The Printer's Devil (27 page)

She felt lambent, incandescent, the world suddenly seeming to fill up with light. There was too much light, she thought, as if the scene before her were lit by another sun - an alien, younger, brighter star than Earth’s own, white as phosphorous flaring in the air. Briefly she wondered whence came that brilliance, why the world was lit thus, and then, for the first time in her life, she passed out.

Nothing lay in her memory between the brightness and hearing Alan’s panicked voice.

‘What’s the matter? What’s the matter?’

She might, she thought, have died in that moment, and never known it. As it was she had no idea why she was lying on the floor. Alan tugged at her arm ineffectually.

‘What happened?’ he persisted.

‘I don’t... know.’

‘You were lying here with your eyes open. I thought - ‘ He couldn’t finish the sentence, as if saying it might make it so:
I thought you were dead.

Clutching his arm, she got shakily to her feet. The movement set her head spinning, nausea climbing her throat. She stumbled to the bathroom and threw up, retching painfully until nothing remained. Alan hovered uncertainly outside the door. Kim was hardly aware of his presence. Heat and cold washed over her alternately; sweat and shivers. Supporting herself blindly on the washbasin, she sluiced cold water over her face, slurped some of it into her mouth over her sore palate, down her bile-burned throat. She felt weight fall across her shoulders: a blanket. Alan supported her into the bedroom, switching on the light against the cloud-darkened sky outside.

‘There were flies,’ he said, obscurely.

Kim coughed, seized a glass half-full of stale water from the bedside table, and drained it. It tasted dusty. She coughed again.

‘Lie down,’ said Alan. ‘I’ll get you a brandy.’

She felt too weak and shaky to argue; she sank back into the pillows, wondering what had happened - what was happening. What had she done?

Alan came back into the bedroom and handed her a glass, sitting on the bed beside her. Kim took a cautious gulp of the spirit, feeling it run a warm descent to her stomach, as she watched Alan covertly.
Are you Alan now, or Roger?
she asked silently.
And who, or what, am I?
That thought worried her more than the other, so, to avoid it, she swallowed the remainder of the brandy and held the glass out to him. Behind him, the sky was as grey as an elephant’s hide.

His hand extended. His fingers curled round the tumbler. He turned without speaking, his recent solicitousness gone. Kim got up, carefully, hearing the blood pounding in her head, and stood by the bed.

‘Roger Southwell,’ she said quietly.

Alan’s head swivelled round, and her heart turned an appalled somersault, even though she had been prepared for something of the kind. He looked up with white eyes, the pupils horridly rolled up out of sight. Then, like pebbles, they slid back into place and focused on her.

Except that now they were brown, not blue.

Kim swallowed, her mouth dry and sore again. ‘Speak,’ she ordered, hoarsely.

The answer, when it came, was in an unexpectedly reedy voice. There was, however, nothing weak or uncertain about its tones.

‘What would you have me say, bane of demons?’ The inflection was mildly amused, almost ironic. ‘I dance to your tune and come at your call, I who never thought to acknowledge a master. You would banish me from this robe of flesh, then?’

‘It is not your home, Roger Southwell.’ She found her speech falling involuntarily into an archaic pattern. ‘Yet I am not an uninvited guest.’

‘So say those who commit rape,’ retorted Kim.

Alan’s face looked momentarily puzzled, then cleared, and Southwell nodded.

‘Ah, rapine. So the centuries rend us asunder,’ he said, recognising a truth. ‘I must needs leave the maiden be as well, then?’

‘Yes,’ said Kim.
The maiden?
she thought.

‘What is your intent, magus?’

‘I control the glass,’ she said.
Barely,
her mind pointed out, but she hushed the errant thought. ‘I will give you fair warning, as you never did, with all your tricks and riddles.’

Southwell interrupted, looking suddenly almost horrified. ‘Do you not know whence comes the power?’ Kim frowned. He continued in a burst of passion.

‘Ye be fools, all fools, and you as much as any, an you know it not. More so, in sooth. That power I did give unto Fabian, the which he did refuse, was not wholly mine own; for what was his he did comprehend and yet did gainsay it, fool that he was - ‘

‘Yet his name is remembered more than yours.’

‘Still, I am quick, and he is dead; dead these three hundred years.’

