Come Near Me (35 page)

“No, boyo, don’t you be stopping up my mouth
for me. I got all the way downstairs, even poured myself a drink,
before I got to thinking. And I figured out that Sherry has to know
it all. You want to protect her, and I can understand that. But
they’re coming here tomorrow—he’s coming here. Blast it,
one
of them is coming here—and we all, the three of us, have to put our
heads together so we know what we’re going to do about it.”

Sherry shivered. “Adam? What’s Chollie
talking about?”

“Tell her, boyo,” Chollie prodded. “Tell her
now. About Lady Jasper, about the book. The poof, the plums—all of
it. There’s nothing else for it now.”

Adam, sighing, took both her hands in his,
squeezed her fingers. “All right,” he said wearily. “First we get
shed of these ridiculous clothes. Chollie, surely I have something
that will suit you better than that ridiculousness you’re wearing.
Then we’ll talk.”

“Well, it’s liking that I am,” Chollie
grumbled, already heading for the hallway and the stairs that led
up to the bedchambers. “And he looks better than me, I suppose?
That’s what comes of putting a crown on a man’s head, I say. Put on
airs right along with the thing, and no mistake.”

“And you’ll tell me everything?” Sherry
asked, as Adam helped her to her feet, hating herself for doubting
him, but he certainly hadn’t been forthcoming up to this point. She
leaned against him for support, as her knees seemed to have turned
to jelly.
The Devil?
No. She couldn’t have heard Chollie
correctly. Things like the Devil appearing in someone’s life—well,
they just didn’t happen, that’s all.

“Yes, darling, I’ll tell you everything. I
promise.”

~ ~ ~

“... put my hands to my mouth and got myself
out of there, pretending I was going to be ill at any moment. It
wasn’t very inventive of me, I suppose, or particularly brave, but
it was the first thing I could think of. Besides, I believe I was
rather sick. Looking across the table and suddenly realizing that
you’re looking directly into the eyes of the Devil can do that to a
man, I’ve learned.”

Chollie nodded rather energetically. “It was
my knees, boyo, that all but gave me up for dead when Brimley
grinned at me, waved, then disappeared. Poof! So, you’re saying
they’re both the same man? The same devil, that is?”

“I think so,” Adam said, as Sherry slipped
her hand into his, sighed. “I know it sounds as fantastical as
anything else we’ve been saying, but I believe that, when he left
me to supposedly check on Lady Jasper, he took on the—the
person
of Richard Brimley and cornered Sherry on the
balcony. Another few minutes, another poof or whatever, and he was
Burnell again, and back with me.”

He sat back, smiled. “You know, it’s a good
thing it’s the middle of the night. With Geoff and the rest of the
household safely asleep, no one can hear us. Otherwise, we’d all be
on our way to Bedlam by now, and be fitted up for our very own
straight-waistcoats. Because we all sound insane.”

“I still can’t believe it,” Sherry said
softly, then looked at Adam. “Oh, I
do
believe it. I just
can’t believe it. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

Adam squeezed her fingers. “I understand
exactly what you’re saying, sweetheart. And I’ve been thinking back
over the past few months, remembering more than one time when I
thought about selling my soul to the Devil in order to have your
love again. It’s a good thing Burnell wasn’t there to hear me,
wasn’t it? Because, not knowing he was the Devil, I probably would
have grabbed at his offer with both hands.” He frowned. “Or maybe I
did
summon him, or at least help to keep him close. I hadn’t
thought of that.”

“We’ve all done it, boyo,” Chollie said from
his seat across the low table from Adam and Sherry. “We all, at one
time or another, have wanted to sell our soul to go back, to change
things, to put them right. But when itch comes to scratch, I don’t
think any of us would do it.”

“Lady Jasper did,” Sherry pointed out. “Or at
least she says she did.”

“I wonder about that, don’t you, Chollie?”
Adam pulled the book from his pocket, laid it on the table in front
of him. “According to this, Lady Jasper had about as much chance of
success in summoning the Devil as she did in marrying one of the
royal dukes. But she could have. If this book is right, and she was
unlucky enough, she could have.”

Chollie blessed himself, then made the sign
against the evil eye, just for good measure. “You’ve been reading
that thing, boyo? I wouldn’t touch it. It’s sitting at the bottom
of a mile-deep bucket of holy water that I want to see that book,
and no mistake.”

