The Demon Collector (18 page)

‘Well, whoever brought you down ’ere is probably the same one who’s been thievin’ from the collection,’ Sally said, turning away from the gruesome pile and looking around the cavern.

‘But why didn’t they hang around to make sure the job was done?’ Edgy muttered. ‘An’ why not just kill me right off, instead of draggin’ me all the way down ’ere?’

‘You think the one who’s been stealing from my collection has been trying to kill Edgy too?’ Spinorix goggled at Sally.

‘I do,’ Sally whispered. Her face seemed paler than usual. ‘And if I’m not mistaken, they’re at the door right now . . .’

Envy eats nothing but its own heart.

Traditional proverb

Chapter Twenty
-
Three

Reflections of Horror

As the heavy iron door squealed on its hinges, Edgy scooped up Henry and followed Spinorix and Sally across the cavern. They threw themselves behind the clutter of ossified demons. Edgy crouched down and held his breath.

‘Do you think this is wise?’ whispered Spinorix, trembling. ‘I mean, it could be anyone. I know of some particularly vicious associate demons . . .’

‘We don’t ’ave much choice, do we?’ Edgy hissed back. ‘Let’s just watch.’

He slowly raised his head and peered through the crook of a stony arm. The cavern was red in the dim twilight of the hellfire lamps. Clutching a cracked mirror, Madame Lillith shuffled across the floor towards the pile of stolen artefacts like an ancient spider. Her narrow, suspicious eyes, sunk deep in her face, flicked left and right.

Spinorix opened his mouth but Sally was quicker, clamping her hand over his face and dragging him to her lap. Edgy put a finger to his lips.

‘There,’ Madame Lillith said, dropping the mirror on to the pile that surrounded the grotesque mannequin. ‘Something more for you,’ she said, barely opening her cracked lips.

‘She’s taken the mirror,’ Spinorix whispered through Sally’s fingers. His eyes bulged with indignation and Sally’s grey knuckles whitened as she held him down. ‘The magic mirror.’

‘Did you miss me, eh?’ Madame Lillith whined at the effigy, her voice sounding like the grating of the rusty hinges. ‘Busy day, ooh, yes. Sweep, sweep, sweep. But that idiot imp wasn’t anywhere to be seen.’

Sally fell to one side as Spinorix tried to launch himself over the statues. Edgy just managed to grab him and drag him back down.

‘So I just helped meself. Lovely mirror. Cloudy, though. I wish it wasn’t cracked,’ she croaked.

Spinorix went a deeper shade of crimson as Edgy held him firm and Sally clamped both hands over his mouth.

‘He really should look after these things better.’ Madame Lillith breathed on the mirror and rubbed it with her grubby forearm.

Spinorix looked as if he would explode. Edgy wrestled to contain the little imp.

‘Wish I ’ad his job. ’Ere, what’s this?’ Madame Lillith said. She peered hard into the glass. Then, dropping the mirror, she let out a shrill and chilling scream.

Edgy froze and, in spite of themselves, he, Spinorix and Sally all shot their heads above the cover of the statues. Madame Lillith stood, hands over her face, trembling and sobbing. She had turned away from the mirror, which lay on the floor, reflecting the red glow of the hellfire lamps.

‘Obviously didn’t like what she saw in the mirror,’ Spinorix gasped, standing up in full view before Edgy could stop him. Madame Lillith still had her face covered.

‘What d’yer mean?’ Edgy frowned, standing too. ‘I mean, she’s no looker but . . .’

‘It’s a Mirror of Portent,’ Sally whispered. ‘It tells the future.’

‘That one tells of approaching ill fortune,’ Spinorix murmured.

Madame Lillith didn’t look frightening any more. She looked like a terrified old woman. They slipped from their hiding place, eyeing the moaning demon.

‘What did you see? Madame?’ Sally asked quietly.

Madame Lillith looked up at them from behind her shaking hands. ‘Echolites!’ she hissed. ‘They’re comin’ . . . Echolites . . .’

Edgy frowned. She was clearly petrified. ‘What kind of creature frightens demons?’

‘The children of Moloch,’ Madame Lillith wailed and pressed her fists to the side of her head. ‘Devourers of flesh and spirit. They’ll destroy us all.’