‘No,’ said Kim. ‘You are a trespasser, where you are not welcome. And his is the truer immortality.’ ‘Hold your peace, I do beseech you,’ said Southwell impatiently. ‘Permit me to enquire of a master—
whence cometh your power, do you believe?’ A hint of something like sarcasm slipped into his tone.

‘From music,’ replied Kim.

‘Wrong! Wrong, wrong! The power is in you. It is a talent, like the ability to paint. Music is but your way of working it. Do you understand me?’

An invisible fist thumped Kim under the heart. More red herrings and riddles. She should have known. Her every move had been circumscribed by Southwell’s deceit. Yet whyever should she have imagined he would cease his deviousness when she had merely solved one problem or penetrated one disguise?

‘I can teach you... pilgrim,’ said Southwell slyly. ‘With power such as yours, well-taught, you could be invincible, all-conquering.’

She recognised the gambit, and managed to laugh. ‘Do you think me such an easy mark?’

Southwell shrugged. ‘It was worth a try.’ He fell into idiom as easily as had Kim. ‘You overthrew the demon. For a space of time, at least. I acknowledge your mastery in that - but in naught else. Next time we meet, magus, you will not o’erthrow me.’

Kim stared at him.

‘But together...’ he said. ‘Have you no wrongs you wish to see righted? No enemies to confound?’ He reached a hand towards her. ‘I think you have a talent for hatred. Most magi do.’

Kim was silent, recognising, as Southwell had earlier, a truth. Up until that moment she had been viewing her battle, her war, in terms of black and white, with Southwell and his demon bracketed together and representing the former. Suddenly things were not so clear-cut, were shifting, re-forming. He had, she knew logically, spoken to some shameful part of her which wanted - yearned - to accept his offer.

Southwell was watching her closely, sensing her uncertainty. ‘’Tis easy,’ he said, ‘to be a master. When I did but comprehend that simple truth, all that passed hitherto seemed but as hollow foolishness.’

‘The homunculus?’ asked Kim, curious despite herself.

Southwell made a dismissive gesture with his fingers.

‘Ay, foolishness,’ he said. ‘When there be power here’ - he touched his head - ‘needst no potions nor midnight incantations.’

‘But you made Alan work spells, didn’t you?’

‘A man doth make use of that which he hath at hand. He had not the talent for power, but he had the desire for it, and that did prove sufficient.’

‘Sufficient to bring you here?’

‘How lightly you do phrase it, to be sure. Ay, to call me back after three centuries. Hearken to me now! I am here and not lightly to be banished again, howso you may believe. Yet you need not involve yourself in such a trial. I can retreat back into the sleeping part of this mind so that you will not know me to be here, and there remain but an observer of this strange and wondrous world... I would fain not miss sight of all the prodigies it doth hold. And in return - teach you all the uses on your power.’

‘I—’ began Kim. The word ‘no’ somehow would not pass her lips. The magus smiled.

‘Just so,’ he said, ‘think on’t. I withdraw - thus.’

Alan blinked, and his eyes were his own again. ‘Kim,’ he said uncertainly. ‘Did I doze off?’

‘Sort of,’ she replied. Outside, remote thunder rumbled.

‘Are you all right now?’

‘Fine. I’m fine. Will you show me what you’ve been learning?’

‘What?’

‘The magic. The spells. I’m curious.’ Come on, she encouraged him silently. If it’s only a matter of willpower -

Alan’s shoulders sagged. ‘Come on, then,’ he said.

As easy as that, thought Kim, exhilarated. It was like learning the use of a new muscle. The more you exercised it, the easier it became. There was a curious hint of sexual pleasure, too - the way music felt sometimes. She was aware, now, of the power moving in her, somewhere even deeper than her deepest veins, nearer her core, and almost expected some visual sign of it - light fizzing from her fingertips, perhaps. Distantly, too, she felt the storm growing nearer

‘To Confound Ones Enemys,’
she read. Aloud, she asked, ‘John Simpson?’

Alan nodded.

‘So who is the maiden?’

‘The maiden... ‘twas Ann...’

‘No!’ Kim said sharply. ‘Not Ann Pakeman. Now, not then. Who?’

