Because the bodies had been laid out in a single line…carefully arranged to lead me on, to the door that led down to the cellar. Servants in their old-fashioned uniforms, guards in their body armour; they’d all died just as easily and as horribly. Blood pooled everywhere, most of it still sticky to the touch, and long, crimson streaks trailed across the walls in arterial spatter. The air was thick with the stench of it, and when I breathed through my mouth I could still taste the copper. I finally reached the end of the line and stood before the door that had helpfully been left just a little ajar, inviting me to go on down to the cellar…I knew what was waiting for me down there, eager to show me what he’d done with the Griffin family, and Melissa.
I pushed the door all the way open with one hand. A long line of stone steps fell away into the earth, the way brightly lit with paper lanterns. And sitting slumped against the bare stone wall on every other step was a dead servant or guard, carefully propped up to stare down the steps with dead eyes. I prodded the nearest one with a cautious finger. The dead body rocked slightly but showed no signs of rising to attack me. I started down the steps, sticking carefully to the middle, and as I passed by the dead men, now and again one would slowly lift his head and look at me and whisper secrets in a lost, faraway voice.
“The fires burn so hot here. Even the birds burn here.”
“Something’s holding my hand and it won’t let go.”
“They drink our tears like wine.”
“We don’t like being dead. It’s not what they told us it would be like. You won’t like it either.”
I did my best not to listen to them. Hell’s business is despair, and it always lies. Except when the truth can hurt you more.
I finally came to the bottom of the steps. It took a long time. I had no idea how far down I’d come, but I had to be deep under the Hall by now, maybe right at the heart of the hill upon which Griffin Hall sat. ( They say he raised up the hill and the Hall in a single night…) The door to the cellar was a perfectly ordinary-looking door, again standing slightly ajar, inviting me in. I kicked it open and strode into the stone chamber beyond as though I had an army at my back. And sure enough, there they all were—the Griffin family. Jeremiah and Mariah, William and Gloria, Eleanor and Marcel, all of them crucified, nailed to the cold stone walls. Blood still dripped from the cruel wounds at their pierced wrists and ankles. They looked at me silently, with wide, pleading eyes, afraid to say anything. Melissa Griffin sat alone in the middle of the stone floor, inside a pentacle whose lines had been laid out in her family’s blood. She was still wearing the tattered remains of her black-and-white novice’s habit, though the wimple had been torn away. Someone had beaten the crap out of her, probably just because they could. Blood had dried on her bruised and swollen face, but there was still a calm, stubborn grace in her eyes when she looked at me.
I nodded and smiled reassuringly, as much for me as for her. My first thought was how much she looked like Paul as Polly, but there was an inner light and peace in Melissa that Paul had never found. I walked carefully forward and knelt before Melissa, careful not to touch any of the lines of the pentacle.
“Hello, Melissa. I’m John Taylor. I’ve been looking for you. It’s good to meet you at last. Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here.”
“And my family?” said Melissa.
“I’ll do what I can,” I said. “It might be too late for some of them, but I specialise in lost causes.”
“Of course you do, Mr. Taylor,” said a calm, hateful, familiar voice. “After all, you’re the greatest lost cause of all.”
I looked around and there he was, leaning against the far wall with his arms casually folded across his chest, smiling like he had all the answers and several aces tucked up his sleeve. The man behind it all, right from the beginning. The man I’d Seen slaughter all those nuns in the chapel.
The butler, Hobbes.
I rose slowly to my feet and turned to look at him. “I knew there was something wrong about you from the start, but I just couldn’t bring myself to believe the butler did it.”
“Welcome to the real heart and soul of Griffin Hall, Mr. Taylor. So glad you could attend. The floor show will begin soon.”
“The devil you say.” I started towards him, but stopped as he pushed himself away from the wall. Without actually doing anything, he was suddenly very dangerous and not at all human. I adopted a casual stance and gave him my best sneer. “I should have known it was you the moment I heard your name. Hob is an old name for the Devil. Your name isn’t Hobbes, it’s Hob’s—belonging to the Devil.”
“Exactly,” said Hobbes. “It’s amazing how many people miss the most obvious things even when you thrust them right under their stupid mortal noses.”
“Enough,” I said. “We’re well past the time for civilised conversation. Show me your real face. Show me what you really are.”
He laughed at me. “Your limited human mind couldn’t cope with all the awful things I am. Just one glimpse of my true nature would blow your little mind apart. But there is a shape I like to use, when I am summoned to this dreary mortal plane…”
He stretched and twisted in a way that had nothing to do with the geometries of the material world, and in a moment Hobbes was gone and something else was standing in his place. Something that had never been, never could be, merely human. It was huge, almost twelve feet tall, bent over to fit into the stone-walled cellar, its horned head scraping against the ceiling. It had blood-red skin covered in seeping plague sores and great membranous batwings that stretched around it like a ribbed crimson cloak. It had cloven hoofs and clawed hands. It was hermaphrodite, with grossly swollen male and female parts. It stank of sulphur and suffering. And its face…I had to look away for a moment. Its face was full of all the evil and pain and horror in the world.
The Griffin family all cried out at the first sight of the demon in its true form, and I think I did, too.
“A bit medieval, I know,” said Hobbes, in a soft, purring voice like spoiled meat and babies crying and the growl of a hungry wolf. “But I always was a traditionalist. If a thing works, stick with it, that’s what I say.”
“Fight him, Taylor!” said Jeremiah Griffin. And even crucified to a wall in his own cellar, some of the Griffin’s strength and arrogance still came through. “Stop him before he destroys us all!”
