“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.”