Sherry reached for the book, then subsided
into the cushions once more, without touching it. “That’s it? It
doesn’t look all that dangerous. Just old, and small. But you found
the names in there. Emma, and Rimmon?”

“Even Midgard, Lady Jasper’s butler,” Adam
added. “Not that we’ll see any of them again. Not now, now that
Edmund has taken center stage, let us know who he is.”

“And Dickie? He won’t appear as Dickie
again?”

“No, darling,” Adam said, trying to reassure
her because he could hear the fear in her voice. “I don’t think he
will. Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid. I’m
angry,”
Sherry
told him and, if she’d never told the truth in her life, he would
have known she was telling it now. His wife, his dearest, most
wonderful Sherry, was about as angry as a person could be without
actually exploding. “How
dare
he try to hurt us?”

“You’re wonderful,” Adam said, leaning over
to kiss her. “Isn’t she wonderful, Chollie?”

“Magnificent,” Chollie agreed, still eyeing
the book as if it might turn into a wild animal at any moment, a
wild animal that would then leap straight at his throat. “Um, could
you put that thing somewhere, boyo? And tell me more about this
taking of souls thing. You’re saying Lady Jasper was wrong?”

“Not exactly, Chollie. According to the book,
the devil doesn’t so much
take
our souls as
we offer
them to him. She might have summoned him, but it was still
she
who had to do the offering.”

“Not
we
, Adam,” Sherry interrupted.
“At least, not at first. He was after me. Dickie as good as told me
so.”

Adam set his mouth in a thin line. “How?”

“Dickie called me Charlotte Victor. Charlotte
Victor,
Adam,” she said, spreading her hands as if that
explained everything. When Adam shook his head, not quite seeing
her point, she went on: “I believe that’s how he thinks of me, and
he couldn’t think of me that way if he only met me after you and I
were married. Because that’s what you think, isn’t it? That he saw
us in London, then followed us to Daventry Court? I think you’re
wrong. I think he knew me before you did. He may even have arranged
our meeting.”

When Chollie murmured a quick, “Jesus, Mary,
and Joseph,” she turned to him, tipping her head as she looked at
him sadly. “I’m sorry, my dear. It is frightening, isn’t it, to
believe that the Devil could plan something for so long?”

Adam was silent for a few minutes, as Sherry
sipped tea, as Chollie got up and paced the area in front of the
fireplace. “The chance meeting,” he said at last, talking to
himself, mostly. “The perfect roses.” He looked at Sherry. “The
snake in our paradise. Good God, Sherry, it fits. It all fits.
Every last bit of it. Even Dickie’s ridiculous story about his
unfaithful lover.”

Chollie held up his hands. “All right, stop
right there. You’ve lost me, boyo.”

But he hadn’t lost Sherry, bless her. “Of
course! He wasn’t talking about a woman, was he, Adam? He was
talking about his fall from Heaven, after he felt God had betrayed
him! Betrayed him by creating us. Creating inferiors, loving those
inferiors.”

“So many things that Brimley said, that
Burnell has said.” Adam looked at the table, at the pieces of the
sphere Geoff had left lying there. “Yes. It all fits. If you know
where to put the pieces.” He picked up the half-completed sphere
and fitted another piece into it, smiling at Chollie, at Sherry.
“And that’s how we’ll beat him.”

“Now I’m more than lost,” Chollie said,
taking off his spectacles, dropping into a chair.

Adam couldn’t sit still, so he got up, began
to pace. “It’s simple. So simple, it’s complex. Hell isn’t a threat
or a punishment. Hell is a
choice.
Burnell can’t steal or
buy our souls, or even trade them for something—the way Lady Jasper
feels she’s traded hers. Lady Jasper—anyone—has to
want
to
go to the Devil, has to
want
to let the evil out, if we want
to be melodramatic, and Lord knows this calls for a bit of
melodrama if we’re ever going to believe any of it. Let the evil
out, let the Devil in.” He stopped pacing, looked at his wife, his
friend. “Yes?”

“I’m not with you yet, boyo, but keep
talking. I’ll catch up.”

“He’s proud, arrogant. Pride has always been
his weakness, coupled with that arrogance. That’s why he’s gotten
so reckless. He can’t fail. He doesn’t believe he can fail.
Because, to him, he’s right. I watched him tonight, as I would any
adversary, and I watched him grow reckless with his belief that
he’s winning, that we’ll soon be begging him—begging him—to help
us. But if we stay strong? If we don’t give in to our own need to
seek out the evil inside ourselves?”

