The Demon Collector

by Jon Mayhew

  ‘She’s a demon of envy,’ Janus explained as they walked on. ‘Anything you have, she wants it.’

  ‘Didn’t you say that demons are meant to make us sin?’ Edgy wondered aloud.

  ‘You’re absolutely right, Edgy, but, like Slouch, most demons fall prey to their own weaknesses first. Madame Lillith is so eaten up with jealousy that she’s practically human. It’s only a matter of time before mortality sets in. It happens to a lot of demons. Ah, here we are . . .’ Janus said, swinging open a rough plank door to reveal a small room with a table, wash-basin and jug.

  On the bed sat a pale young girl, rubbing her hands and fingers as if she were trying to get warm. She jumped up, startled.

  ‘Sally, what’re you doing in here?’ Janus frowned.

  The girl folded her arms defiantly. She was about Edgy’s age and quite pretty, he thought, though very pale. Edgy would have called her long, wavy hair blonde but actually it was white. Her dress, which was tied up with a ribbon around her thin waist, was white. Her boots and stockings were white too. Everything about her was white but not a clean-laundry kind of white. It was more of a bleached, faded white.

  ‘Just resting,’ she sniffed, sounding quite cheeky to Edgy’s mind. ‘I do rest sometimes, you know.’

  ‘Well, you can’t rest in here, young lady. This is Edgy Taylor. It’s his room now,’ Janus said with raised eyebrows.

  Sally’s eyes widened and Edgy couldn’t help noticing the dark circles underneath, as if she hadn’t slept for a week. She stamped her foot.

  ‘It’s my room – it has been since 1735,’ she yelled, stamping again. ‘Why can’t he go somewhere else?’

  ‘You know full well that we’re short on beds, Sally, and you don’t actually need yours.’

  ‘It’s not fair,’ she snapped and punched her hands down at her sides. ‘Just because I’m dead –’

  ‘Dead? Is she a ghost, Mr Janus?’ Edgy whispered, hugging Henry, unable to take his eyes off her. Now he came to think of it, she didn’t look quite right. A bit too thin and gaunt.

  ‘I am here, you know,’ Sally said with a gasp. ‘And, no, I’m not a ghost. I’m a revenant – there is a difference!’

  ‘Well, whatever you like to call yourself, go and haunt some other chamber,’ Janus snapped back at her.

  With a squeal of outrage, Sally flew into the passage and Janus shut the door on her. Edgy could hear her yelling and raging outside as Janus scratched his head.

  ‘Sorry about that, Edgy,’ he smiled. ‘I’d forgotten about Sally.’

  ‘But she said she was dead,’ Edgy whispered, looking sidelong at the door, trying to ignore the curses being hurled at its other side.

  ‘She’s right, really – she’s a revenant. A returned one. Not a spirit or phantom as we might imagine but one who has died . . . and then come back.’

  ‘She can’t walk through walls or anything then?’ Edgy asked, eyeing the door again.

  Janus shook his head and sat on the bed. ‘She’s flesh and blood . . . kind of. Sally was brought back over a hundred years ago by Glassten Lustenbrück during his investigations into the afterlife. A very clever man – I still have his notes, some of his experiments were quite ground-breaking.’

  ‘Don’t suppose Sally was particularly impressed,’ Edgy murmured, feeling sorry for the girl.

  ‘What?’ Janus muttered. ‘No, I suppose not. I’d not really thought of it that way.’ He sat in silence for a moment, as if ruminating on the idea, then shook himself and jumped up. ‘Anyway, it sounds as if she’s gone for now. If she bothers you again, just let Trimdon know. Try and get some sleep – you’ll need all your strength tomorrow. Oh, and I got you this.’

  He pulled a small book from his pocket and presented it to Edgy. He took a deep breath. Nobody had ever given him anything apart from harsh words and cruel blows. Now here he was – clean, clothed, fed and being given a gift.

  ‘That’s all right, sir,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve been too kind already.’

  ‘Nonsense, my boy.’ Janus beamed at him, placing the book on the bed. ‘I’ll leave it here. You get some sleep and we’ll talk in the morning.’

  Janus left, closing the door gently behind him.

  Edgy picked the book up and shivered. It felt warm in his hands. Not like the warmth that came from being in someone’s pocket but warm like a living thing.

