by F. R. Tallis
‘Indeed,’ said the curé, ‘it is a member of the hellish aristocracy, a grand duke of the infernal kingdom.’ He drew Bazile’s attention to the final chapter of the Hammer of Demons. ‘What we must do,’ said Father Lestoumel, ‘must be done in the cathedral. That is what Flamel advises. Can you help us?’
Bazile bit on his pipe stem. ‘The bell-ringers of Paris are – as it were – a brotherhood, and if the need arises, we can call upon each other for favours. I will consult with Quenardel, the chief bell-ringer of Notre-Dame.’ Bazile stood up and lifted his coat off a peg on the wall. There is a room in the north tower of the cathedral that will suit our purposes. I will return with the key as soon as possible.’ And the next instant, he was gone.
After ten minutes or so Hélène appeared in the doorway that connected the parlour to the rest of the apartment. She leaned against the jamb and seemed so frail and weak, I feared she might be about to faint. ‘Father Lestoumel, Monsieur Clément,’ she said, her voice quavering. ‘Please come quickly.’
She led us to the bedroom, where Madame Bazile was placing pieces of incense in small dishes. It was cold and the air was tainted with the smell of ordure. Annette was very still, but the skin of her face seemed to have shrunk even more tightly around her skull: it had a glazed quality, like porcelain, and seemed just as likely to shatter. Although her mouth was closed, I could hear a steady stream of obscenities, articulated in the unnaturally low register I had heard the previous night.
The curé knelt by the bedside, took Annette’s hand in his own and began to pray: ‘Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, exalt me.’ Madame Bazile held a lit match against the incense and the room soon filled with the fragrance of sandalwood. ‘Water from the side of Christ, wash me. My good Jesus, hear me. Within your wounds hide me. Never permit me to be separated from you. At the hour of death, call me.’ The demonic voice faded, but it was still present – a persistent growling. I listened to Father Lestoumel, his gentle delivery, and found some comfort in the rhythm and cadence of prayer. But I was still incapable of accepting such sentiments. I was still paralysed by reason: if God is love, then He would not permit a demon to torment an innocent child. Therefore, God cannot be love. I could not think beyond the logic of this proposition. Father Lestoumel continued, To you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.’
I watched the smoke rising from the incense dishes and noticed a strange discrepancy. Above one, the smoke was dissipating in the usual manner, whereas above the other the smoke seemed to be accumulating. Grey wisps and filaments collected in the air, becoming more and more condensed as the sandalwood burned. For a fraction of a second, the play of lamp light on the cloud made it look like a head with projecting horns, and then, a moment later, there was nothing to see except a haze of expanding tendrils. I threw glances at the others, Father Lestoumel, Hélène and Madame Bazile, but none of them had observed this sudden transformation.
What I had witnessed was no phantasm of the brain, but a demonstration of power. I was being mocked, taunted. Although the room resounded with prayer, the demon was showing me how it could easily reach out and manipulate the material world. I sensed that something very terrible was about to happen.
Annette’s hand moved so fast, all that I could detect was a blur. Father Lestoumel cried out and fell backwards, gagging on the wooden cross that had been jammed into his mouth. I heard Hélène scream, and then, Annette’s body, as rigid as a plank, levitated. She rose up off the bed and began to spin. I was dimly aware of Madame Bazile kneeling beside Father Lestoumel and leaped over the priest’s body. Grasping Annette’s smock, I pulled on the material, but my efforts met with strong resistance and my feet almost left the ground. As soon as her back touched the eiderdown she began to thrash about and I had to use all of my weight to restrain her movements. The voice started up again, close to my ear, and embedded within a continuous stream of ugly babblings I detected a single intelligible sentence: ‘For her soul I shall defile and her flesh shall I use for my satisfaction.’ I was sickened and hoped that Hélène had not heard this. Annette’s limbs started to jerk. She was no longer trying to break free, but in the throes of another seizure. Her spasms were so violent that I began to fear that her spine might snap. When the bucking stopped I wiped the foam from her chin and checked her pulse, which I found to be slow and weak.