“What evil? I’m more than lost now, boyo.
Remember, you’ve been reading that book, not us. Sherry? What about
you? Are you as lost as I am?”

Sherry looked up at Adam. “I’m sorry,
darling. If you could explain? How would we choose evil? Selling my
soul, which you say I can’t do, in order to get your love
again—that I can understand. But evil?”

“I wanted him dead, Sherry,” Adam said,
kneeling in front of her. “I wanted Richard Brimley dead, out of
our lives. So, as you’ve told me, did you.
That’s
the
temptation we’ve been offered. Think about it. If someone were to
have asked me, when everything between us was so terrible, what I
would have wanted? I would have said I wanted to go back, start
over, without Richard Brimley ever having come into our lives.”

He felt Chollie tap him on the shoulder, and
stood up once more. “So what you’re saying, boyo, is that the Devil
sent himself to ruin your lives so that you’d wish him dead and out
of your lives—which would mean you let the evil out and would then
be damned?”

Adam thought over what Chollie had said, then
slowly nodded. “Yes. That’s about it. He gave us each other,
perhaps. He most definitely presented us with a sort of Eden, a
sort of paradise. And then he tossed in the snake—Richard Brimley.
To tempt us, and mostly, I believe, to once again prove himself
correct. That mortals are inferior, not worth being created in the
first place, not worthy of having
been
created in the first
place.”

He turned back to Sherry. “The
game,
remember? We’ve been partially correct, darling. This has all been
a game, with us as the pawns. We’re not the players, and never have
been. Burnell has been the only player, right from the beginning.
If we reject him, he loses, although in some twisted way, he also
wins.”

“He still wins? Well, it’s not liking that, I
am, don’t you know,” Chollie said, sitting down beside Sherry.

Adam smiled. He was beginning to feel much
better. “Think about it another moment, Chollie. If he tosses
temptation in our way and we choose to catch it, he wins. The soul
that comes to him proves that we mortals aren’t worthy of having
been created at all. If we refuse him, reject him, he also wins.
After all, Chollie, according to the book, his entire hope of
Heaven depends upon people like you and Sherry and me rejecting
him. If enough of us do, he might even regain his place in
Heaven—although I believe there’s little chance of that happening.
Still, at the end of it, he’d like to think he’s the master. But
he’s not. For all his pride, his arrogance, he’s the
slave.
The slave of men, forever chained to
their
desires. You
really ought to read the book, Chollie. It’s quite
interesting.”

“My sainted mother had another saying, boyo.
When you sup with the Devil, have a long spoon. So I’ll be standing
a bit away from that book, if you don’t mind. You can read, and I
can listen. But that’s as far as I go.”

Adam took a deep, steadying breath, tried
again. He wasn’t at all sure of what he was saying, what he had
read, but there was some small nugget of truth in there somewhere,
and he had to find it. Find it, then use it.

“Look, Chollie,” he said, trying again.
“Burnell’s not
trading
anything. He never was. Lady Jasper
is wrong. It’s a game Edmund plays. He tempts. We grab with both
hands, or we walk away. Either way, he wins. He wins our souls, or
he has a moment to
believe,
a moment to feel some shred of
hope before the next person chooses evil. The Devil is the
punishment, Chollie, not the judge.” He took hold of Sherry’s hands
once more. “He can’t take us if we won’t go, Sherry, if we refuse
him. If we love enough, are strong enough, he can’t tempt us.”

“Yes, and that’s true
enough,”
Edmund
said, and Adam stood protectively in front of Sherry even as he
turned to see the man standing in front of the fireplace. “But if I
might correct you on one small point? Lady J didn’t summon me; I go
where I will, when I will. Just as I decided to appear here,
tonight, gracing you with my presence—or damning you with it. Such
a bother, you know, waiting until tomorrow.”

“No,” Adam said, resisting, doing his best
not to betray how startled he’d been by Edmund’s unexpected
appearance. And he had to deny him, deny the Devil. He had to
believe he’d understood correctly. “You may have some unearthly
ability to appear when and where you want, but you also have to
appear on demand. Lady Jasper
summoned
you. You are the
slave and servant of man. She called, you came. Like a dog coming
to heel.”