Surely they just needed a cell with a cot and a fireplace for the winter—not that we’d had anything approaching a frost or snowfall for as many seasons as I could remember. Why all the accoutrements and luxuries? Weren’t priests supposed to be men of simplicity and contentment? Prattle’s priest lodge had many rooms and even a small courtyard. He had three staff too—a cook, a cleaner and a gardener. All female. All young. All examples of eager, dimpled pulchritude. It made me sick.
I didn’t bother to knock because I knew there was no one home. Using my shoulder I eased the front door open. We walked through the reception hall and out to the courtyard where a spreading Cyprus tree gave shade. We placed the head, the jaws of which were snapping shut repeatedly and with great malice, out in the open on the dirt and sat down at a table to watch it and recover our breath. Some of the outer leaves on the cypress tree died in the presence of the head but most seemed unaffected.
“I love Leopold’s place, don’t you?” said Velvet as though she was a regular visitor.
“It’s a hovel. Anyway, when have you been here before?”
“Oh, I haven’t really. Just once or twice probably.”
“Whatever for?”
“It was a long time ago, Delly. I think I came for spiritual guidance.”
“From that unwashed reprobate? Tell me you’re jesting.”
“I think he washed more often back then. And he was very supportive.”
“Well, patch my pink pyjamas. I would never have believed it.”
Velvet ignored my disgust. She looked around the courtyard and through the windows of the house with appreciation.
“I could live in place like this,” she said.
“Oh, pigswill, Velvet. It’s a glorified lean-to. Our place is much nicer—the garden, the open country beyond —”
“The half-witted neighbours, the long walk to market…”
I shut up. She was right; Prattle’s place was a palace compared to ours and it had privacy, too. I took out the Ledger and scanned it for information on ridding your village of a demon. At the front door there was a commotion and several people spilled through into the courtyard with us. I saw more gathered behind them, afraid to follow. One individual, his black robes unable to hide the dirt or keep in the reek of his body, stumbled right into us.
“Nyev, nyev, nyev. You can’t put it here,” shouted Prattle as he waved his sticklike arms at me. “Take it away now.”
I brushed some grime from my shirt and tried not to breathe through my nose.
“This is the proper place for it,” said I. “It’s a spiritual matter and you’re responsible for it.”
He couldn’t publicly deny either point, so he stood there and put his hands on his hips. When he could think of nothing else to say he turned to the demon head and pretended to assess it, stroking his chin as though he was near to a solution. But he said nothing. Eventually, the small crowd of people in his courtyard approached. Among them were the joint owners of the demon, Rickett and Wiggery, and a bruised, dust covered Reginald Cleaver back in possession of his knife and looking like he wanted to use it some more.
“I say we kill it,” said Cleaver, demonstrating in a single sentence why he’d advanced no further in life than butchery.
“You going to cut off its head again are you, Reg?” I asked. Folk sniggered. Cleaver was indignant.
“No, we cut it up into small pieces and burn it to ashes.”
This was too much.
“Reg,” I whispered, “It’s a demon. From Hell. You can’t burn something that thrives in the hottest flames ever created.
“Yeah, but couldn’t we…”
The hand with the knife in it dropped to his side. The whiteness left his knuckles. Puff Wiggery smacked the heel of his palm against his forehead.
“So that means, no matter how much we cook the demon steaks and chops, they’ll still be raw, right?”
Several people made disgusted retching sounds.
“I’m going off eating the thing, I can tell you,” said Blini Rickett.
“I think we need to talk to it,” said I, “Find out why it came here.”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Prattle as if the idea had been his.
He approached the demon head and several people backed away, not certain what it might be capable of. Not one of them thanked
“Vile abomination, why do you come here? Tell us your purpose lest we destroy you.”
The demon opened and closed its mouth and moved its lips in what might have been language but no sound came out. Prattle leaned in a little closer.
“You’ll have to speak up, spawn of the dark one, or we will be forced to encourage you.” Prattle looked back at his little knot of onlookers and winked as though he’d interrogated many a demon. I sighed in resignation. From my angle, it looked like the demon head was laughing. His face was wrinkled tight, creases at the edges of his mouth and eyes. A few droplets of sulphurous pus trickled from the corners of his eyes; he was laughing so hard he was crying. Prattle had his own opinion. “Observe,” he said, gesturing towards the contorted face, “See how the mere proximity of a holy man strikes pain into the beast. Come now, demon, speak to us.”
Feeling very tired, I put a hand on Prattle’s shoulder and gestured for him to listen to me for a moment. He didn’t look pleased to have his routine interrupted, especially when he had the crowd and the demon eating out of his hand. I whispered as quietly as I could.
“The demon isn’t able to make any sound because it has been separated from its lungs. I’m certain there’s plenty it wants to say to you, but at this stage, it’s not possible. We’ll need to make arrangements.”
Irritated, but knowing I was right, Prattle asked:
“What kind of arrangements?”
Puff
An hour later everything was set up in Prattle’s courtyard. The demon’s head was elevated, propped up between two chairs on top of a table, and we’d managed to stick the sharp end of a large pair of bellows from the forge into its windpipe. Despite placing a sack over the demon’s head during the entire operation and everyone wearing thick leather gauntlets, Cleaver had lost a thumb to the demon’s snapping teeth. Velvet was bandaging his hand as best she could, having sewn the wound closed with gut.
“I’ll never work again,” he was saying. “I can’t do anything with my left hand, not even wan—”
“Never mind about that now, Mr. Cleaver,” said Velvet, cool as you please. “You’ll learn to use your left hand in no time.”
“Truly? You think I will?”
“Of course I do. I know it. You just need to practice. To give yourself some incentive you can start by practising wan—”
“Thank you, Velvet,” I said, “I think he’s got the idea. Now then, who’s going to operate the bellows, Puff or Blini?”
“I’m not doing it,” said Wiggery.
“Nor I,” said Rickett.
“This demon is your property, gentlemen. Remember how I helped you to establish that fact and save you from the hungry masses?”
Neither of them spoke.
“Right, you can take it in turns, then. You first, Puff.”
“Oh, come on, why can’t he go first?”
“Just do it.”
