The Demon Collector

by Jon Mayhew

  The snake reared its head up level with his eyes. Henry gave a shudder and his back leg lashed out in pain.

  ‘What do you want?’ Edgy repeated.

  ‘Not your soul, that’s for sure – give it a few more years yet. No, it’s a promise I want. Promise that you’ll never hurt me and you’ll never mention my presence here to anyone. That’s all.’

  ‘Hurt you?’ Edgy murmured. ‘How could I hurt you?’

  ‘I don’t know. You make me nervous.’ The snake darted around his head. ‘Call it an old snake’s whim. It’s a bargain: your old friend back for a promise not to do something you can’t do anyway. Money for old rope. What do you say?’

  Edgy glanced at Sally. She clasped her hands together, her eyes wide, begging him not to agree.

  Henry gave a sad whimper.

  His sides rose, then fell.

  His breathing stopped.

  ‘Done,’ Edgy said. ‘I promise never to hurt you. Now save him!’

  The snake slithered over Edgy’s shoulder, its coils warm and dry, stroking the skin of his neck. He eased his way over Henry, sliding under his belly and coiling around him again and again, under and over, under and over, until all Edgy could see was snake. The light faded in the great domed hall and shadows shrouded the snake and Henry. Edgy squinted to see what was going on. Dark shapes swirled before his eyes. The snake’s coils merged into one. The darkness grew deeper until Edgy felt as if he was staring into a bottomless well.

  And then, gradually, the twilight returned. The shadows slithered back behind the books and branches.

  ‘He’ll be fine now,’ hissed the snake, bleeding back into the darkness under the bookshelves. ‘Remember your promise.’

  Henry stood before him, wagging his tail.

  ‘Henry!’ Edgy cried, scooping up his old friend. He gave a yap and started licking Edgy’s face as if it was smeared with jam. Edgy held him up. ‘Look at you – not even a mark on you!’

  Henry panted and shook with excitement. He looked bright and full of life, wagging his tail like a puppy. Even the dirty grey of his fur had become a brilliant white. Edgy spun around, hugging Henry to his chest.

  ‘I just hope it was worth it, Edgy Taylor,’ Sally muttered behind him.

  Edgy turned on her. ‘What’s it to you anyway?’ he snapped. ‘It was you who shut him in the room in the first place. An’ you never did answer the snake. Well, did you put the picture in my room?’

  ‘Is that what you really think?’ Sally gasped. Her voice echoed around the dome. ‘If I was so keen to get rid of you, why did I pull you out?’

  Edgy’s face burned. ‘I don’t know, maybe you thought I’d be grateful an’ give you your room back,’ he said. Edgy knew he was wrong. It was the fact that she was right that annoyed him. Edgy didn’t really know what he’d promised to the snake and, much as he loved Henry, it was a choice he might regret later.

  ‘If you believe that, then next time I won’t bother.’ Sally’s eyes narrowed and she leaned closer. ‘And I bet there will be a next time, Edgy. Someone doesn’t like you, and I can’t say as I blame ’em.’ She turned and slammed the library door, leaving Henry and Edgy alone with only the weeping lost souls for company.

  Edgy sighed. She was right again. Someone had tried to kill him. They’d quite deliberately taken a possessed painting from the wall and placed it in his room. And Edgy felt certain of one thing – anyone who went to those lengths would try again.

  He opened her bosom all whiter than snow,

  He pierced her heart and the blood it did flow,

  And into the grave her fair body did throw,

  He covered her up and away he did go.

  ‘The Cruel Ship’s Carpenter’, traditional folk ballad

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Threat in the Shadows

  Anawald Milberry appeared at Edgy’s door the next morning. She had blankets draped over her arm and a pale, concerned expression.

  ‘Sally just told me about the picture,’ she said. ‘Have you any idea who put it in your room?’

  ‘Haven’t a clue, ma’am,’ Edgy murmured sleepily.

  ‘I brought you these.’ She offered the blankets, then gave an awkward smile. ‘Not quite sure what for but . . .’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said, giving a tight smile. ‘That’s very thoughtful, like.’

  ‘You were lucky that Henry was with you.’ Milberry bent down and scratched the dog behind the ear. Henry wagged his tail. ‘He’s a brave little chap. Amazing that he wasn’t hurt.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Edgy muttered.