I turned round and saw Hélène standing in the middle of the room, eyes wide open and biting her knuckles. She looked like a woman teetering on the edge of derangement. Madam Bazile was squatting next to the curé dabbing blood from his lips. I hurried over to examine his injuries. Two of his teeth had been knocked out and the roof of his mouth was deeply scored.
‘Do you want something for the pain?’ I asked.
He shook his head, and for the first time I saw self-doubt in his eyes: recognition of his own limitations and the fact that good does not always triumph over evil. Although we were armed with Flamel’s Hammer of Demons, our victory was by no means certain.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Father Lestoumel replied, ‘Take care of the girl.’
I returned to Annette, who was now still and quiet, and with Hélène’s assistance washed away some soiling and changed her clothes. Hélène worked quickly and efficiently, but her hands were unsteady and her eyes unnaturally bright.
‘Madame,’ I said, ‘you do not have to watch with us. You are exhausted. Please, go next door.’
She did not reply and gave me a hard look: a look that pierced my heart, because her eyes were accusing me. ‘This is your fault,’ they said, ‘this is all your fault.’ I pulled a chair from beneath the dressing table and added, ‘At least sit down.’ She did as I asked, but did not thank me.
Annette’s breathing had become very shallow and her skin was completely drained of colour – a terrible, inanimate white: the white of chalk or alabaster, as if all the vessels in her body had been sucked dry. Sitting by her bedside, I heard an abrasive noise and noticed dust on my sleeve. I looked up at the ceiling, warily, but said nothing to the others.
An hour passed and Bazile came back, brandishing the key to the north tower of the cathedral. He had, no doubt, been expecting a warmer reception – handshakes and congratulations. But his smile disintegrated when he saw our grim expressions.
‘What has happened?’ he asked.
Father Lestoumel took his arm. ‘Let us go into the parlour. I will explain everything there.’ The curé did not want Hélène to hear his account. He, too, was worried about her mental state.
Annette’s pulse was weakening, and by the time Father Lestoumel and Bazile returned, I could hardly find it. The curé resumed his prayers: ‘Glory be to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be, for ever and ever. Amen.’
Bazile appeared at my side.
‘Are you all right?’ he whispered.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
But his dark eyes registered my apprehension.
Annette gave a little sigh, and when the exhalation was complete, her pulse faltered and stopped. She was dead.
I did not move. Time halted with the cessation of her life. The moment I inhabited was infinite, and it seemed that I had an eternity in which to commune with Annette’s impassive features. But then a tremor passed through my body and I was seized by rage, ‘No, no!’ I shouted. ‘You shall not have her!’ The emotion that animated me was exceptionally pure: complexities could not survive its fierce intensity. Suddenly, the world was a simpler place, my mind was emptied of redundant philosophy, I was not a player in some preordained drama in which the forces of good were pitched against the forces of evil. God and his mysterious intentions were completely irrelevant. What mattered now was this: the demon should not be victorious. Excepting myself and my enemy, the universe was now void.
I opened my medical bag, removed a scalpel, and cut down the front of Annette’s smock.
‘What
are you doing, monsieur?’ cried Hélène.
I did not reply and heaved the battery onto the bed. I raised the lid, adjusted the coil and the machine began to buzz. Placing the electrodes over Annette’s heart, I delivered the maximum charge. Her body convulsed, but when I laid my ear against her chest, there was no heartbeat. ‘Damn you!’ I shouted, and again I applied the electrodes. Two threads of brilliant blue light dropped from the rods and scorched her skin. A second convulsion: but still nothing. Cold flesh and silence. I brought my clenched fist down on her sternum with such force that Annette’s body bounced several times on the mattress. A pocket of trapped air stimulated her vocal cords and she emitted a pathetic whimper. ‘Come back!’ I yelled. ‘You cannot die, you must not die!’ Again, I placed the electrodes over her heart and – ignoring the smell of cooked flesh – did not remove them until her third convulsion came to an end. The pitch of the buzzing ascended and there was a loud report. A flame danced around the blackened coil and then went out. I threw the rods aside and pressed my hand against the side of Annette’s neck. ‘She’s alive,’ I cried. ‘She’s alive. Her heart is beating again.’ Then, addressing Father Lestoumel, I added, ‘We cannot wait until dawn. We must go to the cathedral now.’