Hobbes looked at me interestedly, a long red hairless tail slithering round its hoofs. I stood very still. I was thinking hard. I didn’t dare rush into anything. In this place we were all in danger, not just of our lives, but of our souls as well. This wasn’t one of the minor demons, like those I’d bluffed successfully in the past—this was the real deal. A Duke of Hell, and Hell was very near now, getting closer by the moment. I had to find a way out of this mess and be long gone before the Devil arrived to claim what was owed him. Hobbes said it was a traditional sort, so…I pulled a silver crucifix out of my coat-pocket, pre-blessed with holy water, and thrust it at Hobbes. The crucifix exploded in my hand, and I cried out in agony as silver fragments were thrust deep into my palm and inner fingers. Hobbes laughed, and the sound of it made me shudder.
“This is Hell’s territory,” it said calmly. “A shape is only a shape unless you have the faith to back it up. Have you ever had faith in anything, Mr. Taylor?”
Don’t try and argue with it. They always lie. Except when the truth can hurt you more…
“How long?” I said, cradling my injured hand against my chest. “How long have you been masquerading as the Griffin’s butler?”
“I’ve always been the Griffin’s butler,” said Hobbes. “Right from the very beginning. But I changed my face and form down the centuries, disappearing as one man and reappearing as another, and no-one ever noticed, least of all the Griffin. No-one notices servants. I stayed very close to him as he built his precious empire on the blood and suffering and wasted lives of others, dropping the odd word of advice here, a suggestion there, to see my master’s work done. My true master…For I was always my master’s servant, and never Jeremiah’s…”
“How did you get into the Nightside?” I said. “This place was designed to be free from the direct interventions of Heaven or Hell.”
“I was invited,” said Hobbes. “And Above and Below have always had their agents in the Nightside. You know that better than most. I’m so glad you found your way here, John. It wouldn’t be the same without you here, watching helplessly as I win at last.”
“You can save that crap,” I said. “I’m here because you couldn’t keep me out, despite all your efforts. You were the one who kept interfering with my gift. I should have spotted it only ever happened when you were around. And now you’re scared shitless I’ll find some way to stop you, after all your hard work, and cheat the Devil of his prize. Your master can be very hard on those who fail him…”
“I led you here,” said Hobbes. “I laid out the dead, to bring you down…”
“You put them there to frighten me off,” I said. “But I don’t frighten that easy.”
“Even you can’t break a compact willingly entered into with Hell!”
I had to smile. “I’ve been breaking the rules all my life.”
“My master will be here very soon,” said Hobbes. “And if you are here when he rises through that pentacle to claim his own, he will drag you down into Hell along with the others.”
“Answer me this,” I said. I was playing for time, and Hobbes had to know it, but its kind love to boast. “Why should the Devil grant a man such a long life if not actual immortality?”
“Because it corrupts,” Hobbes said easily. “Knowing that you can get away with anything. Jeremiah has done such terrible things, in his many years, and never once been punished for any of it. He made himself rich and powerful in awful ways, and so, through example, led many others into temptation and corruption. This one man has brought about the downfall of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, directly and indirectly. Spreading evil down the centuries as his business grew and spread. Based on evil, infecting others with its evil. We’re all very pleased with what Jeremiah has achieved, doing Hell’s work for so long…You won’t believe the welcome we’ve got planned for him and his family, in the very hottest flames of the Inferno.”
“Not Melissa,” I said.
Hobbes snorted loudly. “Who could have foreseen that such a man, steeped in centuries of evil, would go soft over a pretty face? But as time runs out, the damned often search for a way to wriggle out of the deal they made, to undo the evil they’ve done. All they really have to do is repent, honestly and truly, and Hell couldn’t touch them. But of course, if they were the kind who could repent, they wouldn’t make a deal with the Devil in the first place. Jeremiah, at least, was less hypocritical than most. He thought by leaving his empire to a pure soul, she could at least redeem his legacy. But that couldn’t be allowed. I’ve put too much work into ensuring that Jeremiah’s evil will live on after him, corrupting others for years to come, because only a business can be truly immortal.”
“Look, I shouldn’t even be here,” Gloria said frantically. “I never made any deal! I’m not even really a Griffin! I just married into the family!”
“Right!” said Marcel. “None of this is any of my business! Please, let me go. I won’t say anything…”
“You became immortal because of the deal Jeremiah made,” said Hobbes. “You profited from it, that makes you culpable. Now stop whining, both of you, or I’ll rip your tongues out. Soon enough it will be time for all Griffins to go down…All the way down…”
I still hadn’t thought of anything, and I was getting desperate. “Tell me about Melissa,” I said. “Why are you keeping her separate? Isn’t she damned, too, as a Griffin?”
“She has sworn her soul to Heaven,” said Hobbes. “And so has put it beyond Hell’s reach. So I’ll simply kill her, slowly and horribly, in the time remaining. And see if perhaps agony and horror and despair will lead her to renounce her faith. And then she will be Hell’s property again and join her family, forever. Oh little Sister, meek and mild, hope you’re feeling strong, my child.”
“Don’t you dare touch her!” yelled Jeremiah, straining against the iron nails that pinned him to the wall. “Taylor, do something! I don’t matter, but my family can still be saved! Do whatever you have to, but save my children and Melissa!”
“You bastard!” screeched Mariah. “All our years together, and you don’t even think of me?”
Jeremiah turned his head painfully to look at her. “I would save you if I could, my love, but after all the things we’ve done…Do you really think Heaven would take us now? We gloried in our crimes and our sins, and now we have to pay the price. Show some backbone, woman.” He looked at me again. “Save them, Taylor. Nothing else matters.”
“Who cares about the bloody children?” wailed Mariah. “I never wanted them! I don’t want to die! You promised me we would live forever and never have to die!”
Jeremiah smiled. “What man doesn’t lie to a woman to get what he wants?”
