The Demon Collector (16 page)

After the tumbling rush down the passages, the library seemed tranquil and quiet. Edgy glanced from bookshelf to table, desperate to find the snake.

‘Hello? Snake?’ Edgy yelled. What should he call the creature who presided over the library?

‘Back so soon, Edgy Taylor?’ a voice hissed to his right. The leaves shivered and the snake slithered from between two large volumes. ‘What have we here? A canine. In bad shape.’

‘Can you make him better?’ Edgy said, easing Henry down on to the floor. The dog’s breath came out in wheezing gasps now.

The snake’s eyes glowed brightly. ‘Probably but what point would there be in that?’

‘Well, I . . .’ Edgy didn’t know what to say. He’d expected the snake to make Henry better. He hadn’t thought he’d say no.

‘What I mean to say,’ the snake slid closer, circling Henry, ‘is, what’s in it for me?’

‘Edgy –’ Sally said, grabbing hold of his arm. He shook her off.

‘What do you mean?’ he said. The snake slid around Edgy’s ankle and stared up at him.

‘I mean, Edgy Taylor, if I save this scruffy hound,’ he hissed, ‘what can you offer me in return?’

‘Don’t listen to him, Edgy.’ Sally’s voice sounded full of fear. ‘He’ll take your soul.’

‘His soul? Now there’s an idea,’ snapped the snake. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Full of good ideas, your friend. Lucky she just happened to turn up when the creature came out of the picture.’

Edgy stared down at him. How could he possibly know what had just happened in the bedroom?

‘I am knowledge, Edgy Taylor. I know. So do you want me to save the mutt?’ the snake hissed, curling up his knee.

Henry gave a strangled sigh. A little froth bubbled from his lolling tongue. Edgy ran his fingers over Henry’s smooth ears. He and Henry had been firm friends through the worst of times. Edgy had lost count of the number of kickings Henry had received trying to stop Talon from beating him.

‘Yes,’ he said, staring at the snake. ‘What do you want in exchange?’

‘Edgy, no!’ Sally ran forward and grabbed his elbow again. ‘Don’t do this. If he takes your soul, you’ll end up like . . . like . . .’

‘Like who, missy?’ The snake coiled itself around Edgy’s waist, its tail still lost in the depths of the shadows. ‘Like you? I did you a favour in return for your silence many years ago. Look at you. A lifeless husk, eaten up with jealousy and hatred. Who did put the picture in Edgy’s room? Didn’t it used to be
your
room?’

‘Stop it.’ Edgy pushed Sally away.
Did she try to get rid of me?

The snake reared its head up level with his eyes. Henry gave a shudder and his back leg lashed out in pain.

‘What do you want?’ Edgy repeated.

‘Not your soul, that’s for sure – give it a few more years yet. No, it’s a promise I want. Promise that you’ll never hurt me and you’ll never mention my presence here to anyone. That’s all.’

‘Hurt you?’ Edgy murmured. ‘How could I hurt you?’

‘I don’t know. You make me nervous.’ The snake darted around his head. ‘Call it an old snake’s whim. It’s a bargain: your old friend back for a promise not to do something you can’t do anyway. Money for old rope. What do you say?’

Edgy glanced at Sally. She clasped her hands together, her eyes wide, begging him not to agree.

Henry gave a sad whimper.

His sides rose, then fell.

His breathing stopped.

‘Done,’ Edgy said. ‘I promise never to hurt you. Now save him!’

The snake slithered over Edgy’s shoulder, its coils warm and dry, stroking the skin of his neck. He eased his way over Henry, sliding under his belly and coiling around him again and again, under and over, under and over, until all Edgy could see was snake. The light faded in the great domed hall and shadows shrouded the snake and Henry. Edgy squinted to see what was going on. Dark shapes swirled before his eyes. The snake’s coils merged into one. The darkness grew deeper until Edgy felt as if he was staring into a bottomless well.

And then, gradually, the twilight returned. The shadows slithered back behind the books and branches.

‘He’ll be fine now,’ hissed the snake, bleeding back into the darkness under the bookshelves. ‘Remember your promise.’

Henry stood before him, wagging his tail.