‘Echolites don’t normally come up to these levels of the caves,’ Sally gasped.

‘It’s her,’ Spinorix snapped. ‘Coming and going all the time with things she’s stolen. It’s bound to draw them.’ He dashed across to the trolley and started piling all the artefacts from the floor on to it. ‘We’ve got to get away,’ he panted as he grabbed the mirror and tried to prop it against the side of the ossified torso that stood on the trolley.

Madame Lillith continued with her pitiful whimpering. She was rocking back and forth. Edgy could see her fingers knitting and weaving together.
Did she really try to kill me?
He placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned and shook it away.

‘Get off me,’ she glowered at him, her face like a wrink­led old turnip, the hatred etched into it. ‘I ’ate you, Edgy Taylor, with yer friends an’ yer cushy job an’ Mr Janus fawnin’ all over yer.’ She pointed at the effigy. ‘I ’ave no one, apart from ’im.’

Friends?
Edgy glanced at Sally, pale and grim, and Spinorix, scrabbling once more with the junk on the trolley. She was right. Even if they did argue, they’d come to save him. He’d never had friends before. He looked from the withered, grimacing Madame Lillith to her ‘friend’. The one she had made out of the bits and pieces stolen from the collection.

‘Is that why you tried to kill me?’ Edgy asked, narrowing his eyes. ‘Cos you were jealous?’

The shrivelled demon gave a snort. ‘I never,’ she hissed and then leered at Edgy. ‘Wish I ’ad, though.’

‘Never mind that,’ Spinorix squeaked in terror. ‘We must get away – now!’

He wrestled with the trolley, which lurched forward an inch, sending its contents sliding from the ramshackle heap on to the floor again and an avalanche of clutter on top of him. For a second all fell silent.

A distant quavering note drifted into the cavern. A single, beautiful voice echoing around the chamber. Madame Lillith gave a shriek but the song had begun its charm. Edgy felt the familiar calm start to spread over him. Henry gave a bark.

Then Sally slapped his cheek.

‘Don’t listen,’ she yelled, tearing a strip of cloth from her petticoat. She snatched up an old candlestick from the pile. ‘Here,’ she said, rolling the wax from inside the stick around in her palms. ‘The song doesn’t affect me – I’m dead already. But you . . .’

She grabbed Edgy’s head and stuffed the wax into his ears. The singing stopped. Edgy could hear nothing apart from the blood thundering in his head. Sally waved the cloth from her petticoat and her mouth moved.

‘What?’ Edgy bellowed.

Sally rolled her eyes to the ceiling and wrapped the strip of cloth around his head. Spinorix fumbled with half a candle, trying to soften its wax to fit it into his large, floppy ears.

Edgy grabbed Madame Lillith by her scaly arm. ‘We’ve got to run!’ he shouted.

‘No!’ Madame Lillith shrieked back. Edgy could hear her despite the wax in his ears. ‘I don’t need your stinkin’ help!’ She wrenched her arm from his grip and scurried across the cavern towards the door with amazing speed.

‘After ’er, quick!’ Edgy boomed.

Spinorix dragged at the handle of the trolley with all his might, his feet skidding on the rock floor of the cavern. Edgy gave a growl of exasperation and snatched the skull of Aldorath by its curved horns and the imp by his ear.

‘But we can’t just leave it all!’ Spinorix whined, scrabbling for Argus’s eyes as they rolled out of the skull’s sockets. Henry gave a yelp and pounced on one, Spinorix grabbed the other.

‘There’s a whole network of tunnels down here. The Echolites will come from all directions. We’ll be trapped in here,’ Sally snapped, pinching Spinorix’s elbow and marching him towards the door with Edgy. ‘The singing is getting louder. We have to run!’

Edgy’s whole body ached as he pounded through the cavern door and out into the darkness of the tunnels. His breath rumbled through his throbbing head, amplified by the fact that his ears were bunged up. The world seemed strange, devoid of any external sound. Sally ran ahead and he could see her pale outline in the dark. She was shouting something but he couldn’t make it out. Free of Edgy’s grip, Spinorix scurried alongside him. But Sally skidded to a halt so quickly that Edgy ran into her, catching Spinorix with his elbow and sending him sprawling to the floor. Henry scampered back and hid behind Edgy’s heel.