I looked at Melissa, crouched, shocked, and hurt but somehow still unbowed in the middle of the bloody pentacle. It was still hard for me to look at her and not think of Polly…Which made me think again of the golden key Paul had pressed on me so desperately as he was dying. It had to open something important, but what? A small golden key…like the one Jeremiah used to open a hidden door in the ballroom. Could there be another hidden space, down here in the cellar? And if so, what could it hold? And then I remembered Jeremiah telling me that the original document of his compact with the Devil was kept down here in the cellar, under lock and key, because although the document couldn’t be destroyed, the terms could still be rewritten…by someone with the right connections to Heaven or Hell…
I fired up my gift, my inner eye started to open, and then it slammed shut again as Hobbes closed it down. I fought the demon, using all my strength, but it was a demon and I was only mortal…I looked desperately at Melissa.
“Help me, Melissa! I can help you and your family, but you have to help me! That pentacle can’t hold you, a Bride of Christ! It is a thing of Hell, and you are sworn to Heaven! Fight it!”
As exhausted and battered and beaten down as she was, Melissa nodded and threw herself against the invisible wall of the pentacle. In her own very different way, Melissa could be as strong and determined as her grandfather. She slammed against the invisible wall again and again, even though it hurt her, chanting prayers aloud, while her grandfather laughed and cheered her on. Mariah was crying hysterically, William and Eleanor encouraged Melissa as best they could, and Gloria and Marcel watched silently, not quite daring to hope…And while the demon Hobbes looked this way and that, thrown for the moment by this sudden rebellion from those it had thought cowed and broken, I concentrated on my gift…and forced my inner eye open in spite of him.
My Sight showed me a secret space behind the wall to my left, and a concealed lock hidden in the stonework. I lurched over to it, jammed the golden key into the lock, and opened it. A section of the wall slid back, revealing an old roll of parchment tucked into a crevice in the stone. I pulled the parchment out and unrolled it. I know a little Latin, just enough to recognise the real thing when I saw it. A contract with Hell, signed by Jeremiah Griffin in his own blood.
I took out a biro and quickly crossed out the clauses applying to Jeremiah’s descendants. And prayed that the remains of the blessed crucifix still embedded in my writing hand would add enough sanctity to make the change binding.
The demon Hobbes gave up concentrating on keeping Melissa inside her pentacle and turned on me, howling with rage. Fire blazed at me from an outstretched hand, but I held the parchment up before me, the contract that could not be destroyed by anything…and the fire couldn’t reach me. And then the nails holding William and Eleanor and Gloria and Marcel to the wall jerked out of their pierced flesh and disappeared, and the four of them fell helplessly onto the cold stone floor. They struggled to get up onto their feet, while Hobbes stood frozen in shock and surprise.
“Get me down!” shrieked Mariah. “You can’t leave me here!”
“Of course they can,” said Jeremiah. “We are where we belong, darling. Taylor, get my family out of here!”
Melissa burst through the barrier of the pentacle and fell sprawling at my feet. I hauled her up.
“No!” roared Hobbes, in a voice too loud and too awful to be borne. “I’ll see you all dead before I let you go!”
And I used my gift to find the sunlight again, and bring it to me, right there in the cellar deep under Griffin Hall. Brilliant sunshine smashed down on Hobbes, holding it in a bright circle like a bug transfixed on a pin. Hobbes screamed, and Jeremiah laughed. Melissa grabbed my arm.
“Please, can’t you help him…?”
“No,” I said. “He sealed his fate long ago. He is where he’s supposed to be. But you’re not, and neither are the others. There’s still hope for them. Help me get them out of here.”
“ Hurry!” howled Jeremiah, fighting to be heard over Hobbes’s screams. “He’s coming!”
I could feel it. Something huge and unspeakable was rising inexorably from the place beneath all places, come to claim what was his. We had to get out while we still could. Between us, Melissa and I got the others moving. The stone floor was rocking and breaking apart under our feet. A terrible presence was beating on the air, and none of us dared look back. Jeremiah was still laughing, and Mariah was screaming in horror. I pushed the Griffin family through the cellar door. And suddenly we were standing in the courtyard, outside the front door of Griffin Hall, and there was Sister Josephine with the Hand of Glory held out before her.
“I told you they couldn’t keep me out!” she said, and hurried forward to help with the walking wounded. We made our way as quickly as we could across the empty courtyard, then we stopped and looked back as all the lights in the Hall suddenly went out. With a long, loud groan like a dying beast, the great building slowly collapsed in on itself, crumbling and decaying, and finally disappeared into a huge sucking pit at the top of the hill.
We all stood together, thinking our own thoughts and holding each other up, and watched the fall of the house of Griffin.
EPILOGUE
I pushed the door all the way open with one hand. A long line of stone steps fell away into the earth, the way brightly lit with paper lanterns. And sitting slumped against the bare stone wall on every other step was a dead servant or guard, carefully propped up to stare down the steps with dead eyes. I prodded the nearest one with a cautious finger. The dead body rocked slightly but showed no signs of rising to attack me. I started down the steps, sticking carefully to the middle, and as I passed by the dead men, now and again one would slowly lift his head and look at me and whisper secrets in a lost, faraway voice.
“The fires burn so hot here. Even the birds burn here.”
“Something’s holding my hand and it won’t let go.”
“They drink our tears like wine.”
“We don’t like being dead. It’s not what they told us it would be like. You won’t like it either.”
I did my best not to listen to them. Hell’s business is despair, and it always lies. Except when the truth can hurt you more.
I finally came to the bottom of the steps. It took a long time. I had no idea how far down I’d come, but I had to be deep under the Hall by now, maybe right at the heart of the hill upon which Griffin Hall sat. ( They say he raised up the hill and the Hall in a single night…) The door to the cellar was a perfectly ordinary-looking door, again standing slightly ajar, inviting me in. I kicked it open and strode into the stone chamber beyond as though I had an army at my back. And sure enough, there they all were—the Griffin family. Jeremiah and Mariah, William and Gloria, Eleanor and Marcel, all of them crucified, nailed to the cold stone walls. Blood still dripped from the cruel wounds at their pierced wrists and ankles. They looked at me silently, with wide, pleading eyes, afraid to say anything. Melissa Griffin sat alone in the middle of the stone floor, inside a pentacle whose lines had been laid out in her family’s blood. She was still wearing the tattered remains of her black-and-white novice’s habit, though the wimple had been torn away. Someone had beaten the crap out of her, probably just because they could. Blood had dried on her bruised and swollen face, but there was still a calm, stubborn grace in her eyes when she looked at me.