  ‘I don’t know who did this, Edgy,’ Milberry said, her face worried, ‘but I’ll investigate it. It’s far from perfect but one day the Society will be a better place, I promise you.’

  ‘Thanks, ma’am.’ Edgy smiled again. Milberry was all right in his book.

  He watched her disappear into the gloom of the corridor and went back to his bed. His whole body throbbed after being pulled and tugged between Sally and the demon in the portrait. Absent-mindedly, Edgy sat on the edge of the bed, gripping the thin, straw-filled mattress. His fingers grazed something underneath. A small notebook. Plain, not snakeskin like A Demon a Day. He opened it and read the spidery handwriting on the page:

  Don’t know why I’m writing this. Maybe a century of being alone has forced me to do it. To confess.

  I was twelve when little Molly was born. All bright eyes, squeals and smiles, she was from the start. A proper bundle of mischief.

  Mam worked herself to a scrap at the local mill and goodness knows where me da went. Off to the alehouse one night an’ never came back. So I looked after Molly. Hard times, they were. She leadin’ me a merry old dance around the house and street. An’ many’s the time I wished her gone. Wished myself free to go an’ see me friends, not be stuck in the dark, damp room all day.

  I can still remember her cry, harsh and piercin’, it fair split my head. An’ her snotty nose, it never stopped drippin’. Such a burden. Holdin’ me back, keepin’ me where I didn’t want to be.

  Until the fever came. Mam an’ Molly took bad. Sunken eyes and rattlin’ coughs. Pale, fevered skin. I can still hear her cryin’ out my name, all hoarse and feeble, like.

  Doctor Lustenbrück said he ’ad a cure. Came to our door. Just had to go with him, he said. He had medicine, he said. I could bring it back an’ make Molly an’ Mam well.

  An’ now I remember the feel of Molly’s soft fingertips on my lip when I picked her up. The plump warmth of her cheek as she nestled into the curve of my neck. Her chubby knees an’ brown curls.

  ’Course, he never had no cure for ’em. Just this livin’ death. He gave me a potion. Told me it was to keep me well. When I woke up, I was so cold, so tired, so dry an’ hungerless.

  I took meself home but fever had taken Molly an’ Mam. I never saw them again. Maybe one day I will, when I can rest.

  But I never forgot ’em, you can rest assured. An’ neither did Doctor Lustenbrück.

  Till the day he died. I made sure of that.

  Edgy slammed the book shut. It was Sally’s. He gave a guilty sigh. He shouldn’t be reading her personal journal and he shouldn’t have judged her last night, either. She had saved his life and he accused her of trying to kill him. Henry stared up at him with reproachful eyes.

  ‘I’ll apologise,’ Edgy murmured. ‘Soon as I can.’

  In the evening, Edgy searched for Sally but instead found Spinorix in the exhibition hall. He sat polishing what looked like glass eyes, rattling them down on to a display cabinet as he cleaned each one. Henry settled, watching him carefully, licking his lips and shifting from paw to paw.

  Edgy twirled the bone triangle in his fingers, feeling the sharpness of the corners. ‘The boy cut this out of the skull. To stop Mr Janus using the map,’ he murmured.

  Lines crawled across its brown surface. If it’s a map, one side of a line should be sea, the other land, Edgy thought. Surely they can’t be roads? But
without the rest of the skull it was meaningless.

  ‘Not just an act of vandalism then?’ Spinorix said, squeezing one of the eyeballs until it popped out of his grasp and went clattering across the floor. Henry scurried off too. Spinorix had been appalled when he’d discovered that the hole had been cut out of the skull in the first place. It had taken Edgy a lot of explaining when he’d shown him the triangle and told him how he had come by it.

  ‘Nah!’ Edgy said, whistling to call Henry off as Spinorix scrabbled after the eye. ‘Bernard would’ve just thrown it away and wouldn’t have been so keen for me to ’ave it when he died.’

  ‘Well then,’ Spinorix gasped, retrieving the eyeball. ‘Like you said, maybe he did it to stop someone from using the map on the skull. Maybe he was working for Salomé.’

  ‘No, otherwise he would’ve taken the whole skull to her, surely,’ Edgy said.

  ‘So, Salomé is trying to find Moloch’s body.’ Spinorix looked as if his head would explode with so much thinking. ‘We want to stop her but someone else wants to stop us? That’s confusing!’

  ‘I know,’ Edgy said. ‘It could be anyone in the Society.’