  ‘Everyday Daemonologie,’ he read aloud, ‘Or a Demon a Day.’

  The book, covered in black scales, glistened in Edgy’s hand. The shifting colours within it reminded him of the swirls of oily blue and purple he’d seen on the wings of black beetles.

  He glanced out of the small window and into Eden Square. Three dark figures sat hunched around the statue of Satan.

  Edgy lay on the bed but sleep didn’t come. He flicked through the book. It wasn’t like any book he’d seen before – not that he’d seen many. Edgy wasn’t sure he liked it but it fascinated him. Certain articles jumped out at him again and again. Others he skimmed through once and then they couldn’t be found again no matter how hard he searched.

  He flicked through woodcut pictures of huge demons locked in combat, armies of devils bearing cruel weapons, assembling on vast plains. Titles such as Getting the Best out of Imps and Asmodeus Proposes jostled with The Role of the Governing Body at the Royal Society, until his head whirled with jumbled-up facts.

  ‘Imps are the most minor of demons,’ he read aloud, totally engrossed. ‘Usually the lost souls of unbaptised child­ren or babies kidnapped by demons. Imps are the workforce of hell. They make fiercely loyal friends and annoyingly obstructive enemies.’ Edgy thought about Spinorix and his anger about things going missing.

  Another passage caught his attention:

  In 1797, Hector Corvis, seventh Earl of Rookery Heights, invited a hooded stranger to install panelling to the Royal Society. Bizarrely, once this stranger had finished, fellows of the Society soon found themselves lost in their own building. It was the associate demon Asmodeus who discovered that because of the demonic decor one had to think of the approp­riate location to find one’s way there, as he was often fond of saying, ‘Just think where you might be tempted to stray and you’ll find yourself there . . . but one still has to walk.’ Typical demon capriciousness.

  Edgy looked down at Henry, who lay curled at the foot of his bed. ‘Well, that settles that,’ he murmured. ‘This place is a nuthouse. First thing tomorrow, we’re off, demons or no demons. It’s all well and good livin’ like this but I’ll take me chances, I think, Henry, old chap.’

  Henry gave a contented whine and buried his muzzle in his chest. Gradually the events of the day took their toll on Edgy and he fell into a restless, dream-filled sleep, chased by demons and dead boys, carriages and the grinning face of Janus.

  Devils can’t be driven out with devils.

  Traditional proverb

  Chapter Six

  The Exhibition Hall

  Grey shafts of morning light coaxed Edgy out of his sleep. He stretched. Normally at this time of day he’d be shiver­ing at the cold and rubbing his hands together, but every inch of the Society glowed with heat. Edgy felt good – well fed, clean and dry. He’d never been able to say that. Henry yawned and shook himself, jumping off the bed. Edgy rubbed the condensation off the tiny windowpanes and peered through.

  Mist made the surrounding buildings grey and ­indistinct. A white frost cloaked Eden Square but the three demons had stayed close to the Satan statue. Edgy could see steamy breath clouding around their curling horns as they stamped out the cold. One of them glanced up, making Edgy pull back from the window, his unease creeping back.

  ‘Still there, Henry,’ Edgy murmured. ‘How are we goin’ to get away from this place?’

  He picked up the book and stuffed it in his pocket. The heat stifled him, made him feel trapped. Edgy reached for the latch of the door.

  ‘Let’s go an’ find a way out, shall we?’

  He opened the door and g
ave a yell. Sally stood right in the threshold, making Edgy fall back. She must have been standing with her face pressed against the door to be so close when he opened it. Henry barked and scampered off down the corridor into the gloom.

  ‘Henry!’ Edgy called, but he had vanished. ‘Look what you’ve done now!’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have taken my room!’ Sally’s ice-blue eyes burned and she stood glaring, hands on hips.

  ‘I ’aven’t taken your stupid room – I’m not stoppin’.’ Edgy picked himself up from the floor. ‘But if Henry comes to any harm, you’ll wish you were properly dead!’

  Sally’s face crumpled. A sadness swept across it. She turned and stalked off down the passageway.

  ‘I already do,’ she said, without looking back. Edgy could hear the tears in her voice but he hurried in the opposite direction in search of Henry.

  If Edgy hadn’t seen the daylight through his bedroom window, he wouldn’t have known whether it was day or night in the gloomy corridors.