‘Henry!’ Edgy cried, scooping up his old friend. He gave a yap and started licking Edgy’s face as if it was smeared with jam. Edgy held him up. ‘Look at you – not even a mark on you!’

Henry panted and shook with excitement. He looked bright and full of life, wagging his tail like a puppy. Even the dirty grey of his fur had become a brilliant white. Edgy spun around, hugging Henry to his chest.

‘I just hope it was worth it, Edgy Taylor,’ Sally muttered behind him.

Edgy turned on her. ‘What’s it to you anyway?’ he snapped. ‘It was you who shut him in the room in the first place. An’ you never did answer the snake. Well, did you put the picture in my room?’

‘Is that what you really think?’ Sally gasped. Her voice echoed around the dome. ‘If I was so keen to get rid of you, why did I pull you out?’

Edgy’s face burned. ‘I don’t know, maybe you thought I’d be grateful an’ give you your room back,’ he said. Edgy knew he was wrong. It was the fact that she was right that annoyed him. Edgy didn’t really know what he’d promised to the snake and, much as he loved Henry, it was a choice he might regret later.

‘If you believe that, then next time I won’t bother.’ Sally’s eyes narrowed and she leaned closer. ‘And I bet there
will
be a next time, Edgy. Someone doesn’t like you, and I can’t say as I blame ’em.’ She turned and slammed the library door, leaving Henry and Edgy alone with only the weeping lost souls for company.

Edgy sighed. She was right again. Someone had tried to kill him. They’d quite deliberately taken a possessed painting from the wall and placed it in his room. And Edgy felt certain of one thing – anyone who went to those lengths would try again.

He opened her bosom all whiter than snow,

He pierced her heart and the blood it did flow,

And into the grave her fair body did throw,

He covered her up and away he did go.

‘The Cruel Ship’s Carpenter’, traditional folk ballad

Chapter Twenty
-
One

The Threat in the Shadows

Anawald Milberry appeared at Edgy’s door the next morning. She had blankets draped over her arm and a pale, concerned expression.

‘Sally just told me about the picture,’ she said. ‘Have you any idea who put it in your room?’

‘Haven’t a clue, ma’am,’ Edgy murmured sleepily.

‘I brought you these.’ She offered the blankets, then gave an awkward smile. ‘Not quite sure what for but . . .’

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said, giving a tight smile. ‘That’s very thoughtful, like.’

‘You were lucky that Henry was with you.’ Milberry bent down and scratched the dog behind the ear. Henry wagged his tail. ‘He’s a brave little chap. Amazing that he wasn’t hurt.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Edgy muttered.

‘I don’t know who did this, Edgy,’ Milberry said, her face worried, ‘but I’ll investigate it. It’s far from perfect but one day the Society will be a better place, I promise you.’

‘Thanks, ma’am.’ Edgy smiled again. Milberry was all right in his book.

He watched her disappear into the gloom of the corridor and went back to his bed. His whole body throbbed after being pulled and tugged between Sally and the demon in the portrait. Absent-mindedly, Edgy sat on the edge of the bed, gripping the thin, straw-filled mattress. His fingers grazed something underneath. A small notebook. Plain, not snakeskin like
A Demon a Day
. He opened it and read the spidery handwriting on the page:

Don’t know why I’m writing this. Maybe a century of being alone has forced me to do it. To confess.

I was twelve when little Molly was born. All bright eyes, squeals and smiles, she was from the start. A proper bundle of mischief.

Mam worked herself to a scrap at the local mill and goodness knows where me da went. Off to the alehouse one night an’ never came back. So I looked after Molly. Hard times, they were. She leadin’ me a merry old dance around the house and street. An’ many’s the time I wished her gone. Wished myself free to go an’ see me friends, not be stuck in the dark, damp room all day.

I can still remember her cry, harsh and piercin’, it fair split my head. An’ her snotty nose, it never stopped drippin’. Such a burden. Holdin’ me back, keepin’ me where I didn’t want to be.

Until the fever came. Mam an’ Molly took bad. Sunken eyes and rattlin’ coughs. Pale, fevered skin. I can still hear her cryin’ out my name, all hoarse and feeble, like.