I nodded and smiled reassuringly, as much for me as for her. My first thought was how much she looked like Paul as Polly, but there was an inner light and peace in Melissa that Paul had never found. I walked carefully forward and knelt before Melissa, careful not to touch any of the lines of the pentacle.
“Hello, Melissa. I’m John Taylor. I’ve been looking for you. It’s good to meet you at last. Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here.”
“And my family?” said Melissa.
“I’ll do what I can,” I said. “It might be too late for some of them, but I specialise in lost causes.”
“Of course you do, Mr. Taylor,” said a calm, hateful, familiar voice. “After all, you’re the greatest lost cause of all.”
I looked around and there he was, leaning against the far wall with his arms casually folded across his chest, smiling like he had all the answers and several aces tucked up his sleeve. The man behind it all, right from the beginning. The man I’d Seen slaughter all those nuns in the chapel.
The butler, Hobbes.
I rose slowly to my feet and turned to look at him. “I knew there was something wrong about you from the start, but I just couldn’t bring myself to believe the butler did it.”
“Welcome to the real heart and soul of Griffin Hall, Mr. Taylor. So glad you could attend. The floor show will begin soon.”
“The devil you say.” I started towards him, but stopped as he pushed himself away from the wall. Without actually doing anything, he was suddenly very dangerous and not at all human. I adopted a casual stance and gave him my best sneer. “I should have known it was you the moment I heard your name. Hob is an old name for the Devil. Your name isn’t Hobbes, it’s Hob’s—belonging to the Devil.”
“Exactly,” said Hobbes. “It’s amazing how many people miss the most obvious things even when you thrust them right under their stupid mortal noses.”
“Enough,” I said. “We’re well past the time for civilised conversation. Show me your real face. Show me what you really are.”
He laughed at me. “Your limited human mind couldn’t cope with all the awful things I am. Just one glimpse of my true nature would blow your little mind apart. But there is a shape I like to use, when I am summoned to this dreary mortal plane…”
He stretched and twisted in a way that had nothing to do with the geometries of the material world, and in a moment Hobbes was gone and something else was standing in his place. Something that had never been, never could be, merely human. It was huge, almost twelve feet tall, bent over to fit into the stone-walled cellar, its horned head scraping against the ceiling. It had blood-red skin covered in seeping plague sores and great membranous batwings that stretched around it like a ribbed crimson cloak. It had cloven hoofs and clawed hands. It was hermaphrodite, with grossly swollen male and female parts. It stank of sulphur and suffering. And its face…I had to look away for a moment. Its face was full of all the evil and pain and horror in the world.
The Griffin family all cried out at the first sight of the demon in its true form, and I think I did, too.
“A bit medieval, I know,” said Hobbes, in a soft, purring voice like spoiled meat and babies crying and the growl of a hungry wolf. “But I always was a traditionalist. If a thing works, stick with it, that’s what I say.”
“Fight him, Taylor!” said Jeremiah Griffin. And even crucified to a wall in his own cellar, some of the Griffin’s strength and arrogance still came through. “Stop him before he destroys us all!”
Hobbes looked at me interestedly, a long red hairless tail slithering round its hoofs. I stood very still. I was thinking hard. I didn’t dare rush into anything. In this place we were all in danger, not just of our lives, but of our souls as well. This wasn’t one of the minor demons, like those I’d bluffed successfully in the past—this was the real deal. A Duke of Hell, and Hell was very near now, getting closer by the moment. I had to find a way out of this mess and be long gone before the Devil arrived to claim what was owed him. Hobbes said it was a traditional sort, so…I pulled a silver crucifix out of my coat-pocket, pre-blessed with holy water, and thrust it at Hobbes. The crucifix exploded in my hand, and I cried out in agony as silver fragments were thrust deep into my palm and inner fingers. Hobbes laughed, and the sound of it made me shudder.
“This is Hell’s territory,” it said calmly. “A shape is only a shape unless you have the faith to back it up. Have you ever had faith in anything, Mr. Taylor?”
Don’t try and argue with it. They always lie. Except when the truth can hurt you more…
“How long?” I said, cradling my injured hand against my chest. “How long have you been masquerading as the Griffin’s butler?”
“I’ve always been the Griffin’s butler,” said Hobbes. “Right from the very beginning. But I changed my face and form down the centuries, disappearing as one man and reappearing as another, and no-one ever noticed, least of all the Griffin. No-one notices servants. I stayed very close to him as he built his precious empire on the blood and suffering and wasted lives of others, dropping the odd word of advice here, a suggestion there, to see my master’s work done. My true master…For I was always my master’s servant, and never Jeremiah’s…”
“How did you get into the Nightside?” I said. “This place was designed to be free from the direct interventions of Heaven or Hell.”
“I was invited,” said Hobbes. “And Above and Below have always had their agents in the Nightside. You know that better than most. I’m so glad you found your way here, John. It wouldn’t be the same without you here, watching helplessly as I win at last.”
“You can save that crap,” I said. “I’m here because you couldn’t keep me out, despite all your efforts. You were the one who kept interfering with my gift. I should have spotted it only ever happened when you were around. And now you’re scared shitless I’ll find some way to stop you, after all your hard work, and cheat the Devil of his prize. Your master can be very hard on those who fail him…”
“I led you here,” said Hobbes. “I laid out the dead, to bring you down…”
“You put them there to frighten me off,” I said. “But I don’t frighten that easy.”