‘But the demon is at its most powerful at night,’ said the curé. ‘That would be most unwise.’
‘The battery is broken,’ I continued, ‘and if Annette’s heart stops again, I will not be able to revive her. Father Lestoumel, we must go to the cathedral now or she will die!’
Hélène swooned and Madame Bazile rushed to her assistance.
‘Very well,’ said the curé, ‘let us go.’
I did not stop to examine Hélène. Instead, I picked up the child and strode towards the door.
‘But what about Madame Du Bris?’ asked Madame Bazile.
‘The ritual we are about to perform is extremely dangerous,’ I replied. ‘It is just as well she will not be present.’
The bell-ringer’s wife looked up at her husband. ‘Are you going with them, Édouard?’
‘Yes,’ said Bazile, nodding his head vigorously.
‘It is not necessary,’ I said. ‘Father Lestoumel and I can perform the ritual on our own.’
‘I am afraid,’ said Bazile, ‘that my mind is made up. Come now, my friend, this is no time to quibble.’
We did not have to wait very long outside Saint-Sulpice before the lamps of a cab emerged from the gloom. The driver looked alarmed when he saw the girl in my arms.
‘I am a doctor,’ I said. ‘This child has had a seizure and is close to death. She has already received extreme unction,’ I nodded towards the curé. ‘Please, take us to the Hôtel Dieu.’
‘Put her inside,’ said the driver. ‘I’ll get you there in five minutes.’
25
The cathedral loomed over us, its communities of saints, angels and demons ascending in energetic elevations towards a low vault of heavy cloud. Bazile unlocked the door of the north tower and, when he pulled it open, light spilled out from within. The interior had been hung with oil lamps. ‘Quenardel,’ said the bell-ringer. ‘He is most thoughtful.’
We ascended the spiral staircase and came to a cavernous room littered with pieces of masonry and the decayed parts of statues. I had passed through this space before – it seemed a lifetime ago – when I had climbed up to the viewing platform and observed dawn breaking over Paris in the company of the chimeras.
‘Is this the place?’ asked the curé.
‘Yes,’ said Bazile.
Father Lestoumel looked around and smiled. ‘You have chosen well, my friend.’ He then produced some candles, which he lit and fixed to the floor with melted wax. I made myself as comfortable as possible, sitting with my legs crossed and cradling Annette’s head in my lap. Her breathing was barely perceptible. ‘Please hurry, Father,’ I said.
‘Monsieur Bazile,’ said the curé, ‘would you be so kind as to hold the book for me?’
The bell-ringer positioned himself in front of Father Lestoumel, holding the Hammer of Demons open so that the curé could read the text. There were no preparatory remarks. Father Lestoumel simply cleared his throat and began to chant. Some of the words were familiar, being either Latin or Greek; others, however, were in a language I did not recognize. As Father Lestoumel chanted, he moved his hands through the air, tracing the outlines of figures. At first, the shapes were simple – squares, triangles, circles – but then the movements became more complex, and it was no longer possible to identify specific forms.
Annette’s face was now like a death’s head. She had become a strange ceramic effigy. Her thin blue lips were pulled back to reveal two rows of even teeth and a blackened, swollen tongue protruding between them. The fetid exhalations that rose up from her mouth smelled like rotting fish. She rolled her head and spat out words that sounded like an Arabic curse.
‘Hurry, Father!’ I cried, fearful that we might lose Annette at any moment.
The curé did not acknowledge my appeal. Instead, he maintained the steady metre of his chant and continued to divide the air with graceful, sweeping gestures.
When I returned my attention to Annette, her eyelids rolled back revealing only white, bloodshot membranes. ‘End this now,’ she growled. ‘If you send me back, you know who I will seek.’ I felt as if I had been splashed with acid. ‘I will befoul your strumpet and violate her – rip her belly and make a garland of her bowels. I will undo her and feast on her yielding parts.’
‘Do not listen to it!’ shouted Bazile.
I looked into Annette’s empty eyes, fighting to overcome a wave of nausea and terror, and said, ‘Your time in this world is over.’