  ‘That dog’s got himself lost, good and proper,’ he muttered as he crept through the tangling passageways.

  Remembering that reference in the book, he tried to think his way towards Henry. He hissed with annoyance – why did the exhibition hall that Janus had talked to the imp about yesterday keep slipping into his mind?

  The corridor twisted to the left and a bulky shadow twisted its way around the curved wall. A scraping, swishing sound followed it.

  Edgy stopped dead. His heart pounded.

  The noise became louder. Swish, scrape, swish, scrape.

  Edgy started to back away from the corner.

  The swaying green bulk of Madame Lillith appeared behind the grotesque shadow, sweeping with vicious strokes as she went. She froze and glared at him.

  ‘Give ’im to me,’ she muttered, though her mouth remained a tight line in her round prune of a face.

  ‘What?’ Edgy stammered. ‘Who?’

  ‘Your dog.’ She craned her neck forward, leaned on her brush and jabbed her thumb behind her. ‘I want ’im. Give ’im to me.’

  ‘Henry?’ Edgy said. He barged past her and ran round the corner.

  A round hallway opened before him and Henry cowered in the centre, looking from right to left.

  ‘Henry!’ Edgy called, crouching to meet him as he came bounding forward. He leapt into his arms, licking his face and battering the floor with his tail. ‘That ’orrible old bat ain’t havin’ you!’

  Edgy looked up. Two enormous doors stood before him. Golden rivets held thick, polished planks together. A brass plaque shone out on the left-hand door.

  ‘Exhibition Hall,’ he read out loud. ‘Well, I’ll be . . .’ He thought better of finishing the sentence and gripped the huge, round handles. Dragging one of the doors open, he poked his head round it and yelled in terror.

  A huge skull with curling ram’s horns leered down at Edgy with teeth like six-inch nails. He stumbled backwards, tripping over Henry, and lay in a ball, eyes squeezed shut.

  Henry’s bark echoed around the hall but all else was silent. Edgy opened an eye. The skull hovered over him as still as a statue. Chancing both eyes, he peered up and fell flat on his back, laughing at his own cowardice.

  ‘It’s some kind of exhibit,’ he said to Henry, who cocked his leg on a statue of a dragon that flanked the door to show how concerned he had been. The wired-together bones of some long-dead demon loomed over them, claws outstretched, jaws wide. ‘It had me fooled.’

  Beyond the skeleton, rows and rows of glass cases, display cabinets, statues and vases dotted the enormous hall. Various gargoyles and fiends dangled from the ceiling, suspended by steel cable.

  ‘Fascinating, isn’t it?’ Janus said, appearing from behind a display cabinet. Edgy gave a start and put a hand to his thumping heart.

  ‘Mr Janus, you frightened me ’alf to death,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘Look, I’m sorry an’ all that but I’ve got to go. It’s a bit . . . mad round ’ere.’

  ‘Let me show you around first.’ Janus smiled as if reading Edgy’s mind. ‘It may answer some of your questions and make more sense.’

  Janus led Edgy further into the hall and stopped at a huge fireplace. No fire burned here but a portrait of an unsmiling man hung above it. His eyes fixed Edgy with a sombre glare. In one hand he held a skull, in the other a crown. He was sitting on a golden chair draped with an ermine cloak. Piles of books towered behind him.

  ‘King James I of England,’ Janus said, ‘founder of the Royal Society of Daemonologie. He gave it the Royal Charter in 1605.’ Janus waved his hands around the hall. ‘We collect and study demons of all kinds, their habits, their history, their biology, everything about them.’

  ‘What for?’ Edgy muttered, glancing sidelong at a leering ossified demon.

  ‘Knowledge, Edgy,’ Janus said, raising his eyebrows. ‘Knowledge is power. King James realised that. To defeat your enemy, you have to know him. James I was a great scholar and was keen to defeat the powers of dark­ness.’

  ‘So you fight demons?’ Edgy murmured. ‘Then how come there are so many wanderin’ around the building?’

  ‘Not any more.’ Janus smiled and shook his head. ‘Ours is a scientific cause now. We study, observe and sometimes collect them.’

  ‘Like you did with Talon?’ Edgy grimaced as he remembered Talon’s twisted, ossified face.