“Even you can’t break a compact willingly entered into with Hell!”
I had to smile. “I’ve been breaking the rules all my life.”
“My master will be here very soon,” said Hobbes. “And if you are here when he rises through that pentacle to claim his own, he will drag you down into Hell along with the others.”
“Answer me this,” I said. I was playing for time, and Hobbes had to know it, but its kind love to boast. “Why should the Devil grant a man such a long life if not actual immortality?”
“Because it corrupts,” Hobbes said easily. “Knowing that you can get away with anything. Jeremiah has done such terrible things, in his many years, and never once been punished for any of it. He made himself rich and powerful in awful ways, and so, through example, led many others into temptation and corruption. This one man has brought about the downfall of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, directly and indirectly. Spreading evil down the centuries as his business grew and spread. Based on evil, infecting others with its evil. We’re all very pleased with what Jeremiah has achieved, doing Hell’s work for so long…You won’t believe the welcome we’ve got planned for him and his family, in the very hottest flames of the Inferno.”
“Not Melissa,” I said.
Hobbes snorted loudly. “Who could have foreseen that such a man, steeped in centuries of evil, would go soft over a pretty face? But as time runs out, the damned often search for a way to wriggle out of the deal they made, to undo the evil they’ve done. All they really have to do is repent, honestly and truly, and Hell couldn’t touch them. But of course, if they were the kind who could repent, they wouldn’t make a deal with the Devil in the first place. Jeremiah, at least, was less hypocritical than most. He thought by leaving his empire to a pure soul, she could at least redeem his legacy. But that couldn’t be allowed. I’ve put too much work into ensuring that Jeremiah’s evil will live on after him, corrupting others for years to come, because only a business can be truly immortal.”
“Look, I shouldn’t even be here,” Gloria said frantically. “I never made any deal! I’m not even really a Griffin! I just married into the family!”
“Right!” said Marcel. “None of this is any of my business! Please, let me go. I won’t say anything…”
“You became immortal because of the deal Jeremiah made,” said Hobbes. “You profited from it, that makes you culpable. Now stop whining, both of you, or I’ll rip your tongues out. Soon enough it will be time for all Griffins to go down…All the way down…”
I still hadn’t thought of anything, and I was getting desperate. “Tell me about Melissa,” I said. “Why are you keeping her separate? Isn’t she damned, too, as a Griffin?”
“She has sworn her soul to Heaven,” said Hobbes. “And so has put it beyond Hell’s reach. So I’ll simply kill her, slowly and horribly, in the time remaining. And see if perhaps agony and horror and despair will lead her to renounce her faith. And then she will be Hell’s property again and join her family, forever. Oh little Sister, meek and mild, hope you’re feeling strong, my child.”
“Don’t you dare touch her!” yelled Jeremiah, straining against the iron nails that pinned him to the wall. “Taylor, do something! I don’t matter, but my family can still be saved! Do whatever you have to, but save my children and Melissa!”
“You bastard!” screeched Mariah. “All our years together, and you don’t even think of me?”
Jeremiah turned his head painfully to look at her. “I would save you if I could, my love, but after all the things we’ve done…Do you really think Heaven would take us now? We gloried in our crimes and our sins, and now we have to pay the price. Show some backbone, woman.” He looked at me again. “Save them, Taylor. Nothing else matters.”
“Who cares about the bloody children?” wailed Mariah. “I never wanted them! I don’t want to die! You promised me we would live forever and never have to die!”
Jeremiah smiled. “What man doesn’t lie to a woman to get what he wants?”
I looked at Melissa, crouched, shocked, and hurt but somehow still unbowed in the middle of the bloody pentacle. It was still hard for me to look at her and not think of Polly…Which made me think again of the golden key Paul had pressed on me so desperately as he was dying. It had to open something important, but what? A small golden key…like the one Jeremiah used to open a hidden door in the ballroom. Could there be another hidden space, down here in the cellar? And if so, what could it hold? And then I remembered Jeremiah telling me that the original document of his compact with the Devil was kept down here in the cellar, under lock and key, because although the document couldn’t be destroyed, the terms could still be rewritten…by someone with the right connections to Heaven or Hell…
I fired up my gift, my inner eye started to open, and then it slammed shut again as Hobbes closed it down. I fought the demon, using all my strength, but it was a demon and I was only mortal…I looked desperately at Melissa.
“Help me, Melissa! I can help you and your family, but you have to help me! That pentacle can’t hold you, a Bride of Christ! It is a thing of Hell, and you are sworn to Heaven! Fight it!”
As exhausted and battered and beaten down as she was, Melissa nodded and threw herself against the invisible wall of the pentacle. In her own very different way, Melissa could be as strong and determined as her grandfather. She slammed against the invisible wall again and again, even though it hurt her, chanting prayers aloud, while her grandfather laughed and cheered her on. Mariah was crying hysterically, William and Eleanor encouraged Melissa as best they could, and Gloria and Marcel watched silently, not quite daring to hope…And while the demon Hobbes looked this way and that, thrown for the moment by this sudden rebellion from those it had thought cowed and broken, I concentrated on my gift…and forced my inner eye open in spite of him.
My Sight showed me a secret space behind the wall to my left, and a concealed lock hidden in the stonework. I lurched over to it, jammed the golden key into the lock, and opened it. A section of the wall slid back, revealing an old roll of parchment tucked into a crevice in the stone. I pulled the parchment out and unrolled it. I know a little Latin, just enough to recognise the real thing when I saw it. A contract with Hell, signed by Jeremiah Griffin in his own blood.
I took out a biro and quickly crossed out the clauses applying to Jeremiah’s descendants. And prayed that the remains of the blessed crucifix still embedded in my writing hand would add enough sanctity to make the change binding.