Doctor Lustenbrück said he ’ad a cure. Came to our door. Just had to go with him, he said. He had medicine, he said. I could bring it back an’ make Molly an’ Mam well.

An’ now I remember the feel of Molly’s soft fingertips on my lip when I picked her up. The plump warmth of her cheek as she nestled into the curve of my neck. Her chubby knees an’ brown curls.

’Course, he never had no cure for ’em. Just this livin’ death. He gave me a potion. Told me it was to keep me well. When I woke up, I was so cold, so tired, so dry an’ hungerless.

I took meself home but fever had taken Molly an’ Mam. I never saw them again. Maybe one day I will, when I can rest.

But I never forgot ’em, you can rest assured. An’ neither did Doctor Lustenbrück.

Till the day he died. I made sure of that.

Edgy slammed the book shut. It was Sally’s. He gave a guilty sigh. He shouldn’t be reading her personal journal and he shouldn’t have judged her last night, either. She had saved his life and he accused her of trying to kill him. Henry stared up at him with reproachful eyes.

‘I’ll apologise,’ Edgy murmured. ‘Soon as I can.’

In the evening, Edgy searched for Sally but instead found Spinorix in the exhibition hall. He sat polishing what looked like glass eyes, rattling them down on to a display cabinet as he cleaned each one. Henry settled, watching him carefully, licking his lips and shifting from paw to paw.

Edgy twirled the bone triangle in his fingers, feeling the sharpness of the corners. ‘The boy cut this out of the skull. To stop Mr Janus using the map,’ he murmured.

Lines crawled across its brown surface.
If it’s a map, one side of a line should be sea, the other land
, Edgy thought.
Surely they can’t be roads?
But without the rest of the skull it was meaningless.

‘Not just an act of vandalism then?’ Spinorix said, squeezing one of the eyeballs until it popped out of his grasp and went clattering across the floor. Henry scurried off too. Spinorix had been appalled when he’d discovered that the hole had been cut out of the skull in the first place. It had taken Edgy a lot of explaining when he’d shown him the triangle and told him how he had come by it.

‘Nah!’ Edgy said, whistling to call Henry off as Spinorix scrabbled after the eye. ‘Bernard would’ve just thrown it away and wouldn’t have been so keen for me to ’ave it when he died.’

‘Well then,’ Spinorix gasped, retrieving the eyeball. ‘Like you said, maybe he did it to stop someone from using the map on the skull. Maybe he was working for Salomé.’

‘No, otherwise he would’ve taken the whole skull to her, surely,’ Edgy said.

‘So, Salomé is trying to find Moloch’s body.’ Spinorix looked as if his head would explode with so much thinking. ‘We want to stop her but someone else wants to stop us? That’s confusing!’

‘I know,’ Edgy said. ‘It could be anyone in the Society.’

‘Lord Mauldeth,’ Spinorix said, his eyes wide. ‘He doesn’t like anyone.’

‘He’s the chancellor, though,’ Edgy said, shaking his head. ‘Surely not him. What about Plumphrey? He’s greedy enough to do something for money perhaps.’

‘It could be any of them,’ Spinorix sighed. ‘We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled.’ He plopped the eyeballs back into a jar full of fluid.

‘What are they?’ Edgy asked, bringing his face close to the jar.

‘The eyes of Argus,’ Spinorix sniffed. ‘A guardian monster. There’s a couple missing too.’

The eyes bobbed up and down in the jar. One swivelled round and stared at Edgy, making him jump back with a yell.

It had been another busy day and Edgy decided to get some sleep. Not that he expected to sleep well, with all the thoughts buzzing around in his head. But as they approached his room, Henry growled.

‘What is it, boy?’

Henry growled again. The corridor was empty and quiet apart from the hiss of the heating pipes. Edgy squinted beyond the gloomy red glow of the hellfire lamps. Was something moving in the shadows? He padded down the passage, straining to see into the half light.

A sudden yowl sent Edgy scurrying back. Mauldeth’s cat screeched, bolting out of the shadows and past him. Henry gave a sharp bark and vanished after the cat.