‘I beheld her in church - I...Debbie, that’s her name. Ay. She knows me as - my name is Steve...’ He looked bemused, and Kim’s memory unearthed a dream she recognised. Connections slipped into place. Blood. A corpse in a sack. And the diary.

‘Listen to me, Alan. Listen! Leave her alone. Otherwise she’ll die. Do you understand?’

‘No,’ said Alan, absently.

‘You remember Ann, don’t you? You just said “Ann”.’

‘Ann, yes. Poor Ann.’

‘Ann died. Like Gilda in
Rigoletto.
You’ll make history repeat itself. You have to stop.’

‘I’m not sure I can,’ he observed, quite clearly. Then, abruptly, he seemed to shake himself. ‘What - what were the flies? Where did they come from? Where did they go?’

‘What flies?’

‘Outside. It was like a wall of flies, all round the house.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What were you doing?’

‘Looking in the scrying-glass,’ replied Kim, her back prickling as she recalled the soul-shrivelling presence of the demon. She stuck her hands in her pockets, fingers reassuring themselves of the hard outline of the Victoria Cross. And I have to do it again, she thought, and soon. She shivered anew.

‘Only demons in the glass,’ said Alan, shuddering.

‘No,’ Kim told him. ‘Not any more.’ Even as she said it, she knew it was presumptuous, while knowing it for putative truth. How had she, Kim Sotheran, thirty-something, photographer, gained power over spirits of earth and air?
‘Spirits from the vasty deep,’
she muttered.

The doorbell rang then, making them both jump.

‘I’ll get it,’ said Alan.    
₁₂₉

Kim followed him down the stairs to see him open the door to a bewildered-looking Debbie Griffiths, trailing a footsore Blondie, who was wagging her stump of a tail hopefully. As she watched, fat drops of rain began to fall.

‘Shit,’ breathed Kim, suddenly short of breath.

‘Debbie!’ said Alan in surprise. ‘What is it?’

‘I... I’m not sure,’ the girl faltered. ‘I sort of - found myself here.’ Her white face peered past Alan.

Kim pushed him to one side and grabbed Debbie by the elbow.

‘Come in, for God’s sake, you look dreadful,’ she said, repelling the dog, who had seized hold of her leg. ‘Alan, go and make some tea.’

‘Oh - all right,’ Alan agreed.

Debbie allowed herself to be led indoors and seated on a sofa.

‘I feel weird,’ she said.

‘Put your head between your knees if you feel faint.’

‘No, not faint. We went out for a walk and ended up here! How could I do that?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Kim. ‘What were you thinking about? Were you “miles away”?’

‘I don’t know. I was singing a bit, I think - singing to myself - I’m really not at all sure.’ She looked up. Kim saw tears leaking from her eyes.

‘Hey, come on, it’s all right. Don’t cry.’

‘I feel so
stupid,’
snuffled Debbie.

Kim patted her knee awkwardly, and handed her a paper tissue. ‘It happens to us all,’ she told the girl. ‘I do it all the time. Never know where the day goes. Come on now, mop up.’

‘Tea,’ said Alan, coming in. Debbie wiped her eyes and wrapped her hands round the hot mug, bending her head into the steam for a second.

‘Do you want to call your mum?’ asked Kim.

‘Yes - no. I mean, I feel such an idiot.’

‘I’ll drive you home,’ offered Alan.

‘No,
I
will,’ said Kim. ‘I’ll drop you at the end of your road, if you’re embarrassed. Are you all right, though?’

‘I think so,’ replied Debbie, with a weak grin.

Ahead, loud as the guns in the battle of the Somme which people had said could be heard in England, thunder burst, and lightning carved the sky. The air sparked with electricity. Blondie whimpered nervously. Without conscious thought Kim stood up and sang,

‘Come un bel di di maggio, che con bacio di vento e carezza di raggio, si spegne in firmamento...’

‘...a beautiful May day, kissed by the breeze

and caressed by the sun, fades from the evening sky...’

And the roiling clouds calmed their seething, the charge seeped out of the air leaving not a whiff of ozone; the rain petered out sulkily. The frilled edge of a cloud glowed briefly, and then slid away from the sun.

Alan and Debbie gaped at Kim in astonishment.
₁₃₀

‘This has to stop,’ she said, anger surging up.
‘Now!’