  ‘Lord Mauldeth,’ Spinorix said, his eyes wide. ‘He doesn’t like anyone.’

  ‘He’s the chancellor, though,’ Edgy said, shaking his head. ‘Surely not him. What about Plumphrey? He’s greedy enough to do something for money perhaps.’

  ‘It could be any of them,’ Spinorix sighed. ‘We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled.’ He plopped the eyeballs back into a jar full of fluid.

  ‘What are they?’ Edgy asked, bringing his face close to the jar.

  ‘The eyes of Argus,’ Spinorix sniffed. ‘A guardian monster. There’s a couple missing too.’

  The eyes bobbed up and down in the jar. One swivelled round and stared at Edgy, making him jump back with a yell.

  It had been another busy day and Edgy decided to get some sleep. Not that he expected to sleep well, with all the thoughts buzzing around in his head. But as they approached his room, Henry growled.

  ‘What is it, boy?’

  Henry growled again. The corridor was empty and quiet apart from the hiss of the heating pipes. Edgy squinted beyond the gloomy red glow of the hellfire lamps. Was something moving in the shadows? He padded down the passage, straining to see into the half light.

  A sudden yowl sent Edgy scurrying back. Mauldeth’s cat screeched, bolting out of the shadows and past him. Henry gave a sharp bark and vanished after the cat.

  Edgy laughed and leaned against the doorframe. ‘Leave it, Henry,’ he said, breathless, recovering from the jump the cat had given him.

  But Henry was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Henry?’ Edgy called, taking a few paces back up the corridor.

  A footstep scuffed the floor. Pain exploded in the back of his head as something struck him from behind and Edgy plunged into blackness.

  Edgy came to slowly. A steady, rhythmic pounding rattled his head, mingling with the dull ache behind his ear. His eyes felt heavy and for a moment he lay with them shut. Then his whole body shuddered and jolted as whatever he lay on moved. Edgy snapped his eyes open and tried to sit up. Thick rope tied his feet tightly together. His hands were similarly pinned behind his back.

  Ossified demons surrounded him – some quite old, judging by the moss and cracks that covered them. They wobbled and shuddered as the floor shifted and trembled. Edgy shook his head, trying to clear it. They were moving in a jerking dance. Move, one, two, three. Bang. Move, one, two, three. Bang. Wriggling and grunting, Edgy managed to get into a sitting position. The pounding hadn’t stopped but seemed to be getting louder. His heart thudded three times to every loud thump that echoed around him. Leaning against a statue, Edgy worked his way into a standing position.

  Panic seized him.

  He was on a slow-moving conveyor belt about six to eight feet wide. Hundreds of ossified demons were crowded on to it, wobbling and rocking like milk churns on a wagon. Up ahead some twenty feet away, a huge machine straddled the belt, like a bridge over a stream of demons. Every three seconds the belt lurched forward bringing a clutch of demons under the bridge. Move, one, two, three.

  Bang. A colossal metal plate slammed down from within the bridge, crushing the ossified demons to rubble and sending splinters of rock whizzing in all directions.

  Edgy pulled at his bindings, falling back down and wriggling like some crazed worm. He had only a couple of minutes at the most to get free.

  The rope seemed to tighten as he kicked and rolled in the tiny space between the wobbling demons. Edgy yelled in agony as one of them fell over his legs and the weight of solid stone pinned him down.

  ‘Help!’ he screamed.

  His stomach muscles burned as he tried to wriggle free from under the statue. Edgy could smell the oil and grease of the machine now. It’s so close. How long? Another thirty seconds? Cursing, he tried in vain to roll free, thrashing his body from left to right. The thud of the hammer deafened him. He squeezed his eyes shut against the dust and shards of rock that stung his face as the demons directly ahead of him exploded.

  She spoke no word, her tears

  They fell a salten flood,

  And from her draggled ribbons

  Washed out the stains of blood.

  ‘Oh, Mother, I am dying,

  And when in my grave I’m laid,

  Upon my bosom, Mother,

  Then pin a green cockade.’

  ‘Green Cockade’, traditional folk song

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Death and Stone

  Edgy slumped on to the conveyor belt. It was useless. Sweat chilled his back. He groaned in despair.

  A sharp barking suddenly sounded above the commotion of the crusher. Henry popped up over the statues and leapt down on to his chest. He plastered his wet tongue all over Edgy’s face.