  ‘That was regrettable,’ Janus said, sighing. ‘More often we encourage demons to join us and become “associates”. That way we can work with them to understand their nature.’

  ‘What about the demons who don’t want to be collected or join up?’ Edgy asked.

  Janus shrugged. ‘There was a time when it was all-out war. Demons didn’t like the Society at first. And the early fellows saw themselves as the last crusaders. They could afford to – the Society was stronger then. These days, we can usually reach a compromise.’

  They wandered among the display cases and statues. Janus stopped every now and then, pointing out an artefact or a specimen.

  ‘The more we find out, the more questions there are,’ Janus murmured, his eyes shining. ‘Riddles and complexity, Edgy. Riddles and complexity.’ He traced his finger across the handle of an ornate dagger. ‘Demons love riddles. Life is a game to them, dangerous – often fatal – to mortals, but that doesn’t bother them.’ He lifted the dagger, its blade flashing red in the hellfire light. ‘In fact, they envy our mortality sometimes.’

  ‘Righto,’ Edgy said, unsure what to say.

  His head began to spin as Janus showed him skulls and spears, enchanted talismans and fragments of bone, telling the story behind each one. Edgy forgot about the demons waiting for him outside, his need to leave or the last boy.

  ‘Can’t demons die then?’ Edgy asked at last.

  ‘They can be turned to stone with our ossifiers. The ball they fire is a combination of salts and pure elements of the earth, whereas demons are creatures of fire and light. We don’t know how ossifying works and we don’t know if it truly kills. In theory, you could chop demons into a million pieces and then put them back together again and they would come back to life.’

  ‘And what about this?’ Edgy murmured, touching a demon skeleton on a stand. It looked human apart from the skull, which displayed razor teeth and long spiral horns. The chin came to a sharp point too. There was a hole in the top of the skull. A perfect triangle.

  ‘Oh, that.’ Janus waved a dismissive hand. ‘Just the bones of Aldorath. Nothing much . . .’

  Edgy looked more closely at the skull. Something bothered him but he couldn’t think what. Janus’s voice lowered and he spat his next words out, making Edgy jump.

  ‘My illustrious brother found them. Such a fuss over nothing. They made him chancellor on the strength of those mouldy old bones. Chancellor!’

  ‘Your brother?’ Edgy muttered, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘Yes, Lord Mauldeth.’ Janus spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Not happy with just our fa
mily title, being the eldest and all that. Oh no, he has to muscle his way into the Royal Society.’ The fire died in his eyes. ‘Anyway they’re just the bones of a demon, that’s all.’

  ‘Righto,’ Edgy murmured.

  ‘There was a time when demons ruled the earth . . .’ Janus’s voice became distant and he looked far beyond Edgy. ‘The great arch-demons waged war, multiplied, built huge cities. Do you want to hear a story? A story from the dawn of time, passed down from the mouths of demons themselves?’

  Edgy listened, spellbound by Janus’s sonorous voice.

  The fields were green, as green as could be,

  When we from His glory fell;

  And we His children then were brought

  To death and near to hell.

  ‘The Moon Shines Bright’, traditional folk carol

  Chapter Seven

  The Legend of Satan and Moloch

  ‘Many ages ago, before Man was turned away from the Garden of Eden, the earth was fresh and blue-green, spark­ling in dew so fresh that God wasted many a foolish hour smiling down on His creation.

  ‘But beneath all this, in Stygian depths, Satan ruled supreme in the kingdom of hell. He sat on his throne of obsidian in his palace of beaten gold, basking in the searing heat of the lava flows, enjoying the spit and hiss as molten rock poured over ash flows and pooled around him. His queens and consorts huddled, adoring, at his feet.

  ‘Demons sang his praises in beautiful, haunting voices. Have you ever heard a demon song, Edgy Taylor? Its beauty would break your heart and drive you mad. They fought each other to be in his presence, plunging one another beneath the seething, flowing earth, to Satan’s delight.

  ‘Men and demons are like fires in the dark – bright and hot. Every now and then a spark of anger or hatred would flare up, then flicker into the blackness and die. But one demon, Moloch, caught hold of his spark, a smouldering ember that he clutched to his heart. He blew on it with a bitter breath, whispered his grievances to it and it grew into a furnace cupped in his gnarled palms. The fire of hatred burnt into his veins and consumed his heart.