half of the building had fallen away, leaving a crumbling mess of stone. Out from the building’s side, a rickety jetty protruded, wooden steps leading down to the lake. Rain spattered off Dr. Mincing’s lamp as he moored his boat to the jetty, climbed up the steps, and tottered toward the building’s front door. He disappeared inside. As their boat glided up to the jetty, Harry made out a wrought-iron sign, curving in the rain: Bolson’s Hospital for the Insane.