The demon Hobbes gave up concentrating on keeping Melissa inside her pentacle and turned on me, howling with rage. Fire blazed at me from an outstretched hand, but I held the parchment up before me, the contract that could not be destroyed by anything…and the fire couldn’t reach me. And then the nails holding William and Eleanor and Gloria and Marcel to the wall jerked out of their pierced flesh and disappeared, and the four of them fell helplessly onto the cold stone floor. They struggled to get up onto their feet, while Hobbes stood frozen in shock and surprise.
“Get me down!” shrieked Mariah. “You can’t leave me here!”
“Of course they can,” said Jeremiah. “We are where we belong, darling. Taylor, get my family out of here!”
Melissa burst through the barrier of the pentacle and fell sprawling at my feet. I hauled her up.
“No!” roared Hobbes, in a voice too loud and too awful to be borne. “I’ll see you all dead before I let you go!”
And I used my gift to find the sunlight again, and bring it to me, right there in the cellar deep under Griffin Hall. Brilliant sunshine smashed down on Hobbes, holding it in a bright circle like a bug transfixed on a pin. Hobbes screamed, and Jeremiah laughed. Melissa grabbed my arm.
“Please, can’t you help him…?”
“No,” I said. “He sealed his fate long ago. He is where he’s supposed to be. But you’re not, and neither are the others. There’s still hope for them. Help me get them out of here.”
“ Hurry!” howled Jeremiah, fighting to be heard over Hobbes’s screams. “He’s coming!”
I could feel it. Something huge and unspeakable was rising inexorably from the place beneath all places, come to claim what was his. We had to get out while we still could. Between us, Melissa and I got the others moving. The stone floor was rocking and breaking apart under our feet. A terrible presence was beating on the air, and none of us dared look back. Jeremiah was still laughing, and Mariah was screaming in horror. I pushed the Griffin family through the cellar door. And suddenly we were standing in the courtyard, outside the front door of Griffin Hall, and there was Sister Josephine with the Hand of Glory held out before her.
“I told you they couldn’t keep me out!” she said, and hurried forward to help with the walking wounded. We made our way as quickly as we could across the empty courtyard, then we stopped and looked back as all the lights in the Hall suddenly went out. With a long, loud groan like a dying beast, the great building slowly collapsed in on itself, crumbling and decaying, and finally disappeared into a huge sucking pit at the top of the hill.
We all stood together, thinking our own thoughts and holding each other up, and watched the fall of the house of Griffin.
EPILOGUE
I don’t do funerals. I don’t like the settings or the services, and I know far too much about Heaven and Hell to take much comfort from the rituals. I don’t visit people’s graves to say good-bye, because I know they’re not there. We only bury what gets left behind. And besides, most of the time I’m glad the people concerned are dead and not bothering me anymore.
The only ghosts that haunt me are memories.
So I didn’t go to Paul Griffin’s funeral. But I did go to visit his grave a few weeks later. Just to pay my respects. Suzie Shooter came along, to keep me company. Paul was buried in the Necropolis graveyard, in its own very private and separate dimension. It was cold and dark and silent, with a low ground mist curling slowly around the endless rows of headstones, statues, and mausoleums. I stood before Paul’s grave, and Suzie slipped her arm lightly through mine.
“Do you still feel guilty about his death?” she said after a while.
“I always feel guilty about the ones I can’t save,” I said.
The simple marble headstone said PAUL AND POLLY GRIFFIN; BELOVED SON AND DAUGHTER. I was pretty sure I detected Eleanor’s way with words there. Paul would have smiled. The mound of earth hadn’t settled yet. The large wreath from all the girls at Divas! was made up entirely of plastic flowers, bright and colourful and artificial. Just like Polly.
Not that far away stood a huge stone mausoleum, in the old Victorian style, with exaggerated pillars and cornices and altogether too many carved stone cherubs. The oversized brass plaque on the front door proudly declared to one and all that the mausoleum was the last resting place of Jeremiah and Mariah Griffin. Only the names; no dates and no words. Jeremiah paid for the ugly thing ages ago, not because he thought he’d ever need it, but because such things were the fashion, and Mariah had to have everything that was in fashion. And of course her mausoleum had to be bigger and more ornate than everyone else’s. I was surprised she hadn’t had the stone cherubs carved thumbing their turned-up noses at everyone else.
Of course, Jeremiah and Mariah weren’t in there. Their bodies were never recovered.
“I hear Melissa joined a convent after all,” Suzie said finally.
“Yeah, a contemplative order, tucked away from the world, like she wanted. Attached to, though not really a part of, the Salvation Army Sisterhood. So she should be safe enough.”
“She’s the richest nun in the Nightside.”
“Actually, no. She did inherit everything, according to the terms of the final will, but she gave most of it away. William and Eleanor were guaranteed very generous lifetime stipends, via a trust, in return for not contesting the will, and everything else went to the Sisterhood. Who are currently rebuilding their church and fast becoming one of the main movers and shakers on the Street of the Gods. Evil-doers beware. God alone knows what kind of armaments the SAS could buy with an unlimited budget…”
“And William and Eleanor?”
“Both getting used to being only mortal, now that Jeremiah is gone. Since they’re not immortal or inheritors anymore, Society and business and politics have pretty much turned their backs on the pair of them, which is probably a good thing. Give them a chance to make their own lives, at last. William’s off visiting Shadows Fall, with Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat. They’re the only real friends he ever had. Eleanor’s gone into seclusion, still mourning her child. But she’ll be back. She’s tougher than anyone thinks. Even her.”
“You think their spouses will stick around?”
“Probably not,” I said. “But you never know. People can surprise you.”
Suzie snorted loudly. “Not if you keep your guard up and a shell in the chamber.” She looked around her. “Depressing bloody place, this. All the ambience of an armpit. Promise me you’ll never let me end up here, John.”