The demon responded with a horrible, grating laugh: ‘Have you found faith?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I have found hate, and with it, singularity of purpose.’
‘You make my work so easy,’ the fiend replied, before producing a series of harsh barks that managed to express merriment.
‘Do not speak to it!’ screamed Bazile, making frantic gestures. ‘Do not let it into your mind! Nothing can be gained by engaging with the deceiver!’
‘You think it is over?’ said the demon, a note of amusement animating its gravelly monotone. ‘Think again, fool. It is only the beginning.’
Bazile was right. Even though our exchange had been brief, it was enough to empower the demon. With each sentence, it seemed to find communicating easier. Moreover, its parting remark, delivered with such supreme confidence, weakened my resolve. As I swayed on the edge of some inner precipice, confused, shocked, enfeebled, I was startled by an electrical crackling; a short distance from where I sat, beyond Annette’s feet, the darkness was infiltrated by a soft red glow. Veils of luminosity folded and dissolved into shimmering sprays of light. The portal was opening.
Father Lestoumel’s hands fell by his side and he began to recite the ritual of exorcism. Not the Rituale Romanum, but a translation of an eighth-century Galician manuscript favoured by Flamel: ‘I accost you, damned and most impure spirit, cause of malice, essence of crimes, origin of sins, you revel in deceit, sacrilege, adultery and murder! I adjure you in Christ’s name that, in whatsoever part of the body you are hiding, you declare yourself, that you flee the body you are occupying and from which we drive you with spiritual whips and invisible torments. I demand that you leave this body which has been cleansed by the Lord. Let it be enough for you that in earlier ages you dominated almost the entire world through your action on the hearts of human beings.’
Annette’s limbs began to jerk.
‘Father!’ I called out. ‘She’s having another seizure. It’s trying to kill her. Please hurry.’
The curé and Bazile came forward and the two men knelt beside me. Annette’s jaw snapped shut and a stripe of bright blood appeared on her lip. I clasped her mouth and made sure that it remained closed.
‘Now, day by day,’ declaimed Father Lestoumel, ‘your kingdom is being destroyed, your arms weakening. Y
our punishment has been prefigured of old. Through the power of all the saints you are tormented, crushed and sent down to eternal flames.’
The candles began to flicker. We felt the flow of chill air against our cheeks, and a moment later the curé’s biretta blew off his head and rolled across the floor towards the portal. Air was being sucked from our world into some empty vastness.
Father Lestoumel looked around anxiously before laying both of his hands on Annette’s forehead. ‘Depart, depart!’ he cried, ‘Whencesoever you lurk, and nevermore seek out bodies dedicated to God.’ I could hardly hear his voice above the rushing wind. All the candles had blown out, but we could still see each other, our faces bathed in the radiance of the portal. Bazile lifted the Hammer of Demons higher so that the curé could read the text more easily. ‘Let them be forbidden to you forever, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’
This final affirmation of the trinity was like the last chord of a great symphony. Father Lestoumel allowed himself a small, triumphal smile. There was nothing more to do. He took the book from Bazile, closed its covers and held it against his chest.
Almost immediately, Annette stopped kicking. Her skin seemed to loosen around her skull – the hardened, smooth-textured contours became less reflective and softened as her features filled out. I watched, astonished, as the frozen thing she had become, thawed with the returning warmth of her humanity. Her face was so tranquil, calm and harmonious that I was suddenly fearful that she might be dead. I pressed my fingers against her neck. ‘Dear God,’ I cried. ‘Please. I beg you . . .’ And there it was – a faint perturbation, buried deep in the flesh. The movement of blood: life. I let out a sigh of relief, kissed her hair and thanked the Lord for His protection.
When I looked up again, I saw that something had interposed itself between our small, huddled group and the portal – a dark, nebulous mass. Against the glittering red light, I glimpsed the scalloped edge of an enormous wing, claws, two horns, the glint of polished scales. Each of these parts appeared momentarily before disappearing. The demon was clearly attempting to materialize. Was this supposed to happen? Fear gripped my throat and I could barely breathe. Then, quite suddenly, the demon was drifting backwards, its efforts frustrated by energies of unimaginable magnitude.