  ‘Henry?’ Sally’s voice cut through the hissing and pounding. ‘Henry, where are you? Have you found him?’

  ‘Edgy!’ This time it was Spinorix. Henry barked again.

  ‘Here! I’m here!’ Edgy tried to lift his head up above the encircling statues. ‘Help! I’m trapped.’

  The conveyor belt shunted forward. Edgy coughed and spluttered as rock dust filled his mouth and nostrils. His ears rang with the blast from the hammer. The dog’s yelps were frantic now.

  Spinorix’s huge eyes appeared over the top of the demon that pinned Edgy. ‘Hold on!’ he cried, pulling at the stone arm of the statue. He looked tiny and insignificant against its huge bulk. The pounding of the hammer sent him hurtling over the demon and above Edgy’s head. Henry barked and wagged his tail.

  Sally clambered up on to the conveyor next. She fumbled with the knotted rope at Edgy’s wrists and his hands were free. She pointed at the statue pinning his legs. ‘You’ll have to push too, Edgy,’ she yelled above the grinding of the machine. ‘On my count.’

  Life tingled back into Edgy’s hands and as he focused on the count, the incessant clanking and crashing seemed to fade. Sally’s voice was all he heard.

  ‘ONE,’ she cried.

  Edgy drew his breath and gritted his teeth. He pressed his numb hands against the cold stone.

  ‘TWO.’

  Edgy tensed every muscle in his body, every fibre, to use it against the statue that crushed him.

  ‘THREE!’ Sally screamed.

  Edgy’s scream merged with hers, topped by a screeching falsetto from Spinorix. Edgy lunged forward with all his strength, sending the statue beneath the crusher. Sally, Henry and Spinorix tumbled in a free fall off the conveyor.

  Edgy grabbed at the other statues around him, pulling himself to his feet. With another yell, he hurled himself backwards, his legs still tied. Pain lanced up his back and shoulders as he landed with a jarring crunch on the cavern floor, groaning in agony. For a moment, he lay, trying to catch his breath, listening to the clatter of the machine. Then, with a huge hiss of steam and a rather melancholy sigh, it stopped. Edgy dragg
ed himself into a sitting position.

  Across the cave, Sally stood with a lever in her hand, looking rather pleased with herself.

  ‘Edgy, are you all right?’ Spinorix bounded over and, in his excitement, ended up crashing straight into him. Edgy fell back, winded once more. Spinorix slapped his hands to his head. ‘By Beelzebub’s bulbous buttocks, I’ve killed him! Oh, Edgy, I’m so sorry, so, so sorry!’ Tears began to trickle down his long nose.

  ‘Behave, I’m not dead yet,’ Edgy gasped, rolling on to his side and sitting up again. Henry started up, scouring his face and jumping up at him.

  ‘You’re lucky that Henry’s so fond of you,’ Sally said. ‘I found him outside your room, barking and whining. So I followed him –’

  ‘We followed him,’ Spinorix cut in. ‘Though he’s hard to keep up with – that hellhound can run!’

  ‘Thanks,’ Edgy said, groaning as he picked himself up. ‘Y’know . . . for savin’ me.’

  ‘’S all right,’ Sally said, giving a white-lipped smile and looking at her feet.

  Spinorix concentrated on twisting his fingers together and rocked from one foot to the other. An awkward silence descended on the trio for a moment.

  Edgy coughed, breaking the spell. ‘Someone clobbered me from behind.’ He put a hand to the back of his neck, feeling a lump just behind his ear. Every joint ached, every muscle complained and his head pounded. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘We’re deep beneath the Society – a cavern in the tunnels,’ Sally told him.

  ‘On the wrong side of the brass door.’ Spinorix shuddered.

  Now the machine was off and Edgy wasn’t in immediate danger of being squashed flat, he took the time to look at his surroundings.

  ‘What is this place?’ Edgy asked, staring around him and slowly beating the rock dust from his clothes.

  They stood in a large cavern. The massive stone-crushing machine filled one half and the other, apart from the space they stood in, was crammed with ossified demons. Hundreds of them. Tall, short, incredibly thin and hugely fat; every shape met Edgy’s eye as they stretched off into the gloom. Some had horns and tails, others cloven hoofs; yet more had all three. But what united them all, what made Edgy’s blood run cold, were their pained and horrified expressions.