I smiled and hugged her arm briefly against my side. “I do know of a place, called Arcadia. Where it’s calm and peaceful and the sun always shine, and only good things happen. We could lie side by side on a grassy bank, beside a flowing river…”
Suzie laughed raucously, shaking her head. “You soppy sentimental old thing. I was thinking more along the lines of being buried under a bar, so there’d always be music and laughter, and people could pour their drinks on the floor as a libation to us.”
“That does sound more like you,” I admitted. “But the kind of bars we frequent, someone would be bound to dig us up for a laugh.”
“Anyone disturbs my rest, I’ll disturb them right back,” Suzie said firmly. “It’s in my will that I’m to be buried with my shotgun and a good supply of ammunition.”
I nodded solemnly. “I thought I’d have my coffin booby-trapped. Just in case. Maybe something nuclear.”
Suddenly Suzie pulled away from me and drew her shotgun from its rear holster in one smooth movement. I followed her gaze, and there was Walker, standing calmly at the other end of Paul’s grave. I hadn’t heard him approach, but then I never did. He smiled easily at Suzie and me.
“Such a dramatic reaction,” he murmured. “Anyone would think I wasn’t welcome.”
“Anyone would be right,” I said. “How did you know we’d be here?”
“I know everything,” said Walker. “That’s my job.”
“Come to check that the Griffins are really dead?” said Suzie, not lowering her shotgun.
“Simply paying my respects,” said Walker. “One must observe the proprieties.”
“Anyone interesting turn up at the funerals?” I said.
“Oh, only the usual suspects. Friends and enemies, and rather a lot of interested observers. Nothing like a dead celebrity to bring out the crowds and the paparazzi. It was quite a social gathering. Mariah will be furious she missed it.”
Suzie snorted loudly. “Half of them probably turned up to dance before the Griffin’s mausoleum, or piss on it.”
“There was quite a queue,” Walker admitted. “Some people waited for hours. And yet, a lot of the people who matter aren’t convinced the Griffin is really dead. They think that this is another of his intricate and underhanded schemes, and he’s still out there somewhere, plotting…”
“No,” I said. “He’s gone.”
Walker shrugged. “Even being dead doesn’t necessarily mean departed. Not in the Nightside. So everyone’s being very cautious.”
“What did you think of him?” I said, honestly curious. “The Griffin?”
“A man whose reach exceeded his grasp,” said Walker. “A lesson there for all of us, perhaps.”
“Why are you here, Walker?” said Suzie. Her shotgun was still trained on his face, but he didn’t even look at it.
“I’m here for you, John,” said Walker. “Suzie already works for me as one of my field operatives.”
“Only when I feel like it,” Suzie growled. Walker ignored her, his calm gaze fixed on me.
“I want you to work for me, John, full-time. Help me keep the peace in this ungodly cesspit, and ease the transition of power that will inevitably follow the Griffin’s death.”
“No,” I said.
“Well, thank you for thinking about it,” said Walker.
“I don’t have to think about it.” I met his gaze steadily and did everything I could to make my voice as cold as the cemetery we were standing in. “You’re a political animal, Walker, always have been. You will do whatever you feel is necessary, or expedient, to maintain order and the status quo. And to hell with whoever might get hurt or killed in the process.”
Walker smiled. “How well you know me, John. And that’s why I want you. Because like me, you’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done.”
“I’m nothing like you, Walker.”
“Well, if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.” He started to turn away, then looked back at me. “Change is coming, John. Choose a side. While you still can.”
He tipped his bowler hat to us and walked away, disappearing into the mists and the shadows. Suzie finally lowered her shotgun and put it away.
“That man is such a drama queen…”
“That man worries me,” I said. “He’s still running things in the Nightside, inasmuch as anyone does, or can, even though the Authorities are all dead and gone. So who’s backing him now? Where is he getting his power from? What kind of deal did he make to stay in charge?”
“There are lots of other people who’d like to run things,” Suzie said carelessly. “He won’t have it all his own way.”
“When the lions die, the jackals gather to feast,” I said.
“I guess we’re in for some interesting times in the Nightside.”
“Best kind,” said Suzie.
We laughed, and arm in arm we walked out of the cemetery.
“Not the most successful case I ever worked on,” I said.
“You found the missing girl. That’s all that matters. Hey, you never did tell me how much the Griffin paid you?”
I smiled.
The only ghosts that haunt me are memories.
So I didn’t go to Paul Griffin’s funeral. But I did go to visit his grave a few weeks later. Just to pay my respects. Suzie Shooter came along, to keep me company. Paul was buried in the Necropolis graveyard, in its own very private and separate dimension. It was cold and dark and silent, with a low ground mist curling slowly around the endless rows of headstones, statues, and mausoleums. I stood before Paul’s grave, and Suzie slipped her arm lightly through mine.
“Do you still feel guilty about his death?” she said after a while.
“I always feel guilty about the ones I can’t save,” I said.
The simple marble headstone said PAUL AND POLLY GRIFFIN; BELOVED SON AND DAUGHTER. I was pretty sure I detected Eleanor’s way with words there. Paul would have smiled. The mound of earth hadn’t settled yet. The large wreath from all the girls at Divas! was made up entirely of plastic flowers, bright and colourful and artificial. Just like Polly.
Not that far away stood a huge stone mausoleum, in the old Victorian style, with exaggerated pillars and cornices and altogether too many carved stone cherubs. The oversized brass plaque on the front door proudly declared to one and all that the mausoleum was the last resting place of Jeremiah and Mariah Griffin. Only the names; no dates and no words. Jeremiah paid for the ugly thing ages ago, not because he thought he’d ever need it, but because such things were the fashion, and Mariah had to have everything that was in fashion. And of course her mausoleum had to be bigger and more ornate than everyone else’s. I was surprised she hadn’t had the stone cherubs carved thumbing their turned-up noses at everyone else.