And then he saw Madame Lillith.

She stood in the centre of the tunnel, swaying to and fro. Her eyes looked drowsy, heavy lidded, and a slight smile played across her thin, cracked lips. Even with his ear plugs, Edgy caught some higher notes of the Echolites’ song and shuddered.

He froze.

Edgy twitched, barely able to breathe at the sight before him. Above Madame Lillith stood the strangest and the most hideous creature Edgy had ever seen. Like an enormous spider composed of bone, its fat, bloated body was poised on eight long and delicate legs. Each leg ended in a sharp point. The Echolite bobbed slightly in time with Madame Lillith. In time with its own deadly song. Thick hairs poked out of the creature’s parchment-thin skin like black spines. Edgy’s flesh prickled. A human head poked out of the front of its body. It had a man’s face screwed up in an expression of agony. Its mouth opened and closed with the words of its song.

And then it went still.

Its lips stopped moving.

Madame Lillith swayed for a couple of seconds and then her eyes flickered as if she were waking from a dream. Edgy stood mesmerised, the blood thumping through his skull. Madame Lillith looked up and let out a chilling scream. The Echolite’s mouth opened too, but from it came a long, bony needle, like another leg only much thinner. It flashed down, striking Madame Lillith in the temple and puncturing her head. She stood transfixed by the long spine that slowly turned from a creamy yellow into a pink then red.

Edgy felt the bile rise in his throat. The creature was sucking the very blood and brains from Madame Lillith. Edgy watched in horror as her cheeks sank and her body slowly crumpled like a deflated balloon. Soon only a few scraps remained of the envious demon.

For a moment, the Echolite stood still, as if savouring the feast it had just consumed. Its face twisted into a frown then a grimace of pain. Its features buckled and shrank, only to re-emerge a second later. Spinorix gave a yelp that Edgy heard through the wax in his ears. He felt Sally’s hand cold in his but gripping him tightly. Madame Lillith’s face now leered down at them from the creature’s head. It slowly lifted a spindly leg and took a step towards them. Henry put his ears back and barked, baring his teeth.

‘Come on, Henry,’ Edgy called and turned to run.

Two more Echolites scuttled out of the darkness, cutting off their escape route, the tips of their bony legs clicking horribly on the rock floor. Edgy could see the faces of an old man and a boy hideously grafted on to the front of the monsters.

‘We’re trapped,’ he said.

Henry gave a whining growl as, step by step, the Echolites closed in on them.

She stooped down unto the ground,

To pluck the rose so red.

The thorn it pierced her to the heart,

And this fair maid was dead.

‘Dead Maid’s Land’, traditional folk song

Chapter Twenty
-
Four

Cornered

The Echolites clicked forward. Edgy looked at Sally, desperately trying to think of something that could get them out of this corner. But Sally looked as helpless as Edgy felt. He could see the Echolites’ mouths moving. If he took out his ear plugs, the song would soothe him. He wouldn’t be so afraid.

Spinorix fell to his knees. ‘I don’t want to die,’ he sobbed. ‘I don’t want that . . . thing to steal my face!’

The first Echolite gave a fierce grin, stolen from Madame Lillith.

Edgy hurled himself at it, flailing the skull in a circular arc. ‘Get back!’ he screamed. Henry barked and howled. Edgy squeezed his eyes shut and swung the skull again, blind and deaf, spinning towards his own destruction, waiting for the horns to clatter ineffectively against the spiny shins.

But the skull met thin air and he overbalanced, falling on to his chest with a groan as the breath was thumped from his diaphragm. The Echolites had stepped back. Edgy looked up into the eyes of what was once Madame Lillith, and saw confusion and maybe a little fear. The three Echolites had stopped singing and stood silently staring at Edgy. He picked himself up, their strange response making him brave.

‘Garn!’ he yelled, waving his hands again. ‘Get back, I said!’

The creatures took another step back.

‘They’re afraid of you,’ Sally shouted, stepping to his shoulder.

‘Or the skull,’ Edgy said, waving it in front of him. He held the skull towards the Echolites but it was him they were looking at. Their eyes bored into his until he had to look away. Were they afraid or was it something else?
Respect?
Edgy wondered. ‘Go away,’ he said. ‘Leave us alone.’