Hell to Pay Read online

  “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 o
f 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.