Of course, Jeremiah and Mariah weren’t in there. Their bodies were never recovered.
“I hear Melissa joined a convent after all,” Suzie said finally.
“Yeah, a contemplative order, tucked away from the world, like she wanted. Attached to, though not really a part of, the Salvation Army Sisterhood. So she should be safe enough.”
“She’s the richest nun in the Nightside.”
“Actually, no. She did inherit everything, according to the terms of the final will, but she gave most of it away. William and Eleanor were guaranteed very generous lifetime stipends, via a trust, in return for not contesting the will, and everything else went to the Sisterhood. Who are currently rebuilding their church and fast becoming one of the main movers and shakers on the Street of the Gods. Evil-doers beware. God alone knows what kind of armaments the SAS could buy with an unlimited budget…”
“And William and Eleanor?”
“Both getting used to being only mortal, now that Jeremiah is gone. Since they’re not immortal or inheritors anymore, Society and business and politics have pretty much turned their backs on the pair of them, which is probably a good thing. Give them a chance to make their own lives, at last. William’s off visiting Shadows Fall, with Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat. They’re the only real friends he ever had. Eleanor’s gone into seclusion, still mourning her child. But she’ll be back. She’s tougher than anyone thinks. Even her.”
“You think their spouses will stick around?”
“Probably not,” I said. “But you never know. People can surprise you.”
Suzie snorted loudly. “Not if you keep your guard up and a shell in the chamber.” She looked around her. “Depressing bloody place, this. All the ambience of an armpit. Promise me you’ll never let me end up here, John.”
I smiled and hugged her arm briefly against my side. “I do know of a place, called Arcadia. Where it’s calm and peaceful and the sun always shine, and only good things happen. We could lie side by side on a grassy bank, beside a flowing river…”
Suzie laughed raucously, shaking her head. “You soppy sentimental old thing. I was thinking more along the lines of being buried under a bar, so there’d always be music and laughter, and people could pour their drinks on the floor as a libation to us.”
“That does sound more like you,” I admitted. “But the kind of bars we frequent, someone would be bound to dig us up for a laugh.”
“Anyone disturbs my rest, I’ll disturb them right back,” Suzie said firmly. “It’s in my will that I’m to be buried with my shotgun and a good supply of ammunition.”
I nodded solemnly. “I thought I’d have my coffin booby-trapped. Just in case. Maybe something nuclear.”
Suddenly Suzie pulled away from me and drew her shotgun from its rear holster in one smooth movement. I followed her gaze, and there was Walker, standing calmly at the other end of Paul’s grave. I hadn’t heard him approach, but then I never did. He smiled easily at Suzie and me.
“Such a dramatic reaction,” he murmured. “Anyone would think I wasn’t welcome.”
“Anyone would be right,” I said. “How did you know we’d be here?”
“I know everything,” said Walker. “That’s my job.”
“Come to check that the Griffins are really dead?” said Suzie, not lowering her shotgun.
“Simply paying my respects,” said Walker. “One must observe the proprieties.”
“Anyone interesting turn up at the funerals?” I said.
“Oh, only the usual suspects. Friends and enemies, and rather a lot of interested observers. Nothing like a dead celebrity to bring out the crowds and the paparazzi. It was quite a social gathering. Mariah will be furious she missed it.”
Suzie snorted loudly. “Half of them probably turned up to dance before the Griffin’s mausoleum, or piss on it.”
“There was quite a queue,” Walker admitted. “Some people waited for hours. And yet, a lot of the people who matter aren’t convinced the Griffin is really dead. They think that this is another of his intricate and underhanded schemes, and he’s still out there somewhere, plotting…”
“No,” I said. “He’s gone.”
Walker shrugged. “Even being dead doesn’t necessarily mean departed. Not in the Nightside. So everyone’s being very cautious.”
“What did you think of him?” I said, honestly curious. “The Griffin?”
“A man whose reach exceeded his grasp,” said Walker. “A lesson there for all of us, perhaps.”
“Why are you here, Walker?” said Suzie. Her shotgun was still trained on his face, but he didn’t even look at it.
“I’m here for you, John,” said Walker. “Suzie already works for me as one of my field operatives.”
“Only when I feel like it,” Suzie growled. Walker ignored her, his calm gaze fixed on me.
“I want you to work for me, John, full-time. Help me keep the peace in this ungodly cesspit, and ease the transition of power that will inevitably follow the Griffin’s death.”
“No,” I said.
“Well, thank you for thinking about it,” said Walker.
“I don’t have to think about it.” I met his gaze steadily and did everything I could to make my voice as cold as the cemetery we were standing in. “You’re a political animal, Walker, always have been. You will do whatever you feel is necessary, or expedient, to maintain order and the status quo. And to hell with whoever might get hurt or killed in the process.”
Walker smiled. “How well you know me, John. And that’s why I want you. Because like me, you’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done.”
“I’m nothing like you, Walker.”
“Well, if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.” He started to turn away, then looked back at me. “Change is coming, John. Choose a side. While you still can.”
He tipped his bowler hat to us and walked away, disappearing into the mists and the shadows. Suzie finally lowered her shotgun and put it away.
“That man is such a drama queen…”
“That man worries me,” I said. “He’s still running things in the Nightside, inasmuch as anyone does, or can, even though the Authorities are all dead and gone. So who’s backing him now? Where is he getting his power from? What kind of deal did he make to stay in charge?”
“There are lots of other people who’d like to run things,” Suzie said carelessly. “He won’t have it all his own way.”
“When the lions die, the jackals gather to feast,” I said.
“I guess we’re in for some interesting times in the Nightside.”
“Best kind,” said Suzie.
We laughed, and arm in arm we walked out of the cemetery.
“Not the most successful case I ever worked on,” I said.
“You found the missing girl. That’s all that matters. Hey, you never did tell me how much the Griffin paid you?”
I smiled.